Майкл Корита - If She Wakes

“Hobo.”

Shannon nods again.

“How do you know that?”

“Because she told me. Earlier. When the doctor and I were asking her about her memories of the accident. Before it happened, Oltamu took a picture of her and a picture of Hobo.”

Andrea Carter eyes Shannon, then Tara. She sees either no indication of a lie or no reason for them to lie. She flips the phone over in her hand, and taps on it with her thumb.

“Doesn’t work,” she says, but her voice is troubled and she keeps staring at the screen.

“I think,” Shannon says cautiously, “that’s because you’ll need the dog’s eyes.”

The woman looks at Shannon as if she wouldn’t mind gutting her with that knife right here. Suddenly, Tara has a terrible fear for Dr. Pine. Surely she wouldn’t have killed him in a hospital.

But where is he?

Dead, she thinks. The fear turns into a certainty, and that grows into a certainty over how this will end. She and Shannon will die too. All for something Tara will never understand, all for whatever is on this stranger’s phone. Damn it, don’t they at least deserve to know what they’re dying for?

“That’s how it worked with her,” Shannon says. “Facial recognition first, then name.”

The woman looks at the display again, and Tara thinks she must be seeing a message that confirms this, because she seems even more frustrated by the device than by Shannon.

“That’s insane,” she says. “For a dog? It won’t work. The technology doesn’t exist.”

“Actually,” Shannon says, “they use it on pet doors. I saw an ad for one.”

“I don’t have time for this bullshit. You don’t have time to do this.”

“Google it,” Shannon says. “You can buy pet doors that open with facial recognition. I don’t know why. To keep out raccoons or whatever, I have no idea. But I am telling you, the way it worked with her was to get the facial-recognition lock first, then put in the name. The dog is named Hobo. I am positive.”

They stare each other down for a moment. Finally Andrea Carter says, “Where is the dog?”

“He was up there by the bridge. Where Oltamu died. She says he is a stray.”

“You’re lying,” Carter says, but it’s more hopeful than forceful.

“Ask her,” Shannon says.

Carter turns to Tara. “Is she lying?”

Tara flicks her eyes twice. No, Shannon isn’t lying.

Carter pauses, seems to fight down building rage, and then says, “Will the dog be up there? Is he easy to find?”

Hobo is not particularly easy to find, and he certainly won’t be for a stranger, but Tara sees more hope for them in that lie than in the truth, so she gives one flick — yes.

“He took a picture of you and asked for a nickname,” Carter says. “And then he took a picture of the dog and asked for the dog’s name?”

One flick. Yes. Growing more certain with each answer that she’s sealing their fates, but not seeing any way out. The world is an extension of her body now — a trap with no escape.

“Was that the last picture he took?” Carter asks.

Tara’s thumb jerks. Carter and Shannon both see this.

“What does that mean?” Carter asks warily.

“Nothing. It’s a spasm.”

But Shannon is wrong. That thumb twitch means everything. It means the girl fighting against the current has found the green-gold waters again, the secret channel where the water rotates and then the current becomes friend and not foe. It is so much more than a spasm. It is Tara coming back. Finding her way through dark halls and riding dark waters, chasing thin bands of light.

“Just use your eyes this time. Was that the last picture he took? ” Carter repeats.

Tara sees it then, as if the last twitch of her thumb were a courier arriving with critical news, a message Tara should have understood already: She has power here. She has control of the situation in a way none of them suspect she does.

Yes, she is motionless and mute, locked in. But now she recognizes the strength in this. The only move that can save them will come because of her condition. She can buy Shannon time, at least. She can do that much.

She flicks her eyes twice, telling this awful woman, No, it was not the last picture he took.

Tara can’t do many things, but she can still think, and she understands the dilemma she’s placing the woman with the knife in now — the lie is worth the risk, because Tara knows what’s coming.

Sure enough, the question arrives like a hanging curveball, belt-high.

“Did he take another one of you?” Carter says.

One flick, and Tara swats it out of the park.

Yes, she lies, he took one more of me. And you know what that means, bitch? You can’t kill me yet. You’ll need my eyes again. Think about it. Won’t work with a dead face. Or at least, you’re not sure that it will. And you can’t take me to Hammel with you, so that means you’ve got to come back to find me, dead or alive. I’ll be harder to find if I’m dead, and you’ll have to trust that the phone will recognize my face if I am. I don’t think it will.

There’s a pause that seems endless but that can’t be more than five seconds. Those seconds feel like the countdown before an explosion, though. The crescent-moon blade glimmers, Andrea Carter stands with every muscle taut, and Shannon looks as paralyzed as Tara.

“Here’s how we’re going to handle this,” Carter says at last. “Shannon and I are going for a ride. Together. We will find the dog and test your story, Tara. If it works, and no one follows us, then Shannon will drive back to you. If it doesn’t, or if you somehow send someone after us? Well, I suppose you’ll have plenty of time to think about that in the days to come.”

Shannon is looking at Tara with an expression that Tara remembers well — quiet and restrained, thoughtful. A quiet Shannon is something to worry about, because on the rare occasions that she swallows her anger and retreats, she is lost to thoughts of settling the score. This is good, because it means she knows that Tara lied and that the phone will prove that. Tara bought her time, but Shannon will be alone when the lie is discovered.

“All right,” Andrea Carter says, and the blade disappears into a black handle that vanishes into her hand. “Then we’ll ride, Shannon. You’d better hope your sister understands the stakes. People will ask her questions about me. Her answers are going to decide your life.”

Shannon doesn’t respond to that. She just looks at Tara.

“You know how much I love you?” she says.

Almost too late, Tara remembers to look upward once.

Shannon nods and turns away. She opens the door and steps out with Andrea Carter walking just behind her, the knife not visible but not far away.

Brilliant play!” Dax shouted at the video like a color commentator breaking down a playoff game. “She’s caught lovely Lisa, do you see that, Abby? Do you understand? Lisa can’t kill Tara now. Not if she’s going to need her again. That’s ingenious. It might even be true that she’ll need Tara again, but I doubt it. Boone probably doubts it too. What can you do, though? You can’t pick the girl up and take her with you. So you take the sister and hope that keeps her quiet. But Tara called the shot on that one. Good for her.”

He spoke with true admiration, although Abby had no doubt that he would still kill Tara himself without hesitation or pity.

No one had passed them in the garage since they arrived, and only two cars had pulled out from the floors below. A hospital never shut down, but it had quiet hours, and they had arrived in the midst of them. When Shannon Beckley exited room 373 and began her walk out of the hospital with Lisa Boone alongside her, the camera showed a quiet hallway ahead. They avoided the main lobby and entered a side stairwell.