dead without a doubt. Hospital Security was there (a man older than my doctor and not nearly as fit), an orderly was there (satisfyingly tall and muscular), and another nurse who added her opinion to that of my big nurse, as I thought of her.
Of course this was a silly episode, and one I should have been able to throw off; and once I considered it, one I should have anticipated. Right at the moment, I couldn't recognize any of those points. I'd been scared very badly, and my heart was thumping like a rabbit's, and my head was hurting as if someone had hit me again, and my arm ached where I'd bumped it when I'd lurched sideways against the railings in my panic.
When it all got sorted out the nurses had given the reporters a first-rate tongue-lashing, the security guard and the orderly were escorting the intruders out, and the two men were trying to hide their smiles.
And I was a mess: frightened, hurting, and lonely.
Chapter 6
TOLLIVER was livid when he came in the room the next morning. The nurses had been full of the night's excitement, and they'd been quivering to fill him in on the big event. They'd pounced on him with avidity. The result was that Tolliver was all but breathing fire when he flung open my door.
"I can't believe it," he said. "Those bastards! To sneak into a hospital in the night and actually into your room! Jeez, you must have...were you asleep? Did they really scare you?" He went from rage to concern in two seconds flat.
I was too tired to put a good face on for him. I'd come awake with a jolt at least three times during the night, sure there was someone else in the room with me.
Tolliver said, "How'd they even get in here, anyway? The doors are supposed to be locked after nine o'clock. Then you have to punch a big button outside the emergency room door to get in. At least that's what the sign says."
"So either a door was left open by accident or someone let them in. Might not have known who they were, of course." I was trying to be fair. I'd really gotten good treatment at this little hospital, and I didn't want to believe any of the staff had been bribed or were malicious enough to simply let reporters in for the hell of it.
Tolliver even sounded off to the doctor about it.
Dr. Thomason was back on duty. He seemed both angry and embarrassed, but he also looked as though he'd heard enough about the incident.
I gave Tolliver a look, and he was smart enough to back off.
"You're still going to let me go, right?" I said, trying to smile at the doctor.
"Yeah, I think we'll toss you out. You're recovering well from your injuries. Traveling isn't going to be easy on you, but if you're determined, you can leave. No driving, of course, not until your arm is well." The doctor hesitated. "I'm afraid you'll leave our town with a bad impression."
A serial killer, an attack out of the blue, and a rude awakening...why would I get a negative picture of Doraville? But I had manners and sense enough to say, "Everyone here has been very kind to me, and I couldn't have gotten better treatment in any hospital I've seen." It was easy to see the relief pass across Dr. Thomason's face. Maybe he'd been concerned that I was the kind of person who slapped a lawsuit on anyone who looked at me cross-eyed.
I'd been thinking of the good people I'd met here, and the fact that Manfred and Xylda had come here expressly to see us. That had made me wonder if we shouldn't spend the rest of the day here in town to wind up our loose ends. But after the scare the night before, I was twitching with my desire to get out of this place.
Of course, there was the usual long wait while the paperwork made its way around the hospital, but finally, about eleven o'clock, a nurse came in with the mandated wheelchair, while Tolliver bundled up and went out to pull our car around to the entrance to pick me up. There was another wheelchair waiting just inside the front door. A very young woman, maybe twenty, was perched in it, her arms full of a swaddled bundle. An older woman who had to be her mother was with her. The mother was