He sat back. "That's all. I'm not going to make you do anything. I couldn't if I wanted to. But that's what I think."
For a long while she didn't answer. She looked up at the ceiling tiles. Tears ran out of the corners of her eyes and down into her hair, and she let them.
"Deb is going to hate me," she said at last.
"Maybe."
"I'm going to lose my job."
"Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you tell them the truth before anybody has to find it out, and that counts for something. I don't know how Arnot Hills handles things. I know that if one of their residents gets hold of one of those pills, they'll wish somebody had told them."
She wiped her face with the heel of the hand that didn't have the IV. She looked, suddenly, very tired, and much younger than thirty-four.
"Will you stay?" she said. "When I tell her. Not in here. I don't want you in here. But out there with Emi. Will you stay with him?"
"Yes," Lazaro said.
"And will you—" She stopped. Started again. "After. When all this is done, whatever happens. Will you let me come and say it properly? Not like this, not in a hospital with a tube up my nose. Properly. In the alley. Where I did it."