Terrified Read Online Free PDF Page A

her and took the clipboard. “Are you feeling all right?” she asked with concern.
    Clinging to the edge of the counter, all she could do was shake her head.
    The receptionist said something about getting her into an examination room so she could lie down. Then she called one of the nurses.
    Megan let the older, sturdy-looking ebony-skinned nurse lead her into the annex. The narrow hallway seemed to be spinning. The nurse took her into one of the little rooms and had her sit down on the examination table. She gave her a glass of water, and it helped. The nurse had a kind, careworn face, and a jet-black coiffure that looked lacquered.
    “Thank you,” Megan whispered. “I—I’m sorry to be such a bother. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I think I—I think I might be pregnant.”
    “Well, we’ll see what Dr. Amato says,” the nurse replied. She opened a cabinet drawer and pulled out a folded pale blue smock. “Let’s get you ready for him. You still seem a little wobbly. Do you need help undressing?”
    Megan nodded sheepishly. The nurse hung up each item of clothing as Megan handed it to her. She caught a glimpse of her own reflection in the mirror above the sink. Sitting on the cushioned table, she was down to her bra and panties.
    She saw the three nickel-size scars along her left rib cage. She quickly shed her bra and donned the blue smock to cover herself—and the scars. Then she wiggled out of her panties.
    The nurse took her blood pressure, and announced it was normal. That was a surprise to Megan—considering how sick and anxious she felt.
    “I’ll get Dr. Amato in here,” the nurse said. “You give me a yell if you start to feel queasy again. My name’s Loretta.”
    “Thank you, Loretta,” she said, lying down on the table. There was a slight incline at one end of the table, so her head was propped up. She could see the mirror above the sink. It reflected her clothes hanging from a row of hooks on the wall behind her. She stared at her purse among the clothing—and the folded-up newspaper sticking out of it.
    She thought about the victim of the Garbage Bag Killer—and that section of torso they’d found with the burn marks on the side.
    She felt another wave of nausea, and put a hand over her stomach.
    Lying there on the table, she waited for the doctor. The woman who had signed her name Megan Anne Keeslar on the medical form stared down at the pale blue smock she was wearing. She didn’t want to be pregnant—she couldn’t be.
    Yet she wondered if the pale blue meant it would be a baby boy.

C HAPTER T HREE
    Seattle—July 14, 1997
     
    “ P lease, stop,” she whispered. Megan had tears in her tired, bloodshot eyes. “Please, God, make him stop… .”
    But Josh kept crying and crying. Megan held him tight, rocked him, and walked the floor with her nine-week-old, colicky son. It was late: 11:44, according to the digital clock on her VCR. The Monorail had stopped running for the night.
    Dressed in a T-shirt and drawstring plaid pajama shorts, she had the fan blowing on her as she paced barefoot back and forth in her small living room. She was exhausted. Her arms ached from holding him and bouncing him. This cry-fest was a nightly ordeal now. Around midnight, Josh always woke up, screeching at the top of his little lungs. And he wasn’t hungry at all, just cranky. Megan did everything her pediatrician and the books told her to do. But nothing seemed to work. She couldn’t tell if he preferred the lights on or off—or maybe it was just that one light in the corner of the room he wanted on. Did the sound of the TV soothe him or upset him? She still didn’t know. One night, her rendition of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” had seemed to quiet him down, but then he’d stayed awake and attentive long after she’d run out of farm animals: “Old MacDonald had an iguana, e-i-e-i-oh …” The following night, serenading him with the same song had caused him to scream bloody murder. All the