LITMIR.BIZ

       Chapter 1

      Dr. Rafe Granger would never escape this rotting purgatory. The small, cramped town where he had grown up had sucked him back inside, barring and locking the gates behind him. If being trapped behind a perimeter monitored around the clock by armed guards wasn’t bad enough, Rafe’s return had brought with it a terrible series of events: an unidentified virus was claiming victims by the dozens, the virus research lab had been trashed and a murderer had escaped the local prison and was adding to the terror and paranoia of every person in town.

      Unless he foolishly attempted to brave the Laramie Mountains and climb his way to freedom, there was no way to escape Dead River. For Rafe. For the killer. For anyone.

      Rafe strode to his childhood friend and current Dead River Chief of Police, Flint Colton. “You know what we’re trying to do here, don’t you?” He knew he sounded like a perfect jerk, but he was beyond caring what anyone thought of him. He was angry and he didn’t care who knew it.

      Flint nodded, touching the brim of his cowboy hat. “I do.” He sounded calm, which only frustrated Rafe more. Did no one in this town understand?

      “This can’t happen again.” Rafe could feel the ends of his temper burning, but he couldn’t help himself. Knowing two months of research into a cure for the Dead River virus, the virus that was responsible for quarantining the entire town, had been destroyed was enough to push him over the edge. “I’m going in there.” He pointed to the clinic and pushed past Flint.

      His old friend grabbed his arm. “Wait for Stan to clear the scene,” Flint said, referring to Fire Chief Stan Burrell.

      Rafe tugged his arm away. “Forget that. I need to see the damage.” The clinic wasn’t on fire. The fire had been contained. If it hadn’t, they would have been evacuating the patients inside.

      Flint didn’t try to stop him again. Rafe entered the clinic through the single metal entry door. The smell of smoke hung in the air. Behind the reception area, the clinic’s patient files had been pulled from the shelves and littered the floor, the rainbow of folder colors mocking him. The path of destruction led to the tiny, closet-sized offices he, Dr. Abigail Moore and Dr. Lucas Rand occupied. Rafe suspected they were once intended to be just that: closets. Dr. Rand’s office had been broken into and searched a few days before by an unknown culprit. Rand had reported that some of his notes had been stolen. The culprit had returned to do much worse to Rafe’s office and the lab.

      The metal trash can in Rafe’s office was charred, whatever had been inside unrecoverable. His computer was missing from its location on top of his desk and the two-drawer file cabinet tucked under the desk was overturned, papers spread on the floor and into the hallway. Dread pooled low in his stomach. What had been taken? What had the thief been looking for?

      Rafe had not much of importance in his office. The most critical work had been stored in the lab. The mobile lab had been brought in to Dead River by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. State of the art, it was attached to the clinic via the backdoor. The lab had a biosafety level of four, the level reserved for research centers that worked with the world’s most deadly viruses: Lassa, Ebola, Marbug and in this case, the unknown virus rampaging through Dead River. The lab had a closed venting system, complex HEPA filters for the air and

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