An Ice Cold Grave by Charlaine Harris Page A

was taking a nine-by-thirteen glass dish from the oven, which incidentally had been full of baked chicken. My toe had not only been broken, but burned. I was awake enough to realize that the pain I’d experienced then was nothing compared to the pain I’d be feeling now if I weren’t heavily drugged.
    I wasn’t looking forward to those drugs wearing off.
    Tolliver was holding my right hand; luckily for me, the broken arm was my left. He was staring off into space. Thinking. Something I was way too foggy to attempt.
    â€œSo, it must have been the killer,” he said.
    I shuddered. As slow as my brain processes were at the moment, the thought that that person—the one who’d done those unthinkable things to the boys in the ground—had been so close to me, had touched me, had looked at me through the eyes that had enjoyed the sight of so much suffering, was absolutely revolting.
    â€œCan we leave tomorrow?” I asked. I couldn’t even draw enough breath for the words to come out in a strong voice.
    â€œNo,” he said. “You’re not doing any traveling for a couple of days. You have to get better.”
    â€œBut I don’t want to stay here,” I said. “Leaving was a good idea.”
    â€œYeah, but now we’re pinned here for a little while,” he said, trying to sound gentle, but the undertone of anger was clear and strong. “He took care of that. The doctor said you were lucky to have a concussion; at first he thought it would be a lot worse.”
    â€œI wonder why he didn’t go on and kill me?”
    â€œBecause you hit the panic button and I got to the door pretty quick,” Tolliver said. He got up and began pacing. It made my head hurt worse. He was very angry, and very worried. “No, I didn’t see a soul in that parking lot, before you even ask. But I wasn’t looking. I thought you’d fallen. He might have just been a yard away when I came through that door. And I was moving pretty fast.”
    I almost smiled, would have managed the real thing if my head hadn’t been hurting so badly. “I’ll bet,” I whispered.
    â€œYou need to sleep,” he said, and I thought it might be a good idea if I closed my eyes for a minute, sure enough.
    The next thing I knew, the sun was coming through the curtains, and there was a sense of activity all around me; the hospital was awake. There were voices and footsteps in the hall, and carts rumbling. Nurses came in and did things to me. My breakfast tray came, laden with coffee and green Jell-O. I discovered I was hungry when I put a spoonful of the Jell-O in my mouth, surprising even myself. When I found I’d swallowed the jiggly green stuff with actual pleasure, I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. Jell-O was better than nothing.
    â€œYou should eat some breakfast yourself, and go to the hotel and get a shower,” I said. Tolliver was watching me eat with horrified fascination.
    â€œI’m staying till I talk to the doctor,” he said. “He’ll be by soon, the nurse says.”
    The gray-haired man I remembered from the night before turned out to be Dr. Thomason. He was still up. “Busy night last night, for Doraville,” he said. “I’m on call for the ER three nights a week. I’ve never worked as hard.”
    â€œThanks for taking care of me,” I said politely, though of course it was his job.
    â€œYou’re welcome. In case you don’t remember, I told you and your brother last night that you have a hairline fracture of the ulna. It’s cracked, not completely broken through. The soft cast will protect it. You need to keep it on as close to 24-7 as you can manage. The cast’ll have to stay on for a few weeks. When you check out of the hospital, you’ll have directions on when to get the arm checked. It’s going to hurt for a couple of days. Combined with the head