Far be it from me to bitch about flaky academics who go off the deep end and let deadlines escape them, but this woman is a flaky academic who's gone off the ... you know. At the very least, she owes you an apology for not telling you the full story upfront.

Just make sure that she's not expecting you to do all the work and then slap her name on the paper. This last-minute request for a "co-author" sounds mighty suspicious to me. No publication is worth that, and at worst, she could make you look as irresponsible as she's being. This could still turn out well, but please, please be careful.

-J