Harry rubbed at one of his eyes where a nerve had been fluttering. A few hours ago he’d known for a fact that it had been John standing out in front of the motel room, keeping an eye on Caitlin. Now he wasn’t so sure. He opened his mouth to ask another question, then stopped. Suddenly, he didn’t want Alice to know about his suspicions. Why had he even had them? The flapping suit jacket? It wasn’t enough.

“No reason,” Harry said.

“You don’t think he—” Alice began, just as Dr. Roy entered the room.

“Good morning,” the doctor said, as Alice stood. “How are you feeling this morning, Harry? Better?”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“I’ll just step outside,” Alice said, and moved quickly to the door.

Dr. Roy perched on one of the plastic chairs next to Harry’s bed and asked him how he had slept.

“Except for being woken up every hour, fine.”

“Are you sleepy now?”

“No. I’m just ready to get out of here.”

“Yes, I totally understand.” She pushed a dark strand of hair back behind an ear, and looked down at the clipboard in her lap. “I need to ask you some questions first, okay? Then you’re free to go.”

Harry nodded.

“I’m going to give you four words and I want you to repeat them back to me in the same order as I say them, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Car, telephone, apple, and shoe.”

Harry repeated the words.

“Good. Now, can you tell me the months of the year, but backward?”

He did that as well, as Dr. Roy scribbled onto a sheet.

“Very good,” she said. “Now tell me about how your head feels. Last night you complained of a headache—do you remember that?—and said that the pain was a six out of ten. Do you still have a headache this morning?”

“No, not really,” Harry said, even though his temples still felt pinched by a dull, throbbing pain.

“Not at all?”

“Maybe a slight headache.”

“And how would you characterize the pain of that headache, on a scale of one to ten?”

“A one,” Harry said.

She asked him a few more questions about how he was feeling, then used an instrument with a light to track the movement of his eyes.

“You seem good, Harry,” she said, her fingers gently touching the area around his scalp where he’d received the blow. “I have one more question. Can you tell me the four words I said to you when I first came in here?”

For a brief moment, Harry blanked, but then it came back to him, and he quickly said: “Car, telephone, apple, shoe.”

“Good.” She smiled, then looked at her watch. “I’ll send the nurse ’round with your discharge papers. Who’s taking you home, do you know?”

“My stepmother, I guess.”

“Okay. Sounds good.”