Page 42 of Juan

“If it were a controlled substance, there’d already be an investigation,” Grace said. “But you’re right. It’s different with uncontrolled substances.” She paused, then frowned. “Even so, while eleven grams doesn’t seem like a lot, if the company is a legitimate company, they’d notice a pattern of the missing compound.”

“You think she didn’t steal it for Anthony?” Mantis asked.

Grace tipped her head in thought. “No, I think it’s a definite possibility that he got it from her. But my guess is that if she took it, she didn’t take it all at once, or even a gram at a time. Do you know what she researches specifically?” she asked, turning to Amber and Callie.

Amber sat back and let Callie drive the computer. She’d never been particularly computer-savvy. And given that she’d spent most of her time in the past year in the kitchen concocting recipes and meals, she didn’t even pretend to be the best person for the job.

“Based on her bio and papers, she’s researching the use of scopolamine drugs for women with hyperemesis gravidarum. That’s severe morning sickness, for those not familiar with the term,” Callie replied, looking up.

Amber hadn’t had any morning sickness, but Kara and Callie grimaced in sympathy. “My friend Scarlett, Brad’s wife, had that,” Kara said. “It’s brutal.” Brad was another one of the Warwicks, a cousin of Kara’s husband. He ran the family lodge at the north end of the lake while his wife worked as a nurse in the same ER where Kara was a doctor. Amber hadn’t met the couple but knew they’d always been generous with helping the Falcons when needed.

“Why did you ask?” Amber asked Grace.

Grace rolled her lips, then bobbed her head in thought. “I’m thinking it’s less likely she’s walking out of the research facility with a gram of the drug at a time. It’s more likely that she’s making small ‘errors’ in her research and collecting smaller amounts of it that all add up.”

Amber had no idea how a research facility operated, but she knew kitchens. And if someone wanted to steal, say, truffles or caviar, it would be less noticeable to take a little bit at a time rather than a full jar.

“Harder to trace and less likely to raise suspicions,” Scipio said. Several folks nodded.

“So how do we trace it? And are we sure it’s her?” Spencer asked. “It seems like a solid possibility, but I don’t want to get so focused that we miss something.”

“Fair point,” Grace said.

“We can pull her research notes. See if there’s anything there,” Callie said. “I’ll ping Leo now.”

“Yet one more thing I didn’t hear,” Grace said, but her grin told another story.

“You’re enjoying this,” Dulcie said, chuckling.

Grace flashed him a mischievous look. “Of course I am. They get to do all the things we wish we could but can’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the rule of law, but I’ve looked into HICC. When they hand a case over to the FBI or even the police, it’s tight. All the t’s crossed, all the i’s dotted. It’s like they get to have their cake and eat it, too, which isn’t the usual script for the rest of us in law enforcement.”

“Join us,” Callie said, her attention still on the computer.

Amber’s weren’t the only eyes that went to Dulcie. He glared at the group, which pulled a laugh from her. From all the Falcons. Probably because of all of them, Dulcie was the least likely to glare. He was the big, comfortable teddy bear, the giver of great hugs and easy smiles.

“Not sure how much use HICC has for a DEA agent,” Grace replied. “If you can find something on Bios Therapeutics, I might be able to initiate an investigation into them,” she said, shifting the conversation back on course. Beside her, Spencer’s gaze lingered on the agent and she wondered if he’d noticed, too, that Grace hadn’t said she wouldn’t consider it, only that she found it unlikely they’d want her.

“We’ll see what we can do,” Callie said. “Let’s make sure we have each other’s contact information before we leave.” Grace nodded.

“Okay, so we think scopolamine is being used to induce the behaviors that led to the deaths of the eleven people Clara and Adrian have identified,” Spencer said. “And we think it’s possible that Anthony’s source for the drug is Johanna Milvela, a researcher at Bios Therapeutics. How does Anthony get hired? How do people know to go to him and how do they pay him?”

Amber rolled those questions around in her head. The one she kept circling back to was how people knew Anthony could facilitate the deaths of their family members. If their theory held any truth, Anthony was taking a huge risk. A risk that grew exponentially the more frequently he fulfilled the requests, because more requests meant more people knew his role. And risk simply wasn’t something Anthony embraced.

“What are you thinking?” Spencer asked, his eyes filled with curiosity and concern as he gazed down at her.

“Unless something has changed in the past year, there has got to be some sort of intermediary or a smoke screen or something,” she said.

When she’d first arrived in Mystery Lake, she’d wanted nothing more than to be invisible. Even the thought of people looking at her made her want to curl into a ball and disappear. But now, as everyone watched her, waited to hear what she had to say, warmth unfurled in her, like roots uncurling and digging in. Finding home.

She swallowed and blinked back the unexpected moisture gathering in her eyes. Spencer’s fingers brushed through her hair.

“Anthony doesn’t take risks,” she said. “He’s very careful about his image and controlling what he shows to the world. Becoming known as someone who can provide the means for others to commit murder wouldn’t be something he’d do. Or it wouldn’t have been something he’d do when I knew him. As I said earlier, he’d like the power of being the one who knew Rolly Masterson killed his mother, but he wouldn’t want Rolly to know the drugs that facilitated her death came from him.”

Silence filled the room, and the gentle tug of futility threatened the sense of power she’d reveled in only minutes earlier. Were they wrong about all this? Her gut said no, but her mind couldn’t marry up the scenario they were discussing with the man she’d known.

“Which means he’s either changed, the situation has changed, there’s another player, or we’re missing something,” Spencer said. She lifted her head, her eyes meeting his. “Of everyone in the room, you know him best. If you say that’s a hitch in the theory, then it’s a hitch, and we look for an explanation.”

As one, the group nodded. The pit forming in her stomach didn’t go away altogether, but it did ease. “How do we do that?” she asked, her gaze darting between Callie and Grace, the two people in the room who’d conducted the most investigations.