Author's Note: My apologies to everyone who has been waiting all day for an update. My family was running from the moment I woke up this morning. So, now that weather is settling in for a good snow, I can post. Just a quick note on this chapter: there's some ten-code used in here. According to what I can find online, 10-70 is "Fire" and 10-71 means "Advise nature of fire." If this isn't accurate, please let me know. As always, enjoy! ~lg

oOo

Debbie Engleside led the group through the expansive Engleside property in stony silence. As it was only Carson and the teenager in the Engleside's truck, he took the opportunity to study her. She was pale, a result of not having seen much sun in recent weeks, but otherwise appeared healthy.

"Just ask, Doc." Her direct tone had softened once she was away from her mother.

"How are you, lass?"

She grinned at him. "Do you talk like that all the time?" When he nodded, she shrugged. "I'm okay, I guess."

"You guess?"

"Yeah." She looked at him again. "Dad wanted to put me in rehab, send me away like a loser. But Mom wouldn't let him. So, now, I'm pretending to take antidepressants just to keep him happy."

"Pretending?"

"Yeah." She scowled. "Don't get upset, Doc. I spit them out when I have to actually put them in my mouth. If it were up to me, I wouldn't have them in the house." She rolled her eyes at his disbelieving glance. "I know what all of you think: I'm a partier who is addicted to pills and is looking for my next fix. Shows how much you know. I only did that one time, and that was enough for me."

Carson let the topic drop. Debbie was clearly defensive, but she seemed to have a good head on her shoulders. She drove in silence for the remainder of the trip, taking the group to a remote cluster of warehouses. Carson eyed them warily as Sheppard jumped out of his truck. Debbie blinked at the firearms that appeared, and Carson shook his head. If he hadn't lived in Esperanza for months, he might have believed this was just another off world mission.

Sheppard reached the door of the first warehouse and cautiously entered. He waved the rest of the team inside, and they looked around. It was empty. Absolutely empty. Carson frowned. "Colonel, if wha' Jorge's sayin' is true, this could be the spot."

"Yeah." Sheppard glanced at Debbie. "Let's hope that's not the case."

"Aye," Carson agreed. Rather than disturbing more evidence, Sheppard had them back out of the warehouse and led the way to the second. They found the exact same thing. The third structure in the grouping wasn't so much a warehouse as it was a small office or home of some sort. Sheppard burst through the door just like he had the first two. This time, he clearly found something. "Doc!"

Carson rushed behind him, seeing Katie strapped to a chair and unconscious. She bled from various wounds, though none of them looked too severe. Her previous medical condition, though, made this situation something that Carson didn't want to see. He couldn't tell if she'd regained consciousness in the transition from the clinic, but the evidence of Engleside's beating showed that the man had wanted something from her.

The paramedics—who had tagged along with Sheppard—glanced at Carson. He carefully approached the chair, reaching out to check her pulse. His heart sank, and he closed his eyes.

"Doc?" Sheppard asked.

Debbie stepped forward. "Is she. . .?"

Carson looked up at the group, his gaze stopping on Debbie. "Aye. She's dead."

oOo

"Oh, no." Rodney's concerned voice pulled Alison out of her pacing. She'd left Carson's office behind and had started walking up and down the hallway. Now, she hurried to the receptionist's area as Rodney typed furiously. "No, no, no, no, no!"

"What?" Jorge demanded impatiently.

Rodney frowned at the screen. "According to this, Katie was getting large sums of money from one of Engleside's accounts."

Alison frowned. "Katie? I thought you were pulling information on Engleside."

"I was." Rodney turned to look at her. "But I found that he'd been paying Katie a huge sum of money for the last eighteen months. I traced those transactions with what Jorge gave me of the DEA's investigation and found that the payments coincided with large shipments of drugs they'd been able to trace. I thought maybe Katie had been blackmailing Engleside, but the coincidence is just too great. So, I did a trace on Katie's finances. She's been depositing a lot of money outside of what she gets here or at the cafe or from Engleside as well. Almost like. . . ."

"Drug deals," Jorge said.

"Yes!" Rodney glanced at Alison. "Thing is, I can't trace the money. I can't find the dealer."

Alison glanced at Jorge. "You said you've seen heroin and marijuana come through the area, right?" She grinned when Jorge nodded. "Debbie Engleside overdosed on meth. Where did that come from?"

Rodney gave her a blank look. "I can't trace that on the computer!"

Jorge closed his eyes with a groan. "Of course! Sorry, I'm not thinking clearly."

"You're concussed," Alison dismissed as she headed for Carson's office.

Rodney glared at her. "Where are you going?"

"Carson compared the meth in Debbie's system to the Desoxyn in the pharmacy." Alison grinned at the two men. "Would that help us?"

"It would help us identify the cook once we found him." Jorge shook his head. "But that wouldn't help us now. Short of tracing those deposits to actual buys—which requires a lot of footwork—we have no other option."

Alison looked at both men. "Then what are we waiting for?" She shrugged. "I don't want to do this any more than you do, but it looks like we have no other option."

Jorge pulled out his phone. "Let me call the sheriff first." He glanced at McKay. "I'm assuming he's not involved in any way?"

McKay turned to check his computer, responding after more than a few moments. "Nothing. According to his financials, he's completely clean."

Jorge dialed the number and asked the sheriff to come to the clinic. The man appeared a few moments later, looking incredibly disgruntled with having been pulled away from his mid-afternoon snack at the cafe. He glanced at Alison, giving her a friendly nod before frowning at McKay. "Who are you?"

"Dr. Rodney McKay." The physicist glared back. "Who are you?"

Alison stepped in before the two men could continue the standoff. "Sheriff Peterson, Dr. McKay is a trusted coworker of mine from Colorado. He and Dr. Beckett are close friends, and he's here helping Dr. Beckett with a research project."

Peterson accepted that with a nod. "You wanted to see me."

"Yeah." Jorge took over, guiding the man into a couch. "You might want to sit down, Sheriff. You won't like what I'm about to tell you."

For the next several moments, Alison watched the Sheriff Peterson become more and more irate as Jorge calmly explained his true identity, what he was doing in town, and why he'd relied on Carson, Alison, McKay, and their team. The insinuation that Peterson had been involved in the drug ring stung, but he managed to get past that when they told him about Katie. Apparently the man had known about Katie's habits for some time and hadn't put a stop to it for some reason. Alison didn't want to know the reasons.

Halfway through Rodney explaining what they'd found on Engleside, Peterson's radio squawked. "All units, be advised. We have a ten-seventy in progress," the dispatcher said as she rattled off an address.

Alison's eyes popped open. "That's right down the street from Carson's house!"

Peterson glanced at her and reached for his radio. "Dispatch, ten-seventy-one."

The dispatcher was silent for a time. "Negative, ten-seventy-one. Neighbor reported seeing flames through a window."

Peterson stood suddenly. "I hate to break this up, but a fire's been reported down the street from the Doc's house. What are the odds this is a coincidence?"

Jorge shook his head, the small group already heading outside. "Quite low."

oOo

Carson watched as the paramedics gently loaded Katie's body onto the ambulance. He felt like a failure. Just that morning, he'd done everything in his power to save her life, and it had all been for naught. In addition, he felt responsible for what had happened to her. If she'd not taken his serum, then she wouldn't have been in such a dire medical condition. She might have survived Engleside's beating. Those were the cold facts, and Carson hated being so callous.

The sheriff had sent his deputy out as soon as he received word of the death on Engleside's ranch. Apparently the man was in some sort of meeting and couldn't be bothered. Carson could have cared less. The deputy had questioned him and sent him on his way, and he now watched Engleside's wife and daughter.

Debbie stood on the porch with her mother, the older woman devastated by the covered stretcher the paramedics tucked into the ambulance. Carson headed for them, knowing they were innocent in all of this. "I'm so sorry this happened," he said softly.

Mrs. Engleside turned teary eyes to him. "You think Doug did this?"

Debbie rolled her eyes. "Mom. He hits you. Of course he did this."

"But he said he loved her." Mrs. Engleside's composure broke completely. "He said. . . ."

Carson put a hand on her shoulder, trying to console her. If he knew government organizations, the DEA would likely swoop in and take over from local law enforcement. He didn't care which way it happened so long as they found Doug Engleside.

Debbie clearly had that same idea. "So, where's Dad?"

Carson turned to frown at Sheppard. "I don't know, lass. I wish I did."

The cell phone in his pocket rang, and he glanced at the caller ID on the front. It was Alison's number. Punching the Answer key, he put it to his ear. "Ali-love, are you okay?"

"I'm fine." She sounded like she was running. "Get to your house! There's a fire right down the street!"

"A fire?" Carson's tired mind tried to keep up with the changes in his situation. First, he arrived home from a spectacular vacation in the Swiss Alps to Katie stealing his serum. Now, Katie was dead, and his home was in danger of burning? He turned to Sheppard, who headed for the truck the group had brought. "I'm on my way, love. Just hang in there."

Sheppard climbed behind the wheel of the truck. "Doc? What does a fire have to do with this entire situation?"

"I don't know, Colonel." Carson shook his head. "But Alison's somehow involved. At least it's not the clinic."

"Yeah." Sheppard's tone said what he kept unspoken. That's little comfort.

Carson fell silent for the quick ride back into town. Sheppard was a pilot, and his skills came in handy as he blew past every speed limit between the Engleside's ranch and Carson's home. They turned onto the street, thick black smoke towering above the neighborhood. The sheriff's car was parked blocking the street, but he let Carson through when he saw the man. The sheriff even pointed out Alison, who stood in front of a house several doors down and on the other side of the street. McKay stood next to her, and Jorge crouched beside a soot-covered Doug Engleside.

Carson moved to Alison's side and was surprised to see her crying. "Ali-love, what happened?"

She turned to him, her face smudged by the soot in the air. "I never believed it!" She turned to walk a few steps away, shaking her head. "Even after all the things we've seen, Carson, I never would have believed it if we hadn't seen it for ourselves."

"Seen what?"

She looked at him, then, her blue eyes shocked. "When we got here, the house was burning. Doug was. . . .He said that no one was alive inside anymore. That he'd taken care of it."

Carson blinked at her. "What?"

She shook her head. "He killed the man inside!"

~TBC