Page 48 of Lone Wolf

No Voice

According to the medical files Joey had hacked into and texted to Evan, Jayla Hill was stable and recuperating in her private room at the Downtown Medical Center. The Wolf’s zip tie had crushed her larynx and fractured the surrounding cartilage structures, which meant there was a chance that she might not speak again. She’d been held for additional tests, visited twice by an aunt, her father’s sister. No other visitors had been put onto the guest list aside from Evan under his alias.

The police protection was less than exemplary. Two uniforms sipped coffee by the elevators. Another had parked himself with a magazine on a folding chair at the end of the hall near the nurses’ station. They’d eyeballed Evan’s visitor badge with its green block lettering—CLEARED—and let him walk by with barely a glance.

When he stepped into Jayla’s room, he was struck by the scent of fresh-cut flowers from the windowsill. She lay in bed facing away on her side, knees tucked close to her chest. The position—small, frail, childlike— struck a note of quiet fury in Evan. A band of raw flesh wrapped Jayla’s neck, visible above the bump of her C2. On the padded guest chair rested an unzipped duffel bag, GRAND ARTS HIGH lettered in teal on its side. A mess of personals were visible inside, no doubt hastily thrown together by the aunt. Bra, shirt, small box of tampons, loose toothbrush. An abundant life reduced to bare functions.

He tapped gently on the open door and she rolled over, her eyes flaring. A gauzy bandage covered her throat in the front, and that blown blood vessel fissured her right eye. Her lips parted silently and she gazed wildly at the door, no doubt looking for one of the cops.

He held out his hands. “Don’t worry. I’m just here to talk with you.”

She shot upright, eyes now narrowing with recognition. Her mouth gaped once more, lips wobbling, and he realized she was trying to talk. Nothing came out but a rush of scratchy air.

“It’s okay. I can get you paper.”

Her face contorted with frustration. Her fingers curled inward, hands cupped, and then she flung them out toward him as if ridding herself of something. Then she flattened her hands, her right palm pushing in to slap twice at her left.

At first he mistook her gestures as a display of aggravation but there was a controlled nature to them that snagged a thread of awareness. When Jayla’s mother had lost her voice to cancer, her father had devoted himself to restoring it. As a family, the Hills would have figured out a new means of communication.

“Hang on.” Evan stepped closer. “Say it again.”

The same motions, more vehemently rendered: I don’t want paper.

As part of Evan’s operational training, Jack had made sure he familiarized himself with a range of languages, including the basics of ASL. Evan wasn’t very good at expressing himself in sign but his receptive language was strong enough to follow along.

“I understand,” he said.

She signed at him furiously, her lips moving: Who are you?

“No one important.”

The cops think you did this to me.

He shrugged.

I told them about the lady but they only saw you.

“That doesn’t matter.”

Why are there so many cops?

“To keep you safe from her.”

A wave moved across her face, tightening her skin, popping her mouth slightly open—a look of fear so pure that for a single piercing moment she looked like a little girl.

Why does she want to hurt me? Because I saw her face?

“Yes.”

She thinks I can lead the cops to her?

“To her employer. That’s what she can’t risk.”

Who’s her employer?

“I’m going to find that out.”

Jayla chewed her chapped bottom lip. Her eyes were bruised, her skin dry, hair tangled, and she had an over-under look that was vulnerable as hell. She scratched at an elbow.