Page 170 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

His eyes meet mine. “I know.”

The entry technician opens the cold-storage door. Her camera shows metal shelves lined with Magnolia shipping crates and clear plastic bins. Each bin carries a typed label.

Swamp Lily.

Marigold.

White Thread.

Stone.

The technician pans slowly, giving the recording time to capture every label.

My hand closes around Roman’s. “These are the bundle materials.”

Roman points toward the screen. “And these ingredients are separated in bulk. This is not discarded festival stock. Someone was assembling products here.”

“Mercer Transport brought material here,” I say. “Rusk delivered the finished packages. This is the place between those two steps.”

The technician swabs the worktable. She seals the sample, then uses a field strip from Dr. Cole’s kit. The strip darkens.

Tom reads the result aloud. “Presumptive match for the local GatorX carrier.”

A sweet odor feels thicker in the air, even through the distance and open air.

The camera moves to a rack of pale imitation sweetheart stones resting on wire mesh. Paper tags hang from each row.

Thirty Minutes.

Three Hours.

Delayed Response.

Recognition Loss.

I lean closer to the tablet. “They were timing the delivery.”

Wes looks at the rows. “Through the fake stones?”

“The relief charms were porous.” I think of Maribel’s bundle, the grit and the binder that survived moisture. “The drug soaked into them. A person wore the charm or handled it, and the compound absorbed slowly.”

Roman follows the logic. “That explains why Maribel felt better before she stopped recognizing Ellis.”

“The first effect was relief,” I say. “The recognition loss came later.”

The technician photographs every tag before moving to a second table.

Copied pages from the public Everlasting Pack legend cover its surface. The section describing the omega’s dangerous heat and the artifact anchoring the original pack has been underlined in red.

Beside it, someone has written notes.

To cast protection circle, use anchor during heat?

Relief before failure.

Artifact may hold recognition.

The release language is nowhere on the page. My grandmother’s warning moves through me. “They used the town’s version of the ritual,” I say.