Dr. Abbey offered me a nod. “Welcome back. Feeling better?”

“No, but I think I’ll live. That’s more than some people can say.” Kelly shot me a look. I ignored her. “Dr. Abbey, how secure is your network? If we made a call, could it be traced?”

“A call to, say, the CDC?” She straightened. “I have a few burn phones I’ve been saving for just such an occasion. Wait here.” Dr. Abbey made a complicated gesture toward Joe, who was in the process of standing, presumably so he could follow her. The dog subsided, staying where he was as she turned and strode out of the room.

Kelly looked at me with open alarm. “Shaun? What are you going to do?”

“Break your fucking jaw if you don’t shut up, right now,” I said, pleasantly enough. “I’m not ready for you to talk to me yet.”

“That means it’s time for you to be quiet,” said Maggie.

There was a time when I would have told her not to taunt the Doc. That time was over and done with. “Becks, why don’t you make sure the Doc stays quiet while I take care of things. I wouldn’t want her to get any funny ideas about saying hi.”

“My pleasure.” Becks drew her pistol and moved to stand behind Kelly, adopting an easy, comfortable-looking stance. She could stand that way all day if she needed to. I’d seen her do it in field recordings.

Kelly stared straight ahead, unflinching. If I hadn’t been so mad at her, I might have been impressed. As it was, I couldn’t really look at her without wanting to punch her face in.

Dr. Abbey walked briskly back down the hall and slapped a phone into my hand. “This is voice activated and will stay untraceable for about five minutes. Give it the number you want and tell it to dial. You might also tell it to set itself to speaker, since I’d like to know what my resources are being d to do.”

“Happily,” I said. I pulled my normal phone from my pocket and brought up Dr. Wynne in my address book, reading off the numbers in a slow, clear voice before saying, “Dial and set to speaker.”

The phone beeped. Three rings later, a CDC receptionist came on the line, perky as always as he said, “Dr. Joseph Wynne’s office, how may I direct your call?”

“This is Shaun Mason. Please connect me to Dr. Wynne.”

“May I ask the nature of your call?”

“No, you may not. Now connect me to Dr. Wynne.”

“Sir, I’m afraid I—”

“Now!”