I WAITED outside the hospital entrance until Nate’s cruiser pulled up. The sky was now a muted shade of pewter. The air was sharp with cold and frost, smelling of woodsmoke and the copper-kettle scent of impending snow.

My fingers tingled with nervous energy as Nate strode toward me. All that was left to do was tell him the truth. Josh was his son, and he was a good father.

Nate stopped in front of me, his eyes hard and closed off.

“It was you all along,” he finally said.

I neither confirmed nor denied it. I simply turned and strode inside, tossing over my shoulder, “Let’s find a private room.”

I passed the towering Christmas tree in reception and headed toward the emergency room. I pushed open the door to an empty family room, the same room where Dr. Palmer had told us about Josh’s diagnosis just a month ago.

I sat on the couch, but Nate remained standing.

“Tell me.”

It was too late to hide anything, and to be honest I was tired of all the lies. So I told him the truth.

“I set up a drug ring selling oxycodone to make enough money to pay for Josh’s immunotherapy treatment.”

“Is that how you got the ninety-eight thousand?”

“Yes. When I tried to start the insurance claim for Josh’s treatment, they told me they would only pay for his T-cells to be harvested, not reprogrammed. They said I had to pay the ninety-eight thousand dollars directly to the hospital for him to be able to get the infusion.”

Nate blinked, his mouth pressed into a grim line. “So you stole prescription pads from your clinic and forged your colleagues’ signatures.”

His words struck me, staccato bursts that smacked me hard across each cheek.

“Yes. There was no other way to get that much money that fast.”

“It wasn’t Julia.”

“Julia did steal oxy samples. She’s addicted to it for her chronic pain. But, no, she didn’t take the prescription pads.”

“And Ben?”

“He’s helping me.”

A muscle in Nate’s cheek flexed as he put together the pieces he knew. “At the warehouse, right? That’s where you’re making pills.”

I hesitated.

“Someone I know saw you with Ben there. I figure that’s where you’re doing it. All these autopsy reports on overdoses I’ve seen lately, the one thing they have in common is oxy with elevated levels of fentanyl. Where’d you get the fentanyl?”

“I didn’t get any fentanyl,” I objected.

Nate pulled out a phone—the old Nokia from the briefcase—and read a text out: “Meet Gabe at Target in Skamania. He’ll take you to warehouse to talk to Emma. I’ll get fentanyl from the doc.”

I frowned. Had he meant for the doc, not from the doc?

And then I remembered: Ben had said I wasn’t the only medical professional he’d worked with.