I scowl at the phone, but in all honesty, she’s right. I probably shouldn’t be driving—it’s just that suddenly, and for reasons I can’t explain, bad vibes are rocking through me. I don’t like this place. I need to get out of here.
In my car, the throbbing resumes behind my ears with ferocious intensity, followed by skull-crushing tension. I lean back against the headrest and pray for deliverance from this pain.
My phone rings.
“Is Adam there?” Jenna asks.
“Well, no . . . not yet.”
“What? Why?”
“Honey, please. We just got off the pho—” But as the dashboard clock comes into focus, my reprimand grinds to a scrambling halt. Forty-five minutes have passed.
“Chris?”
“Yeah,” I answer, a little too rushed, a little too distracted, and then, “He’ll be here soon.”
“But he should already be there by now. What’s taking him so long?”
What’s taking him so long is that you never called, because you took a nap instead.
“He’ll be here soon,” I say again for lack of a more reasonable response. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
To avoid further explanation, I hang up, then take one last look at the tree resting downhill and obscured beneath shadows. The wind takes a sudden shift through the branches, opening them up like wide, outstretched arms. But this is no welcome—this is a warning.
A swath of red moves out from behind the tree. I get a fix on it but can’t believe what I see. The teenager I nearly hit earlier is running away, and the farther he goes, the more his image becomes lost in the cover of night.
A vile sensation claws its way through my stomach and up into the back of my throat. And I know—without a second of doubt or a moment of hesitation—that there is indeed something terribly wrong with this place.
You’ve got to get the hell out of here.
I have to get out of here.
I turn the ignition key, slam the gas pedal, and before I know it, I’m flying up the road.
14
I make it home in one piece.
My body does, anyway. As for my mind, that’s becoming more questionable by the minute. I’m not a medical doctor. I’m a damned psychologist, and that doesn’t make me anywhere near qualified to determine whether I should drive with a head injury—it only makes me impulsive and thoughtless.
When I walk into the kitchen, Jake is lying on the floor asleep. He stirs, flicks his attention at me, then withdraws, appearing lethargic and detached.
“You okay, boy?”
The dog lifts his head, gives my leg a gentle nudge with his nose, then with chin resting on paws, stares absently ahead. Troubled, I watch him for a moment, but something dark on my pant leg distracts me. I inspect closer and find a muddy splotch.
I look back at Jake. His nose is covered in mud.
There are two problems here. First, I know his nose was clean just a moment ago. Second, I’ve got no idea where the muck could have possibly come from. Arizona is in a drought, and while I may or may not have seen rain before my accident, everything I’ve witnessed since has been bone dry.
I return to Jake and flinch. His nose is clean.
Before I can reason my way through this unsettling mud quandary, Devon darts into the room. He throws his arms around my legs, forcing my weight to shift abruptly, which sends an instantaneous stab of pain through my side. Now I’ve got bruised ribs to contend with, and as the initial shock wears off, I’m aware that more troubling injuries from the accident could soon surface. But for my son’s sake, I try to conceal both the pain and worry.
“Daddy got a bad cut!” Devon proclaims, pointing to my forehead.
Jenna rushes in. As soon as she sees me, her expression bounces from relief to serious worry.
“Chris, sit down right now,” she says. “You’re bleeding.”
I gingerly touch my head and feel dampness, now with added heat and a marked increase in swelling.
Jenna sits me in a chair, then heads for the sink. She runs a towel under the faucet, brings it back, and begins applying first aid.
“You look awful,” she says, blotting the blood off my forehead.
“Just a small cut. It actually looks worse than it feels.”
She pulls back to frown at me. She’s not buying it.
Devon now sits across from me at the table, leaning forward and watching. “Does it hurt, Daddy?”
“Not too bad,” I say, then throw in a wink to go with my little white lie.
“I don’t like the way this looks at all,” Jenna says. “I think we should take you to the emergency room.”
“It’s not necessary. I’ll be fine.”
“What if it’s something serious?”
“Sweetie, believe me, I’d know if it was. I’ll have Adam check me over tomorrow.”
She gives me another look, then goes back to work and shakes her head. “I think you need some treatment.”
I’m with the wife on that one. Seeing and hearing things that don’t exist isn’t exactly small potatoes.
“Stuff it!”
Jenna pulls back to look at me again, only this time it’s not worry I see but, rather, injured surprise. Add me to the startled list because I’ve got no idea how my thought transformed into spoken words. It’s like my brain sprouted speakers.
I go for the save. “I said I’ll tough it.”
Jenna watches me, but I’m not sure whether she’s measuring the veracity of my statement or still assessing my condition.
“Please don’t worry, sweetheart,” I say.
But it seems my assurance is only worth a frustrated sigh, followed by, “Your head is so damned hard that I’m actually surprised the crash managed to break skin.”
For the first time in the last hour, I grin.
Jenna bustles for an ice pack, and I retreat to the couch, thoughts funneling past my headache like cloudy dishwater. Devon perches in the easy chair across from me, and his company is a welcome distraction.
Jenna enters the room. She doesn’t look concerned about my injury right now. She looks . . .
“What’s the matter?” I ask.
“Your car is in the garage.”
Oh. Shit.
I meant to explain that earlier, come clean right away, but it’s too late. I’m in trouble.
“Yeah,” I say. “About that . . .”
“Please tell me you did not drive home.”