They tell me I fainted. As I lie in a hospital bed smothered in blankets, the impressive assortment of ER types arrayed around my bed tell me how I shrieked when the door to the cryogenic chamber opened and then raced out into the anteroom and promptly fainted dead away on the floor.
Fortunately not “dead away” in the literal sense, although it does feel like heaven to be cozy comfy in a bed, wrapped up like a beauty-queen papoose, no longer fearing for my life.
“That was very smart of you to block the vent,” says a male doctor type. “The paramedics told us that caused a siren to go off.”
I’m still sort of woozy so I have trouble grasping this.
“Apparently somebody outside the spa heard it,” he goes on. “And then hotel security found you. We have to keep an eye on you but there’s every reason to expect you’ll be just fine. You were very lucky.”
“Lucky?” I try to say, but my mouth won’t work right and a nurse cuts me off. “Don’t talk,” she says, “rest for now,” and for the first time in my life I don’t mind being shushed. I am content to lie quietly and bask in the luxury of not being dead.
In fact, of being “just fine.” And warm. Nice and warm. I never want to be cold again. If Jason wants to hotfoot it out of Ohio for parts down south, I just might be game.
The doctors and nurses bustle away. I see that my bed is in a small curtained-off area, probably in Urgent Care. I note that my left arm is hooked up to an IV. The weird thing is that my skin looks awfully pink. I try to wriggle my fingers, first on my left hand and then on my right. They seem to work. Ditto with my toes. If my extremities are in good shape, I bet the rest of me is, too. If memory serves, frostbite is the thing to worry about if a person spends too much time in a cryogenic chamber. At this point, for me, I would say two seconds is too much time.
A different nurse approaches the bed and offers me water. “We need to keep you hydrated,” she says. “That’s what the IV is for.” She props me up on my pillows and I take a sip. She sets the little blue plastic glass and straw on a table that she rolls close and asks whether I’ll be able to reach it. I reply that I will. All in all, soon I start to feel like myself again. Things come back to me in dribs and drabs.
Frank. Being in the chamber. The panic button.
So it was the siren from the vent being blocked that got somebody’s attention. Somebody outside the spa. It wasn’t the panic button that did it.
No, because only Frank heard the panic button. And he wasn’t going to save me. That was the last thing he was going to do.
I start to get agitated. “Nurse? Nurse? I have to talk to the police.” After all, there’s a killer on the loose. I need to tell them it’s Frank Richter. I wonder who he’ll go after next? Sally Anne? I doubt she’s safe. She must be warned.
“The police want to talk to you, too,” the nurse who brought me water says in a soothing voice. “But so do a few other people. Should I let them in?”
“Okay,” I say, and they turn out to be my mother and Jason.
“Oh my God!” my mother shrieks. She runs to my bedside, grabs my hand, takes one look at me, and yowls at the nurse. “She’s as pink as Babe the pig! What the hell’s the matter with her?”
I find this a worrisome assessment even as I hear the nurse reassure my mother that the rosiness is only a temporary phenomenon. I do not appreciate being likened to a Disney animal, particularly one of a porcine nature.
If I’m pink, Jason is white. I think of his skin as olive-toned but right now he’s as pale as Dracula himself. He kisses me and gently touches my face and hovers above my bed staring down at me like I’m a precious jewel. It’s kind of nice, I will tell you.
“It was Frank who pushed me in there, you know,” I tell him.
My mother catches that. “That bum Sally Anne was going to marry? I kept telling you he was bad news! But would you listen?”
“I’m gonna kill him,” Jason declares.
“At least now we know who’s behind all this.” I can’t get Sally Anne out of my mind. I’m really worried she’s in serious danger.
“I don’t want you ever investigating anything ever again,” Jason says. “We’ll talk about that later. For now I want you to listen to this.” He pulls out his cell. “Rachel left a voicemail for you.”
He plays it for me. I need to remember it the next time I want to wring my daughter’s neck. It’s a passionate, teary monologue about how much she loves me and how I’m the best mom ever and how she’ll totally go to college next year if I want her to and how she can’t wait until I get home so she can give me a huge hug.
My mom hands me a tissue so I can wipe my eyes. Then Jason lays an extra long smooch on my forehead. “That kiss is from your dad.”
“You spoke to Pop?”
“He wants you to call him as soon as you can. So does Cantwell.”
“You spoke to him, too?”
“Trixie did. He called her to find out what the heck was going on.”
Uh oh. I have some explaining to do.
I sink back against the pillows. I am exhausted. I am so ready to go home and see Rachel and Pop. The good news is that my work in Vegas is almost done. Now we know who the killer is and there’s only one more Sparklettes show. I wonder if I’ll be up to performing tonight. I wonder if the doctors will let me.
“Trixie and Shanelle are in the waiting room,” Jason tells me, “but the cops want to talk to you first.”
The nurse reappears. “We just got orders to move you to a private room.” She lowers her voice. “With a bodyguard outside the door. Courtesy of the LVMPD.”
Jason and I exchange a glance. It’s nice to be treated like a VIP but clearly this maneuver is designed to keep Frank Richter from taking another whack at me.
My mother and Jason are hustled away so Detective Perelli and I can speak in private. She appears shortly after I’m relocated, as stylish as ever in a slim-cut sleeveless dress that’s white on the bottom, black on top, and features a bright red ruched inset at the waist. She sets a bag of salt water taffy on my bedside table. “Straight outa Jersey. I get my mom to send it to me twice a year. The crap out here just doesn’t compare.”
“That is really nice of you.”
She eyes me as she chews her gum. “I’d say you are one lucky girl. You don’t wanna know how close you came.”
“I don’t think I do.”
She boots up her electronic tablet and takes notes as she grills me about the morning’s events. When she’s done, I ask if she’s been able to bring in Frank. She frowns. “You mean, from downstairs?”
I sit up straighter. “He’s downstairs? Downstairs here?”
“Where else would he be?”
I don’t know. Behind bars?