The women who come to us are never waiting to be rescued.

They are only waiting to be re-armed.

Give a trapped person their tools back, and step aside, and you will be astonished, every single time, by what they were always capable of doing the moment they had the means.

Patricia astonished me.

She astonishes me still.

And she did every bit of it herself.

Chapter 20 — The White Roses Bloomed

I slid the Vance file into the safe behind my desk and turned the lock, closing that chapter of my life for good.