“She didn’t offer me money at first,” I said. “She just showed me a folder.”

“What was in it?” Ethan asked.

“Your future,” I said.

“She had copies of your residency applications for the fellowship at the clinic.”

“She told me that the chief of surgery was a close personal friend of your father.”

“She said with one phone call, your application would be thrown into the trash.”

Ethan shook his head. “She wouldn’t do that. She wanted me to have that fellowship.”

“Only if you had the right wife,” I said.

“She told me a nurse’s daughter from the West Side would drag down the family name.”

“She said she would make sure you never got a residency anywhere in the state of Illinois.”

“And she had the papers to prove it, Ethan.”

I looked at him, forcing him to meet my eyes.

“She had a forged file from the university pharmacy,” I said.

“It showed signature logs with your name on them, checking out high-grade narcotics.”

“She told me if I didn’t leave Chicago within twenty-four hours, those logs would be delivered to the medical board.”