28. Twenty-Eight

Chase

When your phone rings in the middle of the night, it’s hardly ever good news. I wake up and grab my cell phone.

“Carson?”

“Chase, we have an emergency. A guard has been shot. He was working a job on the Southbank. There was gunfire. Guy Sanders was taken to the hospital.”

“Damn. Okay. I’m on my way. Do you know how badly he’s injured?”

“I don’t know any more details. I’ll meet you there. He’s at Baptist.”

Also, now awakened and hearing half the conversation, Val asks, “Chase? Is something wrong?”

“There was some gunfire at a job. One of our guards has been taken to Baptist Hospital. He was shot. Carson is going to meet me there.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“You don’t have to, Val. You can go back to sleep.”

“No, Chase. I’m coming with you.”

“Okay, thanks, Val.”

I throw on some jeans and a blue hoodie and shove my feet into a pair of boots.

I look around to see if Val is ready. She comes out of the bathroom, brushing her hair and then she pulls it into a ponytail. She has on jeans and a gray hoodie as well.

“Ready?”

She nods, and then I drive us to Baptist Hospital.

When we get there, Carson is already talking to one of the doctors.

Val and I approach him. He turns with a grim look on his face.

“They’re going to extract the bullet. It nicked a main artery. They’re trying to stop the bleeding. They don’t know if he’ll have full use of his arm and hand. He got hit in the left shoulder.”

“But he’s out of danger?”

“Barely. The doctor said he lost a lot of blood. He said if it had been another ten minutes, Sanders might have bled out. I offered to give blood if they need it.”

“Do you know if he has any family? Anyone we need to notify?”

“He’s single, according to his HR record; there was an aunt in Georgia listed for next of kin. I called, but there was no answer, and her voicemail wasn’t set up.”

We walk over to the waiting area and sit down.

“It’s going to be a long night.”

Sometime during the night, Carson gets a call from the police. They have a suspect, and he’s being held for questioning. They believe it was an attempted robbery.

Finally, in the wee hours, the doctor comes to the door of the waiting room.

“Guy Sanders, family.”

“We’re his employers. How is he, Doctor?”

“He’s resting comfortably. We were able to control the bleeding. We won’t know how much use of his arm and hand he’ll have until he’s recovered from the surgery. We’ve done all we can. We’ll know more in about twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

“Thank you, Doctor. Can we see him?”

“Not at this time. He’s still under anesthesia. We can let him know you were here. Also, we can call you once he’s awake; just leave your contact information with the nurse’s station.”

After the doctor leaves, we grimly look at each other, and then we stand and stretch after our hours of waiting.

Carson turns to me, “Was Sanders one of the guards given a newer vest?”

“To tell you the truth, I’m not sure,” I look at Carson, “I want to go to the office. I need to check which vest Sander’s was issued.”

“Alright, I’ll meet you there. I doubt I could go back to sleep anyway,” Carson says with a yawn.

I look at Val. “I can drive you home if you want to try to get some sleep.”

“I’m wide awake. Let’s go,” Val smiles.

I”m glad she”s here with me.

When we get to Knight Security, the guard lets us in.

“How’s Sanders?” The guard on duty asks. Word spreads fast when someone’s been injured.

“He’s out of surgery. They don’t know if he’ll have the use of his arm and hand, but otherwise, he’s going to be okay.”

“Tough break. I sure hope he recovers.”

“Thanks, we do too.”

Once inside, we head to the ground floor. I go into Charlie’s office and pull the records.

“Shit, he was wearing one of the new vests.”

“Damn. Okay. Maybe we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions. If he was wearing the older vest, the bullet still may have penetrated.”

“When can we get a copy of the police report, Carson?”

“I would think later today. Chase, let’s test more of those new vests.”

We all walk into the protective gear room and over to the boxes of new vests.

“Let’s take one out of each of the boxes. I’ll take one from the bottom, Val, take one off the top, and Carson, you get one from the middle of the stack.”

We each pull out a vest, Carson and I go to the weapon cabinet and each gets a firearm. Carson loads the guns while I set up all three vests. We put on our ear and eye protection.

“Okay, shoot each vest a few times in different places with both calibers.”

Carson takes aim and shoots at each of the vests.

Once I pull the vests back in, we look them over carefully.

“The protection offered gets progressively worse. The vest that was taken from the top did fairly well. But this one on the bottom didn’t stop any of the bullets from penetrating. How the hell can this be?”

Carson pulls out his phone and calls Jaxson Gibson, our private investigator. Once he’s done, he turns to look at Val and me.

“As you heard, I asked him to come over and investigate this. If our findings turn out to be accurate, there will be a lawsuit. Sanders may be able to file a personal lawsuit, as well. He’ll probably be advised to file a lawsuit against us, and then we’ll be forced to counter-sue the vendor.”

“I think our next call should be to our lawyer. This is going to get messy.”

“I agree. I also need to contact our insurance rep. This is, after all, why we have insurance, unfortunately. I’m just glad Sanders came out of surgery, okay.”