“Don’t you see, Ben?” I smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “It’s exactly because my husband’s a cop that we’re safe. I can read his reports, check his notes, lead him away from us. Besides, no one would ever expect a doctor to be involved in an opioid prescription ring, let alone a cop’s wife.”

“What about the PDMP?”

The Prescription Drug Monitoring Program tracked controlled-substance prescriptions to make sure patients weren’t getting numerous scripts from different doctors. But a lot of practices hadn’t started using it yet, mostly because it was cumbersome and nobody had been trained to use it.

“It’s informational, not regulatory,” I said. “Besides, the prescriptions I’m giving you are from other doctors. Nobody will trace any of this back to us. If anybody gets in trouble, it’ll be them.”

Ben looked at Gabe. He smiled slowly, looking like a fox that had caught a hen. My brother was a lot of things, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew when opportunity was knocking.

“Fine. Let’s meet at that old warehouse next Tuesday night. Midnight. You in, Gabe?”

Gabe flashed his dimples and shrugged, looking for all the world like we were talking about what flavor of syrup to have on our pancakes. “Sure. Why not?” he drawled.

I handed Ben a stack of signed prescriptions, but he would only take a dozen. I pulled a scrap of paper from my back pocket and gave him that too.

“What’s this?”

“A friend of mine. She needs oxy. I need you to deliver it.”

Ben’s lips curled. “I’m not your fucking delivery boy.”

I leaned in closer.

“No, you’re a distributor,” I hissed. “So distribute. Besides, I bet you already have her details in that notebook there.” I nodded at a red notebook I’d spotted in the console.

Ben scowled, and I knew I’d guessed correctly.

“Leave them in the birdhouse on the front porch,” I told him. “She said she had a weekly supply being left there, but none turned up this week.”

Ben snatched the scrap of paper from me. “I can’t do it this week.”

“Then give me some. I’ll take them to her.”

Ben turned and murmured something to somebody in the back. A few moments later, he handed me a small baggie of white pills.

A car pulled into the parking stall in front of us. A man and woman got out with a little girl. The man said something that made the woman laugh as she lifted the little girl onto her hip. They looked like a billboard for the traditional, perfect family. Happy. Normal.

But I knew how easy it was to hide the darker side of yourself from others, even those you loved. To hide fear and sadness, anger and hostility. The mask was easy. It was honesty, openness, and trust that were truly difficult to manage.