“I think you’re probably fine.”
“I sense a ‘but’ coming on.” She scrubbed her hands across her face and let out a heavy sigh that turned into a low, frustrated growl. “I can’t believe this.”
“But... That bug’s been around too long, and I can’t explain the near fainting spell.”
“I stood up too fast.”
“Yeah, but here’s what we’re gonna do. You are going to get a good night’s sleep. I’m going to talk to the camp director, and first thing in the morning, someone’s going to take you into town to see Doc Collins. I’ll call him. He’ll give you the once-over and do some blood work. We’ll let him figure it out. You’ll be back here in no time.”
Her panic escalated. “What about my kids? And who is Doc Collins? I don’t know that person.”
“Relax, Gia. Camp policy dictates what we do here and there’s a plan in place. You’re not the first person to get sick on the job and need some time away. It happens. And Doc Collins is an old-time country doctor in town. He’s our back-up physician and knows all about Towering Pines. His wife’s his nurse. She’ll take care of you.”
“There’s no way around this?”
“No.”
“Are you telling me you’re not going to let me return to duty until I’m seen by Doc Collins?”
“Sorry, Gia. It’s what’s best.”
“Does it have to be Doc Collins?”
“No. That would be the easiest and the closest and I’d feel better if someone drove you, but where is home? Can you get your parents to pick you up and take you to see your own doctor? Maybe rest a day or so, get well, and come back with a doctor’s release?”
“My parents are in Dallas. I’m not going that far.” She launched herself off the table. “I can drive. I only had the one dizzy spell. I’ll take care of it.”
Ash hesitated. “All right, then. I’ll take care of the paperwork and talk with the director.”
She took his outstretched hand. “Thanks, Ash. I appreciate it. Don’t like it, but I do appreciate it.”
“Try to take it easy, Gia. Everything’s going to be fine.”
She forced a smile. “I’ll head out in the morning as soon as a substitute relieves me.”
She ducked into the woods and raced to the biggest, darkest tree she could find.
First, she threw up.
Then, she started to cry.
6
Gia pulled the beige curtains closed against the bright sun and cranked up the A/C in her pleasant room at the Holiday Inn. She dumped the contents from the superstore plastic bags on the hotel bed.
Pink stuff for nausea.
Bottled water.
Cookies.
Pain reliever.
Nail polish.
A peach.
A plum.
A pregnancy test
. A pregnancy test.
She snatched the last item off the bed and tossed it into a dresser drawer, out of sight until morning. Paramedic Ash’s routine question had brought into the open a deeply buried possible scenario she’d been trying hard to ignore.
There was a time she’d smoked her share of marijuana and then consumed alcohol until she passed out at a party. That was a long, long time ago.
In recent months, she was in full control. Especially eight weeks back at the awards dinner—until he followed her to her car. The foggy memory and unaccounted time could mean he drugged her. If he drugged her, it was most likely for an unspeakable violation.
And if he violated her... A shudder whipped through her body as she crawled into the bed and pulled her Bible, her journal and her laptop toward her. If he violated her, there were three things to consider immediately: Pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and whatever permanent brain damage she suffered from whatever he’d dosed her with. Given her symptoms, it could be any or all of the above. The jarring idea was almost too big to comprehend.
She’d spent the last sixteen hours crying out to God, scribbling random dreams and thoughts in her journal, scouring Scripture, and driving aimlessly away from camp and toward nothing. All this because she was physically ill and mentally tormented by something she couldn’t pin down. Still, God’s peace was hovering. It hadn’t yet touched down in her heart, but it was there.
She pressed her Bible against her chest. “I need to remember, Lord. I need to know what happened to me... I need to find a doctor.”
As she set the Word aside, it flopped open to the book of Mark. Her gaze dropped to chapter four, verse twenty-two.
For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open...
She grabbed her journal and recorded the passage. “For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed... I know that, Lord, that’s what I’m trying to do. And whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. Whatever is concealed...”
Her phone vibrated on the nightstand. She plucked it from the charger. “Rocky?”
“Gia. I didn’t expect you to pick up at work. I was going to leave a message.”
She pushed everything aside and fluffed the pillow behind her. “I’m not at camp.”
“Everything OK?”
“It’s fine. I’ve had this off and on stomach bug. Camp staff finally told me I needed to be checked out and get a note before I could return to work.”
“Sorry to hear that. So you went home to Dallas?”
“No.” She hesitated. He didn’t need to know she made her way west to the junction at Interstate 45 where she stopped to get gas and pray. North to Dallas? South to Houston? She opted for the route that would carry her away from an uncomfortable visit with her parents and their inevitable questions. “I think I’m actually closer to your neck of the woods.”
“Really?”
There was no missing the unguarded joy in his voice.
“Yes, really,” she said and laughed.
“Wait. Sorry. I mean reeaallly,” he said all solemn and drawn out as if he were concerned. “Didn’t mean to sound happy you’re sick.”
“That’s OK.”
“You have friends around here?”
“Um... No. I’m in a Holiday Inn near the freeway.”
“What are you doing there? Save your money. My mom has room, there are people at my church who have room. I have room.”
“I can’t impose on anyone, Rocky. I’m not feeling great and I need to find a walk-in clinic or a family physician who will see me ASAP. That’s one of the reasons I trekked out of the woods and came toward the big city. There are not many twenty-four hour facilities deep in the Piney Woods.”
“Where are you exactly? Are you all the way in Houston?”
“No. I’m north of Houston. I came upon a bustling exit with a hospital sign and a few hotels so I figured I’d find what I needed.”
“Far north or just north of the city?”
“I’m guessing far north.”
“Do you remember passing the entrance to the toll road?”
“Let’s see... No.”
“Good. You’re not far. I know you don’t feel up to going out, but you have to eat. I’m bringing chicken soup. What room are you in?”
“Oh no, Rocky. I’m a mess.”
“I won’t stay.”
“It’s really not a good idea.” She pulled the blanket closer as if to shield her further from his offer. “I may not be here. I need to get that appointment.”
“Sure, Gia,” he said, his voice as steady and gentle as a spring rain. “You need to rest and take care of things.”
She wished it were Saturday back at the festival. She was happy there with him in that brief moment where pestering memories had not yet kicked in the door and ugly truths had not yet bubbled to the surface. Her heart twisted as she realized if anything irreversible came of her situation, she would probably never see him again.
“Gia? You all right?”
“I’m here. Tell you what. I should know more in the morning. Maybe we can have lunch or something tomorrow afternoon before I head back to work—provided I get everything taken care of.”
“Sounds like a plan. Text me the address. I’ll wait to hear from you and pick you up.”
“That would be great, Rocky. Thanks. Talk to you then.”
And it would be great. Right up until she told him the truth and lost him forever.
She pushed all that from her mind and started an earnest search for a doctor nearby. After pinpointing her location on her phone, she punched in addresses from her online search until something popped up. Mercifully, it only took three calls for someone at a family clinic to see her at ten the next morning.
She moved on to her journal where she developed a timeline of the rampant scenes that had periodically rushed through her mind.
She capped off the afternoon with a bout of research on the most used date rape drugs. Victims of Rohypnol, GHB, and Ketamine all reported symptoms similar to hers. Some of the drugs disappeared from the body so fast it was hard to detect them with toxicology tests, even if she’d pursued them in the first couple days. Ketamine, in a high enough dose, could cause long-term hallucinations, and all of them could cause death under the right circumstances.
She remembered waking up in her car. “Maybe he didn’t want to assault me,” she choked. “Maybe he wanted to kill me.”
That information added a new, terrifying twist to the letters she’d received at camp. Rebekah could have been right. The letters may have been more threatening than she thought.
If that’s true... Maybe I shouldn’t go back to camp even if I can.
She was losing more of herself every second.
Words on the computer started to blur as she read her way through countless victim statements regarding what she currently understood was DFSA or Drug Facilitated Sexual Assault. The methods, statistics, and stories were harrowing, and they were a lot like hers. How had she let this happen?
As fear crept again into her mind, she exchanged the laptop for her Bible. She turned to a random page. This time her gaze dropped to Proverbs 20:6.
Many a man claims to have unfailing love, but a faithful man who can find?
Good question. No man had ever done right by her. She marked the verse and closed her eyes.
She awoke sometime later to the sound of a ringing phone. She scrambled for her cell, only to realize the sound of too-loud bells came from the desk phone across the room. She stumbled out of bed. “Who uses these things anymore? And who would know I’m here?” She plopped into the office chair by the desk. “Hello?”
“Ms. Rinaldi?”
“Yes?”
“Hi, it’s Mike at the front desk. You have a delivery. May I send it up?”
“A delivery? I’m not expecting anything.”
“There’s a note. It’s addressed to you.”
She rubbed her tired eyes and slowly came awake to suspicious thoughts she never would have considered before. Who may have discovered she was here? The scary thoughts only added to her continuing nightmare. She had no idea what she would do if she truly did have a stalker and he truly did follow her to the Holiday Inn. “I didn’t order anything. I’ll come down and check it out.”
“If it helps, I can tell you there are flowers in the box. And I believe a container of hot chicken soup.”
She smiled in her relief. Chicken soup.
God’s words resurfaced.
...but a faithful man who can find?
“Thank you, Mike. Send it up.”
Suddenly God’s peace no longer hovered. It landed soundly about her—totally saturating, totally engulfing her fearful heart.
****
Rocky stopped under the portico at the hotel and glanced at the time on his phone. Gia said she’d be out front at five o’clock. He didn’t want to seem too anxious. Maybe he should drive around the hotel one more time. It would be so cool if he could drive up as she was walking out. He hit the gas and lunged forward—just as he saw her floating out the door. He came to a jerking, screeching halt right in front of her.
Coolest. Move. Ever.
She stood there with a startled smile, her legs and arms all tanned and glowing. She had on a flowery sundress that whipped with her hair in the blast of air from the doorway.
His heart hammered in his chest at the sight of her. A bouquet in motion.
I am soooo out of my league...
“Sorry about that,” he said as she got in.
“No worries. Thanks for coming.”
“My long-term relationship with this car is over, by the way. I’m in the process of buying something else.”
She set her bag on the floor and put on her seatbelt. “Nice. What are you getting?”
“A truck. I have a brochure from the dealership in here somewhere. I can show you later.”
“I’d like to see it.”
Now would be the time for him say something or start driving, but he wasn’t sure what to do with her. She seemed tired, but happy to see him. Tentative, but anxious. Sad... But maybe OK with it? He remained confused.
“Are you feeling better?”
She glanced upward as she thought about it. “Um, maybe not better, but different. It’s been a long day.”
“Can you eat?”
“I need to, but I don’t know if I can. Is there a quiet place where we can hear ourselves talk?”
“Sure. There’s a great Thai place. No one is ever in there. I don’t know how they stay in business, but they’ll keep your tea glass full and leave you alone all afternoon. They have great soup. That might be good if your stomach is still upset.”
“Sounds nice. And speaking of soup, thank you for the flowers and dinner last night. I can’t believe you did that. You didn’t have to.”
“I wanted to.”
He also wanted to reach for her hand. Something in her unsettled demeanor said not to, though they’d achieved a level of familiarity on their previous date. The woman who’d landed in his lap and squarely in his heart Saturday night was clearly not the same woman he was with today. But she was in there somewhere. He caught glimpses of her when she smiled his way.
As suspected, his favorite Thai place was near empty. The familiar hostess waved through the window and stood waiting with the door propped.
“Good to see you, Mister Rocky.”
He nodded as she scampered to a table and cleared away chairs.
Gia pinned him with a playful grin. “Come here often, cowboy?”
“What can I say? They have great lunch specials.”
Moments later, as Gia sipped her water, he’d given up trying to figure her out. He simply waited.