“Did the person who yelled those words sound angry or amused or drunk? Did you recognize the voice at all?”
“Angry, I think. N-no, not drunk.” Sasha’s chest felt so tight, her heart thudding, adrenaline making her blood go cold.
Julia leaned down. “Are you okay, honey?”
“It’s hard … to breathe.”
“She’s having a panic attack.” That was Detective Silva. “Call the nurse.”
A panic attack?
Sasha had never had a panic attack before.
Then Detective Silva was there, sitting on the bed beside her, his voice soft, soothing. “Look at me, Ms. Dillon. Try to slow your breathing.”
Sasha looked into his eyes, tried to do what he’d told her to do, the fingers of her good hand instinctively closing around his wrist.
“In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Nice and slow. You’re safe. No one is going to let anything happen to you. I promise. In and out. That’s it.”
The door opened, and Ellie hurried in.
Julia spoke softly. “She’s having a panic attack.”
“I’ll be right back with medication.”
Sasha heard them, but she was focused entirely on those gray eyes and the soothing tone of his voice. By the time Ellie returned with meds, the sharpest edges of her panic had receded, the tightness in her chest lessening.
Ellie pointed toward the door. “Enough questions. Sasha needs rest. Those are nurse’s orders.”
Julia nodded. “Sorry about this, Sasha.”
Detective Silva stood. “I hope you feel better soon, Ms. Dillon. We’ll do all we can to find these guys.”
Sasha couldn’t ask for more than that. “Thank you.”
Ellie injected something into her IV. “This is just a little sedative to help you relax. You survived a terrible attack. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to talk with Esri.”
Esri Tsering was a trauma therapist who volunteered for the Team, helping members deal with the emotionally challenging aspects of search-and-rescue work.
“Yeah.” Sasha’s worries seemed to melt as the drug took hold, and she drifted off to sleep.
Chapter4
“Why didyou ask Sasha stuff that is already covered in my report?”
It took Darius a moment to register Deputy Marcs’ question, an image of Ms. Dillon’s panicked blue eyes fixed in his mind. She’d grabbed his wrist, her touch giving him an unwelcome jolt. He could still feel the heat of—
“Detective Silva?” Deputy Marcs drove out of the hospital parking lot.
“Sometimes people remember things differently later. Besides, you didn’t cover all of it.” Darius glanced at his notes. “She says she didn’t react in a way that might have provoked a response, so we can rule that out as a motivation—at least for now.”
“Are you trying to blameherfor this?”
“No, of course not.” The note of irritation in Deputy Marcs’ voice told Darius she was too close to Ms. Dillon to be objective. “I’m trying to understand the attackers’ motivation. They passed her once without trying to hit her. If their goal was to harm her, why did they wait to strike? If she had flipped them off or told them to fuck themselves when she’d passed them, it might explain it.”
“Maybe they knew that Austin Taylor wasn’t far behind them. His ranger truck looks like any other law enforcement vehicle with overheads and takedown lights. Maybe they waited until he’d passed, and they were sure the coast was clear.”
“That’s a possibility.” Darius made a note to call Taylor later. “The other thing she told us was that the voice sounded angry. If they hadn’t meant to hit her—let’s say they’d only wanted to harass her—they might have sounded afraid or amused.”
