Page 54 of Save Me
“Yes, sir,” Brigs said, and he felt the car lurch forward as he requested more information from the officer.
Instead of her responding, Amber’s voice replied.
“Brock?” She sounded hysterical.
“Baby,” he said over the radio. “My god. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she replied back quickly. “Emma?”
“She’s safe and with my mother. I’m on the way to you now. Use the officer’s phone and call me on my cell, so we can get off the official channel.”
His phone rang seconds later. Happily, he answered the video call.
Amber’s face filled the screen and when she saw him, she burst into tears.
“I think I killed him,” she cried.
He tensed. “Is the officer there?” he asked. Suddenly the phone shifted, and a female officer’s face came into view, one that he knew very well. “Officer Meyers, have you checked yet?” he asked.
“No, sir. I felt it best to stay with Amber here,” she answered easily. Then she glanced up. “Backup is here. I’ll give you back to Amber.” Meyers handed the phone over, and Amber’s face once more filled the screen.
“We’re still a few minutes out,” he told her. “Did he hurt you?” he asked, running his eyes over her.
She turned her head slightly and he saw a trickle of blood on her left temple.
“He hit me with his fist. Knocked me out. He said he poisoned me,” Amber said.
“Yeah, he got me and my dad too,” he told her as the patrol car turned off the main highway and onto 939. “Three miles away from you,” he told her. “I’m never going to let you go again.”
“Okay.” She smiled at him as tears rolled down her cheeks.
He could see the lights of the two patrol cars up ahead and, as Brigs pulled up behind one, he jumped out and met Amber’s waiting arms.
“I’m here,” he said over and over again. “I’m right here. I’ve got you.” He kissed her cheek as she cried.
Over her head, he watched two officers appear from the bushes, carting a body. He was slightly surprised when the man jerked his head up.
“You didn’t kill him,” he said to Amber. “See, he’s still alive. He’ll pay for what he did for the rest of his life.”
She jerked her head around, and they both watched the two officers strong-arm the guy into the back of a patrol car.
“He’s just a kid,” Amber said. “He can’t be more than eighteen.”
“Then he’ll have a very long time behind bars.” He walked her back to Brig’s patrol car to wait for an ambulance to take him and Amber back to the hospital. He hated to admit it, but he was weaker than he’d expected.
Almost two hours later, they sat in his father’s hospital room, listening to the monitors as they filled his dad in. His father had ingested more of the drug than he had. They had yet to identify it since there were more than a dozen different pill bottles in the back seat of the sedan, along with the tire iron that they suspected had killed Mike Rowlett.
Amber sat in the chair, holding Emma as her daughter slept in her arms. She had been thoroughly checked out by doctors and medically cleared. She had the tiniest bandage on her temple. White bandages covered the rope burns on both of her hands.
Since the man who had kidnapped her wasn’t completely coherent and there wasn’t any identification in the stolen car, they were waiting for the fingerprints to come back in order to identify him.
Amber had done a number on him. The guy, suspected to be in his late teens, was still having difficulty breathing and talking and was slipping in and out of consciousness.
His father was complaining that he couldn’t oversee the investigation but was thankful Brock had taken the reins.
“I knew you had it in you,” his father said softly.
“What? Bossing people around to find the love of my life?” Brock responded with a slight wink to Amber, who smiled back at him.
