The Governor of Texas Marcus Deane disconnected his fourteenth phone call in three hours as the limo he rode in ate up the miles to Finley Creek. This call from his cousin Elliot had a positive slant to it, thankfully. Most of his calls didn’t. Elliot headed up the Finley Creek Texas State Police post; he’d at least had good news.

Elliot’s people with the TSP had been able to stop their biggest shipment yet of a new street drug named Opal Joy from being distributed—in the nick of time. One of Elliot’s deputies had been injured stopping the gang responsible for passing it to the dealers, but the woman would make a full recovery.

The drug made from cooking Solpalmitraln—an experimental drug that as of yet could only be found in Finley Creek County—had already proven deadly enough to take thirty-six lives.

The raid by the TSP would go a long way to helping the Experimental & Prescription Drug Supply Abuse Act he was supporting make its way to his desk.

Opal Joy could only be manufactured from Solpalmitraln, a variety of cold medicines, household cleaners, and sugar cooked together—along with forty-four percent meth.

Solpalmitraln was only found at Finley Creek General Hospital, and had nearly cost four of the people Marc loved their lives.

No one threatened his family. No one.

Greed. Greed had nearly taken both his younger brothers and the women they loved from this world.

Opal Joy had already taken more than eighty lives, over all. In little over a year. It was dangerous. Far worse than any other drug out there that he knew about. If even a single proportion of its chemical makeup was screwed up, people could potentially OD. And it wasn’t an easy death.

Forty-two of those who had overdosed since Opal Joy hit the streets just after Easter of the year before had been teenagers. The youngest user arrested had been eleven. He’d gotten it from his fifteen-year-old brother. Two days after the arrest, the elder brother had shot up too much, and ended up having a life-altering stroke. The parents’ world had been destroyed.

Eighty lives lost, twenty people arrested with distributing it, and two hundred sixteen arrested using it. In a single year.

Solpalmitraln, which comprised fifteen percent of Opal Joy’s chemical makeup, had been part of an experimental drug trial at Finley Creek General Hospital. Problems had been found with the drug early on, but been suppressed. Until Marc’s new sister-in-law had stumbled onto those problems, and nearly died because of it.

Marc’s brother Rafe worked at FCGH as the Chief-of-Medicine. His brother Travis’ wife worked in the trauma surgery department, and Rafe’s fiancée was an ER nurse. They were lucky to survive the horror that drug had brought into their lives.

Marc had vowed in the hospital room the day they’d almost lost both Rafe and Jillian that he was going to put a stop to Solpalmitraln—which Rafe had told him had problems of its own—and Opal Joy completely.

He hadn’t even been in Rafe or Jillian’s room when he’d made that vow. It had been Jillian’s best friend’s room. Seeing her so vulnerable and helpless, under the effects of a drug she’d had no choice in taking had lit a fire under his ass. It had been close—for her, Rafe, and Jillian.

Marc hadn’t forgotten how Ariella had looked that day. So pale. So vulnerable.

It had shot straight through him; reminding him of how helpless he had felt the day he’d lost his wife and had been unable to do a damned thing.

In the long weeks since that day, Marc had created a four-man task force of men he trusted. Elliot, Rafe—who’d been on medical leave for a month at first, and two TSP officers. Those four men had been able to track twenty-four missing boxes of Solpalmitraln. Half of what were still out there unaccounted for. Since it took as little as two ounces of Solpalmitraln to manufacture four pounds of powdered Opal Joy, every single box counted.

There were more boxes out there. Rafe was trying to stop it at its source. Claireson Pharm, the drug company responsible for creating Solpalmitraln in the first place, had managed to convince Finley Creek County Hospital to trial the drug instead of FCGH. The damned company was relentless. And he wasn’t entirely certain they used legitimate methods to get their products into the local hospitals.

He was almost certain of it. He just needed to find the proof.

The lure of cash for the struggling FCCH—and the promise of a bailout from Claireson Pharm—had been too good for the smaller hospital to pass up. Hell, Marc even understood.

The county-funded FCCH was constantly in the red. Claireson had promised big incentives. Incentives they’d taken from Finley Creek General. Economics trumped everything Marc—as well as Rafe and Lacy—had worked for since the day Jillian, Rafe, and Ariella had almost been killed by a random Claireson delivery man named Don.

They had his first name. That was it. He wasn’t anywhere in the Claireson Pharm employment rolls. No one knew who the man who had burned in the fire that day actually was.

Since then more than fourteen times as much Opal Joy had hit the streets.

The Texas Board of Pharmacy was involved, the Texas State Police and the Texas Rangers—all were working to find the missing Solpalmitraln.

Marc didn’t hold out much hope that it would be found.

All they could do was work to contain what came next.

First, keep it from escaping Finley Creek County, and second, eradicate it completely.

Today was a good step toward that.

Tomorrow, he’d head back home to Finley Creek. Congratulate the TSP on the local news, push the need for better controls on experimental drugs in the state, and talk to Elliot and Detectives Erickson and Marlowe in person.

And pick up his kids. They’d stayed for the weekend with his brother Travis and Lacy. He’d missed them, but he had needed the break. Katie and Isaac were notorious little troublemakers who routinely wrought havoc on the Governor’s Mansion. Damn, he missed them. He didn’t get nearly as much time with them as he’d like. It was a constant battle to get the time he did.

Marc worked as the limo covered the long miles between Dallas and Finley Creek.

Until the limo slowed unexpectedly. His bodyguard Warner, rolled down the partition between them. “Seems there’s been an incident up ahead, sir.”

“What kind, Rick?”

“I’m not certain, sir. But there’s a Lucas Tech limo involved. And the Finley Creek TSP.”

“Stop the car. I’m going to go take a look around.” Anyone from Lucas Tech in Texas was most likely someone he knew. Knew well enough that he immediately wanted to help. Not just because of obligation—it very well could be some of his family out there.

“Sir…” The driver and the bodyguard riding in the passenger seat protested together. But Marc’s mind was made up.

He had every right to see if he could help.