I don’t remember feeling any pain. I just stood there staring at the blood as it streamed over my wrist and dripped to the pavement, and thought You are a goddamned idiot, Leonora Randolph. Or maybe someone said that out loud. Because I felt a little dizzy at the sight of that blood, I’m afraid, a little fuzzy at the edges, and if good old Veryl hadn’t come out of nowhere and grabbed me right there, grabbed me and yelled at me and smacked some wad of material—her apron, as it turned out—into my wound, I might just have fainted.

Come to think of it, maybe that was Veryl’s voice, shouting inside my head. Veryl’s voice saying, You are a goddamned idiot, Lenora Randolph. And you know what? She was right.

The glass missed that artery in my wrist, the one that’s supposed to bleed out when you slice it. Thank goodness, said the doctor at the hospital who stitched it up, nice-looking fellow. The nurse wound the gauze over his handiwork and thanked goodness also. Thank goodness, you might have been killed out there. Then they sent me in a wheelchair to a private room to stay for a night or two, just to keep an eye on me. I can’t imagine why.

Now, I had slept in a hospital bed twice before in my life. Once when I was eight, to get rid of a trick appendix. The other time in Amarillo, Texas, for a reason I’d rather not disclose, if you don’t mind. I didn’t quite see why I should have to sleep in one tonight, although I didn’t quite see how I was supposed to get home to Cable Beach through a riot, either. All things considered, I supposed I should make the best of things. To that end, I settled back in my blue gown with a magazine and a glass of iced tea. But I wasn’t made for settling, apparently, because my attention kept wandering to the window and its partial view of the harbor, and how I might get my hands on my camera, and what the devil was going on out there, anyway. Whether New Providence Island stood in a state of insurrection, or whether paler heads had prevailed.

Then the knock arrived.

“Come in,” I said.

A coppery head poked around the corner of the door.

“Hullo, there,” said Thorpe. “I’ve brought cake.”