Last night I’d woken from another dream about my father. I was holding his head on my lap and he was begging me to put an end to his pain. He wept and trembled and moaned, his cries reaching a fever pitch. The sound filled my ears, making my head feel swollen, every breath a bruise. It was so loud I thought my skull would explode.

I held my hands over my ears but the sound continued, a brutal wailing that filled my chest and throbbed in every fiber of my muscles. I finally shrugged out of my coat and held the fabric over my dad’s nose and mouth until it was quiet. Peacefully, finally, quiet.

I’d woken with a jerk, the tears falling sideways down my cheeks and filling up my ears. I hadn’t smothered my dad, and the fact that my subconscious suggested it disturbed me. What kind of person was I?

The dream played vividly behind my eyes for hours as I tried to sort it from reality, only falling into a restless sleep shortly before the alarm went off.

I finished jotting notes in a folder and was just putting it away when the burner buzzed.

It was a message from Gabe.

See you tomorrow.

The sound of a commotion came from the front of the office—muted shouts, a high-pitched scream, a thud. I hurried out to reception.

A man I vaguely recognized had been tackled by security and now stood slumped between two guards. He was small but burly-chested, gray hair hanging in oily strands. His red cheeks were shiny, wet with tears.

It was Alice Jones’s husband. My patient with back pain who hadn’t shown up for her appointment last week.

“Mr. Jones?” I came around the side of the reception desk and approached him. The other patients in the room were staring. A palpable tension filled the air. One mother was clutching her child to her chest, her eyes filled with fear.

“Let this man go,” I demanded of the security guards.

“Dr. Sweeney—” Brittany shook her head at me in warning.

I turned toward her as Mr. Jones lunged. I saw him in my peripheral vision, a dark shadow hurtling toward me. Adrenaline kicked in my veins as I turned my body sideways, expecting the impact. But the security guards caught him just in time, hauling him back and wrestling him to his knees.

“You!” His eyes glittered, and spittle flew from his mouth. “She’s dead, and it’s your fault!”

The blood drained from my face. “Who’s dead?”

“My Alice. She was in pain, and you wouldn’t help her! You wouldn’t give her anything. She went to the streets to get pain relief and now she’s dead!”

He tried again to lunge for me. “Let me go!”

Nausea burned in my belly, my whole body shaking.