Maggie was pretty sure she knew the answer, but didn’t have time to psychoanalyze herself. The point was Ethan wanted her out of Rx, plain and simple. She needed to know why.
Maybe it was because Zartar had told her about Ghana necrosis. Or maybe it was because Zartar was on the brink of telling her more.
Maggie skimmed the other email folders for more evidence. She found nothing else and quickly guided the cursor to the computer’s hard drive. She was sure it was the burial ground of Ethan’s deepest secrets.
Maggie found a folder titled GHANA NECROSIS saved to the computer’s hard drive. She opened it. Inside it contained scores of files.
The data swam in front of her. She knew it was important, perhaps the key to all that was going on. But she couldn’t go over it here. She’d already spent far too long in Ethan’s house. She needed time to review, space to digest.
She’d have to take it with her.
Maggie looked around the office. On a built-in bookcase, sandwiched between a framed diploma from Columbia and a rugby trophy (damn it, Constantine had been right about that, too) stood a lonely pile of electronic media storage devices. A single thumb drive roosted atop a nest of CDs.
Maggie grabbed the thumb drive and pushed it roughly into the machine. Her fingers tap-danced across the keyboard as she copied the folder’s contents—memos, reports, photographs—onto the portable storage device.
Maggie had just opened a file titled PROTOCOL when she heard the jangle of keys at the front door. Had the computer keys been loud enough to mask a car pulling into the driveway? Adrenaline shot through her nervous system. She held her breath, right hand frozen in mid-click, and listened.
Outside, keys dropped onto the porch. Ethan swore under his breath.
Maggie imagined Ethan outside the front door, stooping, scooping up his keys, fumbling for the lock. She knew he was almost inside.
Fifty steps and a handful of seconds separated Maggie from the man who betrayed her. From the man who could be planning to end her.
Maggie began frantically copying the contents of the Ghana necrosis and Protocol folders onto the thumb drive, praying the computer wouldn’t decide to bomb and drag her into its digital collateral damage.
Hurry! her mind screamed. He’s coming!
The status bar moved like honey on a winter morning. Maggie wanted to pound on the machine, to implore it to go faster. Faster! But she sat quiet as a stone, listening. Waiting.
The sound of key grating against lock floated to the office. Then the whoosh-click-clunk of a door opening, closing. Locking.
Hard-soled shoes beat across polished wood floors, harmony to the keyboard melody that still echoed in her head. House keys jangled as they hit the entry table.
Maggie dragged her eyes from the office door to the computer screen. The status bar had vanished, signaling that the transfer was complete. Maggie yanked out the thumb drive and clicked the Microsoft Windows icon. She selected Sleep and held her breath, silently urging the machine to execute the task without a jaunty electronic jingle. Silence.
God bless Bill Gates.
Maggie crept to the window, twisted its lock open and pushed. It stuck. She pushed again. Something in her shoulder tore. The window remained unmoved.
Biting her lip against the pain, Maggie squatted low and repositioned her body to improve her leverage. She pushed hard, using her back against the frame.
The window inched upward then suddenly gave way, shooting to the top of the casing.
Maggie clamped her hands to her mouth to stifle a yelp and stood motionless, trying to gauge how much noise the window had made. Straining to hear the heavy footfalls that she was sure would approach the door.
Yet Ethan didn’t come charging in to inspect the source of the noise. No alarms howled. No attack dogs came charging in. The hall was silent and empty. Maybe the movement had been more felt than heard. Or perhaps Ethan was too engrossed in reviewing recipes from Bon Appétit to hear anything above the turn of each glossy page as he considered what to prepare for dinner.
Maggie put one leg through the window, ducked, brought the other leg through. She began to close the window when she saw Ethan’s old lanyard hanging on a drawer pull.
The lanyard was a vestige from his pre-managerial days. Like the pizzeria’s first dollar, framed and displayed proudly above Pop’s ancient cash register, it was a reminder of where he had started and how far he had come.
Maggie wondered if the ID card still worked as a passkey. She decided she’d have to find out. She scrambled back through the window and reached for the shiny plastic rectangle dangling on the drawer pull. She had the sensation that she was a fish being lured by something shiny, something tantalizing, and would soon be reeled in.
Surely he’d miss his passkey. Surely he’d notice its absence and look for other signs of disarray, of intrusion. The desk. The computer.
Yet Ethan hadn’t missed the folder Maggie had plucked from his bag. And the ID hanging from the desk was old, outdated. He didn’t need it anymore. Perhaps he wouldn’t notice its absence. It was a chance she had to take.
Maggie grabbed the lanyard and hung it around her neck like an Olympic medal. Maggie O’Malley takes the gold in Burglary.
From the kitchen, Ethan’s enormous refrigerator door closed with an authoritative click. The light strains of Dvorak and the clatter of pots and pans sailed down the hall.
Then a new sound.
The bicycle bell of her phone slicing the silence.
Maggie flinched, whacking her hand on the top of the drawer. She yanked her hand back as if bitten by some unseen animal and crushed the phone’s volume key in one deft maneuver. She froze, her nervous system in overdrive, and strained to hear if she’d been detected. She heard only her own breathing, ragged and uneven. Eaten away by fear.
She listened again for Ethan’s imminent arrival, the moment she’d be caught. Or worse.
She knew she should run, put as much distance between her and Ethan as possible, but she was rooted to the spot by tendrils of fear that seemed to bind her to the floor.
Her heart ripped in her chest as she considered Ethan down the hall and the phone in her hand.
Bicycle bell = reminder app = next victim
Maggie turned the phone’s screen to face her, fear and dread coming in twin waves. Please no. Please no more. Please not Roselyn.
She was shaking so hard she couldn’t control her hand and had to try multiple times to swipe the display into life. Finally, a photo appeared. She peered into the face of the secondhand phone.
Her own face, fresh and full of hope on her first day of work, gazed back.
Chapter 38
Maggie clutched the lanyard at her neck and slithered back through the window. She ran down the drive, frantically clicking the reminder for the date and time as her feet threatened to tangle beneath her.
Nothing.
Maggie kept running, willing her legs to move fluidly, reliably, as if she were just on another jog. She was nearly to the Studebaker when her phone vibrated. She started, nearly skidding on the gravel and into a street sign. She swallowed and looked at the display, certain it was the face of the unknown killer calling to confirm her appointment with death.
Hi, I’m your personally assigned murderer. I just wanted to be sure I could reach you.
Instead Constantine’s photograph filled the screen.
Maggie answered, the words tumbling out before Constantine could say hello. “I’m next on the list. I’m next to die.”
“Mags, what are you talking about?”
“The reminder. I just got another one. It’s me. My face was on the reminder app.”
A stunned silence hung between them.
“You’re on the reminder app?”
Maggie clenched her teeth, biting back the sob that was building in her
throat. “Yes. I’m next to die. To be run over or bludgeoned or carved into tiny pieces.”
“Easy, Maggie. We don’t know that—”
“Of course we do,” she snapped. “We know exactly what happens to people who appear on this app. They die. More specifically, they’re murdered.”
“Where are you?” he asked, his voice thin and high with worry.
“I’m at Ethan’s.”
A pause. “Ethan’s?”
She closed her eyes. “It’s a long story. The point is Ethan was friends with Mia. He knew about the Ghana necrosis treatment. He’s helping Rx hide another secret. And the virus that got me fired came from his computer.”
“Holy…” Constantine breathed. “I’m so sorry, Mags.”
“You’re not going to gloat that you were right about Ethan?” she asked softly. “Say ‘I told you so’ and tell me about your superior ability to judge character? He even played rugby.”
“I know how you felt about him. How much you must be hurting. I would never want to add to that.”
Love and gratitude and shame swelled inside Maggie. A symphony of emotion. Basket Case in D Minor. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Are you driving the Studebaker?”
She nodded, knowing he couldn’t see her yet somehow certain he could sense her doing so. “I didn’t think the bus went out here, and I wanted the freedom of having my car. But I was careful.”
“Come home, Mags. Come home now.”
Maggie sped to Constantine’s. Every shadow was someone following. Every sound, the whoosh before a crowbar struck or a blade plunged.
By the time she knocked on Constantine’s door, her skin was shiny with perspiration.
He opened the door and she dashed inside, bolted the door. She had begun shaking uncontrollably. She felt like she was going to be sick. The words came rushing out, jumbling together, running over each other. “They’re going to kill me. They’re going to find me and they’re going to kill me, just like they did the others.”
He folded her into a hug. “That’s not going to happen.”
“No?” She shook him off and paced the room, combing her fingers through her hair, mashing it into a bun, letting it fall again. “Am I luckier than Elsa Henderson? Smarter than Carson? Better than Zartar? What makes me so special?”
“What makes you special? Everything, for starters. And for specifics: what you know and what you’re about to know. So let’s prove that whole knowledge-is-power thing, find out what they’ve done and figure out how we’re going to stop them.”
Maggie reached into her pocket and pulled out the thumb drive. “Let’s start here.”
They sat. Constantine booted up his laptop, inserted the drive then angled the machine toward Maggie. She opened the Ghana necrosis file. They scanned the text in silence. “Not much here I didn’t already know from Zartar,” she said.
Constantine nodded. “Same conspiracy, different day.”
“Let’s see if we have any luck here.” She closed the file and opened the folder titled PROTOCOL. She read silently. Soon, she was engrossed, opening folder after folder, scrolling through page after page, the skin tenting between her eyes as she frowned in concentration
“I know that look,” Constantine said. “You found something.”
She nodded. “I did. But it’s complicated.”
“Then talk slow.”
She took a deep breath. “Well, in a nutshell, when new chemical entities—NCEs, for short—show promising activity against a certain biological target, researchers begin trials to assess stuff like the toxicity, pharmokinetics and metabolism of the NCE. They start using isolated cells, then move to experimental animals. If everything looks good at the preclinical testing stage, the data is submitted to the FDA. If the feds think it looks good, an application for the NCE to become an ‘investigational new drug’ is approved, and clinical trials on humans begin.”
“Okay, talk faster. I know all that.”
“Then you probably also know these tests are conducted according to a predetermined protocol.”
“Right,” he answered. “To make sure the guinea pigs—I mean the trial participants—are not exposed to health risks and that the studies are scientifically valid.”
Maggie nodded. “Exactly. A protocol outlines who may participate in the trial, the schedule of tests, procedures and medications, how the participants’ health will be monitored and how the data will be collected, analyzed and shown to be a success. Or not, as the case may be. And most of them, by the way, aren’t.” She grabbed a pillow from the couch and hugged it. “Out of ten thousand NCEs, only, say, ten will make it to human clinical trials. And of those, only a fraction will make it to market.”
Constantine pantomimed a rapper counting out from his fat stacks of cash. “Sounds spendy.”
“It is. Which is why companies like Rx prefer to create variations on already successful drugs. And why the new herpes drug that also treats Ghana necrosis will only see the light of day as a new-and-maybe-improved herpes med. Or even more likely, as a skin-firming agent.”
“That’s nuts.”
“That’s business, as Zartar would say. And she’d be right.” A lump pushed its way into Maggie’s throat as she thought about her friend. The tough girl who took Maggie under her Bedazzled wing, doling out lipstick and clothes and advice like a surrogate sister to a motherless child. “The truth is, despite efforts to eradicate NTDs and instituting so-called ‘orphan drug’ initiatives, poverty is a disease that’s easy to ignore. I’m starting to think the GN treatment isn’t what Rx is so desperate to hide.”
“Then what?”
Maggie tapped the keyboard and scrolled. “According to these documents, a universal flu vaccine. People poo-poo the flu, but it kills tens of thousands every year—in the United States alone. A vaccine that stopped multiple strains year after year would be—”
“The next best thing to a cure for cancer. Or close to it.”
Maggie felt a pang, a momentary twinge that always struck when she thought of cancer. Like amputees who felt phantom pain or sensation in limbs lost to war or disease or accident, Maggie would always hurt a little, bleed a little, where her mother had been excised from her life.
“This must be what Montgomery senior was hinting at when he announced the IPO to the staff. He said there was a new miracle under development, something that would eliminate a disease and save lives.”
Constantine disappeared into the kitchen and returned with two cups. He handed her one.
“Wouldn’t a vaccine like that be a good thing?”
“A truly universal flu vaccine would be great—revolutionary, even. In time, it has the potential to save millions worldwide. But something’s not right. A lot of somethings. Check this out.”
Constantine scanned the document on-screen and shrugged. “Looks like an electronic invoice for a vendor.” He squinted at the machine. “A research organization to do some work on contract.”
“Did you notice the name of the vendor?”
Constantine’s eyes fell to the bottom of the page. “Holy shit. MediPrixe.”
“There’s more.”
“I love more.”
Maggie closed the document and opened three more. She scrolled as Constantine looked on.
“There’s tons of data here about the vaccine under development, and everything seems pretty buttoned up until you get to the trial protocol.” She jumped to a new page. “The trial began in Mexico, then was halted and moved to a new site with no explanation.”
“Can’t be the first time that’s happened.”
“No,” Maggie admitted. “And it’s not necessarily the kiss of death if a trial is put on hold or moved to a new location, especially if it’s a multisite trial. But there’s no indication of why the trial was stopped and moved. And there’s not on
e iota of data from the trial itself.”
“Strange. You said it was conducted in Mexico?”
“Yeah. I’m not sure where. Let’s see…” She scanned the document, then froze. “Gus, the trial took place in Dolores Hidalgo.”
Chapter 39
Constantine’s face clouded over as he worked to connect the name with files stored in his memory bank. “Dolores Hidalgo?” The clouds broke. “As in ‘Dolores has been taken care of’?”
“It has to be. Dolores isn’t a person. It’s a place. The remnant text Travis found must be related to this test site. Something went wrong with the trial in Dolores Hidalgo, and they pulled the plug. ‘Took care of it.’”
“Think this is the fan-hitting shit Zartar hinted at?”
Maggie grabbed her phone. “I don’t know, but I’m going to try to find out. You see if you can find out any more online. I’ll call Dan.”
“Ah, yes. Mr. FDA. I guess if anyone has any outside insights, it’d be him.”
Constantine steered the laptop toward himself. Maggie walked into Constantine’s tiny kitchen and dialed, praying Dan didn’t watch the news or hear about her alleged involvement in Zartar’s death. Dan answered on the sixth ring.
“Hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time,” Maggie said.
Dan laughed, sounding totally normal. She guessed he didn’t watch the news. No surprise there. He didn’t seem to pay attention to anything outside the lab or his office. “It’s never a bad time to hear from my favorite prodigy. How goes it at ye olde new job?”
Maggie put on her breeziest voice. “It’s good.” I was set up to look like a company mole, had drugs planted in my desk, got fired and found one of my coworkers murdered. “Yep, real, real good. But I have another little mystery I thought you could help me solve.”
“Absolutely. How can I help?”
She toyed with a kitchen towel imprinted with a Doctor Who TARDIS. “Do you know anything about Rx using a company called MediPrixe as a contractor for clinical trials?”
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