“Oh boy, do we know what that’s like, right, Steph?” Isabelle elbowed Alexis. “Listen, we don’t want to take up any more of your time. Maybe Brandy can give us a quick tour, and we’ll be out of your way.”

“Fer sure,” Brandy insisted. “C’mon!”

They shook hands with the admissions people and followed Bouncing Brandy.

Chapter 33

Chapter 33

The war room

Charles and Fergus read the latest information to Myra and Annie who were in their suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Manhattan.

“Brewster was admitted to the hospital after suffering from convulsions and was given carbamazepine. If she had taken too much phenobarbital from her green bottles, the carbamazepine would have certainly put her in a coma if it didn’t kill her.” Charles’s voice was even. “The good news is that her CT scan found brain activity, but she was unresponsive.”

“Maybe there is some hope for her,” Myra said softly as she clutched at her pearls. “She obviously had a reaction to Steinwood’s name. Once we finish this mission, we’ll send in our own team of doctors to Mountain Hills Nursing Home.”

“Splendid idea. We’ll arrange to get permission from her sister,” Charles added.

“We have news from Kathryn and Yoko. The property is highly secured, with fences and security. They shot down Kathryn’s drone,” Fergus said.

“What? Is Kathryn okay? Yoko?” Myra was about to panic.

“They’re both okay and on their way back,” Charles said. “It seems the drone was caught on the building’s security camera, and two men in orange jumpsuits ran out of the building and shot it down. I noticed that they use generators and solar panels to keep their electric bill from being too high. Unfortunately, that was all we could get from the property itself. But Kathryn and Yoko gleaned an interesting bit of information over a piece of cherry pie.”

“Charles, please get to the point! What does pie have to do with anything?” Myra was getting impatient. She was motioning to Annie to hurry and power up her tablet.

Charles chuckled softly. “I love it when you get your dander up, old girl!”

“Charles, please!”

“Rosie, of the eponymous Rosie’s Diner, told them that she overheard two men talking one day and that one used the words ‘pill man.’ I think that’s a critical link to how these people are getting the drugs they are administering to their patients.”

Annie added her thoughts. “Connect the dots. These doctors are not really practicing medicine—they are not even licensed where they are—so they have to get the pills from somewhere. The property deed lists the owner as LLL Ltd., which is a trade name for Live-Life-Long Limited Partnership. I wonder if Dr. Corbett has the only copy of the deed.”