Taken Hostage

“An associate of mine is bringing another vehicle.”

“Great.” She turned to the paramedic. “Looks like I’ve got a cheaper invitation.”

Even when she thought she should have hesitated, she didn’t. Given the slim chance Colby could be part of what happened, the police had his identifying information and he’d put himself in harm’s way for her. Likely the only reason he wanted to help was to ensure she stayed alive long enough to perform his sister’s operation.

The police officer handed her his card. “In case you think of anything. I’ll call you later today to update you.”

She plucked the card from his fingertips. “Great.”

Colby jumped from the back of the ambulance and reached his hand up to her.

The rain had stopped and she could see the sun trying to break through the gray in the distance. Colby waved to a man on the other side of the highway who stood near a white truck the same make and model as Colby’s.

“I forgot one thing.” He raced a few steps ahead of her and scrounged around in his car until he came up with a set of dog tags. “Now, we need to get to the other side of the road.”

Colby helped her climb over the cement median and waited for a lull in traffic before he pulled her, running, across the highway. Her pounding footsteps only intensified her headache.

Colby and the other man exchanged a few words before the man crossed the highway toward the ruined wreckage that remained of their vehicles. Regan climbed into the white truck and slid over to the passenger seat. Colby hung the dog tags from the rearview mirror.

She clipped the seat belt and fingered the metal rectangles. “A friend?”

Colby nodded and pressed his lips together, moving the truck into the river of cars.

“You were in the military?”

He glanced her way. A sad smile mirrored the grief in his eyes.

Regan hugged her purse. It really was the curse of every medical professional. It was her job to sit and ask those questions that no one else would ask—intimate details of a person’s life laid out in front of her so she could make the best medical decision. Sometimes it was just hard to know when to dial it back.

As if to cut her some slack, he answered her question. “Delta Force.”

“Are those tags from a friend of yours?”

“Mark. An old friend. I can’t risk losing them at some body shop when my truck gets fixed.” Pain etched his words.

“How many years did you serve?”

“Too many. Not enough.”

Great. Just what she needed. The strong, silent type. Of course, her ex-husband had been a violent, verbally abusive monster, so perhaps this was a move in the right direction.

What am I thinking? He’s dealing with a sister who has cancer. I’m a single mom. I have enough on my plate. He has enough on his. Lord, help me to focus on the right things here.

“Why did you leave the military?” Regan asked.

“Sam.”

His eyes glistened as he turned away from her, and her throat thickened at his quick emotional response. Clinically, she knew a lot about Samantha Waterson. Age twenty-eight. Grade four glioblastoma—the worst kind of brain tumor, resistant to surgery and aggressive chemotherapy. These patients sought Regan out when conventional medicine failed to destroy the malicious cells that replaced healthy tissue with dysfunctional ones.

Interacting with Colby personalized his sister to her in a way that was sometimes hard as a doctor to cross over—seeing the person instead of just the brain MRI.

“Had you decided whether or not you were going to take Sam’s case?” he asked without taking his eyes off the road.

“I never set up a face-to-face meeting until I know the patient is a candidate. A strong candidate. I actually have her on the surgery schedule for tomorrow morning.”

That was true. Regan had developed the policy after meeting with too many patients who weren’t an appropriate fit for the study. She’d pray, relentlessly, for help in making the right decision. Was giving false hope better than dealing with death? Regan wasn’t strong enough to decline treatment when families sobbed in front of her. What human could? It was the part of medicine she hated—her inability to defeat death.

“Good.” Colby nodded and wiped away a quick tear, sniffing hard as if to urge the other potential droplets of his fear to stay in their place. “I guess my one and only job is to get you to the hospital safely. Get you all fixed up and then on to save Sam’s life.”

His statement was like a knife to her heart. There was so much expectation in those few words and she didn’t want to disappoint him.

Because, like Colby, she wasn’t sure she’d seen the last of those men. Could he be a man she could trust if they came back?

She glanced back at her SUV as they merged into traffic—the passenger side completely mashed up against the concrete and all of the windows shattered. Now that most of her adrenaline had dissipated, she was becoming cognizant of the mild aches and pains that would bloom into full-body soreness and immobility in the next few days, and she didn’t know if she’d feel safe operating on someone’s brain tomorrow.

Her cure couldn’t work if the patient died on the operating room table.

THREE (#u20509d6e-778b-550c-85d8-a4af69833862)

Olivia wasn’t answering her texts.

It was nearly midnight before Regan left the hospital. First the car accident. Could it be called that? Was potential vehicular homicide a more accurate term? Followed by stitches in the ER and then patient appointments the rest of the day. Above all else, she didn’t want her personal circumstances to affect the care of her patients. So many patients were desperate to participate in her research protocol, which showed true promise in curing the most aggressive type of brain tumor.

And she was using a polio virus to do it.

The cost of that decision was getting home way past Olivia’s bedtime, and the last thing she needed was to worry about her eleven-year-old daughter and the growing distance between them.

Sadly, medicine taught doctors to assume the worst-case scenario first and then settle on the more realistic diagnosis once the life-threatening possibilities were ruled out. Simply, an unanswered text first meant someone had died—plain and simple. Or they were stranded in a ditch and near death. No other possibility was acceptable until that one was ruled out.

Adding to this certainty was that her nanny, Polina, didn’t answer her texts or phone calls, either.

Lord, just let them be safe.

Regan fingered the front of her phone to call up the screen and smoothed her thumb over the picture of Olivia. Regan hadn’t thought eleven would be a hard age to deal with, but it was turning into exactly that. Her usually joyful and optimistic child had turned surly and ambivalent. Were the hormones changing more than her body? Or was it something more, something that Regan couldn’t change, like being away from home so much? The clinical trial consumed nearly every extra moment she could spare. Scraps of her attention. That was what Olivia got. She wanted to change this, but also needed to provide for Olivia—for all that she thought she deserved.

Why hadn’t Olivia called? Regan’s routine with Olivia when she was at the hospital was to talk every night if she didn’t make it home by dinner. If Regan couldn’t take the time to chat, she would send a quick text. But her call went to voice mail—her text with a multitude of heart and flower emojis unanswered, like silent witnesses to the distance between them.

Regan tapped her fingers on the front of her phone, trying to disperse the anxious tingling of her fingertips. She was breathing too fast. It was making her headache come back in full force.

Slow it down, Regan, slow it down. Stop thinking like this.

It wasn’t the first time an evening call went unanswered—but it was rare.

As the garage door rose, Polina’s battered navy blue Chevy Cavalier was where it should be. Regan parked her rental car, grabbed her purse and exited the vehicle, but froze when she saw the door that led into her kitchen. It stood open—all the way. The interior of the house was as dark and deep as a water well. The garage light flickered off and Regan’s heartbeat raced as blackness and fear enveloped her.

It was quiet—too quiet.

“Olivia? Polina?”