Lost Immunity

by Daniel Kalla

  Disappointed, Lisa thanks Eileen for the information and agrees to meet her in the morning.

  She has barely stepped out of the hotel when a text from Fiona pops up on her screen. “Do you have time to talk?” it reads.

  “Sure,” Lisa texts back, wondering if Nathan tipped her off. “In person? I’m near your hotel.”

  “Meet at the bar?”

  Lisa texts the thumbs-up emoji and then adds, “Twenty minutes,” to make it seem like she’s not already there.

  She paces out in front of the hotel in the warm dusk as time crawls by. When she sees twenty minutes have finally passed, she hurries back inside and rides the elevator to the top floor.

  Lisa steps into the rooftop bar and spots Fiona sitting at their usual table at the window, across from the door to the rooftop deck. Aside from the muscular bartender who’s sorting glasses and a young couple who are already standing to leave, the bar is empty.

  Lisa takes a slow breath and summons a calm expression as she heads over to the table and sits down across from Fiona.

  Fiona offers a somber nod. “Drink?”

  “Water’s all I need tonight,” Lisa says, motioning to the two glasses already on the table.

  Fiona sweeps back a few strands of loose hair from her forehead. “I feel terrible about the situation, Lisa.”

  “Which situation?” Lisa asks, wondering again if Nathan mentioned the poisoning to her.

  “Pretty much everything that’s happened since we launched this lousy campaign. But specifically, the website hack. The one you think Nathan and I were behind.”

  “You weren’t?”

  “No.” Fiona hesitates. “But I know who was.”

  “Who?”

  Fiona leans closer. “Peter Moore,” she says in a hush.

  “Your own CEO? What makes you think so?”

  “It’s like him.”

  “How so?”

  “The man’s a sociopath,” Fiona says. “As dirty as they come. Around Delaware, people call him ‘The Fixer’ for all the problems he makes disappear.”

  “What sort of problems?”

  “Lawsuits, fiscal irregularities, unethical research, sketchy development practices… you name it.”

  “And Moore had access to our reporting website?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I gave it to him,” she says in a small voice. “My username and password.”

  “And he hacked the website?”

  “Not personally, but I bet you one of his people must have deleted the report about the boy who died.” Fiona shrugs. “What’s one more body to Peter Moore?”

  “Then why give him your password, Fiona?”

  “He bullied me, like he always does,” she murmurs. “The same way he bullied Nathan and me into agreeing to go along with this vaccine trial when we both knew it was premature.”

  “We pushed from our side, too, if you remember.”

  Fiona gives her a swift glance. “Yeah, but Peter needed the launch to happen.”

  “Why?”

  “To make Neissovax invaluable to you—and the rest of the world—before anyone else learned about its deadly little side effect.”

  “Hold on! You knew about the skin reactions even before you got to Seattle?” Lisa asks, though the story makes no sense in light of the tainted vials.

  “I’d heard rumors.”

  “What kind of rumors?”

  “At one of the European study sites for the first big trial, there was an unusual skin reaction. Serious, too. The rash didn’t show up for a few days, so the investigator didn’t include it in the results. Who knows? Maybe Peter got to him. Anyway, it was never reported. I only found out secondhand, through a French colleague.”

  Lisa’s head spins. “And you’re sure Moore knew all this?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “From me. But I never put in writing. So no doubt he’ll deny it.”

  Lisa is still digesting the latest revelation when her phone rings. She looks down to see Eileen’s number. “Sorry, but I have to take this.” She rises and walks away from the table to answer.

  “I found some more e-prescription records,” Eileen says as soon Lisa picks up.

  “On Max?” Lisa asks.

  “No. From New York. On a Jennifer Swanson.”

  Lisa turns her back to the table. “Swanson? Is she Fiona’s mother?” she whispers.

  “Yes. And it’s a long list. Multiple medications for heart disease, blood pressure, and diabetes.” She pauses, and Lisa hears pages shuffling in the background. “But over the past six months, Mrs. Swanson has also been prescribed lamotrigine, co-trimoxazole, allopurinol, fluconazole, carbamazepine, and, most recently, oseltamivir.”

  The phone freezes in Lisa’s hand. “All six of the contaminants in Neissovax.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m with Fiona now.”

  “Where?”

  “Her hotel. The rooftop bar.”

  “Stall her! I’m on my way,” Eileen says, and then is gone.

  Before turning back to the table, Lisa takes a slow breath and wills the emotion out of her expression. With each step back, she’s aware of Fiona’s eyes on her and feels as self-conscious as someone trying to look natural while aware that she’s being filmed.

  “Everything OK?” Fiona asks Lisa once she reaches the table.

  “Just my husband.” Lisa clears her throat as she reclaims her seat. “All good.”

  “The call came up as just a number on your screen.” Fiona points out. “You don’t store your husband’s contact on your phone?”

  Lisa shifts on her the chair. “He was calling from the hospital.”

  “At this time?”

  “He had an emergency add-on case in the cath lab.” Nerves get the better of her, and Lisa can’t help but expand on the lie. “A young guy with bad coronaries. He would’ve had a heart attack any day without intervention.”

  Despite Fiona’s placid expression, Lisa sees the skepticism in her gaze. “What was the call really about, Lisa?” she asks quietly.

  “Your mother,” Lisa replies, recognizing the futility of obfuscating.

  “My mom?”

  “More specifically, the record of her recent prescriptions.”

  The surprise vacates Fiona’s expression, replaced by something akin to admiration. Her shoulders relax, and she suddenly looks at ease. Peaceful, even. “How did you figure it out?”

  The question is posed so casually that Lisa almost misses its significance. “We tested the used syringes.”

  “The used syringes,” Fiona echoes. “I was so careful to get rid of the spent vials. But nothing I could do about those syringes. I offered to take care of the sharps containers, but your team wouldn’t allow it. And I couldn’t push too much.”

  “I guess not.”

  For a long moment, Fiona is as silent as she is immobile. “I didn’t mean for anyone to die,” she finally says.

  “I believe you,” Lisa says, wanting to keep her talking.

  “He bullied me back then, too.”

  It takes Lisa a moment to gain her bearings. “Peter Moore?”

  She nods. “After Walt died. Peter bullied us all. There was a class-action suit.”

  “Over the flu vaccine?”

  “Yes,” Fiona says. “Something was wrong with Delaware’s supply. There were twice as many cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome as usual. A bunch of other people died, too. A law firm in DC launched a class-action suit on our behalves. But they were no match for Peter’s legal army. He forced a settlement on us through the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.”

  Lisa says nothing, sensing that her best approach is to let Fiona vent.

  “You know how much I got for Walt’s death?”

  Lisa shakes her head.

  “After legal expenses? Eighty-three thousand dollars.” Fiona chuckles grimly. “Eighty-three thousand. That’s what De
laware Pharmaceuticals and Peter Moore valued the slow, painful murder of my husband at.”

  Lisa wants to keep her talking. “You decided to get even?” she prompts.

  “No.” Fiona’s gaze drifts to the window and her voice goes even quieter. “Not at first. Initially, I just wanted an explanation. To understand how it worked inside the belly of the beast. I was worried they might recognize me from the class-action suit, so I switched from my first name, Gayle, to my middle name, Fiona, and reverted to my maiden name, Swanson. Then I took a job at Delaware. No one there made the connection.”

  “You said ‘not at first.’ What changed?”

  “I saw how little they cared about the damage they were doing. Profit. Share prices. Bonuses. Those were their only measures of success. Lives lost didn’t really matter at Delaware.” Fiona’s eyes redden. “And then I met other victims’ families. And the more I heard about the suffering Delaware’s shoddy vaccines had caused, the more I realized something had to be done.”

  “And then Neissovax came along?”

  “Fate, right? How could it not have been?” Fiona closes her eyes and exhales. “The poetic irony… After what their flu shot had done to Walt, I was being gifted the opportunity to make amends through their latest vaccine. To take Delaware down and reveal the dangers of wanton vaccination in one swoop.”

  “Not as easy as it sounds, is it, though?”

  “The razor’s edge,” Fiona admits. “So many variables, so much to balance. The vaccine had already passed phase-three trials without issue. If there were too many reactions, too quickly, I knew you would’ve smelled a rat and halted the program from the outset.”

  “It had to be subtle.”

  “Very. The reactions had to be severe enough to make the vaccine unsalvageable, but uncommon enough that they still might not have shown up in the early clinical trials.”

  “Like what happened with the rotavirus vaccine?”

  “Exactly! And delayed hypersensitivity reactions like Stevens-Johnson syndrome were the ideal answer. But even with multiple toxins, they can be elusive. Hard to elicit.”

  “You had to poison multiple vaccines to get a single significant reaction.”

  “About thirty for every one, as it turns out. But it’s luck of the draw, isn’t it? I wasn’t expecting to get two reactions out of the first clinic alone.”

  “I guess not.”

  Fiona’s chin falls to her chest, and her head begins to bob. When she looks up again, tears stream down her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to kill the boy, Lisa. Or anyone.”

  “You poisoned them, Fiona.”

  “They needed to be sick, yes. But I expected the reactions to be treatable. I thought…” She clears her throat and wipes her eyes. “I thought they would recover.”

  Lisa’s phone dings with another notification, and she looks down to see a text from Eileen that reads, “In the lobby.”

  Before she even looks back up, Lisa catches a blur of motion out of the periphery of her vision. Cold water splashes her face as ice cubes smack painfully off her cheek and forehead. By the time Lisa is able to wipe the water from her eyes, Fiona is up and sprinting for the patio door.

  Lisa jumps up, but her foot slides on a stray ice cube. She grabs the table to steady herself and pushes off just as Fiona yanks open the patio door and darts through it.

  Heart in her throat, Lisa squeezes through the closing door.

  Fiona still has three good strides on her. She doesn’t slow as she hurls herself at the patio’s raised glass railing.

  “No!” Lisa cries, diving toward Fiona, who’s more than halfway over the top.

  Landing hard on her right knee, Lisa catches Fiona by the calf of her dangling leg.

  “Let me go!” Fiona kicks wildly at her with her other leg, slamming Lisa in the chest and almost slipping free.

  Despite Fiona’s kicks and the throb of her knee, Lisa clings on to the woman’s ankle. Pulling as hard as she can, she rolls away from the railing.

  Fiona resists for several seconds but then her grip slips, and she topples down hard on top of Lisa.

  Lisa blindly throws her arms out around Fiona’s chest and holds on with all her might.

  Fiona’s hot breath fills her face and her spittle lands on her nose as she cries, “Let me go,” repeatedly while struggling with the frenzy of a deer tangled in fencing.

  “Stop!” a man yells, and Lisa suddenly feels Fiona being pulled out of her grip.

  She rolls over and pops up to a sitting position to see the bartender on top of Fiona, pinning her to the ground.

  “Calm down!” he tells the still-struggling Fiona. “Everything’s going be OK.”

  But the way Lisa sees it, nothing really will be.

  CHAPTER 62

  The grounds are lovely. Walking paths, ponds, and little gardens with benches are scattered throughout the sprawling wooded property. Inside, it smells of fresh coffee and baking. If Lisa didn’t know better, she would’ve assumed the converted old mansion was a high-end bed-and-breakfast instead of a hospice for the dying.

  The room is west facing with a peekaboo view of the ocean through the trees. Angela sits propped up in the bed. Her cheeks are skeletal and her eyes deeply sunken, but her smile is amused and still vibrant. “This whole place looks like the backdrop for a photo shoot in some Lands’ End catalog,” she says. “But I like it here. Cliché that it is, it’s kind of peaceful.”

  “And the family?”

  “They like it, too.” Angela motions to the pullout couch across the room. “Howard can sleep over. When he’s not being overly emotional. That lovable old wuss.”

  Lisa leans forward in her chair and takes her friend’s bony hand in hers. “He’s a keeper.”

  Angela meets her gaze. “I should’ve probably told you sooner that my chemo was a bust. But I was worried you’d kick me out of the office if you knew I was on my last legs.”

  “Are you kidding? You kept me sane through the worst of it.”

  “Being back on the job during the outbreak…” Angela clears her throat weakly. “It gave me a sense of purpose. Kept me out of this place for an extra week or two. Thank you.”

  “I’m the one who’s thankful. Honestly, Angela. No idea what I would’ve done without you.”

  “Enough! My ass doesn’t have room for any more smoke blown up it.” Angela chuckles. “So where are we at?”

  “A mixed bag,” Lisa admits. “We’re officially three weeks into the outbreak as of today, and the latest count is forty-nine dead among a hundred twenty-two infected. But the good news is that in the last three days, there have only been four new cases and one death.”

  “Strange times in Public Health when we consider one death as good news,” Angela says. “How’s the Neissovax campaign going?”

  “It’s picking up steam. Yesterday was the fourth day of the reopened clinics, and we had over four hundred people through.”

  “So they’re coming back?”

  “Yes, but there’s still so much distrust out there. To reach true herd immunity against this meningococcus, we need to vaccinate eighty percent of Seattle’s youth. But we’re miles away from that target.”

  “It’s going to take time, Lisa. Fiona did a lot of damage.”

  “Yes, she did,” Lisa says.

  A week has passed since Fiona’s arrest and the authorities went public with the news of the tainted vaccines. There was only one more case of Stevens-Johnson syndrome reported in that time—an eleven-year-old girl, who was already recovering. Only one of Fiona’s victims, Darius Washington, died directly from the poisoning, but no one knows how many families were scared out of vaccinating their children because of her. Some might have died as a direct result of not being vaccinated, while others might still suffer from how much Fiona’s sabotage impeded efforts to immunize the rest of the community.

  “It’s not only Neissovax. Or Seattle.” Angela sighs. “Imagine how many people might be reconsidering all types of other vi
tal vaccines because of her fraud.”

  “The irony is it wasn’t even over her anti-vax beliefs,” Lisa says. “Not primarily. In the end, she just wanted to make Delaware pay for the death of her husband. Simple vengeance.”

  “People are so fucked,” Angela mutters, and then looks at Lisa with a penetrating gaze. “Speaking of husbands, how’s it going with yours?”

  Lisa hesitates. “I found a condo. I’ll be moving out at the end of the week.” She hasn’t told anyone else yet, not even Dominic or Amber.

  “About damn time.”

  “You think so?”

  “You haven’t been happy in years, Lisa. Not really.”

  “I guess not, no.”

  “And you kept making more excuses. Fertility issues, blah, blah, blah.” Angela nods to the couch. “One thing I’ve learned through all of this is how much it matters to be with the right person.” Her voice cracks. “Especially at the end.”

  Lisa doesn’t have words to respond, so she keeps quiet and continues to cling to her friend’s hand.

  Angela finally breaks the silence. “I was never willing to consider you my protégée before. Too worried you’d disappoint me.” She winks. “But you made me proud.”

  Lisa fills with paradoxical emotions. Angela’s approval means the world to her, but it only emphasizes how important her friend is. Lisa has no idea if Angela has days or weeks left, but it devastates her to think how much she’s going to miss her. She can barely croak out the words, “Thank you.”

  “You’re going to land on your feet, Lisa.” Angela chuckles. “Take it from someone’s who isn’t.”

  CHAPTER 63

  Nathan knocks at the door to Lisa’s office. She looks up from her desk in surprise. “Your assistant said it would be all right if I dropped in,” he says.

  “Sure. Come in.” Her tone isn’t warm, but at least she doesn’t sound as suspicious as she did during their last few encounters.

  Nathan steps inside, closes the door, and sits down across from her. “I just came to say good-bye.”

  “You’re heading back to New York?” she asks, tugging at her ear.

  He can’t help but notice that the wedding band is missing from her ring finger. “Yeah, for good this time. One of our other VPs, Sonya Silverstein, will be taking my place here.”