“Ellis!” Keith said when he saw her face. “This man says you were in a car accident. Is that true?”

She had lied to the desk clerk when she checked into the motel. She was afraid he might call the police when he saw how battered she was.

“You’re burning up!” he said.

“I . . . know.” It was so hard to talk. “Do you have medicine?”

“This isn’t from a car accident! Who did this?”

Keith pulled off the covers to examine her. He saw Gep clutched in her hand and stared at the pony for a few seconds.

“Who hurt you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why do you have tape on your stomach?”

She tried to pull her T-shirt over the bandage.

“Let me see. Please.” He gently lifted her shirt and peeled back the duct tape and gauze. “Oh my god,” he whispered. “That’s a knife wound. It’s infected. You have to get to a hospital fast.”

“No!” she said with a sudden surge of vigor. “You promised!”

“I never promised not to save your life!”

“No police!”

She had stabbed someone. The police would ask a hundred questions. She could already see their judgmental looks when they found out she’d gone alone to an isolated campground. She couldn’t bear more of what she’d been through when she left Viola.

Keith scooped her into his arms. “Where’s your wallet?” he asked. “Ellis, where is your wallet?”

“Backpack,” she said.

“Would you please bring that backpack?” he said to the motel clerk. “And don’t remove anything from this room. Keep her checked in.”

“Got it,” the young man said.

Keith sat her on the back seat of his car and wrapped his coat around her. When he pulled her hand in the sleeve, she had to let go of Gep. “Will you put him in my backpack?”

“Him?” he said, smiling. “I can’t believe you still have it.”

“He’s good luck.”

His expression said the pony’s luck didn’t appear to be working.

“This has nothing to do with him.”

“Who does it have to do with? Tell me who did this to you.”

“Why? How will that change it?”

“This person deserves to be brought to justice!”

“I did that.”

“What do you mean?”

She sank into the seat, curled up tight and shivering.

3

She had a broken wrist and cracked nose. The knife wound was infected but required no surgical repair. The doctor said it was a deep slice that had just missed her ovary and bowel. He said Ellis was very lucky.

Almost everything Ellis hadn’t wanted happened. She had expensive treatments with no health insurance to pay for them. She was given an IV and pain medication that made her loopy.

But she prevented them from contacting next of kin. She told them she had no family, and they let that stand. Jonah, the boys, and the senator and his wife would never know about her latest screwup.

An hour after she’d been admitted to the emergency room, two police officers arrived.

“So you’re saying you don’t remember anything about getting stabbed?” one of the men asked. “Where you were, what the attacker looked like—nothing at all?”

Ellis felt the burning pain of the knife in her side. Saw the man with red-blond hair standing over her. The fierce arousal in his blue eyes as he unzipped his jeans.

She tried to hold back the stinging tears.

“You know him, don’t you?” the other officer said. “Is he your boyfriend, a family member?”

“No!” she said.

“If you know he’s not an acquaintance, you must remember the attack,” the officer said.

She shouldn’t have answered. But she was so tired. So sick.

She felt Keith’s look of concern almost physically. He knew she was lying because of what she’d said in his car.

Ellis imagined telling them everything. The blond attacker was probably dead. His friend would have buried him where no one could find him, and by now he could be anywhere. The men would be forever vanished while Ellis suffered for their crimes. Just like when Viola was abducted.

It would all be her fault again. Hadn’t people told her for years that a woman shouldn’t camp alone?

She couldn’t hold back. She wept in gasping sobs.

“She needs to rest,” Keith said to the policemen. “Let’s talk outside.”

He drew the officers out of her room, and Ellis never saw them again.

She insisted on leaving the hospital after less than a day. They didn’t fight her when they learned she had no health insurance. But she was in no shape to drive. She had to depend on Keith.

He set her up in the back seat of the car with blankets and pillows. She was so groggy, it took her a few minutes to realize it was her SUV.

“Where’s your car?” she asked.

“Don’t worry. It’s safe. And I got all your stuff from the motel.”

“Where are we going?”

“Home.”

“Yours?”

“You should rest,” he said. “The doctor said you should sleep as much as you want for the next several days. He said that’s all you’ll want to do.”