She chuckled and shook her head. "I see gossip gets around fast.”
"It sure does."
"These people can say whatever they want, but it doesn't make it true. I love my husband, gentlemen. We have a great relationship. Denver and I were just friends. We'd gotten to know each other over the last few years when Tristanbrought us both on board in the developmental stages. He was a kind man with a dry sense of humor, and I will miss him. But no, we weren’t sleeping together." She thought about it for a moment. "I guess I can see how people would come to that conclusion. We had a certain repartee. Don't get me wrong, he was a handsome man, and had I not been a married woman, who knows what would have happened?”
"How did your husband feel about your friendship?”
"Threatened. What man wouldn't be? Like I said, Weyland was the total package.”
"If it caused your husband such distress, why continue the friendship?”
"We worked together. What was I supposed to do, not talk to the man?“
"Some might say you openly flirted?”
"I'm married, not dead. Harmless interactions. Married colleagues flirt all the time.”
"I'm guessing your husband wasn't too fond of your flirting."
"Drove him crazy. Kept him on his toes. Let him know that I have options. If he wants to keep me around, he needs to pull his weight."
"What if it drove him mad, and madness drove him to murder?”
She gave me a dismissive look. "Please, that's ridiculous. Mitch did not kill Denver. The two were friends.”
"They got into a heated exchange yesterday.”
"All close relationships boil over at some point.”
"There's added stress in an environment like this,” I said. “Maybe that tipped the scale?”
“Mitch did not kill Denver because of my flirting."
“Maybe he believed the rumors and thought there was more going on than just flirting."
"Mitch isn’t stupid. It would be foolish for someone to kill somebody in the habitat.”
"Somebody did it anyway.”
"That's your working theory at the moment. But can you prove it?”
"Somebody sabotaged the breaker.”
"Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence. Maybe somebody didn't know what the hell they were doing.”
"You're going to tell me that some of the smartest people in the field didn't understand the consequences of shorting a high-voltage circuit?"
"Newsflash, I don't know if you've noticed, but we’re all pretty specialized. Outside of our respective departments, we’re practically idiots."
She might have had a point.
“Look, if anybody wanted Denver dead, it’s Norrington.”
“Why is that?”
20
“Because Norrington is a drunk and a pill popper,” Quinn said. “But you didn’t hear that from me.” She shook her head. “I don’t know where Tristan got some of these people. Don’t get me started on Ross. That guy is high ALL the time. Look, I’m grateful for the opportunity, and I believe in the mission, but at times I question Tristan’s methods.” She frowned and thought about it for a moment. “Then again, that guy’s got hundreds of billions of dollars. I don’t. So he’s obviously doing something right. Trust the plan, right?”
