Caden shook his head. “No, nothing like that. Elliott Bancroft is one of the detectives on the Brianne Davis case. The friend, Mrs. Nelson, is out of surgery and holding her own for now, but she hasn’t come to yet. Here’s the interesting thing, though. The gun was registered to Brianne, and initial findings are showing that she was killed by a self-inflicted gunshot—and while Wilmont had residue on his hands, it was a very small amount and none on his clothing. Which could be accounted for by the fact that he picked the gun up after it was discharged . . .”

“Which means he might be scum, but not necessarily a murderer,” Gavin said.

“Exactly. There’s no way to prove he fired the weapon, and the evidence pretty much says he didn’t.”

“So,” Gavin said, “all of his protests about not shooting anyone could be true.”

“Could be,” Caden said. “Here’s the other thing. They found traces of some drug in his system.”

“Pain meds, right?” Gavin asked. “We know he took two of Brianne’s pills.”

“No. No traces of any narcotic. This is something else, but he swears all he took were the two pills from Brianne’s bottle.”

Gavin frowned. “So he’s lying.”

“Maybe.”

“Okay, going on the assumption that he’s not lying, what’s the other drug they found?”

“They’re trying to figure that out. They’ve ruled out the usual. Elliott said this one is something the lab says they’ve never seen before. They’re trying to break down the components of it as we speak.”

Gavin frowned. “Weird.”

“No kidding.”

“What about our guy Max at the hospital?” Gavin asked.

“Nothing yet. Which is also weird. Elliott said there’s no worker there named Max.”

“No Maxwell? Maximillian?”

“Apparently not. I’m tempted to ask Annie to work her magic and find him. I don’t think either detective would mind as long as he was located.”

“Good idea,” Gavin said. “Now, back to Brianne. If she shot herself, who shot the friend? Do we have an attempted murder-suicide here?”

Caden ran a hand over his cheek. “They’re not sure. The big hope is that Mrs. Nelson will wake up soon and tell us what really happened.”

“Us?” Asher asked.

Caden grimaced. “Okay, them. Sorry. Habit. I don’t mean to treat it like it’s my case, but I can’t help it.”

Gavin shook his head. “If they’re keeping you in the loop, then that’s a huge plus.”

“Tell me about it. They’re great and I let them know how much I appreciated it.”

Gavin’s phone pinged and he let out a slow breath. “Finally,” he murmured.

“What is it?”

“I have a friend who’s got a friend who got me some hospital security footage of the night Sarah was ill and wandering the halls.”

“How’d you do that?”