Murder in the Aisles by Olivia Hill

cloth-covered seat. “I guess I’m a bit jumpy with…what happened.” Emily’s eyes seemed to fill with water or at least Felicia thought so, from behind Emily’s thick glasses.
    â€œOf course, we all are.” She absently tapped the disk against her hip.
    Emily’s gaze was immediately drawn to it. “Is that a floppy disk?”
    Felicia stopped tapping and lifted the disk to within her line of sight and peered at it as if seeing it for the first time. “Oh.” She blew off a chuckle. “Yes. Can you imagine?” She gave a quick shake of her head and returned her attention to Emily. She frowned. “Are you okay? You’re all flushed.”
    â€œI’m not sure. I didn’t sleep well last night. Maybe I’m coming down with something.”
    â€œIf you’re not feeling well, you should be home. The last thing we need is the ping-pong effect.”
    Emily adjusted her glasses again. “You’re probably right. If I don’t feel better in the morning, I’ll definitely stay home.”
    Felicia studied her for a moment. “That’s best.” She folded her arms. “Emily, were you working on any special projects with Dr. Dresden?”
    â€œSpecial projects?”
    â€œYes, anything that wasn’t logged maybe?”
    â€œUm, no.” She sputtered a laugh. “If I was, I never knew that it was unauthorized or not logged. Just my usual research stuff.” She gave a slight shrug.
    â€œHmm, okay. Thanks.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œHmm, no reason. Just asking.” Felicia tapped the disk against her hip, then turned and walked away. “Feel better,” she tossed over her shoulder.
    Felicia click-clacked her way back to her office. She took one last look at the disk before putting it in her desk drawer. She’d worry about that later. In the meantime she had work to do. She collected her laptop and notebook, then hurried off to the research center.
    On the six-foot-long table, Felicia had no less than a dozen research books on Egyptian languages spread out across its length, with the heavy volumes opened to various pages. In between flipping through the texts, making notes and referring back to Dr. Dresden’s findings, she documented each step in a special file on her laptop, which she then saved to a thumb drive as well as her iCloud account. She’d worked non-stop for close to four hours. Behind her eyelids had begun to feel dry. Fatigue tightened the muscles across her shoulders.
    She arched her back and rocked her neck from side to side to loosen the knots. She reached around the stack of books and notes and picked up her cell phone that she always kept on silent during the workday. Two missed calls. The time on the phone read 4:00 pm. One more hour and she was officially off duty.
    Felicia organized the textbooks and placed them back on the library cart, so that the clerks could return them to the shelves. She took her notebook and laptop before returning to her office. The callers would have to wait until later.

Chapter Eight
    â€œBut what about the tox screen? Not necessary? And the gash on his head? Fine. Yeah. Thanks.” Mark hung up the phone and stared ahead until the space between his dark eyes creased into a valley.
    â€œProblem?” Eddie asked from the opposite side of his newspaper.
    Mark’s brows lifted and lowered. He leaned back against the worn leather of his chair and tucked his hands behind his head. “Elaine—the ME says they’d been in touch with Dresden’s doc and he claims the old man was being treated for high blood pressure. ME says that based on his history and the preliminary evaluation, the old guy had a heart attack, fell, hit his head…end of story. Without probable cause or a family member demanding more, there’s nothing else to be done but declare it death by natural causes.” He blew out a breath. “You know the city is