Don't Look Back(48)

I pulled my arm away. Something tightened in my chest. “Is my bag still in the car?”

“No,” Scott answered, looking away. “Your bag was in your bedroom. You didn’t take it with you.”

“What?” My head swam in confusion. That made no sense. “That’s not right. I brought it with me, and I put the note in it.”

Scott shook his head, his voice sad. “Sam, we had to get your bag because you didn’t have ID on you when the police got to the scene. You didn’t take it with you.”

I felt cold as I stared at him, but I started to sweat. “But there was a guy in the car....”

“There was no one in the car.” Dad placed his hand over mine.

No. No. No. “He was in the backseat. And he was following me. I didn’t—” A sour-faced nurse came in, not saying a word as she went to the tubes hooked up to the IV. There was a needle in her hand. Panic curled around my insides. “What is she doing? Dad?”

“She’s just giving you some pain medication.” He patted my hand. “It’s okay.”

I watched her press down on the needle. Fluid bubbled in the IV. She left without looking at me or saying a word. I thought nurses were supposed to be nice. “Dad...”

“You need to rest.”

I didn’t want to rest. I wanted them to believe me. Turning my head, I met my brother’s troubled eyes. “Scott, someone was following me when I was at the cabin. And someone had been there. There were fresh cigarette butts and—”

“Honey, that was from me.” Dad thrust a hand over his head. “Sometimes I go up there to smoke. Your mother doesn’t know. I quit years ago, but with everything recently...”

I stared at him. “But... but someone was in the car. He scared me and that’s why I lost control.”

Scott’s eyes cast down. “Sam, the car doors were locked when the police got there.” He said his next words slowly, carefully. “He couldn’t have locked the car doors after he left the car. The computer in the car was fried. They had to cut the car door open to get you out.”

Oh man, his car.

“The insurance company is already—”

I cut my dad off. “There was someone in the car.” My voice rose, cracking. All of it had been too real to be a hallucination. And I had a vision—a memory of crawling. How could I have a vision inside of a hallucination? “I didn’t imagine it! I’m not making it up.”

Dad sat back, looking helpless. “I know you’re not making it up, sweetie. I don’t doubt that you believe someone was in the car.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, understanding what he wasn’t saying. “I’m not crazy.”

He made a strange noise, and he looked like he was about to crack—like he was about to crumble into a thousand pieces. “I know, baby. You’re not crazy.”

And I knew right then, when he looked away and a muscle popped in his jaw, that he didn’t believe what he was saying.

The doctors let me out of the hospital that evening with a prescription for pain meds and orders to take it easy over the next couple of days. If it hadn’t been for what had put me in the hospital a couple of weeks ago, they probably wouldn’t have even kept me that long.

Red roses from Del had been placed on my desk in my bedroom, filling the room with the crisp, fresh scent. A smaller basket of bright pink peonies peeked out from behind the vase. They were from Veronica and the girls.

My purse was on the chair in front of my desk: house keys, wallet, and phone tucked inside. I dumped everything out on the seat. No note.

I felt sick.

How could I have hallucinated all of that? My skin felt numb, thoughts muted. The painkillers were still kicking around in my system. Dragging my feet, I went into the bathroom. Bandage off, the purplish bruise seeped out from my hairline, spreading over my left temple. There were tiny scratches on my arms from the glass. Nothing as bad as what I’d done to myself earlier on Wednesday.

A lump rose in my throat, and I swallowed it down. My palms were raw. Changing slowly into a tank top and sleep shorts, I saw that my knees hadn’t fared much better. At least the whole falling-down part was real.

In a daze, I brushed my teeth twice and then crawled into bed. There I stayed, forcing my eyes closed. Mom visited me once. She didn’t say much, but her manicured nails were chewed down to their beds.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said, moving to the door.

I said nothing.

“I... I love you, honey.”

There was nothing for me to say. The words were on the tip of my tongue. Fighting or not, memories or no memories, I still loved her, but nothing came out. She stared at me with weary, sad eyes and then left.

She thought I was capable of killing someone. No leaps of imagination were required to assume she also thought I was crazy.

Scott stopped in just before ten, but I didn’t speak to him, either. I pretended to sleep, and then I did sleep. Sleeping didn’t require thinking. Thinking led to questioning my mental state.

Sometime later, something soft caressed my nose. The scent reminded me of spring and early summer. I pried my eyes open. One of Del’s roses was right in my face, but the tan fingers around the glistening stem didn’t belong to my boyfriend.

Carson’s cocky grin went up a notch. “Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey.”