The man did as Max asked, and bits and pieces of the report filtered through to Decklan.
The senator or a member of his immediate family might have been shot, according to witnesses from inside the restaurant… Information is sketchy at this time but … taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital.
Spots flashed in front of Decklan’s eyes, and his brother Gabe’s voice sounded from inside his own head as long-buried memories rose to the surface. Mom and Dad were in an accident … eighteen-wheeler … the car rolled … no survivors. Mom and Dad didn’t make it.
Decklan knew he wasn’t that kid again, but Amanda had been with Brad at the event, and there’d been a shooting, and someone had been taken to the hospital. He couldn’t live through that kind of loss again. He just couldn’t.
Suddenly Decklan felt himself being shaken hard, and he refocused on the dark club walls and his best friend in front of him. “Come on. I’ll get us a cab to the hospital,” Max said.
But Decklan remained frozen in his seat.
“Hey, buddy. You okay?” Max asked with true concern in his voice.
When Decklan didn’t answer, Max handed him his cell phone, which he’d left lying on the bar. “Call her. Make sure she’s okay.”
He didn’t know what he’d do if she wasn’t. All this time spent angry and hurt, when they could have worked through things together. Now if she’d been hurt, if she was killed… His stomach rolled at the thought.
“Decklan, dial the damned phone or I’m going to beat the shit out of you in order to bring you back to the here and now. Snap out of it,” Max demanded loudly.
To his shock, Decklan burst out laughing. “You did not just use your dom voice on me.”
“Thank God you’re back.”
Decklan pulled up Amanda from his favorites and hit send on his phone, but it went straight to voice mail. His insides felt like ice, but he pushed forward. He already knew what it was like to live without Amanda in his life for a short period of time. Being separated by death just wasn’t an option. So as the taxi headed for the hospital, Decklan prayed fate wasn’t going to shit on him a second time and rip someone he loved away from him.
The cab dropped them off at the Emergency Room entrance. Decklan left Max to pay. The media had already begun to set up camp outside the hospital, but in the chaos, Decklan was able to slip through the main doors and into the waiting room.
Heart pounding a mile a minute, he found the desk and braced both hands on the counter. “I need to know if Amanda Collins was the shooting victim.”
“Are you family?” the older woman in charge asked. “Because we can only reveal patient information to family.
Decklan clenched his hands into fists in frustration. “Look—” He reached for his badge, determined to use any means necessary to get inside.
“Cardiac emergency!” paramedics called out as they rushed in, carrying a man on a stretcher and heading through a set of double doors.
The woman behind the desk jumped up, forgetting all about Decklan, obviously rushing to help organize things inside.
Max glanced at him. “What’s up?”
Decklan shrugged. “They won’t tell me anything.” But the Nazi behind the desk was gone for now. “I’m going in.”
He walked straight through the same double doors the paramedics had used seconds before. He was immediately engulfed in chaos, no doubt thanks to the current emergency and the fact that someone in the senator’s family had been shot.
He scanned the room and saw the senator. So he was okay. Decklan kept going, his gaze hitting on the senator’s wife, who had blood all over her clothes and was crying and being comforted by her husband. No sign of Brad. Or Amanda.
His hands were sweating badly, and panic threatened to engulf him.
“It’s not her,” Max said, putting a solid hand on Decklan’s shoulder.
He hadn’t realized his friend had followed him inside. “How do you know?” he asked, hope building inside him.
Max shrugged. “I charmed a nurse, how do you think? It’s the senator’s son, Brad. He was hit.”
Decklan’s knees nearly buckled. He wasn’t relieved Brad had taken a bullet, just that it wasn’t Amanda. “How bad?”
“No news yet. He’s in surgery to have it removed.”
Decklan glanced around. “Then where’s Amanda?”