Dirty Secrets Read Online Free

that first day, the fire in Darrell’s dark eyes, the boy’s determination to succeed. “I asked him what he wanted to do with his life.” The memory lightened and a real smile curved his lips. “He said he wanted my job.”
    This earned him a tremulous smile from Tanya and a sad chuckle from Nate. Ian was unmoved, still angry. “I watched him grow from that scrawny, skinny kid to the man you knew. I was so proud of him.” Christopher sighed, hating what would come next. “But Darrell was careless Thursday night, which was so unlike him. We have to talk about this, even though I know it’ll be hard.”
    “He wasn’t bloody careless,” Ian bit out, his brogue thickening more than usual. “Darrell was more careful than the lot of us put together.”
    Ian and Darrell had been close friends. Accepting Darrell’s death would be hard under any circumstances, but knowing his death had been avoidable had to be particularly hard for Ian to bear. Christopher leaned forward, squeezed Ian’s arm. “Normally, I’d agree with you. But I saw the coffee cup with my own eyes, Ian.”
    Ian jerked his arm away. “There has to be another explanation, that’s all.”
    “Ian.” Nate shook his head. “Let it go, man.”
    “Darrell was tired, Ian,” Tanya murmured wearily. “He’d been pulling all-nighters that whole week before. I guess he just needed the caffeine to stay awake.”
    “He would have drunk it in the lounge,
not
the fuckin’ lab.” Ian lurched to his feet, paced to the window where he stared out at the courtyard, his arms crossed hard over his chest. He turned, his eyes flashing. “I will
not
believe he was careless.”
    Christopher slowly pushed away from the edge of his desk and met Ian’s turbulent eyes with deliberate care. “And I will not believe Darrell Roberts took his own life,” he said quietly. “I had to tell his mother he was dead, Ian.” He swallowed hard, remembering the anguished shock in Yvonne Roberts’s eyes, the pitiful choking sound of her sobs when the awful truth sank in. He’d held her, let her cry. Cried with her. Then sat by her side as she told Darrell’s four younger brothers the devastating news. The big brother they idolized had made a mistake that cost him his life. He was never coming home. “It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.” He had Ian’s attention now. The younger man’s eyes narrowed as he listened. “I can’t even imagine telling his mother he did this to himself. He wouldn’t. You know he wouldn’t.”
    “That detective asked me if Darrell had been depressed.” Tanya’s voice was rough from a weekend of tears. “I was so mad, I told him what he could do with his question.”
    “Pissing off the cops isn’t going to solve anything,” Nate said rationally, if unsteadily. Nate’s calm was surprising, Christopher thought. Nate had a history of being a hothead, of leading with his gut. Darrell had always been the voice of reason among the grad students. Perhaps Nate recognized that and was trying to fill the void.
    “I wasn’t pissed off, actually.”
    Everyone immediately turned to the door to Christopher’s office where Detective Harris stood, his eyes sharp and assessing. A chill crept down Christopher’s back as he met Harris’s cold gaze. “Detective Harris. What can we do for you?”
    “I need to talk to you.”
    Christopher raised a brow. His heart was beating hard and somehow he just knew he wouldn’t like what was coming. “Just me, Detective, or all of us?”
    Harris’s eyes fell on the empty chair. “All of you, I think.” He came into Christopher’s office and perched on the corner of the desk. “I got some interesting information from
my
lab this morning,” he said, his eyes scanning every face. “The ME says the concentration of cyanide in Mr. Roberts’s stomach was four times higher than the concentration of cyanide in his coffee cup. Now, I’m no chemist, but that just doesn’t seem right to me.