Page 60 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

Scarlet steps closer, the sleeve of her sweater brushing my forearm as she studies the photographs. I look at the images.

Then Wes pulls a second folder from the evidence box and spreads another set of photographs across the table: crime scene stills, lab reports, and satellite images, all from the GatorX case.

Scarlet’s expression sharpens as she studies the files. “Those are from your original investigation.”

“Known distribution sites,” Wes says.

I pin the images beside the marsh maps: an abandoned fish processing facility outside Baton Rouge, a coastal site in Georgia, a derelict marina in south Alabama. Every location sits near water.

Scarlet sees the connection quickly. “These are all wetlands.”

“Wetlands that have hidden transport channels. All are areas difficult to monitor from standard road surveillance,” Wes says.

I put the marina image next to the old springs map. The similarities become obvious side by side. They all have remote water access, limited visibility, dock structures, and ritual markings near shoreline approach points.

Scarlet tenses. “You’ve seen those marks by the dock before. You think they’ve been using the old rituals before Sweetheart Haven?”

“No,” Wes says. “I think whoever built the Southern distribution pattern may have borrowed from something they learned here.”

Rain rattles hard against the windows.

Scarlet turns toward the bookshelf near the hallway. “Wait.”

She disappears briefly and returns carrying one of her grandmother’s older journals and several folded papers yellowed with age. “My grandmother tracked instability episodes long before the town acknowledged them publicly.”

She spreads hand-drawn marsh maps and papers with dates, names, and documented bond incidents beside the GatorX files. Then she pins one near the center. It’s a faded diagram circling the old springs in red ink. Beside it, a list of bond fractures dating back decades, several names carrying small white ribbon symbols beside them. Beneath the list, in her grandmother’s handwriting, reads Patterns strongest following release gatherings.

“That symbol,” I say.

Scarlet nods. “I thought it was shorthand for failed bonds.”

“It matches the ribbon placement at the springs,” Wes says.

She crosses toward another stack of notebooks near the couch and returns with several loose pages that were tucked between them. “I forgot these were in here.” She smooths them flat. “She tracked emotional distortion too.”

Wes looks up sharply. “Distortion?”

The handwriting on these pages is tighter, more hurried. They detail heightened abandonment responses, aggression spikes during vulnerability, and bond confusion in people already suffering severe bond deterioration around the time release gatherings were held. Near the bottom margin, a date is circled heavily.

“Those aren’t random emotional reactions,” I say.

“No,” Scarlet murmurs. “They’re a symptom pattern.”

Wes circles part of the marsh map with a red marker. “Here’s what your grandmother’s maps miss.”

Scarlet blinks at him. “Excuse you.”

“Look at the access routes.”

I lean in. He’s right; the springs, the abandoned river dock east of town, the old sweetheart paths, they’re all connected through narrow marsh channels hidden from the main roads but are fully accessible by water. It’s the same transport logic as every other GatorX site.

Scarlet stares at the map. “That would let somebody move materials without passing through town.”

“And it matches the distribution pattern from the other cases,” Wes says. “I’m thinking that whoever developed the drug either based it on compounds already tied to instability here or discovered those compounds while studying the original rites.”

I pin one of the lab reports beneath her grandmother’s journal pages. “The residue from the springs overlaps chemically with compounds used in GatorX processing.”

Nobody likes that conclusion, which probably means we’re getting closer.