Critical Impact. Linda Hall

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      A movement to her left caught her attention. A man was standing beside her window, silhouetted by the streetlight outside. His back was to her. Hands in his pockets, he peered out at the night, seemingly deep in thought. For one horrible moment she thought it was Peter, and she shrugged away from the form and down into her blankets.

      Her slight movement must have caught his attention, because he turned to her. It was a man she didn’t know—yet she somehow did. And when he smiled at her, she remembered. This was the face she had looked up at, the man who had found her, rescued her and smoothed her hair away from her face as he rode with her in the ambulance to the hospital.

      His face broke out in a grin and he came toward her. He was saying something to her, but it was muzzy in her ears.

      He came closer. “Hello,” he said.

      She tried to say something, but her voice was hoarse and crackly. She cleared her throat. “Hi,” she said.

      “Miss Barker, I’m Deputy Stu McCabe, and this is Deputy Liz Corcoran,” he said, gesturing toward a young lady who was now getting out of the chair by the door. Anna noticed for the first time that a woman was in her room. She was tall and long-limbed.

      “How are you doing?” he asked her. She squinted up at him. His face was slightly blurry around the edges. Her contact lenses were gone, so nothing was really too clear. He was tall and was wearing a brown sweater. His hair was light and, from what she could see, cut short, like a military hairstyle.

      “I don’t know,” she answered. That was the truth. Right now she felt numb. She had so many questions, some that she was afraid to ask. Had it been a bomb? A gas explosion? An earthquake?

      There was a deep, dull pain in her right arm. Her face hurt, and so did her left wrist where the IV was attached.

      He bent toward her. “When you’re up to it, we’d like to ask you a few questions.”

      She nodded. That’s the reason he was here. He was a police officer with questions. He had picked her up, held her closely and talked kindly to her on the way to the hospital simply because it was his job. It made her feel let down in a way she couldn’t define.

      “Okay.” Her voice broke. “But can you first tell me what happened?”

      His face darkened. “A bomb.” He said it simply.

      A bomb! Her eyes went wide. “Why? What…?”

      The woman named Liz came and stood beside Deputy McCabe and said, “We don’t know. We’re still trying to piece things together.”

      “What time is it?” Anna suddenly asked. When had this all occurred? She looked helplessly at her right hand where she normally wore a silver watch.

      “Around 9:00 p.m.,” Deputy McCabe said.

      “Wow,” she said, opening her eyes wide. “I’ve been here the whole time?”

      “They just brought you to your room. You were in surgery for quite a while. Your family is in the hall. Your mother is here.”

      “My mother’s here?” Anna was finding it difficult to tear her eyes away from this man.

      “We met your mother, Catherine, and your aunt, Lois.”

      “Good. Um…” She was desperate for facts. “So it was a bomb? Did it have something to do with the mock disaster?” Her voice echoed in her own head as she spoke, but at least her hearing was getting better. “Did it go off accidentally?”

      “No,” Deputy McCabe said. “It didn’t. It wasn’t supposed to be a real bomb. Just smoke bombs.”

      “Pretty coincidental timing, though,” Liz said.

      “Was it…terrorists?” She shifted slightly in her bed, but quickly came to the conclusion that any movement, no matter how slight, caused pain.

      “Again, we don’t know,” he said.

      Liz added, “At this point we’re looking at every possibility.”

      “What about the others?” she asked. “Two of my students went in ahead of me.” Her head was spinning. Hilary had been inside City Hall and Claire, too. Plus, the mayor.

      Deputy McCabe paused, took a breath. “Hilary Jonas and Claire Sweeney have been positively identified. They died this morning in the blast. I’m so very sorry, Anna.”

      Anna swallowed several times. Tears welled up in her eyes. How could they be dead? She had been with those girls just yesterday. “What about Mayor Seeley? He also went into the building just ahead of me.”

      “They rushed him by air ambulance to Portland. We haven’t heard anything yet.”

      She tried to lift her left hand to wipe her eyes, but it was tethered to the IV pole. She felt helpless. Deputy McCabe took a tissue from the box beside her and gently wiped her eyes. The gentle act made her tear up even more. She fought to regain her composure.

      “Who would do this?” she gasped.

      “That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Liz said. “That’s why we’d like to ask you some questions before your family comes back in.”

      “Okay,” she said. “I don’t know how I can be of help, but okay.”

      Deputy McCabe began asking questions. As best she could, Anna told them everything she saw, or didn’t see just before entering the building. They asked the same questions in many different ways, and she answered until her voice was hoarse and she couldn’t think. She hadn’t paid too much attention to what had been going on around her. Her mind had been on her lesson plan. There was still so much she had needed to get done before the mock disaster. She told them this, too.

      When Deputy Corcoran asked her if she had received any threats lately, Anna paused. Deputy McCabe seemed to notice this pause and looked at her expectantly. Did Peter count? Should she tell them about Peter? But Peter was her own business.

      She’d never said goodbye to Peter. Was that it? Some weird and awful act of revenge? Peter had lied to her. He’d told her he was a Christian. He’d told her she was special to him. All lies. And on that last date, when he slammed her up against the brick fireplace of his mansion. She thought he intended to rape her. But even if he wasn’t going to rape her, she knew she had to leave. That’s all he wanted from her. That’s why he lied. He didn’t want her for herself. She knew she had to get away from him. She had hit him hard in the chest and loudly said, “No!” until he lost his grip on her shoulders and she shoved him away, then ran.

      The following day she left California.

      She had been back in Maine a month when she received his e-mail.

      The next time we meet, you’ll regret it. I will be back.

      Did that constitute a threat?

      She took a deep breath and told them about Peter. If he had done this, he deserved to get caught. She gave them Peter’s contact information.

      Deputy McCabe wrote it all down.

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