“Let me see what I can find out about it.” She hurried from the room.
“Can I borrow your phone?” Eb asked Gretchen.
“Of course, but you know their number by heart?”
He opened his mouth to sayyesbut then snapped it shut. “They moved to Florida a few years back, and it’s on speed dial.”
Gretchen gave a grim chuckle. “We rely on our machines too much. It’s bad for our memories.”
Inez hurried into the office, carrying his phone. “The paramedic said I can drive you to the ER.”
“Make sure he gets there before you take him home,” his boss said to his assistant.
“You bet I will, ma’am.”
“I’m heading there too. But first I need to talk to my attorney,” Gretchen muttered as she left the room.
Eb could ask the ER doctor for recommendations on how to broach his injury to Rue.
* * *
Sandra was hangingup her clothes when her phone rang with Eb’s ring. She grabbed it.
“Eb?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Inez brought me to the ER, and I’m waiting to be seen. I wanted to let you know I’m okay and to thank you for picking up Rue for me. But say nothing to her about me getting shot.”
“Oh, man. It’s all over the news, Eb.” Sandra had a powerful urge to hold Rue and protect her from thoughtless people. “I hope no one at the daycare center has said anything.”
“At least the kids are off from school. Do you mind giving Millie a call about it? Hey, the doctor’s here, so I have to go.”
Eb had sounded a little woozy, like people do who’ve been medicated. Which, of course, he had. The man hadshotEb. Her stomach tightened at the thought, and Sandra took a second to calm down. He was all right. Once her mood lightened, she dialed the daycare center.
“I’m glad to hear Eb wasn’t hurt too badly. It’s a good thing he’s added you to the authorized pick-up list.” Millie lowered her voice. “If you can, I’d recommend you come to get Rue right away. We never know what children overhear.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
“Grace and Alex will want to know why she’s leaving early,” Millie warned. “Best to have an answer for them.”
Sandra made a quick stop at the grocery store, deciding there might be more conversations about the shooting there than at the daycare center. And she was right. It was all anyone was talking about.
When she stood in the checkout line, one woman was even showing video footage. It appeared a resort employee had turned on their phone’s video recorder. Sandra couldn’t help herself; she peered over the shopper’s shoulder.
It showed an office corridor and a man bursting out a door. After glancing at the person doing the recording, he turned the other direction. Which was when Sandra recognized Eb running toward the man. He lifted his arm at the same time Eb flew at him. The sound of the gun firing made Sandra gasp and must have startled the person holding the phone. Things got blurry for a couple of seconds but then came into focus again on Eb wrangling with the man on the floor.
Sandra straightened, unable to watch anymore. When she tried to punch in her pin to pay for her purchase, she shook so badly she had to do it three times.
“Sorry,” she mumbled to the clerk, “that video was upsetting.”
“Right?” the clerk said with enthusiasm. “It’s scary to think something like that can happen right here in Huckleberry Falls.”
Sandra could only hope it would never happen again. She took her package and hurried back to the car. Millie must have been looking for her because she waved Sandra over to the front desk.
“I had one of my teachers set up a small group for the younger children. Alex resisted because he’s in first grade, but she finally convinced him to come along. There’s only a half-dozen of them, so Rue shouldn’t have heard anything yet that you wouldn’t want her to.”
“Thank you so much,” Sandra said, logging into the computer to check out the little girl. “This must be hard for you and your staff because I imagine kids have lots of questions.”
“Sadly, we’ve had training for this.”
