“That doc isn’t me,” I said. “I didn’t give them the fentanyl. Ben already had it. I just did the OxyContin prescriptions.”

Nate’s gaze was skeptical.

Despair, black and sticky, clawed at me.

“I’m telling you the truth!” I insisted. “I stole the prescription pads from the clinic. I took them to Gabe and asked for help selling the scripts because he used to deal. He put me in contact with a woman named Violeta Williams, Ben’s girlfriend. But I never got any fentanyl.”

“What happened to her?”

I chewed my lip, thinking about the red scarf I’d hidden under the spare tire in my car. It was nearly time to use it.

“After I left, she snorted some fentanyl thinking it was cocaine. Gabe called me in a panic saying she was overdosing. I told him to take her to the hospital. I thought that was the end of it until I saw on the news she’d been found in the river.”

Nate looked horrified, his face the gray of the very ill. “How could you keep that from me? You knew I was investigating her death. Hers and Santiago Martinez’s. Do you know what happened to him?”

“I swear on my life, Nate, I have no idea. I never met the guy.”

Nate rubbed his hands over his face. When he dropped them and his eyes landed on mine they were dark, repulsed. He shook his head. “I thought I knew you.”

I stiffened. “You do know me. I’m your wife, the mother of your son, and I will do anything to make sure he lives. Don’t act like this hasn’t changed everything. It has. Because of me, Josh will live. Me! I saved him.”

“You need to stop this.”

“I can’t.”

“Emma, people are dying!”

“Regrettable collateral damage. Ben messed up the dosage, but it won’t happen again. We are helping more people than we’re hurting.”

“What, it’s okay if a few people die, as long as you’re helping some others?”

“Not just others, I’m helping Josh. Our son. He’s my priority.”

I moved to stand directly in front of Nate, taking his hands in mine. “If I hadn’t done this, Josh would’ve died.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. I’ve read the literature on children with his type of leukemia. I’ve read the statistics on recovery. This treatment is the only one on the market that holds any hope. He would have died, Nate.”

Nate shook his hands free and stepped away from me. “You know this isn’t right.”