Page 26 of Wild Fever

I chuckled. "We'll see you shortly."

By the time I got back to the sky deck, my breakfast was cold. I grabbed the plates and brought them down to the galley. I nuked mine and shoveled it down.

Kara chowed down at the breakfast nook, and JD and I conferred in a neighboring passageway.

"Are you sure this is such a good idea?"

"This is a terrible idea,” I admitted.

"At least we are in agreement on that.”

"But it might be the only way to figure out who killed Yan Zheng and head off an international incident.”

"I'm not totally convinced his killer isn't sitting in our galley right now.”

I couldn't disagree, but the stakes were too high to let this slip away. I had to see where it led. The Zheng incident could spiral out of control. Tensions were rising.

After Kara ate, we headed to the ME’s office.

17

“How long will it take to get results?" I asked Brenda at her office after she’d done the draw.

"I can put a rush on the toxicology screening. Probably take a couple of hours.“

“I don't think you’re going to find anything standard about her tox screen.” I described Kara’s symptoms to Brenda.

"It could be any number of things. But I'll see what I can do."

She had all the tools at her disposal, like gas chromatography mass spectrometry. If she dug deep enough, I was sure she could find something.

I made a call to Piper via an encrypted messaging app. She was a contact I had made on another adventure. The 19-year-old goth girl was the definition of rebellious, but she was a damn good hacker. This would be right up her alley. But our connection was uncertain at best. She’d been working with a vigilante group whose actions I couldn’t necessarily condone. I didn’t know if she’d be willing to help. Plus, she was almost an hour away.

"Didn't expect to hear from you," she said when she answered.

"Well, you know, I just like to keep in touch from time to time."

She laughed. "What do you want?”

"I have something that might be a fit for you.”

"A job?”

"Something like that.” I gave her a basic overview of the situation and talked about the constraints we faced with the data files.

"There are ways around all that.”

"That's exactly what I wanted to hear. Can you make it happen?”

"Given enough time.”

"Time is not our friend. We’ve got less than 48 hours at this point.”

"Why so urgent?”

"Lives depend on it." I told her the story.

"Are you asking for a favor, or is there a fee involved?”