Cindy’s skin itched.  It felt too tight.  So she dug at a progressively widening hole in her bicep with a long, thin-bladed pinkie nail.  Blood was slow to form, and when it did it swelled to fill the expanse of the cavity she’d created and then quit, as if too exhausted to bleed further.  Her pillow case was completely empty and she dreaded the idea of running into Frank with nothing to show for the hours she had wandered the manor house.  Truth be told, she hadn’t looked very hard for valuables.  Focusing instead on finding, what surely was a smorgasbord of pain killers, muscle relaxers, and exotic medication hidden somewhere. 

A woman did not live to the ripe old age of ninety-four without acquiring a collection of beautifully colored pills carefully regimented for...

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