Page 32 of So Wicked

“And you have a shirtless picture of yourself in whale trunks instead of a picture of him as your screensaver?”

“Can we get past the damned trunks? Don’t you have a boyfriend?”

“Did I say I was admiring the picture?”

Slade rolled his eyes. “All right. Ha ha ha. Forget the screensaver.”

He turned it around and showed Faith a list of names. Faith immediately recognized Dr. Rachel Summers, Dr. Lisa Patel, and Dr. Mark Chen.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a guest list for the Great Lakes Veterinary Conference last year. All three of our victims were on the list.”

Faith grinned. “This is awesome, Slade!”

“You know what’s even more awesome?”

“What?”

He reached around the screen and tapped the tab key. The list became much smaller. It now contained only four names: the three victims and a Dr. Sarah Foster. Foster’s name was struck through with a note to the right that said DECLINED.

“Ooh,” Faith said. “What am I looking at here?”

“This is a list of members of the conference’s panel on vaccinations. You’ll notice that our three victims remained onthe panel. You’ll also notice that Dr. Sarah Foster didnotremain on the panel.”

“I do indeed notice that. She declined to participate?”

“That’s the official story, but when I called the conference organizers, they gave me another story.”

“Do tell.”

“Well, it took a little digging, but it turns out that Dr. Foster was caught engaging in ‘unethical behavior’ and was asked to leave the panel.”

“What sort of unethical behavior?”

“They didn’t say. They claim to not have records. I can push on that if I need to, but I let it go for the moment because they volunteered a piece of information that I think is more valuable.”

“What’s that?”

“Guess who asked Dr. Foster to resign from the panel?”

Faith’s grin widened. “Would it happen to have been our victims?”

“Just one of them. Dr. Mark Chen. I did a little digging, though, and learned that Dr. Chen was a business partner of Rachel Summers at the time.”

“You don’t say.”

“I do. Dr. Patel’s the odd woman out, but she was part of the panel, so it’s not much of a stretch to believe that Foster just had it in for everyone on the panel.”

“That is very intriguing, Detective. Do we perhaps have contact information for Dr. Foster?”

Slade frowned in mock offense. “Come on, Special Agent. This isn’t my first day on the job. I have her home address, her work address, and the address of the shelter she volunteers at. I took the liberty of calling her work and learning that she is out of the office on Thursdays. I’ll bet money she’s at the shelter today.”

"Go ahead and bet," Faith said, downing the rest of her coffee. "But send officers to her house just in case we're wrong. Good work, Detective."

Slade puffed his chest out like a kid who won a gold medal at a science fair. “Thank you, Special Agent.”

“Come on, Turk,” Faith said. “We have another lead.”

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