Pam went directly from the airport to the downtown Irish pub her lawyer had suggested for a six o’clock meeting. It was loud and bustling when she got there, with the bar two deep in office workers stopping off for a quick one before the commute home.

She took a dimly lit booth in the back and ordered a glass of wine while she waited for Anita Gallagher to arrive. The crowd at the bar was an interesting mix, including a smartly dressed couple who couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other. They looked like lawyers or bankers, and Pam guessed an office romance was in the works.

An attractive business type, one of a group of three men at the bar, caught Pam’s eye and tilted his glass at her with an inviting smile. She had to suppress a laugh. Must be pretty hard up to find me attractive the way I’m feeling. She shook her head to decline his offer but, apparently unconvinced, he started over to her table just as Anita came through the door. Pam waved her over and the guy returned to his friends at the bar with a disappointed look.

Anita ordered a martini and they waited for her drink to come. Then she took a sip and broke the news. “I’m sorry Pam. I know the AUSA, assistant U.S. attorney, and I tried to talk him down from this. But he’s determined to pursue prosecution for criminal fraud. There seems to be political pressure so they’re playing it as a high profile case and planning to go to the grand jury for an indictment.”

Pam’s head started to pound. She took a deep breath and asked, “So what happens next?”

“The grand jury will issue an indictment and you’ll be arrested.”

“Arrested! Like a common criminal?”

“I’m sorry.” Anita said again. “I asked the AUSA if you could surrender yourself instead, but he refused. The bastards want the publicity of an arrest.”

Pam started to sweat. “Christ! What then?”

“They’ll probably come for you in the early morning. I’ll try to find out when, but I’m not sure they’ll tell me. The charge will be that you used falsified data in your federal grants applications, the same charge they used against that AIDS researcher. You’ll go before a judge magistrate later that morning and we’ll plead not guilty of course. Then you’ll be released on bail and we get to work on trial preparation.”

Pam looked down at the table and squeezed her eyes shut. Like a bank robber or something. And all I’ve done is discover a drug to treat Alzheimer’s.

“There’s been some progress since we last met,” she said. “Maybe it would help if you updated the prosecutor?”

“I’m happy to try. What’s happened?”

“I found some of Holly’s old samples and a colleague in Michigan tested them for me. One of them worked, meaning there really is an active drug and I have a sample of it. We also did some chemical analysis and it’s not the same as aneurinide. I still have to figure out what it is, but that should be doable.”

Anita’s face brightened. “That’s great! Where’d you find the sample?”

Pam hesitated a minute. “That might be a problem. Jake and I got into the Langmere and went through Holly’s things in my old lab.”

Anita raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, got into the Langmere?”

Pam was quiet and Anita said, “You broke in, didn’t you? You can tell me, I’m your lawyer.”

“Jake snuck into the building and let me in when it was late at night. Then he picked the lock on my old lab.”

Anita snorted. “Sounds like Jake. Just the kind of thing that got him squeezed out of the FBI.” She finished her drink and motioned the waiter for a refill. “Well, given the seriousness of this whole affair, I’m not terribly worried about a little breaking and entering if it clears things up.”

“Great, so can we go talk to the prosecutor?” Pam asked. Maybe this was progress after all.

Anita toyed with her drink. “We could, but I don’t think it’s a good idea at this point. I’m afraid the AUSA will argue that the Langmere investigation was right about you and Holly acting together, except that you substituted an inactive compound in place of the real drug instead of just making up the data. That kind of conspiracy theory could make matters even worse.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Why would I have tried to hide the real drug?”

“If it wasn’t for the threat of criminal prosecution, all you’d suffer from this whole affair is the loss of your job at the Langmere. If you had a real drug, you could set up some kind of private company and rediscover it, with all of the royalties going to you—or to you and Holly—instead of to the Langmere. It would be a pretty strong motive.”

“Except that I’d never let my reputation be destroyed for money. My career means everything to me.”

“I understand,” Anita said. “And I can argue that to a jury later on. But it’s not going to budge the AUSA. I think the best strategy is to keep this to ourselves for now. I’m afraid you’ll have to go through the arrest and arraignment. After that we’ll start building our case.”