Page 73 of Quiet Protector
While rubbing a kink from the back of my neck, I answer the question Regan is desperately seeking from my eyes. “He killed himself.”
“Why?” She sounds as shocked as I feel guilty. “He had a beautiful wife, an illustrious career, and two gorgeous daughters. Why would he leave that?”
I shrug. “Maybe he was depressed?”I most certainly am.
I don’t get time to dwell on my unexpected inner monologue when Regan’s squeal pierces my eardrums. “But why, Brandon?”
As curious as Regan, I take control of my laptop before logging into the Bureau mainframe. Shock horror, I still have access even with my resignation officially being handed in over two weeks ago.
Regan appears impressed when I bring up the official reports on Dane’s death, but she keeps her excitement on the down-low. She doesn’t trust me any more than I trust her.
For the length of time it takes for Regan to read the main report, it’s clear she needed more than a quick once-over to absorb all the information in front of her. Dane’s file doesn’t just disclose his cause of death, it reveals how he was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot during a raid six years ago. Alex saved him by carrying him down a meadow on his back, but Dane’s life was irreverently changed.
Is that why Isaac is paying Kristin a substantial chunk of money each month?
Was he responsible for Dane’s injuries?
Before I can seek answers to my questions in the reports in front of me, Regan closes the laptop screen, then hands it back to me. I grow worried my surly mood is contagious when her eyes lift and lock with mine. She looks like a woman on the edge of a cliff—not an orgasmic one.
“Thank you for showing me that.”
I dip my chin before voicing the only question in my head she can answer. “Are you going to tell Izzy about today?”
I’m hoping she says yes, but I’m left short-changed when she replies, “I won’t have anything to tell her if you tell her first.”
I almost say, ‘I doubt Isabelle will believe me,’ but before I can, she slides into the back of the taxi, leaving me defenseless to the bullets flying over my head on the corner of Tivot and St. Thomas Street.
31
Brandon
While signaling for the diners eating outside to get down, I dump my briefcase in a hidey-hole before unclipping the revolver harnessed to my waist. After doing a quick scope of the area, it’s obvious which direction the bullets are coming from. A large, brute of a man is hanging out the passenger side window of a heavily-tinted white Range Rover. His gun is pointed at Hugo, who’s chasing the vehicle on foot.
“Fuck. Get down,” Hugo shouts before barging an elderly lady waiting on the bus out of the firing zone.
Just as the lady’s backside lands on the steel bench seat of the bus shelter, Hugo’s left shoulder is hit with a bullet. As he struggles to get back on his feet, I fire at the Range Rover. I take out the passenger’s side mirror and rear windshield, but the assailant goes around the corner too quickly for me to fire at the driver.
“My name is Brandon James. I'm an FBI Field Agent. My number is 443567. I need an ambulance sent to the corner of Tivot and Welsh.”
“Blondie?” Hugo coughs up a good chunk of blood when he peers up at me. His pupils are massive, and blood is squirting out of his wound, but the fact he can greet me is a good sign.
When Hugo commences convulsing a short time later, the urgency of the situation dawns on me. “A bullet appears to have nicked an artery,” I relay to the operator on the other end of the line. “How far out are first responders?”
My teeth grit when she answers, “Ten, fifteen minutes.”
“He’ll bleed out by then.” I search the area, seeking any instruments that will help me save Hugo’s life. “Bring me the bucket of ice,” I shout to a couple enjoying a Sunday morning mimosa with their brunch. The middle-aged gentleman is unsure how ice will help a man who’s been shot, but he brings me the goods as requested. “Take your shirt off and wrap the ice cubes in it. The coolness of the ice will constrict his blood vessels, giving me some time to hunt for the nicked artery.”
Nodding, the gray-haired man tugs off his expensive-looking polo shirt before dumping the full bucket of ice into it. Once I show him how to compress the makeshift dressing to Hugo’s chest, I dig two fingers into Hugo’s bullet wound, seeking the vein responsible for the puddle of blood I’m kneeling in. With most arteries pumping around one hundred milliliters of blood per heartbeat, I don’t have minutes to save Hugo.
I have seconds.
Certain the gush against my fingers is from a severed artery, I lift my eyes to the bystander caught in the middle of a turf war. “Pass me your money clip.”
The urgency of my tone doesn’t give the stranger time to question how I know he has a money clip. His expensive loafers, three-hundred-dollar jeans, and thick gold chain gave away the fact he’d never place his money into a wallet like a normal person. He can’t show off his large bundle of cash if he keeps it hidden.
“Ahh… should you be doing that?” The man talks through the lump in his throat, sickened by me inching his money clip into Hugo’s wound.
“We need to clamp the artery. Unless you have a set of sterile surgical clamps, I’ll work with what we have.” Once I’m happy the money clip is slowing the flow of blood pumping out of Hugo’s heart, I check his pulse. It’s there, but it is weak as hell.
