SHE IS BACK AT THE motel, having almost no idea how she got there. They found her, she thinks—Andy and the old woman—passed out in a pool of vomit in the parking lot, after which she vaguely recalls being brought in and put to bed. Now she is lying next to Frodo, nude, in what, she is certain, is the same room as before. And she is sick, sicker than she has ever been in her life, so sick that she throws off the covers—forcing Frodo off the bed—and rushes to the bathroom, where she vomits a seemingly endless spew of green bile into the surprisingly clean toilet—atop which sits a cellphone, plugged into the wall and fully charged, her cellphone, which begins ringing as she coughs and spits and flushes it all away.
She answers it, her hands trembling.
"Beth? Dr. Lairman. How are you doing,
