It wasn't long before a local officer found me, even from my poor description of the location where she had left me. But it was long enough that Victoria was now gone, and I didn't know if she had stayed on back roads or returned to the highway, and if she had, which direction she had taken.

Another officer had found the abandoned LTD. Its plates were missing, making it safe to believe she had swapped them with mine, and I could not recall what hers had been when I stopped in the dark, not even the state or county.

Somewhere during the questioning, in the back of the officer's car at the site, I noticed a dull ache and itch at the base of my scalp. When I put my hand to the spot, it pulled away somewhat damp, my fingers covered in both crusted and fresh blood.

Quickly I removed my jacket, and the collar told a similar story. If I had not fallen forward, the snow would have been stained as well. When the officer returned a moment later, I mentioned it to him. He seemed a great deal more alarmed than I felt, and soon we were hurtling pell-mell down the gravel road toward the nearest hospital, where after a local anesthetic and four stitches I realized how badly I wanted to go to bed. The young intern who stitched me though, feared for a concussion, and I was sentenced to waking every three hours during the night.

I was taken to the local police station where I was put up. They wanted me to answer more questions in the morning.

When I woke it was to the pain at the base of my skull and the long face of someone telling me he was Detective Ray Vecchio. He was kneeling beside the cot I had been given, much closer than I would like to encounter most people first thing in the morning. Momentarily forgetting my trip to the ER, I started and rolled away, onto my back. When the stitches hit the pillow, I nearly rocketed out of the cot and into him.

"Whaaaat?" he shouted, no doubt thinking I was having a seizure. He had his arms out before I could tumble over the edge--my balance also seeming to have suffered from the night before--and I ended up even closer, his hands to my shoulders, steadying me for an instant, before letting one of them push my hair to the side as he inspected the back of my neck, and the source of my discomfort.

"I'm fine," I said, trying to regain my composure, rubbing at my still-sleepy eyes.

"They've cut your hair, shaved it almost to the skin," he told me, as if I hadn't known, as if I hadn't silently put a curse on the tech who had held the scissors.

He stood and stepped away from the cot.

"Just to get to the cut," I said, much more casually than I felt. "It'll grow back. Besides, the rest of it's long enough to cover it up."

"Dammit," he said, squeezing his eyes closed, but I knew it wasn't to me. I knew he was thinking about her, blaming her, even if I wouldn't.

"I'm sorry I freaked," I offered. "I'm a little jumpy."

"With the night you had," he said, "no need to apologize." He inclined his head to where one of the officers was seated. "Have these yokels here even fed you?"

"No. They did wake me every third hour, though. Kept me from having to spend all night tied to a hospital bed."

He looked into my pupils like someone who knew how do to such things and pronounced me well enough to travel.