The boy’s eyes didn’t look up at the new voice. They stayed on Maggie’s. Hard and tight on her. That was good, too. She had become a focal point for him. Maybe not so good. She had no clue what to do as his focal point.
“I’m not sure if he’s still bleeding,” she said without breaking eye contact and surprised to hear her voice remarkably calm and steady. “He’s definitely in shock.”
“Can we move him like this or can we snip him loose?”
Maggie wanted to say, Aren’t you supposed to know? I only know what to do with dead people.
Instead she took a deep breath and tried to access her internal databank. She had been stabbed several years ago, in a dark, wet tunnel, miles away from help. Another memory, carefully tucked away in yet another compartment of her mind. What she did remember was that she had lost a lot of blood, and she wouldn’t have, had the killer left the knife inside her, instead of yanking it back out.
“I think we might start the bleeding again if we pull the barbs out. And I’m not sure he’ll be able to stand the pain.”
“Holy crap,” Donny muttered again.
Maggie continued to watch the boy’s eyes, trying to determine if he understood what they were saying. If he did, he gave no indication. His eyes never left Maggie’s. She didn’t think she had seen him blink since that first time when she stumbled over him.
“Can you understand me?” she asked the boy, slowing down the question and emphasizing each word. “Blink twice for yes.”
Nothing. Just the same glassy, wide-eyed stare.
Then his eyelids closed and popped back open. Closed again and the effort alone looked so painful they stayed closed longer before popping open again.
Maggie’s heart thumped hard, relief mixed with a new anxiety. He was conscious and he was in pain.
“I’m Maggie,” she said finally. “I’m going to help you.”
“Dawdawdaw …” He babbled, only this time the frustration seemed to drain him. The muscles in his face and neck were tight, his jaw clenched.
Maggie noticed that nothing else moved. His fingers didn’t flex. His legs—though twisted into a knot beneath him—did not budge. No part of him attempted to fight or stretch or even press against the barbed-wire restraints.
She scanned one more time, looking for anything that resembled electric wire and checking for burn marks. None, that she could see. Yet the smell of singed hair and burned flesh and the apparent paralysis all seemed to support her suspicions. The boy wasn’t only in shock. He had also suffered an electrical shock.
CHAPTER 8
PHIL’S DINER
WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
Colonel Benjamin Platt ordered a cheeseburger, ignoring the raised eyebrow and disapproving look from the diner’s most senior waitress. To test just how far he could push her, he asked for mustard and extra onions. The waitress, named Rita, had known Platt since he was a med student at William and Mary and pulled all-nighters slinging back lukewarm coffee, hunched over his textbooks.
Back then his attempt at flirting would sometimes win him a piece of stale pie. On a good night the pie came with a scoop of ice cream. Platt couldn’t remember when they both had given up all pretense of Rita being his Mrs. Robinson. Instead, she became a sort of mother hen who watched over his heartburn and kept his arteries from clogging.
“Visiting in the middle of the week?” Rita asked as she poured coffee into the mug without looking, keeping her eyes on his, trying to detect his emotional state. Weird thing was, she could. And what still fascinated him most was that she knew exactly when to stop pouring, right when the scalding-hot coffee reached within an inch of the mug’s lip.
“I’m meeting someone,” he said. These days he didn’t get back to the diner very often except when visiting his parents, who were retired.
She raised an eyebrow.
“No, not that kind of someone.” He grinned.
“I would hope not with those extra onions.”
Then she turned around and left him, and he swore she added a bit more swing to her hips leaving than she had when she approached.
He smiled again. She could still make him feel like that awkward college boy. Didn’t help matters that tonight he wore blue jeans, a faded gray William and Mary sweatshirt, and leather moccasins with no socks. He ran his fingers over his short hair realizing the wind had left it spiked. Just as he glanced at his reflection in the window he saw Roger Bix getting out of a rented Ford Escort. Platt didn’t know the man well, but he knew enough to guess Bix wasn’t happy about driving a compact anything.