Jordyn Redwood - Taken Hostage

“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.