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“If that was an assassination attempt, and it was a miss, the shooter might have ditched the weapon—or not—and have come down to patrol the parking lot to finish the job.”
Olivia froze.
“I don’t think that’s what’s happening. If the guy thought a close, predictable shot was possible, he would have taken it. The shooter wanted the protection of distance and had an exit route planned. We don’t know if the target was acquired or not.”
“If he was successful or not—” Olivia wiped a hand over her head. “Mickey is a sniper for the police department.”
“Don’t get ahead of facts,” Nutsbe admonished her. “You’re a prosecutor, so lean into that. No jumping to worst-case conclusions.”
“Fact, the judge needs medical help ASAP. I mean, how long can you leave a tourniquet on?”
“We have no control over that,” Nutsbe said.
“Are you scared?” she asked.
“Concerned? Sure. Scared? No, I’m okay. But it is a frightening situation.” He looked at the judge. “I think we’re in the hunkering down part of this event. The shooter’s probably running and hiding. The police will have to clear the area before they can greenlight the ambulance to come in. I think we’re going to be okay.”
He caught her gaze and held it for a long time. He held out his hand to her. “Are you scared?”
Nutsbe was right; this was a frightening situation. She had been terrified up to the point where she started the artificial breath. Doing something proactive had helped until the puke. How was she now? “Weirdly, no, not scared.”
He scanned down to her legs. “I’m going to take care of your knees, okay?”
Olivia didn’t want to let go of his hand. And it looked like the bleeding had stopped. But Nutsbe reached for his magic bag of helpful things.
He moved toward her feet.
When he pulled out a medical pouch, Olivia focused on the keychain attached to the zipper pull.
Nutsbe drew out gloves from the front, then pulled them on. He opened the bag. A plastic sheet went on the ground for him to use as a sterile spot. Nutsbe laid out the things he would be using, including a pair of plastic shears that would have made it through the metal detector.
“I’m going to edge your skirt up.” He moved her skirt to her mid-thigh. “I’m going to cut your hose and then remove them. You’ll start bleeding again. The fibers have dried into the scabs.” Now that he was this close, they could hear each other without yelling.
Though the wind would sometimes gust and whip away their words, it also whipped away the smell of puke, and Olivia was grateful.
Olivia distracted herself as he first slit a hole that allowed him to begin cutting around her thigh by pointing at the photo on the keychain. “You all were having fun.”
“It was a great time,” Nutsbe lifted her leg and placed it across his thigh to cut around the back.
“No cake or balloons. It didn’t look like a birthday party. What are you celebrating?”
“That’s my Live Day last year. Some pals I hadn’t seen in a while showed up to surprise me.”
“I don’t know what that means, ‘Live Day.’”
“That’s the day I lost part of my legs. But I didn’t lose my life. Every day since that day is like a bonus.”
“How did that happen?”
“My convoy hit an IED in Afghanistan.”
“But I thought you were Air Force, right? How is it that an Air Force pilot got caught up in a convoy IED attack?” Olivia thought this was shaky ground. She didn’t know the etiquette here. And she was afraid that Nutsbe might feel that she was gratuitously digging for details that were none of her business. “Is it okay to ask?” She frowned. “I mean, I’d like to know. Not in a curious way, but more in an ‘I think we’re becoming friends’ kind of way, and this is a big deal—an inflection point in your life.”
“Yeah, that’s the way I took this conversation.”
Friends? Olivia thought. Not really, no. She felt that there was something more there. Something that could be special and important, emerging like green shoots from the winter soil.
For her, anyway.