Fight or Flight

by Natalie J. Damschroder

  “You tell me first,” she said to Tyler. “How did I get here?”

  “I got home late, but your lights were on, so I was coming over to see how things went while I was gone. When I came out the back door, you were lying in my backyard, naked and beaten to a pulp.”

  She snorted. “Hardly a pulp, and it wouldn’t have been so bad if there weren’t five of them.” A sneaky hint of pride overrode any embarrassment she might have felt at being discovered naked in his backyard.

  “Five!” He stared at her. “Who the hell were they?”

  “No idea. So…”

  “I called nine-one-one for the police and ambulance. They set your shoulder right there, almost made me puke. You’ve got cuts all over you and you’re lucky your cheekbone isn’t fractured. Who did this to you?”

  His tone was getting demanding. “Ask them.” She motioned toward the door. The nurse, who had finished collecting her equipment, tried to grab her right arm. Regan shrugged her off and lifted the tissues. The bleeding had stopped.

  “Ask who, the cops? They don’t know.”

  “Didn’t they interrogate any of them?”

  “Any of who? They didn’t catch the guy.”

  “The ones in my house! Don’t tell me they didn’t go inside!” She huffed. “I knocked one out on the floor in my bedroom, another was stabbed in the stomach. Alan! Oh my God, Alan.” She closed her eyes. “They killed Alan. Another one might have been knocked out in my kitchen. Probably the one with the broken nose and the one who busted my shoulder got away.”

  “Regan, honey.” He crouched in front of her and took her right hand just as the nurse reached for it again. “Alan’s dead, yes. But there was no one else in the house. The police told me that much—after they decided I hadn’t done this to you.”

  He let go of her hand and let the nurse take it. Regan pulled away and glared at the woman, who glared back.

  “Where is that cop? Why is this taking so long?” She tried to stand again, and both Tyler and the nurse stopped her. “Don’t you understand? Someone is after my daughter. I can’t just sit here waiting to hear if she’s dead or alive or missing. Will you stop it!” The nurse backed up at her yell. “I don’t need the damned IV, but thank you for your diligence. It would be very helpful if one of you would go find Officer Boyse.”

  The nurse stalked out, but no one came back in. Tyler stayed at her feet, his thumb stroking over the back of her hand. “Regan, talk to me. What’s going on?”

  “I can’t, Tyler.”

  “Can’t? Why?”

  She looked at him. Why? Because the first time she let down her guard, it bit her in the ass. The one person she’d allowed close to her had been murdered. She couldn’t let Tyler become a victim.

  Or allow herself to turn to him. Her anger was keeping her sane at the moment, and if she leaned on him, even a little, she’d fall apart. So she retreated into old habits. He may not have been part of the attack, but he could have ordered it. She didn’t know anything about him, except he never seemed to work. He exercised at her fitness center and mowed his yard twice a week and dragged his garbage cans down his driveway at five-thirty on Wednesday. None of which made him a good guy. She stayed silent.

  Finally the cop came in, and he didn’t look happy.

  “Kelsey?”

  “She’s not at the police station. They contacted campus security, who called her room. When no one answered they went over there. The dorm room was empty. There were possible signs of a scuffle or someone leaving in a hurry, but unfortunately, those could also be the signs of a messy college student.” He flipped open his pad and looked down at it.

  “That’s it? That’s all you have?”

  “Patience, Ms. Miller. They tracked down two of her suitemates at the library. They hadn’t seen her since lunch. Her other roommate, Savannah Leigh, is unaccounted for as well.”

  “Oh, God, tell me they didn’t do anything to Van.” Regan felt sick. It was all her fault. She’d been the one to let Kelsey go away to school.

  “We don’t know. They questioned people in the area. The girl across the hall said your daughter came in to look out the window and turned the lights off to do it. A few minutes later she was leaving to go out and saw Ms. Leigh running down the hall with a backpack and her field hockey stick.”

  Regan took a deep breath and finally calmed down, her brain clicking into gear. “Okay, she left. I need to call her.” Why hadn’t she thought of that first? “I need a phone. I can call her cell phone. She always has it.” She leaned for the phone, but Tyler got there first and handed it to her. She dialed and got a fast busy signal. “How the hell do I get a line out?”

  Tyler read the instructions off the phone and started dialing. “What’s her number?” Biting back a protest, Regan told him. He finished dialing and handed the phone back to her.

  It went right to voice mail. “Shit.” She waited for the beep. “Kelsey, it’s Mom. I need to know you’re safe. Call me back. Uh—” Tyler recited his cell phone number and she repeated it, narrowing her eyes at him. He knew she wasn’t staying here long, or he’d have given the hospital’s room number.

  Officer Boyse said, “Now will you please answer my questions?”

  “Of course.” At his prompt, she dutifully explained what had happened that night, right up to what the last guy had said to her before she’d blacked out.

  “You didn’t know any of them? Did they say what they wanted?”

  She shook her head. “I’d never seen any of them before. I know they’re stupid, because he said he’d leave me to die slowly when he should have known my injuries weren’t life threatening. And there were more of them, because at least one of them wasn’t in any shape to leave on his own. They needed help getting their own bodies out of there.” She remembered the press of cold—glass?—on her cut arm but hesitated to describe it. Why on earth would they want her blood?

  “Where did you get the gun, Ms. Sloane?”

  “It’s mine. It’s registered.” She’d memorized the number and gave it to him. “Can I have it back?”

  “We didn’t find it.”

  “Dammit.”

  He grilled her relentlessly, the clock on the wall ticking minute after far too many minutes, until she was ready to beat him up just to get out of there. She tried calling Kelsey twice more, with the same result. And Tyler, at her urging, went outside twice—per hospital policy—to check his voice mail. The last time, he came back in just as Boyse closed his pad.

  “I got a message. It sounded like Kelsey. She said she’s okay, she’s with friends, and they’re coming here to see you. I couldn’t reach her when I tried to call back.”

  Officer Boyse unclipped his radio. “We’ll put out an APB. Do you have any idea what car they’re driving?”

  “She didn’t say.” Tyler looked at Regan.

  “Kelsey doesn’t have a car. Her boyfriend might have one, though, and I’d bet anything he’s one of the friends with her. His name is Tom Johnson.”

  “Okay, we’ll look into it. We’ll let you know any information as soon as we get it. Please just rest and recover. Your daughter’ll be fine.”

  “Thank you, Officer.” There was no point arguing, protesting or asking them to do anything more. He left, and she stood. “Tyler, I appreciate your help. I don’t want to drag you into this, but I need two favors. Can you please get me some scrubs or something to wear, and take me to get my truck?”

  “You’re going after her. Regan, if she’s on her way here…”

  “They’ll intercept her en route. I’m not lying here waiting patiently for it to happen. I’m going after her. I won’t let you stop me,” she warned. “I got the best of five guys who tried to kill me. Or something,” she amended, remembering the things they’d said. “I can get the best of you.”

  He smiled briefly. “I doubt it. But you don’t need to. I’m coming with you.”

  “Tyler.”

  “Look, I’ll cut to the chase, Reg
an. I know a lot more than you think, maybe more than you do. I can’t tell you who I work for or what I know. But I can tell you this.”

  He waited for her to focus her full attention on him. Her blood chilled at the hardness in his eyes.

  “You won’t get very far against these people without me.”

  Chapter Four

  “Would you please get me something to wear?” Regan repeated softly. She looked steadily at Tyler, who eyed her mistrustfully but left her alone for a minute.

  Regan sank onto the bed once he was gone and rested her head on her good hand. She had to think. Her brain was still fuzzy, her reactions slow. It was an effort to talk, and she was in no condition to drive. Tyler was willing to, so she should be grateful.

  But he knew things. She had no idea what or why, which meant he couldn’t be trusted.

  Well, she didn’t have to trust him in order to use him.

  He returned a few minutes later with a set of navy blue scrubs and a pair of shower shoes.

  “Best I can do.” He dropped them onto the bed next to her. “I half expected you to be gone.”

  Regan saw no need to lie to him. “I thought about it.” She started to pull the gown forward to take it off. Tyler spun around and she smiled. “You saw me naked already, Tyler.”

  He just kind of grunted.

  “I would have left if I wasn’t drugged. I’ll let you drive.”

  “Gee, thanks.” He took a deep breath and turned back around. “You’re going to need help with that.” Regan had managed to get the scrub top over her head and her right arm through, but couldn’t handle the left arm. Tyler unhooked the sling at the back of her neck and supported her arm while he pulled the top into place, then reconnected the sling and made sure her arm was properly seated in it. She ground her teeth, hard, to avoid hissing with the pain, but it subsided once her arm was still again.

  “Thank you.” She lifted her feet as he held the pants and pulled them up to her knees. “I can take it from here, since I’m going commando,” she told him. He backed off and looked away again. “What time did Kelsey call?”

  “Nearly an hour ago,” he said. “She’s probably halfway here.”

  “We need to get moving.” She shoved her feet into the rubber flip-flops and headed for the door.

  “You need to be discharged,” he said.

  Regan stopped and stared over her shoulder. “Kelsey is in danger, and you think I want to bother with paperwork? You’re a Goody Two-Shoes, Sloane.”

  He shrugged and held the door as she went through. “I guess.”

  Regan walked as fast as she could past the nurses’ station. The nurses there didn’t even look up. The elevator doors opened right away, and Tyler barely got through before she punched the “close” button inside. She stared at the numbers as they ticked down, wishing it didn’t feel so much like ticking toward doomsday.

  Alan. Oh, Alan. Any strength she had held on to drained as she remembered. For the first time in years, tears rolled down her cheeks. It was her fault he was dead. If she hadn’t let down her guard, he wouldn’t even have been in the house when they came after her.

  “Hey.” Tyler’s hand landed on her good shoulder, squeezing gently. “You okay?”

  She sucked it up, pulled it all inside and shrugged him off. But she didn’t answer. How could she?

  “Did anyone call Alan’s mom?” she asked.

  “The police will take care of it.”

  She nodded. The elevator dinged and the doors opened. She let Tyler go through first, since he knew where his pickup was parked. She remained silent as they walked to the truck and exited the parking garage.

  “Do you want to go home first?” Tyler asked. She gave him a look. “No. Okay, then.” He aimed for the on ramp for the highway toward Whetstone.

  The road was just as dark and deserted as it had been when she drove it last time, in the opposite direction, after leaving Kelsey at school. Where it had been lonely but comforting then, it was sinister now.

  “Is your phone on?” she asked.

  “I think so.” He angled his hip up. “You can check.”

  Regan slid her hand into the pocket of his khakis. She had to push aside awareness of warm skin and hard muscle on the other side of the thin fabric while she pulled out the phone. It was on, but there was no signal. “Dammit.”

  He glanced down, then back at the road. “Keep an eye on it. We’re probably just in a dead spot.”

  Regan split her attention between the phone and the sparse oncoming traffic, trying to spot Kelsey and Tom, even though she had no idea what they were driving. How could she not have asked everything possible about her daughter’s boyfriend? How could she not have anticipated this?

  “Stop beating yourself up, Regan.”

  Easy for him to say. “Do you have family, Tyler?”

  “A brother. Jackson works in DC, travels a lot. We’re closer than we should be, for as little as we see each other.” He glanced at her. “I have an inkling of what you’re going through, Regan. I don’t have kids, but I do understand.”

  He sounded sincere, but she wasn’t confident of her ability to read him. “Who are you? And what do you know about these guys?”

  He shook his head slowly, not looking at her. “I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.”

  “What can you tell me?”

  “Not much you don’t already know.”

  “Let’s hear it anyway.”

  His jaw pulsed. “Fine. Your name wasn’t always Regan Miller. Before you changed it in Illinois eighteen years ago, it was Chelsea Conrad.” He stopped a second. “Why Regan, anyway? It’s not a very common name.”

  She shrugged impatiently. “I was barely nineteen. I thought ‘Jane Smith’ would be too obvious, and I wanted something I liked.” She nudged his arm to continue.

  “You went to Blaydes Academy, where you met Scott Harrison, who got you pregnant. When he went to tell his parents, some people they were working with—”

  Regan gasped. Tyler stopped talking. “Go on,” she urged.

  “Some people they were working with found out about your pregnancy. They were going to send someone to get you, and Scott tried to stop them, tried to get away.” He glanced at her. “After Kelsey was born—”

  “Wait. Who stopped him? Who was coming to get me? Why? Why did they kill him?” She turned in her seat, eager for answers she’d long abandoned hope of getting, but already frustrated at the gaps in his recitation.

  “I can’t tell you,” he repeated.

  She scowled. “Can’t, or won’t?”

  “Can’t. I don’t know.”

  “How can you know what you just said and not know the rest?”

  His jaw flexed again.

  “You recite facts like you’re reading a mission file,” she accused. “Am I your mission?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Who assigned you?”

  No answer.

  “Who are these people?”

  His jaw unlocked. “I only know they want Kelsey. I don’t know who they are or why they want her.”

  Her soul screamed at the thought. “How do you even know that?”

  “I was told.”

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth? Maybe you led them to us. I mean, if you’ve known all along who I am…”

  “I didn’t lead them to you.” His voice rang with truth, stated with the first hint of emotion he’d displayed since he started talking.

  “Where were you all week?” To her knowledge, he’d never left his house for that long before.

  “I was called in to report.” His jaw had tightened again. He didn’t like what had happened, but she wasn’t sure why. Maybe he’d been pulled to give her attackers a chance to move in. Maybe it was just bad timing and they hadn’t even known he was there. Maybe he’d left because he didn’t want any part of what was going to happen. She had no way to be sure. There was no point in asking him, because he’d either not tell her, or lie.
r />   She looked down at the phone. There was a signal. She immediately dialed Kelsey’s cell phone, but got her voice mail again.

  “Kels, it’s Mom. Please, call me again. Tell me where you are. We’re coming to get you. We’re at…” She stared at the guardrail until a mile marker came up, and read it off. “Don’t go home. Don’t go to the hospital. I’m not there. If you’ve passed where I am, go to the police. Officer Boyse is the one handling our case. Please, Kelsey, call me.” She hung up and hit the button for voice mail.

  “What’s your code?”

  Tyler didn’t hesitate to give it to her—probably trying to win her trust. There was one message, the old one, and Regan’s throat closed when she heard her daughter’s voice. She sounded apprehensive but determined, and Regan had to swallow an involuntary noise. She wouldn’t call it a sob. She couldn’t be less strong than her daughter was.

  But there were no new messages. She tried not to think of why that might be, and stared down the long road into the darkness.

  ***

  Van, driving, cursed a blue streak as sirens approached behind them. Hoping it was an ambulance, Kelsey looked over her shoulder, holding her breath. But it was a cop car. She remembered her mother telling her she’d been pulled over on the way home after dropping her at school.

  “Maybe you have a tail light out,” she said.

  “Maybe I was doin’ eighty.” Van pulled over.

  Tom, in the back seat with Kelsey, unhooked her seatbelt and slid her across the seat to the center of the car. “Just in case,” he told her. He climbed over her to sit behind Van, putting himself between Kelsey and the cop who was walking up alongside the car.

  “That’s an unmarked car,” Kelsey said, studying the vehicle. The flashing lights were in the dash instead of on top, and the dark sedan, which was angled to block their car from oncoming traffic, had no side markings. “Could not be cops.”

  “There are two of them,” Van muttered, rolling down her window with the crank. “One’s on your side, Kels.”