Free Jamie Garrett - Riley Reid 01 - Jesters and Junkies by Jamie Garrett

van in front of us. They were preparing to enter the facility.
    “Not going to happen,” I replied defiantly.
    “Yes, it is. Look, you’re lucky to be here. Chief Owens almost fired me when I requested to let you ride along. Hell, the only reason he didn’t was the fact that I’m his only detective. And the grumpy old bastard is too lazy to hire another. So you stay here. This isn’t negotiable.” Sam wasn’t in the mood for debate. I’d be lying if I didn’t at least mention that seeing him with such a take-charge attitude was sort of hot. I squashed that thought as quickly as it arrived. I needed to focus.
    “Fine.”
    Sam looked at me as if I was growing horns out of my head. He was anticipating an argument. “Good.” My serious detective got out of the car.
    I watched as Sam and the SWAT team entered Fresh Horizons. A short trail of Stone Harbor police followed closely behind. Through the flashing blue and red lights, I looked on as chaos broke out. There was screaming and hollering. Several Fresh Horizons employees and patients were dragged out in handcuffs. In all, I sat there and watched for almost an hour.
    My cell phone rang. I looked to see who was calling. It was Sam.
    “Yeah?” I answered.
    “You probably want to come in here. There are some things you might want to see.” Sam then hung up.
    I got out of Sam’s car and waltzed into the facility. People were lined up against one of the walls in the main lobby with their hands zip-tied behind their backs. An officer with his German Shepherd was scouring the room, sniffing at everything. The young front desk lady whom I had met when I was last there sobbed as a cop patted her down.
    “Over here.” Sam was standing in one of the nearby hallways. Next to him was the large security guard I also met in my last visit, Reggie.
    “Hey, Reggie. How’s it going?” I asked mockingly.
    “Notice anything interesting about your friend?” asked Sam.
    I looked Reggie up and down. “Should I?”
    Sam turned to Reggie. “Lift up your pant leg.”
    Reggie didn’t comply.
    “Lift up you damn pant leg or I’ll do it for you.”
    Reggie lifted up his pant leg. He had a cast on his shin.  It happened to be in the same area as the guy I had shot in my offices.
    “And how’d you get that?”
    Reggie didn’t say anything.
    “There’s more.”
    I followed Sam down to the cafeteria and into the kitchen. There was a large walk-in fridge near the back. We went into it. On the floor there were bricks of heroin and weed wrapped in layers of plastic wrap.
    “We found them inside of boxes labeled ‘chicken’. There are fifteen kilos of black tar heroin and twice as many of medical grade marijuana. And I’m willing to bet that those are just the tip of the iceberg.” Sam was very proud of the work he and his men had done. And he had every reason to be.
    “So they were running drugs out of here?” It felt good to have my suspicions verified. But as great as it was to play a role in taking the drug ring down, it didn’t get me any closer to finding out what happened to Dennis Clark.
    “Yup, they were running one hell of a racket. Fresh Horizons supplied the drugs then treated the addicts they created. I’d almost admire it if it weren’t so despicable.” Sam picked up one of the bricks of heroin. “This isn’t all I got to show you.”
    Sam and I left the walk-in fridge. We headed towards a pantry. He opened it up and went in. The detective came out with a large plastic bag. After dumping its contents on the counter, I could hardly believe my eyes. It was too good to be true. Clues were never just laid out in front of you like that.
    The counter was covered with little baggies. All of them had a purple jester printed on them. Fresh Horizons provided the same drugs that Dennis overdosed on. Now all I needed was to find out if and why he was killed by someone out of the facility. After their attacks on me, it was clear that they had no problem getting