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
