If She Wakes

by Michael Koryta

  He acknowledges the point with a slight nod. “I’ll make the call,” he says. “So I might as well do it sooner than later.”

  When Shannon doesn’t object, he leaves the room, closing the door behind him with a soft click. He forgets to take his alphabet board. Shannon looks at it, then looks at Tara, an unspoken question in her eyes.

  Tara flicks her eyes up once.

  Yes. Let’s chat.

  40

  The clouds that had begun massing along the coast during the day swept in off the North Atlantic and collided with a warm front as darkness fell, and then the night was illuminated with flickering tongues of lightning as the pressure systems fought for dominance.

  Abby drove southbound on I-95, trapped between and beneath the battling weather fronts. Thunder cracked and boomed and rolled to the west, and from the east, the winds continued to buffet the car.

  She didn’t notice the impact of the wind as much as she had before, though, when she was sitting up high in the Tahoe. She was low now, riding close to the pavement, only a few inches of steel separating her from the asphalt that was buzzing by at seventy-five miles per hour. She had the Challenger in cruise control so she could ignore the speed and focus on keeping her breathing and heart rate steady. She was grateful for the darkness, for the shrinking of the horizon, the tightening of the world.

  The lightning, though, was a problem.

  With each flash, the highway lit up bold and bright. With each flash, cars that were nothing but taillights in the darkness were suddenly given shape. With each flash, her breathing became harder to control.

  The lightning was worse than a high sun and a clear sky. When the road came at her in flashes, unpredictable and unexpected, suddenly she couldn’t work saliva into her mouth; her heart was thundering, and the breathing exercises weren’t doing a damn thing. Her head felt high and light and dizzy. Just concentrate on the tires and feel the road, she told herself, but then a brilliant flash of lightning would paint the road white, the world would shudder with thunder, and dizziness drove through her brain and into her spine.

  She was sweating, cool beads on a hot forehead, her shirt clinging damply to her back. Dax watched with curiosity but in silence. As Abby’s sweating grew more noticeable and her breathing more ragged, Abby was sure he would speak, but then two things happened nearly at once: The rain began to fall in torrents, clattering off the windshield as loud as coins on a winning slot-machine pull, and the kid’s phone gave a shrill chirp. Not a ring, an alert tone.

  Abby had no interest in the phone. She was tunnel-vision-focused on the road, hands tight on the wheel—too tight; like an amateur, not a pro—her head forward, her hand shaking as she set the wipers to high. Even at that rate, they didn’t seem to achieve much, merely adding a slashing motion across her field of vision, which was already graying out at the edges. The Pirellis held the road, but she was certain that they couldn’t continue to, not in this weather. There was too much torque to the Hellcat. If she made a mistake, she’d start to skid.

  But that was fine, she told herself, because she could steer out of a skid, she’d done it successfully thousands of times before.

  Not always.

  You just turned into it, that was all, the only requirement—turn back into it. Counterintuitive, but it worked. You regained equilibrium if you could only teach yourself to go against instinct and trust the physics. The world rewarded you for trusting physics. In time, that trust became instinct.

  You’ll get that instinct back. You’ll get it back, and tonight’s a good run, a good trial, because there’s nothing to worry about out here, it’s just a little rain, that’s all.

  As if to contradict her, the sheet lightning flashed, revealing what waited ahead—two semis, one in the left lane on its way around the slower-moving one in the right lane, passing even in this weather. There was a truck coming up behind Abby, too, one that looked to be loaded with logs from the north woods. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Why so much traffic? Why couldn’t everyone get off the road and home to bed and let Abby drive to Boston with a murderer in peace?

  Dax’s face was lit by the display of his phone, his attention pulled away from Abby, responding to whatever that chirp had signified. Suddenly, voices filled the car.

  It took Abby a moment to recognize Shannon Beckley’s voice. There were several in the mix, male and female, but hers rang a clarion note that the others lacked. Shannon was asking about methods for her sister to communicate easier and faster.

  Abby chanced a look in the kid’s direction. He lifted his eyes immediately. He seemed preternaturally aware of Abby’s movements. The gun was in his left hand, on his lap, pointed at Abby. It was always pointed at Abby.

  “Checking on our girl’s progress,” he said cheerfully. “Sounds like it was a big day, and you and I have had our share of distractions, haven’t we? I’ll need to get caught up.”

  Shannon Beckley’s voice faded, others overtaking it, but they were all discussing the same thing—Tara was awake. Tara could talk.

  He bugged the hospital, Abby thought. The realization was almost enough to pull her attention away from the dizzying, sweat-inducing fear of the drive.

  Almost.

  It didn’t last, though, because she had a car on her left now, neither trying to pass nor, evidently, aware that passing was the point in the left lane. Instead, the car just rode alongside, penning her in. She looked over and swore under her breath.

  “Everything all right, Abby?”

  Abby didn’t answer. She accelerated, thinking that she’d pass on the right and get out in front and then maybe this moron would get the idea and shift back into the right lane. As long as she kept some clear space, some avenue of escape, she would be fine. All the way to Boston, she’d be fine.

  But these idiots, calm behind their steering wheels, were sealing her in.

  As she accelerated, the semi in front slowed and flashed its headlights, signaling that the truck trying to pass was clear to shift back into the right lane. The truck driver in the left lane, like the driver of the car next to Abby, didn’t take the opportunity or the hint. Maybe it was the weather, this pounding rain, scaring them both off from making the simple lane shift. Maybe they were distracted. Maybe they were morons who never should have been issued driver’s licenses.

  None of that mattered. She was trapped.

  She took a harsh breath and sat up straight, then leaned forward quickly, hunching over as if caught by a stomach cramp, because she was suddenly sure that she couldn’t get air into her lungs. Or her brain. Her blood was oxygen-free, thickening and slowing, her heart thundering to try to make up for it but pushing nothing but sludge through her veins. Her vision dimmed and then came back and then went again.

  The kid said, “Abby,” in a warning voice, but it barely penetrated the fog.

  Going to crash. I am going to crash and I’m going to take one of these poor people out with me, because there is nowhere to go, when I black out I am going to hit them or they are going to hit me and then we’ll be skidding together through the night on the wet road, glass breaking and blood flowing and screams, someone will be screaming, but there is nothing I can do to stop it, because there is no…

  She saw the gap in the guardrail of the median just ahead. It looked freshly cut, probably the result of an accident, some other night when they’d pulled dead bodies out of mangled cars. It was small, a narrow opening, not meant for access, but…

  “He left the road at ninety, that’s all there is to say,” her father sang.

  Faster, Luke said.

  Abby pounded the accelerator; the Hellcat roared and the Pirellis spun, hunting for traction, then caught and hammered the car forward. As she shifted in front of the car on her left side, a horn blew, piercingly loud, but by then Abby was out in front and angling farther left, the guardrail looming, the gap in it no more than fifteen feet long, maybe just ten, an almost impossibly narrow target to slip through at this speed and in this rai
n…

  She made it without creasing either side of the car. Shot the gap and pounded the brakes and brought the car to a fishtailing stop in the grassy median between northbound and southbound lanes, plowing a furrow of damp sod beneath the tires.

  She fell back against the seat, gasping and half smiling, almost oblivious to the horns and the rain, aware of nothing but the victory of having gotten off the road without harming anyone.

  Safe, she thought, and only then did she realize the muzzle of the gun was pressed against the side of her head.

  “What are you doing?” Dax said.

  “I need to breathe.”

  “What?”

  “I just need to—”

  “If you get the cops called, a lot of people are dying tonight. You’ll be the first but not the last. You better back this thing up and get moving right now or I promise, Abby, you’re going to—”

  “I just need to breathe!” Abby screamed.

  The kid pulled the gun away and stared at her. Abby shoved the gearshift into park and leaned her head back against the seat and sucked in air as sweat trickled down her face in cool rivulets. The sweat was good; the cooling was good; everything needed to cool down, it had gotten too hot in here, it had gotten dangerously hot and—

  Faster. Faster! Slow down. Slow down!

  It had almost gone very badly.

  “You’re freaking out,” Dax said. “What’s going on? Scared of the gun, Abby? You’ve done so well with it. I can’t put it away. I don’t think we have the necessary trust for that.”

  Abby didn’t answer. Just closed her eyes and concentrated on that slow, sweet cooling. Tried to listen to the rain, hoping it would drown out Luke’s voice. Faster, Luke said, then Slow down! he screamed.

  Shut up, Abby thought. Please, baby, just shut up for one night so I can do this thing. So I can see morning. Then come back and talk all you want and I’ll listen forever, no matter how miserable it is, but for this one night, just please…be quiet. Let me drive.

  “So this is why Abby Kaplan came back to Maine,” Dax said. “You’re not hiding from media. You really can’t do it anymore, can you? You lost the nerve.”

  Abby still didn’t speak.

  “What a sorry shame,” Dax said. “End of a good run for you, wasn’t it? But that’s of no interest to me. And the longer we sit here, the more likely it is that a cop joins us.” He shifted around in the darkness and leaned forward and suddenly Abby’s hands, which were still on the steering wheel, were bound tight and zipped together by a plastic cord that bit into her skin.

  “Get out and trade seats with me. Do it quick and do it calm, or I will shoot. There is no more patience.”

  Abby fumbled with the door handle, struggling with her bound wrists, then stepped out into the pouring rain. She didn’t mind it. The rain was cold, and the rain was clean.

  The kid pushed open the passenger door, then slid across into the driver’s seat, and he lifted the gun and pointed it at Abby’s face as she stood there in the downpour.

  “Your choice,” he said. “Die there and leave the sweet Beckley sisters to me, or get back in and ride. Good news—you don’t have to drive anymore, Anxious Abby.”

  I got one thousand dollars, Hank Bauer had said on a humid July night at a New Hampshire speedway, that says that little girl kicks all their asses and wins this thing.

  Abby was fifteen years old and couldn’t drive legally on a highway, but she won that night on the track. Hank gave her half the money, and they’d piled into his truck with her father and driven into the night with the windows down and Green Day loud on the radio, and Abby’s future was firm.

  The world was hers that night, and she understood that all she needed was four good tires to take it.

  She looked up the highway now, through the rain and into the blur of oncoming headlights, and then she walked around the car, past those beautiful Pirellis, and toward the passenger seat. The door was open, waiting, rain streaming down the interior panel. Lightning strobed, illuminating the car, and Abby saw the kid’s cell phone. It was on the floor mat on the passenger side. He’d dropped it, maybe when he’d slid into the driver’s seat or maybe when Abby had shot the gap into the median.

  And I made the gap too. Not all bad. It was reaction, not strategy, but I still made it.

  “Get in,” Dax said, and he cocked the revolver.

  Chill rain streamed down Abby’s spine in ribbons. She stood there for just a second longer, just enough to make sure that the kid’s focus was on her face. Then she made a show of tumbling awkwardly into the passenger seat and fell forward, almost across the gearshift, as she landed.

  Dax’s attention stayed on her. He did not follow the motion of Abby’s right foot, did not see her lower her shoe onto the phone and slide it backward, did not hear it clatter up and over the door frame and out into the rain.

  “Get off me!” he snapped.

  Abby leaned back, said, “Sorry,” then turned her bound wrists toward the door, grasped the handle, and slammed it shut. She moved quickly, but she got a last glimpse of the phone sitting there in the rain.

  Did it matter? Probably not. For a moment, though, Abby had taken one thing from him. He wouldn’t be able to play Shannon Beckley’s voice for a little while. It wasn’t much—wasn’t anything, maybe—but it felt like a victory. She’d taken something from him.

  And I made the gap. Thought I couldn’t do it, thought we were going to die in the rain, maybe die with other people too, innocent strangers, all of us burning in the rain because I couldn’t hold myself together. But that didn’t happen. I saw the gap, and I took it.

  I fucking took it.

  The kid leaned toward her, shoved the muzzle of the revolver under her chin, and forced her head up. His face was shadowed by the black baseball cap, but you could still see the smile.

  “Pretty-boy Luke London did a real number on you, didn’t he?”

  Abby went for him then. She lunged forward, trying to snap her forehead off the kid’s nose, not fearing the gun any longer, scarcely aware of it.

  When he hit her behind the ear with the barrel, Abby sagged and her vision went black, but she could still hear the rain.

  Then he hit her again, and this time the sound of the rain went away too.

  41

  Thirty thousand feet in the sky, Boone sat in the bulkhead seat and turned her phone over and over in her hands, compulsively.

  Check signal. Nothing. Of course nothing. Even cheating on airplane mode wouldn’t help at this altitude.

  She turned the phone, turned it, turned it…and checked again.

  No signal.

  She was on Wi-Fi, but it wouldn’t let calls through.

  Land this bitch already. The thought rose with such intensity that she almost shouted it aloud. Containing frustration was always a struggle for her. Once more, she was passive, Detroit all over again, sitting at the gate and waiting, waiting, waiting. Back then, unknown to her, Amandi Oltamu was already dead, and Boone had been reduced to waiting, clueless.

  Tara Beckley wasn’t dead, though. She was coming back. But did she know a single thing that might help?

  Boone’s phone vibrated, and for a glorious second, she was sure that the signal had somehow pierced the clouds.

  Wrong. It was just an e-mail slipping through on the wireless network. She knew that it wouldn’t matter, but she checked it anyhow, needing something to fill her time. When she saw the sender, she caught her breath.

  It was Pine.

  I have been trying to call for the past twenty minutes. Your phone goes straight to voice mail. I am assuming and hoping this is because you are in the air and en route. Tara is not only alert, but she has memories of the night. Specific and clear memories. There is also a difficulty with her sister, who appears to have been contacted by someone other than you, someone with knowledge of the danger in this situation. Knowledge that I don’t have. She has lots of questions about Dr. Oltamu’s phone. She seemed unsurpris
ed to learn of your agency’s interest, but she will not tell me why or who has provided her with whatever information she has. It is imperative that we have guidance on this situation. I am going to give you a little time, but then I feel it’s essential to contact local authorities.

  Boone nearly jammed a thumb in her hurry to respond.

  Keep her safe, keep her quiet, I am inbound, almost there.

  She hit Send, leaned back in the seat, and stared out the window. Lightning flashed below them, entombed in the clouds, giving an otherworldly quality to the night sky.

  Shannon Beckley had lots of questions about Oltamu’s phone? Why? If Tara Beckley remembered the phone, that was one thing. But her sister? Who had been in contact with her sister? And if someone had told her sister so much about the situation that she understood things at the level Pine seemed to suspect, then there was a much bigger question: How was she still alive?

  The intercom gave a burst of static, and Boone let out a relieved breath, anticipating the message—they were beginning their descent into Boston’s Logan Airport, please fasten seat belts and prepare for landing.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, you might have noticed the lightning outside your windows,” the pilot began, and Boone tensed.

  No, no, do not tell me we are being delayed or diverted, not tonight…

  “What you’re seeing,” the pilot continued, “is part of a series of supercell thunderstorms that are moving north-northeast at the moment, and they’re delaying operations at Boston Logan until that weather clears.”

  “No!” Boone said aloud, drawing stares from the flight attendants in front of her. She shook her head, closed her eyes, and clamped her molars together as the pilot kept babbling.

  “We’re going to be in a holding pattern for just a bit, hopefully not more than fifteen to twenty minutes,” he said. “I’ll let you know as soon as we get word from the folks at Logan that we are cleared for descent. We don’t expect it to be a long wait, so just sit back, relax, and enjoy. The good news is that all the turbulence is below us, and the storm seems to be moving fast.”