A Time to Live and a Thyme for Murder! (Outer Banks Baker Mystery Series Book 3) by Phoebe T. Eggli Page B

Derek’s demise, but he wouldn’t rule it out.
     
    Logan still thought they should tell Jason about the note, but neither Krissy nor Tanner agreed. In fact, young Tanner was now intent on doing some detective work of his own. Inwardly, he hoped to win the gratitude of the blue-haired beauty. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize the danger he would be placing himself in. No one else thought his plan was a good idea. Actually, the word Krissy used was “insane”. Although hesitant to go along with it, Logan agreed in the end. Despite the adults already being fast asleep inside the house, the night was still young, so they put the plan into action immediately.
     
    Tanner texted several of his former pals when he was still an official “stoner”. He now mostly just pretended to be one, but had dabbled in the stuff briefly a year or two ago. After some back and forth with a dude named “Hoss”, he found out what he needed to know. Several of the guys working for the same moving company as Derek were known to deal in this new drug fad, known as X15. They apparently were the only connections in town to get a hold of the stuff. Hoss and his crew tried breaking into the business but had received several beatings until they backed off and returned to just pushing pot. The small group was known to be ruthless and territorial. Even Hoss voiced his concern that Tanner should not associate with that particular group of thugs. No high was worth that.
     
    Despite his friend’s warning, along with Logan and Krissy’s pleads to forget about it, Tanner took off claiming he just intended to scope the guys out. If things got hairy, he’d bolt. However, if he did find out anything useful then he could give the cops an anonymous tip. The bad guys would be arrested and Krissy would be safe. Logan thought his friend was taking this gallant hero act a bit too far, but there was no stopping Tanner when his mind was made up.
    After he left in search of the X15 pushers, Logan and Krissy kept a vigil on the back patio until they heard back from Tanner. Hours passed and they didn’t hear back from their friend. As the sun started to rise and turn the sky varying shades of purple and then pink, Logan fretted that Tanner had gotten himself into trouble. Texts and calls went unreturned. By this point, Krissy had worn out a patch of grass from pacing and her nails were bitten down to nubs.
     
    Deciding against waking up Jason or his aunt, Logan took off in search of his friend. Using the phone finder app, he tracked the young man down to an abandoned stretch of beach just southeast of The Surf Shack. What he found shocked and scared him. Tanner was stumbling around swapping at imaginary objects in the sky. From his rantings, it appeared the boy was seeing swarms of unusually large insects. There could be only one reason he was hallucinating – drugs. Logan ran over to him to calm him down. “Dude,” Tanner slurred, “you got some industrial strength Raid or something? These bugs are HUGE!”
     
    Although it was too early for anyone to be out on the beach except for the most dedicated sunrise watcher or surfer, Logan knew he had to get Tanner out of there quickly before someone reported seeing an intoxicated or high teenager roaming aimlessly. The last thing they needed was for the cops to discover him. The DEA could certainly use this situation to hammer the final nail in their case if Tanner was found with X15 in his system and Logan with him. Not knowing what else to do, Logan called his girlfriend Emily. Without explaining the full story, he begged her to drive out to the beach to pick them up. Within minutes she was there in her mom’s Lexus SVU.
     
    After getting Tanner settled into his own bedroom and assuring himself that his friend was sleeping the whole thing off, Emily drove Logan back to Jason’s house. She was less than thrilled he was out at that time of the morning and even less enthused that Tanner was in such a state. After