"What is it?" Brian asked, coming along with the rest of the Bob-Whites to get a closer look.
Jim reached to push the thick foliage away where Trixie was standing, but she put a restraining hand on his arm. "Be careful, Jim, don't touch it."
She carefully pushed the leaves away and stepped aside to give her friends a better look. A collective gasp weaved through the group.
An open box of syringes about the size of a shoe box lay at their feet, each syringe looking used and seemingly empty, with traces of clear, bluish liquid in them.
"Oh my!" exclaimed Di, backing away.
"Oh my is right," said Jim, crouching down to inspect the box of needles.
"Careful, Jim," Brian warned. "You don't know what's in them or who's used them."
Jim rolled his eyes, standing up again. "Thanks Dr. Belden."
"This is serious, guys," Honey warned. "We need to tell Sergeant Molinson."
Trixie looked suspiciously at the box. "Well we can't just leave it here for anyone to stumble upon."
Murmurs of assent went around. "And who knows, maybe the people who put them here will be back any minute," she added.
Brian's eyes widened. "Oh, no, Trix," he said, shaking his head. "This isn't something to mess around with. This is serious."
Trixie crossed her arms angrily. "Brian Belden, I'm not going to 'mess around!' And I know this is serious! I'm not a child." She looked around crossly.
Jim took a worried glance at the blonde. "Well, I vote that some of us stay here and some of us go call the station."
"Yeah," agreed Dan. "That way nobody coming along here gets hurt."
"I vote that four should stay and three should go. Brian can take two people to call the police and I'll stay here with Trixie and whoever else wants to stay," Jim said.
Di and Honey exchanged looks despite the situation.
"Me and Mart will go with Brian," Di volunteered, glancing sharply at the blonde-haired Belden, challenging him to object. Mart quickly hurried to her side.
Brian narrowed his eyes at his sister and Jim. Shaking the thought from his head, he started towards his horse. "We'll leave your horses here with you," he said. "Just make sure they don't go close to those things."
"We're fine, Brian," Trixie snapped, face a pale red from the look she saw her brother give her and Jim.
When they were gone, Trixie knelt to inspect the box. She sniffed in a faint odour and recoiled.
"What is it, Freckles?" Dan asked, coming to stand beside her.
"That smell…" she said wonderingly. "It's familiar, but I can't place it exactly."
Dan frowned. "Hey, Frayne, get over here," he gestured to Jim as he knelt down cautiously in front of the box. Taking a small sniff, his brow furrowed, the smell incredibly familiar.
"What is it?" Jim asked quietly as he knelt down beside the gang member. He could tell by Dan's troubled expression that it wasn't good, and whether or not they wanted the girls to know about it he wasn't sure.
"Take a sniff," Dan told him, looking at the syringes more cautiously. He watched as Jim grew a troubled expression. "Exactly," he said, and the two boys exchanged a knowing look.
"That's it!" Trixie exclaimed. "I know what the smell is." She looked worriedly at Honey and the boys. Seeing the troubled faces of the males, she realized they did too. "You guys figure it out too?" she asked.
They nodded grimly.
"What are you guys talking about?" asked Honey. "Am I the only one that doesn't know what's going on?"
"It's cocaine," Dan said grimly. "Mixed with something else."
"Cocaine?" Trixie asked, surprised. "I smelt cyanide," she said, her and Honey kneeling down beside the boys.
Jim snapped his fingers in recognition. "That's what it is," he said excitedly. "I couldn't place the smell— it was so faint. The cocaine overpowered it." He looked at the blonde. "You're a genius, Trix."
She blushed under the praise.
"Wait, back up," Honey said. "Cyanide as in the thing in apple seeds?"
"Yes," said Trixie, piecing together information in her head. "Like that time when Brian fainted because of cyanide poisoning."
"You mean that time with his lab partner?" Dan asked familiarly.
"Yeah," remembered Jim.
Trixie looked gingerly at the box. "And that was just a small amount. Imagine what whole syringes of the stuff can do."
Just as they were about to discuss it further, they heard the familiar sound of hoof prints.
The group stood up to greet the newcomers. Along with their fellow Bob-Whites were Sergeant Molinson and two officers, all on horseback.
The sergeant greeted the group gruffly, getting his officers to deal with the police horses.
The group showed him the box, which was lying almost in the same condition as it was when they found it except for the foliage pushed down around it from when they inspected it.
"I assume you have found something out about it," the sergeant said dryly, looking at the group, and in particular a certain blonde.
Trixie realized with a jolt that the sergeant was asking about her findings.
"What makes you conclude that we found something?" Brian asked the sergeant politely.
He rolled his eyes. "It's you bunch, of course you and that amateur detective of yours has found something."
Trixie didn't know whether to be offended or flattered, so she chose to brush it aside.
"We did find something out," she said.
"And what is that?" he asked impatiently.
"We have a strong idea of what was inside the syringes," she said carefully.
"I hope you didn't touch anything," he said, already moving to check the box.
"Of course not, sir," Jim said, looking at the uneasy blonde. "We managed to find it out by smelling it."
"And what did you find?" he asked, about to take a sniff for himself.
"It smells like a mix of cyanide and cocaine," said Trixie, just as the sergeant took a sniff for himself and cringed at the strong odour.
"Indeed it does," he said grimly, standing up and brushing his hands off.
He ordered his officers to section the area off, climbing back on horseback and gesturing for the teens to do the same.