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and put it behind him.
    He always did.

Chapter 4
    Callie dreamed she was having the mother of all hangovers. Her head cracked into pieces. Her mouth parched. Her stomach roiling queasily. And it was hard to breathe.
    Hard to breathe? No hangover ever hurt this much.
    She opened her eyes to end the dream and get on with her day. She couldn’t remember learning her lines yet. Didn’t she have a lot of pages for today’s show?
    It was really weird. Her eyes wouldn’t open. She’d had dreams like this before, where she really wanted to wake up, but her body wasn’t ready to. Once she’d been having sex with the latest People Sexiest Man of the Year, but he’d turned into her high school calculus teacher right before she climaxed. Talk about a double nightmare. She’d screamed in the dream that she would wake up, but Mr. Finney calmly explained to her that shouting in class meant a double detention—especially if you were having sex with a married teacher while you did it.
    That had been enough to arouse her from the horrifying vision. But this? This was . . . different. No movie ran in her head, so she figured the dream had to be over. The credits should’ve come up by now. Sleepy time was over.
    And she should be able to open her eyes. And wake up.
    “I think she’s trying to come around, Doctor.”
    Doctor? She hadn’t dreamed anything about being sick, so why was a doctor making an appearance? And she was never sick in real life. She was a nut about taking her vitamins and getting a flu shot and drinking plenty of fluids, year-round, especially after working. She refused to believe she could be sick. This was just more of the crazy, unending nightmare.
    Hell, she’d wait it out. Nothing could ever be worse than thinking about having sex with Mr. Finney.
    Unless . . .
    A flash of a scene came and went, quick as lightning brightening a darkened room. It was there and then gone, faster than she could figure out what she witnessed. But it gave her a very uneasy feeling.
    Simon . . .
    Where did that name come from? The only Simon she knew was from Alvin and the Chipmunks, and she only thought about them at Christmas when she heard them chirping on the radio for a plane that looped the loop.
    The flash came again. This time longer. A face appeared. A very ordinary face. She sucked in a quick breath. Why was such a normal face scaring the bejesus out of her?
    And why couldn’t she get a solid breath? She hurt everywhere. She needed to figure out why. She struggled to open her eyes again. This time she succeeded getting one to cooperate.
    Definitely a hospital room. Dim. Door open. That’s where most of the light spilled in from. A rotund nurse in faded blue scrubs stood next to her bed. A white-coated man with a dark, bushy mustache frowning at a clipboard was parked right next to the nurse.
    “My eye feels like it’s super-glued shut,” she croaked.
    The pair frowned at her, surprise written on both their faces. Oh, this wasn’t good. It was like she was Frankenstein coming to life for the first time. No, they seemed more astonished than that. Maybe Frankenstein talking in full sentences? Yeah, that captured the mood in the antiseptic-smelling room. She’d always hated that smell. Ever since Mama died.
    “I heard her voice. She’s finally coming around, huh?”
    Callie turned her head slightly, to exploding pain. She took a quick breath in, and it hurt like someone had stabbed her.
    Stabbed her. Simon! Oh, God. Was she dead?
    “No,” the doctor said, turning away toward the man who’d spoken. “She’s just awakened. I need to examine her.”
    “And I need to find out who left her for dead,” rumbled the deep voice.
    She’d learned from her previous mistake. This time she kept her head still and only cut her eyes in the direction the voice came from. He was a mix of an older looking Monk wearing a rumpled trench coat that maybe Lenny from Law & Order repeats had owned at one point. Gray at the temples.