Chapter One
Friday night
Jade
The ER board wasn’t terrible.
Room Three had a ten-year-old who fell off his bike and split his chin open on the sidewalk.
He was watching a video on his mom’s phone and holding her hand while he waited for stitches.
Room One had a man with right lower quadrant pain—probably appendicitis, though his labs were still pending.
Room Six was Daisy Buchanon, who just needed to be transported back to her assisted-living facility but had already told me twice that I should “marry a man who can cook but isn’t too pretty”.
Solid advice.
So far there were no bar-fight injuries, no one claiming their neighbor poisoned them again, and no drunk fisherman with hooks embedded in places they shouldn’t be.
It was the kind of night where I might actually be able to take my break on time.
Which should’ve been my first clue that things were about to go to hell in a hand basket.
The overhead speaker crackled. “Multiple trauma alert—GSWs and head injury, three incoming via ambulance. Officer involved. ETA three minutes.”
My stomach suddenly felt like it was filled with lead.
Gunshot wounds. Head trauma. Officer involved.
Three minutes.
Fortunately, my training took over, and I began to move on autopilot.
I grabbed the supply cart and started barking orders to the closest tech. “Trauma One, Two, and Four need to be prepped. Monitors, saline, suture kits, crash carts in each. Let’s move.”
I didn’t know who to expect when the ambulance arrived, but I knew how this worked: there was a good chance at least one of the patients would be someone I knew.
And maybe even cared about.
The bay doors burst open, and two paramedics jogged in with someone on a gurney. The second I saw the navy uniform and the blood-soaked bandage on his thigh, my heart slammed against my ribs.
“GSW to the right thigh,” one of them called out. “We applied pressure and a tourniquet on scene, but he lost a lot of blood before we got there. His BP’s dropping.”
I glanced at the patient’s face and felt the blood rush from my head to my toes.
Brian.
He was unconscious. His skin was pale and his lips blue.
The vitals monitor was already hooked up, and his numbers were not good.
I didn’t even remember moving, but suddenly I was pushing the gurney alongside the paramedics toward Trauma One.
“Lift him on three,” I said, my voice steady even as my hands shook. “One, two, three.”
We transferred him to the bed. The tourniquet was biting into his upper thigh, already soaked below the pressure bandage.
“Let’s get this dressing off,” I said, snapping on gloves.
Blood welled up fast under the gauze as soon as I peeled it back.
“Saline wide open,” I told the tech.
I heard someone call out, “Incoming male, unresponsive. Multiple GSWs.”
I glanced toward the hall as another trauma team moved into position. A gurney was wheeled through the doors, but no one was moving fast. The silence that followed told me everything.
No chest compressions. No shouted vitals. Just hushed voices as they headed for Trauma Two.
Whoever he was, he hadn’t made it.
I sent out a silent prayer that the man rest in peace.
I didn’t have time to dwell on it. Brian’s surgical team had just arrived from Charleston by helicopter. Normally it was the other way around, but the chopper was already there, and I think they gave special consideration to the fact that Brian was a police officer shot in the line of duty.
I gave a quick recap, then stepped back to let them work; there was nothing else I could do.
As they wheeled him away, I offered up another prayer—this one maybe a little more urgent than the last.
Please let him make it through surgery okay.
The ER doors opened, and I noticed a policeman gently ushering a woman inside.
My heart dropped when I realized who it was.
My baby sister.
She walked in under her own power, but she looked like hell with her bruised cheek, messy hair, mud-splattered jeans, and an oversized shirt that obviously wasn’t hers. Adam Callahan was right behind her, guiding her through the ER with his hand on her back.
“Lainey?”
Her eyes found mine. “Is Brian okay?”
I ushered her into Room Two, adrenaline still buzzing through my system. “He’s in surgery. He lost a lot of blood, but they’re working on him now.”
She gingerly sat on the bed, then pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh my God.”
“What happened?” I asked, scanning her for injuries. “We got the trauma alert—officer down. Then a DOA came in, followed by someone with a head injury. And now you. Are you hurt?”
Lainey shook her head, tears starting to pool in her eyes. “No, but they made me come in anyway. The DOA was Earl Schilling—my landlord.” Her voice broke. “He and his nephew kidnapped me from my apartment. Brian and Adam got there just in time.”
Adam’s jaw tightened. “Brian took a round during the rescue before returning fire.”
I felt like I was going to puke. “Where’s Conor?”
Adam answered. “He’s with the O’Briens. He’s fine. Kristy found him and called us.”
Lainey’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I was so scared I’d never see him again. And then he’d grow up without any parents.”
Hey, God. That prayer I sent up about Earl resting in peace? I take that back.
Adam reached over and pulled her against him. “Baby, I told you he’s fine. He was just a little hungry. You know Teresa and Hugh are taking good care of him.”
Baby?
There’d been gossip about my sister and Adam, but I’d thought it was just the rumor mill jumping to conclusions, like it had a tendency to do.
Apparently that was not the case this time.
Lainey grabbed my hand. “Please tell me Bri’s going to be okay.”
I squeezed her fingers. “They got him into surgery fast. That’s always a good thing. He’s strong, Lain. Not to mention he’s too damn stubborn not to come out of this okay.”
I had to believe that.
Because the alternative was something I couldn’t let myself consider.