She sighs and presses back into the pillow, staring at the ceiling. “It was nothing like that. We knew each other. We came to town together. He”-she stops, choking on the words-“he asked me to help him die.”

“Euthanasia? Was he already dying? Cancer?” Luke is skeptical. The ones looking to kill themselves usually pick something quiet and surefire: poison, pills, an idling car engine and a length of garden hose. They don’t ask to be stabbed to death. If this friend really wanted to die, he could have just sat under the stars all night until he froze.

He glances at the woman, trembling under the paper sheet. “Let me get a hospital gown and a blanket for you. You must be cold.”

“Thank you,” she says, dropping her gaze.

He comes back with a much-laundered flannel gown edged in pink and a pilling acrylic blanket, baby blue. Maternity colors. He looks down at her hands, bound to the gurney with nylon strap restraints. “Here, we’ll do this one hand at a time,” Luke says, undoing the restraint on the hand closest to the side table where the examination tools are laid out: forceps, bloodied scissors, scalpel.

Quick as a rabbit, she lunges for the scalpel, her slender hand closing around it. She points it at him, wild eyed, her nostrils pink and flaring.

“Take it easy,” Luke says, stepping backward off the stool, out of her arm’s reach. “There’s a deputy just down the hall. If I call for him, it’s over, you know? You can’t get both of us with that little knife. So why don’t you put down the scalpel-”

“Don’t call him,” she says, but her arm is still outstretched. “I need you to listen to me.”

“I’m listening.” The gurney is between Luke and the door. She can cut her other hand free in the time it takes him to make it across the room.