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that Marci was one of them.
    Once again, a wave of tears crested on top of her. Marci had been Gwen’s best friend for most of two decades. She was as essential to her life as her heart and lungs. How do you survive that?
    Pulling herself together, Gwen rose abruptly.
    “Where are you going?” Jack asked, rising with her.
    “I have to call Marci’s family, hopefully before a stranger here at the hospital finds their number.” She pulled out her cell phone and started to walk away. Jack seemed confused by this, so she said, “I just need to be alone for a few minutes.”
    Gwen called Marci’s parents, people she felt as close to as anyone in her own family. Her mind flashed on holiday visits. When Gwen’s dad humorously battled her for the Thanksgiving wishbone, could either of them ever have imagined the conversation they were about to have?
    The call rapidly devolved to single syllables, incoherent fragments, and, ultimately, wails of grief. When it was over, Gwen leaned against the nearest available wall for support and sobbed against it because Jack’s chest was too far away.
    She had no idea how much time passed before she was capable of drying her eyes. When she did, she cleared her throat and scrolled to another number on her phone’s contact list.
    “Dave?” she said, unsure of how she sounded. “Captain Maulder, USPH. I’m going to be over tomorrow morning. You’re going to be getting a new customer shortly—Marci Newman’s the name. I want you to save a blood sample for me, but don’t accession it in your lab system. I want to take it back to Rockville with me, okay?”
    Dave Dardenoff was one of the assistant coroners at the New York State Medical Examiner’s Office across 32nd Street from Bellevue. Dave had worked at the FDA’s New York office for a while, but he fancied himself to be Quincy, the medical examiner from the old TV series. He preferred a real life medical mystery to analyzing charts and graphs and going on the occasional plant inspection. Dave and Gwen had always gotten along well, and he would provide her with a sample of Marci’s blood, no questions asked and strictly off the record.
    Gwen began walking back to the quiet room to rejoin her husband. He’d be worried about her by now, but he knew better than to come to look for her. Somewhere else in the hospital, Marci’s lifeless body lay. Everything in Gwen’s medical training told her that Marci shouldn’t be dead. She wouldn’t forgive herself if she didn’t do something to figure out what had just happened to her very best friend.

4
     
    Mark Stern sat at his desk, playing Space Invaders on his Dell flatscreen. He took his job as a top reporter for the Wall Street Journal very seriously, but that didn’t stop him from sneaking in a little R & R during a day otherwise devoted to profiling the bluebloods who controlled the blue chips. He’d just turned forty, but part of him was always going to be a kid, and he had learned years ago that a complete surrender to adulthood was just too difficult for a man who still kept R.E.M. T-shirts and a jean jacket in his closet. He had attempted the quantum leap to responsible, dashing, GQ status; the most notable example being when he tried to placate his old girlfriend by wearing Brooks Brothers suits and attending elegant East Hampton parties, complete with string quartets, champagne, and caviar. He always left depressed, feeling like an imposter. He’d go back to his apartment, smoke a little dope, listen to bootleg Clash CDs, and dream of the Pulitzer he was going to win someday.
    In Mark’s dreams, that Pulitzer would come from a multi-part investigative piece on the plight of the tamarin or the spider monkey published in the Nation , but if it had to be about a next-generation globalized billionaire, that would work as well. Mark knew the Pulitzer thing really was more than just a dream, even if the subject matter probably was. He’d started his career by writing for