The board of directors. Which had been Émilie and her husband and their two friends. Were they involved? Or was this something the administrators dreamed up …
A memory slams into my head. Last winter, when Petra had been shot by an arrow, I’d sat with her in the clinic for days while she recovered. We’d talked endlessly, and one piece rises now.
It was a conversation about Émilie. About her work with Rockton and the amount of time and money the family had devoted to the town. I’d been saying that was how Rockton should be funded. If residents had money—like me—they should pay for their stay, but the town should also seek donations from wealthy former residents, the way schools do. Émilie was the perfect example of that.
“Well, I wouldn’t say ‘perfect,’” Petra said with a smile. “It’s not entirely altruism.”
“She can’t claim it as a charitable donation, though.”
“Oh, I’m sure part of it becomes a write-off. But while she’s definitely grateful for what Rockton provided…” She shrugged. “There’s guilt there, too. No one donates like big pharma.”
I must have looked confused, because she continued, “That’s where our money comes from. Profits from the drug trade.” She winked. “The legal kind.”
Her family’s money came from pharmaceuticals. We talked about that, including her own discomfort with it. Afterward, I realized she shouldn’t have told me this. It was personal information that could identify Émilie and Petra, and for what? A self-conscious joke about the guilt of earning your fortune overcharging for medicine?
I thought medicine itself had been the reason she overshared. She’d been on painkillers for her injury. It made her loopy, and she’d inadvertently revealed more than she intended. When we never spoke of it again, I hoped that meant she didn’t realize what she’d given away.
Which underestimated Petra entirely.
She knew exactly what she’d given me. If called on it, though, she could blame the pain meds.
Three days before that, she’d been lying on the ground with an arrow in her chest. We’d had no idea how deeply it had penetrated, only that she’d been shot near the heart, and she was bleeding in the snow as I knelt beside her, panicking, trying to assess the damage.
“Émilie,” she’d whispered. “The … the hostiles … Your … your theory.”
At the time, I thought she’d wanted me to tell Émilie about my theory. Clearly, Petra had been in shock, not quite making sense, her brain seizing on this meaningless bit of unfinished business as her last words.
Tell my grandmother about your hostile theory. She can help.
No, that wasn’t what she’d been saying at all, was it?
That’s where our money comes from. Profits from the drug trade. The legal kind.
She hadn’t been tell
ing me to work with Émilie. She’d been saying that my theory might be right … and her grandmother could be responsible.
Petra had been trying to give me one last gift, in case she didn’t survive. Words she couldn’t say while she lived, not when they implicated her beloved grandmother.
Don’t give up on that theory of yours.
Look into my family. Into my grandmother.
Later, she couldn’t go back and explain her meaning. But she could nudge, couldn’t she? Give me another tidbit, in case I made the connection between the hostile narcotic brews and Rockton.
If I’m right, I need to confront Petra. First, though, I need to be sure I’m making the right connections.
I turn to Dalton, who has been walking in silence while I retreated into my memories. Now he slants a look my way, one that isn’t quite convinced that I’ll share my thoughts. I take a moment, running my hand over Storm’s back as I consider how to word it. A distant shout makes me jump, but when I look up, I realize we’re only about ten minutes from Rockton.
“How much do you know about big pharma?” I ask.
His brow creases in confusion, and then his face tightens in a look I know well. Like when residents make pop-culture references. It doesn’t annoy him, even if his expression might convey annoyance. It’s pride snapping the shutters closed before anyone mocks his ignorance.
“Pharmaceutical companies,” I say quickly. “The really big corporations that manufacture prescription drugs.”
“Ah,” he says. “I know what they are. We’ve had people with that in their background.”
He relaxes. “Before Beth came, we were looking for someone with medical experience, and we had a person who’d worked for a pharmaceutical company. I made the mistake of confusing that for ‘working for a pharmacy.’ The council set me straight. That resident didn’t know anything about drugs except how to sell them. Which I thought was an odd occupation but…” He shrugs.