Chapter 6: The Morning of the Meeting
Agent Reyes arrived in eighteen minutes.
She came through the pharmacy's side entrance, the one staff used, which meant someone had told her it existed.
She was carrying a different folder from the day before — thicker, darker cover — and she moved through the dispensing area without slowing down, scanning the room the way people do when they've already mapped it in their head.
She stopped at the counter where Simone was waiting.
Looked at the stack of printed logs.
Looked at Simone.
"Tell me about the call," she said.
"Exactly what he said.
Start to finish."
Simone told her.
She didn't editorialize.
She went through it in order — the unknown number, the name Whitfield, the suspended license, the forged clearance document, the meeting, the request for logs, the reason he'd given for calling Simone instead of Reyes directly.
Reyes listened without interrupting.
When Simone finished, Reyes picked up the top page of the logs and read it for a moment.
"Whitfield is real," she said.
"He filed two complaints with the state board.
The first one was buried — we know that now.
The second one is what opened our investigation." She set the page down.
"He's been cooperative.
But he's also been running his own parallel inquiry for fourteen months, which means he has information we don't have and we have information he doesn't have, and that's a problem."
"He said three people in tomorrow's meeting are part of this."
"He told me four," Reyes said.
"When I finally reached him an hour ago."
Simone absorbed that.
"He gave me a different number."
"He gave you what he could verify.
He gave me what he suspects." Reyes looked at her steadily.
"The fourth name is the one that changes the shape of this entire thing.
It's not a compliance officer.
It's not a pharmacist." She paused.
"It's the attorney who drafted the power of attorney document for Ruth Dalton."
The room was quiet except for the printer, which had started a second run.
"The document that was signed under coercive conditions," Simone said.
"According to Ruth, yes.
But here's what Ruth doesn't know yet." Reyes opened her folder and turned it toward Simone.
"The attorney who drafted that document — a man named Gerald Foss — has drafted similar documents for six other elderly patients in this county in the past two years.
In four of those cases, a family member subsequently gained access to controlled substance prescriptions.
In two of those cases, the patient later reported that they didn't remember signing anything."
Simone looked at the names on the page.
Six names.
Six families.
Six versions of what had happened to Ruth Dalton.
"This isn't one son stealing his mother's medication," Simone said.
"No," Reyes said.
"It's an organized diversion network.
Dalton is a participant.
Draper is a facilitator.
Foss is the legal infrastructure.
And whoever is running the regional compliance office right now is the protection layer that keeps it from being flagged." She closed the folder.
"We've been building toward tomorrow's meeting for six weeks.
Whitfield's information accelerated our timeline, but the operation was already in motion."
"What do you need from me?"
Reyes looked at the logs.
"These are the last piece of physical documentation we needed.
With these, we can match the authorization codes to specific dispensing events and tie Draper directly to the approvals.
Without them, we have a pattern.
With them, we have proof."
She picked up the stack and held it carefully, the way you hold something that has been a long time coming.
"There's one more thing," Reyes said.
"Ruth Dalton is going to need to give a formal statement today.
Before the meeting tomorrow.
Her testimony about the power of attorney and the medication is central to the case against Foss." She paused.
"She trusts you.
She asked about you this morning when my colleague spoke with her."
Simone looked up.
"She asked about me?"
"She said—" Reyes glanced at her notes.
"'The woman at the counter.
The one who stood next to me.
Is she all right?'"
Something moved through Simone's chest that she didn't try to name.
"I'd like to be there," Simone said.
"When Ruth gives her statement.
If that's allowed."
"It's not standard," Reyes said.
"But Ruth requested it.
So I'm allowing it." She picked up her folder.
"Can you be at the field office by noon?"
"Yes."
"Good." Reyes moved toward the side door.
Then she stopped.
"Ms.
Carter.
Yesterday — the throw.
The way you handled Dalton." She didn't finish the sentence immediately.
"How long have you been doing martial arts?"
"Twelve years," Simone said.
"My instructor always said the goal wasn't to win fights.
It was to end them."
Reyes considered that.
"Good philosophy," she said.
"For what's coming tomorrow, I hope it holds."
She left.
Howard appeared from the back.
He'd been restocking again, or pretending to.
He set a fresh coffee on the counter beside Simone.
"Four people," he said.
He'd heard enough.
"Four," Simone confirmed.
He nodded slowly.
"And Draper's coming in tomorrow.
Regular shift.
Eight o'clock."
Simone looked at the now-empty counter where the logs had been.
"Don't tell him anything.
Act like yesterday was routine."
"Can I act like yesterday was routine?" Howard said.
"Because from where I was standing, it was not remotely routine."
"No," Simone said.
"It wasn't."
She picked up her coffee.
Through the pharmacy's front glass, she could see the parking lot filling up again.
A woman helped an older man out of a car.
A teenager held the door for a woman with a walker.
Small, ordinary kindnesses happening in the same world where a network of people had spent two years treating the sick and the elderly as a resource to be harvested.
Tomorrow, that ended.
May you like
But tonight, Simone had to sit across from Ruth Dalton and watch an old woman describe the moment she realized her own son had been selling her pain away.
She wasn't sure which part was harder.
