“It isn’t ideal. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t right,” I corrected him. “Sometimes we have to do the wrong thing for the right reason. Maybe it was wrong to sign those prescriptions, but Josh will live because I did. The ends justify the means. Everything I’ve done is for the right reason. You know that.”

Nate pressed his lips tight together. “No. How we get to our goal is just as important as achieving it.”

“Then call me as a bad person, I don’t care. I don’t regret anything I had to do to save Josh’s life. At least I did something. I’m not sitting here helpless, watching him die.”

Nate pinched the skin between his eyebrows.

“The overdose rate would’ve increased with or without me,” I said. “I’m helping people who have genuine pain. Sometimes they’ve been cut off by doctors, or their insurance doesn’t cover it, or they can’t afford it. These people aren’t overdosing—”

“Except the people who took the pills with too much fentanyl in them,” Nate cut me off viciously.

“I’m helping people,” I repeated.

“You’re a drug dealer hiding behind a white coat.”

I bristled at that. Ben was a drug dealer. Gabe was a drug dealer. I wasn’t dealing anything. I was helping people, and in the process saving my son.

“Josh is all that matters.”

“You think our son’s life is more important than somebody else’s?”

I couldn’t believe he was even asking me that.

“Yes,” I exclaimed. “Josh is the most important thing. He’s why I did this. For him, for us. For my family.”

Nate’s hands clenched at his sides. “Saving Josh won’t bring your parents back.”

Silence cracked through the room, and sharp nerves needled my stomach.

“Are you done?” he asked after a minute. “Is it over?”

I didn’t answer right away. “Josh could still die. We have to make sure he gets every treatment he needs.”

Nate stared at me like he didn’t recognize me. “So that’s a no?”

“It’s an ‘I don’t know.’ ”

He shook his head again. “Everyone always thinks their thing is the right thing, but we can’t all be doing the right thing. That’s why we have laws.”

“Are you going to turn me in?”

Nate’s mouth flopped open, then closed. “I… I don’t know. I don’t know what the right thing to do is here.”