A tense few minutes passed as we munched away at our food. Nobody wanted to be the one to break the silence; what we had now was a delicious respite from our exhausting, stressful, worrying work, and we all wanted that moment to last as long as we could manage.

Eventually, though, with the knowledge that no good can come from ignoring or running away from a problem, I decided to be the first to speak up.

"You think we should just go right back to Mayor Davis' office, knowing what we know now?" I asked.

Stella shook her head. "No, it's too soon. She's still probably kind of annoyed with us, and I don't think she'd be willing to hear us out if we showed up for another round right now."

She made a good point. That's the tricky part about investigative reporting; you can't get anything out of someone who just refuses to talk to you.

"What about Byron Harning?" asked Lincoln. "Vic suggested that we might be able to get some intel from him."

"That's the other reason we shouldn't go back to Mayor Davis just yet," Stella chimed in. "Right now, we have no idea how Harning got the dirt on Incognito Labs. She can easily just dismiss it as a lie from a disgruntled office seeker, and we'll have nothing to prove her wrong."

We all nodded in agreement.

"So the tricky part, I reckon," Liam said after downing a garlic knot, "is tracking down this Harning feller. Where do y'all think he's hidin'?"

Sheesh. That is tricky. Mayor Davis is a lawmaker, so finding her was just a matter of looking up where her office was. We can't do the same with someone who ran and lost.

Clyde whipped out his phone and started typing away on it. "I'll try looking up his name. Maybe he's running some kind of business that we can contact."

The meal time paused as we all sat there, watching Clyde expectantly while he pored over his phone, his finger skipping across the touchscreen.

"Ah-ha!" he exclaimed. "It says here he's running an online business for… huh… 'male enhancement supplements'."

"Male enhancement? What is that, like building more muscle?" Stella asked, giving a quick flex of her bicep. Soon afterward, all of our eyes drifted towards Ginny, whose face was now beet red as she fiddled with her ponytail.

"I-it doesn't really matter," she said in a rushed tone. "Clyde, look on the website to see if there's a number we can call."

"Already on it," Clyde responded as he continued to scroll. "Hmm… subscriptions… about us… aha! Contacts!...aaaand found it. There's a number right here. Let's see where this takes us."

We all waited, tense with anticipation as Clyde dialed the number and put the phone to his ear. "Hello?...Hi, yes, is this Byron Harning's business?...No, sir, I'm twelve. I was wondering if I could get in touch with Mr. Harning himself…well, you see, we're conducting an investigation of sorts, and we think he could be of help…He ran against Davis in the last mayoral election, right?...Mm hmm…yeah…oh, my…okay, hold on just a moment."

He cupped his hand over the receiver and turned to address the table. "He says he's going to go ask Mr. Harning."

Awesome! I had no idea it would be this easy. Barely an inconvenience, really. Then again, I shouldn't celebrate too early, since Mr. Harning hasn't actually agreed to the—

"Harning says that he'd be more than happy to take the opportunity to 'snipe that good-for-nothing…' and then a bunch of words that I promised my dads I wouldn't say."

…huh. Okay, then. In retrospect, it makes sense. If you're a disgruntled losing candidate, why wouldn't you jump at the chance to strike back at the incumbent you lost to?

"Okay…mm hmm…hold on, I'll ask."

You know, at this point I kind of wish Clyde had just turned on speaker mode and put his phone on the table.

"He says that if we want to meet him in person, we'll have to wait until this Thursday," Clyde said. "Otherwise, we can talk to him tonight at 8 over video chat. What do you think?"

Personally, I didn't mind making it a remote call. In fact, I kind of preferred it in this instance, since I got the feeling that this guy didn't smell all that good. I confirmed in the form of a quick nod, and the rest of the table followed suit soon afterward.

"We'll do it," Clyde said into the phone. "Talk to you then."

That evening, we decided to congregate at Liam's. We needed a quiet place without any interruptions for the video chat, and as long as this guy didn't mind the occasional moo or cluck, we'd be all right. Liam's meemaw wasn't thrilled that she was asked to host such a big party on short notice, but thankfully, she had enough leftover meatloaf and chicken pot pie to give us a nice supper.

This brings us to 8:00 that night, when we all convened in Liam's barn, huddled around his tablet and waiting for Mr. Harning to initiate the call.

…

…

…

[Call incoming]

Finally! Stella smacked the "accept call" button and the screen opened up to reveal a portly man with slicked-back gray hair, wearing a white button-down shirt.

"All right, let's cut to the chase," he said, not even giving us time to say hello to him or thank him for coming on with us. "See, I was never that serious about getting into politics. I mostly just joined the race to get my business's name out there. I did not expect to win that primary, but when I did, I figured, 'Hey, if I got this far, I might as well give it an honest shot, right?'

"On the night of the first debate, I'm scrolling through her campaign's fiscal record, 'cause, you know, follow the money, and I see a donation from Incognito Labs. I think, 'Now why does that name sound familiar?'...and then I remember exactly where I first heard it."

We all leaned towards the screen in rapt attention.

"See, there was this chick I dated in business school, twenty years ago. Name was Carol Linnaeus. She told me that Incognito Labs was gonna be the name of her startup after she graduated."

"Dr. Linnaeus? What else did she tell you?" asked Lincoln.

"I'll get to that if you shut up," snapped Mr. Harning. "They were gonna make… I don't know, was it pharmaceuticals? Cosmetics? Aeronautics? Something along those lines. But her big idea was how they would do testing."

He leaned in closer towards the camera, his brow furrowing. "See, when you test on people, you gotta follow all these rules and regulations, 'cause, you know, we have rights. But with animals, it's hard to get them to follow your directions. Plus, it's like, okay, great, this thing works on mice, but how do we know it'll work on humans? We're just way too different."

I swallowed hard, anxious to find out where this was going.

"So her idea - and stay with me here - was to make a combination of the two. Half-human, half-animal. Smart enough to follow directions, but not quite sapient. Plus, you know, all the legal loopholes. There are no laws on the books protecting man-beast hybrids, so she could do whatever she wanted to them."

Now, if you know me, you know I have a pretty lurid imagination. But even for me, this was beyond the pale. And judging by the terror-stricken faces I saw out of the corner of my eye, I wasn't alone on that front.

"Did she ever go through with this? Heck if I know, but I wouldn't put it past her. She was a lunatic. It's part of the reason I dated her in the first place, but even I have a limit, you know?"

For a long, uncomfortable spell, we all sat there in silence, staring at the computer screen. I wasn't quite sure how to even process this new info we got, let alone use it.

"Anyway, that's just about all I know. If you want proof that Carol and I dated, I can forward you some selfies we took. Not to brag, but I was a pretty handsome guy back then."

Normally, this would be our cue to roll our eyes, but none of us really had the wherewithal to do so.

"S-sure, a picture would be great," Stella said.

"All right. Just one of you kids type your number in the chat and I'll text it over. See ya."

And with a blip, the call ended. Liam grabbed the edge of his laptop and creaked it shut, as if it were a rusty old door.

"So what do we do with this?" Lincoln asked.

"Hard to say," said Clyde. "Vic said that Mayor Davis worked for Incognito Labs, and Mr. Harning told us that… well, I mean, you all heard it. But we don't have proof of either of those yet."

I sighed and pressed my hands together. "In that case, the only way we'll find proof is by going straight to the source. The scene of the crime, if you will."

We all shared a collective shudder. "You mean…?"

"Yep. Our next stop is Incognito Labs."