Chapter 1

“Hank, has Kirk sent in those samples that I asked for, yet?”

Felicia Owens was hovered over a microscope, her fiery hair tied back so as not to get in the way of her work.

“Not yet,” Hank replied. Hank Able was a man of Greek origin, as was noticeable by his olive skin and dark hair. “But you know how Kirk is, he would forget his rear end if it wasn’t attached to him.”

“I guess that I’ll have to take a trip down to his lab, then.” Felicia sat up and stretched, sighing in relief when her back popped. “God, that felt great.”

“Well, you’re the one that chooses to work such long hours.” Hank pointed out to her with a deep laugh. Hank had the kind of laugh where when he laughed, you couldn’t help but laugh yourself, or at the very least smile.

“It’s called dedication.” Felicia retorted, a large smile gracing her lips.

“It’s called ‘I don’t have a social life, so I throw my whole being into my work to try and forget about how I’m going to be a lonely old maid with a dozen cats.’”

“Remind me again how your wife has been able to handle you for all of these years.”

“You tell me and we’ll both have the answer to that question.” Felicia shook her head before she pulled her hair out of its ponytail, her red hair hanging in frizzy curls. “I’m gonna go and talk to Kirk about those samples, and then I think that I’m going to call it a night.”

“Go home and actually try and get some sleep for once.”

“Hank, I swear to God that one of these days I’m going to slap you, and it’s going to be well worth the trip to H.R..”

They both shared a laugh before Felicia left the lab, heading down one level to the lab that Kirk worked in.

Kirk Shaughnessy was fairly new to the science field, and at twenty-five years old, he was a fresh face for everyone there.

“There’s my favorite girl.” Kirk had a bright smile on his face as Felicia entered the room. Kirk’s voice had a bit of a lilt to it; he had immigrated to Los Angeles from Dublin with his parents when he had been five years old, and he had that accent that always seemed to make the women go wild.

“Flattery will get you everywhere Kirk…except when I’ve been waiting for certain samples for over a week.”

“Damn, I’m sorry about that, they’ve just got me loaded down with so much work that it isn’t funny.”

“The perks of being a newbie, are wonderful, aren’t they?”

Kirk hadn’t even been working there for a full year yet, meaning that he was given a good load of the grunt work.

“I’ll have it for you tomorrow, I promise.”

“I’m not worried about it, I wouldn’t be asking you about it at all, but Sabine has been getting on me about it.”

Sabine Okoye was the woman in charge of Felicia’s department, forty-five years old and an extremely strict woman hailing from Ethiopia, she knew how to get things done.

“Just get it to me by lunch tomorrow, okay?”

“Sounds good. Hey, you coming with us for drinks on Friday night?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You say that every time, and every time you cancel at the last minute so that you can binge The Bachelor while drinking wine and snuggling under your blanket with your cat.”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Felicia defended herself. “Plenty of people do that.”

“They don’t do it all of the time. You know that it’s unhealthy to not get out and socialize, right?”

“Well, my body being under a fuzzy blanket says otherwise.”

“Felicia-”

She held up a hand, cutting him off. “Look, I’m just not a very sociable person, you know that.”

“There’s a difference between not being sociable, and being a hermit. You’re quickly turning into the latter.”

“Well, I promise that I’ll at least think about showing up for a bit, okay?”

“That’s better than nothing, I guess.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? It’s supposed to rain tonight, and I want to get home before the storm hits.”

“At least you get to go home, I have to stay here for at least another couple of hours.”

Felicia gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “Try and stay dry.”

“Ha-ha.” Kirk rolled his emerald green eyes at her. “Give Shadow a kiss on the head for me.”

“I always do. You and Eddie should stop by sometime, we can drink wine and binge The Bachelor together.”

“That sounds like a plan, I know that Eddie has missed having you around.”

Eddie was Kirk’s boyfriend of three years. A very outgoing individual, you couldn’t help but be friends with him.

Felicia and Kirk talked for a few more minutes before Felicia made her way to her locker, swapping out her white lab coat for her dark blue jacket, and a small, brown leather purse. When she left the facility, it had already started to drizzle, so she threw up the hood of her jacket.

Heading into the parking lot, she rummaged around in her purse until she found her car keys, clicking the start button, and allowing the sound of the revving engine to lead her to her vehicle, a 2022 Subaru Outlander. Someone had written ‘wash me’ along with a frowning face on the dust and dirt-covered back window, making Felicia roll her eyes. The work of Hank or Kirk, no doubt. Some days she wasn’t sure if she was working with grown men or teenage boys, but she did make a note to stop by the car wash on her way to work the next morning.

Getting into the car, she tossed her purse into the backseat before clicking on her seatbelt. As she pulled out of the almost empty parking lot, she turned on the radio, knowing that it would be a long drive home. It usually took about forty-five minutes for her to get home on a good day, but with the rain, she was expecting it to take at least an hour before she reached her destination.

Felicia sighed, her thin fingers tapping against the steering wheel as she drove, Kirk’s words remaining stuck in her head. Maybe he was right, that she did need to go out more, but it just wasn’t something that she liked. It wasn’t even as if she had social anxiety or anything of that nature, she just didn’t like people in general. Perhaps that was why she liked her job so much, because with the exception of Hank and sometimes Kirk, she worked alone, and that was the way that she preferred it.

Felicia could be picky when it came to the people that she got along with. In this day and age, people all around her just seemed to be so fake. Hank and Kirk, they were honest, and they didn’t try to be something that they weren’t in order to impress others.

The sound of an incoming call coming through the Bluetooth speakers of her car disrupted her thoughts. Pressing the ‘accept’ button, she heard the familiar voice of her mother.

“Felicia, how are you, sweetheart?”

Rosemary Owens was in her seventies, but she didn’t let that stop her from doing the things that she wanted to do. For her seventy-third birthday three years prior, she had gone skydiving. At the time, Felicia wasn’t sure what would have been more likely, the possibility of her mother having a heart attack from the adrenaline, or if Felicia herself would have one from the stress and worry.

“I’m okay, Mom, just been working a lot is all.”

“Felicia, it feels like you’re always working.”

“Come on Mom, not you too. I’ve already gotten the socialization lecture from Kirk, I don’t need it from you too.”

“Felicia, I’m just worried about you, doesn’t it get tiring being alone all of the time?”

“I have Shadow.”

The rain was getting heavier, so Felicia flicked a switch to have her windshield wipers go at a faster rate.

“You know, most people move to Los Angeles to meet celebrities and live the high life.” Her mother added. “Not spend fifteen hours a day in a lab and the rest of the time hiding away at home with only a cat for company.”

“Most people also don’t get the opportunities that I do. You and I both know that dad would have wanted me to take this job.”

“Well, I don’t think that he would have wanted the work to be your whole life, either.”

“Yeah, well Dad’s dead, so he doesn’t really get a say in it, does he?” Felicia snapped, then she immediately let out a sigh of regret. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“It’s alright, dear.”

Felicia could tell that she had hurt her mother. “I know you miss him.”

“I do, but out of all the ways that he had to go, this is what he would have wanted.”

Felicia’s father, Clint Owens, had passed away fifteen years prior. He had been a doctor with Doctors Without Borders, and had been spending time in Egypt, taking care of people who were suffering from an unknown illness, at the time doctors and scientists thought that the disease had connections to the swine flu. Clint had eventually succumbed to that same illness.

“He helped so many people, Felicia, and I know that he would be proud of the work that you’re doing, but he wouldn’t want that work to take over your life, either.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I promised Kirk that I would try and go out for drinks on Friday.”

“Good, I’ve always liked that boy.”

“You liked him a lot more when you thought that he was straight and single.” Felicia teased.

“It’s not my fault, he’s good at not setting off a person’s gaydar.”

“Mom!”

“Well, he didn’t set off any flags for you, either.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t have any romantic interest in him whatsoever. You’re just so desperate for grandbabies that you’ll take the first guy that comes along.”

“I’m not that bad.”

Felicia giggled as she turned onto a main highway. “Do I seriously need to remind you of the guy that you tried to set me up with a couple of months ago that had a warrant because he was an arsonist? I mean, you would have thought that the second-degree burns on his hands would have been a dead giveaway. And let’s not forget the woman who tried to shoot her ex-girlfriend with a shotgun.”

“Are you done proving your point now?”

Felicia couldn’t help but laugh as she drove off of the main highway and onto the street that led to her house. “My point is that you need to quit trying to set me up on blind dates, because they always backfire on you. Hey, I’m almost home, so I’m gonna let you go, okay?”

“I love you, Fel.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

Felicia hung up before pulling into her driveway, this not being the first time she was glad that she had invested into a garage that was attached to her house.

The entryway from the garage led into a large kitchen, and Felicia placed her purse on the marble counter before draping her jacket over one of the dark oak chairs that was sitting at the island in the middle of the kitchen.

Going over to her stainless steel refrigerator, she opened the door, pursing her lips as she tried to decide if she was going to cook something for dinner, or just reheat her Chinese food from the other night.

A crash from the living room made her pop her head out from the fridge, and she quietly made her way to the knife block that was near the stove, grabbing a butcher knife. You could never be too careful, after all.

Slowly making her way into the living room, she flicked the light on, and her eyes widened at the sight that was in front of her.