Pam was relieved to find Jake waiting for her when she entered the richly appointed reception area of the law offices of Hobbs and Gallagher, which occupied half of the seventeenth floor of one of Boston’s new downtown office buildings. Impressive quarters. A law office like this was new ground for her and she was glad Jake was here for support. At least she had her divorce settlement to cover the cost.

She barely had time to sit down before the receptionist greeted her. “Dr. Weller? Please come with me, Ms. Gallagher is expecting you.”

Pam and Jake followed the receptionist to an office in the northeast corner. The floor-to-ceiling glass windows reminded Pam of DeSilva’s domain, except the lavender walls and bright-colored furnishings gave it a warm cheery feeling rather than a sense of heavy formality.

Anita Gallagher got up from behind her desk, greeted Jake with a quick hug, and motioned them over to a glass conference table. A slender dark-haired woman in a light blue suit, she exuded an air of calm competence that Pam found reassuring.

“Thank you again for taking my case,” Pam said. “It’s nice to meet you in person after we talked on the phone last week.”

“Once Jake briefed me on the situation and we talked, I wanted to get on top of things as quickly as possible,” Anita said. “It’s horrible what they’ve done to you.”

Pam blinked, surprised by such an unequivocal statement of support. “You mean you believe me in spite of all the publicity?”

“I’ve been around long enough to know how publicity works. And I’ve known Jake a long time, so what he says about you is enough for me. But what we’ve got to figure out is how to prove it. I’ve started looking into this from a couple of angles and I’m afraid it’s going to be a tough haul.”

Pam bit her lower lip. “Tell me how you see things. Just the real picture, no sugar coating.”

Anita nodded. “Okay. The first thing I did was to contact the Langmere’s attorney and threaten to sue for unlawful termination. He just laughed at me and said they’d followed established procedures so we didn’t have a case. Somewhat to my surprise, he was even willing to provide me with the report of the misconduct committee and transcripts of their meetings. That of course speaks to his confidence in the way they handled things, and I have to admit I couldn’t find any obvious holes when I reviewed the documents.”

She passed copies of a thick file across the table.

“It looks like the committee thought from the beginning that the fraud was most likely perpetrated jointly by you and your postdoc. The postdoc tried to lay the blame on you when she testified, but the committee wasn’t convinced and her suicide note sealed the case for them.”

“Except I didn’t do it,” Pam protested. “Somehow she framed me.”

Anita held up a hand. “I know, I’m not arguing. But I can’t find anything actionable for us in the procedures that the Langmere followed.”

“How about Holly’s death?” Jake asked. “I assume the cops have further investigated. Is there anything there for us?”

“Right, I checked that out too,” Anita said. “The cops did their usual thing with forensic analysis and interviews with people who knew Holly. Bottom line is it looks like the suicide story holds up. The ME confirmed the cause of death was Nembutal, which was available to her in the lab. Nothing other than her DNA on the vial or the glass she drank it from. And the members of the committee thought their last session with her would have left her feeling like the prime suspect in their investigation.”

Pam nodded. “The detectives interviewed me too. But I had the feeling they weren’t even listening to what I said, it was all settled in their minds.”

Jake got up and started pacing the room. “That’s the way they work. Jump at the obvious conclusion and call it solved.” He turned to Anita. “What really must have happened is that Holly killed herself when she got caught as a fraud and left a note falsely implicating Pam. She was more than a little crazy and was furious with Pam about authorship on the paper.”

Anita raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Tell me about that.”

“Yes, she certainly had a screw loose about authorship,” Pam said. “She wanted to be first author, even though it was agreed from the start that she’d be second. We had a big fight about it and her behavior was really bizarre, although eventually she seemed to calm down and accept things.”

“That’s interesting,” Anita said. “Did you tell that to the cops when they interviewed you?”

“Sure, but they didn’t seem to pay much attention.”

“Which explains why it’s not in the police report,” Anita said. “Well, we can certainly argue that holding a grudge against you could be a motive for having made false accusations in her suicide note. But we’re still left with the problem that the misconduct committee thought there had to be collusion between the two of you to get the double-blind experiment to work.”

“Yes, but I know something they didn’t,” Pam said.

Anita and Jake both looked at her. Then Jake asked, “You mean that you’re innocent?”

“No,” Pam said. “I mean that whatever compound Holly gave me for that experiment actually worked. I didn’t cheat on it and there’s no way Holly could have gotten hold of my code, so there’s no other alternative.”

“Meaning she actually did have an effective drug at that point in time?” Jake asked.

“Exactly,” Pam said. “Whatever happened afterward.”

Jake nodded. “So I think our next step is to figure out what that drug was.”

“I don’t know how you’re going to pull that off, but it would certainly help,” Anita said. “Unfortunately, there’s one other thing I have to tell you.”

Her face was grave and Pam felt a new sense of foreboding. Now what?

“There’s a possibility the Feds will bring criminal charges,” Anita continued. “That doesn’t usually happen with scientific fraud, but DeSilva’s apparently contacted a congressman he knows to exert pressure on the U.S. Attorney. As a result, they’re considering your case to be extremely high profile. Similar in impact to the case of an HIV researcher who was prosecuted for faking vaccine data a few years ago.”

“What happened to him?” Pam asked.

“He was sentenced to almost five years in prison.”

Pam stiffened.

“I’m sorry,” Anita said. “They haven’t reached a decision yet, and it’ll probably take a while before they do. But I needed to let you know.”

Pam closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Could this get even worse? “Then I guess we’d better start trying to find a sample of the real drug.”