The Unquiet

thirty before I sent the boys home.”
    “What are you working on?”
    “A serum to counteract deep and chronic addiction and substance abuse. It will treat the craving on both a physical and psychological level, quiet the violence of that need during withdrawal, and after.”
    “There are medications for that already.”
    “Medications that basically substitute one chemical for another. I’m attempting to work with natural ingredients that will trigger the chemistry in the brain and the body to return to the levels prior to the addiction. A rebalancing, we’ll say.”
    He rubbed at his temple again, the same two fingers on the same spot in the same circular motion. “Is there anything I—we—can do for them now? Contacting family? I can’t remember the details of that, but Arianna will have it. With the burial, memorial? Anything?”
    “We’ll be notifying next of kin. I’ll need to talk to Ms. Whitwood, and as soon as possible. First I’d like to speak with your other assistants.”
    “Interns,” he corrected automatically. “Marti Frank and Ken Dickerson are here on intern scholarships. Sorry, it hardly matters. I want to tell Ari in person, face-to-face, not over the’link. We lose patients, Lieutenant. To their addiction, to the violence it often generates, or the physical abuse it causes. But this? This comes very, very hard.”
    “Is she in the Center now?”
    “Yes, she should be in session now. I’ll go up, tell her.”
    “If you’d tell her I want to speak with her before we leave, I’d appreciate it.”
    “Yes. I’m sorry to meet you this way. I’m just . . . sorry.”
    Eve let him go, and decided to take the redhead first.
    “You got the picture,” Eve began.
    “Yeah. It’s a really ugly picture.”
    “Were you close to the victims?”
    “I hate that word. Victim.” She folded her hands together on her lap as if she wanted to keep them still. “It’s overused.”
    “It is in my line of work.”
    “Yeah, I guess. Not especially close. I liked them. Jen in particular. She was just so damn likable.”
    “You work in the lab. Do you get friendly with a lot of people in the program?”
    “There’s interaction. It’s part of it. There’s a communal eatery on-site, so a lot of times staff’s eating with patients and recoverings. When work allows, we’re encouraged to attend sessions or lectures. It’s more than lab work, especially for Justin. It’s our whole life, and understanding who and what we’re working for. You’re going to find out,” she added. “I know how it works. My brother was a junkie, favored Jazz laced with Zeus. He favored it a lot right up until he OD’d. He made my life, my mother’s, my father’s, hell. I hate the junk, and it took a long time before I stopped hating the junkie.”
    She glanced over her shoulder. “With Ken it was his father. Came into it late, you could say. Started with prescriptions after a car accident, escalated until he’d destroyed his marriage, did time for smacking his wife and Ken around, ended up on the street where he stabbed somebody to death for twelve dollars and a wrist unit. He died in prison when somebody returned the favor.”
    Eve connected the dots. “And Pachai?”
    “Childhood friend. They were tight, like brothers. The friend played around with recreationals, liked them too much until he was flying on Ups and Bounce, crashing on Chill. Then he was just one more OD when Pachai found him dead—two days dead. Justin wants people invested who work for him, people who know all the sides, all the layers, and have a reason to be here.”
    “He wants it personal.”
    “Yeah, and it is.” She looked over at Pachai, then down at her folded hands. “This happening to Jen and the others, people who had a real shot at redemption, who really put it all into kicking it? That’s personal, too. For all of us.”
    “Understood. If you know how it works, you know I have to ask. Where were you between one and four this morning?”
    “In bed.” Her gaze tracked up, met Eve’s. “Alone and asleep. I had a date, but it didn’t go anywhere. I got home just after midnight. I’ve got a roommate, but she had a date and it did go somewhere. She didn’t get home until six this morning.”
    She gave Eve a narrow look. “Anyway, from what you said, how they were killed? The three of us would’ve had to go batshit together, break in to that place, and kill them like a pack.”
    “That’s a thought, isn’t