But I might be a Rockette instead. She could still wave to me.

Dr. Lambert would probably never come to see me in a show. He’s very busy and always in a hurry.

Yesterday, Dr. O’Neal brought me a Thanksgiving card. On the front was a silly turkey wearing a Pilgrim hat. I put the card on the table next to my bed. Dr. O’Neal wished me a happy Thanksgiving and told me she had something very important to do, but that she would be back soon.

She hasn’t come today, though. But maybe she will. I hope so. I need to tell her that I don’t feel good. I hate to tell her that. But she needs to know if she’s going to kick the cancer’s butt.

But I don’t want Mom to know that I don’t feel good. She’s already scared I’m going to die.

Chapter 18

6:27 p.m.

Rye left Brynn sitting on the bed and went into the bathroom to wash his hands. He wrapped a cloth around the leaky cuts. When he came back, he opened the minibar fridge. “Name your poison.”

“Water, please.”

“It’s on Dash.”

“Just water.”

He passed Brynn a bottle of water and opened a can of Coke for himself, then dragged the desk chair over and straddled it, facing her.

“Who’s your patient, Brynn?”

“A seven-year-old girl named Violet.”

“She’s dying?”

“Probably before she turns eight. Unless I’m granted a compassionate use exemption for her.”

“She’s the patient you applied for?”

“To no avail.”

“What’s the hiccup?”

“Largely funding. For an exemption trial, the product company must be willing to provide the drug, and GX-42 doesn’t come cheaply. For one patient, it wouldn’t be cost effective.”

Rye propped his elbow on the back of the chair and rubbed his thumb across his lips. “Does Violet live here in Atlanta?”

“Outside Knoxville. Working middle class family, and it takes the incomes of both parents to support it. Her mother is on leave from her job. Violet has two older brothers. Coming here has imposed a tremendous hardship on all of them. Financially, emotionally. Every way. But all were willing to make sacrifices in order to send Violet here.”

“To be treated by you.”

She gave a modest shrug. “The research I’ve done has been documented in medical journals. Violet’s oncologist in Tennessee recommended me.”

“You’re famous?”

She smiled at that. “My name is familiar to a few who specialize in hematologic cancers.”

“Lambert?”

“Much better known.”

“He sees to it.”

“Nate has an inflated ego, yes.”

“Who is Hunt?”

She gave a significant pause, then said, “Senator Richard Hunt of Georgia.”

Rye stared at her, almost expecting a punch line, but Brynn was as somber as a death knell. Losing taste for the cold drink, he turned in his chair and set the can on the dresser. Coming back to Brynn, he said, “Well, shit.”

“You know of him?”

“I’ve heard of Senator Hunt a lot, but till now I couldn’t have told you what state he’s from.”

“He’s serving his second term in office. You’ve heard of him because he places himself in the middle of things and seems to thrive on keeping the congressional waters churned. He can be a charmer, an arm-twister, or a gladiator, depending on the issue under debate and the strength of his opposition. He’s handsome and knows it. He plays the media like a maestro.”

“How’d he make his money?”

“Sole heir of his family’s company.” She named it, but Rye wasn’t familiar with it. “Manufacturer of portable buildings. Construction site offices. Temporary housing units.”

“Like FEMA uses?”

“Yes.”

Rye cocked an eyebrow.

Brynn said, “He sold out before running for office to avoid a conflict of interest.”

“Oh, of course,” he said with only a trace of conviction. If Richard Hunt would pay for a pharmaceutical not yet available to anyone else, he’d cheat at other things, too. “Family?”

“Happily married to second wife, Delores. No children from either marriage.”

“How old is he?”

Again, she paused before saying quietly, “Sixty-eight.”

They exchanged a meaningful look.

Brynn added, “He’s a very young sixty-eight. Except for the cancer, he’s physically fit. Robust. His wife is considerably younger.”

“He and Violet have the same cancer?”

“They are two of less than sixty thousand in the U.S. But if GX-42 works on their cancer, its use could become much more widespread for patients with similar blood cancers.”

“What does it do exactly? Layman’s terms.”

“In England, there’s a drug currently being used in clinical trials on patients awaiting a stem cell transplant. That drug assists the patient’s marrow—damaged either by cancer or its harsh treatments—to produce healthy blood cells that their own immune system won’t attack. It retards the progression of the cancer and helps prevent metastasis. It tides them over, so to speak, until a match is found for transplant.

“Which is wonderful. But GX-42 goes beyond. When tested on animals, it has been longer acting and has had a more permanent effect. Periodic infusions, often months apart, have maintained the production of healthy blood cells in the animals.

“Nate and I believe it will do the same in humans. It will serve the purpose of a stem cell or cord blood transplant, but it would be like having a shelf-ready, universal donor. No match necessary. Far less chance of patient rejection and susceptibility to inflection. Even if it doesn’t sustain the patient indefinitely, we know it will provide more time to find a matching donor for transplant.”

Rye absorbed all that, then pushed himself out of the chair and walked over to the window, slowly unwinding the washcloth from around his hand as he went. The cuts looked angry, but they’d stopped bleeding.

Brynn said, “You should put an antiseptic on them.”

“Maybe later.”

“Where did Timmy attack you?”

“He didn’t. I attacked him.” He described the altercation.

“You got payback for Brady and Dash.”

“Some. Not enough.”

“Was Timmy badly hurt?”

“Nothing permanent.”

“Goliad?”

“He and I came to a meeting of the minds. But it might be temporary.”

“What does that mean?”

“First things first, Brynn. I’m trying to wrap my mind around all this.”

He flipped back a panel of the drapery. Hartsfield-Jackson was several miles away, but Rye saw that it had reopened. A passenger carrier on final approach materialized out of the low cloud cover and sailed over the hotel parking lot.

“MD-80.”

Brynn asked, “You can tell that?”

“I can tell.”

He let the drape fall back into place and turned around. “You have two patients. Why weren’t two batches mixed?”

“The pharmacologist didn’t dare. He was terrified he would get caught mixing one and smuggling it out.”

Rye walked back toward the bed, and when he came even with Brynn said, “Hunt has had sixty years Violet will never get.”

“We can’t play God, Rye.”

“Somebody did. Who picked the senator over the little girl?”

“Nate and I reached a mutual decision, based on numerous factors.”

“Such as?”

“The patient’s general health, the patient’s autoimmune—”

“Bullshit. It was decided by the patient’s pocketbook. How much?”

“I wasn’t privy to that conversation.”

“You mean negotiation.”

Not quite meeting his eye, she said, “I’m told the Hunts committed a sizable amount toward future research, but on the condition—”

“That he got it. You think God gave a thumbs-up on that deal?”

“He must have.” Looking angry, she stood up, went around him, and thumped her water bottle onto the dresser. “Because last night when I took matters into my own hands, look what happened. You crashed. Brady is in ICU. I’ll pay dearly for skipping out on Nate and the Hunts tonight. Character assassination will only be the beginning.”

“They can’t shred you without admitting to wrongdoing themselves.”

She dismissed that argument with a chuff. “They’re capable, believe me. They’ll probably figure out a way to have my medical license revoked. Which I was risking anyway. But the worst of it…” Her voice cracked. She tried again. “The worst of it is that I can’t save Violet.”

“You can save Richard Hunt.”

“After leaving Nate’s office? No. They wouldn’t let me near him. I campaigned hard for Violet. In the end, Nate won out, I conceded. But I guess neither he nor the Hunts were convinced of my commitment.”

“So Goliad and Timmy were sent up to Howardville last night to keep tabs on you, make sure you didn’t abscond with that box.”

“Which is precisely what I had planned to do, and was willing to suffer the consequences.” She raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “You know what happened to that plan. So, on the long drive back to Atlanta, I looked at it from a purely objective standpoint.

“The GX-42 wouldn’t be wasted. A life would be spared, and, as you reminded me last night, I swore under oath to save lives. Any life. I had geared myself up to assist Nate tonight, and to be glad about it.” She paused for breath. “But then you sent me that text.”