At the last second, the bumper skimmed by, a hairbreadth away. The truck bounced back over the curb, the engine revved and then it took off down the street, blowing through the red light at the turn for Baldwin Memorial.
She didn’t breathe until it was out of sight. She’d dropped the paintings. They lay scattered across the concrete, their cardboard faces hiding the damage underneath. Pressing her hand to her chest, she dropped to her knees, mind reeling.
The shopkeeper came out of the bookstore, shouting her name when he recognized her. As he crouched in front of her, gripping her free hand, she watched his lips move. Whatever he said wouldn’t penetrate the high-pitched terror ringing in her ears.
Her gaze fell on the sidewalk. It seized on the black stain of tire treads, marking the place she’d been seconds before.
Chapter 6
“You talk to Sassy today?” Ryan Colton asked as he pushed through the door of the break room and found Nick at a table chowing down on a quick dinner between callouts.
“Briefly,” Nick answered, pinching a dumpling from the takeout container with his chopsticks. He brought it to his mouth instead of rehashing how the conversation had gone.
Ryan’s incisive stare bore into him. “Before or after her near hit-and-run experience?”
The next dumpling fell back into the container with a plop. “What?”
“Truck nearly mowed her down on the sidewalk on the way to the hospital this morning,” Ryan stated.
Nick cursed and reached for his cell phone. He found Sassy at the top of his contacts list and dialed, pushing away the chopsticks and the rest of the food. His stomach knotted as the line rang repeatedly in his ear, his heel tapping urgently against the floor.
“Hello?” she answered.
His free hand tightened over his knee. “You okay?” he asked without preamble.
He caught the sound of her weary sigh. “Who told you?”
“I had to hear it from Ryan. What the hell, Sassy?”
“Sorry. I meant to call you. I just started processing what happened.”
He took a steadying breath and gripped his knee harder when it started to bounce. “You didn’t answer me.Are you okay, Haseya?”
“Physically? I’m fine. I dropped the paintings, so they’re a whole other story…”
“They can be replaced,” he told her. “You can’t.”
“Yeah. I get that. I’m slowly moving past shock and into anger. It’s much better than the numbness.”
“Do you need someone?” he asked, lowering his voice. He never abandoned a shift, but he was sure if he called around he could find someone to cover him for a few hours so he could tend to his best friend.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I’m with Fern. I think we both needed to see a familiar face.”
Nick felt the muscles in his jaw tighten. He glanced at Ryan, who was still posted at the door, listening. “Heard.”
“My truck broke down, so Mom said she’d pick me up,” she explained. She paused. “Can I call you when I get home?”
“You know you can call me anytime you need,” he assured her. It didn’t matter where they’d left things this morning. Whatever arguments they’d had over the last two decades had never not been set aside in times of need.
“Thanks, Nick. I’ve got to go.”
“Talk to you later,” he said and waited until she hung up before lowering the phone. “How did you find out?” he asked Ryan.
Sassy’s cousin pushed off the jamb and crossed to the table. He pulled out a chair. “Ran into Harvey after responding to an MVC an hour ago. He said the chief got called to the scene near the hospital. The report says the driver missed her by inches.”
Holy shit.“Did she get a good look at the guy?”
Ryan shook his head. “It happened too fast. She didn’t get the license plate number, either. Just a vague description of the vehicle. Black Ford F-150.”
