Mean Streak

But in only four days his tolerance for it had expired. It had begun to hurt.

Chapter 27

Emory sat bolt upright, gasping.

Wildly, she looked around, expecting to see the log walls, the lamp with the burlap shade, him.

But he wasn’t there, and this wasn’t the cabin, and the Floyd brothers weren’t about to barge through the door with a loaded shotgun.

She was in her hospital room, safe and secure.

So why was her heart racing? Why was she so oxygen-deprived that her hands and feet were tingling?

She recognized the classic symptoms of a panic attack, but for the life of her, she didn’t know what had brought it on. A bad dream? Deep-seated guilt from having lied to law enforcement officers?

Either would do it.

But she sensed the reason for her acute anxiety was something more imperative. She got out of bed and dragged the IV pole with her over to the door. Opening it only a crack, she stuck her head through and looked in both directions. The corridor was empty. No one lurking outside her room. None of the nursing staff in sight. Nothing threatening.

She backed into the room and closed the door.

She went into the bathroom to use the toilet and bathe her face with a damp cloth. The tile floor was cold against her bare feet. On her way back to the bed, she retrieved the bag containing her belongings from the closet and carried it with her to the bed. As she rummaged through it looking for her socks, she conceded that Jeff was right. Her running clothes did smell rather—

Suddenly prompted by intuition, she upended the bag and shook the contents into her lap, convinced that the answer to what had caused her panic attack was something within that bag.

She rifled through the articles rapidly, then more slowly, handling them individually, taking them into account one by one.

When realization struck, the shock was electrifying.

She sat for a moment trying to decide what to do, then, with trembling hands, she punched in a number on her cell phone, and waited anxiously for the call to be answered.

After several rings, a sleepy voice said, “Emory? Is everything okay?”

“Alice! I apologize for waking you.”

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I mean I’m not, or I wouldn’t be calling you at— What time is it?”

“Doesn’t matter. What’s wrong? You sound frantic.”

She forced herself to calm down and take deep breaths. “I need to ask you something, and I didn’t want to wait until morning.”

“I’m listening.”

“Today, when all of you were in my hospital room and I was describing the fall I took, and hitting my head, all that, did I mention breaking my sunglasses?”

“What?”

“Think back, Alice. Please. It’s important. Did I refer to breaking my sunglasses?”

“I don’t remember. Why?”

She swallowed with effort. “Because Jeff asked me earlier tonight who had repaired them. I told him that one of the nurses must have, when actually it was the man in the cabin.”

“Okay,” Alice said slowly, clearly mystified.

“How did Jeff know my glasses had broken when I fell?”