"Yep. Why?"
"I just found out that all of them were being prescribed Jadrone. Would you have any idea why?"
Michaels frowned and scratched his shadowed chin. "If they were taking it, I found no evidence of it."
"So I read. And yet all of them had been prescribed the drug since puberty, from what I can gather."
"Can't see why. They weren't shifters." He hesitated and frowned. "Though I did notice severe bone degradation in both Maxwell and King."
"What sort of degradation? And how might it be connected to Jadrone?"
"Shifting puts severe stress on the body's organs, particularly bone and muscle. As the shifter gets older, the bone and muscles become less pliant, more brittle. Arthritis and other, associated diseases become a real problem. In a shifter, this doesn't normally happen until they are well into mid-one-fifties, one-sixties. Even in humans, it doesn't normally happen until your late sixties."
"Is there a history of this sort of degeneration in either King's or Maxwell's family?"
"That we don't know."
She frowned. "Why?"
Michaels snorted. "They were adopted, same as Burns and Brandon. Don't you read follow-up reports?"
The edge of derision in his voice stung. "Obviously not." Nor had Gabriel mentioned that fact. "Let's presume there's no history of this in their background. What else might be the cause?"
Michaels shrugged. "Random chance. It happens. Kids as young as five get arthritis, you know."
Yeah, but their killer wasn't attacking kids as young as five. There was some sort of pattern here, one they just couldn't quite see. "What about the other two?"
"Minor degradation. A little more than what you'd expect for their age, but nothing extreme."
"Did you do a cell investigation on the four?"
"No need to. They were human."
"Do it. And tell me what you find."
Michaels raised his eyebrows. "By whose authority are you ordering this?"
"Assistant Director Stern's." She looked up as the man in question stepped into her office. He raised an eyebrow and walked the two steps over to the desk.
"Sorry, Agent Ryan. I can't order that sort of investigation without authority from the man himself."
Gabriel placed a hand on the back of her chair, his face close to hers as he stared at the com-screen. "Then you have it, Michaels. Please proceed."
Michaels nodded and signed off. Gabriel sat back on the edge of her desk. "What did I just authorize?"
"Cell investigation on our four victims."
He crossed his arms and regarded her for a minute. The intensity of his gaze made her want to squirm like some errant ten-year-old faced by a headmaster. And that, more than anything, annoyed the hell out of her. What was it about this man that got to her so easily?
"Really? Why?"
She tilted her chair back. Her knee brushed against his and warmth surged across her flesh. He didn't move, nor did she. "All four were being prescribed Jadrone, and yet they were not on record as being shifters."
"Jadrone has no effect on humans."
"Exactly. And yet Maxwell was a junkie who got high on it regularly, and the others had been prescribed it since their teens. I think we need to find out why."
He frowned. "I agree. But there was no mention of Jadrone being found in their systems."