Cam rested back against the counter, as he worked out what Vaughn and his henchmen must have been thinking.Normally he’d do that with Nic, but without him here...“Did they think these drugs, either in Curtis or Harris, wouldn’t be detected?”
“We wouldn’t have found the drugs in Curtis without the autopsy and full tox screen that Attorney Price ordered.”
“But you would have found the scopolamine in Harris’s system?”
“Not necessarily.That was clearly a suicide.If the FBI hadn’t already been looking at him in connection with another matter, we probably wouldn’t have run a tox screen.”
So had Vaughn known by then that Harris was working for them?Or not yet?By the sound of it, the latter.Or maybe Vaughn just didn’t care?Or didn’t think the drugs could be traced?Vaughn didn’t shy away from threats, and he was good enough to cover his tracks.Was Cam’s team better?He knew two hackers who could find anything.
“Can I get copies of those files?”Cam asked.
“These are yours.”Jong slapped both in his palm again.
“Thank you.And you’ll let us know if you find anything else.”
“Of course.I’ll ring you both.”
Jong walked him back out to the lobby.“Please tell Attorney Price his father’s body will be released by the end of the week.”
That took the excitement out of the leads a bit.“I’ll do that.”
Outside, he stopped next to Nic’s truck and took a picture of each tox readout.Faster than fighting with autocorrect over the spelling of drug names.That done, he opened the secure call app Jamie had loaded on all their phones and dialed Lauren.
She answered on the first ring.“We’re probably going to be late getting to Gravity.”They’d planned a meetup there tonight.Out from under the watchful eyes of Vaughn’s spies and with the added benefit of beer.Thank fuck.
And Cam would need it to soften the blow he was about to level on Lauren.“I’m about to make you later.”She groaned, and Cam could picture her falling dramatically back in her chair.He laughed, then asked, “Jamie in there with you?”
“Yup.”
A click, the blast of background noise, fingers striking keys, then a “Hey, brother.”
“Coroner found drugs in both Harris’s and Curtis’s systems.Sending you tox screen results now.”
Cam lowered the phone, inserted the pictures in a new text to them both, and hit Send.Twindingssounded on the other end of the line as he brought the phone back to his ear.“We’re looking particularly at the scopolamine, the calcium thing, and the phosphate thing.”
“Real precise there, buddy,” Jamie said.
Lauren was already ahead of them both.“Vaughn’s not stupid enough to purchase them himself.He’d have paid or leveraged someone.We’ll run it against the segmented lists Nic had us create.This will narrow them.”
“Start with whether they were in evidence lockup, and if so, who had access and when.Focus on FBI and USAO.”
“On it,” Lauren confirmed.
“You think it’s Bowers, don’t you?”Jamie asked.
Cam fucking hated to think it—that Nic’s own boss had had a hand in his father’s death—but it would explain the intense reactions, the increasing desperation, and his single-minded focus to crater this case.“I think Vaughn has him by the balls, and I want to know why.”
Cam fished the last glass out of the dishwasher, set it on the bar towels with the others, then lifted the bar flip for Eddie to roll through a keg.“Whatcha got there?”
Eddie grinned, smile bright in his light brown face.“Your favorite, as I hear tell it.”He shuffled the keg under the taps, moved the hand truck out, then crouched, pompadour of jet-black hair just missing the back bar lip as he reached back to hook up the keg.
“Imperial?”Cam asked.
Eddie straightened, wiping his hands off on his Coast Guard tee.Another stain added to the streaks across his six-pack visible through the skintight cotton.“Finish drying those”—he nodded at the upside-down pints collecting condensation—“and I’ll give you a taste.”
“Fuck yeah.”
“One for me too,” Lauren called from the other side of the bar where she and Aidan were pushing tables together.
