Chapter 7: The Spinal Initiative

The Ashgrove Foundation held its winter donor lunch in the ballroom of the Drake, under three chandeliers, in front of two hundred people.

Keir's name got us through the door.

A staffer saw the Kincaid crest on the invitation and stepped aside so fast she forgot to check mine.

I wheeled him in myself.

I carried a canvas bag with eight spiral notebooks in it.

"Are you sure?" Keir asked in a low voice.

"I've never been less sure of anything."

"Good," he said. "Then you'll do it properly."

Adelaide stood at the podium in cream silk, under a banner that read THE ASHGROVE SPINAL INITIATIVE.

Behind her on a screen was a diagram I knew better than my own face.

It was a graft scaffold for cord repair, a design I had drawn on a legal pad at twenty-two, in a hospital cafeteria, over a cold coffee.

"This breakthrough," Adelaide said warmly, "is the work of our own lab, under our own roof, and it will give hope to thousands of families."

People applauded.

"She doesn't even say my name," I said.

"Do you want her to?"

"I want her to choke on it."

Keir turned his head and looked at me for a long second.

"Then go," he said.

I walked down the aisle between the round tables with the bag on my shoulder.

The room noticed me one table at a time.

Adelaide saw me at the fourth table, and her hand tightened on the podium.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she said smoothly. "We have a surprise guest. Lena is my former ward, who has recently chosen to leave us."

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