* * *
Nurse Pam looked up from her paperwork behind the desk in the nurses’ station.
“Mr. Burke, what on earth are you doing up and dressed and out of bed?”
“Leaving.”
“Leaving?” She said it like she didn’t comprehend the word. “The hospital?”
“Wayward Pines.”
“You’re in no condition to even be out of—”
“I need my personal belongings right now. The sheriff told me the EMTs may have removed them from the car.”
“I thought the sheriff had them.”
“No.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I can put on my Nancy Drew hat and—”
“Stop wasting my time. Do you know where they are?”
“No.”
Ethan turned away from her, started walking.
Nurse Pam called after him.
He stopped at the elevator, punched the down arrow button.
She was coming now—he could hear her quick footsteps on the checkered linoleum.
Turned and watched her approach in that lovely throwback of a nurses’ uniform.
She stopped a few feet away.
He had four or five inches on her. A few years as well.
“I can’t let you leave, Ethan,” she said. “Not until we know what’s wrong with you.”
The elevator doors screeched open.
Ethan backed away from the nurse into the car.
“Thanks for your help, and your concern,” he said, pressing G three times until the button illuminated, “but I think I got it figured out.”
“What?”
“It’s this town that’s wrong.”
Pam stretched her foot across the threshold, blocked the doors from closing.
“Ethan. Please. You’re not thinking clearly.”
“Move your foot.”
“I’m worried about you. Everyone here is.”
He’d been leaning back against the wall. Now he pushed off and came forward, stopping inches away from Pam, staring at her through the four-inch space between the doors.
He looked down, tapped the tip of her white shoe with the tip of his black shoe.
For a long moment, she held her ground, Ethan beginning to wonder if he would have to physically remove her from the elevator car.
Finally, she pulled her foot back.