“I’m fine,” I said, teeth still gritted as I willed George to shut up until I’d managed to get Becks to go away. “Just stiff. And that didn’t answer my question. What else made you come up here?”

“Ah, that. You have company.” Becks unfolded her arms, shoving her hands into the pocketsof her jeans. She’d changed her clothes, which only made sense; the clothing she’d worn in the field needed to be thoroughly sterilized before it was safe to wear again. The logical need to change didn’t explain why she’d put on new jeans and a flowery shirt that wouldn’t offer any protection in an outbreak, but girls have never made much sense to me. I never needed them to. George was always there, ready and willing to play translator.

I raised an eyebrow. “Company? Define ‘company.’ Is this the kind of company that wants an interview? Or the kind of company I have a restraining order against?” Most people don’t think I’m handling Georgia’s death very well, what with the whole “hearing her inside my head even though she’s not here anymore” aspect of things. Well, if I’m not handling it well, the Masons aren’t handling it at all, since they’ve spent the last year alternately pleading with me to see reason and threatening to sue me for ownership of her intellectual property. I always knew they were vultures, but it took someone actually dying for me to understand just how appropriate that comparison really was. They’d started hovering around before the man who paid her killer was even cold, looking for a way to make a profit off the situation.

I mean that literally. I checked the time stamps on the first e-mails they sent me. I don’t think they even took the time to pretend to grieve before they started trying to make sure they’d get their piece of the action. So yeah, I took out a restraining order against them. They’ve taken it surprisingly well thus far. Maybe because it’s done wonderful things for their ratings.

“Neither,” said Becks. “She says she knows you from the CDC, and that she’s been trying to get hold of you for weeks—something about needing to talk to you about a research program that Georgia was involved with back when you were—Shaun? Where are you going?”

I was halfway across the roof the moment the words “research program” left her lips, and by the time she asked where I was going, it was too late; I was already gone, hand on the doorknob, barreling back down the stairs toward the hallway.