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The short explanation he’d given me made sense, but going deeper into the details and reading through his translation of the scientific data cemented the dark realization for me. It definitely looked suspicious.
I got up and went to my office. I had all of Dad’s records, too, stored in a secured external hard drive. Maybe his medical records were in there somewhere.
I found the external hard drive in my office closet, then clicked the lock to the door closed so no one would disturb me. I plugged in the hard drive and waited.
Dad’s files were meticulously organized, so it didn’t take me long to figure out where he kept records from his doctor. He had a few years’ worth of records. A lot of them were blood tests I couldn’t fully decipher, besides the fact that they were in a healthy range for a man his age. The latest one was more of the same—he was healthy.
I printed out the one that had given him a clean bill of health just a month before his passing. His autopsy went into more detail, but there were enough similarities for me to compare the two documents. I didn’t know what a lot of it meant, but the numbers were way different.
I fell down a Google rabbit hole about what this might have meant and didn’t come away with much. The only thing I knew was that the idea of Dad being poisoned didn’t sound so outrageous anymore.
I rested my elbows on my desk, then my face in my hands. What did all of this mean?
Dad was a good person. He was very charitable and always went out of his way to make sure that his employees were treated fairly. His social circle was big, and he had a strong moral compass in the face of a lot of snake-like people.
But he was a billionaire. People might have wanted him dead just because of that. Or maybe someone had wanted him dead because of a misunderstanding. I had no idea.
I had all of his files and records, though. He kept absolutely everything, like a digital packrat. Maybe the answer was in there. All I had to do was find it.
CHAPTER29
Cody
Everything was falling apart. Not security-wise, of course. We secured every venue where Taylor went, and we were with her every moment she was outside. All of her packages were inspected, and no one had tried to get past the doorman downstairs, either. Plus, her stalker William was in jail.
But between all of us personally? It was a mess.
The tension was always there, both when Taylor was around and when she wasn’t. Harrison was pissed at both of us for cutting ties, even though we’d had logical reasons to do so. The last thing we wanted to do was hurt Taylor on a whim. We kept our heads level, but at some point, we were going to break.
Today felt like that day.
Taylor had locked herself inside her home office for the second day in a row. She only did that when editing videos or reviewing an outside editor’s work, but she rarely stayed there that long. That left all three of us out in the living room space, where Taylor usually worked.
Ethan was hard at work on his laptop, and Harrison was, too. I was trying to focus, but couldn’t. None of us were saying anything, but the weight of those unsaid words was sitting over us. I had to say something.
“What’s the deal?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Ethan didn’t even look up from his laptop.
“With Taylor and all of us,” I said. “Mostly you, Harrison.”
Harrison gave me a rare, annoyed glare out of the side of his eye. “What about me? The fact that I’m the only one who’s stood by her?”
“Stood by her?” I scoffed. “You’re going to put it like that?”
“How else would I put it?” Harrison asked. “You broke up with her because you suddenly decided you couldn’t be both her bodyguard and her boyfriend after suggesting that doing so would make you better at your job. Ethan dumped her because he’s afraid of being open.”
A muscle in Ethan’s jaw twitched. “What’s your point, Cody?”
“My point is that it’s even more complicated now that only one of us is dating her,” I said. “We either have to be all out, or all in, and me and Ethan are out.”
“Are you saying I should break up with Taylor because of the convenience for all of you?” Harrison asked, his eyes narrowing.
“Kind of, yeah,” I said.
“Hell no.” Harrison sat back in his chair and narrowed his brows. “If you don’t want to be with her, then that’s on you. I wanted it to work out between all of us, but I am not allowing you to ruin the best thing that has ever happened to me. If you both don’t want to be with her romantically, that’s fine. But professionally, we can make it work.”
“You’re being too optimistic,” I said. “How could this possibly get better?”
