and liquor.
The odor was sharper. More metallic.
She opened the door, engaging the dome light and, for a long moment, simply stared without comprehension at the wet red stain spreading across the front of Danny’s shirt. It had been hidden under his folded arms before, she realized.
Danny gazed at her, his expression twisted with fear and pain. “Gigi?”
She dug for her phone and dialed 9-1-1.
Anson entered the emergency room waiting area and acquired his target in seconds, despite the crowd of people filling the chairs and sofas scattered around the room. She sat in the corner, an island of stillness in a kinetic sea of anxiety, her blond hair now finger-combed into some sort of order and her hands folded serenely in her lap.
But as her soft blue eyes flicked up to meet his, he saw the terror her placid facade was hiding.
“Did you get checked out?” Her voice was low and tight.
“Yeah. Nothing broken. Didn’t even need stitches in my cheek.” The cut under his black eye was hurting like hell, but he refrained from whining about it, under the circumstances. “Any word on your brother?”
She shook her head. “I’m hoping no news is good news.”
“It might be.” He waved at the seat beside her. “Okay if I sit?”
“Of course.” She edged over as if to give him extra room. He sat beside her, taking care not to touch her. He had the strangest feeling that if he touched her, she would shatter.
“Thank you for the ride,” she added. “I really didn’t want to catch a ride with the cops.”
He touched his swollen nose with his fingertips, wincing at the inevitable pain. “You got warrants out on you or something?”
“No.” She answered as if it were a serious question.
Her response intrigued him, but he tabled his curiosity for later. “They’ll probably have more questions. They’re lurking near the exam rooms right now, I guess waiting for a chance to interview your brother.”
“It won’t do them much good. He’s not sober enough to make any sense anyway.” A touch of bitterness darkened her voice. She seemed to hear it herself, her expression icing over and her posture stiffening. “You probably want to get home. I can call a cab or something.”
“I’m in no hurry to get home.” He started to settle his long limbs more comfortably in the chair beside her, then stopped short. “Unless you want me to leave?”
She gave him a long, considering look that made him feel as if he were undergoing some sort of silent assessment. Finally, she shook her head. “I don’t mind the company.”
Ringing endorsement, that. He stretched his legs out and attempted to get a little more comfortable.
After a few minutes she broke the silence. “Did the police talk to you about those men?”
“They did.”
“Do you think you could identify them from a lineup?”
She sounded so hopeful, he hated to answer truthfully. “I didn’t get a very good look at any of them. I was focused on getting you clear of them, and after that, I was pretty much on the ground with my arms around my head having the hell kicked out of me.”
She winced. “I’m so sorry about that.”
“Not your fault.”
“I can’t get over how lucky I was that you were there. It was really brave of you to come to my rescue that way.”
The tentative smile she flashed at him felt like sunshine and rainbows and fireworks exploding, and he felt like a complete idiot for the direction of his thoughts. “Isn’t that sort of the company motto? All for one and one for all?”
“I think that’s The Three Musketeers.”
“Great book.”
“But a sadly flawed movie.”
“Which one?” He slanted a look at her.
“Any of them.”
That did it. He was in geek love.
“I guess I need to call Mr. Quinn and let him know I’ll be late coming in tomorrow morning.” She looked at her watch, frowning. “It’s after ten.”
“Quinn never sleeps. I think he’s a vampire.”
Her startled laughter sounded like music.
Oh, God, he had to stop thinking like that.
“I can call him for you,” he offered. “We’re tight.”
“Oh, is that why he put you on administrative leave?” she asked tartly.
Uh-oh, she had a sassy side. He was in trouble now. “Yeah, he loves me. All these days off with pay. I’m a lucky guy.”
“There’s an internal investigation, right?” She gave him another side-eyed look. “Something about information leaks?”
There was an odd tone to her voice that once again tugged at his curiosity. But before he could answer, the door to the waiting room opened, and every eye in the place focused on the man in the green scrubs who walked through the opening.
“Ms. Coltrane?”
As the others in the waiting room slumped back into miserable anticipation, Ginny stood up, her spine straight and her head high as the doctor approached her. Only the clenching and unclenching of her hands gave any indication of her stress.
“I’m Ginny Coltrane.” Her voice was clear. Strong. Anson marveled at her composure, because his own gut was twisting into knots of anxiety as he waited for the doctor to speak.
“I’m Dr. Emerson. I’m the attending physician for your brother, Daniel. Your brother suffered a single penetrating stab wound to the upper-right abdomen. The good news is that the blade missed any major blood vessels and the lungs. But he does have a liver laceration that has us worried, especially given his blood-alcohol level. Does he have a history of liver disease?”
Ginny glanced at Anson before she spoke. “He— Not that I know of. But he is a heavy drinker.”
The doctor nodded. “He’s young and relatively healthy, and the liver injury should heal on its own without further intervention, but we’ll want to keep him here a few days for observation.”
Anson could tell from the doctor’s tone that a big part of the “observation” would be to make sure Danny Coltrane didn’t try to filter any more liquor through his injured liver before it had a little time to heal.
Ginny knew it, too. He could see the misery in her eyes as she nodded. “I think that’s a good idea.”
“We can’t force him to stay if he decides to disregard our medical advice,” Dr. Emerson warned. “You may need to speak to him about the importance of letting us do our jobs.”
“I know. I’ll speak to him.” She smiled at the doctor, but there was no relief in her expression, only a miserable fragility that elicited a deep ache in the center of Anson’s chest.
“Right now, he’s sleeping, but if you want to go see him before we transfer him to a room—”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”
Dr. Emerson looked at Anson. “If you wish, your friend can go with you. There are a couple of chairs in the exam room.”
Anson started to demur, but Ginny looked at him with those misery-filled baby blues and he was ready to follow her into a raging fire if she needed him to.
What