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  She shrugged. “It doesn’t really fit, does it? He survived the crash but died before the paramedics could get him to the hospital. By that point he was already infected. If he was going to release it, wouldn’t it make sense that he survived?”

  “So he had an accomplice?”

  “Or an enemy,” she replied. She walked around the side of the truck, stooping as she did so. “If Mahoney wasn’t involved, then I doubt it was a coincidence that he happened to get into an accident.”

  Most of the vehicle was marred by smoke and fire, leaving the damage indistinguishable from any signs of the accident. Only the hood shows evidence of the crash. Cassie ran her hands along the separation between the burnt and bubbled paint near the top of the truck and the still relatively pristine white paint below. On the side of the truck, she traced the bottom of the gray diamond and what remained of the letters, spelling out “PFD.” As she walked toward the cab, her gaze drifted lower and she furrowed her brow. She paused near the front wheel well and gingerly touched scrapes on the paint. Her fingers traced backward, as she followed one scrape as it stretched past the driver’s door.

  “What do you have?” Chuck asked.

  She withdrew her hand and noticed a metallic blue clinging to her glove. “Paint transfer.” She glanced up at him. “Definitely not from the armored truck.”

  “Could it have been from the barrels he hit?” he offered.

  Cassie held up her fingers so he could see the blue paint. “Someone rammed him into that wall.”

  Chuck whistled softly. “I know a lot of people who aren’t going to like this report.”

  * * *

  The elevator opened onto the fifth floor once more and Cassie followed Chuck to his office. She collapsed into one of his chairs, this time without being invited.

  “This thing is giving me a headache,” she complained, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We have a pharmaceutical company that’s supposed to be working on a vaccine, but instead they actually created the virus in the first place. We have a truck carrying the virus run off the road. We have someone prying open the back door and releasing the virus intentionally, then setting fire to the truck to cover their tracks.” She covered her face with her hands and tilted her head backward. “This is normally the part of the day where I’d head to a bar and drink cosmos until this all made sense.”

  “I can’t help with cosmos, but…” Chuck pulled open a bottom drawer and withdrew a bottle of clear liquor and a couple glasses. He rattled the glasses, offering one to her.

  She read the label on the bottle and frowned. “Vodka?”

  “Cheap vodka,” he corrected.

  “That’s the best you’ve got?”

  Chuck shrugged. “Apparently when everyone starts dying, hard liquor becomes a commodity. Push comes to shove, beggars can’t be choosers.”

  With a sigh, she held out her glass. He filled it most of the way. Despite it being a short cup, he easily poured six or seven shots worth of vodka into the tumbler. He poured his own and raised it in a toast.

  “To the end of the world.”

  She raised her glass before bringing it to her lips. She paused as the smell hit her, a combination of rubbing alcohol and paint thinner. Wrinkling her nose, she took a swig, feeling the sensation of fire rolling down her throat. She coughed involuntarily and her eyes watered, but Chuck merely laughed.

  “Good?” he chided.

  “Toxic,” she replied. “Good enough it should be shared with John and Joanne.”

  Chuck looked longingly at his bottle and she quickly realized it was all he had left. With a sigh, he leaned around his desk and yelled into the cubicle farm beyond his door.

  “Come in here, John!”

  John appeared at the door, brushing his shaggy hair out of his face. Cassie raised her glass, offering him a drink. He looked surprised for a second before taking his own drink. His face immediately went scarlet and he exhaled slowly.

  “Go grab Joanne, too,” Chuck said.

  John tried to respond but it came out in a wheezing gasp. Nodding instead, he handed Cassie back her glass before vanishing back into the room beyond.

  Cassie lowered her glass, unsure if she wanted to take another drink. It felt like a celebration, but her mind was a million miles away. The smile on Chuck’s face faded and he lowered his glass.

  “Who would make a virus like this?” Cassie asked. “They had to know it would get out of hand. You don’t weaponize one of the deadliest viruses in the world and then act surprised when it does exactly what you want it to.”

  “Did you get a look at the virus?” Chuck asked.

  She nodded. “We had some samples down in Atlanta. Ebola mixed with Influenza H5N1, plus a little something extra for added virility. Whoever designed this is a real bastard.”

  “Yeah, but the real bastard is whoever let it out.”

  Cassie absently ran her finger around the lip of her glass. “Do you honestly think it could have been PFD?”

  Chuck shrugged. “Do I think a pharmaceutical company is capable of being, basically, a stereotypical Bond villain? Just thinking about it makes me imagine that Peter Franklin Donalds is run by a guy in a high-backed chair, petting a cat.”

  She chuckled as she shook her head. “I just want to give them a call, to find out what the hell they were thinking.”

  “PFD? Wish we could. All the phone lines have been tied up for the past few days. Nothing goes through.”

  “You don’t have a satellite phone?”

  “We do,” Chuck said, “but it won’t do us any good. The only numbers I have for PFD are commercial lines.”

  Cassie swirled the vile liquid around her glass. She opened her mouth to speak, but a crash from the main room startled her. John slid to a stop in front of the door, out of breath. He pointed over his shoulder. “You two are going to want to see this.”

  Without a word, they set down their glasses and hurried from the office. John led them to the far end of the room, where a break room sat open. Joanne stood against one wall, watching a blaring television. On the screen, a dark-haired female reporter was talking frantically. The label at the bottom of the screen said, “Amy Savino, WNMN News.” She was near the end of a report, but it didn’t take Cassie long for her breath to catch in her throat.

  “The virus continued to spread relentlessly from there. As you probably know, Peter Franklin Donalds is a well-known pharmaceutical company that was manufacturing a vaccine for the AVHF virus at the time of the outbreak here in New York.

  “New York, this may be my last broadcast, but it may also be my most important. This reporter believes that the virus here in New York has too many coincidences. I will not rest until I find out the truth. My heart is with you, New York. God bless you all.”

  Cassie turned sharply toward Chuck. “I need to talk to her.”

  Chuck was a step ahead of her, turning toward John. “Get one of the vans and bring her here. Now.”

  John ran from the room as they turned their attention back to the television.

  * * *

  Cassie glanced through the narrow window on the door. Amy Savino shifted nervously in her chair, glancing around at the narrow room. The CDC offices didn’t exactly have an interrogation room like a police station, but the makeshift office would do. A table had been placed in the center with a couple chairs. Light streamed through the closed blinds.

  “She looks nervous,” Chuck whispered, trying not to be heard by their guest inside the room.

  Cassie glanced toward him briefly. “We grabbed her off the street and stuffed her in a van. You’d be nervous, too. What do we know about her?”

  “Joanne pulled her bio off the WNMN website and Facebook-stalked her for a bit. Honestly, there’s not a lot on her. She was born here in Brooklyn and has worked at WNMN for the past few years.” He handed her a folder, which just told her the same thing he’d already said. “You want me to come in with you?”

  “And freak her out more? No
, I should be good.”

  Cassie softly touched the tight bun at the back of her head and smoothed out her pants suit. She had changed to look more professional, rather than wearing her button up shirt and having her hair in a braid. She turned the handle and Amy jumped slightly at the sound.

  Cassie offered a smile as she entered the room but it did little to put the reporter at ease. As she sat, she opened the folder in front of her. Amy eyed the folder’s contents curiously; she looked as though she expected half the paperwork to be redacted, with broad black lines marking out entire sentences. When Cassie caught her eye, the reporter quickly looked away and glanced around nervously, looking everywhere except into Cassandra’s gaze. Cassie wasn’t surprised. She looked down at the folder splayed out in front of her. Pinned to the left side of the folder was a picture of the reporter. On the right, a description.

  “Miss Amy Savino, of the World News of Manhattan,” Cassie said matter-of-factly. “Originally from New York City, aren’t you?”

  “This is about my story, isn’t it?” Amy said hastily. “I won’t retract it, if that’s what you’re expecting.”

  Cassandra looked up, surprised. “That’s not what I want at all. Quite the opposite, I’m interested to find out what you know.”

  Amy glanced over her shoulder, to the plain mirror hanging on the wall. “Is that how this works? You find out what I know and then make me disappear?”

  Cassie closed the folder and shook her head as she looked at the reporter. “Miss Savino, I don’t know what you’ve heard about us, but we’re the CDC, not the mafia. We don’t make people disappear.”

  “Who are you?” Amy asked.

  “I’m Cassandra Morin, a CDC field investigator out of Atlanta.” She extended her hand, but Amy refused to take it. Cassie leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. “This impromptu meeting is, however, about your news report. We caught the tail end of it. You seemed to be implicating Peter Franklin Donalds in this outbreak.”

  Amy crossed her arms as well, glaring defiantly at Cassie. “Am I being accused of something? I’m guessing the CDC doesn’t really have the authority to detain someone anyway, even with the world going to crap, so unless I’m being charged with something, I’m leaving.”

  The reporter began to stand when Cassie sighed.

  “I believe you.”

  Amy seemed startled. Her posture relaxed visibly, but her expression still seemed skeptical. She placed her hands on the table and leaned forward toward Cassie. “You know something, don’t you?”

  Cassie bit the inside of her lip and frowned. “I…I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.”

  Amy shook her head and stood upright. “Then we’re done here. Thanks for the kidnapping.”

  She took a step toward the door before Cassie held up her hand. “Wait.”

  Amy paused but didn’t turn toward her. After a second of silence, the reporter started toward the door again.

  “Okay,” Cassie said, standing. “Please, come back and sit. I’ll tell you what I can, but this can’t go into your next report.”

  “Off the record, then?” Amy said. She smiled slightly.

  Cassie smirked and pointed at the chair. “Sit.”

  Amy sat and the two women talked for nearly an hour. Cassie felt her stomach drop as they compared notes about PFD potentially conducting preliminary experiments in Africa and about Cassie’s findings here in New York. As they talked, the sun began to drift lower in the sky. Cassie caught herself looking out the window, dreading the next day when she had to fly back to Atlanta. Everything about her report was inflammatory and it was only getting worse the longer they discussed.

  “So you really don’t know about the safe zone?” Amy asked as the conversation was winding down.

  “I haven’t heard a thing,” Cassie replied. “On Staten Island?”

  “Yeah, supposedly they’ve blocked off the whole island except for the Goethals Bridge. It wasn’t widely publicized—just a handful of online forums and one news station—but they were advertising a virus-free zone, with food and shelter. All the amenities.”

  Cassie shook her head. “How do they expect it to stay virus-free? This is one of the most virulent diseases I’ve ever come across. All it’ll take is one infected person getting in to devastate the island.”

  “I don’t know,” the dark-haired reporter admitted, “but I intend to find out.”

  Cassie frowned. “Are you crazy? If someone took over the island and was able to block all the bridges, that indicates some sort of armed guard. It’s not the type of place you want to go wandering into.”

  “Aren’t you a regular Sherlock Holmes,” Amy teased.

  “I am an investigator, after all. But I’m being serious. Staten Island isn’t a place you want to go.”

  Amy shrugged. “I’m a reporter, and probably one of the last ones in New York. I go where the story is.”

  “Be careful,” Cassie pleaded.

  “I don’t think ‘careful’ is a word we use during the apocalypse.”

  The door to the room opened and Chuck stuck his head in. “Sorry to interrupt, ladies, but it’s getting dark. If Miss Savino is leaving, it’ll have to be soon. We’d hate to be caught outside, violating curfew.”

  The two women exchanged glances before they stood. John joined them as soon as they walked out of the room and the small gaggle moved together to the elevator.

  “Is there somewhere we can drop you off?” Cassie said, before quickly adding, “Somewhere that isn’t Staten Island?”

  “My apartment in Manhattan would be fine,” she replied.

  “Give John directions and he’ll get you there.” Cassie hesitated for a second before leaning forward and embracing Amy. “I’m serious. Be careful.”

  Amy hugged her back before they separated, then Amy and John got onto the waiting elevator while Chuck and Cassie stood by as the doors slid closed. For a second, they just watched the numbers decrease as the elevator rolled toward the garage levels. Eventually, Chuck tapped her on the shoulder.

  “We still have drinks to finish before you fly out tomorrow.”

  Smiling but shaking her head, Cassie followed him back to his office.

  * * *

  John pulled Cassie’s suitcase behind him as they walked toward the elevators. Joanne and Chuck followed closely behind, talking genially between them.

  “I wish I could say this was a fun trip,” Cassie said before patting the folder in her hands. “They are going to hate me once I get back to Atlanta with this report.”

  Chuck laughed. “I don’t envy you.”

  “Thank you all,” she said, more seriously. “For everything. I may not have liked what we found, but at least we might be able to find a cure because of it.”

  “The plane is waiting for you at the airport?” the older man asked.

  She nodded. “I sent an email to the office with my preliminary report and got confirmation that the plane would be waiting when I got there. Speaking of which,” she said, looking at her watch, “we’d better get on the road.”

  She hugged them each in turn before walking to the elevator. “The fact that you three are still here is pretty amazing. I just wanted you to know that before I left.”

  Joanne blushed but Chuck merely smiled. “Don’t be a stranger. It shouldn’t have to take a pandemic to get you to come visit us.”

  Cassie smiled as she stepped onto the elevator. John pushed the garage button and she waved as the doors closed.

  They left in the same sedan in which she’d arrived. The crowds were still protesting at the gate as they left, the National Guardsmen working diligently to keep them away from the car. Even so, she could hear the fists and feet banging off the car’s exterior.

  Once clear of the crowd, she sunk back in the seat and opened the folder in her lap. She had printed off her report before leaving and the folder that had once only contained Amy Savino’s basic demographic information was now swollen with typed pages
.

  Her heart thudded in her chest as she glossed through the pages, one after another, each doing everything but blatantly accuse PFD of manufacturing and releasing a deadly virus. She would have loved to have been more direct in her report, but the CDC was a government organization and, as a result, a slave to political vagaries.

  The car rolled through the mostly abandoned streets, dodging past parked or abandoned cars, some of which blocked most of the roadway. She had grown accustomed to the relative quiet and loneliness of the drive, the city feeling like a ghost town. Looking down at her report, Cassie was startled when headlights fell over the passenger’s side of the car. She looked up as tires squealed and a van rushed out of a nearby alleyway. The van crashed into the side of their sedan, sending it spinning.

  Cassie felt the window next to her shatter and the bite of glass cutting her cheek. She flinched and covered her face as the car slid to a rest. She slowly glanced up and saw John slumped over the steering wheel.

  “John?” she asked as she reached forward, shaking his shoulder.

  Beside her, the back door was wretched open. She screamed as firm hands closed over her arms and neck and she was dragged from the car. She looked up at the men, all of whom wore balaclavas, concealing their features. She started to wriggle free before a hood was pulled over her head and she was lifted unceremoniously.

  The men threw her in the back of the van as another retrieved her report from the back of the sedan. With Cassie bound and trapped, the men closed the van’s doors and sped away through the city.

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  Arie woke to a crash followed by nothing. She blinked around her, taking stock. A strip of starry night was visible at the top of her window, above the cardboard she’d taped there last week. Her bedroom door was closed, but the walls were thin enough that she should have been able to hear Uncle Bas snoring.

  There was still nothing.

  Before the virus wiped out most of her neighborhood, it was never this quiet unless something was going down. The same instinct that had her locking doors had her pushing out of bed now. She slid her feet automatically into worn black boots, yanking the scuffed leather above her kneecaps and stretching a lightweight t-shirt down over her black leggings. Always prepared. Family motto and all.