By the time I explain to the dispatcher what’s happened and give her the pathetic bits of description I can about the thief, Chloe starts to wake.
“Hey, hey,” I say softly as a sense of relief washes over me. I’ve got one hand on my cell phone, and with the other, I stroke her hair away from her face. “Stay with me. An ambulance is on its way.”
She blinks very slowly, but within a few seconds, the color returns to her face and she sits up. “Oh my God,” she whispers, and before I know it, she’s retching on the floor.
“Chloe,” I say, keeping my voice as gentle as I can. “Did he hurt you? Are you hurt?”
I can hear the police sirens in the background, and the dispatcher is telling me the police are less than a minute away.
“She’s up,” I tell dispatch, but she doesn’t want me to end the call or disconnect until EMS arrives on the scene.
“Is the door unlocked?” the lady on the other end of the phone asks. “They’ll break down the door if they can’t get in.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll meet them. Don’t let them go busting in the door,” I mutter, because now that Chloe is conscious—shaking and crying but conscious—the only thing I give a shit about is making sure she’s okay.
“Chloe,” I say again quietly. “Are you hurt?”
She doesn’t respond.
I hear the squad car slamming its doors out front. I bark into my phone that the police are here and I’m hanging up. I toss my phone on the floor, then run to the front doors to greet the officers.
The squad car has its lights going, and before the officers even reach the store, an ambulance pulls up and parks.
“She was passed out when I came in,” I say to the paramedics. “She woke up, puked, and hasn’t moved or said a word. I don’t know what happened in here. All I know is what happened out on the street.”
The officers ask me a few questions about the details, what I saw, what I remember about the clothes, the body size, anything I can tell them about the guy. But unfortunately, it’s just not much. With the mask and hoodie, I couldn’t tell them if he was pink, purple, or anything else.
“It happened so fast,” I say. “I didn’t get a look at his hands, but he must have had gloves on. I would have remembered if there was any skin showing. I don’t even remember the color of his eyes. I’m sorry. I just… I… Can we do this later?”
My heart is finally starting to slow down, and the only thing I care about is checking on Chloe. The paramedics already walked past me and are talking to Chloe. I am still giving the police my statement when one of the EMS lifts his head and calls over to me.
“Hey, Franco. Can you come back here?”
I recognize the guy as one of my brother Vito’s buddies. “Hey, Nick.” I look at the cops. “Am I good here? Can I go?”
They let me go back into the store, so I walk over to Nick.
“Is she okay?” I ask. I could ask Chloe herself, but she’s shaking so hard that the other paramedic has her sitting on the floor while he asks quiet questions and checks her out.
“Pretty sure it’s shock,” Nick tells me. “She’s going to need a bit, though. I’d be scared out of my ass too. The guy had a knife. From what it sounds like, it was a big one—hunting style. You were both lucky no one was hurt.”
Before I know it, I’m stalking past Nick, shoving my way past the other paramedic, and I’m on my knees on the carpet in front of Chloe.
“Hey,” I whisper. “You’re okay. It’s going to be okay now.”
She looks up at me and swallows. She blinks, tears streaming down her face, and throws herself into my arms.
6
CHLOE
“Are those mints?”My voice is unnaturally hoarse from all the heaving and crying. “Can I have one?”
I’m in the passenger seat of Franco’s truck, and as soon as I see the tin of mints in the center console, I think about my puke breath and my parched throat.
“Yeah. Help yourself.” Franco has been quiet on the drive, but to be fair, I have been too.
We spent more than two hours with the police at Latterature. Plenty of time for me to go over what happened.
