“I’m not trying to get rid of you.” Then she added with a smile: “Not yet, anyway.”

“If it’s alright with you, I was kind of hoping to see how things turn out in Seattle for the next few days.” He shrugged. “After my little stunt in Vancouver, I’m persona non grata around my hospital.”

“But you and your so-called little stunt might end up saving a lot of lives.”

He looked down at his coffee cup. “That’s a bit of a stretch, Lina. Even if Oraloxin does work, someone else at one of the other study centers was bound to have given it a try.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Lopez frowned. “Where are the other study centers?”

“There are separate Oraloxin trials in Chicago and Europe.” He tapped his chin. “But the centers I know of on the West Coast trial include Vancouver and Victoria in, Canada, and Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and San Jose in the States.”

“That’s kind of a coincidence, huh?” she said.

“What is?”

“All four MRGAS outbreaks have occurred in cities with ongoing Oraloxin trials.”

He frowned. “When you put it that way …”

The waiter arrived with their omelets. As he turned from the table, Lopez’s phone rang. “Excuse me, Graham, it could be important,” she said reaching for her phone. “Hello.”

“Dr. Lopez, my name is Sergeant Seth Cohen,” he said in a soft deep voice. “I’m a homicide detective with the Portland Police Department. I’m sorry to call so early.”

“Portland Homicide?” she said, thinking of Amar’s news about the first positive MRGAS case in Portland. “What’s going on, Sergeant?”

“Hope I’m not wasting your time,” Cohen said, “but I was reading about your involvement with the MRGAS—” he pronounced it correctly but tentatively—“outbreak in Seattle.”

“Okay,” she said. “How might that be connected to Portland Homicide?”

“Probably isn’t,” Cohen said. “Let me take a step back. We’ve been investigating a double-homicide of two local drug dealers. One of the few witnesses in the case was a female drug user who was in the same alley the night the two victims were gunned down.”

Lopez’s heart sped up, but she didn’t interrupt.

“The witness in question met a man who we believe was involved in the murders,” Cohen continued. “But shortly after we interviewed her, our witness died from a blood infection that started with an abscess at her elbow. I wonder if she might have suffered from the same MRGAS infection as seen in Seattle and Vancouver.”

“It’s possible,” Lopez murmured.

“I was hoping you could give me a sense of the timeline,” Cohen continued in his even tone. “What’s the incubation period—I hope that’s the word—for this infection?”

“Two to four days,” she said.

“And do you happen to know if the Vancouver outbreak predated the one in Seattle?”

“Yes,” she said numbly. “By at least four days.”