The Curse of Raven's Cliff

“Why?”

“Just curious. I had an amazing cod sandwich there the other day and I was wondering if they purchased their fish through you.” That wasn’t entirely a lie—she’d had a good fish sandwich at the café, but it’d been more like a month ago, and she hadn’t particularly cared where the fillet had come from. She was looking for an easy connection among the sick people.

He shook his head. “Nope. They buy straight off the boats.”

Okay, so there went that theory. “You buy off the boats too, though, right? Have they been bringing in anything special lately?”

“Special in what way?” he asked, continuing to answer most of her questions with questions of his own, a technique she suspected was designed to put her on the defensive.

It was working, too. She found herself growing more tense as she worked her way into the processing room, toward where the narrow space opened directly onto one of the fishing piers. Smith followed close behind her, making her feel as though she was being stalked.

Or herded.

She turned to him. “Can you get me twenty or so of those little bags you use for small shellfish orders? I need to keep each of the samples separate. A grease pencil would be good, too.”

He didn’t budge, instead moving closer. His voice dropped to a growl. “What, exactly, are you going to test for?”

“That’s up to the CDC team,” she said, playing dumb.

“Where else have you taken samples?”

She was almost positive he would call and check, so she didn’t lie. “You’re the first.”

Catching movement out of her peripheral vision, she turned her head and saw two men enter from the pier. One was moving strangely, shuffling his feet as though he was having neurological problems.

Panic knotted Rox’s gut and her heart hammered in her ears. “Maybe I should come back later.”

“I don’t think so.” Smith blocked her exit on one side, and raised his voice to call, “Hey, boys, the lady doctor here seems to think our fish is poisoning the town. What do you think about that?”

There was an ugly mutter from the men, and they moved to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, blocking her on that side as well.

She was trapped.

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