Free Double Bind by Kathryn Michaela Page B

Kinkade .   That was the same name as Sarah’s friend, who had been working for BioGen for the last little while.
                Suddenly Sarah couldn’t remember how Valerie had gotten hired, or how she had gotten assigned to her team.   It seemed terribly odd.   Surely the name was just a coincidence?
                A weird suspicion in her gut, Sarah detoured to the public library.   She didn’t plan on doing any hacking, but this was odd.   She just had to find out if they were the same person.   Surely they couldn’t be.   That would just be too much of a coincidence.
                When she pulled up the old HR files from the other company though, there was Valerie, looking just as friendly and perky as ever.   Her hair was longer, but otherwise she looked exactly the same.   Sarah suddenly paled.   This was very bad.   How could Valerie possibly be working at the same company, and on similar projects?
                She had to get to the police station with this information.   She had to give it to Rob, and explain.   He would believe her this time.   He had to.
                Suddenly she paused.   Under Valerie’s googled name something else odd had come up.   Sarah clicked the news link, and found herself looking at a police report dating back a few years.
                It was about the disappearance of a police officer.   He had been working on a number of cases, including one about corporate takeover.   Sarah scanned the site looking for the reference to Valerie.   When she found it, she had to swallow hard.   Valerie had been working for the company under investigation.
                “I’ll be sad to see the detective go,” the article said she had said, “he was always so polite and helpful.”
                Sarah paled and continued a search for missing detectives and police officers.   Article after article swam up, obituary after obituary.   Each one regaling the death of a police officer or detective.   Many of them were from ordinary causes, which relieved Sarah a lot.
                Until she got to the year of that investigation. Then there had been dozens of deaths, one after the other.   Nothing said that they had all been working on the corporate case, but in her heart, Sarah knew.
                Any detective that got too close to the truth wound up dead.
                Sarah sat frozen at her computer.   She didn’t know what she could do.   She needed to tell Rob that she knew who was behind the water poisoning, but she couldn’t tell him.   If he got too close . . .
                She shuddered at the thought.   Then she shook her head, a little shaken.   What was she thinking?   She didn’t mean anything to Detective Snyder, and here she was thinking and worrying about him.   If only he hadn’t been so nice the day before.   If only he didn’t have that cute smile and the irritatingly handsome way of raising his eyebrows sarcastically.
                Basically, everything would be easier if he weren’t such a stud.   Or even if he still was acting like such an irritating jackass.   Then she could tell him, get herself cleared and her brother out of jail, and not worry about the consequences.
                But she couldn’t tell him now.   If he got too close, then he would be dead, and it would be all her fault.   Feeling like she was getting trapped, she lay her head down on the desk by the computer.   This situation just kept getting worse.   She wouldn’t be able to tell Rob until she knew everyone involved.   She couldn’t risk his life, until she was sure that he would be safe.
                Somehow feeling even worse than her hangover that morning had been, Sarah printed off the right documents and gathered her things to go home.   She had to make a plan.   She had to get things