Ellwood had, presumably, once stood in a lecture hall and meant it when he swore to do no harm, and had let a cleared debt on a private clinic turn him, by slow degrees, into a man who would stand at the foot of a bed at two in the morning and weigh a woman’s life against his own comfort.

That was the quieter horror underneath the loud one — not the villainy of the man who had never had scruples, but the corrosion of the man who once had, and had let them be bought away one small compromise at a time.

Chapter 8 — Squeeze My Hand

That evening Sam came in with his eyes swollen from crying and a small leather notebook held against his chest.

“The counselor at school told me to talk to you like you can hear me,” he whispered.

“But I already know you can.