by Daniel Kalla
“Who’s we?” Eileen asks.
“Some friends in the community. The plan was to make the clip go viral.”
“You were doing this to discourage people from getting their kids vaccinated?”
Max lowers himself back into his seat, feeling calm descend back over him. “We never did post it. It wasn’t necessary.” He can’t help but look over to Lisa. “Not after the vaccine revealed itself for the threat it always was.”
CHAPTER 59
“Do you believe him?” Lisa asks Eileen from the passenger seat as the agent drives them away from Max’s office.
“Some of what he said. Not all,” Eileen says. “But there’s no denying his video is real.”
Before they left, Max played them his “exposé” on his laptop. The video did capture the incidents he cited—a kid fainting, a nurse not changing her gloves, and another staff member appearing to rush a Hispanic man through signing the consent form—along with a few other clips where Lisa couldn’t even discern what the supposed infraction was.
“Could you imagine anyone being talked out of getting vaccinated by that piece of crap?” Lisa asks.
“You’re not exactly his target audience,” Eileen points out.
“His whole story could still be bullshit. Max would have had every reason for spying on those clinics if he were behind the poisonings. Maybe he threw the video together as a cover story in case he did fall under suspicion.”
“He’s by no means ruled himself out as suspect, Lisa. I’m still going to look into his e-prescription records to see if we can trace those contaminants back to him.”
“But?”
“We have to consider others, too.”
“Who?”
“Anyone with motive plus opportunity.”
“No end of people with motive. Anti-vaxxers, antipharma activists, disgruntled employees, terrorists, or any other whack job you can imagine. But Max is the only one I can think of with both an obvious motive and a clear opportunity.”
“Which is why we have to focus on anyone else with opportunity. It’s a much shorter list.” Eileen taps her steering wheel. “Starting with your nurses who worked all three clinics where recipients ended up developing bad skin reactions.”
“Only eight nurses worked both of the first two clinics in question. And Tyra is narrowing down the list to include those who also attended the latest victim’s clinic. Probably no more than four in total.”
“We’ve also got to look into people on the Delaware side.”
“Fiona should be able to provide you a list of her staff who worked those same clinics,” Lisa says.
Eileen glances over at her. It’s only when her eyes return to the road that she says, “Nathan and Fiona would’ve also had the opportunity.”
Lisa can’t imagine any of her staff being involved in poisoning the vaccine, let alone Nathan or Fiona. Given the alternatives, she still hopes Max is responsible, but she left his office far less convinced of his guilt than when she arrived. “It’s probably worth tracking down the e-prescription records on those nurses in question. As well as for Nathan and Fiona, huh?”
“I intend to. And as you pointed out, the perpetrator could be stealing pills from a loved one. So I’m going to look into close relatives as well.”
“Makes sense,” Lisa says, feeling even more dejected. “Max has a special-needs son. And Fiona mentioned a debilitated mother in a care home. All I know about Nathan’s family is that he has two teenage sons.”
“We’ll cast the net fairly wide.”
A silence falls over the car. Eileen is too professional to show it, but Lisa senses the agent shares in her disappointment over the setback with Max.
Eileen drops Lisa off at the Public Health building just after five p.m. Even more trucks and vans tattooed with media logos line the street out front, establishing how ravenous the press must be for details on the latest Neissovax reaction. Whether Max was involved in tipping the scales or not, the anti-vax movement continued to reap huge gains in the public opinion war from the continued fallout. Lisa shudders at the thought of how the public will respond to the news of the poisoned vaccine. A total FUBAR.
She can’t bear the thought of facing the media right now, not with some of her own staff under investigation, so instead she heads directly to her car and, on a whim, drives over to Bellevue, to her sister’s place.
Olivia answers the front door. She wraps Lisa’s midsection in a hug.
“Was the hospital sick of you?” Lisa asks when Olivia breaks off the embrace and then drags her inside by the hand.
“They said it was nothing, Tee,” Olivia says. “That Mommy overacted.”
“Overreacted,” Amber corrects with a laugh as she joins them in the living room.
“Show me your arm,” Lisa instructs.
Olivia slides up her sleeve to reveal that the patch of redness has faded, and the welt is almost unnoticeable.
“Better.” Lisa nods approvingly. “Is Daddy home?”
“Meetings,” Olivia says with an exaggerated attempt at an eye roll that makes Lisa chuckle.
Lisa grabs Amber’s arm. “Mommy and I are going to chat in the kitchen for a bit.”
“Can I watch my show, Mommy?” Olivia asks.
“You get thirty minutes on the iPad.” Amber checks her watch. “Starting… now.”
Olivia turns and races down corridor toward one of the bedrooms.
“Should I open a bottle?” Amber asks Lisa when they reach the kitchen, which smells of sautéed onions and unidentified herbs.
“Not for me, thanks.”
Amber wiggles four fingers in a beckoning gesture. “Tell me.”
Lisa notices a pot simmering on the front element. “How much time do you have?”
“Work- or home-related?”
“Both, I suppose,” Lisa says. “But the crisis at work is even more acute than the one at home.”
“Worse than it’s been the last few days?”
Lisa considers it for a moment. “Different.”
“How so?”
Lisa glances around out of instinct, and lowers her voice. “There’s nothing wrong with the actual vaccine.”
Amber frowns. “What about those life-threatening rashes? The news said there was a fourth one reported today.”
“Poison.”
“What?”
Lisa explains about the sabotaged vaccine.
“What a fucking nightmare.”
“You’re telling me. The worst part is, I have no idea who I can even trust anymore.”
Amber raises an eyebrow. “Nathan?” Even though Lisa has never told her sister much about the pharmaceutical-company executive, Lisa knows her sister intuits her attraction to him. “You think he could be involved?”
“Maybe,” Lisa says. “I can’t see him poisoning a vaccine. But the cover-up? Yeah, sure, I could see that.”
“Hey! It’s not your responsibility to figure this out.” Amber pats her wrist. “That’s why you brought in the FBI.”
“It is my job to control this meningitis outbreak. And we’re going to need Neissovax to do it. But we can’t use the vaccine until we find out who’s contaminating it and how.”
“Crap, that’s a real conundrum.”
“Even if and when we do ensure the vaccine supply is pure, how will we ever win back the public’s trust?”
“One step at a time.” Amber flashes a cheeky grin. “Besides, you’re relentless. You’ll wear them down. Just like you did me.”
Lisa snorts a small laugh. “Amber…”
“Yeah?”
“Dad wasn’t right, after all. This vaccine would’ve been totally safe if someone hadn’t tried to sabotage it.”
“I know.” Amber clears her throat. “I’m sorry, Lisa.”
“For?”
“Doubting you. It’s just that when those kids got sick after the vaccine and then Liv—”
“Don’t even.” Lisa cuts her sister off by wrapping her
in a hug. “I began to doubt myself. You had every right to.”
Amber clings tightly to her for a moment. “Stay for dinner?” she asks as she slips out of Lisa’s arms. “I made Olivia’s favorite, lentil stew.”
“Smells great, but I better go deal with the home front. Whichever general said it first got it right. Never fight a two-front war.” She says a quick good-bye to Olivia and then heads out to her car and drives home. Lisa finds Dominic in the kitchen, where he’s grilling salmon on the stove. There’s only one plate on the countertop beside a single wineglass.
“I just assumed I’d be eating alone again,” he says when she walks in.
“That’s OK, I’m not really hungry.”
He puts down the spatula and turns toward her. “We’re running out of things to do separately, Lees.”
“I’m under a bit of stress at work right now.”
“You’re not the only who’s under stress.”
“What are you saying?”
“We had our struggles before this outbreak, sure. But I thought with the counseling, we were making real progress. Then you have your little crisis at work—”
“My little crisis?”
“OK. Public-health emergency. Whatever you want to call it.” He folds his arms across his chest. “Suddenly our marriage is on the back burner. You stop communicating with me. I’m walking on eggshells all the time. And all the gains we made in counseling are wiped out.”
“This ‘little crisis’ is a lot a bigger than you or me. Kids are dying.”
He tilts his head. “All I know for sure is that your job is tearing us apart.”
My job? There’s so much she could say. About his petty resentments and lack of concern about her feelings that have done most of the damage. But all she says is, “I’m sorry you think so, Dom.”
“What do you think?”
Her gaze falls to the ground. She’s overcome by an emotion she doesn’t fully recognize. She can’t tell if it’s clarity or surrender. But she suddenly realizes what has to be done. “I think we need some time apart.”
“Don’t know how much more of that we could possibly find,” he mutters. “But maybe you’re right. Maybe I should sleep in the spare room for a while.”
“No, you stay in our room,” she says. “I’ll move to the guest room. For now.”
“For now?”
“I’m going to start looking for another place.”
“Lees…”
“It’s for the best, Dom,” she says, turning away from him. “You know it is, too.”
Dominic doesn’t follow her as she heads into the bedroom and gathers a small bag with toiletries and a few changes of clothes. Part of her still wishes he would, but mostly she’s relieved and unsurprised he doesn’t.
They’ve fought before. And each of them has slept nights, sometimes a few in a row, in the guest bedroom. But as Lisa unpacks her toiletries in the en suite bathroom, she experiences an unfamiliar sense of finality. As sad as she feels, though, there are no tears.
She heads back into the guest bedroom and puts her bag on the bed. The old wooden clock on the far wall catches her eye. Although the design isn’t art deco, it still reminds her of the one on Fiona’s desk. Lisa remembers Walt’s romantic words that Fiona quoted from the anniversary card and the loving inscription carved on the bottom of the clock. She feels another pang of envy over the kind of relationship Fiona and her husband must have shared.
Lisa considers Walt’s tragic death again. She remembers Fiona’s description of how it happened. Then, somewhere in the recesses of her brain, a connection begins to form.
CHAPTER 60
Nathan checks his watch, which reads a few minutes after eight p.m. His stomach growls, and he realizes it’s after eleven in New York. Not that his internal time zone had time to reset during his thirty-hour round-trip home.
On his only day back in New York in over a week, Nathan took his sons to a Mets game. Baseball was a compromise. Ethan had begged Nathan to take him out to practice driving while Marcus lobbied for them to go to the latest Marvel movie. No one was fully satisfied with the ball game, especially after the Mets got shut out. While Nathan always appreciated being with his sons, he was too distracted by the Neissovax catastrophe to focus on them or the game. His mind never really left Seattle.
Ever since his flight touched back down at Sea-Tac, earlier in the afternoon, Nathan has been texting and calling Lisa in the hope of convincing her to meet. But she hasn’t responded at all. He’s just about to give up for the day and head down to the restaurant when a text from her appears on the screen. “Where are you?”
“Back at the hotel,” he replies.
“Be there in fifteen.”
Nathan stares at the screen. He didn’t expect that. He considers taking a shower but realizes there’s no point. If their last interaction is anything to go by, he will be lucky if he can keep the conversation civil. He wonders why Lisa wants to meet so urgently. A stone forms in the pit of his stomach. What else has she found out?
The wait is short. In less than a quarter of an hour, there’s a knock at the door. Nathan opens it to find Lisa standing there in gray sweatpants and a blue workout shirt. Her face is unsmiling, and there are fresh bags beneath her eyes. There are no hugs as she walks into his suite, and he doesn’t even consider offering her a drink.
“What’s up?” he asks.
Her eyes lock on to his. “Were you involved in the cover-up of Darius Washington’s death?”
He shakes his head.
She stares at him for a long time, neither accepting nor challenging his denial. “I need to ask you about Fiona,” she finally says.
“Fiona?”
“More specifically, her husband. Walt.”
“I never met him.”
“She told me Walt died of Guillain-Barré syndrome.”
“He did.”
“Do you know if he developed it after getting the flu or after the flu shot?”
He considers her question for a moment. “After the shot.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yeah, it came up once when we were discussing vaccine complications and Guillain-Barré syndrome. But she acknowledged he would’ve been even more likely to have gotten it from the flu itself.” He shrugs. “Why is that relevant?”
Lisa closes her eyes and exhales. “Delaware is one of the main suppliers of the flu vaccine in the US, isn’t it?”
“Generally speaking. But vaccine supply is regional. And it varies from year to year.”
“The Northeast is one of Delaware’s main territories, though. Particularly, New York State.”
“I suppose. I don’t handle flu vaccines at Delaware.” Nathan frowns. “What’s going on, Lisa?”
“The flu shot that Walt got must have come from your own company.”
“So?”
“Neissovax,” she says softly. “It’s been poisoned.”
“Poisoned?” For a moment, he assumes he misunderstood her. But the look in her eyes is unmistakable. “What the hell?”
She drops down onto the couch. “We screened the used syringes, Nathan. From the clinics where those kids reacted. We found traces of multiple different contaminants in the vaccine. Six different medications, each of which could cause Stevens-Johnson syndrome. None of them were there by accident.”
The realization hits him with the impact of a rockfall. “And you think… Fiona did it?”
“I don’t want to. And I’m still not totally convinced. But consider it, Nathan. How many people would’ve had access to the vials of vaccine?”
“Not many,” he mutters, his mind still reeling from her disclosure. “But Fiona? I’ve worked with her for more than five years. She’s my friend. One of the gentlest people I’ve ever met.”
Lisa digs her phone out of her purse and shows it to him. “Do you remember this?” Filling the screen is an online article with a headline that reads: “This Year’s Flu Shot Has High Rate of Complicati
ons.”
He reads it and shrugs again.
“From six years ago. The year Walt died.” She lowers the phone. “Apparently, the rate of Guillain-Barré syndrome was almost double the norm that year. There was a lawsuit. Does any of that ring a bell?”
“There are lawsuits every year in our business,” he says, rubbing his forehead. “Particularly related to the flu shot. I vaguely remember it being a bit more of a concern five or six years ago. But Peter made it go away.” He slumps onto the couch. “He’s very good at that.”
CHAPTER 61
The moment Lisa reaches the hotel lobby, she calls Eileen. “Fiona’s husband died of complications from the flu vaccine!” she says before the agent has a chance to speak. “A vaccine manufactured by Delaware Pharmaceuticals.”
“That’s a hell of a coincidence,” Eileen says.
“How could it be just a coincidence? Even Nathan couldn’t explain it once he learned about the poisoning.”
“You told him?”
“I had to, Eileen.” Lisa brushes away the concern in the agent’s tone. “As a pharmacist, Fiona would have the know-how to sabotage a vaccine. No one had more access to the vials than her. And now we’ve established motive, too.”
“Yeah.”
“Have you heard anything on the e-prescription records yet?”
“I’ve had some trouble getting around the red tape in Washington State. So I haven’t got access to Max’s records yet. But I did get the ones from New York.”
Lisa stiffens. “And?”
“Nathan’s had no prescriptions whatsoever in the last two years. Fiona only gets two regular prescriptions: venlafaxine and mirtazapine.”
“California rocket fuel.”
“What’s that?”
“The nickname for the popular combination of those two antidepressant medications. But neither was found in the contaminated vaccines. No other prescriptions, huh?”
“None.”