Pam sat on the deck of her condo, the bright August sun bouncing off the Charles River, and scanned the final published version of her paper with a warm glow of satisfaction. Nature had been quick. Published online last night, less than two months after it was submitted. Her eyes teared up as she skimmed through it. It all looks good.

She turned to the journal’s editorial just as Jake came back from his foray to the corner bakery.

“Here we go,” he said. “Breakfast and some interesting newspapers.”

He sat down next to her and she moved the laptop over so he could see. “Look at this. The final published version.”

He leaned over and kissed her. “Wonderful! Does everything look okay?”

She squeezed his hand. “Perfect. Just what I’ve been waiting for.”

“You’re all over the newspapers too, you know. Here’s what I found at the newsstand.”

He put copies of USA Today, the Boston Globe, and the New York Times on the table. Pam recognized excerpts from the Langmere press release, run under headlines like “Revolutionary Progress in Alzheimer’s Disease” and “Treatment for Alzheimer’s on the Horizon.” At least most of what they wrote was reasonably accurate, if a bit overly dramatic. The Times reporter in particular had gone beyond the press release and asked several other scientists, identified as leaders in Alzheimer’s research, for their comments on the paper. Professor Eric Prescott of the Institute for Advanced Neuroscience was quoted as having said, “These findings look extremely promising. If the work is reproducible, it would represent a quantum leap forward in our fight against Alzheimer’s.”

Pam frowned. It was poor taste for Prescott to have raised the question of reproducibility in his comments, almost implying that he didn’t trust her work. But no matter. Now that the paper was published and aneurinide would be made available to others in the field, reproducing the results wouldn’t be a problem.

• • •

Holly struggled to maintain her balance as the train lurched and other hot and sweaty subway passengers jostled against her. She hated the subway. An inhuman mode of transportation, especially on a hot and humid August evening. But Prescott had insisted that she take public transportation so they wouldn’t be seen together when he suggested going out to dinner to celebrate the paper’s publication.

To avoid the risk of running into anyone they knew in town, he chose a historic restaurant in Sudbury, some twenty-five miles west of Boston. The Wayside Inn, famous as the setting for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.” She’d never been there, but Prescott said it would be a good place for a celebration dinner. And one that was unlikely to be visited by any of their Boston colleagues on a Wednesday night.

She finally got off the subway at the Riverside station in Newton and got a cab for the rest of the trip. She couldn’t believe it, but the damn cab’s air conditioning wasn’t working, at least not well enough to notice. The trip took almost three hours and it was after eight when she arrived at the restaurant, haggard and drenched with sweat.

She found Prescott waiting in the lounge. All cool and comfortable. No subway for him.

“You’re all flushed and sweaty,” he said. “Tough trip?”

“Long and hot, and the stupid cab wasn’t even air conditioned. I could use a drink.”

They went into the dining room and he looked around.

“Good,” he said. “Nobody that I recognize.”

They settled into a corner table near the unused fireplace and ordered gin and tonics from a waiter in Colonial dress. Holly sat back and stopped sweating as she sipped her drink.

“To your first paper in Nature.” Prescott raised his glass with a wry smile.

“Thanks. Too bad it’s a fake.”

“Well, not really a fake. It’s all true except for the name of the drug. And you’ll rediscover the real one soon enough.”

The waiter circled back and they decided to start with oysters on the half shell, with Holly then choosing a lobster casserole and Prescott opting for baked scrod, accompanied by a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

Holly dipped an oyster in cocktail sauce. “I have to say, it’s really weird being in Pam’s lab now. And it’s going to get worse by the day now that this is published. I wish I could get out and move over to your group right away.”

“I’m sorry, I can imagine how hard this must be for you. But I’m afraid you’re going to have to be patient until everything blows up. Moving too early would make it look like you knew trouble was coming.”

Holly nodded. “I know, it’s just hard being around her and trying to behave normally when I know what’s going to happen.”

“You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

Holly took a swallow of wine. “No, it’s not that. Don’t worry, no regrets on my part. She has it coming. It’s just that the playacting is tough.”

Prescott smiled. “Good, you had me worried there for a minute. Well, you should enjoy the fact that she’ll be spending a lot of time traveling. She’s going to be asked to give lectures all over the place and she’ll be on the road as much as she’ll be in Boston.”

“That’s interesting. I’ll have to keep track of her travel schedule so that experiments don’t work when she’s away.”

“Ah, good thinking. Will that be a problem?”

Holly grinned. “I don’t think so. All I’ll have to do is ask and she’ll be happy to brag about all the places she’s going, the stupid bitch.”

She finished her lobster and raised the last of her wine in a toast. “To conspirators.”

“To conspirators.” Prescott clinked her glass. “And you know, when you get her travel schedule, why don’t you pass it along to me as well. It’ll help me decide where it would be most effective to plant rumors about problems with her data.”

He looked at his watch. “It’s after ten and I hate to make you sneak around in another cab and the subway to get home at this hour. It’ll be getting on to eleven before we get you home, even if I drive you to Brookline. The streets should be clear by then, don’t you think?”

“Yes, thanks. A ride sounds good. My neighbors will be in bed by then, and I’ve had enough of trains and cabs for one day.”

The ride in Prescott’s sports car, with the top down and air conditioner on, was lots better than the subway trip. The street was deserted when he pulled over to the curb opposite her apartment and Holly got out. The only sign of life was a dog barking in a yard a few houses down.