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I don’t think I’m in a hospital room.
And I also don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore.
I try to get up on the bed, and a wave of giddiness assails me. Uh oh. I collapse back into my pillows. Gawd, but I’m thirsty.
After a while, the door swings open. I squint.
A very tall man enters my room. He’s so tall that I have to blink twice to make sure that he’s not scraping the ceiling. He appears to be fifty-something, with a full head of dark hair shot with silver. He wears a black suit over a crisp white shirt, the kind that looks as though it needs to be starched in the twentieth century way.
“Ah, you are awake.” He carries a tray with a thermos on it. “You are hungry, I presume?”
“Yes. And you are . . . ?”
“Jeffrey Pendergast.” He sets down the tray on the table beside me. “Don’t move. You’ve had a concussion.”
Ah. I know where I am now.
Despite my obvious state, I’m kind of excited.
But should I be afraid after all the spooky tales I have heard about this place and its inhabitants? After all, my premonition did warn me that I should not be attempting Pine’s Lookout in a raging thunderstorm. That very premonition is telling me now that I should be bolting out of my bed and making a run for it before I end up like that poor, undiscovered, but obviously not forgotten hooker.
I quell my nervousness. I say aloud, trying to make my tone cavalier, “I figured as much. Why am I not in the hospital?”
“Because it’s nothing I can’t fix.” Jeffrey towers over me, and he’s such a vertically-enhanced monster that I can’t help but cringe as he puts his hand gently upon my head. For the first time, I realize I have a bandage wrapped around it. Why didn’t I notice it before?
“Where is this place?” I ask, despite knowing the answer.
“You are in the house of Mr. Ethan Greene.”
The name sends a frisson of excitement down my spine, despite not being sure than this is the guise David Kinney – the object of my youthful adoration – is wearing today. Something tells me that Mr. Ethan Greene’s stickler for absolute privacy is what’s keeping me here in his guest bedroom and not in the hospital where I belong.
Still, he could have sent Jeffrey to the ER with my moribund body.
Ah well –
Jeffrey says, “You’ll be all right.” He straightens himself, and his frame blocks out most of the light from the window.
Light!
“How long have I slept?” I ask.
“Two days.”
Two days! This time, I bolt up in amazement.
“Two days, and you didn’t bring me to the hospital?”
“It was a concussion, nothing more serious,” Jeffrey pronounces patiently, as though to a child who is hard of understanding. “I dressed your wound. It was nothing serious.”
I wonder what Rick must have thought when I didn’t show up. Maybe he thinks I have bolted from Kelowna. I wouldn’t be the first person to do that. Or maybe he thinks I’m lying in an unmarked grave right now next to the poor, undiscovered hooker.
“What happened?” I demand.
“Your car slid off a cliff and fell into a ravine. Don’t worry, it wasn’t a particularly deep one, or you wouldn’t be alive.”
Figures. It sure felt like I was flying forever in that plunge, nevertheless.
“But you did hit your head against the windshield. You sustained some scratches in addition to your concussion,” Jeffrey continues. “Luckily, you were wearing your seatbelt.”
Lucky indeed.
“What happened to my car? How did you find me?”
“I was returning from an errand. Your car is still in the ravine from which I extricated you. It was badly damaged.”
Gad, and that’s a rental. I hope Avis has good insurance.
Should I go to a hospital?
“Just rest, Ms. Tremont,” Jeffrey instructs me.
I frown. “How do you know my name?”
I’m certain I didn’t tell him. The reporter instinct in me rears its suspicious head.
“I took the liberty of looking in your purse for identification. I understand that you are out of state.” Jeffrey’s lined face is a mask.
“You looked in my purse?” I am aghast. OK, well, I shouldn’t be. Most good Samaritans do look in the purses of accident victims for some sort of identification. Except that I’m not sure Jeffrey is a completely good Samaritan.
“What were you doing driving up Pine’s Lookout, Ms. Tremont?” Jeffrey cocks his head slightly, even though his serene expression has not changed. “Are you aware that it’s private property?”
Rats.
“I got lost,” I say sheepishly.
