Chapter 16

A quick tour of the DVR confirmed what Maggie had already known: she’d seen every Hitchcock film. Three times. The curse of a movie buff whose childhood was spent in the creaking seats of a repertory theater.

She spooned Cherry Garcia into her mouth as she flipped through the options on the TV that Pop had given her when the picture on her own television collapsed like a tiny sun.

Shadow of a Doubt.

North by Northwest.

Rear Window.

To Catch a Thief.

Maggie paused on the last one, thinking not of the onscreen fireworks between Kelly and Grant or the iconic Côte d’Azur scenes, but of the promise of the title, the suggestion of capturing—of stopping—a perpetrator.

Maggie licked her spoon and dropped it into the now-empty pint. She’d do one better than to catch a thief. She’d catch a murderer.

  

Maggie decided that “catching” began with “identifying” and that identifying began with learning more about the victims. She wandered back to the home office, the dog trotting behind her, and tried once more to log into the drugstore’s computer system. As expected, the computer flashed a Host Not Available message, as if she’d arrived early for a formal dinner and the host had not yet donned his smoking jacket and ascot.

Maggie logged off the computer and grabbed her purse and keys, which she’d tossed onto the pimp-print sofa. She jingled the keys in her hand as she contemplated whether to leave a note for Constantine. Chances were she’d beat him home. Even if she didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to read her writing, which looked like the chirographic lovechild of a physician’s signature and shorthand notes. She could send a text, but didn’t want to interrupt his curtain-hanging endeavors. Better just to explain the whole thing when she returned.

She closed her hand around the keys and made for the door. The dog barked. She looked at him. He wagged his tail, cocked his head and looked generally adorable. “You really should stay here,” she told him. “Act as our watchdog.” The pooch panted, dog lips parted in a slobbery smile. “On the other hand, I could use a lookout. Come on.”

Although it was Friday night, traffic was light—maybe everyone was watching Hitchcock movies?—and Maggie made it to Petrosian’s Pillbox in record time. She coasted in front of the pharmacy, car in neutral to minimize noise, looking for news vans, cameras and reporters—especially Russ Brock.

The street was deserted.

She rounded the building and parked in her spot, alert for media who may have taken cover in the darkness that gathered in the shadow of the slumbering building. The lot was also vacant.

Maggie plucked the dog from his seat and climbed out of the car. The wind had died, leaving the air heavy with the smell of spring growth and the promise of rain.

She stole to the front of the building and glanced behind her. The street was still empty, but for how long?

As promised, crime scene tape adorned the door. The iconic ribbon didn’t look as though it would bar her entry. Other than its command to not cross, it seemed more suggestion than security measure. She pushed the tape aside and inserted her key into the front door, praying that Petrosian hadn’t changed the locks.

She turned the key. It stuck. Perspiration budded on her upper lip. She adjusted the dog, chiding herself for not buying a leash or even an infant carrier that would have left her hands free, and jiggled the key in the lock. She closed her eyes then turned it again. The tumblers groaned, then responded with an affirmative click.

She was in.

A car pulled around the corner, its blue-white HID bulbs coring the night. Maggie slipped into the building and closed the door behind her. She leaned against the door, heart hammering, picturing Brock behind the wheel. And then Miles. She put her ear against the door and listened. She heard the car’s engine recede into the distance. She released a gust of breath and threw the lock.

“Stop acting guilty, O’Malley,” she muttered to herself. “You’re not doing anything wrong. This isn’t even breaking and entering. It’s just…entering.” The dog tilted his head. “And no comment from you.”

Maggie walked to the back of the store. Every aisle seemed to whisper an implicit promise. Less pain. Brighter whites. More volume at the roots. Less volume in the thighs. She wondered how many oaths the sundries could keep. She wondered how many she could.

Did she really think she could uncover who had poisoned Colton Ellis and the Whitleys? Did she really think she was better suited than the police?

The truth was, she did. Not because she was more qualified, but because she was more driven. The police wanted to solve the crime, right wrong and restore order. Maggie wanted all of that, plus absolution, restoration and vindication. She wanted her good name restored. She wanted Petrosian’s back in business. She wanted whoever took Colton’s life and Riley’s peace to pay.

She stationed herself at Petrosian’s computer behind the counter and keyed in her log-in credentials. She waited as the genie who lived inside the server decided whether to grant her digital wishes.

The loading bar crawled slowly to the right, a barometer of progress or failure. Maggie pulled at the collar of her t-shirt. She was heating up right along with the computer.

Then…success.

A welcome page appeared, followed by a prompt asking her where she wanted to go.

“How about happily ever after?” she muttered.

Her fingers danced across the keys as she accessed the screen for prescription history. Her first stop: the youngest victim.

Maggie pointed, clicked and repeated. Riley Whitley’s data loaded. And loaded. And loaded.

Despite her sixteen years, Riley Whitley had amassed an impressive pharmaceutical history. In addition to receiving chemotherapy at the hospital’s infusion center, she’d been prescribed opioids for pain, antiemetics for nausea, psychotropics for anxiety and depression, and the occasional antibiotic for infection.

Maggie felt something in her chest tighten. She wondered what kind of prognosis the doctors had given. Whether the cancer was abating or lying in wait deep within her bones. Whether Riley thought about boys and ripped jeans and prom, or just blood counts and stem cells.

Maggie shook off her darkening mood. She had to remain objective. She had to focus.

She scrolled to the Whitleys’ most recent pharmacy purchases: a refill of Riley’s prescriptions for nausea and pain. It jived with what she’d learned during the brief inventory check with Petrosian.

She tabbed and entered Mary’s name into the database, then read the results. The list wasn’t as extensive as Riley’s, but it wasn’t fallow pharmaceutical ground, either. From Mary’s pharmaceutical profile, Maggie gleaned that she not only suffered from COPD and diabetes, but hypertension, rheumatoid arthritis and insomnia. Neither Whitley female had hit the jackpot in the wellness lottery.

Bottom line: no pharmaceutical crossover between Riley and Mary, but the history did reveal a timeframe well within reason for poisoning symptoms to appear.

Cyanide killed by volume and exposure. Inhale or ingest a lot? Expect seizure, coma or death almost immediately. Exposed to low doses over a period of time? Enjoy the slow creep of persistent, debilitating headaches, vomiting, and abdominal and chest pain.

There was no way to know long it took for cyanide to reach toxic levels for the poisoning victims. The only certainty was the agony each experienced as the poison starved their cells of oxygen and their organs began to die. Mary and Riley both had medical conditions that made them vulnerable to the effects of cyanide.

Maggie tabbed again and searched for Colton Ellis. The list was long, but not overly so: the antibiotic she had helped fill the day he died, migraine medication, a drug to control blood pressure and mitigate kidney disease, and OxyContin.

Maggie stopped scrolling. Reread. The OxyContin had been refilled seven times.

She frowned. She couldn’t remember a recent surgery or chronic pain condition that would warrant such a strong pain medication, let alone a seven-time refill. She squinted and continued her descent down the page.

A high-pitched whine carved through her thoughts.

She glanced at the dog lying at her feet. “What’s up, buddy?” she asked absent-mindedly. “You hungry?”

The dog whined again and got to his feet. “Hang on a sec,” she said, reading. “Then it’s home for chow.”

The dog rose to his feet and barked. Maggie took her finger off the computer mouse and looked at him full-on. He was staring at the darkened stockroom.

“Just a bunch of boxes,” she told him. “Nothing to worry about.”

But the animal didn’t seem convinced. He lowered his head and gave a low growl, a rumbling sound that reverberated from deep within his belly.

Maggie felt the hair on the back of her neck rise, her body raising the alarm. Despite Maggie’s avoidance of emotion, she had learned to trust her instincts. She’d learned the hard way that ignoring them could lead to unpleasant consequences.

She backed away from the computer and walked toward the blackness that lay outside the ring of light cast by the monitor. In the semi-dark, she saw the familiar silhouette: a skyline of boxes, the corner of the eye-wash station, the mouth of the cubbies where employees stored lunchboxes and jackets.

Maggie approached the stockroom, feet gliding across the floor. She told herself to take it easy, to not let her imagination take hold, to breathe, for God’s sake.

Her body wasn’t having any of it. Blood thundered through her ears. Her breath came in shallow pants.

Maggie parted her lips to let more oxygen into her lungs and reached for the wall switch. She flicked. The room jumped into full relief, its emptiness exposed by the glare of Thom’s unflattering fluorescents overhead.

Maggie released a lungful of air and looked back at the dog who had retained his post on Petrosian’s ergonomic floor mat. “You ever hear of the dog who cried wolf?”

Her chuckle was interrupted by a vibration in her pocket. She plunged her hand inside and excised her phone. A text message from an unknown number. It was probably a solicitation, an invitation to make thousands working from home or advice about how to get rid of belly fat by eating one strange food. She moved to delete the message, but opened it instead. In the body of the text was a single photo.

Maggie squinted.

The image was of a nude woman. No, not nude. Wearing flesh-toned tights and a cream-colored top. She enlarged the photo, fear writhing through her insides like maggots.

Maggie gaped at the photo. In glorious high definition, she saw herself stride toward GymRatz.

The photo had been edited. Giant breasts and a spray of pubic hair had been crudely drawn with a doodling app. Her eyes had been scratched out. Hands clutched the hills and vales of her body. At the center of her forehead, a target served as a ringed beauty mark.

Maggie’s stomach clenched and flipped. She backed out of the photo and searched the message for a clue to the sender’s identity. The anonymous digits mocked her.

She steeled herself and re-opened the photo. She scanned her mutilated image in search of a clue. Then, she spotted it: the letters MM in the cleavage of the illustrated breasts.

MM.

Miles Montgomery.

Miles once again using a cell phone to target her. Miles once again harassing her. Miles once again sending a very clear message.

I see you.

I follow you.

I’ll do whatever I want with you.

Maggie felt waves of retroperistalsis as her stomach readied itself to evacuate its contents. Maggie shoved her phone back into her pocket and fanned herself with her hands to reduce her temperature and the likelihood of losing what little she’d eaten that day.

She staggered toward the staff bathroom, her mind on Miles, the photo, the nausea that grew with each step.

A new sound invaded her consciousness.

A scritch-scratch of something—or someone—outside the door that led to the parking lot.

Her heart throttled up once again. Was debris from the dumpster being blown against the building? A stick drumming along to the winds’ tempestuous gusts? Or was it Miles, there to make good on the hoped-for conclusion he’d drawn?

Maggie gathered her courage and a broom. Sure, she could call Constantine. Sure, she could dial 911. But what would she tell them? She’d gotten a creepy text message from an old coworker then heard a funny sound outside a pharmacy she wasn’t supposed to be in? No, she had to handle this on her own.

Maggie inhaled deeply and charged the door, speed subbing for fickle bravery that waxed and waned with each heartbeat. She wrenched the doorknob and pushed the stockroom door. It flew open, steel and wood carrying it into the concrete wall behind it.

Maggie stood in the doorway, breath coming in hitches, shaking with adrenaline. She peered into the parking lot. Dumpster? Check. Studebaker? Check. Empty parking lot devoid of Miles Montgomery? Check and check.

False alarm number two.

She grabbed the door handle and began to pull it closed. A figure materialized from the building’s shadow.

“I thought that was your car,” a voice said. “What is it, a Valiant?”

She expected to see Miles’s mocking smile. Instead Russ Brock stepped into her field of vision.

“What are you doing here?” Maggie demanded.

Brock gave a toothpaste-fired smile. “I had a feeling you’d show up here. Did you come back for a trophy? Or to cover your tracks before the police execute their warrant?”

Maggie looked around for the cameraman, for the sound guy. Indifferent stars winked at the otherwise empty lot. “No camera?”

Russ put his hands in his pockets and hitched his shoulders. “Sometimes old Russ likes to fly solo.”

And sometimes old Russ likes to refer to himself in the third person.

Maggie tightened her grip on the door handle and began to pull. Brock put a tasseled boat shoe against the door. Maggie hated tassels. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I’m here as a favor to you.”

Maggie raised an eyebrow. “A favor?”

“An exclusive interview. So you can tell your side of the story. No cameras. No hubbub. Just you and me and my notepad. Maybe a candlelight dinner.”

“I don’t have a story,” Maggie said, “and nothing to say to you.” She gave him a long look. “You’re trespassing, by the way.”

The wicked grin returned. “That makes two of us.” He flicked a card from his pocket, thrust it beneath her nose. “If you change your mind—and I think you might find that beneficial—I’m just a phone call away.”

Maggie made no move. Brock let the card fall from his fingertips to the ground. “It’s your funeral,” he said.