“What happened?” she finally heard Wyatt yell. In the distance she saw flashing lights. Blythe reappeared and shook her head as Mike and Bud joined them. Somewhere “Danny Boy” played and took her into the darkness.
* * *
“What the hell happened?” Wyatt asked Blythe frantically as Bud ran to get the arriving ambulance.
“I was coming toward her. I saw her and then all of a sudden someone was there. I ran as fast as I could, and I was about to go after him when Camila dropped to the ground. I’m so sorry. I couldn’t find him,” Blythe said in the least professional manner possible. It was clear to Wyatt that Blythe thought of Camila as a friend, not just a case number.
“I saw a man in black go around our barn when I took Gent back in,” Michaela added. “I know those soldiers had to have seen him.”
“Go tell them what happened and make sure the night guard stays with our horses.” Wyatt gave the order and Mike jumped on it while Blythe stood guard. Camila was unconscious and her heartbeat was so rapid he was afraid she’d have a heart attack.
In a flurry of activity, Rahmi guards arrived. Bud came with the EMTs and then the police arrived. “She has tachycardia. Does she have a history of heart trouble?” an EMT asked.
“No, she was drugged,” Wyatt told them.
“What with?”
“We don’t know.”
They loaded Camila into the ambulance. “I’ll follow,” Blythe said as she was already on the phone before taking off at a run for her SUV.
Wyatt slid Camila’s hand into his as they started IV fluids. The Frankfort hospital was only minutes away but it felt like hours. Blythe waited as the EMTs unloaded her.
Nurses and doctors swarmed her as an EKG confirmed tachycardia before they injected her with medicine to regulate her heart rate. Camila’s eyes fluttered open and Wyatt finally took a deep breath for the first time since Blythe had screamed for help.
Wyatt silently held her hand as blood was drawn and tests were administered. Finally they were alone with Blythe standing guard outside the door. “Are you okay?”
“I am now. It’s about you,” Camila said with a voice barely above a whisper.
“Me?” Wyatt felt it like a dagger to the heart.
“They said you had to stop digging. That this was just a taste of what they can do. Then he put something in my mouth.”
Wyatt felt it like a blow—a blow that sent his world spinning.
“Wyatt, what are you doing?” Camila asked again.
“I am getting to the bottom of these incidents. I am drawing blood when Kyle is, and I’m helping Piper develop new tests to find out what’s causing these horses to go down.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Camila was angry and Wyatt didn’t need the heart monitor to tell him that.
“I thought the less others knew, the better. I didn’t want to make you a target. I failed, Camila, I’m so sorry.” Wyatt pulled away but Camila grabbed his hand to stop him.
“Don’t pull away now. Tell me what Piper has found.”
“That’s it. She hasn’t found anything.”
“Take my blood.”
“What?” Wyatt asked in surprise.
“We now know it’s a thick liquid injectable that gets placed in the mouth. Swab my mouth and take my blood. Maybe it metabolizes differently in humans?”
Wyatt was up and opening drawers to find a container and a swab. “Open,” he said as he swabbed her cheek and had her spit in a cup.
Blythe opened the sliding glass door and pushed aside the curtain. “It looks like you’ve got company. What are you doing?” she asked as Wyatt was pulling a blood collection tube from the cabinet.
“Stall them. I need to get a blood sample,” Wyatt whispered frantically. Each minute the drug could be dissipating.
“Do you know how to do that?” Blythe asked.
“A vein is a vein.”
“At least he didn’t call me a horse,” Camila said with a little laugh.
Blythe looked skeptical but closed the door. “I’m sorry, you need to wait just a moment,” Wyatt heard her say to the people coming their way.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Camila whispered as Wyatt pulled out his phone.
“Yeah. I’m watching a video on how to do it.”
He didn’t see Camila’s eyes go wide as he watched. Instead, he finished it and didn’t want to tell her it wasn’t all too different from a horse as he went to work. She was quiet and never questioned him, but he saw the worry in her eyes.
“Done.” Wyatt slipped the now full vial of blood and the swab into his pocket. “I’ll give these to Bud to run back to Keeneston and have Piper start working on it immediately.”
Camila nodded, and as voices began to rise in the hallway, Wyatt opened the door. It wasn’t the doctors. There were two state troopers looking pissed off at Blythe, and Blythe looking quite pleased with herself.
“Can I help you?” Wyatt asked.
“We have some questions for Miss Callahan. If you’ll wait outside, I’ll let you know when we’re done.” The trooper stood with his hat in hand and not looking like he’d take no for an answer.
But that didn’t stop Wyatt. “No. I’m sorry. I can’t allow that.”
The trooper raised his eyebrow.
“Out now or I’ll arrest you,” he said, deadly serious.
“My father was the sheriff of Keeneston. I know you don’t have a right to interview a person without their permission,” Wyatt challenged.
The man’s jaw worked. “Fine. You can stay.”
Wyatt moved to take a seat next to Camila as they looked up at the troopers. “Did you catch the man who attacked me?”
“That’s what we want to talk to you about. How long have you been taking drugs?”
“What?” Camila shouted, bringing Blythe running into the room.
“We aren’t going to arrest you, Ms. Callahan. We’re trying to determine if this is a drug deal gone bad,” the trooper said calmly.
“I don’t use drugs,” Camila said firmly.
The troopers looked at each other and Wyatt could feel the air from the big eye rolls they did.
“Why do you think she does drugs?” Wyatt asked as his brain started turning.
“Her symptoms are identical to those with a new street drug called Popular. We’re investigated the attack, but it’ll help us know which direction to go in if Ms. Callahan is honest about her drug use.”
Wyatt looked to Camila, and he actually felt like smiling. They did get a break in the case. All they needed was a different kind of test run. Human doctors were more abreast of the new street drugs than equine doctors.
“Tell me all about Popular,” Wyatt said, turning the questions onto the troopers. “When did it appear? How do you test for it? What are its main ingredients?”
One of the trooper’s phones rang, and he stepped out to answer it. The other trooper looked to Camila and then to Wyatt before answering. “It’s about three to four months old. From what we can tell, it’s a synthetic upper along the lines of meth. We haven’t been able to reverse engineer it yet, but we’ll find elevated levels of myoglobin in her blood if she’s been using it, just like you do with other drugs. Why?”
“When Camila was attacked, she was told to make me back off. The reason she was warned was because I believe there’s a new drug being used to cheat in horse racing. I think they’re giving it to slower horses with the owners completely unaware so that they can test it out without any attention on them. I’m working with my cousin to try to solve what’s in it,” Wyatt explained.
The other trooper entered the room and whispered to his partner before turning to them. “You’re friends of DeAndre?”
“Yes,” they both said at the same time.
“And Aniyah,” Camila added.
The troopers’ serious faces broke into a smile.
“She’s a hoot,” one of them said.
“With a heart of gold,” Camila s
aid in the most Irish accent Wyatt had heard from her.
“Okay,” the trooper said, turning back to them. “I’m Danny and this is my partner, Ned. So, this is not a street drug deal gone bad. Tell me everything you have, and I’ll send the test results to you to help you figure out what they’re giving to the horses. But we share everything, okay?”
Wyatt agreed as Ned looked at his phone. “DeAndre is going to join us.”
“You think Aniyah sent him with those cookies she makes?” Danny asked, suddenly sounding completely different from the stern trooper he had been just five minutes earlier.
The door opened and DeAndre stepped in with a big container. Oh yeah, he brought the cookies. “How did you get here so fast?” Ned asked.
“A Rahmi soldier called Mo, who told his son Zain, who called Carter, who told his wife, Reagan, who then called her sister Riley, who called Aniyah. How are you feeling, Camila?”
“That made perfect sense to me, so I guess I’m feeling better,” Camila said with a grin that made Wyatt relax a little.
“Piper sent me with this,” DeAndre said, handing a small cooler to Wyatt. Wyatt just shook his head and put the blood and saliva samples into it. “I hear we have a horse issue to solve. Tell us all about it.”
15
“Wyatt, I’m fine. I can walk,” Camila said as Wyatt carried her from Blythe’s SUV into his house in Keeneston. His driveway was very full for three in the morning.
“Lord have mercy. Look at how pale you are!” Aniyah cried as she and Katelyn rushed forward.
“How are you feeling?” Katelyn asked as she put the back of her hand to Camila’s forehead. Camila smiled and took her hand in hers.
“I’m fine. And I really can walk,” Camila said as Katelyn shook her head.
“Not until you’ve had a full night’s sleep. Wyatt, put her straight to bed.”
“That was my plan, Mom.”
“Don’t I have a say in this?” Camila asked as Wyatt carried her upstairs past the friends and family members.
“No, you don’t,” Wyatt told her before laying her on the bed and taking off her shoes.
She might be fine, but she was exhausted. Wyatt helped her undress and the muffled sound of people talking downstairs was surprisingly soothing. She felt safe and loved. And with that, her eyelids began to droop.
Camila didn’t realize she’d begun to doze off. Her eyelids were heavy and she didn’t open them as she felt Wyatt pull the quilt up to her chest. The voices began to fade, and through the haze of sleep she felt Wyatt’s lips ever so softly press against hers. “I swear I will protect you with my life. No one will ever hurt you again,” she heard him whisper before sleep took her.
* * *
Wyatt walked down the stairs and everyone quieted down as soon as they saw him. “I’ll kill the bastard,” he said simply before handing the cooler to Piper. “Find out how this is made. I’ve emailed you the results on the new street drug they found in her system.”
“What’s the name of the drug?” Sloane asked. It was hard to remember that she came from a drug cartel family. She’d escaped them, taking the recipe for the drug with her so she could save as many people as possible. Her family had been taken down and now Sloane was free from their torture. She and Gabe lead a very happy life, balancing her school counseling with his diplomatic duties.
“Popular. It’s a synthetic upper like meth,” Wyatt told her.
Sloane nodded and took a deep breath. She pulled out her phone and began punching numbers. “I know someone who can tell us about Popular and where it came from.”
Gabe put his hand on her arm to stop her. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I want to help.” Sloane put her phone to her ear and walked into the kitchen.
Wyatt frowned as he looked at Gabe’s worried face. Sloane was going back to her past for him—a past that had almost killed her.
“I’m adding more security to the barn and for you and Camila,” his father said into the silence, drawing attention from where Sloane was talking on the phone. “Andy is going to fill in locally at the sheriff’s station so Cody and Luke can help Blythe.”
“Do you still want me on your team?” Blythe asked Wyatt. “I understand if you don’t.”
“I do. You wanted to be with Camila. We asked you to secure the rail, which you did after checking the grandstand. I think it’s we who should be apologizing to you.”
“I’m just happy to still be on the team. I want to bring this guy down.”
“All the rest of my team are already on assignment, but I’m happy to help myself. And I know others will, too,” Aiden said after giving a nod of approval to Blythe.
The room quieted as a visibly upset Sloane made her way back into the living room. “Are you okay, babe?” Gabe asked, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her to his chest for a hug.
Sloane nodded her head against him before taking a deep breath and turning to the room. “I called a guy I knew in Chicago. The rumor is Popular is from South America. It’s a synthetic derived from some poisonous frog they have down there. It’s new. Brand new. You take it like LSD tabs.” Sloane paused. “My guy said he’d talk to Piper. Apparently dealing to people is okay in his eyes, but forcing it on horses is cruel and he wants to help take them down.”
Piper rolled her eyes. “A drug dealer trying to figure out complex chemicals?”
“He’s not a dealer. He’s a creator. He has more degrees than you do in chemistry. Only instead of helping people, he followed the money to the dark side.”
“I’m not letting him near my wife,” Aiden said in a tone that no one dared argue with.
“Honey, we can do everything via email.” Piper injected, sounding intrigued.
Sloane nodded. “I didn’t give him your real name just like I don’t have his real name. You can set up a dummy account to correspond with him. It’s safer that way.”
“I’m not putting my cousin at risk,” Wyatt said worriedly.
“She won’t be,” Sloane promised. “He’s a scientist, and he’ll respect her scientific abilities if she respects his.”
“Great. Give me his info.” Piper didn’t look as worried as her husband did. “The faster we figure this out, the faster we can find out who is making it and shut this whole thing down before anyone else gets hurt.”
“Do you understand the point of these druggings?” Reagan asked as if she were trying to think her way through the problem.
Wyatt shook his head. “Not specifically. Generally, horses are drugged to win races.”
“But what’s the motivation to win those races,” Reagan asked, digging deeper.
“Money,” Wyatt answered simply. “No matter why, it always comes back to money. The more your horse wins the bigger races, the more purse money you get, and the more breeding fees you can charge. On the flip side, you drug an underperforming horse, bribe a jockey to hold the favorite back, and bet a fortune on the long shot and you get . . .”
“Money,” Reagan said, nodding. “So which is it? Is it to win it all with a favorite or is it for gambling?”
“The horses we think this drug was tested on were long shots,” Carter told the group.
“Think someone with money issues then,” Zain added.
“Or a way to launder money,” Aniyah said with a shrug.
“What?” Marshall asked so quickly it surprised Aniyah.
“What, what?” Aniyah asked with wide eyes.
“What did you just say?”
Aniyah’s eyes darted around the room as if she’d said something wrong. “I said you could launder money that way. There was a guy from my old neighborhood growing up who did that. Dealt drugs on the streets and then would take the cash to the races. He had the inside scoop from the stable hands on the sure thing and placed bets. Then he’d come out even richer with all clean money.”
Wyatt sat down and stared at her. Everyone was staring at Aniyah as she began to fidget. No one said anything until
Wyatt looked to Sloane. “When did the drug come out?”
“Late April or early May,” Sloane answered.
“And Sampson was drugged, presumably by this drug, in early May. How could that be?” Carter asked.
“Is it a street drug or a horse drug?” Deacon asked what Wyatt was thinking.
“I don’t know, but what I do know is it would help me a lot to have some Popular to reverse engineer it,” Piper said as she nibbled on her lip in thought.
“The police haven’t been able to do that yet,” Wyatt reminded her.
Piper waved her hand. “If they had me on their payroll, they would already have it.”
“I can get you some,” Aniyah said as she typed away on her phone. “Rodney says I can have three hits for fifty dollars. It’s an introductory price. That shit’s on sale. You kinda have to get it now.” Once again the room was quiet. Aniyah looked up. “What?”
“Where can I get it?” Wyatt asked.
Aniyah snickered. “Sugar, you’d stick out like Mr. Chapman’s winkie at a nunnery. I’ll just call my Sugarbear to pick it up. Rodney lives in Frankfort and DeAndre is still there.”
“Should a trooper be buying drugs?” Katelyn whispered and Marshall just shook his head as if to tell her not to ask.
“Sugarbear?” Aniyah said into her phone. “I need you to stop by Rodney’s and pick up some Popular for me. Piper is going to do her thing to it.” Aniyah rolled her eyes. “Then take off your uniform and park a block over. Just tell him Aniyah sent you and he better give you the three for fifty deal or I’ll have words with his momma.” Aniyah clucked her tongue. “If it’s such a problem, I’ll go get it.”
“No!” they all heard DeAndre yell over the phone.
“Thank you, Sugarbear,” Aniyah said sweetly. “Yes, I’ll give you an extra treat for it. I got a new oil in the mail today along with these . . .” Aniyah put her hand over the phone and whispered. A second later she hung up. “He’ll drop it off to you in an hour.”
“Thank you,” Piper said, battling not to laugh. “I’ll meet him at the lab.”
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