Page 71 of The Matchmaker

I focus.I’m alive.I raise my hand. Weird white bracelets on my wrist. I’m in a fabric gown. There’s a crinkling sensation beneath me as I move.

I struggle to sit up but my ribs feel like they’re pressing into my organs. The pain takes my breath away.

A chair scrapes against the floor. Someone squeezes my hand. “You are okay,” Khala whispers. “You are okay.”

The hospital door swings open. A man in a doctor’s coat walks inside. “Glad to see you’re up.”

“Where am I?”

Khala’s eyes stay on me. “You are at Decatur Medical, beta.”

“How…how long have I been out? Gertie,” I gasp.

“Don’t worry about Gertie. Darcy is taking care of her,” Khala says. “Right now, you need to rest.”

“What happened?” My head throbs like a thousand nails are pressing through my skull.

“You were in a car accident,” says the doctor. “All things considered, you’re fine. You have a few bruises and a cracked rib. A mild concussion. It could have been much worse.”

The wedding. Logan. The spoofed email. The million different emotions that had been running through me come flooding back.

“I was leaving early from a wedding,” I tell them. “My car started going haywire.” I explain how the wiper fluid sprayed. The music on full blast. My brakes, suddenly useless. “It was like my car got…hacked? There was nothing I could do. I swerved to avoid an oncoming car. Hit a fence. The rest is a complete blank.”

The doctor jots something down on his tablet.

“The car is totaled, isn’t it?” I murmur.

“Don’t worry about your vehicle. You are okay, that is what matters,” Khala says. “But…” She looks at the doctor.

My heart skitters. “Just say it.”

“Your toxicology report came back,” he says. “They found high levels of oxycodone in your system.”

“The painkiller?” I’ve never taken prescription painkillers in my life. “I didn’t take any oxycodone.”

“Any ideas how it showed up in your system?” the doctor asks.

“I don’t know!” A stab of irritation passes through me. Are they looking at me this somberly because they think they’ve stumbled onto an addiction?

Before I can say more, the hospital door swings open. Azar sweeps inside. His hair is sticking out every which way. He’s breathing heavily. Perspiration dots his forehead. He rushes to my bedside.

“Azar,” the doctor says. “You’re not on call this weekend.”

“Your khala’s messages,” he says breathlessly. “They all came in at once when I got to the…There was no signal. Shit. Nura. What happened? Are you okay?”

“Your colleague here is asking if I have an opioid addiction.Apparently my blood work shows that my body was full of drugs.”

“Drugs?” Azar looks at the doctor. “How did you find drugs in her system?”

“Shannon ran the report,” the doctor says. “I’ll have her bring over the full breakdown.”

“Maybe I was roofied.” I think of Logan. It seems impossible, but this entire situation makes no sense.

“The labs came back negative for Rohypnol,” the doctor says.

“What about gamma hydroxybutyrate?” Azar asks. “We don’t routinely test for it, but it’s a growing threat.”

“GHB? You think?”

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