Page 12 of Shadow Strike
CB had answered his questions.Kept his voice even, his posture relaxed, giving nothing away while the clock in the back of his head ran.The moment Sanchez received a radio call and had no further reason to detain him, CB had been moving.
He’d heard Regan scream from half a block away.
Not fast enough.
“Done,” Vivi said.She capped the line, checked the flow, and stripped her gloves.“I’ll check back in an hour.Call me if she wakes up before then.”She paused at the door.“I can administer pain meds if she needs them.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
Vivi studied him for a moment.“Stop beating yourself up.You got there in time.You might have saved her life.”
He didn’t answer.She left, and he called Lucy from the hallway.
She picked up on the second ring.“Yes?”
“Mrs.Hill, it’s Clive Briggs.”
“Clive?Is Regan…?”She paused.
“She’s safe.She’s with me at the Shadow Point compound.Someone came at her in the parking lot after closing.She’s bruised, but she’s not seriously hurt.”
Silence.He let her absorb it.“It was them, wasn’t it?”Lucy said.“The Outlaws?”
“Looks that way, but I don’t have any proof.”
He did, but he wasn’t going to divulge Denny Crue’s name to her.Not yet.
“Can I talk to her?”
He glanced through the glass door.“She’s sleeping right now.I’ll have her call you as soon as she wakes up.”
“You’ll stay with her?”
“Until she orders me to leave.Then I’ll just be more covert about it.”
A huff of a laugh.“She’ll tell you to leave,” Lucy said.“Don’t listen, you hear me?That girl is going to be her own undoing.”
“Yes, ma’am.I’ll stick close.Do me a favor?Do you have a security system?”
“I have a hundred and twenty-pound Shepherd mix named Desi.Desi and Lucy, get it?I Love Lucy?”She made a dismissive noise.“Never mind.Before your time.Desi is my security system.”
“My mom used to watch the reruns of that show,” CB told her.“Especially when she was sad or depressed.It cheered her up.”
“It cheers me up on bad days, too.So does Desi.And Regan.The two of them are all I have left.You understand?”
CB heard the grief in her voice.“Yes, ma’am, I do.Be sure all the windows and doors are locked, okay?I’ve sent one of my best over to keep watch on your house.As soon as Regan feels better, I’ll bring her home.”
A pause.“She hasn’t eaten since breakfast.She does that—skips meals.Make sure she eats something.”
“I will.”
“Thank you, Clive.”
He stood there for a moment after he hung up, staring at Regan.Lucy had thanked him for doing something he hadn’t managed to do in time.That sat in an uncomfortable place.
He returned to Regan’s side, pulled the chair next to her bed, and sat down to wait.
She woke a few minutes later.One moment she was still, the next her hand shot out for something to grab, her whole body tensing with the reflexive urgency of someone who’d gone under fighting and came back up the same way.
