Other furnishings consisted of a brown leather recliner and matching sofa. Both had creases, wrinkles, and scratches testifying to decades of use. Between them stood an end table, and on it was a lamp with a burlap shade. These pieces were grouped together on a square of carpet with a hemmed border.
The kitchen was open to the rest of the room. There was a sink, a narrow cookstove, an outmoded refrigerator, and a maple wood table with two ladder-back chairs painted olive green. A large stone fireplace comprised most of one wall. The fire burning in it was making the crackling sound she’d been unable to identify when she first woke up.
He’d given her time to survey the room. Now he said, “Only one of your water bottles is empty. You must be thirsty.”
Her mouth was dry, but other matters concerned her more. “I was unconscious when you found me?”
“Out cold. I’ve tried several times to wake you up.”
“How long have I been out?”
“I found you around seven thirty this morning.”
She looked down at her wristwatch and saw that it was twenty past six in the evening. She bicycled her legs to kick off the layers of covers. Throwing her legs over the side of the bed, she stood up. Immediately she swayed.
“Whoa!”
He caught her upper arms. She didn’t like his touching her, but she would have fallen on her face if he hadn’t. He guided her back down onto the side of the bed. Her head felt as though it was about to explode. Her stomach heaved. She covered her eyes with her hand because everything within sight was alternately zooming close and then receding, like the wavering images in a fun house mirror.
“Want to lie back down or can you sit up?” he asked.
“I’ll sit.”
He gradually withdrew his hands from her arms, then left her. He went into the kitchen and took a gallon jug of water from the refrigerator. He filled a glass and carried it back to her.
She regarded it suspiciously, wondering if he’d drugged her. The date-rape drug was odorless, tasteless, and effective. It not only debilitated the victim, it wiped clean the memory. But if this man had some nefarious purpose in mind, what would have been the point of drugging her if she was already unconscious?
He said, “I tried to get some water down you earlier. You kept gagging and spitting it out.”
Which explained why the front of her shirt was damp. She was fully clothed except for her jacket, gloves, and headband. Her running shoes had also been removed and placed on the floor beside the bed, lined up evenly side by side. She looked up from them to the man extending her the drinking glass. “I’m certain I have a concussion.”
“That’s what I figured, since I couldn’t wake you up.”
“My scalp is bleeding.”
“Not anymore. It clotted quick enough. I’ve been dabbing it with peroxide. That’s why the blood on your fingers looks fresh.”
“I probably need stitches.”
“It bled a lot, but it’s not that deep of a gash.”
He’d made that assessment himself? Why? “Why didn’t you call nine-one-one?”
“I’m off the beaten path up here, and I can’t vouch for the quality of the emergency services. I thought it best just to bring you here and let you sleep it off.”
She didn’t agree. Anyone who’d sustained a blow to the head should be seen by a physician to determine the extent of the damage done, but she didn’t yet have the energy to argue the point. She needed to get her bearings and clear her head a bit first.
She took the glass of water from him. “Thank you.”
Although she was desperately thirsty, she sipped the water, afraid that if she drank it too quickly, she’d only throw it up. She was feeling a mite less anxious. At least her heart was no longer racing and her breathing was close to normal. She would take her blood pressure soon—her wristwatch allowed for that—but she didn’t feel up to doing it yet. She was having to white-knuckle the glass of water to keep it steady. He must have noticed.
“Dizzy?”
“Very.”
“Head hurt?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I had a concussion once. Didn’t amount to anything except a really bad headache, but that was bad enough.”
“I don’t think mine is serious. My vision is a little blurry, but I remember what year it is and the name of the vice president.”
“Then you’re one up on me.”
He’d probably meant it as a joke, but there was no humor either in his inflection or in his expression. He didn’t come across as a man who laughed gustily and frequently. Or ever.
She sipped once more from the glass and then set it on the small table at the side of the bed. “I appreciate your hospitality, Mr.—”
“Emory Charbonneau.”
She looked up at him with surprise.
He motioned toward the end of the bed. Until now, she hadn’t noticed her fanny pack laying there, along with her other things. One of the earpieces on her sunglasses was broken. There was blood on it.
“I got your name off your driver’s license,” he said. “Georgia license. But your name sounds like Louisiana.”
“I’m originally from Baton Rouge.”
“How long have you lived in Atlanta?”
Apparently he’d noted her address, too. “Long enough to call it home. Speaking of which…” Not trusting herself to stand again, she scooted along the edge of the bed until she could reach her fanny pack. Inside it, along with two water bottles, one of them empty, were two twenty-dollar bills, a credit card, her driver’s license, the map she’d used to mark her trail, and, what she most needed right now, her cell phone.
“What were you doing up here?” he asked. “Besides running.”
“That’s what I was doing up here. Running.” When she tried unsuccessfully for the third time to turn her phone on, she cursed softly. “I think my battery is completely out of juice. Can I borrow your charger?”
“I don’t have a cell phone.”
Who doesn’t have a cell phone? “Then if I could use your land line, I’ll pay for—”
“No phone of any kind. Sorry.”
She gaped at him. “No telephone?”
He shrugged. “Nobody to call. Nobody to call me.”
The panic that she had willed away earlier seized her now. With the realization that she was at this stranger’s mercy, a baffling situation became a terrifying one. Her aching head was suddenly packed with stories of missing women. They disappeared and often their families never knew what their fate had been. Religious fanatics took wives. Deviants kept woman chained inside cellars, starved them, tortured them in unspeakable ways.
She swallowed another surge of nausea. Keeping her voice as steady as she was capable of, she said, “Surely you have a car.”
“A pickup.”