Lost Immunity by Daniel Kalla (free reads TXT) 📕

“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 Complications.”

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.”

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