Counterfeit Chemistry
You may never look at your prescription
drugs the same again.
JESSIE, a 30-year-old single mom
struggles to make a good life for her and her six-year old son in northern
California but still feels guilty about moving him away two years ago from their
hometown, their friends, her mother and his dad TOM, her cheating ex-husband.
When she receives her mother’s frantic
call for help, she uproots her son to return to FERNHILL, a small town outside
Portland, Oregon to take care of TANGLES, her mother’s restaurant, while her
mother recovers from her battle with cancer. BEV’S cancer is in remission, but
the drug she’s getting to help boost her red blood cells and her energy isn’t
working. Her mother has never asked for her help before, so Jessie knows this request
is serious and she returns home.
When Jessie does research on the
potential reasons her mother’s medication is not working, she reads about
counterfeit drugs being infiltrated into the US market through fraudulent
internet sites. She asks questions of acquaintances and authorities and in
doing so catches the attention of a counterfeit drug ring. The operators resort
to threats, kidnapping and murder to keep her and her mother from identifying
and exposing them.
Telephone threats, a library bookshelf
tumbling onto her work space, “special pills” in her mother’s desk, a
mysterious red Lincoln Town Car, and three unexplained accidents suffered by
her mother resulting in her hospitalization have Jessie telling her suspicions
to RYAN the town detective who is her old high school sweetheart. He wants to
rekindle their relationship but dismisses her concerns and tells her to leave
the investigating to him. Frustrated yet feeling her theories are valid, she
vows to continue sleuthing on her own.
The restaurant’s new chef MARC is romantically
pursuing her and is the only one who takes her concerns seriously. But he has
his own agenda, unbeknownst to Jessie. Together they set up a sting operation,
but things go terribly wrong. An unexpected interruption, Jessie’s heroic
reaction and the appearance of local police foil their sting and Marc suddenly disappears.
Jessie is once again on her own, no longer willing to trust any man.
Jessie summons her courage and follows
clues left behind by her newly deceased ex-husband. Tom was the town pharmacist
and she believes DIANA, the drug representative that Tom had the affair with
and continued to see after their divorce, has something to do with the fire at
his house, his death, and the counterfeit drugs in her town.
Jessie takes risks and chances that endanger her well-being to fight against the evil she sees in her community. She is kidnapped by the counterfeiters and left alone, unconscious and bleeding in their warehouse. Knowing it will be impossible to physically overtake the three operators, she uses her wits to outsmart and trap them. Her suspicions are correct. Diana is the ringleader of the three and they are brought to justice for harming her mother, killing her ex-husband, and supplying contaminated and counterfeit drugs to the community.
