you, Captain Kangaroo. I know how to tell time.” She shoved her foot back into the shoe. Instead of continuing the climb, she unzipped her purse and started digging around inside.
Will said, “That man, Carter. He’s a rapist.”
“Among other things.”
“He has Sara.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“He could be hurting her.”
“He could be running for his life.”
“You’re not being completely honest with me.”
“Wilbur, I’ve never been completely anything.”
Will didn’t have the strength to keep chasing his own tail. He leaned against the wall. He wrapped his hands around the railing. He looked down at his sneakers. They were stained green from mowing the grass. Red streaks of dirt and blood wrapped around his calves. He could still feel the cold stone floor of the shed against his knees. He closed his eyes. He tried to summon up the memory of that blissful moment before everything went wrong, but all he could feel was guilt gnawing a hole in his chest.
He told Amanda, “She was driving the car.”
She looked up from her purse.
“When they left, Sara was driving. They didn’t have to knock her out or—” He shook his head. “She told them to kill her. She wasn’t going to go with them. But she went with them. She drove them away.”
He looked down. Amanda had wrapped her hand around his. Her skin felt cool. Her fingers were tiny. He always forgot how small she was.
“I haven’t—” Will was an idiot to confess anything to her, but he was desperate for absolution. “I haven’t felt scared like that since I was a kid.”
Amanda rubbed his wrist with her thumb.
“I keep thinking of all these things I could’ve done, but maybe—” He tried to stop himself, but he couldn’t. “Maybe I did the wrong thing because I was scared.”
Amanda squeezed his hand. “That’s the problem with loving someone, Will. They make you weak.”
He had no words.
She patted his arm, signaling that sharing time was over. “Pull up your panties. We’ve got work to do.”
She bounded up ahead of him.
Will followed more slowly. He tried to wrap his brain around what Amanda had said. He couldn’t tell whether she’d meant it as a condemnation or an explanation.
Not completely one or the other.
He took a deep breath at the top of the next landing. The stabbing pain in his rib had turned into a dull ache. Will became aware of minor improvements as he moved his body, like that his head had stopped throbbing and the rolling lava in his gut was starting to smother itself out. He told himself it was good that his vision was no longer wonky. That the balloon of his brain had re-tethered itself to his skull.
He used the relief to plot ahead, past the interview with Hurley. He was certain the man wouldn’t give them anything. Will needed to go home to get his car. He would try to find Nate for a lift. Will had a police scanner in his hall closet. He would take it with him and look in the places that no one else was looking. Will had grown up in the middle of downtown. He knew the bad streets, the dilapidated housing, where criminals laid low.
The door opened to the sixth floor. Will followed Amanda down another long hallway. Two cops at each end. One across from the elevator. Two more guarded a closed sliding glass door.
Amanda showed them all her ID.
The glass door slid open.
Will looked down at the threshold, the metal rails recessed into the tiles. He took as deep a breath as he could. He couldn’t make himself forget that Sara had been abducted by a convicted rapist, but he could make himself appear calm enough to do whatever Amanda needed him to do in order to get information out of Hurley.
He stepped into the hospital room.
Hurley was handcuffed to the bed. There was a sink and toilet out in the open, a flimsy curtain for privacy. Sunlight filtered through the open blinds. The fluorescent lights were off. The glowing monitor announced Hurley’s steady heartbeat.
He was asleep. Or at least pretending to be. Sutures Frankensteined his face. His broken nose had been straightened, but his jaw hung crookedly from his face.
His heartbeat was steady, like a lazy pendulum swinging back and forth.
Amanda cracked open another ammonium ampoule and shoved it under his nose.
Hurley jerked awake, eyes wide, nostrils flaring.
The heart monitor sounded like a fire alarm.
Will looked at the door, expecting a nurse to come running in.
No one came.
The cops hadn’t even turned around.
Amanda had her ID out. “I’m Deputy Director Amanda Wagner with the GBI. You’ve met Agent Trent.”
Hurley looked at the ID, then back at Amanda.
She said, “I’m not going to read you your rights because this isn’t a formal interview. You’ve been given morphine, so nothing you say can be used in court.” She waited, but Hurley didn’t respond. “The doctors have stabilized you. Your jaw is dislocated. You’ll be taken to surgery as soon as the more critical patients have been helped. For now, we have some questions about the two women who were abducted.”
Hurley blinked. Waited. He was making a point of ignoring Will. Which suited Will, because if the man looked at him wrong, he wasn’t sure he could keep his shit together.
“Are you thirsty?” Amanda pushed aside the curtain around the sink and toilet. She unwrapped a plastic cup, turned on the faucet.
Will leaned against the wall. He shoved his hands into his pockets.
“You were a cop.” Amanda filled the cup with water. “You know the charges. You’ve murdered or participated in the murder of dozens of civilians. You aided and abetted the abductions of two women. You were part of a conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction. Not to mention healthcare fraud.” She turned around, walked to the bed with the full cup of water. “These are federal charges, Hurley. Even if by some miracle a jury deadlocks on the death penalty, you’re never going to breathe free air ever again.”
Hurley reached for the cup. The handcuff clanged against the rails.
Amanda paused long enough to let him know that she was in charge. She held the cup to his mouth. She pressed the tips of her fingers below his jaw to help his lips make a seal.
He made an audible gulp with each swallow, draining the cup.
She asked, “More?”
He
