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Brian frowned at that. Adam loved his mother, and he had a feeling he would want to make sure she was fine himself, even if she didn’t look great. “Don’t worry about him, then. I’m leaving work now.”
He suited actions to words and started gathering stuff up, propping his phone between his shoulder and cheek. He shoved the Demitri file into his laptop bag to work on later. Parker was out of the office right now, so he wouldn’t even notice Brian had left. “Do you have clothes when they release you tomorrow?”
“No,” Sage admitted, and he thought he might have woken her. She might be mildly sedated, or maybe it was just pain he heard in her voice. “I’ll find something,” she said, voice soft.
“Okay,” Brian said quietly. “Go rest. It sounds like you need it.”
“Thanks, Brian.”
Fuck. He got his legs moving and headed out of the office, jogging to his truck. It was a testament to how concerned he was, because he didn’t even look where he was jogging. He just did it. Tossing his stuff inside, he headed for home.
His heart was racing, and he didn’t like the nauseated feeling. When he’d read the article on his phone, he’d never imagined that Sage would be part of the injured. Apparently, a drugged out former felon had been driving like an idiot, and when they tried to pull him over, he’d gone crazy, crashing into other cars. Then, when they got him out of the car, he’d resisted arrest because he had a warrant. Three cops had been injured in the altercation, one seriously and one critically. The third had already been treated and released.
It made him ill to think of Sage being injured.
Adam met him at the door when he walked across the grass yard, and his big hazel eyes were dark with worry. Without a word, he walked to Brian and wrapped his thin arms around his waist.
Brian hugged the boy back for a moment, then pushed him back with his shoulders. “Hey,” he said, bending down to eye level. “I just talked to her and she’s going to be okay. She says she’s beat up and not very pretty right now, but she’s okay,” he stressed.
There were tears in Adam’s eyes, but he nodded his head. He pulled his glasses off and wiped his eyes. “That’s what she told me too, but I want to see her. Will you take me? Please?”
Brian had known the boy was going to want to see her, so he nodded. “Let’s pack her a bag first, okay?”
It was weird going through a woman’s closet he didn’t know well. He relied on Adam to point out a few things he knew she liked to wear. Then he grabbed a pair of neatly folded underwear from her top drawer. She probably had a bra, so he didn’t even go looking beyond that first drawer.
Adam found him a small duffle to put everything in.
“Shoes,” he said, just before they left the apartment.
Adam ran to the back French doors and grabbed a pair of tennis shoes. “She likes to run in these, so I know they’re comfortable.”
“Perfect,” Brian said, opening the bag so they could put them in. “Anything else you think she’d like to have?”
They’d grabbed deodorant, a toothbrush and toothpaste from her bathroom. They probably had that stuff in the hospital, but he knew from experience the more of your stuff you could take in, the better and more comfortable you’d be.
“Does she have a tablet?” Brian asked, glancing around.
Adam winced. “No. I dropped it when we were moving, and she hasn’t replaced it yet.”
“Well, how about a charger for her phone?”
Adam raced off again. Once they had everything, they thought she might need, Adam closed and locked the door behind them.
Mt. Carmel Hospital was just a couple miles away. Brian headed to the emergency room side, just because he had no idea where she might have been taken. She was probably already in a room.
The attendant at the front desk was very helpful, sending them through a maze of corridors and elevators to get to the patient rooms. They found 719 not by the number, but by the number of uniformed cops spilling out of the waiting room just outside the elevator. There was an older woman pacing the hallway and Adam ran to her.
“Candice!”
This must be the wife of her partner. Brian walked up to them and waited.
“Is Gary okay? Do you know where my mom is?”
Candice cupped his cheeks in her hands and Brian could see her forced smile. “Yes,” she said firmly. “Gary is going to be okay. They just took him into surgery. And your mom’s room is right down there.” She pointed and Brian could see the room number.
Candice looked up at Brian, and he could see her trying to pull her emotions together. “Are you…”
“Just a friend of the family,” Brian cut in, and introduced himself.
