Майкл Корита - If She Wakes

One flick.

“You’re sure?” Shannon says.

One flick.

“Can you spell it?”

One flick.

Shannon reaches for the alphabet board with a trembling hand.

Her hand moved. Abby thought it was an optical illusion, some disruption of the camera’s feed, but then Shannon Beckley’s questions turned it into reality.

Tara can move. Maybe not consistently, but she can move.

“The name matters,” Dax said. “Shit. That slows us down. That might derail the whole thing, actually. Because if Tara doesn’t know what he put in there...”

He rubs his thumb over the stock of the revolver distractedly, a circular motion. Abby watches him and thinks about Tara’s hand, that sudden twitch. She’s coming back. Maybe. Or was it just a spasm? Regardless, it was something more than Luke had ever managed. Tara has vertical eye motion, and one of her hands can move. She’s not only still alert in there, she’s progressing.

“Boone is in play,” Dax said, uninterested in everything else, his attention lost to the blond woman who’d left the room. “But who put her in play? Not Gerry. I’m sure of that.”

Abby didn’t respond. Her attention was focused on the screen. All the things that had mattered just seconds ago seemed less consequential.

Tara can make it back, she thought. And then: If nobody kills her first.

Pine wanted privacy. He took Boone down the empty corridor that smelled of a disinfectant tinged with juniper and then turned into a small office. A desk took up all of one wall, and the other walls were lined with filing cabinets and bookshelves. The only chair was the one facing the desk, but he offered it to her. She sat, although she didn’t want to. She was buzzing with anger and energy, too close to be wasting more time now.

“If that sister tries to talk Tara out of cooperating, I’m not going anywhere. I hope you understand that. It matters—”

“Too much,” Pine finished for her with a weary nod as he closed the door. “I get it, I get it. I also think I’m going about this wrong.”

Boone cocked her head. “Meaning?”

“Something’s wrong with Shannon.”

“The sister. You’re worried about her?”

“Yes.” He looked at her defiantly. “I am worried about them all. But as I tried to explain to you, she knows a lot. She knows more than I do. She won’t tell me how, but she knows more than I do, and I have no idea who is giving her that information. Her behavior has changed since you arrived, but it’s not about you. I think she’s hearing something.”

Boone started to rise. “You believe all this, but you let her sit in there alone?”

Pine blocked her. “Yes! She deserves that. And I deserve a hell of a lot more than I’ve been given. You tell me how much is at risk here, but not what. I understand confidentiality, trust me. It has been my business and my life. I respect it. But this is...” He searched for the words. “Already operating at a level of secrecy that I’m not comfortable with. That I never should have allowed.”

“Dr. Pine?” Boone’s voice snapped like a whip. “Do not make a mistake at this stage. I will talk to that girl tonight. I don’t care if I have to get a DOJ order to make it happen, I will—”

“That’s exactly what should happen!” he fired back. “I want the damned order! I want the right security. I want the administrators of this hospital to be made aware of all possible risks. There are many patients here besides Tara Beckley. You’re acting as if they’re not a concern. I can’t do that.”

Boone was sitting on the edge of the chair, muscles tensed, eyes on Pine’s. She made a show of slackening. Easing back into the chair. Giving him a posture of thoughtful consideration that bordered on the verge of concession.

“I have an acquaintance with the special agent in charge of the FBI field office in Boston,” he said. “Her name is Roxanne Donovan. You know her, I assume. Or of her?”

“Yes,” Boone lied.

“Perfect. Then let me call her. Let me bring someone into this building whom we both know, whom we both trust, and proceed from there. I can’t let all this” — he waved a hand toward the closed door that led to the hallway — “continue in silence. Tara Beckley has experienced enough damage from silence. I won’t let the same thing happen to others. Or let any more of it happen to her.”

Boone steepled her fingers and rested her chin on them. Thoughtful. Then, with a sigh, she said, “I’ll make the call,” and she reached into her pocket as if going for a cell phone. She stopped before withdrawing anything, paused as if reconsidering, and looked at his desk phone, which was just past her left shoulder.

She said, “No, actually, you should make the call. From the hospital, and on speaker, so I can hear it. You can call Donovan. No one else. And no details should be shared before I have clearance to share them. Can you get her here with that much? Is your relationship that strong?”

“Roxanne Donovan will be here immediately when she understands the stakes,” Pine said confidently. “Can I at least share your name?”

“By all means.”

“Thank you,” he said, an exhale of relief following his words. He leaned forward and reached past her shoulder for the desk phone. He had his hand on the receiver and his focus on the keypad when Boone withdrew the syringe from her pocket, flicked the cap off with one snap of her thumbnail, and drove the stainless-steel needle into the hollow at the base of Pine’s throat.

His eyes went wide and white and he reached for his throat, but the needle was already gone, and Boone was up and had her hand over his mouth. He tried a punch then, but she blocked it easily with her left arm. She held him upright as he stumbled backward, kept him from falling, from making any noise. He looked at her with a cocktail of horror, accusation, and shame before his eyes dimmed completely. She watched him see his mistake and consider its ramifications just before his heart stopped.

Then she eased him into the desk chair. His head slumped forward onto the desk, his cheek on the keyboard, depressing keys, but they made no sound. It looked natural enough for a man who’d suffered a massive coronary, so she didn’t adjust his position. A standard autopsy would show a heart attack, and only if the coroners had reason to look very, very carefully would they find any evidence to suggest otherwise.

If that happened, Boone would be long gone.

She was pleased to find that the office door had a push-button lock. It wasn’t much of a security feature, but it would delay the discovery. She doubted any of the night nurses would want to disturb a doctor of Pine’s stature if he’d closed and locked the door. He had big things to work on, after all; he’d brought a woman back from the beyond.

Boone locked the door behind her and walked briskly back to room 373. The clock was speeding up now, and the time for games and lies was gone.

Twitch? You told him your nickname was Twitch?”

Shannon seems either disbelieving or disturbed. Tara — fighting for patience because Shannon doesn’t understand how hard it is to keep battling this current, to keep the channel open, commanding her eyes to answer properly even while her own mind races with unanswered questions that she can’t voice — gives one flick of the eyes. Yes, Twitch.

“If the facial recognition worked,” Shannon says, “maybe this will too.”

Her voice is doubtful but she turns her attention to the phone and taps the name into the display. She’s holding her breath.

“It worked,” Shannon says, and Tara adds this to her growing collection of points of light. Everything is progress right now. Everything is trending the right way.