Pam was sipping a glass of wine, inhaling the aroma of tomatoes and garlic wafting from her kitchen. Jake was making his special lasagna. He’d been especially attentive the last couple of weeks, trying to keep her calm while they waited to hear from George. A good guy. Really there for me.

Then the ping of an incoming email interrupted her musing. She gasped when she read it. Oh my God, no!

Jake heard her and came running over. She handed him the iPad. It was from George.

The photographs attached show the effect of the original 40492. Or rather the lack of effect. It does nothing, it’s just crap. I don’t know why you asked me to do this, but I’m finished. Leave me alone.

Jake put his arm around her and she laid her head on his shoulder. “Shit. I’m sorry, Pam.”

She sniffled and looked up, her eyes moist. “I don’t understand how this is possible. Holly had to have a drug that worked at the beginning, and this was the initial sample we got from the library.”

“Do you trust George? Could he be lying about this?” Jake asked.

She sighed. “I don’t know who to trust anymore, but it would have been in George’s interest for this to have worked. I don’t see why he’d lie about it.”

“Let’s think more about Holly then. You know she had an active drug initially, but then what? She must have misidentified it as aneurinide.”

Pam sat up and took a gulp of wine. Focus. Sniveling isn’t going to help. “Crazy as it seems, that must be what happened. Maybe she wanted to steal the active compound and pretend she’d discovered it on her own somehow. Maybe it wasn’t even 40492 in the first place. That would certainly explain why the sample George tested didn’t work.”

“Maybe,” Jake said. “But I think it’s more likely that 40492 was the real thing at first and she switched it for something else later. My guess would be that she came up with a plan to discredit you and steal the real drug when you wouldn’t make her first author. And if I’m right, she probably destroyed the original sample.”

“Why would she do that?”

“In case anybody went back to test it, like you just did.”

“Christ Jake, I never imagined she’d do something like this.” Pam went over to the window and stared out at the frozen river. “But if that’s what happened, she must have had another sample of the active drug somewhere. She wouldn’t have destroyed it entirely.”

“So maybe there’s still some in your lab somewhere?” Jake asked.

Pam swung around to face him. Was this another chance? “There could be.”

“Then we have to get back into your lab and see if we can find it.”

“Yes, but I don’t have access to either my lab or the building anymore.”

Jake smiled. “I don’t think that’ll be a problem. Tell me what you know about the building security. Then give me a couple of days to check it out and we’ll go in.”