“When you were at the spa, I went into your room and took samples of your drugs, vitamins, or whatever it was that Dr. Marcus was calling them.” And there was the rest of it.

Charlotte was taken aback, but not in a disturbed way. “My goodness. Myra, why didn’t you just ask me?”

“Because that was before you told me what was going on, and I know this is going to sound totally ridiculous, but I didn’t want to pry! Well, at least not to your face!” Myra and Charlotte howled with laughter at the contradiction. Then the dogs joined in. It was a cacophony of yaps and laughs.

The room vibrated from the barking of the dogs responding to the arrival of Fergus and Annie.

“What have we here?” Fergus reached into his pockets to reward each dog with a treat. Mostly to quiet them down. “What is so hilariously funny?”

“Care to share?” Annie asked, chuckling.

Myra inhaled slightly. “I was trying to explain to Charlotte that I stole some of her meds because I didn’t want to pry”—she paused—“to her face!”

Hysterics broke out again.

“That is a bit ironic, wouldn’t you say?” Fergus added.

“Yes.” Myra caught her breath. “We were going to wait for you to get here, but Charlotte overheard me and Charles talking about plans and asked us what it was about. And here we are.”

“How far into the explanation have you gotten?” Annie inquired.

“That was it. You walked in just as I was about to explain.” Myra gestured for everyone to sit down. “Let’s continue.”

“Charlotte, while the humorous aspect of this has come to light, there is a much more serious issue at hand.” Charles needed to steer the conversation to the nuts and bolts of the scheme the doctors had concocted. “We had the pills tested, and what we discovered is very disturbing.”

Charlotte began to go pale. “What . . . What do you mean?”

“Some of them were relatively harmless herbs, but every other bottle in the sequence contained low dosages of a drug that works like phenobarbital. It’s a narcotic. Probably why you were getting foggy, as you said. The next day you would take a low dose of Adderall, which is in the same class of drugs as cocaine.”

Charlotte started to tremble. Myra grabbed a cashmere throw from the atrium and wrapped it around her friend. “There. There. It’s all going to be all right. You are perfectly fine now.”

Tears started streaming down Charlotte’s face. “They could have killed me,” she whispered. “No wonder I was feeling highs and lows. They told me that it takes several months for our bodies to adjust and things would be level after six months. That’s when they’re supposed to reevaluate you.” She put her hands to her face. “I’ve been such a fool!”