She has no right to be on this property, and she brought an unauthorized infant into a sterile area.”

Raymond pushed himself up off the white pillows.

He didn’t wait for me to put a hand behind his back or prop up his head with a folded towel.

He sat straight up in the middle of the wide mattress, his dark eyes clear and fixed right on the officer’s badge.

“Officer, I’m Raymond Winslow, and that man has been poisoning me for six weeks,” Raymond said.

His voice was thin and raspy from the months of forced silence, but every word landed flat and hard in the quiet room.