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better be giving me something else to go on, or you move up the suspect list to number one.”
    He was right; I had to give him something. I turned to the uniforms. “Can you two give us a moment, here?”
    One of them moved his hand to his gun, and they both looked to Warren. That alone was scary. Then Warren nodded and waved them out into the hallway.
    I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “She said they were whistle-blowers.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “She said she and Ron had discovered some kind of criminal activity, high up at Energene. They were going to blow the whistle.”
    “What kind of criminal acts?”
    I sat back. “She didn’t say.”
    He smirked. “She didn’t say, huh?”
    “The gunmen showed up before she could tell me.”
    “So why’d they come to you?”
    I thought about it a second. “She said they were scared out of their minds and didn’t think they could trust the usual channels. They knew I had some history with this stuff, hoped they could trust me.”
    He laughed. “They must’ve been out of their minds, all right. Sounds like bullshit, you know that, right?”
    I shrugged. I couldn’t argue with that.
    “She tell you anything else?”
    I’d given him enough to look at Bourden and Energene. I didn’t want to get him any closer until I had a better idea of what was going on.
    I shook my head. “No.”
    *   *   *
    On my way back to the Roundhouse, I called Nola at work.
    “Busy?”
    “A little.” I could hear people talking in the background. “What’s up?”
    “Just had a visit from Miriam Hartwell.”
    “What?! Hold on.” The background noise fell away as she moved somewhere quieter. “Are you serious? Did she confess?”
    I laughed wearily. “Not exactly.”
    I told her the highlights of what Miriam had told me, about Ron’s suspicions that people were getting sick from Energene’s soy.
    “So she thinks someone from Energene shot Ron?”
    “That’s what she thinks. Have you ever heard of anything like that? People having allergic reactions to genetically modified stuff like that?”
    “Sure. That was one of the big early concerns about GMOs. Some people worry that if you’re allergic to spinach, you could unknowingly eat broccoli spliced with spinach genes and have a reaction. Some people even think there’s a link between genetically engineered foods and increases in food allergies overall.”
    “Really?”
    “One of the first GMO crops, StarLink corn, was only approved for animal consumption because there were concerns it might be allergenic. When it got accidently mixed into the human food supply, some people did have reactions. There were huge recalls and lawsuits, and eventually, they pulled it all from the market. It’s controversial, though. I don’t know if any of it has ever been proven, but there’s definitely science to suggest it’s possible.”
    “Huh.” Ron’s theory was at least plausible.
    “Okay, I have to get back to work. So did they charge her? Does she have a lawyer?”
    I laughed.
    “What?”
    “No, they didn’t.” I didn’t want to tell her about the shooting. “She took off again.”

 
    21
    Lieutenant Suarez looked up when I walked into his office, but he didn’t say anything, instead just motioning for me to sit in one of the two chairs facing his desk. He was staring at his computer screen and tapping at the keyboard, but I got the distinct impression that he was doing it randomly. He left me sitting there squirming for two minutes.
    His phone buzzed, and he picked it up. “Yes?… All right, send them up.” He let out a sigh as he put the phone down, waiting a few more moments before looking at me.
    “Carrick,” he said, as if my name was rich with many meanings, and none of them were good. “Warren got me up to speed. So this is you walking away from it?”
    “I did walk away from it. I was literally walking away from it when it drove up next to me and asked me to get in the car. What was I going to