“Wait!” Buster hurried in, loaded down with coffee trays and a bag over his shoulder. “Don’t start yet, I have coffee.”
“Well hallelujah, at least I’ll have my caffeine fix before you tell me how you broke the law in my town.” Cubby grabbed a cup, flipped the lid, and added sugar. Katie moved behind the desk to take her cup and sit on the edge.
“Right, now spill,” he said after he’d taken several mouthfuls.
Noah forced Lani into a seat, then grabbed her a coffee. Taking his, he pulled out his cellphone.
“Listen to this.” Lowering it to the desk, he stood back.
They all listened while sipping coffee.
“Again.” Cubby rotated his finger. Katie began to take notes.
“Mikey could have been killed!” Buster roared.
“Someone needs to teach that asshole some manners,” Tex said, opening the bag Buster had brought. A lovely smell wafted out, making Noah’s stomach rumble.
“How did you get this information?” Cubby glared at Noah, then the rest of them.
“We broke in,” Noah said. “And it was all my idea.”
“Oh, now I object,” Brad said with his mouth full. “I went along knowing what I was letting myself in for, as did Lani and Ethan.”
Cubby raised a hand as he walked out from his desk. He paced a few feet and returned.
“You do realize I can’t use this, don’t you? It was obtained illegally!”
“Settle down, Cub.”
“Settle down! Jesus, Noah. If you’d been caught, I’d have arrested you. Not entirely sure how I can get around doing that now.”
“Oh, but they have found out something valuable, Sheriff. Dr. Trask is going to supply people with this laced substance. Surely that’s the most important thing here.”
Everyone looked at Lani in surprise. She didn’t usually speak without someone directing a question at her.
“I understand that, Lani, and just quietly, I thought you were better than this lot.” Cubby swept a hand around the room.
“I don’t like people pretending to be one thing when in fact they’re not.”
Noah had a feeling this was about more than Trask.
“Me either, but the point here is that you four should have told me what you were doing.”
“And you would have stopped us,” Tex said.
“Annabelle know what you’re up to? Because if not, I’m telling her,” Cubby said.
“She painted my face.”
Katie giggled.
“I’ll work out how to punish you lot later. Right now, I need to wake up Judge Render and get a search warrant to go take a look at a certain facility.”
“On what grounds?” Katie asked scribbling notes on her pad.
“Suspicion of growing and distributing marijuana illegally. But first, tell me if you left any traces you’d been there?”
“No. We rewired the fence after Noah had cut it to get us in,” Tex said.
