Page 20 of Nowhere to Hide

“Okay, let’s try the bedpan.”

I cringed through the indignity, but there was no way I’d have made it to the toilet. I was a shaking heap a few moments later and any hunger urge had slid away to nausea from the pain. She must have put something into my IV and I quickly slid under into a cotton batting hug of drugs.

When I surfaced again, the room was dim, and a man sat in a chair beside me.

I blinked slowly until his uniform pants and vest registered. “Hello?”

He sat up, dragging the chair toward my bed. “Miss Barlow.”

I swallowed. “Cilla,” I rasped.

He stood and disappeared from view, coming back with a cup and a straw.

I took a grateful sip before pushing the cup away with a whispered, “thanks.”

“Do you need the nurse?”

I glanced at the IV, longing for oblivion as the pain came in waves, then winced at the new addition of some sort of catheter under my bedclothes. I wasn’t sure which was worse, but at least there was a level of protection there. I shook my head.

“Are you sure?”

“No, I’m not, but I need answers.”

“So do I.”

I shifted on my bed and drew in a steadying breath as the pain ebbed. “Where am I?”

“North Shore Hospital.”

“Am I still in Salem?”

He nodded. “I’m Dete—Officer Stone with the Salem, PD.”

I frowned at the correction, but the fuzz in my brain made it difficult to grasp on anything he said.

“What are you doing in Salem? Are you relocating? Vacationing?”

“Vacationing, I guess.” I swallowed down against the tightening in my throat. “Traveling.”

Running from my old life. My old problems.

Into new ones.

My eyelids felt heavy, but I blinked harder to keep him in focus.

“We couldn’t find your cell phone. Is there someone we should call for you?”

I frowned. “My phone?”

It was everything. All of my information. All of a sudden a flash of the pier had me gasping a breath as the fear and the pain scrambled my thoughts.

“Miss Barlow?”

I couldn’t breathe. The memories gripping me so hard that the panic hit me like a wave. Sweat poured down my back, along my temples as I ripped at my neck.

“Priscilla?”He fumbled for something on my bed.

I turned toward the voice of the officer. He seemed so far away. His voice was hazy and vague.