both down.”
“Jesus!” Blaze blew out a breath.
Jesus is right. At least she now knew she had his attention.
“Dane is dead and Brianne is in the hospital with a broken leg and arm, and in a coma she may never wake up from.”
She watched his face for some reaction. God, this was like trying to read a blank page.
“That’s both unfortunate and sad, but not exactly the type of case Galaxy takes on.”
“If I told you there was something weird about the whole thing, would you be more interested?”
“Maybe. Depends how weird, and why the police aren’t handling it.”
Okay, so he wasn’t ready to commit to anything yet. But she hadn’t given him all the facts.
“When Peter Kendrick, the senior partner at Dane’s law firm, called me to tell me about my sister, I jumped on the first plane I could get. Our parents are dead, so Brianne and I only have each other. Of course, she has Dane.” She paused to take a breath. “Did have. Damn it. Anyway, that was all he told me except for the name of the hospital. Said he was sure Brianne would want me to be there. Damn straight she would.”
“That’s sad and depressing, and I’m sorry for your loss, but it still doesn’t sound like anything that needs our attention.”
“I’m getting there. That’s only the beginning.” She swallowed some coffee and gathered her thoughts.
“Take your time.”
“Does this flight have a time limit?”
He gave her a reassuring smile. “Yes, but we aren’t even close.”
“Good. When I got to Tampa, of course I went right to the hospital. I nearly lost it when I saw my vital, bubbly sister lying in bed with a broken arm and leg and barely a breath of life. She had not yet regained consciousness, which scared the hell out of me. I just broke down. I couldn’t help it.”
“Understandable.”
“Then I got my shit together, if you’ll excuse my language. After I made sure Brianne was getting the care she should, I called Dane’s parents to offer my condolences. Questioning them was hard, but they didn’t know anything more than I did.”
She had to stop for a moment. She made her living from words, but this was incredibly hard for her to describe.
Blaze just sat on the couch, waiting for her to continue.
“They said the funeral would be in a few days. I promised them I’d be there. They were just so upset that they couldn’t wait for Brianne. After we got through that disaster, I found out which police station had taken the call and went to get a copy of the report. That’s when it got interesting.”
He dipped his head once. “Go ahead.”
“The report wasn’t in the computer. Everything goes in the computer, right? At least I assumed so. They told me the cop writing it up probably still had all the notes on his desk. And no, he wasn’t in at the moment.”
Blaze arched an eyebrow. “So you never saw the information?”
“Only after three days of making a pest of myself. Then they told me it had finally been entered, but the damn information is so sketchy it tells you nothing. First of all, they were still trying to find the car and its driver. They said they had conflicting descriptions and they were all hazy anyway. It happened so suddenly, they told me. It was late at night when Dane and Brianne were crossing the street from the restaurant where they’d had dinner.”
“And?”
“The report said there were a few people on the sidewalk at the restaurant entrance, plus the man who ran the parking lot across from the place. But everyone had a different story. Yes, they heard Brianna scream, but it all happened so fast! No, they have no details. The car was gone before anyone realized what had happened.”
“Was there any description of the car at all? Any identification of the driver? License plate, at least?”
“If only. I kept asking the traffic cop who talked to me, but I might as well have saved my breath. Yes,” she recited, “they checked the traffic cams and no, they hadn’t found the car. They put out a call for it, but they believed it was long gone. Someplace. Someplace? Give me a break.”
“And no trace of the driver, I’m guessing.”
“That’s what they told me. I went back twice to see that cop and find out if he’d learned anything, but that was a dead end. Every time I went there after that first time, I was