Before I Wake

  “We can check that idea out a bit more,” Nathan agreed. “But does it help us identify who is creating these drugs? The investigator’s suspicion that Danforth was the one who passed them to a dealer at the party is more than likely true, given Danforth’s actions now. But he’s dead. He won’t be telling us who the cook was. And they searched hard to link Danforth to that person years ago.”

  “I agree it doesn’t tell us much,” Rae said. “But maybe Danforth saw someone after he got out of jail that will be a useful name to check out? He must have confirmed that kind of suspicion about the cook being back in business before he took the extraordinary step of killing himself.”

  “I wish he had killed the drug designer instead, if he knew who that guy was,” Bruce remarked.

  She looked between the two of them. “Please, guys. I want out of here tomorrow so I can help check this out. I’ll be careful, I promise. But I know enough about this overall case to be helpful. You’ve got to at least let me try.”

  “If your doctor says you’re ready to go, I’ll get you out of here,” Bruce reluctantly agreed.

  “The same hotel, the same room.”

  “Be reasonable,” Bruce protested.

  “They gave the room Peggy died in to a nice couple traveling through from Florida and nothing happened to them. The hotel room is not the source of whatever this is. Being back at the scene of the crime may remind me of something I missed. Besides, all my stuff is there.” She looked at Nathan. “All my stuff is still there, isn’t it?”

  “We’ll have to buy you more toothpaste and the basics. But yes, your personal stuff is being cared for,” he said and changed the subject. “Have you had lunch yet? They might let you go down to the cafeteria with us.”

  She looked at Bruce. “You brought me a change of clothes?”

  He nodded to the sack he had set down. “I found the jeans and sweatshirt you described.”

  “Then go find a nurse for me and ask if I can go to the cafeteria, and I promise in return I’ll be good about being stuck here for another day.”

  Bruce grinned and went to comply.

  Rae handed the school notebook she still held back to Nathan. “Sit and talk about the hotel review while he’s searching for a nurse. I want to know everything you’ve ruled out so far as the cause of this. I was an idiot to walk into it, and I want to know what I did.”

  “I don’t think we know,” Nathan replied. “And I don’t think you could have avoided it, Rae. He knew how to get to you. But we’re interested in the pillowcase and some of the odder possibilities now. He’s creative, whoever this guy is. You were already on guard enough not to be using the vending machines.”

  “Pillowcases. That’s an interesting idea.”

  “He knows he can put the drug in place and be a fair distance away before it is encountered or before it takes effect. That at least suggests it’s not an aerosol that disperses or something that decays swiftly on its own. He’s found something to use that we aren’t expecting. We’ll just have to get creative for where to search.”

  “Maybe not so creative,” she suggested. “If these are test trials of the drug, he’s not going to have much of the drug available to use. And if his quantities are very small, he can’t afford to have any of it wasted. That suggests something we drink or we eat or something that we hold and it is absorbed through the skin. But whatever it is, we’re using all of it that is there.”

  “Which suggests Sillman is wasting his time trying to find any of it left at the scene,” Nathan agreed. “But we’ll look anyway. Had the deaths been later in the morning, we’d be interested in shampoos and face creams and things absorbed by the skin. You don’t know you encountered the drug; that itself is our strongest clue for where it is hiding. It’s tasteless, odorless, and not obvious in its amount.”

  “Lipstick. All of us used lipstick.”

  “Believe it or not, I called Sillman this morning to ask that very question. The tubes are at the lab being tested.”

  “Most of my stuff is at that lab being tested right now?”

  Nathan smiled. “Sorry. Everything we could think of is. We’ll replace it for you.”

  “At least I’m the one alive to care about it. How long do we have to find this guy, Nathan? He nearly perfected the drug with his test on me.”

  “Assuming he wasn’t trying to kill you.”

  “True.”

  “Franklin thinks a couple weeks,” Nathan replied. “After that, large quantities start appearing somewhere on the street—probably a richer market for that kind of thing than Justice.”

  “The fact he’s testing the drug here is precisely because it is a small town; with easy access to people, he can come and go without it catching a big police department’s attention—and when he’s done what he needs to do, he moves on with his new product.”

  “That’s what we are afraid of.”

  Rae offered a sympathy smile. “My first case was not so pedestrian after all.”

  “Let’s hope you spend the rest of your career totally bored.”

  Rae laughed at that.

  Bruce returned. “You’re on for a trip downstairs; you just have to take a wheelchair.”

  Rae groaned. “Great. Then you’re not ‘helping’ push me. You’ll drive the chair into a wall.”

  She pushed back blankets. “Go away, you two. I’ll be changed in five minutes. And I’m hungry for a burnt cheeseburger if they can fix such a thing.”

  35

  Rae pulled on tennis shoes and took her time knotting the laces so they wouldn’t come undone. She ordered herself not to look again at her watch. Wednesday had arrived and she was getting out of this hospital room for good today. Bruce would be on time this morning; he knew how badly she wanted to be out of here.

  She pulled over the paperwork the nurse had gone over with her and folded it into thirds, then found a place for it in the sack of odds and ends the guys had brought in for her. The plastic band on her wrist itched, and she scratched under it. She couldn’t wait until she had a pair of scissors to remove it.

  “What time did you tell Sillman we would be over?”

  Rae looked up as she heard Nathan’s voice in the hall.

  “Ten,” Bruce replied. “So are you going to tell her or am I?”

  Rae looked over at the reporter in the chair across the room and held a finger to her lips to urge him to stay quiet. He grinned back at her.

  “You lost the coin flip in the parking lot. You’re telling her.”

  There was a tap on the door, and Bruce entered first, followed by Nathan. The two men stopped.

  Rae smiled. “Guys, you remember Gage Collier?”

  “The reporter who offered to help us sort out Peggy’s notes,” Bruce replied first. “Sure.” He walked over to shake hands.

  Rae wondered if the reporter was being oversensitive when he winced at the handshake. “He’s not only offered to help us sort out Peggy’s notes; he knows a great deal of interesting information regarding my former car owner.”

  Nathan leaned against the wall of cabinets inside the doorway, studying the reporter. “Really?”

  “Brad Danforth was a known dealer on the south side; he took over Peter Jirinski’s territory,” Gage replied, focusing on Bruce as he said it.

  “I know the man.”

  “Your cover name is on one of his arrest warrants; I figured you did,” Gage replied. “Brad Danforth also had someone above him who thought he was worth protecting. That stretch of time in jail—no one moved in to acquire the turf in his absence, and when that happens on the street that says patron.”

  “Agreed. I never got a lead on him; that would have been after my undercover time. Any ideas?”

  “No. But they suspected Danforth of being the source of the exotic stuff at the rave party for a reason. He’s got a reputation of being first on the street to supply the new thing.”

  “Which means he knows a guy with some connections—probably the same patron prot
ecting his territory while he was in jail.”

  Gage nodded.

  “So this tells us what about the case now?” Nathan asked, looking between the two men. Bruce was the one with the most expertise in the room.

  “Our designer drug maker—he’s got business connections north of here, so maybe he lives north of here too. That’s harder to say. It’s at least the lab he’s using to make the stuff which must be near this town. He’s testing the drugs around here, because he doesn’t want to transport them yet. And he doesn’t want any bad outcome casualties showing up in the market where the drug will eventually be sold.”

  “In an ugly way, that makes sense. The rave-party deaths taught them to keep the product out of their own area until it was fully ready to mass produce and sell.”

  Bruce nodded. “What this does confirm is the fact Danforth is a solid lead to work. Who he talked with after he got out of jail would be useful information. At least that’s a lead we can ask the guys in Chicago to pursue for us. Find the patron, and he should be able to give us a name of the guy who is designing this stuff and testing it around here.”

  “It’s definitely worth a shot,” Nathan agreed. “You’re not going to be writing about any of this,” he cautioned the reporter.

  Gage smiled. “Tell part of the story, when I can instead get a Pulitzer by writing the full story? I promised Peggy I would write the story she was working on as a tribute to her. I’ll wait until I have the names to expose. I haven’t been around this business so short of a time that I haven’t learned the value of patience.” He looked back at Bruce. “For that patience, you’ll keep me informed.”

  “You’ll hear from us,” Bruce promised. “And we’ll want to know back anything you are finding through other sources.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Rae looked between the three guys, relieved there seemed to be both an understanding as well as a bit of useful news being passed around. This case really was coming down to tracking names and relationships, and that was the work Bruce had spent his career perfecting how to do. It was a drug case, but it would still be solved by one person leading to another person, who could give them the name of their drug designer.

  She figured a change of subject about now would help. She looked at Bruce. “So what were you two flipping a coin about to decide who would tell me?”

  Bruce looked at Nathan and then crossed his arms across his chest and looked back at her. “We moved you to a different hotel, under a different name.”

  “You did what?”

  “Don’t protest; you’re not going to win this debate. Be an idiot on your own time; but you’re not going back to the same hotel when we haven’t figured out how you got slipped the drug in the first place.”

  “This guy has demonstrated access to two hotels in town; you’re telling me he doesn’t also have access to this third one?”

  “So humor me. It’s closer to where I live.”

  “It’s got to be something I ate or drank, and that is not something where I sleep is going to influence.”

  “I would stuff you in a locked room if you would let me; I’ll settle for moving you.”

  She knew she had lost the discussion before it even began. Rae pushed herself to her feet. “Fine. Just as long as we are leaving this place in the next ten minutes.” She looked over at the reporter. “Thanks, Gage. I enjoyed the company this morning.”

  “Anytime.”

  “You’ll be back to look at the notebook pages later?”

  “Whenever you call,” he promised. He looked at Bruce, then Nathan. “You really might want to think about finding her something to do. She’s going to drive you crazy until you do.”

  Nathan grinned. “Absolutely right she will. It’s a pleasure to have her back doing it too.”

  Rae laughed. She headed to the door. “You all are awful. Bruce, I want to drive.”

  He tailed behind her. “Forget it.”

  * * *

  “Lift your feet up; let me get your shoes off.”

  Rae opened one eye and wished the room would stop spinning counterclockwise. She had the energy of a drowned mouse right about now. “I can get them.” She sighed and sat up on the hotel-room bed. “The mattress is too hard.”

  She had laid down for a few minutes while the guys carried in her suitcases and got her hanging clothes put away. She felt like a wiped-out baby just from the walks from the hospital to the car, and from the car to her new hotel room. This was not good. She pushed off her tennis shoes.

  “The bed will feel softer the more tired you get,” Bruce promised. “You’ll be okay here?”

  She looked around the room. It was more expensive than the last hotel room, bigger, and there was even a full recliner next to a reading table. “I’ll be fine. I’m just complaining to complain.”

  He smiled. “You’re allowed.”

  “I’ve got a headache and right now I want a few hours of sleep; but after dinner I’m going to be fine again and I’ll want to go to the office. I don’t want to spend the rest of the day in this room.”

  She expected a fight in reply to the words and was ready to insist. It was a pretty room. Nathan had replaced her roses with fresh ones and added two pretty pots of daisies. It was still a hotel room. And she wasn’t staying here the rest of the day.

  “You could come over to my place,” Bruce offered instead.

  She looked at him and let the emotion inside her show in her eyes. “I need to work.”

  He reached over and squeezed her hand. “Then set your alarm for six. I’ll be back at half past and we’ll go to the office and eat while you read files.”

  “Thanks. That’s a good plan.” She staggered a bit as she got to her feet and then she looked past Bruce to Nathan. “Thank you. For all of this. The flowers are lovely.”

  “You’re welcome. Rest, Rae; give yourself time to get better. You’ve got the painkillers the doctor prescribed for that headache?”

  She patted her pocket and the thin vial. “They aren’t going out of my sight.”

  “Good.”

  She walked with them to the door.

  “I’ve got myself a second key card just in case I get so worried about you I’m thinking about kicking in the door again,” Bruce mentioned.

  She hugged him. “That’s appreciated. Now go away. Get a nap or something before six. You two look worse than I do and that’s saying something.”

  Nathan laughed. “Or something.”

  “I shaved,” Bruce protested good-naturedly.

  “The shirt is a couple days ripe though,” Nathan pointed out. He lifted a hand in a silent farewell to Rae and pushed his friend toward the hallway and the elevator.

  Rae watched them go, then stepped back and locked the hotel-room door and pushed the chain in place.

  Jesus, now I lay me down to sleep . . . the last time about killed me. I can’t do that again. I can’t.

  She pushed back the cover on the bed to tug out the pillows and pile them up. She collapsed facedown with her arm wrapped around one of them. She was scared to close her eyes, to reach for a drink without pausing, to eat without feeling like she was going to choke on the food. It was no way to live.

  If I should die before I wake . . . please don’t let Bruce and Nathan be the ones to find me next time. Don’t let that be their last memories of me. Don’t do that to them again.

  She was going to find the guy who had come after her. Somewhere in her memories of that Saturday was the answer to who it was doing this.

  She knew the guy. That was the one thing she was absolutely certain of—this drug designer or whoever he had used to slip her the drug was someone she had met since she came to this town.

  She just needed some rest before she began that work. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Tired didn’t come close to describing how exhausting just getting out of the hospital could be. She felt sleep coming and welcomed it.

  * * *

  Rae smiled as she entered the
Chapel Detective Agency, relieved to be back on familiar territory.

  Bruce set down the box he’d brought in. “Margaret said to tell you most townsfolk don’t know your full name or address yet, so they took to dropping off their get-well cards here. There’s a basket of them waiting for you in your office.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “Let’s hope you still think so after you write out all those thank-you notes.” Bruce locked the front door behind them and then led the way down the hall toward her office. “Did you remember your keys?”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t even sure where she had put her purse. He dug out his and unlocked her office for her. He reached in and turned on the lights.

  Her move into her office stopped before she crossed the threshold. “Oh. Oh, my furniture arrived.” She turned to beam at him.

  He rubbed her shoulder. “This afternoon. Nathan and I thought you would like a place to sit down. Sillman helped us with that desk—I swear it’s the heaviest piece of furniture ever made.”

  “It’s all so gorgeous.” She entered the room, her smile growing. She walked around gleaming polished furniture. She ran her hand across the vast desktop and took a seat in the black leather desk chair. She swiveled, loving the feel of it. “Mahogany?”

  “Yes. And every other piece too, including the floor lamp columns. You said you liked the scrollwork finishing, so I took you at your word.”

  It was richly done pieces of wood, beautiful and yet subtle with the carvings tucked around to accent the flow of the wood. “I was thinking a nice table or two to complement your basic functional desk. You spent some cash.”

  “I bet it outlasts your career as a private investigator,” Bruce predicted comfortably. “Besides, I had to be able to enjoy sitting in here. You’re going to be hollering for me to come down to your office for us to talk about cases.” He took a seat in the leather chair opposite her desk to make his point and gestured around the room. “We left room for you to bring in your own couch if you like. And the files are negotiable. They would look fine in the front office if you would prefer that wall to stay open.”