"Goldy, what's going on?" Eileen's husky voice demanded. "Arch has been awfully worried about you, and so have I. There was an accident on the slopes? Someone died? Was it near the bistro, or further down?"

"No, it was closer to the base," I replied. "And I'm fine, thanks, there's no need to worry. I think a skier was going too fast on a closed run. He had a terrible fall."

"Arch said there was money allover the slope?"

"The man was carrying a lot of cash. It was disgusting. People were crazed, trying to grab it up."

Eileen muttered something about drunk skiers, then said she and Todd were looking forward to having Arch for another night. After the lunch rush, Jack was coming home to make them homemade spinach ravioli stuffed with pine nuts, napped with a Dijon mustard cream sauce.

With my stomach growling, I hung up. Parole for The Jerk. How was I going to research that? Not at the Killdeer Ski Resort, that much was clear. Tom still had not returned. A new hubbub emanated from the front office. Now what.? I ventured out in search of more info.

Surrounded by ski patrol members and uniformed sheriff's deputies, my husband stood by a scarred oak desk. All the law enforcement folks seemed to be talking at once.

"Hello?" I called politely. "Would it be okay for me to take off?

Tom murmured to a deputy and the deputy nodded. Then my husband turned and beckoned for me to come forward. When I joined them, Tom said, "Look, but don't touch. Please."

Perplexed, I stared down at the desktop. It was strewn with pamphlets, maps, memos, correspondence. Nothing on it looked especially unusual.

"Look at what?" I asked Tom.

With his fingertip, Tom carefully pushed back piles of paper, exposing an open greeting card. All the deputies and ski patrol folks craned down to make their own closer inspection. As a result, I couldn't read the thing.

"Wait." Tom's ocean-green eyes regarded me solemnly; he spoke deliberately. "Don't look at it yet, Miss G. I need to know precisely what Doug Portman said he had for me. Word for word."

"Well," I began. I shifted uncomfortably. "It wasn't that memorable. He said, 'I've got something for Tom in my car.' That's it. Why?"

Tom waved me forward. The crowd pulled back. As I leaned toward the opened card, Tom warned, "Don't even breathe close to it."

"What does the outside say?"

"It's a congratulations card. The outside message reads: 'Good Job!' "

Inside the card, an explosion of bright yellow stars was accompanied by the card's own greeting: You're a Star! Beside the yellow stars, where your thumbs grasp a card to open it, was something much more menacing.

Glued on both inside card edges were two perfectly round, filled pieces of plastic material. I frowned. From Med Wives 101, I recognized the plastic rounds as transdermal patches. Each was filled with a blue gelatinous substance. Patches of this type were usually used to administer pain or nausea medication through the skin, when the patient was unable to take a pill or give himself a shot. I looked more closely and saw a small, handprinted message.