Page 10 of Rebel Summer

He nodded and scribbled more notes. “Other than the headache and being tired, did you feel off or strange at any other point during the evening?”

The whole night almost seemed a blur now. I had been so tired. But my limbs had gotten sluggish just after our walk. I remembered wanting to curl up and cry on the stairs leading up to the resort, but in my defense, there were a lot of stairs, so that attitude wasn’t necessarily sleep-related.

“When I returned from my walk on the beach. It seemed to get progressively worse from there.”

“Then what happened?” he continued, his chin resting in his hand, giving me his full attention.

“Angela gave me the keys to my dad’s golf cart, and I started driving to the house. From that point, I just have flashes of random memories.” I thought hard but still came up with a fuzzy picture. “I remember hearing a big crash and a loud voice swearing a lot.”

A slow smile carved across Beau’s face, crinkling the edges of his eyes. “That would be Dax.”

“So I gathered.”

He was quiet as he finished writing his notes. “So, most of what happened after you entered the golf cart is a blur?”

“Yeah.”

More scribbling in his notebook while I sat there feeling like a mouse in a cage while the scientists peered inside. I decided to ask my own questions. “Can you tell me what happened after that?”

“Yeah. Dax was working late at the shop, heard the crash, and came running in to see what happened. He called me immediately. Once he saw that your arms had gotten hit with some glass, he removed as much of it as he could with you swiping at him. He got cut a bit himself before he picked you up and moved you to a couch in the waiting room until I got there.”

I swallowed as I began to understand the havoc I had caused. It was also strange to think about Dax Miller touching me in that way. I blinked, forcing those thoughts to retreat. “Is he okay?”

“Who?”

“Dax.”

“Oh. Yeah. He’s fine.”

“So, what…happens now?” I asked, playing with a loose string on my blanket.

He met my gaze. “Once we get the blood report, we’ll be able to make an official call.” He adjusted his position in his chair. “I do need to tell you that I took an inventory of the golf cart you were driving.”

“What does that mean?”

“As part of my job, I take everything I found inside and then photograph and document it. We do that so when they tow the vehicle, we have a record of what was inside.”

“Is the golf cart totaled?” My dad had bought it last year and would definitely not appreciate his luxury splurge wrecked.

“Not totaled, but it will be in the repair shop for a while. Your dad wants it ferried to the mainland to be worked on.”

Of course my dad wouldn’t have Dax fix the golf cart.

Why was Beau looking at me like he knew something I didn’t? I had nothing to hide. The most incriminating thing I had in my purse was a tampon.

He cleared his throat. “I found Ambien in your purse.”

I waited for a beat, confused. “It's a prescription. I got it a few months ago to help me sleep?—”

He held up his hands. “It's not a problem that you had it on you. I’m wondering if you could have mixed up the pills.”

My gaze settled on him in disbelief while my mind worked back to the evening before on the beach with Cat. It had been dark. I got stomachaches if I took any other type of pain pill except for Tylenol, so that’s what I always kept in my purse.

Except…I had taken some Ambien after a bout of stress-induced insomnia claimed my life for a short time when trying to line up a new job for next fall. I remembered bringing them with me on my trip to Atlanta to see my mom. Had I mistakenly left them in my purse? Could I have?—?

Beau was watching me carefully as my face, no doubt, left very little by way of mystery. I hid my expression behind my hands and moaned.

It wasn’t a freak accident. I didn’t faint or pass out for any medical reason I couldn’t have foreseen. I drove behind the wheel after taking not one, but two, very high doses of a sleeping pill. The knowledge of this continued to build, until a hundred-pound weight pressed upon my back, threatening to crush me. I could have hurt someone. What if Dax had been in the room when I crashed inside? What if someone had been walking across the street? A child? I wouldn’t have seen them. My breath came in and out in short bursts as I tried to make sense of this.

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