6. Three Ways This Goes #3
I turn toward my office before Black has a chance to answer, my mind already working through routes, timings, contingencies. Every decision carries its own risk. Every mistake ends with Summer paying for it.
"Understood, Sheriff. We'll be ready to follow your orders." I barely hear him.
The door closes behind me with a dull click, shutting out the noise of the station. For the first time since this started, there's nothing but silence and the board waiting on the wall.
I force myself to stop moving. Pacing won't find her. Anger won't find her. Tearing this state apart mile by mile won't find her. The only thing that will is making the right decision before Jackson Moore makes his next move.
I draw a slow breath and look back at the map.
Think.
My grip tightens around my phone.
Tamara.
I don't want to call her. I don't want to put something this important in anyone else's hands, let alone hers. But I run through every name I know anyway, turning each one over before discarding it just as quickly. They'd ask questions. They'd want explanations. They'd tell me to wait.
Tamara won't.
She knows when not to look too closely. Knows there are questions that are better left unanswered if you want to keep sleeping at night.
More importantly, she doesn't trade in favors.
She doesn't keep score. If she helps me, it'll be because she chose to, not because she's expecting to collect on it six months from now.
That's the kind of person you want in a situation like this.
I unlock my phone and hit her contact.
She answers on the third ring.
"Sheriff."
"Man brought in two days ago," I say, already moving toward my desk. "Came in under Benedict Harrow. John Doe. ICU."
A pause. Paper shifting. Keys tapping.
"Yeah, I've got him. What's this about?"
"What's his condition?" No explanation. No context. She doesn't need either.
I hear paper shifting before the familiar clatter of keys fills the line, followed by the quiet hum of a hospital carrying on around her.
"They've stepped him down from critical," she says. "They're weaning him off the sedation now. It could take a few hours, it could take longer, but I'd expect him to wake within the next twenty-four hours."
Twenty-four hours.
The number settles in my chest like a brick. Twenty-four hours for Jackson to move.Twenty-four hours for memories to fade, complications to set in, for the only man who might know where Summer is to stay trapped inside his own head while the trail keeps getting colder.
"Is there any way to speed it up?"
Silence.
"Sheriff..." she says carefully. "That's not something we can just do."
I plant my hand against the desk hard enough to make the wood shudder beneath it. "There has to be something. A reversal agent. Another drug. Anything. I need him awake."
She doesn't answer straight away.
The keyboard starts again, faster this time. I hear her muttering to herself, flicking through something as she searches, the occasional medical term slipping under her breath before disappearing into another tap of the keys.
"There is..." she says eventually, uncertainty creeping into her voice. "It's not something we'd routinely use. Midazolam can be reversed with Flumazenil, but only in very specific circumstances. It isn't without risk."
I hear her pull the phone away from her ear before footsteps echo across the line, followed by the muted swing of a door.
Voices replace the silence. She isn't talking to a colleague.
I know the difference. The way she explains instead of argues.
The way she waits instead of interrupts.
She's asking someone whose answer carries more weight than hers ever could.
Most of it is lost beneath the crackle of the connection, but fragments drift through clearly enough for me to catch them.
"Midazolam..."
"Reversal..."
"ICU..."
I hear another voice answer. An older man. Whatever he says is enough to end the conversation before it has the chance to become one.
While I wait, I type the drug into my browser.
The screen fills with words that mean nothing to me—sedation, benzodiazepines, contraindications, adverse reactions—but one phrase keeps appearing over and over.
Reversal. Which means there's a way. By the time Tamara comes back onto the line, I already know what she's going to tell me.
"I asked the consultant in charge of his care," she says quietly. "He said no."
"Why?"
"Because your John Doe isn't an appropriate candidate. The risks outweigh the benefits." A tired breath leaves her. "Jacob..."
"I need him awake." The words come out quieter this time, but they land with more weight than if I'd shouted them.
"I could lose my license," she says, her voice barely above a whisper now that she's closed herself behind another door. "This isn't a joke."
I let the silence sit. "Then don't.” Silence settles between us. "I'll come down there and do it myself."
Nothing. Just the faint hum of the line stretching between us.
When she finally speaks again, the hesitation is gone. "How soon can you be here?"
I snatch my keys from the desk and head for the door.
"I'm already on my way."