Page 8 of Secret Gifts
His smile falls again, and his seriousness returns. He’s not acting like a mere lieutenant. He’s acting so much like the way my father would in situations like these. He needs to stop acting like that because it’s only making me like him more.
“What do you mean? There was nothing anyone could have done differently. Kellan Maverick was smart, fast, and in the end, he escaped.”
“Not true,” I murmur while pulling copies of the old files from my bag.
I hand them to him, and then I lean over to point out the tracks.
“You see these?" I ask while pointing to the indentions.
“Yes, Maverick was shot three times in the leg by one of our snipers. It forced him to limp.”
“Exactly. He was shot, and he did have a limp, but there’s something missing.”
“What’s that?” he asks while locking his eyes on mine.
“The hop,” I say with a giddy, smug grin.
He tilts his head, his curiosity piqued and mingling with confusion.
“The hop?”
“Have you ever been shot in the leg and had to run for your life, lieutenant?” I ask with my secretive grin growing.
“Several times actually. It’s a war after all.”
“Then you know about the hop. You just don’t think about it when you’re actually running. When you’re injured and limping while dashing away from a frenzied firing brigade, your mind is racing with a thousand things to do next. The only thing you don’t think about is running.
"Your body is so used to such mundane actions, you don’t actually think about having to focus on it. When you’re limping, though, your body is out of balance. You end up stumbling.” I point to the picture. “Which there are no signs of. What you do when you lose balance is... hop. Your good leg takes a hop or two in order to level your body back up, and your strides find rhythm again. It’s an involuntary action, and it’s missing from every picture of every track documented. These are all left, right, left, right,” I murmur while pointing again.
“He was shot in the right leg, so there should be some tracks where there are two left steps instead of a right one in between," I add.
His head tilts again as he thinks back to his own times of running with an injury. His eyes light up as if he has just realized how right I am, but then he shakes his head.
“The blood. Maverick was bleeding out, and there was a trail of blood with each footprint. The lab confirmed it to be his.”
I smile bigger, and then I shrug.
“The blood is where Mr. Hedin messed up the worst.”
“What do you mean by that?” he asks with skepticism.
“When shot with uranium, our blood thins and gushes out. The blood found was clotting, as if it was trying to heal. Our blood doesn’t start healing when infected with uranium - not without drinking fresh or packaged blood, which he had no access to during the chase.
"The quantity of blood lost wasn’t as great as it should have been either. This was staged. He had someone pose as him and carry his drawn blood to drip over the premeditated steps that looked to be older than five hours to begin with. He planned this out, which means he planned on getting shot in the leg. Not just any leg, the right leg. He never really got shot. He pretended to take the bullet, and the officer who swore he saw the bullet connect was in on it. He's been missing since that day. I checked,” I proudly release, my lips turning up in a glorious grin.
His lips part as if he’s taking in more air to fill his lungs in their depleted state. I’ve officially left him speechless and holding his breath during the big ending wrap-up.
“Unbelievable,” he murmurs while leaning over to study the pictures more aggressively, his eyes suggesting he’s completely engrossed in my findings.
“Were you there?” he asks while keeping his eyes glued to the numerous messes of overlooked evidence.
“I was,” I say with a shrug.
“Why didn’t you say something?” he asks in a rather scolding tone.
Sheesh.
“I did, but Hedin didn’t listen. Instead, he bit my head off for arguing with him, and he told me I didn’t know half as much as I thought I did. I told you, he’s got a chip on his shoulder about me.”
