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instinctive. You close the door without giving it a thought, especially if you have no plans of going back inside.”
    â€œHow does a criminal profiler know so much about suicide?”
    She recognized a hint of admiration in his voice. Their mutual respect and admiration were two things that had brought them together as friends.
    â€œI’ve investigated a number of murder-suicides.” Those were some of the hardest cases, too, trying to climb inside the mind of someone who takes out his entire family or a department store full of strangers before putting the gun to his own head.
    â€œSuicide with an agenda,” she told Platt. “Or a mission. The suicide is simply the last step.”
    She started across the room, heading to check out the bathroom, when she noticed a small wastebasket tucked underneath the desk. She pulled it out to see inside. Carefully using only fingertips again, she plucked through the contents without pulling them out: a torn ticket stub from the Museum of Science and Industry, a folded map of downtown Chicago, several brochures for other tourist attractions, a flyer from the Art Institute, and a napkin from a local pizza place.
    She looked up at Platt. “When did he check in?”
    â€œI think Detective Jacks said he’d been here for two days before he jumped.”
    â€œYou said his lungs looked like the virus was in an advanced stage.”
    â€œDefinitely.”
    â€œHow long does it take for that to happen?”
    â€œI’m not sure. Humans rarely get the bird flu, so we don’t know a lot of statistics. The information we do have is on victims mostly from Asia. Some of those cases haven’t been reported in as much detail as we’re used to getting. The theory is that bird flu is mutating so quickly that eventually it’ll jump to humans. We know Shaw was working on a strain that would be highly contagious.”
    â€œAnd just how would she accomplish that?”
    â€œBy making it airborne. Right now, for humans to get infected they’d need to handle a sick bird or be in direct contact with the bird’s blood or droppings. But if Shaw was able to make the virus airborne, all that changes. It could easily spread from birds tohumans, then from human to human. We could have a mess on our hands.”
    O’Dell let that sink in, then asked, “If you had to guess, how long would you say it would take for the lungs to be in an advanced stage?”
    â€œA week. Ten days at the most. Why? What are you thinking?”
    She gestured him over to take a look. “Seems like a lot of sightseeing for a guy who’s already coughing up blood.”
    O’Dell watched Platt’s face through the face mask as his eyes examined the contents of the wastebasket.
    â€œYou don’t look surprised.”
    â€œIt’s what we suspected,” he finally said. “Actually, it’s what we feared.”
    â€œWould have been helpful if you had shared those suspicions.”
    â€œThey were just that—suspicions.”
    Probably classified suspicions, but she didn’t say that. This was a touchy subject, one that had caused a major rift in their friendship. Last fall when they worked together during the North Carolina mudslides, Platt had withheld information. There were details he’d argued were classified and he could only share on a need-to-know basis. Not knowing some of that “classified” information had almost gotten her killed. She had hoped things would be different now.
    â€œWe have to be careful with this,” he told her when he recognized her irritation. “Unwarranted suspicions trigger alarms. We can’t have the media and the public in a panic.”
    â€œI’m not the media, Ben, and I’m not the public. You and Roger Bix are going to have to trust me.”
    â€œOf course we trust you.”
    â€œI’m the one who’s supposed to be tracking Shaw. So let me get