“Thank you for holding on to this, Arthur,” I said, folding the thermal paper and putting it in my coat pocket.

“Are you going to be all right, Valerie?” Arthur asked, watching my face carefully.

“He sounded like a man with a lot of political weight behind him.”

“He has less weight than he thinks,” I said.

I got back to St.

Jude Regional Medical Center at six fifteen, stepping through the sliding glass doors just as the hallway lights dimmed to their evening setting.

I walked past the nurses’ station on the third floor, where a thick cream-colored envelope sat on the wooden desk with my name written on the front in black ink.