He heard himself babbling and told himself to shut up. She said nothing, just kept studying him. He noticed she wasn’t even out of breath. Kicking ass must keep her cardiovascular system in top form, he thought.
“Seriously,” he said. “Are you okay? Is there anything I can do? If you’re in some kind of trouble, I can call a shelter, find you a safe place to stay.”
Still she said nothing, but her lips twitched, as if fighting a smile. He wasn’t sure what the joke was, but took a cautious step forward. “Everything’s all right,” he soothed, as if calming a wild doe, “now if I can just get you to come with me, I mean without rearranging my kidneys first, we’ll find an exam room, make sure you’re okay, and then we can talk about the trouble you’re in. Whatever it is, I bet we can fix it if we put our heads together.”
She opened her mouth and he waited eagerly, then they both heard the noise of pounding feet. Well, well, he thought tiredly, what do you know—security finally woke up from ye olde one A.M. snoozefest.
Whatever she had been about to say was forgotten as she reached up, just barely catching the bottom edge of the window. The hospital’s windows were old—no wire mesh—and deep-set. He watched with utter astonishment as she grabbed hold of the ledge and flipped her legs up and over her head, her boots smashing through the glass and the rest of her following through.
He figured it was a good thing they were in the lowest level of the hospital, because he had the feeling she would have gone through that window even if they’d been ten stories up. He wondered if the boots she wore had protected her from lacerations. Given the woman’s incredible speed and luck, he assumed they had.
“Well, it was nice meeting you,” he said numbly, and was nearly run over as two security guards came thundering around the corner. “She went thataway,” he added, pointed to the shattered window. “And don’t even try, she’s long gone. Come on, I’ll show you where the other one is.”
The guards had a thousand questions. Jared couldn’t tell them much and what he could tell them—the woman won, the woman was incredibly tough but seemed strangely vulnerable, the woman had eyes like the sky, the woman was going to be the mother of his children—he prudently kept to himself.
“You said the other one was in here, Dr. Dean?” one of the guards asked, and that was when Jared saw the woman’s assailant was gone. The only thing left of him was a small puddle of blood on the table, presumably from a nosebleed. “Fan out,” the guard said to the others, “he can’t have gone far, not after Dr. Dean bashed him around.”
“Actually,” Jared began and then shut up. He didn’t want to get the woman in more trouble, so he’d take the blame for KOing the bad guy. It hadn’t been the first time people had taken in his size and assumed he was capable of violence. And he had been, in his youth—certainly he’d been in more of his share of after-school scuffles. But years of stitching up victims, of probing for bullets and setting smashed limbs, had made him lose his taste for it. “Uh … actually, I should get back to work.”
“You got a description for us, doc?”
“For Nosebleed? Sure. About six-five, two hundred fifty pounds, shaved blond hair, one black eyebrow, one dislocated shoulder, one broken nose.”
“Uh-huh,” the guard asked, stepping close to Jared and sniffing him. This might have been intended to be a subtle move on the guard’s part, except the man had a deviated septum and Jared could hear the shrill whistling intake when the man inhaled. “Broken nose, one eyebrow, we’ll get right on it. You have anything to drink before you came on shift?” Sniff-sniff. Whistle-whistle.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jared snapped. “I gave up booze when I took up heroin. Seriously, I haven’t had a drop. The bad guy really did look like some sort of mutated freak of nature. Now go get him!” Before he catches up with what’s-her-name, he added silently.
The guards went, save for one who stayed behind to make sure Jared did his part of the dreary paperwork. Jared obediently followed him to the security office to fill out a report.
For the rest of his shift, he couldn’t help looking over his shoulder and peeking around corners, as if the woman might have come back. Ridiculous thought … but Jared kept an eye out, regardless.
He wondered who she was.
It took Kara an hour to stop trembling. Every time she started to calm down, the thought … Jesus! He almost had me! … would cycle back into her brain and she’d get the shakes again.
Carlotti, who’d been an utter creep since he was ten—and possibly before that—had chased her around like a dog, cornered her, and likely would have killed her—after having a little fun first, the raping swine—if she hadn’t gotten the drop on him.
She had spotted him before she was even all the way through the door of the club and immediately turned and walked out. She started running when she heard him scrambling behind her and the chase was on.
Now, in the privacy of her apartment, she collapsed on her thirty-dollar thrift shop couch—tastefully upholstered in puke orange—and relived the chase. Carlotti was big but fast—and driven. If fear had been the fuel for her legs, hatred was his.
Screw up one lousy drug shipment for the guy by siccing the Man on him, she thought morosely, and that was five years ago! And he’s still holding a grudge, still wants to kill me. Guy’s watched a few too many Godfather movies.
That was Carlotti’s problem—one of his problems, anyway. He fancied himself a Corleone, when in reality he was a Clouseau. Everyone on the wrong side of the law knew the mob wasn’t the all-seeing, vengeance-taking organization depicted in the movies. And as for “organized crime”—ha! It wasn’t organized at all. A few groups of loosely connected dealers, that was all. Sometimes they were successful in contracting crime to the local talent. Most times, not.
These days, the mob was a lot more interested in legitimate business—video arcades, karaoke bars, beauty salons. It was absolutely ridiculous how much a thriving salon could make in a fiscal year, especially if they also handled manicures. Lucrative and infinitely less dangerous than, say, running hookers.
Only the real idiots stayed in the drug trade, she knew. Too much heat, the feds had no tolerance for it, and the fall was long if you got pinched. Carlotti, of course, was a real idiot, and thus he fancied himself a mob drug lord. And, as a faithful disciple of mob movie fiction, he was still after her. As he’d proved tonight.
Shivering a little, she got up off the couch and headed for her mini bathroom. No shower, a cracked tub, and a rust-stained sink—the room was so small, when she sat on the toilet her knees touched the wall. It didn’t matter. It was hers and she liked to think of it as a snug fox den, a haven from predators.
She sat down on the rim of the tub and started to fill it with warm water—after tonight, she needed to get Carlotti’s stink off her—and thought about the idiot. She’d run for the hospital, naively thinking he wouldn’t follow her to a well-lit, populated building. She hadn’t counted on how deserted a hospital would be at three A.M. He’d finally cornered her and found out that a thief was never more dangerous than when her back was to the wall.
And the doctor who had seen everything—what was that about? He’d watched her, tried to warn her, and she could still feel the heat of his dark gaze. If she closed her eyes she could still see him—so broad-shouldered he nearly filled the doorway, with a lush mop of dark hair and the blackest eyes, strong, long-fingered hands, and a grin like lightning, a grin that lit up his whole face.
He’d chased her, but, to her surprise, not to hurt her or turn her in. To ask if she was all right. To ask if she needed a safe place to stay. She must have stared at him for an hour, or so it seemed. Who knows what she might have said—or done—if security hadn’t shown up. His gaze had been so curiously intense and his smile, this marvelous charming smile …
A sudden thought