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“It was a stupid thing to do.”
“Yes, it was,” Ambrose said.
“Excuse me,” Pallas said, “but I think I should point out that if we had not gone down the steps we would have been shot dead by those two drug dealers who stormed into the house.”
Logan grimaced. “There is that.” He eyed Ambrose. “A writer, huh?”
“For my sins,” Ambrose said.
Logan switched his attention to Pallas. “And you’re an interior designer who runs a podcast on the side.”
“That’s right,” Pallas said.
Logan squinted. “Any money in that line?”
“The podcast?” she said. “No, at least not forThe Lost Night Files. We’re a small operation. Still building an audience and a brand.”
“In other words, you haven’t given up your day job?” Logan said.
“No,” Pallas said.
Logan nodded. “This podcast thing is just a hobby, then?”
Pallas managed, with an effort, to suppress her irritation. “My associates and I plan to makeThe Lost Night Filesa success.”
“You might want to think twice about that,” Logan said. “It nearly got you and Mr.Drake killed today.”
Pallas did not respond. The man had a point.
Logan was silent for a moment and then he appeared to make a decision.
“A new hallucinogen hit town a few months ago,” he said. “We had some students turn up in the emergency room and one attempted suicide. We couldn’t identify the source. Judging by those meds you found in the kayak, it looks like Geddings was the dealer.He was stealing from the sleep clinic. I’ll talk to the director later today and see if there are any more medications missing.”
“Are you going to have the contents of those vials analyzed?” Ambrose asked.
“Not much point, even if we could afford to send a sample out to a fancy forensics lab, which we can’t,” Logan said. “We’re a small department with zero budget for that kind of testing. The vials are still sealed. If the director of the clinic identifies them, that will be all I need. The real question here is, what are you two going to do now that you know Geddings was probably murdered by his competition?”
Ambrose looked at Pallas, letting her take the lead.
“The thing is,” she said, “there’s no body.”
“Good luck finding one,” Logan said. “I doubt if the killer or killers dumped Geddings into the bay. Odds are it would have washed ashore by now. But there’s a lot of raw land around this stretch of the coast. You could dig forever and never locate a body.”
“You’re right,” Ambrose said. “Our investigation seems to have been closed.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Logan said. He stood. “That’s all I need from you two. Appreciate your cooperation, but take my advice—don’t go looking for any more trouble. Next time you might not get lucky.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
You’re right, wedidn’t need to invent a story,” Pallas said. “All we had to do was leave out a few minor details, such as the fact that we think the Carnelian Sleep Institute is conducting illegal paranormal experiments.”
“And the fact that I think I witnessed a woman’s body being hauled out of the clinic during an overnight sleep study,” Ambrose said. “There was no point bringing up either of those things, because Logan wouldn’t have taken them seriously.”
“We got off lightly today.” Pallas shuddered. “After the Saltwood fiasco, I didn’t know what to expect from the Carnelian police.”
She ate some of her broccoli and cheddar soup and tried not to watch as Ambrose wolfed down a fully loaded hamburger. She told herself that at the moment he needed the protein to help overcome the effects of sleep deprivation and anyway his diet was none of her business. It wasn’t like they were planning a future together.
They were sitting at the small table in her room eating the take-out lunch they had picked up at a café near the hotel. She knew they were both trying for some semblance of normal, but the effort wasn’tgoing well. Tension charged the atmosphere, and it wasn’t all coming from Ambrose. She was contributing her share. It was going to take time to work through the violent events of the morning.
