Page 13 of Shadow Strike
“Hey.”CB kept his voice calm, taking her searching hand.“You’re safe.You’re at Shadow Point Security.Nobody’s going to hurt you here.”
She went still.Her eyes found his, then scanned the room, the table, the IV line in her left arm, and his hand holding hers.“What the…?”
“You’re dehydrated.Are you in any pain?”
Her other hand went to her throat, and she swallowed hard.“Damn it.Some asshole got the jump on me.”Her eyes narrowed and swung back to him.“Wait, did you…?”
He squeezed her hand.“I was late, but yeah.I stopped him.”
“Who was it?”
“How about you focus on you for the moment?”
She withdrew her hand from his.“I need to call my mom.She might be in danger.”
“I’ve spoken to Lucy, and we’ve got someone watching your house to keep her safe.I let her know you were going to be okay.”
Gratitude and relief flashed across her face.“She’s okay?”
“She’s fine.She’s worried about you.”
Regan looked at the ceiling for a moment.Then she looked at the IV line, her expression making her feelings about it clear.
“Our resident doctor is a psychologist, but she’s had extensive medical training as well.She wanted you to go to the ER,” he said.“I told her no, but if you feel like you want to be thoroughly vetted, I’ll take you.”
She shuddered.“I hate hospitals, and I feel…fine.”
Mm-hmm.Sure, she did.“That’s what I thought.”
She pushed herself up to sitting.“Tell me what happened,” she said.
He told her all of it, starting with the truck he’d spotted at the food stand lot that afternoon.How he’d circled back and kept watch.How he’d positioned himself later in that same lot, planning to make sure she got home safely.
“You were watching me?”she asked.
“For your own safety.”
“Hmm.Go on.”
He skipped to Sanchez pulling in right before one, the nothing conversation that had held him in place exactly long enough.The scream that had reached him half a block away.The man he’d found with his hands on her, masked, big, wearing a canvas jacket with a particular chain at the collar.
“I grabbed that chain,” she said.“Man, he was big.”She scanned him.“Not as big as you, but he had to outweigh me by fifty pounds.”
“More than that,” he said.“He was masked, but I know his build, and I know that chain.It was Denny Crue.”
She didn’t look surprised.She looked like someone who’d just had a suspicion confirmed that she hadn’t wanted confirmed.
“And Officer Sanchez,” she said, nodding.“Sanchez and Crue ran together in high school.”
“You know that?”
She ignored that question.“So Sanchez kept you at the food stand while Denny—” She stopped.Pressed her lips together.
“That’s how I read it.”
She was quiet for a moment.“He said Friday,” she said.“Eight hundred cash, at the back door at nine.He said if I didn’t—” Her voice didn’t waver, but something in her eyes did.“He threatened my mother.”
He held her gaze.“I’m sorry I wasn’t there sooner.I should have been.”
