Page 110 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

Maribel shakes her head. “He smells like him. He looks like him. The bond says no.”

Scarlet’s hand finds mine again. I close my fingers around hers while Wes lowers his voice.

“Have you used GatorX before?”

Grant recoils. “No. We don’t touch that.”

“We’re tracing exposure, not accusing you,” I say. “Walk us through everything you used after you arrived.”

Ellis points toward the table. “The bundle. A vendor said it would help with early bond strain. We’re newly courted, and Mari has been nervous about the ceremony. When the Love Stone disappeared, she worried the trip had been ruined.”

Scarlet studies the welcome basket. “How did you use it?”

Maribel keeps one hand wrapped around the doorframe. “The card said to put the flowers beneath my pillow and breathe through the relief prayer.” Her voice frays as she continues. “It worked at first.”

Wes focuses on her with the patience he uses when every detail matters. “Tell me what changed.”

“For a few hours, everything felt quiet.” Tears spill down her cheeks. “Then Ellis touched my hand, and the bond rejected him. I know his face. I know his scent. Inside, he feels like a stranger. The bond won’t hold.”

Grant closes his eyes.

Scarlet moves forward. Wes follows one pace but stops when she glances back.

“I’m coming closer,” Scarlet tells Maribel. “I’ll stay over here unless you ask for more.”

Maribel nods.

Scarlet crosses the room with measured steps, her skirt brushing her boots and her cardigan sleeves pulled over her palms. There is no armor now. She stops several feet from the doorway. “Fear changed the meaning of everything for me yesterday. Help sounded like control. Care sounded like blame. I could recognize the people in front of me and still mistrust what they said.”

“I don’t understand.” Maribel watches her with desperate attention. “What helped?”

“Choice,” Scarlet says. Her gaze moves to Wes, then to me, and she doesn’t look away from what the answer reveals. “They gave me room to decide what I could handle. They reminded me of what I knew before fear took over.”

Wes’s steady cedar scent warms the room.

I look at Ellis. “Give her one memory that belongs only to the two of you.”

Ellis swallows. “You hate when I eat orange marmalade on my toast because your grandmother called it sunshine jam and made you eat it whenever you were sick.”

A wet laugh escapes Maribel, and she breaks into a sob.

Scarlet’s voice softens. “Stay with that memory. Let it be true, even while the bond feels wrong.”

Grant looks at Wes. “Can we fix this?”

Wes doesn’t offer comfort he can’t guarantee. “The medic can help reduce the exposure and monitor her symptoms. Remove the bundle and anything stored with it. Keep contact at the level she chooses. If she wants touch, familiar scents and a steady purr may help her regulate. Let her nest if she wants to, and use memories she trusts to help her orient while we work out what happened.”

Tom clears his throat. “We’ll collect the basket, bundle, card, and packaging after you’ve taken a sample.”

I pull gloves from my bag. The bundle is put together with the kind of care that makes it look trustworthy. A dried swamp lily curls around marigold stems, white thread, and a cheap stone charm. The card carries the same faint chemical sweetness we found in the crate behind the old post office, sitting beneath the sour flower rot, like something that doesn’t belong there.

Scarlet watches my face. “Same odor?”

“Yes.”

Wes comes beside me and studies the bundle without touching it. “The booth materials, the flyer, and this bundle are starting to form a drug delivery system. We test for the compound, but the pattern is no longer random.”

Scarlet nods. “The vendor sold relief to people already afraid of bond failure. Maribel used it and felt better briefly, then became worse.”