“Hey, Dr. Lopez, you sound young,” Louise said. “You’re not single by any chance?”

“Thirty-two. And as a matter of fact I am,” she said, laughing at the latest surreal turn in their conversation. “Why, do you have a son?”

“Actually I do, but I don’t think his battle-axe of a wife would appreciate me setting him up,” Louise said. “No. I’d just love to see Dr. Kilburn settle down with a nice lady doctor.”

“Even one who lives in Seattle?” she asked.

“Details, details,” Louise said dismissively.

Lopez was still smiling when she tried Kilburn’s cell number. After listening to the recorded greeting, she summarized her credentials and said: “I know you must be swamped, but it’s vital I reach you. We have cases in Seattle similar to yours in Vancouver.”

She put down her phone and drove the rest of the way with only the sound of the rain, which had slowed to a steady patter, in the background. In her head, she went over the interview with Marilyn Carlyle again. How did Tonya Jackson’s dark-eyed dealer fit, if at all, into the spread of MRGAS?

She still hadn’t come up with a plausible answer by the time she pulled into the underground parking lot of the State Health building.

Stepping into David Warmack’s seventh-floor office, she sensed immediately that the news was not good. With his tie loosened and top button undone, he leaned back in the chair behind his desk. His forehead was creased with concern. The skin below his eyes drooped. For the first time ever, Warmack looked old to her.

“What is it, David?” she asked gently, sitting down across from him.

“There are four more confirmed cases, Cat,” he said quietly. “And six possible others.”

Lopez’s stomach sank, but the news didn’t surprise her. “Where?”

“Seven at Harborcenter,” he said. “And three at the Kaster Hospital.”

Lopez nodded. “Any link to Tonya Jackson?”

“Maybe with the Harborcenter cases.” Warmack shrugged. “No obvious connection with the first confirmed case at Kaster. Then again, he’s another IV-drug user.”

“So we now have two super-infected hospitals in King County,” she said flatly.

He lifted a copy of the Seattle Times on his desk. “And it’s not a secret anymore, either.”

Lopez leaned forward and read the headline: LETHAL SUPERBUG SPREADS THROUGH HOSPITAL. She took the paper from his hand and scanned the article that described Harry Wales’s and Tonya Jackson’s illnesses with only partial accuracy. She folded her arms across her chest. “It was bound to leak out, David.”

“I know.” His voice sounded as tired as he looked. “But we can’t let innuendo run rampant. We need to make a statement.”

“Agreed.”

“I’ve called a press conference for noon. For both of us.”

Lopez flipped the newspaper back on the desk. “This isn’t the fifteen minutes of fame I was hoping for,” she said glumly.