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She swiped the tears dripping down her face with the back of her hand. “I… We… Samantha and I walked outside. We were going to go for dinner. Then she remembered she forgot her phone upstairs, so we decided she’d go up and I’d wait in the lobby.”
This was the easy part of the story, he knew, and she told it quickly, growing silent afterward. “Take your time,” he said, though he wanted her to keep going.
She drew a shaky breath and continued. “Samantha turned to go inside. Someone bumped into me, so I didn’t actually see what happened. It was rush hour and the sidewalk was busy.”
“It’s okay,” he said, rubbing her back.
“I heard a loud sound. I guess the shot. Samantha turned and she was bleeding. She dropped to her knees and I… I screamed. There was so much blood.” She shivered, her teeth chattering, and Dex shrugged off his suit jacket so he could put it over her shoulders.
“No! No jacket.”
“But you’re trembling,” he said, confused.
She glanced up at him. “A man used his suit jacket to stop the bleeding. It hurt her. She cried out.” She shook her head back and forth and he laid his jacket on the chair beside him.
“Okay, no jacket. Did Samantha say anything?” he asked.
Rubbing her hands against her thighs, she said, “I tried to calm her down by saying something stupid about the bullet going straight through and she chided me for watching Grey’s Anatomy again. She was so cold and shaking. But she told me to get her phone. I asked for her code and when she gave it, I told her we really needed to talk about security.”
“You kept her talking and you were there, Brandy. You did good.”
More tears filled her eyes. “She asked me to call her brother.”
“Not me?” The words slipped from his lips.
She shook her head. “She said not to call you, then something like you were busy, and the word important, before she passed out.”
Nausea washed over him along with a pain in his chest the likes of which he’d never felt before. “Nothing is more important than she is,” he said. Nothing. And from this moment on, he swore she’d know it.
“I’m sorry,” Brandy whispered.
“It’s okay. Is there anyone I can call to sit with you?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Can I be your sidekick?”
He laughed. “Sure.” He rubbed her back and together, they sat in silence.
An hour passed, then two. People came and went, waiting on loved ones. Doctors walked in, giving them news. Dex was worried sick and losing his mind, but he knew making a scene at the nearby desk wouldn’t help. When they had news, someone would come find them.
Brandy had huddled in a more comfortable chair in the corner but after a while, he couldn’t sit still. Rising to his feet, he paced the room, checking his watch nonstop. At this point it was a toss-up who he’d see first, Ian or the surgeon. He ultimately grew tired and sat back down, his head in his hands.
“The family of Samantha Dare?” A doctor stood in the entrance and Dex rose to his feet. Brandy followed.
And as if he’d had a line to the operating room, Ian, his wife, Riley, and Emma joined them, rushing in and around the man to hear what he had to say.
“I’m her mother,” Emma said, and Ian put an arm around her shoulders. Pale and shaking, Samantha’s mother waited for news.
“She made it through surgery.” He said the words and a collective breath and sigh of relief echoed around the room.
Dex felt as though he could breathe for the first time since getting Ian’s call.
“Oh, thank God.” Emma clasped her hands in front of her chest.
“What else?” Ian asked, in his no-nonsense voice.
The doctor nodded. “The bullet nicked her spleen.”
Riley gasped and Emma grabbed her hand.
