“C’mon, buddy, eat your cereal,” Kilburn said. Then he yelled out: “Shayna. Downstairs—now!”

A minute later, his niece trudged into the room. Her chin hung on her chest. “Uncle Graham, I don’t think I’m going to go to school today,” she said with a huge sigh.

Kilburn folded his arms across his chest. “Would you like a second opinion on that?”

“Look at my hair,” she said, pulling at her pigtails.

“Shay, they look cute.”

“I wish I wasn’t so ugly,” she murmured.

“I do too.” Matt giggled.

“Matt!” Kilburn snapped. Then he turned to his niece. “Shay, you don’t believe that? Do you have any idea how many compliments I get when people see your photo in my office? They all say how beautiful you are.”

“That’s just grownups,” Shayna pouted, but her lips broke into a partial smile. “Robby Markum called me the plainest girl in school.”

“Oh, Shayna, don’t you know anything?” Matt said with fraternal condescension. “That little twerp Robby only says that because he likes you.”

Kilburn chuckled. “Your brother’s right, Shay. Robby must be hot for you.”

“Gross!” she squealed. And they all laughed.

Kilburn slapped another bowl of cereal on the countertop in front of her. “You have two minutes for breakfast.” He glanced at his watch as if to time her.

The phone rang and he grabbed for the portable receiver without checking the caller ID. “Hello.”

“Graham, it’s Morgan Teal,” his department head said tersely.

“Oh, um, Morgan, hi,” Kilburn said.

“You had no right, Graham.”

“Listen, Morgan, I had no other—”

“No, you listen,” Teal cut him off. “You’ve put our hospital and me in a very awkward position. Not to mention potential legal actions. What were you thinking?”

Kilburn’s discomfort dissipated, replaced by indignation. “I was thinking about a dying woman, Morgan. That’s all.” He looked up to see his niece and nephew staring at him intently. He pointed to their untouched cereal bowls and walked out of the kitchen into the privacy of the dining room, closing the sliding door behind him.

“So you went ahead and stole a completely untested drug because you think it might save your patient’s life?” Teal’s voice cracked with outrage. Kilburn had never heard him so angry.

“Morgan, I believed—in fact I still believe—that it’s her only hope.”

“And if she dies anyway?”

“Then she dies,” Kilburn snapped. “But at least we—I—will know that she was given everything we could think of. She’s only twenty, for God’s sake!”

There was a long pause on the line. “That’s just not good enough for me, Graham,” Teal said grimly. “I’m going to have to take this to the hospital’s medical director.”

“Take it anywhere you want.” Then a disturbing thought occurred to Kilburn. “Morgan, you’re not going to stop the Oraloxin treatment now, are you?”