Max had been right on the money.

The three sheds in the back of the Johnsons’ property held a sophisticated methamphetamine lab. After a quick glance inside, Taylor pulled back and got the warrant amended, called in the experts from the Narcotics Unit to come and take the lab apart. Meth labs were tricky, dangerous territory for those who didn’t know what they were doing—and not much better for those who did. She glanced into all three sheds carefully. Two held all the tubes and barrels she recognized, all flammable, with box after empty box of pseudoephedrine thrown into the overflowing trash cans. The last shed was equipped as a chemistry lab. For cooking up batches of dosed Ecstasy, perhaps? She put a priority rush on everything.

Mr. Johnson had said his son was a chemical engineer. He obviously wasn’t too soft in the head if he could still cook meth.

She went back to the house. The commotion had Mr. Johnson upset—McKenzie was trying to get him calmed down. Taylor caught his eye and signaled for him to come join her.

A few moments later, they were standing on the porch of the Johnson house.

“Meth lab in the back,” she said. “Has he given anything more on Barent?”

“Either he’s a twisted old man and a brilliant liar, or he really does turn the other cheek.”

“Probably a bit of both. Marcus find anything?”

“Yeah. You should probably go on up there. I’ll keep Mr. Johnson from getting in the way. We’re going to be late for Ariadne.”

Two large, white vans were pulling into the driveway. The drug boys were here. Taylor hoped they didn’t all get blown up.

“Lincoln can handle her for the time being. I’m willing to bet money that this is the source of our tainted drugs. The third shed looks like a chemistry lab. I’ll bet that’s where the Ecstasy came from.”

“That would be a nice coup, wouldn’t it?” He smiled at her, and she smiled back.

“But why in the world would he turn himself in, knowing we’d come up here and find all this?”

“Honestly, I think the man is in a bad way. From what his father tells me, he’s had a terrible time since he got back from the war. Apparently, he was the sole survivor of a tank explosion—the tank got hit by a SCUD missile. They were providing cover for his unit and it all went to smash. He mustered out after the war, but he’s never been the same since that event. He went steadily downhill from there. Gulf War syndrome is tricky—they don’t know if it’s caused by something that was in the air over there, a bacterial infection, heavy metals, chemical weapons or what. It can manifest physically or emotionally.

“If he was simply unstable to start with, the loss of his comrades could be the precipitating event. He’s so far into the vampire world now that I doubt anything could pull him free. He must have had a fit of conscience, knowing he sold the drugs that killed those kids. He could have wanted to be a part of it all. I don’t know. I’ll have to get his VA records pulled and talk to his treatment doctors there to get a full picture.”

“So where is his tie to our suspects?”

“That’s what we have to find out. Juri Edvin got his drugs from somewhere.”

“Possibly Barent? They run in the same crowd, most likely, if they’re both into the vampire scene. It can’t be that expansive here in Nashville.”

“Probably. You’d be surprised at just how pervasive these countercultures are.”

“Okay. I’m going to go see what Marcus has, and then we can start heading back into town.”

She went inside through the kitchen to the foyer. She took the stairs to the second floor two at a time. She could hear Marcus, followed his voice down a long hall to the third bedroom on the right. She turned in and stopped dead.

The room was draped in black-and-red velvet, with photographs of wide, gaping mouths, fangs dripping with blood, throats thrown open in a scream, every few inches. The effect was startling. She felt like she was about to be bitten, eaten, from every corner. A huge canopied tester bed—probably brass once, but painted black—with black sheets and pillows, stood in the center of the maelstrom of mouths. She risked a quick glance under the canopy—yes, more mouths there.

The room smelled like old things, rotting blood and moldy leaves, overlaid with some sort of sickly sweet incense. Taylor breathed through her mouth, looking around.

Marcus was sitting at a desk that was covered in a shaggy black fur throw, the computer on and running.

“This is…interesting,” she said, chills running up and down her spine. “It stinks in here.”

“No kidding. I feel like I need a shower, and I haven’t touched anything but the keyboard. I’ve got the creeps sitting in here. We should just take the computer with us—it’s loaded with information. Looks like Barry is a first-class drug dealer. He keeps transactional analyses of what’s working and what isn’t, listings of buyers and resellers. And lots of vampire shit.”

“Did you see any familiar names on that list?”

“Yep. Juri Edvin’s on there. So’s Susan Norwood, though they both go by their nicknames, Thorn and Ember.”

“Bingo,” Taylor said. “That should be enough to rearrest Susan Norwood, right?”

“We’ll have to prove that Susan Norwood and Ember are one and the same, but yeah, there’s enough here to send her away for a long time.”

“Excellent. That’s easy enough—the Edvins only know her as Ember. They should be able to ID her with no problem. Is Barent making all of his own drugs, or is he buying, too? It would be nice to give the Specialized Investigative Unit a cut of this.”

“I can’t tell that. This is just what he’s selling and to whom. I’ve already called Gerald Sayers—they’re waiting for us. He wanted in.”

“Great. This is right up his alley. Okay, grab the computer. Do we need to amend the warrant to include anything else?”

“No. I’ve already called Tim Davis, asked him to ride on up here and do a search. He can bag and tag anything else that we need. I think we need to get back and get to work on this. We’re awfully close.”

He flashed her a grin, looking younger than his years, and she felt herself grinning back. A good morning, all in all.