A duo of police officers was walking toward them. He grabbed her hand again, his eyes imploring hers to understand his message. “The police aren’t going to find those men and they’re going to come back for you. Mark my words.”
Regan couldn’t connect a logical thought in her mind. Whoever this man was—this stranger, who had saved her life at great risk to his own, seemed to have intuitiveness in understanding the criminal element.
“How do you know they’re coming back?”
“I hunt criminals for a living. I know how they act...how they think.”
A patrol officer kneeled next to her. “I’m Officer Johnson. I need to ask you a few questions. Your name?”
Regan was still shaky and now the cold was settling into her bones. The rain lightened to a fine mist.
“Regan Lockhart,” she answered.
The officer glanced at Colby. “And you are?”
“Colby Waterson.”
And in that instant Regan knew she didn’t want to be separated from the one man who’d already proved he’d risk his life to protect hers.
TWO
Colby cinched the gray wool blanket the police officer had brought around Regan and then placed his hands on her shoulders to steady her tremors. “You’re okay. They’re gone. I’m not leaving you.”
She looked at him with grateful eyes, and he paused a moment to try to ascertain their exact color. Gray? Green? Right now as dark and brooding as the clouds that had released their payload of rain.
One of the responding officers handed Colby a basic first-aid kit. He popped open the tab and grabbed a package with a large square of gauze, removed it and pressed it gently to her cut. The rain mixed with blood and trickled down her face, making her injury appear more severe than it was. She winced at the pressure and covered his hand with hers in response.
“Sorry,” Colby said.
She shook her head. “I don’t know what to say. ‘Thank you’ seems hardly adequate.” Her teeth chattered, and Colby sent a dismayed look to the police officer.
“Any chance we could get her out of the rain?” he asked, his tone edgier than he wanted it to be.
Not only was she trembling from fear but the withdrawal of adrenaline from her system exacerbated her unsteadiness. Add that to the cacophony of voices around her and he was surprised she hadn’t shut down completely.
The black GMC had vacated the scene, and Colby gathered from police communications that no one had spotted it. Two paramedics carrying orange trauma packs weaved their way at a jog toward their position.
“Ma’am, can you describe to me what happened?” Officer Johnson asked.
A paramedic kneeled next to her. “Hi, I’m Leonard. What hurts?”
Johnson’s partner asked, “Did you get a look at the driver of the other vehicle?”
Colby’s chest ached and he could feel his blood just about to boil. He stood and motioned everyone back. “Give her some space,” he ordered. “This is what we’re going to do.” He turned to Johnson. Thunder boomed, and Regan huddled farther into the blanket. “First, out of this rain before it starts to pick back up again. Then, medical gets to take a look at her.” He pointed his finger at the officer. “Then a witness statement. Are we clear?”
All nodded, though Johnson narrowed his gaze in a who-does-he-think-he-is glare, but they looked in agreement enough to comply with his demands.
Colby held his hand out to Regan, and she took it willingly but stood too fast. Colby stabilized her with a quick arm around her waist before she fell back down. Regan gripped his arm tightly until her trembling eased. She stood straighter and gave him a gentle smile. Threads of her red hair stuck to the wound on her forehead, and he took his finger and gently eased them away.
He kept his arm around her waist until she was safely sitting in the back of an ambulance, on a gurney. Leonard took the blanket off her shoulders, pushing up Regan’s sleeve to take her blood pressure.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Shaky,” Regan responded, her voice clearer, in control.
Johnson stepped into the back of the ambulance and Colby traded places with him so he could get close. The officer would be able to get some of the information he needed just from listening to the paramedic’s interview.
“Is it all right with you if the officer is here?” Leonard asked.
Regan glanced at her watch. “Whatever speeds this up. I do have patients to see at the hospital. I’m late.”
Colby checked the time, as well. Had it been twenty minutes since this thing unfolded? It seemed like just a few had passed. “I’ll call the hospital and tell them you’re going to be delayed. Be right back.”
He stepped down from the rear of the ambulance and walked back to the scene of the crash. Something was going on here—something bad that involved this doctor. His gut was tossing up so many red flags that all he could see was red. The maneuver to push her off the road, in the middle of rush-hour traffic no less, cried of either desperation or determination. Both of which could have proved deadly. He found his cell phone among the shattered glass of his windshield on the floor of his passenger seat and dialed his mother.
“Colby? Are you all right? Where are you?”
Not even a hello. Ever since Sam’s cancer, his mother had been a prickly ball of hypersensitive worries, as if at any moment she knew the other shoe was going to drop. Actually, he had himself to blame. His military career had precipitously aged her even before Sam’s diagnosis.
Even though his mother was strong in her faith, she seemingly didn’t get a dose of the whole “not worrying” thing when God had made her. Maybe worry was an inherited gene as Colby struggled to let God control things, as well.
“I’m fine.”
“As in uninjured?” she pressed.
“Yes, not injured, but I’ve been involved in a little dustup on the highway driving in for Sam’s meeting.”
“Sam’s still in the ICU. These seizures just won’t relent. Her doctor’s not here yet.”
“I know. I’m with her,” Colby said.
“With Dr. Lockhart?”
“Yes...it’s hard to explain. We were involved in...an accident.”
“You hit her? Is she all right? Is she alive?”
The shrill tone of his mother’s voice caused him to ease the phone away from his ear. “Mom—”
“Colby, I’d never forgive you. We’ve been waiting to hear her final decision for weeks.”
He got it. He’d never forgive himself if he’d been the one to take away Sam’s only hope at living a full life.
“Mom, Sam’s doctor is fine, but it’s going to be a few hours before we can be at the hospital.”
“You’re staying with her?” his mother asked, her voice maintaining the same high pitch.
“It’s complicated. I’m going to make sure she gets to the hospital okay. Will you tell Sam’s nurse, so she can tell whoever else needs to know, that Dr. Lockhart is going to be delayed?”
Colby neared Regan’s SUV.
“She can’t call herself?”
Colby reached across the driver’s seat and found Regan’s purse, its contents strewed across the passenger’s floor mat. “She doesn’t have her phone at the moment. Please, Mom? I need to go.”
“All right. Be safe.”
Her classic sign-off. It was her habit never to say goodbye. Too much finality, he guessed. She’d once told him she’d only say it if she was sure he was never coming back. Maybe that was what military life did to families. Another reason why she rarely said, “I love you.” Even though she did fiercely.
His next call was to his associate, Daniel Green.
“Aren’t you at the hospital?”
“I should be. Listen, I need you to bring me your
truck. And then stay behind and take care of two vehicles that need to be towed.”
“Wow, sounds exactly like how I hoped to be spending my morning. Is this what you meant by ‘other jobs as determined by the president’ when you hired me?”
“Exactly.”
Colby gave him the necessary information and disconnected the call. Colby’s office wasn’t far from there. If Dan hurried, it shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes. If he came down the other side of the highway, he wouldn’t get stuck in the mass of cars on this side of the road.
Officers were on the highway taking measurements. Orange-and-white-striped cones had been set up, and two traffic cops directed the stream of angry morning commuters to the two lanes on the right side of the road.
Colby brushed the glass off and then sat in Regan’s driver’s seat. His knees didn’t immediately hit his chest like every other car he sat in after a woman had driven it, meaning she was likely just a few inches shorter than he was.
He reached down and began to gather up the items that had spilled from her purse. This was partly to be helpful but also an investigation. Those thugs wanted something from this doctor. Could anything in this car give him a clue as to what that might be?
He reached for her wallet that laid splayed open. The first picture he saw was of a young girl, perhaps ten years old. Her hair the same color as her mother’s, but her eyes were blue. He flipped through the photos. No photos with a male presence. He hadn’t remembered a wedding ring on the doctor’s left hand.
A child meant leverage, and all Colby could think was that he needed Regan to call her daughter to make sure she was okay.
He grabbed her black purse, snapped the wallet closed and put it inside. Under the passenger seat, he found her phone. When his thumb brushed the screen it displayed her most recent messages. Nothing questionable that would explain this predicament. He threw that in the purse, as well.
After that, he snagged the few items scattered about that were foreign to his hands ever since his wife had died from the same cursed disease that now ravaged his sister. A tube of lipstick. A compact with mirror. A nail file.
He brushed his finger against the fine sandpaper and thought about how chemo had taken away from his wife even the little things she’d enjoyed—like doing her nails. They’d become so brittle, her fingers numb from the chemo, that she hadn’t liked them to be touched. Her death had been his entry ticket into the military. It was easier to run away than face a lonely life without her.
Colby clutched the purse in his hand, stepped away from the SUV and then opened up the back passenger-side door. The seat was littered with several medical journals that had likely been tucked in a neat pile. He stood in the empty traffic lane and glanced up the highway, a smattering of cars ahead of him.
What did these events mean? Was Regan truly in danger? And if she was, what did that mean for Sam?
* * *
The tension in Regan’s chest eased when Colby stepped up into the back of the ambulance, her purse clutched in one of his hands. Her shaking had stopped and the chill was replaced with warmth from his gentle inquisitive smile.
“Everything okay?” he asked, his eyes only engaging hers.
“I keep telling the officer that I really didn’t see anything.”
“What about you, sir?” The officer turned in his direction. “What did you see?”
“I’ll tell you briefly what I know, but is there any reason to delay her medical care?”
The officer raised his chin at Colby in defiance to his testiness. “Aren’t you a bounty hunter?”
“Fugitive recovery officer.”
“Same thing, right?”
“We just prefer not to be called bounty hunters.”
Regan rustled through her purse and found her phone, pulling up a quick screen to text her daughter, Olivia.
Colby nudged the officer to one side. “Are you checking on your daughter?”
Regan’s finger froze against the cool surface of her phone screen. “How did you know I had a daughter?” she asked, her voice slightly off-kilter. What did she know about this man, really? Could he be involved with the people who had run her off the road? Simply offering her assistance as a ruse to gain her trust?
“I saw her picture in your wallet.”
“You looked through it?” Regan asked, wondering what he might have seen that she didn’t want him to.
“No. It had popped open. Everything spilled out of your purse, but I will say I didn’t find any clues.”
“Clues for what?”
“For why those men might have been after you.”
The officer turned Colby’s way. “So you don’t think this was an accident?”
“Not in the least. They used a specific maneuver to get her off the road. The only person they seemed to be shooting at was me. As soon as I picked her up to get her to a safer place, they fired less directly. They wore ski masks to cover their faces. I didn’t get a look at their license plate.”
“There are thousands of those black GMCs in the city.” The officer zeroed in on Regan. “Ma’am, do you have any idea why these men would be after you?”
Something broke inside Regan’s mind at that point. It was all becoming too much to comprehend. The accident. A handsome stranger saving her and continuing to provide assistance. It was the stuff of fairy tales and couldn’t be part of her trajectory, which was either men hurting her or them being professionally threatened by her success. Regan led the most boring life of anyone she knew outside of her groundbreaking research. Her life consisted of going to the hospital, seeing patients, going home and trying to give Olivia the last shreds of her energy. She’d never been involved in anything illegal—ever.
Unless...
Her phone pinged in her hand, causing her to jump and her thoughts to scatter. “My daughter’s okay,” she said to no one in particular.
“Good,” both the officer and Colby said.
Regan couldn’t help but roll her eyes. It was a contest of the most concerned male in the back of the ambulance. “Listen, I don’t know why these men would have been after me. If I had to guess, I’d say they had the wrong person. Is there anything else all of you need?”
The officer shook his head. “We just need to get your SUV towed off the road.”
“I’ve taken care of that,” Colby said.
“I’ll file an accident report,” the officer responded. “This case will be reviewed by a detective to see if assault with a deadly weapon charges should be filed, as well.”
Regan sat up. “That’s if you can even find these creeps, right?”
“We’ll take you to the hospital,” Leonard said.
Regan stood. Her vision blurred and she reached out blindly to hold on to something to steady herself when she felt Colby’s arm around her shoulders. She was surprised at how she liked the strength he offered.
“Steady now,” he cautioned.
“I’m not paying for an ambulance ride to get some stitches.” Regan opened her eyes and found Colby’s blue eyes searching hers.
“We’re both going to the same place. I’ll give you a ride,” Colby said.
“In your truck? The one that no longer has a windshield?”
“An associate of mine is bringing another vehicle.”
“Great.” She turned to the paramedic. “Looks like I’ve got a cheaper invitation.”
Even when she thought she should have hesitated, she didn’t. Given the slim chance Colby could be part of what happened, the police had his identifying information and he’d put himself in harm’s way for her. Likely the only reason he wanted to help was to ensure she stayed alive long enough to perform his sister’s operation.
The police officer handed her his card. “In case you think of anything. I’ll call
you later today to update you.”
She plucked the card from his fingertips. “Great.”
Colby jumped from the back of the ambulance and reached his hand up to her.
The rain had stopped and she could see the sun trying to break through the gray in the distance. Colby waved to a man on the other side of the highway who stood near a white truck the same make and model as Colby’s.
“I forgot one thing.” He raced a few steps ahead of her and scrounged around in his car until he came up with a set of dog tags. “Now, we need to get to the other side of the road.”
Colby helped her climb over the cement median and waited for a lull in traffic before he pulled her, running, across the highway. Her pounding footsteps only intensified her headache.
Colby and the other man exchanged a few words before the man crossed the highway toward the ruined wreckage that remained of their vehicles. Regan climbed into the white truck and slid over to the passenger seat. Colby hung the dog tags from the rearview mirror.
She clipped the seat belt and fingered the metal rectangles. “A friend?”
Colby nodded and pressed his lips together, moving the truck into the river of cars.
“You were in the military?”
He glanced her way. A sad smile mirrored the grief in his eyes.
Regan hugged her purse. It really was the curse of every medical professional. It was her job to sit and ask those questions that no one else would ask—intimate details of a person’s life laid out in front of her so she could make the best medical decision. Sometimes it was just hard to know when to dial it back.
As if to cut her some slack, he answered her question. “Delta Force.”
“Are those tags from a friend of yours?”
“Mark. An old friend. I can’t risk losing them at some body shop when my truck gets fixed.” Pain etched his words.
“How many years did you serve?”
“Too many. Not enough.”
Great. Just what she needed. The strong, silent type. Of course, her ex-husband had been a violent, verbally abusive monster, so perhaps this was a move in the right direction.
Taken Hostage Page 2
