“I found myself thinking of Potts as a tragic figure, a guy who'd been a happy towheaded kid you'd love to take fishing with you, who'd mistakenly invested in academic medicine when he'd have been happy in his family business, and who'd become a splattered mess on the parking lot of a hospital in a city he'd despised. What had been the seductiveness of medicine? Why?”

“Thomas hated the people who'd taken this poor, innocent kid form his family. He hated them with a passion he didn't know a human could feel. He wanted them dead, tortured, even. He wanted Chuck to be happy. But happiness had been ripped form their lives. Love had been ripped from their lives.”

“You'd think someone who'd been to medical school would be able to hear through a stethoscope that somebody was empty inside.”

“Not that he regretted having killed the guy in Stockton. The one who'd been ready to shoot him over the five crumpled dollar bills in his jeans pocket. He was quite happy to have sent that particular home boy to hell.”

“Haha, I can't hit you. If I did, I'd feel sorry for the person who'd have to clean up the mess of your splattered brain.”

“He was defeated. Competitive him, who'd spent most of his life perfecting the art of winning. He'd been trounced by a woman. Killed with one look from those hazel eyes.”