AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“The Orient?”
“Ah, Asia, specifically China.”
“No one, why?”
“The drug we found in your system is an ancient aphrodisiac. I don’t think anyone has seen or heard of it in decades, if not longer. It was banned sometime back in the Qing dynasty, I think, but I might have my dynasties wrong on that one.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Someone has been feeding you a very potent aphrodisiac for quite some time, son.”
Ryan fell back against the pillows in shock. Now it was all beginning to make sense. He felt cold and numb at the implications, but there was no other explanation for it. “Call Detective Sparks, tell her I need to talk to her.”
CHAPTER 14
Doc Myers couldn’t wait to get to his weekly meet-up with the other doctors in the area to share his new find. It’s not every day something like this comes along, and especially not in his little enclave paradise of Briar Reef. The seventy-year-old was almost jumping with excitement as he threw on the old fedora that his wife had bought him on one of her European trips almost thirty years ago.
His eyes welled up just a little at the thought of his beautiful Estelle, gone these five years past. If not for his weekly meetings, he would’ve spent a life of loneliness without the girl who had won his heart at the ripe old age of fourteen by his side. They’d spent fifty-one years together, first as friends as children, before getting married right out of college and had never looked back.
It sometimes makes him madder than hell that as a doctor who was somewhat lauded in his field, that he’d had no inkling of the aneurysm that had taken her so suddenly. He’d always remember that day for as long as he lives. One minute they were having breakfast in the back garden of their family home, sharing the funnies in the Sunday paper like they had for the past forty years or so, and the next, she was toppling over out of her chair, dead before she even hit the ground.
Cecil Myers shook off the feelings of ennui that always came with thoughts of his wife. He knew he was only thinking about her now because she would’ve been the first to hear about his new find had she still been around. He’d loved sharing things like that with her, even though she’d studied law and knew jack-all about medicine. His bright girl never missed a beat, though.
He smiled as he climbed into his old Bentley Continental. The car was older than him by a few years, bought by his great grandfather, and passed down from generation to generation. His eldest son had no interest in it since the boy was more into flashy death traps that were made for people with more money than sense. His Estelle had loved their Sunday morning drives in this old heap that wasn’t much of one since it had been kept in pristine condition since it was bought back in the thirties.
He searched for and found his pipe in his tweed jacket and lit up as he made his way to the Inn, which was about the only place other than one of their homes where the men liked to gather. The proprietor has been letting them use the old fashion sitting room lounge area off the restaurant for their meetings going on twenty years now. Plus the place had some of the best hundred-year scotch in the area.
He was a bit surprised to see all the commotion when he stepped out of his car in the parking lot and even more so when he saw his old friend Simon Porter still on the job this time of night. As the local coroner, the man doesn’t have much to do unless he’s helping out the neighboring towns, which is a good thing. But here lately, the crime rate in their little haven seems to have skyrocketed.
It’s only when he saw Detective Sparks exit the building and walk over to Riley O’Rourke, who was leaning against his own vehicle, that he put two and two together like he should’ve from the get-go. “Lord love a duck, who done bought it now?” He shook his head and made his way towards the side entrance of the building, bemoaning the fact that Simon wasn’t going to be there to hear about his latest discovery.
That young lady sure is going to have her hands full come morning, he thought, as he walked into the room where some of his colleagues had already gathered. The last thing he’d done after writing up his report for the police before leaving the hospital was to tell the officer on duty that his patient needed to see Detective Sparks. With what he was sure had been a murder and whatever his patient had done to find himself shackled to the hospital bed, plus the illegal drug showing up in his system, she was sure to be kept on her toes for the next little while.
