The right place for right now.
Yes, remember that.
You might have a gun in your hand. A foe coming for you. But God’s bigger than all of that.
The horn sounded. Sharp and clear. Once. Twice. Three times.
She picked the gun back up, just in case, but kept it pointed at the floor. The door flew open. All three men barreled in.
“You made it,” she cried out.
“We did. No problems.” Micha shed his jacket on the floor and kicked off his shoes. “And we’ll tell you all about it, but first we all need to get changed.”
She wished the cabin had hot water so they could take a hot shower or bath, but the fire would have to do. “Of course. I’ll add a few logs to the fire while you do.”
The others had removed their outerwear and shoes too, and the three of them charged past her to the bedroom, stopping to scoop up backpacks and tote bags on the way.
She made sure the safety was on the gun, placed it on the kitchen table, then stirred the fire with the metal poker before adding two large logs. The flames caught, and by the time the guys came back, the fire was roaring and giving off heat that would surely thaw them.
Micha’s SAT phone rang from where they’d set it on the table, and he bolted across the room in stocking feet to pick it up. “Micha Nichols.”
His expression perked up. “Toby. Good. Good. Mind if I put you on speaker so my team can hear your results?” He paused to listen, then crossed the room and set the phone on a small table near all of them. “Go ahead, Toby.”
“I went to the hospice center. The manager was pretty cordial and let me review Ms. Boyle’s file. There’s no mention in the entire file of an intramuscular injection, much less one given on a day that would still be visible when she died.”
“So someone other than the hospice staff injected her with something,” Micha clarified.
“Or they didn’t record it,” Colin said.
Ava leaned closer to the phone. “Having worked at the center, I can tell you it’s possible that a drug didn’t get recorded, but highly unlikely. All meds are recorded using a scanner much like you see in the hospital. If it doesn’t show in her record, there would be an inventory shortage of that drug.”
Micha looked at her. “But that could take some time to be discovered, right?”
“Depends on the drug. Narcotics and other controlled substances are inventoried daily.”
“I doubt we’re looking for such a drug,” Toby said. “To kill her, it would require a lethal dose of a narcotic, and she would’ve died on the spot instead of lingering for days.”
“So what are we looking for then?” Micha asked.
“Something that could cause similar symptoms as food poisoning,” Toby answered.
“And what might that be?” Ava asked.
“I knew you’d ask me so I looked into it and narrowed it down to one poison.” He paused as if wanting the dramatic reveal. “I think we could be dealing with ricin. It’s slow acting, will leave a person feeling sick for days, and is often mistaken for food poisoning.”
“Ricin!” Ava could hardly believe it, and they seemed equally surprised. “How would anyone even get ahold of that?”
“It’s actually quite easy,” Toby said. “Ricin’s derived from the castor bean. All you have to do is soften the bean. Cook, mash, and filter it. Add some solvents, and you’ve just made ricin that can be injected or administered in other ways.”
Poison.They could really be dealing with poison here. Murder. Plain and simple murder.
“How would someone know how to make this?” Micha asked.
“You can find recipes for it online,” Colin said. “I ran across them in my cyber days at the FBI. Especially on the dark web.”
She shook her head. “Is there any way to prove that she might’ve been injected with it at this point?”
“Yes,” Toby said. “If the lab still has a sufficient quantity of her blood on file, we can request a tox screen and be sure to add any drug that could be used to poison her with the symptoms she experienced.”
