I put my hand on his shoulder and said, “You’re in for a long haul, buddy, recovering from this. But if there’s any man alive who can do it, you can.”
Sampson’s lazy, sad gaze came and dwelled around me for several seconds. Then he started struggling, as he got more and more upset.
“Hey,” I said. “It’s okay. We’ll—”
Garbled sounds came out of his mouth.
He tried again. And again.
The sixth time, I thought he said, “Evan-widda.”
“Evan-widda?” I said.
“Evan-widda…b…bag,” he said, and then smiled and lifted his right hand to point to the surgical bandage. “Ho-ho…n…ed.”
I frowned, but got it then, and smiled. “Even with a big hole in your head?”
Sampson smiled, dropped his hand, and winked at me before nodding off to sleep again, as if that had taken every bit of his strength.
But he’d spoken! Sort of. Definitely communicated. And the doctors had said his sense of humor could be gone with a wound to that part of his brain, but here he was making a joke about his situation.
If that wasn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is.
Billie arrived shortly before eight and beamed when I told her what had happened.
She kissed John, and said, “You spoke?”
He shook his head. “Alack vent…r…wrist…crist.”
“What?”
“He said, ‘Alex is a ventriloquist.’ I think.”
John grinned again and said, “Whips do no move.”
Billie had tears in her eyes. “Lips don’t move.”
Sampson made a wheezing sound of delight that stayed with me on the way to work and buying a burner phone.
I went to Bree’s office, and I knocked on her doorjamb.
“Long time no see,” I said.
Bree glanced at the clock, said, “Are you getting obsessive about me?”
“I’ve always been obsessive about you, from the very
first,” I said.
“Liar,” Bree said, but she was pleased.
“The truth,” I said. “You had me the first time you glanced my way.”
That pleased her even more. “Why are you buttering me up?”
“I’m not buttering you up,” I said. “I was just flirting with my wife before I told her that Sampson spoke this morning.”
“No?” she gasped. “He did?”