call him on it. “Okay, as I said, if you’ll take a seat, I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”
“No,” Trigger said with a shake of his head. “I need to be with her now. She has to be scared out of her mind.”
The woman opened her mouth, probably to deny him once again, when a commotion sounded behind them.
Turning, Trigger immediately recognized Gillian lying on the stretcher that was being wheeled into the emergency room. Somehow they’d beaten the ambulance to the hospital.
Without hesitation, Trigger headed for the woman who held his heart in her hand.
“Step back, sir.” He heard someone say, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.
“Gillian?” he called when he got close.
Her head turned—and the second he caught sight of her, Trigger wanted to fucking kill someone. She had the beginnings of a black eye and her cheekbone was bruised.
But it was the clear finger marks on her neck that had him seeing red.
“Walker?” she croaked and held out a hand to him.
Both the paramedics’ heads swung toward him at the same time security closed in on the group. Trigger knew his team had been at his back the entire time, and they probably made quite an imposing sight to the employees in reception.
But before he could be hauled away from Gillian, one of the paramedics held out his hand. “He’s fine,” the man barked, stopping the security officers in their tracks. “She hasn’t said much since she came to in the ambulance. But she recognizes him. Let him through.”
Grateful for the reprieve, Trigger didn’t hesitate, he went right up to Gillian’s side and gripped her hand in his. He tried to assess her, but when she whimpered, he couldn’t look anywhere but into her eyes. “I’m here, Di,” he told her softly. “You’re okay. I’m here.”
“Walker,” she said again.
“Move with us,” the paramedic ordered, and without looking away from Gillian’s dilated pupils, Trigger nodded.
“You’re okay,” he repeated as he walked alongside the gurney with Gillian’s hand in his. They didn’t get a chance to say anything else as the paramedics wheeled her into a room and got to work transferring her from their gurney to the bed. The grip Gillian had on his hand was almost painful, but there was no way Trigger was going to complain.
She looked okay, beyond the bruises on her face and throat. He turned to listen to a paramedic as he briefed the doctor who appeared inside the room.
“Patient’s name is Gillian Romano, age unknown, as she didn’t tell us anything other than her name. She was found unconscious in a parking lot on the south end of town. Other than the superficial bruising, we haven’t found any other obvious injuries. No broken bones and no pain anywhere that we can tell. Her heart rate and blood pressure are high, but that’s most likely because she didn’t seem to know where she was or what was happening when she regained consciousness. We started an IV, but we suspect she’s high or has ingested some sort of drug within the last few hours because of her dilated pupils.”
Trigger listened with a bizarre mixture of horror and relief.
The doctor nodded. “Nurse, please do a complete blood panel and we’ll see if we can get her to tell us what she’s taken. I’d also like a rape kit done, just in case. She might need an MRI to make sure she didn’t hit her head at any point. Gillian, can you look at me? What happened?”
Instead of looking at the doctor, Gillian kept her eyes glued to Trigger’s. He hated, hated, the look of terror in her eyes. “It’s okay, sweetheart. You’re safe now. Can you tell us what happened?”
She shook her head.
“You’re safe,” he reiterated.
“I don’t remember,” she whispered. “I’d tell you if I could, but I don’t remember anything. All I know is that I woke up in an ambulance and my head hurt.”
Trigger’s stomach rolled. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Gillian swallowed hard and closed her eyes. After a moment, she opened them and said, “Talking to you on the phone in my car.”
“You were going to the caterer to taste cakes for the Howards’ anniversary party,” he prompted.
She blinked. “I don’t remember anything about that. Did I make it there?”
“Yes. You parked in the garage nearby and met with the Howards’ daughter. You guys picked out two different cakes.” Trigger knew all this because he’d talked to the caterer himself to verify that Gillian had actually made it there.
“I