Майкл Корита - If She Wakes

He stood up, and Gerry almost told him to sit his ass back down, but what was the point? He wasn’t wrong; speed was important now.

The German was coming.

Abby made the call from a service plaza off the turnpike where there was always plenty of traffic. She was in Hank’s car, and she knew she’d have to dump that soon, but for now it was the best of bad options. She thought about calling 911, decided against it, and called David Meredith directly.

“What’s up, Abby? I gather you heard about our boy Carlos. Neat twist, eh?” He was cheerful, and the disconnect was so jarring that for a moment Abby couldn’t speak. David had to prompt her. “Hello? Did I lose you?”

“No, sorry. Yes, I heard about Carlos Ramirez. I’ve also got a lot more detail on that than you can imagine, and it’s all bad. I’m going to tell it to you once, so you’re going to want to take notes or record it. Recording it would be better. I won’t be able to call back and go through it again, at least not right away.”

Silence. Then: “Abby, what in the hell are you talking about?”

“Can you record me?”

“No. Not here. But I can call you back from—”

“Take notes, then.”

“Abby—”

“Hank is dead,” Abby said, and her throat tightened, but she swallowed and kept talking. “He’s in the passenger seat of my car, which is wrecked in the trees at the end of his road. It looks like he died in the wreck, but he didn’t. He was murdered, and I nearly was, and it’s all got something to do with that accident at Hammel College. I don’t know what, but it—”

“Abby, whoa, slow down here. He was murdered ? You need to—”

“I need to talk, and you need to listen and write it down,” Abby said. “I’d love to trust you, but I’m not sure that I can right now. I was pretty well set up. The story I’m about to tell you sounds crazy, but it’s the truth. You need to hear it. Can you just listen?”

Another pause, and then Meredith, sounding dazed, said, “I’ll listen.”

“Write it down too.”

She told him about the call from Hank, and her arrival at the house, and the way things had gone from there. Told him about the generator and the Gentleman Jack and how she’d started the car and, with an assist from Hank, made it out the door. Told him how many hours had passed while she lay unconscious in the woods and what she’d found upon waking.

Meredith didn’t interrupt, which was a relief. Abby wasn’t sure how she’d respond if the man started asking questions, if his voice held any doubt or disbelief.

“You’ll find him there, and you’ll think that I’m out of my mind, but do me the favor of taking a good, hard look for physical evidence that shows I’m wrong,” she said. “Maybe it’ll be in Hank’s blood. Maybe you’ll find a bullet. Maybe the kid screwed up something at the house... but I kind of doubt that. Just promise me you’ll look.”

“Of course we will,” David said, the first time he’d spoken in several minutes. “But you’ve got to come in. You know that, Abby. Running from this thing... it’s the worst choice. Nobody will believe you if you run, no matter what we find.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Abby said. “Hank’s dead, and I sound like a lunatic, telling this story. Today you’ll tell me that it will all work out, but tomorrow? Then the charges come. And you’ll promise me that it’s still not a threat because a good attorney will work it out, but I’m not sure. Hank Bauer of Coastal Claims and Investigations was murdered over a car accident involving a girl from Hammel College and a guy from Brighton who is already dead? That’s going to keep me out of jail?”

“If it’s the truth, it will,” Meredith said, and Abby smiled grimly. She was watching the side-view mirror, looking for police cars; her scratched and bruised face stared back at her. She reached up and pulled a pine needle from her hair.

“Get started on proving it,” she said, “and then I’ll consider coming in. Talk to Shannon Beckley, talk to Sam at that salvage yard, and you can verify my movements through the day. That’s worth something. Then work that scene right. Look for bullets, look for damage to the generator, get them to run toxicology tests on Hank’s blood that will find anything unusual. Get some forensics expert to see if he can tell whether he was tied up. Most important? Find out whose phone matters so much that people will kill over it.”

She didn’t say that she had the phone. All Abby understood so far about the phone was that if she’d given it to the kid last night, she’d certainly be dead by now. She wasn’t inclined to hand it off to anyone else just yet.

“When I call you next,” Abby said, “you can tell me what progress you’ve made. Then we’ll talk about me coming in.”

“This is a suicide move, Abby,” Meredith said, and he was angry now. Fine. Let him be angry. Abby just needed him to do the work.

“Two people have been murdered over that accident already,” Abby said. “I was supposed to be the third. I’m not inclined to make my location known to the world right now.”

“Even if you did get charged, which shouldn’t happen if you’re telling me a legit story, then you’re safer with us than on the run, hiding from killers and cops.”

“He said he has friends in jail.”

“We’ll have you in protective custody.”

“He said some of those friends are in uniforms.”

“This is insane. If there is anything to what you’re saying, then we’ll find plenty of evidence to support it, and we’ll do that fast.”

“See, I don’t like the way you phrased that. If there’s anything to what I’m saying. Already, you’re skeptical.”

“That’s my job.”

“And that’s why I called you,” Abby said. “To give you a head start doing your job. I’ll be in touch.”

“Abby, damn it, if you—”

She disconnected, powered down her phone, and stepped out of the Tahoe. She put the phone just beneath the front tire, backed up over it, pulled out of the service plaza, and got back onto the Maine turnpike. She drove north, toward where the towns were smaller and the woods were darker.

Blinks are coming.

They’re not all the way there yet, but not far off either. Not impossible, certainly. Tara has worked on them with ferocious intensity, and while she hasn’t succeeded, something about her eye motion feels different. It’s promising, at least, a sensation like a door being forced open, just like when she was in the basement of that house on London Street.

She thinks it’s an upward motion. She tries to blink, she demands that her eyelids lower... and while they do not obey, her focus seems to shift. A small difference, and a dizzying sensation, but she’s almost certain she’s looking upward. Her eyes are so damn dry that it’s hard to tell, though. They’re dry even though they constantly leak with tears at the corners. People dab the tears away from time to time, but people also avoid the kind of direct, hard stare that could tell her if indeed she’s making any progress here. The motion she thinks she’s achieving is so slight that thorough scrutiny would be required to observe it. In the early hours, people would look hard into her eyes, searching for her as if she were submerged in dark water. Shannon. Dr. Pine. The strange boy in the black baseball cap — his scrutiny might have been the most intense of all, actually.

Those deep stares are rare now, though. Everyone has become more evasive, as if they’re fearful of Tara’s gaze, as if a coma is contagious. Or embarrassed by it, as if her eyes are a mirror offering an unflattering image.