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CHAPTER 4
    I woke trembling with cold and utterly disoriented. My fingers and toes felt like they could never possibly be warm again. I wondered if I had frostbite.
    There were so many people I needed to call immediately. Mom. Annie. Grandma. Jeez, Grandma lived closer to downtown than I did. She didn’t go out much, so hopefully she was all right.
    I went for my phone on the night stand, then remembered it was in my car, in the reservoir. To call anyone I would have to get up and reach the land line in the kitchen. I tried to sit up; my back and neck blazed with pain. In fact, every single part of me hurt.
    Slowly, painfully, I struggled to a sitting position. The blankets slid off of my torso, exposing me to arctic air. I felt like I was in a meat locker.
    â€œI need a hot shower,” I said, tucking my fingers under my armpits.
    I slid out of bed. My hip was bruised, and my right knee and ankle hurt, but it didn’t seem that I had any serious injuries. I looked longingly at the door to the bathroom before grabbing a bathrobe
and limping into the kitchen to call Annie.
    There was no answer.
    That didn’t necessarily mean anything, I told myself. There were a hundred reasons she might not be able to answer. For all I knew she was taking a shower.
    I decided to try again in a few minutes, and in the meantime, called my mom. She sobbed with relief while I trembled and ached, and simultaneously assured her I was fine. When I told her about the accident, she flipped. She wanted to hop on the next plane from Phoenix and take care of me, but all flights into the Atlanta area were suspended.
    I never quite understood how my mom turned out to be so well-adjusted. When damaged people had children, it seemed to me their children invariably ended up damaged in some way. Somehow Mom had escaped that fate, or compensated for it.
    Mom told me that Grandma was fine, but afraid to leave her house in Ansley Park. Smiling, I promised to look in on her as soon as I was able. Grandma could take care of herself, as she’d demonstrated in negotiating terms for giving me the rights to Toy Shop. She didn’t need my help or my warm fuzzies.
    I asked what was happening with the anthrax.
    When all was said and done, the CDC was estimating half a million casualties. Half a million. The city was under martial law. Ten thousand Iraq War vets had been called back into service because they were vaccinated against anthrax, but it was taking time to get them assembled.
    â€œThere’s a vaccine?” I asked.
    â€œThey don’t have much,” Mom said. “Antibiotics are supposed to work sometimes as well, but in this case they haven’t. They’re saying that means it’s ‘weaponized’ anthrax—designed to be resistant to antibiotics so it’s better at killing people.
    Half a million people. I still couldn’t get that number out of my head. I needed to try Annie again, and then Dave Bash. Two other local friends came to mind.

    â€œI’m so relieved you’re okay,” Mom said. “You almost drowning... I can’t help thinking of Kayleigh.”
    It took me a moment to answer. “She was one of my last thoughts, before I—” Drowned. “It seemed so, I don’t know, so fateful that both of us would die in the water.” Whenever I thought of Kayleigh it wasn’t her face I saw, it was the pier she’d jumped from, trying to keep up with her twin brother. I could see every knot in the pier’s wood planking, smell the fish guts left by fishermen, every time I thought of her.
    â€œI’m so grateful you didn’t. I couldn’t lose you. Not both of you. When I get up there I want to meet the man who saved your life and hug him.”
    â€œWell, I’ve got his card, so that can be arranged.”
    I got off the phone and limped to the bathroom. There was an abrasion on my forehead, probably from the airbag.
    It hit me again, as I