It took Pam until late morning to get to the University of Michigan campus and find her former mentor’s office, which had moved to a new interdisciplinary neuroscience building since she’d been a postdoc. She was exhausted and red-eyed from lack of sleep. But no way was she going to slow down now.

She knocked on the door and Karl Meyers looked up from his computer. His eyes widened when he saw her. As if he was looking at a ghost. “My God, Pam! What are you doing here?”

“I have to talk to you, Karl. I need your help.”

“Why didn’t you call?” He sighed. “I wish I could do something to help you. But you know we tried aneurinide. It didn’t do anything.”

Pam started toward him and he shrank back into his chair with a frown. “Pam I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do. It’s hard to believe you did what they say, but I don’t know what else to think.”

He glanced at his phone and Pam wondered if he was thinking of calling security.

“C’mon Karl, it’s me.” She held up her hands in the universal gesture of surrender. “I know I look a mess, I was up all night and took an early morning flight to get here. But just listen to me for a minute. It’s not the way everyone thinks.”

He looked at her appraisingly. Finally he motioned her to a chair across from the desk and got up to close the door. “Alright, tell me what you think may have happened.”

Pam took a deep breath and sat down. I have to make this good.

Karl listened without interrupting as Pam told him the story. “So you’re saying that your postdoc was crazy and tried to steal your drug. Then she killed herself when she was about to get caught and tried to frame you in a suicide note. Could she really be that much of a nut?”

Pam shrugged. “I’m not a shrink, but I don’t see any other explanation. What I do know for sure is that she had a real drug. Whatever she gave me for the double-blind experiment worked.”

Karl was quiet for a minute. “I’d like to believe you. I certainly never had reason to doubt anything you did when we worked together. But I don’t know what to say. How do you think I can help?”

“I have some of her old samples and I think one of them might be the real drug. But I don’t have a lab anymore, so I can’t test them. Could I do it in your lab?”

“And if one worked, who do you think would believe you?”

Her stomach fell. He’s not going to help after all. “Please, just give me a chance. What else can I do?”

She was surprised to see him smile with a trace of his old warmth.

“No, you don’t understand. I’m going to help you, it just won’t be any good if you do the experiment. Give me samples of what you have, and then go back to Boston. I’ll get them tested when you’re nowhere near the lab. Then if one works, people will believe it. And I hope it does, Pam. I truly do.”