Chapter nineteen
Juan’s gaze drifted to the four women sitting at a table across the room, heads together. He might be holding a cue and playing a game of pool with Stein, Dulcie, and Philly. In reality, he was doing little more than aimlessly knocking some balls around.
Clara and Adrian were in the kitchen with Dottie, helping with dinner, the spicy aromas wafting out filling the lodge room with a homey comfort.
Mantis, Marley, and Hawkeye were there helping, too.
It didn’t take six people to make the meal, but he suspected they were giving Amber and the others some space.
It would be too tempting to breathe down their necks if they were in the same room.
Amber leaned over to look at something on Callie’s computer, pointed, then nodded.
His heart hitched as she flashed Callie a grin.
Never, in his entire life, had he been in a relationship with a woman.
He’d never trusted one enough to take the leap.
Not that the women who’d tried were bad people or unworthy of his trust. No, the hang-ups were all his.
Being moved from family to family, never staying in one place more than a few months, living with the near-constant threat of violence, not to mention the violence itself, had scarred him in ways therapy had helped him name and recognize, if not fully understand.
He’d learned at a young age that it was easier not to get involved with people.
Getting involved with people led to having expectations, and it was easier not to hope or want things.
Until Amber.
With her, it felt as if someone had flicked on a light switch, changing the way he saw the world.
He couldn’t pinpoint when it happened. That night she’d asked him to help her rediscover her sexuality was the obvious answer—going from friends to lovers tended to change things.
But he didn’t have to dig deep to know that wasn’t the right answer.
No, his trust in her, his feelings for her, had started with a seed the day she’d been brought to the clubhouse and had been growing ever since.
Now, with all their cards on the table, a sort of freedom filled him, giving him the courage to feel, to acknowledge, to embrace everything he wanted.
And he wanted her. Wanted to be with her all the time.
He thought about her while working, wondered what she was doing, how her day was going.
Zoe, too. He couldn’t seem to stop himself from daydreaming like some teenage girl.
Next thing he knew, he’d be writing their combined initials on a notebook.
And he didn’t give a damn how much his brothers might tease him about it.
Not that they would. Because each and every one of them understood how fragile that dream was. How hard it was to reach for. But he wanted it. He wanted messy mornings with Amber and Zoe. He wanted school drop-offs, soccer games, date nights when life with a kid got crazy. A home. A family.
“Hits like a ton of bricks, doesn’t it?” Philly said as they stood in the corner waiting for Dulcie to take a shot.
Juan didn’t pretend to not understand. He inclined his head.
“Or like standing at the door of a horror house,” Philly added. Juan looked over. “You know you’re going to be scared shitless, but at the end of the day, you’re going to have a blast.”
“Only you would compare a relationship to a horror house, Philly,” Juan replied.
His brother grinned. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
Juan stared. Philly chuckled. “Thought so.” They watched Dulcie take his shot, the ball gliding cleanly into the corner pocket.
“It’s why I married Callie so fast. She’s as stubborn as me and if she committed to me, I knew she wouldn’t ever call it quits.
Lets me focus on the good stuff without falling into the pit of self-despair and thinking she’s too good for me and bound to leave me someday.
” He paused, then shrugged. “I still have those thoughts, but they’re easier to work through when I know she’s chosen me for life. ”
Like all of theirs, Philly’s childhood had been filled with violence and instability.
He didn’t have the same abandonment triggers as Juan, having lived with his alcoholic father until he enlisted after high school.
But growing up with someone who treated you like a punching bag rather than being your protector, the way a parent ought to, did its own kind of damage on the psyche.
Amber and Callie were different people, too.
Both strong in their own way, but Callie, who’d grown up in her own kind of hell, hadn’t experienced what Amber had as an adult.
Amber’s childhood had been relatively “normal,” but her adulthood had spun out of control when she married Anthony.
Callie, on the other hand, had had a rough childhood, but as an adult, she’d taken control of her life and created something very different for herself.
He didn’t know if Amber would ever want to marry again.
He wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t. That thought stung a bit, but not as much as he thought it might.
The trust she’d placed in him over the past year, including the soul-shattering hours they’d spent together last night, told him what he needed to know, what he needed to feel from her.
She trusted him; she wanted him. And she’d face her demons to be with him.
That was enough. More than enough. Everything else that might come along was icing on the cake.
“We have a list!” Juliana called out. All heads turned to the women. Juliana grinned; Kara lifted her arms overhead, stretching her back after being hunched over a laptop.
“And we have a money trail. Well, the start of one,” Callie said.
“Do we need to call anyone before we go over this?” Amber asked. “I know HICC consults with the FBI, but does someone from law enforcement need to be here?”
“She’s on her way,” Dulcie said. All eyes swiveled to him, then shot to the door as it opened.
Grace Perry paused in the entry, all eyes on her. “Should I have knocked?”
“I swear I didn’t time that,” Dulcie said.
“Time what?” Grace asked.
Mantis pushed through the kitchen door, followed by the others. “Nothing. We’re glad you’re here, Agent Perry,” he said. Juan should be used to Mantis’s preternatural awareness by now, but it still caught him by surprise sometimes.
The agent glanced around the room, gauging everyone’s reaction before responding.
“I told you back in the fall to call me Grace,” she said, walking farther into the room.
“Mateo called and said you guys had a potential situation that might be of interest to me. I was testifying in a case in Sacramento, so decided to drive down.”
“Wasn’t that your line, too, Callie?” Stone said.
Callie rolled her eyes. “Funny how federal agents might actually be in federal court sometimes.” She’d been testifying in a case in Sacramento as well before meeting the Falcons for the first time.
Juan was pretty sure he wasn’t the only one wondering if Grace’s visit might be the start of another beginning, the way Callie’s had.
“Who’s Mateo?” Clara asked.
“That’s me,” Dulcie responded, raising his cue before racking it.
“Come in,” Monk said, stepping forward and ushering Grace in. “There are a few folks you should meet first,” he added before introducing her to Dottie, Clara, Adrian, Kara, Amber, and Zoe.
Dulcie had described the agent as a pocket Venus, a phrase Juan had never heard before, but figured out what it meant pretty quick.
Five foot two and curvy as a country back road, voluptuous was the word he’d use to describe her.
Her confidence and general air of badassery added a layer of intrigue, too.
Or it did for Dulcie, anyway. Even Zoe probably caught the glint of interest in his eye as he watched the agent enter the room.
When everyone was seated, Grace looked at Callie. “Give me the summary.”
Callie, in turn, glanced at Amber and nodded. “It’s your story to tell, Amber.”
Juan strode over and perched on the side of the chair where she sat, resting an arm across the back, his hand on her shoulder.
Grace’s eyes flickered to him but returned to Amber.
Condensing the life-altering events of the past week into a ten-minute summary, Amber told her everything they knew.
Grace’s attention lingered on Zoe when Amber detailed that part of the saga.
She and Kendall had moved to the floor and were stacking blocks.
Occasionally, Zoe shoved a Cheerio into her mouth. Grace said nothing as she listened.
When Amber finished, Grace took a moment, no doubt sifting and sorting through the information, before speaking.
“At the heart of it, in addition to the things he did to you and Zoe, which I’m sorry you went through, you think he’s somehow responsible for the deaths of nearly a dozen people?
And that those deaths are drug related.”
Amber pursed her lips and nodded. “That about sums it up.”
Grace kept her eyes on Amber, but Juan sensed she was more inside her head than in the room. Then on a breath, she turned to Juliana and Kara. “And you two have some ideas about the drug?”
The women nodded, and Juliana motioned for Kara to explain.
“The behavior of each of the victims—and we’re going to call them that for simplicity’s sake, even though, arguably, we don’t have proof yet—was erratic and unpredictable.
As a doctor, my gut says some sort of hallucinogenic drug was introduced to their systems. A hallucination, or something edging close to it, like extreme disorientation, could explain all the behaviors.
Except, possibly, the man who robbed the bank.
That behavior indicates extreme suggestibility.
Assuming we agree with the supposition that he neither needed the money nor had any real motive. ”
“Meaning he did it because someone told him to?” Juan asked, disbelief lacing his question.
Kara inclined her head. “It’s not as far-fetched as it might seem.
There are drugs, natural drugs, that leave a person awake and functioning, but not, for lack of a better phrase, operating in the real world.
There are several cases in South America where substances derived from nightshade plants have been used to influence people to commit crimes. ”
“Isn’t that the zombielike drug?” Mantis asked.
Kara nodded. “Not like the modern zombie drugs you’re probably used to seeing, Agent Perry—”
“Grace.”
“Grace,” Kara said. “But more ‘old-school,’ if you will. Traditionally, forms of nightshade, in tiny doses, have been used for medicinal or ceremonial purposes for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Now, scopolamine, the drug found in nightshades, is used to treat nausea.”
“And nightshade could cause these deaths?” Grace asked.
Kara shook her head, then paused. “Well, medically, it is possible to OD from the scopolamine in nightshades, but I think the deaths we’re looking at were caused by the victims’ reaction to the hallucinations.”
“In other words, the drug caused a hallucination, and the hallucination caused the victim to drive off the road or jump off the bridge. And that, rather than the drug itself, is what killed them,” Adrian said.
“That’s my belief, yes,” Kara said.
“So Anthony is getting his hands on high doses of scopolamine?” Juan asked. “From what Amber’s told us about him, I doubt he’s extracting it from the plant himself.”
“Scopolamine isn’t the only option,” Juliana said. “Plants in the datura family, which is a subgenus of nightshades, have atropine, a substance that can cause similar effects. Being nightshades, they also have scopolamine, making it a double whammy.”
“And the triple whammy is henbane, also in the nightshade family. It has scopolamine, atropine, and hyoscyamine. Each of which can have those effects at the right dosage,” Kara added.
“What’s the dosage required to cause the kind of extreme hallucinations you’re thinking? Or the suggestibility required to convince someone to rob a bank?” Juan asked.
“Small,” Grace replied. “I don’t know much about those drugs. They aren’t controlled substances, so not ones we focus on. But I remember studying them in college. If I recall correctly, less than a gram of any would do the job.”
Kara nodded. “You remember right. They are highly toxic.”
“If they aren’t controlled substances, does that mean they wouldn’t show up on a standard tox screen?” Dulcie asked.
“Standard postmortem tox screens focus on illicit or controlled substances. You’d have to specifically ask to have a test run for any of those three,” Kara replied.
“Which I’m going to take a wild guess and say didn’t happen,” Hawkeye chimed in.
“Not based on what Leo found today,” Callie replied. “He sent me what he dug up, and I can confirm that only the standard screening happened.”
“All those drugs leave the system relatively quickly, too. Although metabolism stops at death, obviously,” Kara said.
“If we were able to test one of the bodies, would we find traces?” Grace asked.
Kara’s lips thinned. “Drugs redistribute after death. It’s not a metabolic process, but a sort of dissemination of what’s left of the drug throughout the system.
Whether we’d find anything depends on how much they took, the length of time between ingestion and death, and how long ago they died.
Hair is the best testing option, if you can get your hands on some. ”
“I doubt any of the families will let us disinter their relative. Especially not if they were involved in the death,” Juan said.
“I agree, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get evidence,” Callie said.
All eyes turned to her. “The police collected all sorts of evidence after the death of Rolly Masterson’s mother.
They weren’t sure if it was a crime scene, so treated it as one.
I’ll ask Leo to see if they collected anything we could use. ”
“We?” Grace asked.
Callie made a face. “I doubt the DEA would take this on at this stage. Stella and Hunter, the owners of HICC, have connections and, more importantly, good relationships all over. I’m guessing they can convince the local police to hand over evidence for testing. Assuming there is any.”
Grace considered the answer, then nodded. “I wish that weren’t the case, but it is. No way will the DEA invest resources in something so seemingly unlikely.”
“Even if HICC finds something, how would we tie that to Anthony?” Juan asked. “We’re back to my original question. How would he get his hands on any of those drugs?”
Amber looked up at him and grinned. “I don’t have an answer for you yet, but Callie and I have a possibility.” Damn, he loved the glint of happiness and mischief in her eyes.
She looked to Callie, who shook her head. “You found the thread, girl,” Callie said. “You get to tell them Anthony’s little secret.”