Hand of Fate by Lis Wiehl

killer, a still unidentified Middle Eastern man, had been so clumsy that he had died with his victims. But Fate's kille r c ould have been a thousand miles away when his victim took his final, fatal breath. In Seattle, there had been no warning. But Jim Fate had received threats so unsettling that he had asked for help. Help that she and Allison had been too late to give.
    On Nic's hip, her phone buzzed. She looked at the display. Tony Sardella.
    She said, "Excuse me," and then got up and walked into a corner of the room. She might as well have put it on speaker--she could hear the table go dead silent behind her. "Yes?"
    "Nicole. We've got the results of the initial EMIT screen." "And?"
    "Negative on sarin."
    "So if it wasn't sarin, what was it?" She could feel the attention behind her sharpen.
    "That I don't know. Most likely, some kind of opiate. I've ordered blood tests to try to quantify and qualitate which one was in play. Could be morphine. Could be something else. But for now, all I can tell you is that whatever caused Fate's death, it wasn't sarin. It's too bad the paramedics shot him up with the wrong antidote. If they had given him Narcan before he was too dead to revive, they might have saved him."
    "How long will it take to pin down exactly what it was?"
    "These tests take time." Tony sighed, and Nic heard his exhaustion. "Even if we move it to the head of the line, it's still going to take a week or two. Maybe more. You can't speed up a chemical reaction."
    "Keep me posted," Nic said. After hanging up, she turned to the alert faces and told them the news. She saw the relief in the circle of listeners. One of the guys from headquarters was already gathering his briefcase and jacket.
    "John will want to hold a press conference right away," Leif said.
    "Let people know that Jim Fate seems to have been the only target an d t hat this wasn't sarin, and that it was more than likely not terrorism."
    John Drood, the special agent in charge, had less than six months to go until he bumped up against the FBI's rule that forced agents to retire at fifty-seven. He was having trouble even contemplating letting go. A press conference would be right up his alley, allowing him to stand in the spotlight once more as he reassured Portlanders that there was no reason for worry.
    But, Nic wondered, was that really true?

    Chapter 17 Channel 4 TV
    Cassidy drove to work with one eye closed. It seemed the only way she could focus. She kept flashing back to waking up in the tub, her hands floating like starfish.
    Yesterday felt like a terrible nightmare. Today seemed just as unreal. Jim couldn't be dead, could he? And all the plans he had talked about had died with him.
    "Pull yourself together, Cass," she said out loud. Once she walked through the station's double doors, she had to hit the ground running. The events of yesterday would spin off into several dozen stories today. Yesterday she had been the disaster reporter. But that wasn't her--or anyone's--normal beat. Today she would be back to being the crime reporter. And it was clear what crime would be number one on everyone's mind: Jim Fate's murder.
    Working in TV news meant you had to be able to perform at a second's notice. Today it felt to Cassidy like she would need more like a couple of hours. It wasn't enough to write a good story. You had to be able to look into that camera and convince people that you knew what you were talking about. You couldn't be threatened or nervous or silly or inarticulate. You couldn't fumble your words or lose you r t rain of thought. Yesterday she had managed it, but today it seemed impossibly out of reach.
    The last person Cassidy wanted to see this morning was Jenna. So of course, the intern was the first person she saw when she walked into the station.
    Jenna looked like she had spent the first part of her day skipping through a meadow and singing. Her tanned cheeks had a rosy glow. Her long hair fell down her slender back like a blonde