Chapter 11: C-1

The cold room on the third floor was a steel door with a keypad and a window of wired glass.

Domenico punched in a code without looking at his hand.

Inside, the air was so cold my breath smoked, and the walls were lined with racks of white boxes under a blue light.

He went to the last rack and took down a small box, the size of a shoebox, and held it out in both hands.

A white label had been printed and stuck across the lid.

C-1. CARRARO, D.

Under it was a date in February.

I read it three times.

"It's a gene therapy," he said. "One infusion, once."

"The lab makes it in batches. This is the last dose of this one. The next batch is fourteen months out."

"And it's yours."

"It's been mine since February."

"Why?"

He set the box back on the rack, very carefully.

"Because I have what my mother had," he said. "And what your mother had. And Pippa."

The cold went into my bones and stayed.

"I found out at twenty-eight," he said. "A blood test, for the foundation. I have the gene."

"This September my heart began to show it."

"My ejection fraction is thirty-eight percent. It was fifty-five in the spring."

"The pills."

"Yes."

"The night at the counter. The dance."

"Yes."

"The knife scar," I said stupidly.

"That one's really a knife."

He almost smiled, and it died.

"I started the trial eight years ago," he said. "In her name."

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