“I like the idea of you advising Brittany about the lawsuit. It builds trust and familiarity. Caution her, though, that it’s not her lawsuit. She could well be the most important witness, but she’s not entitled to a pile of money.”

“She read somewhere, and she is reading far too much, that in some cases the whistleblower gets twenty percent of the settlement. You know anything about that?”

“I only know that every case is different, so the rewards vary greatly. Keep her talking about it. Also, ask her how difficult it would be to walk out with a loaded syringe. We could give her a substitute filled with food and water but no meds. She swaps it, feeds the patient, everything is fine. Our lab technicians are confident they can identify the medications.”

“What kind of medications?”

“You got a couple of hours? It’s a long list. Diuretics and beta blockers for high blood pressure. Antibiotics for bedsores and infections—almost all have bedsores and they can be fatal. Protein supplements for healthier skin to fight the bedsores. Metformin or any one of a hundred others for diabetes. Coumadin for blood clots. Something for the thyroid. Aricept for dementia. Antidepressants. I could go on.”

“These people have been in comas for years and they’re getting antidepressants?”

“Happens all the time. Approved by Medicaid and Medicare.”

“Is the nursing home in the business of selling pills?”

“Not really. The drugs and their prices are tightly regulated. But if one is approved, you can bet it’s being used.”

A waitress finally made it over and poured coffee. Lindsey ordered an omelet and Raymond asked for pancakes. When she was gone he said, “Brittany told me something interesting last night. She said that the nonresponders, she calls them Nons, get the best treatment of all. They are fed on time. They get the best meds. Their beds are cleaner. They get more attention from the staff. The care for the other patients is pretty lousy, even abusive at times, but not the Nons.”

“They’re more valuable,” Lindsey said. “The longer they live, the more money they draw.” Raymond Jumper was just a freelance investigator who had never heard of Nelson Kerr and didn’t have a clue as to who was behind the fiction. He was being paid a hundred dollars an hour to do a job and was discouraged from asking questions.

Lindsey said, “I want Brittany to swap syringes. See if she can borrow an empty one, give it to you so we’ll know the make and model, then she can take it back. No crime there. Ask her if she can get the name of the formula. Our plan will be to load up one of ours, hand it to her in exchange for a real one. She’ll make the swap. I doubt if anyone will be watching.”

Jumper grimaced and shook his head. He said, “I don’t know, might take some time. She’s not ready yet. How about your girl?”

“She’s not ready either. I think Brittany is our best bet.”

“I’ll get it done. I may have to sleep with her, but I’ll get it done.”

“Attaboy.”

Jumper’s phone rattled and he yanked it out of his pocket. Lindsey picked up hers, and for ten minutes they returned texts and emails. The food arrived and they finally put down their phones. Jumper said, “Got a question.”

“All right.”

“Why not just hack into the nursing home’s records and get all the information you want? Its security is lousy. Any decent hacker could do the job overnight. I got some friends.”

“It’s against the law, plain and simple.” Lindsey realized she sounded a bit too pious. The truth was that they had hacked before and would do so again. Their hackers were far better than anything they faced. But the real truth was that the mysterious drug they were looking for would not be in any patient’s records.

CHAPTER EIGHT

    THE INFORMANT

1.

On a warm breezy day in early March, Bruce was sitting at his desk and enjoying his coffee as he opened the daily mail for the store, something he still insisted on doing after almost twenty-four years. He also insisted on opening each of the countless boxes of new books that arrived three times a week. He loved the smell and feel of each new book, and he especially enjoyed finding the perfect place on the shelves for each one. And he habitually boxed up all the unsold books and sent them back to the publishers as returns, acts of defeat that still depressed him.

A plain envelope, light lemon yellow in color, was addressed to him at Bay Books on Main Street in Santa Rosa. The address was typed in all-caps on a label, and there was nothing for the return. It was postmarked in Amarillo, and at first glance it looked like nothing but junk mail, and he almost tossed it in the wastebasket. Then he opened it. On a plain yellow sheet of paper the sender had typed:

THE LAST PERSON I TALKED TO ABOUT THIS WAS NELSON AND WE KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM. DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD HAVE A CONVERSATION?

Attached to it was a yellow index card with the message: Crazy Ghost is a chat room for anonymous mail. Costs $20 for a month, credit card. The address there is: 3838Bevel.

Bruce placed the letter and the card on his desk, took his coffee cup and went upstairs to the café and rinsed it out. He dried it, poured another cup, stared out the window, spoke to no one because the place was deserted, and went back to his office. He went online, couldn’t find anything, and walked to the front cashier and asked a twenty-year-old tattooed part-timer about the site. In less than three minutes the kid, without looking up from his screen, said, “It looks legit. One of the private chat rooms from overseas, either Singapore or the Ukraine, there are a bunch of them, and they burn the messages five to fifteen minutes or so after they’re put up. Twenty bucks a month.”