Page 111 of A Dead End Wedding

"No," I whispered. "Emily is my friend. After she pulled out of the parking lot, something smashed into the back of my head. That's all I remember."

"And it's probably this," said a grim-faced woman I'd seen at another table earlier in the evening. She pointed at a rock the size of an orange lying on the ground next to me. It looked dark and sticky on one sharp corner, and also had a few strands of what looked like my hair stuck to it.

The hair sent me over the edge.

"I'm going to throw up now," I said, as politely as I could, to Cowboy.

He sat me up a bit more and turned my head in the opposite direction from the rock. "Don't want to taint the evidence. Saw that on CSI Miami," he said, while I threw up tuna casserole and stomach acid.

"This may be the most humiliating moment of my life," I muttered, wiping my mouth on my sleeve.

Mr. Spicey and the others clustered around us had backed off a few paces, but Cowboy just chuckled. "Don't you worry about it, none. The wife and I raised five boys, and a little puke ain't nothing. Why, I could tell you times when?—"

I held up a hand. "Thank you, but please don't tell me. I'm not sure I could take it right now," I whispered.

The shrill of the sirens cut across my words, and an ambulance and an Orange Grove PD car pulled into the parking lot, one right behind the other. "I really don't need an ambulance. It's just a bump on the head," I protested.

"Not with all that blood all over the place," Mr. Spicey said.

I looked down at where he was pointing and saw an enormous, dark splotch on the ground. Then I touched the back of my head, and my hand came away sticky.

That's when everything went fuzzy again.

"It's a mild concussion. They did their tests and scans, and I'm fine. Nothing to get worked up over," I reassured Aunt Celia over the phone. "I'm only calling because I was afraid you'd learn about it over the scanner and freak out."

I looked around my curtained-off room in the ER, scrunching my nose. All hospitals smell like Lysol and sound like constant beeping.

"I think there is something you're leaving out of this, December. How could you accidentally fall down in a parking lot and hit your head? You are not the accident-prone type, by any means. Is there something you're not telling me?"

Now that she'd calmed down from utter hysteria to mild weepiness, she was asking questions I didn't want to answer. She and Uncle Nathan were already worried about me enough.

"No, absolutely not. And, no, I don't need a ride home. I have a friend right here to drive me," I lied. A taxi would be fine. Then somehow I'd figure out a way to pick up my car tomorrow.

"I don't believe you. You never call for help when you need it. Let me talk to this so-called friend," she demanded.

"Um, my friend just walked down to the coffee machine. But I'll have her call you later," I said, trying to be clever with a monster headache jack hammering my skull.

"No. You let me talk to her right now, or I'm coming to get you myself," she said.

"Aunt Celia! You're being unreasonable. Anyway, I didn't mean?—"

The curtain to the ER bed swung open, and Jake and Max walked in together, leaving me sitting there gaping at them. Max grabbed me in a hug and burst into tears, and Jake took the phone out of my hand.

"Hello, Celia? This is Jake Brody."

He listened for a moment, then grinned. "Yes, it was delightful meeting you, too. Listen, Max and I are here, and we're going to take your niece home right now and put her to bed."

Despite the headache, a little shiver rippled through me at the idea of Jake putting me to bed. I'msonot into the "damsel in distress" role, but if this is what it gets me, I can pretend to be helpless once in a while . . .

Snap out of it. I have more important stuff to worry about right now. Like the savage sinus stalker, who is now apparently trying to kill me.

Jake put the phone down, and the faint smile disappeared from his face. "What happened, Vaughn?"

I sighed. "Police scanner?"

"What happened?" He reached out and lifted a few strands of hair at the back of my head, and I noticed the bloodstains out of the corner of my eye. The room whirled a little, and I clutched at Max, who'd quit hugging me but was clutching my arms.

"Are you okay? How many fingers am I holding up?" she asked.

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