Everyone looked at me.
I flushed under the attention but kept going. “If he was using, anyone with access to his supply could tamper with it. Or swap it. A hot shot—something laced with fentanyl—would do the job and leave just enough plausible deniability for a quick ruling.”
Daniel nodded slowly. “We’ve seen that up and down the coast. Cheaper product, higher purity, inconsistent cuts. Most ODs are a combination of bad batches and lack of tolerance. Easy for an ME to shrug and say, ‘he overdid it.’ Especially if whoever’s running the local show is nudging them to keep things simple.”
“Especially if the chief is already leaning on them to call it quickly,” Bree said. “Which Carson would absolutely do.”
Another beat of heavy silence.
“So, now what?” Willa asked.
“They’re going to call it accidental,” Rios said. “Carson’s already decided. Which means whatever Willie might have told us theoretically scared someone enough to shut him up.”
“Objection. Speculation.” The words were out of my mouth before I could think better of them.
Everyone stared at me.
Heat crawled up my throat. “Sorry. Habit.”
Rios’s dark eyes sparked with humor rather than insult. “No, keep going, Counselor. Follow the thread.”
“We can’t be certain that someone killed Willie specifically because of what he was planning to tell us. We’d like to think that the assault he witnessed was connected to Priya somehow. But it might not be. There’s no evidence to that effect. No trail. If we assume that it is connected, we’re no better than Carson, trying to make the situation fit the narrative we want to be true.” And after what had happened in California, I was more wary than ever of getting it wrong.
Rios angled his head. “Fair point. The guy used illegal drugs. No matter what he was going to tell us, that lifestyle puts him in contact with a lot of potentially bad people. He could’ve had an outstanding debt to his dealer or been killed for any number of other reasons. If he was killed at all rather than overdosing himself by accident. But I don’t think that changes the bottom line for how we approach this. If he was murdered, our looking around further in any way is liable to provoke a reaction from somewhere.”
The dogs whined near the pantry door, picking up the tension rippling through the room.
I swallowed hard. “If that’s true… if someone’s willing to kill to keep a secret, you’re right, we’re going to have more pushback. Maybe worse.” I caught myself and corrected. “Rios and I are. You all… shouldn’t be on the front lines of this.”
Surely that hadn’t been Rios’s intention in bringing them in on this?
“Madden’s right,” he confirmed. “We’re the ones actually poking the hornet’s nest. No reason to expand the threat to y’all.”
Sawyer nodded. “We can’t stop you two from digging. Wouldn’t if we could. But we can insist you don’t do it alone. You check in before you go anywhere shady. You don’t meet scared dockhands or pissed-off bar staff without somebody knowing where you are and when you’re supposed to be back.”
“And if something smells like Carson might interfere,” Ford added, “you bring it here before you bring it anywhere near him. We’ll figure out the best way to handle it.”
“Agreed,” Daniel said. “I’ve got my own chain of command to deal with. Officially, I can’t be involved in your missing-persons crusade. Unofficially…” He shrugged. “If I hear things that sound like they touch your case, I’ll pass them along. Quietly. And if you run into issues with Carson, I might be able to help with an end run by going to my own superiors.”
I wasn’t sure what the Coast Guard could do with a local investigation, but maybe they had contacts at the federal level. Right now, that was getting way ahead of things.
Rios leaned forward, planting his forearms on the island. “We keep going. We keep looking. But we’re not reckless about it.”
His eyes flicked toward me, and something unspoken passed between us—agreement, responsibility, something heavier I wasn’t ready to name.
I nodded once. “I’m not backing off.”
“Didn’t figure you would,” Daniel said quietly. “Just…be smart about where you put yourself while you’re chasing this.”
I sat back a little, drawing slow breaths into my lungs. The kitchen was warm, loud, alive. It shouldn’t have been threatening—but being surrounded by this many people watching me, expecting things from me, needing me to know things… it felt like sitting in front of half a dozen judges.
Then Rios shifted beside me. His hand drifted to the middle of my back—absent, instinctive, reassuring. A touch he might’ve given Gabi or Ford or Willa without thinking.
But I wasn’t them.
My whole body went still.
He didn’t seem to notice what he’d done, moving his hand away as he reached for a beer someone passed down the counter. Everyone else kept talking.
