Майкл Корита - If She Wakes

“I tend to be concise,” Boone said, which was certainly not a lie.

“It’s not about being concise. You can talk all you want. What you need to consider is how many words are required for her to respond. You want to cut that down, down, down. As much as possible, use yes-or-no questions. When she has to spell out a word, make that word count.”

They had reached room 373.

“Omit needless words,” he admonished her, and then he opened the door.

Omit needless words.” Dr. Strunk is here! Damn it, if Tara could only speak, she would say that to see whether Dr. Pine is enough of a writing geek to laugh. She expects that he is. Aren’t all doctors well read? Their patients hope so, certainly.

As Dr. Pine ushers the new woman in, Tara finds herself thinking that she looks forward to having a real conversation with him at some point. She likes him and trusts him, and she suspects that he has good stories. In a business like his, how could you not? Tara wants to become one of his best stories.

A success story.

“Hello, Tara,” he says, “your guest has arrived.” He pauses, and then, as if reading her thoughts, he adds, “I’m sure Shannon will be here in a moment. But would you like to wait for her?”

Tara has no idea what bug crawled up Shannon’s ass to send her rushing out of here, but she’s comfortable with Dr. Pine and certain that Shannon will return soon. Then they will all get the lecture on how they shouldn’t have started without her. But in the meantime, why not get to it?

She flicks her eyes up twice. No need to wait.

The woman with Dr. Pine is tall and lean, well muscled. A workout junkie, probably. Not a runner, though. Or at least, not just a runner. She likes free weights. Her shoulder muscles are defined under her tight-fitting black top, and Tara is surprised and somewhat disappointed that she’s not wearing a jacket. She’d expected a jacket that might conceal a gun. Having never met a Department of Energy agent before, she allowed her imagination to go wild, and she should have known better. This is a notepad-and-laptop kind of law enforcement agent, not a gun-belt type. But, hey, she’s clearly strong.

“Tara, it’s very nice to meet you,” the woman says, walking closer, every movement balanced and her focus on Tara total. “Dr. Pine was explaining how I can make this as easy as possible for you. I’ll respect his guidance on that. I understand that yes-or-no questions are best, and I am going to stick to those as much as I can, but occasionally, I might need to ask you to spell. Do you understand all of that?”

Tara flicks her eyes up once, thinking, Say your name, damn it . At some point, she’s going to have to take the time to get that sentence out so Dr. Pine knows how important it is to her. Common courtesies like introductions make her feel more human, less like a spectacle, some tourist attraction or circus freak, the Amazing Locked-in Woman, five dollars for five minutes of her incredible nonverbal communication.

The woman sits on the stool that Dr. Pine usually claims, and for some reason this bothers Tara. Let the medical professional run the show, lady. But there’s no one in the room who matters to the woman except Tara.

Until the door swings open, and there is Shannon, dressed like a hostage negotiator. What in the world is she doing in that dumb black baseball cap?

“Sorry I’m late,” she says in an odd, too-loud voice. “I was getting a bad headache. The stress and the lights...” She waves her hand at the overhead fluorescents. “I was afraid it would become a migraine.”

The agent seems less than delighted to have Shannon join the party but accepts it with a thin smile and nod. “No problem. I was just about to ask Tara a few simple questions, and then I hope I can bring an end to your stress. At least this additional aspect of it.” She rises from the stool and offers her hand, and Tara thinks, Sure, the walking-talking girl gets an introduction.

“Shannon Beckley,” Shannon says, still too loud, as if she wants to be heard three rooms away. Her eyes are skittering all around the room, like someone taking inventory after a burglary.

“Nice to meet you, Shannon. I’m Andrea Carter, with the Department of Energy.”

Well, Tara thinks, at least we now have a name.

And then, as Tara stares at her sister, something troubling overtakes her: She has seen that hat before. She’s seen that hat in this room, when the Justin Loveless impostor showed up with the flowers.

What in the hell is happening?

Inside the Challenger, Dax and Abby sat side by side, like partners, and watched the video feed on the phone. It had been a disorienting show so far, with Shannon Beckley’s head creating the effect of a Steadicam in a horror movie. Now things finally slowed down, and room 373 took on clarity: Tara in the bed, the doctor named Pine standing in the corner, and the DOE agent sitting on a stool at the bedside. Abby couldn’t see her face, just the back of her head, blond hair against a black shirt, but then she turned to the door, and Abby waited with the sensation of a trapped scream for Shannon Beckley to say the wrong thing, to doubt the killing capacity of the kid who’d sent her in there. She might think calling 911 would be the right move, and then she would learn swiftly and painfully that such a mistake would be measured in lost lives.

Instead, she nailed it — voice too loud and a little unnatural, but the rest was right. The bit about the stress and the migraine worked well enough. Abby exhaled, feeling like the first step was a good one, but Dax went rigid.

What did he see that I didn’t? Abby wondered.

Dax picked up the phone and used his fingers to change the zoom. The agent’s face filled the screen.

“Well, now,” he said, and other than during the initial moments after his last murder, it was the first time he’d sounded unsteady to Abby.

“What is it?” Abby said. She wasn’t expecting an answer, but she got one.

“That’s not a DOE agent,” Dax said. “That’s Lisa Boone.”

“Who is Lisa Boone?”

“She worked with my father a few times. He thought she was very good.” Dax finally looked away from the screen, met Abby’s eyes, and realized the message meant nothing to her. His gaze was steady when he said, “That means she’s a professional killer.”

Shannon stands there wearing the black hat, the hat that Tara hasn’t thought about on this day of developments, her future opening in front, her attention being directed to the past, pulling her in opposite directions. The young man with the hunter’s eyes and the black hat seemed a forgotten player to her.

Now he is back. Tara knows this, and Shannon must too.

I could have warned her, Tara thinks.

Shannon says, “I don’t want to interrupt this. I really don’t. Trust me, I understand the importance. But I would like to have a few words alone with my sister before we begin any interviews.”

Agent Andrea Carter is not happy with this. She rises, and for the first time Tara can see the intimidation evident in that lean, well-muscled frame. She moves with a menacing grace, like the instructor in the one self-defense class Shannon made Tara take before she went off to college. For frat parties, Shannon explained. And pay attention to the groin shots.

“We’re not stopping now,” Agent Carter says. “This is a lot bigger than this room, Ms. Beckley. This is more crucial to more people than you can possibly fathom.”

“I’m not asking anyone to stop, just to give me a minute alone with my sister,” Shannon says, and if she’s intimidated by Carter, she doesn’t show it. In fact, her bearing seems oddly helped by the strange hat, all that flat black beneath the lighter silver thread that draws the eye above the brim.