Lucky changed into his official Southeastern Narcotic Bureau garb: Navy pants, polo shirt with SNB logo. How he’d once hated the uniform. Now the hate had faded more to love/hate. He’d never prefer his current clothing to T-shirt and blue jeans. Still, the outfit gave him certain advantages.
Surprise inspections. A job perk in some cases. Like now. The SNB logo meant they couldn’t tell him no.
The office wasn’t luxurious, but clean and well-lit. The furniture wasn’t too butt-ugly. A vase of artificial flowers sat on the coffee table, surrounded by the usual carefully arranged copies of parenting magazines and golf digests, the occasional Good Housekeeping thrown in.
The place didn’t scream of money, and regardless of the Yelp review bitching of excessive wait times, only three people waited, two side by side on a couch in front of the table, the other in a chair across from them. The two, a pair of women, chatted quietly, while the other, a boy maybe Ty’s age, stared at his cell phone.
Lucky strolled up to the front desk. A young woman glanced up and smiled. “Do you have an appointment?”
“I don’t need one.” Lucky flipped open his wallet and presented his badge. “Agent Harrison, Southeastern Narcotics Bureau. This is Agent Johnson and Agent Salters.”
“I’ll tell the doctor you’re here,” the receptionist at the front desk said.
“That won’t be necessary.” Johnson smiled and put herself between Lucky and the woman before he formed a proper response. “This is a routine inspection. Tell me, are there any pharmaceuticals on the premises?”
The woman recoiled. “No. Dr. Keel doesn’t stock drugs here. He only writes prescriptions.”
“Mind if we take a look?” Lucky asked.
Her blank expression hardened into a frown. Behind her another woman hissed into a telephone. Probably warning the doctor. A moment after she hung up, a side door opened.
A man in a white jacket strolled into the reception area, with a genuine smile and an extended hand. “Dr. Desmond Keel.”
Lucky shifted his gaze from the doctor’s face to his hand and back again.
Johnson stepped in with a wide smile. “Good afternoon, doctor. I hope we’re not inconveniencing you. We’re here to perform a routine inspection.”
“Sure.” He held Johnson’s hand a bit longer than absolutely necessary.
Did all the men they came into contact with have to be blue-eyed blonds a few inches shorter than her six feet? This man, however, wasn’t wet-behind-the-ears like her ex-boyfriend, with the odd strand of silver in his hair, and the beginnings of crow’s feet around his eyes.
Johnson didn’t flirt, though, shifting into professional mode. Good for her. In the past, she’d gravitated toward the type like a moth to a bug zapper. “Mind if we have a look around?
“Certainly.” He turned to the receptionist. “Cheryl, postpone my next appointment by about”—he looked from Lucky to Johnson— “about twenty minutes?”
Lucky nodded. Twenty minutes should be enough. For an initial visit.
Dr. Keel swept out a hand toward the door he’d come through. “What is it you’d like to see?”
Lucky eased around Johnson, making himself clearly the man in charge. Guess that made her the muscle. “Do you have any drugs on the premises? Even samples?”
Again with the easy smile. “No. I’ve never kept medicines here. I send all my patients to the pharmacy.”
And yet a suspicious shipment arrived at his office in the dark of night. And what doctor didn’t distribute samples to patients? Though controls were tight on samples, there was no law against it—yet—providing the practice maintained the proper licensing.
Then again, he could be lying.
The doctor could have let an underling show them around, but he did the honors himself. “I’ve been here about five years, and this is the first time the SNB has paid me a visit.” He sounded pleased, not appalled. Must be a damned good actor.
They inspected exam rooms, Salters taking notes on a tablet computer. Damn. Should be Bo. Nothing concerning in the cabinets, storerooms, or closets.
At last Lucky conceded defeat. Of course the doctor wouldn’t leave evidence lying out in the open. “We’ve taken enough of your time. If we can take a quick look at your records, we’ll let you get back to work.” Bo would be so proud.
“Certainly. Cheryl will provide anything you need.” The doctor escorted them back to the reception area and the young brunette.
They searched through prescribing records, information easily found in the national prescription drug monitoring website, but found nothing new or out of place. Clean. Too clean.
Right before they left, Lucky asked, “Do any other doctors work from this office?”
