Stella channeled some of her partner’s calm. “My backup should be here any minute. How about I have patrol sweep the area for her? Then will you agree to go to the ER?”

He gave her a curt nod. “But it’ll be faster if you drive me.”

She hesitated. He was right. It would likely take an ambulance twenty minutes just to drive out here. She could have him at the hospital in that amount of time. Her gaze dropped to the spreading patch on his shirt. How badly was he injured?

The red-white-and-blue strobe lights of a patrol car cut through the darkness. Stella briefed the responding officer and herded Mac to her car. He got into the passenger seat gingerly, and she bet he was hurt much worse than he would admit.

She leaned into the car. “I should put a pressure bandage on that wound.”

“It’s not that bad. Do you have a first-aid kit?” Mac lifted the hem of his shirt.

Stella got the kit from her trunk and slid behind the wheel. “Let me take a look at that.”

Mac waved her off and opened a stack of gauze pads. “Honest, I’ll be fine.”

Suddenly Stella remembered that Brody was with Hannah because her father was dying. Mac’s father!

She touched his hand. “Were you at the nursing home tonight?”

Mac deflated as a deep sigh eased from his chest. “My father passed away a short while ago.”

“I’m so sorry.”

He answered with a sharp nod, then turned to the window and studied the darkness. Had he been so upset by his father’s death that he hadn’t been thinking straight and had crashed his car? Visibility had been poor. He could have mistaken an animal in the road for a human. She hated to think of other possible causes of hallucinations.

She reached for his shirt and lifted it. Bandages already covered the side of Mac’s torso. Blood had soaked through the white gauze. His shirt and the bandages were soaking wet, and the tape was peeling off in places. His injury wasn’t new.

“What is this?” Stella’s anger flared again. She bit it back. Patience. But really, couldn’t this man be up-front rather than make her drag every bit of information out of him?

“Gunshot.”

Shock and concern bloomed fresh. “When were you shot?”

“Long story.”

So much for keeping her anger in check. What was Mac into?

She studied his profile. Despite his annoying habit of not telling her anything, she liked him. She’d found him smart, determined, and if she was totally honest, too damned good-looking for his—or her—own good. But as a cop, and maybe a loose friend, she needed to play hardball. His behavior was too odd, and his family had alluded to a past that included a teenage stint in a rehab facility.