Chapter 21: Gregory's Fall

Gregory looked down the length of the ballroom at the two men in overcoats.

They were Salerno's, and he knew them.

I watched him wait for a nod, a gesture, anything.

One of the men said something quiet to the other.

Then both turned around and walked out the way they had come.

The doors swung shut behind them with a soft, final thud.

Gregory's smile came apart.

"Wait," he said, not into the microphone. "Wait."

Nobody in the hall moved.

Four hundred phones were up, and every one of them was on his face.

"Dr. Schultz," said the white-haired woman, from her feet. "Please step away from the podium."

"This is a setup."

"Step away."

"She is unstable. You have her record. You all read it."

"We did," she said. "Then we watched her stand in front of us and own it."

She looked at him.

"You have not owned a single thing."

He backed up a step, and another.

His hand came out of his jacket with his phone.

Something dropped with it and rang on the stage floor.

It rolled to my shoe.

It was a small amber vial with a white cap.

A strip of tape was wrapped around it, with a few words in neat blue ink.

I did not have to pick it up to read it.

I picked it up anyway, and I held it up to the cameras so that every row could see.

"L-1," I read. "Times eight. In Dr. Schultz's own handwriting."

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