Katie was glad that on Mondays she only had an afternoon clinic and was in charge of rounds with the hospital patients in the morning. It freed her up to focus on Ellen’s death.

Katie planned to see her patients and then go find John Carlson and figure out a way to steer him in the direction of the pharmacy Caleb had found.

She didn’t have to look far. She’d just shut her front door on her way out, heading to the hospital, when his police cruiser pulled into the drive.

“Hey, Doc, do you have a minute?” His face was grim, and Katie felt her mouth go dry. Had he discovered what Caleb had been doing? What was the penalty for weaseling information out of a pharmacist?

“Sure, come in.” Katie unlocked the door and gestured him inside. She took deep breaths to steady herself and followed.

John Carlson stood in the entryway looking around like a prospective buyer. “This is nice. I haven’t been inside here. It seems like over the years I’ve been in just about every house in Baxter, but not this one.”

“Thank you.” Katie showed him into the sparse living room. “Can I get you anything?” She was stalling and trying to sense whether this was a social or business call.

“No, thanks. I have to be on my way soon.” John sat on the small loveseat, and Katie took the only other chair in the room.

“What can I do for you?”

“There’s been a development in the Ellen Riley case, and I wanted you to hear it from me.”

Katie let out a breath. He wasn’t here for Caleb. She nodded to encourage him.

“The labs came back, and there was only a low level of diazepam in her system. She didn’t kill herself with those pills because she didn’t take enough to do any harm.”

Again, Katie felt relief, but this time it was followed quickly by questions.

“Then . . . what?”

“The labs showed a high level of Demerol.”

“Why would she have—?” Katie stopped. Was there also a prescription for Demerol with her name on it? Then her mind flashed on the note in Emmett’s office—“missing: 1 v. Dem and 1 v. Fent.” Had the drug come from her own clinic?

“The medical examiner thinks it was injected. And there were no needles or syringes with her when she was found. We’re treating it as a homicide.”

Her stomach dropped as the reality of what he said sank in. Even though she’d been hoping Ellen hadn’t killed herself, the firm knowledge that it was murder was almost worse.

Katie put a shaky hand up to her mouth. “But who would want to hurt her?”

Chief Carlson shook his head. “We’ll have to start over with the investigation. The scene was photographed, but there’s nothing there. We collected a few things from the scene, but I’ll have to go back over the evidence and see if we missed anything. I doubt we’ll find anything useful, and the room has likely been cleaned by now. It already feels like a cold case even though it happened less than a week ago.”

“I’m so sorry for her family. Can I do anything to help?”

“I don’t think so. I only wanted to let you know before you hear any gossip.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

Katie and Chief Carlson walked to the door. “If you think of anything I should know, give me a call,” he said.

“John, wait,” Katie said. She went into her room and came out with the piece of paper with the pharmacy address on it. “I think this is where the prescription for diazepam came from.”

Carlson took it and glanced at the address. “This is way out of town. How did you find it?”

“Just a bit of minor sleuthing. I don’t suppose it matters now.”

“Maybe not, but we’ll look into it.” He tucked the paper into his shirt pocket. “Let us take it from here, Doc.”

Katie nodded and shut the door behind him. She would go to the hospital later. Right now she needed to talk to Caleb.

* * *

Caleb and Katie had never kept normal hours. After their mom died and their dad disappeared into work and a vodka bottle, they had mostly raised themselves. She had hated to leave him when she went off to college, but the bonds of childhood never weakened: Caleb enrolled at a community college near Katie’s medical school, and they had shared an apartment ever since. This was their first house. Technically it was Katie’s, but she hoped Caleb would stay for a long time.

It wasn’t unusual for either one of them to be awake for the entire night. Katie often kept irregular hours during residency, and Caleb did likewise while working on a coding problem or brainstorming with his fellow computer geeks. They had an unwritten rule to only wake the other person in case of emergency. Surely this was an emergency.

She quietly opened his door and checked to see if he was still asleep. Caleb had installed blackout shades that allowed only a dim gray light into the room. The large lump under the blankets indicated he was in residence.

Katie went to the window and pulled the shade up, hoping that the bright sunlight would wake him, and she wouldn’t have to do any more. He didn’t even flinch. Katie hesitated. She knew how uncomfortable it was to be awakened from a deep sleep. Maybe she should just leave the shade open and write a note asking him to call her.

She turned to his desk and rummaged for a pen and paper. Both items flew from her hands when a voice emanated from the bed.

“If you’re going to search my room, at least wait until I’m out.”

She spun toward him. “I’m not searching your room. I’m trying to wake you up.”

“By tiptoeing around?” He stayed buried under his blankets and talked into his pillow.

“I felt bad waking you up.”

“Not bad enough, apparently.” Caleb sat up and rubbed his face. “What time is it?”

“Almost ten.”

He swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Okay, six hours is pretty good. I assume you need me?”

Katie nodded and sat in his desk chair.

“Ellen Riley was murdered.”

“What? Well, that’s great!” He put his hand up. “Not great that she was killed, but at least you’re off the hook. Whatever hook you had yourself on, that is. You didn’t miss any signs, and you didn’t prescribe the murder weapon, and no one in your office prescribed the murder weapon.” He ticked the items off on his fingers.

“You’re right.” She did feel a huge sense of relief and felt guilty about that as well. What kind of a person is glad to hear that a murder was committed? A crazy, sick, selfish kind of person, that’s what kind.

“And you shouldn’t feel bad that you’re a little bit glad it was murder,” Caleb said. “You can find a way to feel guilty about almost anything.”

She smiled then. Having someone in your life who knew you well enough to call you out on your self-destructive thoughts was a priceless gift.

“Right again, Dr. Freud.”

Caleb stood and pulled a sweat shirt over the T-shirt and sweats he’d slept in. “Come on. You can make me some pancakes while we talk.” He headed toward the door.

She grabbed a pillow from the bed and threw it at his retreating back.

When she got to the kitchen, Caleb was already ensconced at the table and tapping away at his keyboard.

She whisked the eggs, oil, and pancake mix together with milk in her plastic pancake bowl. Caleb knew it was the pancake bowl and so she often found popcorn kernels or potato chip crumbs in it. It was his way of teasing her and pointing out her type A tendencies. Brothers.

“What will you do now?” He flipped his laptop shut and turned to face her.

The pan sizzled when Katie flicked water onto it. She scooped out some batter with a measuring cup and poured it onto the pan.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I still don’t understand how my name got onto that prescription bottle or how Ellen got the prescription in the first place.” She waited a minute and checked the pancakes—perfect. She flipped them and waited again.

“It seems strange that someone would go to the trouble of faking a prescription and then use something else entirely to actually kill her,” Caleb said.

“We’re assuming that the killer is the one who put the prescription there,” Katie said. “For all we know, Ellen sent someone to get the diazepam. Maybe she was more stressed than I realized, and she decided to take matters into her own hands. She would certainly know how to write a prescription with her career as a therapist.”

Katie put a plate of pancakes in front of Caleb. He dumped syrup on them and dug in.

“I s’pose you’re right,” he said around a mouthful.

Katie poured more batter. She couldn’t resist the smell of syrup and pancakes, even though it would be her second breakfast.

“But if she didn’t have much diazepam in her bloodstream, where did all the other pills go?”

“The whole situation is sketchy,” Caleb said.

“I still want to know how it happened. It makes me nervous to think that someone could be out there using my name to write prescriptions.” Katie flipped the pancakes and stood watching them brown.

She turned toward Caleb. “What if it wasn’t her? What if she purchased them from someone on my staff?”

“I can go back to the pharmacy with pictures of more people,” Caleb offered, “but we don’t know whether the prescription bottle had anything to do with the murder.”

Katie sat across from him and poured syrup on her stack. “What if the killer did leave the bottle there? That means the killer used my name to obtain the decoy drug. I probably know that person.”

Caleb looked up from his food. “In a town this size, it’s almost certain that you know the killer. The question is, how well?”

Katie put her fork down and pushed the plate away. The pancakes sat like a hard lump in her stomach. Caleb was right.

“I guess I’d better figure that out.”