Vaccine Nation Read Online Free PDF Page B

inhaled. After a minute or so she was calmer. Okay. Now think. What to do?
    Her first priority was Gabe. Francesca wouldn’t be bringing him back to the apartment after his audition until around 6:00 p.m. Terror seized her. That can’t happen. The killer might be staking it out. She had to reach Francesca to have her bring him someplace else. At least until she could figure out her next steps. What about the cops? She shook her head. Not now. Not with some phony FBI guys buzzing around and not with a guy in a cop uniform trying to kill her.
    Where could she go? She thought about James. Given their current situation it would be a rotten thing for her to call him and ask for help. But of course he’d let her stay at his place, do whatever he could to help her. He still loved her, which was why she didn’t want to take advantage of him. Not unless she couldn’t think of anything else. My God. Some nut was running around out there trying to kill her. James would understand. She didn’t need to be such a Girl Scout about it.
    But the more important thing was to figure out what was going on. Where could she even start? She put her hand in her blazer pocket and felt the USB flash memory drive. If she could get to a computer she could see what was on it and find some answers. It made sense that was why Maguire was killed. And understanding what was there might explain who wouldn’t want it revealed.
    She thought of John McCloskey, Maguire’s friend, who introduced him to Dani. A man who blew the whistle on his employer. And he introduced his friend to the woman who helped get his story out. She didn’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to put it together. Maguire was trying to blow the whistle on hisown company but they silenced him first. Yet, was it really possible that Pharma International, one of the biggest drug companies in the world, would have one of its own employees murdered to keep him from exposing a secret? She knew most of her friends—who believed all the nutty conspiracy theories on the Internet—would buy that theory. But she wasn’t sure she did.
    She saw a camera shot on the TV screen over the bar. It was the front of Dr. O’s office. She moved closer to the TV so she could hear. The newscaster was talking about a bizarre series of events on the Upper West Side. It all began with the murder of Dr. Robert Maguire, a biologist for Pharma International, in the offices of Dr. Yuri Orlovski on 79 th Street and Broadway at 9:00 a.m. Then, within hours, a few blocks away on 88 th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam, a policeman was killed in the apartment of Dani North, an employee of Dr. Orlovski who witnessed the murder of Dr. Maguire.
    A photograph of the young cop appeared on the screen. It wasn’t the guy she’d encountered in her apartment. What the hell? The newscaster went on. Police were looking for Ms. North—at that moment Dani felt a burst of panic as she saw her own photograph flash up on the screen—and were considering her a person of interest in the case.
    Dani lowered her head, shielding her face from the bartender. She went back to her table, dropped three dollars on it, turned and walked out. She didn’t know where she was going, but she was certain it wasn’t to the police. She knew what “person of interest” meant. And given the events of the day, it seemed logical she was being framed to make it appear she was involved in the murder of the cop, and maybe even Maguire. She felt like people on the street were watching her. She pulled out her BlackBerry and hit the speed dial to call Mom.

THREE
    D ANI WALKED up B ROADWAY HOLDING her BlackBerry to her ear, a knot twisting in her stomach. Her muscles felt shaky and twitchy after repeated jolts of adrenaline during the day. Normally the aromas of ethnic cooking from the shops north of 100 th Street, the sounds of Latin music and rapid-fire Spanish from groups on the street corners were a welcome balm when she was out of sorts. Now it