“Across from our department?”

“Slow day, so I drummed up a project. I had all the cameras downtown checked for pictures of a black Mercedes. It was parked around back of the hardware store for over an hour just before dawn.”

“While we were questioning Dr. O’Neal and Mallett.”

“Um-huh. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.” She paused, then, “Is Brynn in trouble?”

“We’re trying to ascertain—”

“Don’t feed me that cop crap, Rawlins. Talk to me like a person. I’ve known that girl since before her mama died. I don’t want anything bad to happen to her, now she’s made something of herself.”

“Neither do I, Myra. But did you ever know her to follow her daddy’s example?”

“You mean steal?”

“That’s what I mean.” When she hesitated to answer, Rawlins said, “Tell us straight.”

“She was a scrawny thing. All knees and elbows. Twelve, thirteen. Thereabouts. She took a coat from the girls’ locker room. Claimed it had been hanging there for several days, nobody missing it. It was cold wintertime.”

“And she needed a coat,” Rawlins said.

“She didn’t take it for herself. She gave it to a country kid who came in on the school bus every morning near frozen.”

Rawlins looked over at Wilson, who rubbed his fingers across his forehead as though it had begun to ache.

“Okay, Myra. We get your point,” Rawlins said. “Text me that tag number, please.”

“Will do. But I already got who the car is registered to.”

“Listening.”

“Delores Parker.”

“Doesn’t ring any bells.”

“I’m not finished yet,” she snapped. “That was her maiden name. Married name is Hunt. Delores Parker Hunt.”

“Holy shit.”

Myra snorted. “That’s what I said.”

6:44 p.m.

Brynn stared at the vial in her hand with stupefaction, then looked into Rye’s face. “How did you get this? When?”

“When I was in the cabin bathroom showering.”

“You’ve had it all this time?”

He shrugged.

“How did you get the lock open?”

“I knew I had those four numbers correct and in sequence, or you wouldn’t have looked sunk when I read them out to you. It occurred to me that I’d missed the first number, not the last. I tried that, and, on the numeral three, the lock opened. Then I found the vial under the lining. It was in my jeans pocket when I came out of the bathroom.”

“All the time we were asleep and you were clutching the box?”

“I didn’t make the transfer till I saw Goliad’s car coming up the drive toward our cabin. I ripped open the seam in my jacket and slipped the vial inside before waking you up.”

During this exchange, he had pulled on his jacket and was herding her toward the hotel room door. She was resistant. “Hold on. I’m trying to think this through,” she said. “You knew it was a drug even before I told you.”

“No I didn’t. I had the vial, but it’s all wrapped up. I didn’t know what was in it, or what you planned to do with it. It actually could have been poison for the hot dog meat.”

“Okay, but then after I explained what it was, why didn’t you tell me you had it? That whole long ride to Atlanta, I was miserable.”

“And I couldn’t figure out why. Why were you unhappy about handing it over to Lambert? For all I knew, you and your daddy had intended to blackmail him with it, or you had a higher bidder. Something. If whatever you were up to was illegal, you’d made me culpable. I couldn’t leave with that hanging over my head.”

“So you texted me in the hope of beating a confession out of me.”

“Which I did. Now I know you’re only a little crooked.”

“And that’s okay with you?”

“The difference being motive.” He looked at his watch. “You know it’s going to hit the fan when Lambert discovers his wonder drug has been heisted. He might have already. We shouldn’t have trouble getting a taxi or Uber outside the hotel.”

“You’re coming with me?”

“Assuming Lambert realizes by now that he’s been had, Goliad will be only a phone call away. I’ll see you safely to Violet, then there won’t be anything Lambert or the senator can do without blowing the whistle on themselves.”

He pulled her coat off the hanger in the closet and held it for her. She zipped the vial into an inside pocket.

“Where is Violet?” he asked.

“While she’s been undergoing radiation, she and her mother have been staying in an outpatient facility on the hospital campus.”

“Does Lambert know where she is?”

“Of course. He examines her routinely.”

“That’ll be the first place he looks for you. We’ve got to beat him there.”

He opened the door and pushed her through.

7:15 p.m.

In the distant vaulted entry hall, a grandfather clock chimed the quarter hour. Other than that, the silence following Nate Lambert’s declaration was so profound, Delores actually felt the pressure of it against her eardrums.

She and Richard sat side by side on the sitting room sofa. Nate was standing before them, the luckless messenger imparting the news that the castle had been breached.

Delores said, “What do you mean, it wasn’t there?”

For all Nate’s apparent uneasiness, his voice remained waspish. “I put it in words that couldn’t possibly cause confusion, Delores.” Spacing the words out, he enunciated, “The vial wasn’t there.”

“How did that happen? Did it ever leave the lab?”

“On the way over, I called the pharmacologist. He swears he did exactly as I instructed.”

“Only he, you, and Dr. O’Neal had the combination to the lock?”

“I gave it to her over the phone last night, but not within hearing of—”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Nate. We can stop dancing around it, can’t we? She fucking stole it!”

Delores stood up, went over to the bar, and splashed whiskey from a decanter into a glass. She shot it, then poured another, and carried it over to Richard.

“He probably shouldn’t be—”

“Shut up, Nate.”

With a nod of thanks, Richard took the glass from her and drank the scotch with only slightly more temperance than she had, then set the empty glass on the coffee table.

“We all know what happened,” he said. “The question is, what are we going to do about it?” He looked first to Delores and caught her lighting a cigarette. In view of the crisis, he didn’t rebuke her. “Where is Goliad?” he asked.

“Once the box was delivered, I dismissed him for the night.” She gave Nate a scathing look. “Little knowing that his services would be required again so soon.”

Nate leaped to his own defense. “You two can’t blame me for this.”

Delores arched a penciled brow. “Blame you? I want to draw and quarter you.”

“The blame lies entirely with Brynn.”

“Like hell it does. I told you not to trust her. You didn’t listen.”

“I wouldn’t have sent her up there last night, had I known then what I’ve learned since.”

She propped a hand on her hip and tilted her head. “Well?”

“Criminality runs in her family. Her father has a long record.”

Richard looked at him through narrowed eyes. “This woman worked with you, she treated your patients alongside you.”

“Yes, but—”

“She treated me!” Richard’s voice vibrated with restrained wrath. “And you allowed that, knowing nothing of her background?”

“Her credentials were impeccable. It never occurred to me to check her family tree. Clearly a mistake.”

“Clearly a catastrophe,” Delores said.

Richard stood up and rounded the sofa. He braced his hands on the back of it as he would a podium and lowered his head. Delores remained quiet, not wanting to break his concentration. When Nate seemed about to, she shot him a look that muted him.

Eventually Richard raised his head. “It’s not catastrophic until the life span of the drug expires. We’ve got a bit over twenty-four hours to find Dr. O’Neal and retrieve it.”

Delores flew into action. “I’ll call Goliad. You,” she said, pointing her cigarette at Nate, “start writing down any places Dr. O’Neal might have gone when she left you. Is she in contact with her outlaw father?”

“I wouldn’t imagine that—”

“Don’t imagine, Nate. Find out. In the meantime, call that pharmacologist and tell him to mix another dose. The weather has cleared. We’ll send our jet for it.”

“He won’t do it, Delores.”

“Offer him more money.”

“It’s not a matter of money.”

“Oh, that’s funny,” she said. “Tell me another.”

Nate gave a stubborn shake of his head. “He’s a scientist. He’s motivated by positive lab results, and actually feels corrupted for taking money to mix the one dose. What money he did accept will go toward covering the cost of the components. The only way he would agree to make more would be with the company’s authorization for an FDA compassion exemption. We would have to go through the proper channels and apply.”

“Do it.”