Chapter 4: The Third Assay

Daphne reached our table before the waiter did.

"Leonie," she said, and took my face in both her hands. "You look wonderful. I read that awful article and I wanted to cry."

Her thoughts under it were perfectly calm. Good. She came. Everyone is looking.

I smiled at her, because two hundred donors were watching.

My head ached so hard I could taste metal.

"I'm sure you did," I said.

Dr. Wheelock stood a step behind her with his hat in his hand.

He was a tired man in a grey cardigan, with chalk on the cuffs.

He shook Mr. Trowbridge's hand carefully, with his hat held against his leg.

His wife, small and quiet, took a chair at the very edge of the table and said nothing.

Daphne turned to the table and lifted her glass.

"I'd never ask for myself," she said.

"But Dr. Wheelock has spent six years on a blood test that finds pancreatic cancer early."

"His lab is rented by the month, and the Trowbridge Foundation funds exactly this kind of work."

"I thought, with my sister now part of your family, you might want to look."

She said it warmly, and it was a trap.

If the Trowbridges said no, they would be the family that took the sister and turned the Wheelocks away.

If they said yes, Daphne got her money in front of two hundred witnesses.

Mrs. Trowbridge looked at me.

Mr. Trowbridge looked at his plate.

I looked at Dr. Wheelock.

He had taken a small flat case out of his pocket, and he opened it on the white tablecloth.

Inside was a glass slide with a faint pink smear on it.

"This is the best we've ever done," he said, apologetic. "It reads clean on the first two steps."

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