Do No Harm (Dr. Aubrey Drake #1)

by Avery Michaels

  “You got it, Doc,” he said with a wink.

  Chapter 5

  Ben’s demeanor was cool for the rest of our shift. We both stayed late again to help with a scaffolding accident. I had to set some bones. Ben could’ve left, but he stayed on to assist, even when the day nurse offered to relieve him. I didn’t know why and didn’t care. I was grateful. Having Ben was like having an extra set of hands.

  When we wrapped things up, we both grabbed our things and headed for the door. It felt weird to know I wouldn’t see him all week. He’d been the only person I’d really spoken to, or spent time with, since I’d arrived in town. He didn’t say anything as we walked to the parking structure. I guessed this would be our routine now.

  I surprised even myself when I reached out and touched his arm as he veered off toward his own vehicle. He looked down at my hand then at me. I just stood there not knowing exactly what I wanted to say.

  “What is it?”

  “I…Well, I’ll be starting some free clinic work at the shelter over on Charleston Street, but other than that, I don’t have any friends here, so I was thinking maybe you might like to hang out this week sometime,” I said with a shrug.

  “I thought I mentioned this, but I’m not social with my co-workers. I have a life, Drake. Good luck finding yourself one.” At that, he was gone.

  His words were so mean that I almost cried. I stood there in the cold, waiting for him to come back and apologize, but he didn’t. I heard his car crank, so I got in mine and left. I suddenly saw a side of Ben that I hadn’t seen before. Maybe it was the side that Detective Morris saw that made him behave so hostilely toward Ben.

  I shrugged off Ben’s meanness thinking, that maybe, despite his douchebag-like behavior, just maybe, I could make friends with Todd Morris. I knew I needed to make friends with someone, and I supposed he was as good a start as any.

  After a good day's sleep, I woke up in the late afternoon and lounged around my apartment. I found myself watching the news while still in my pajamas. I was, as always, doing my research. I wasn’t looking for trouble; plenty of that was coming to me. No, I was looking for details on The Village Rapist. Fragments of a story that would have been made public, or possibly witnesses. I didn’t know exactly, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to learn more. If I was going to do this, I had to do it well prepared.

  Even though I had scheduled drinks with Detective Morris, in an attempt to pry some information from him, I figured it would be best to have something to offer to the conversation.

  This was especially true because I could tell, just from being around Todd, that he had an ego the size of Texas. I could use that to my advantage. In fact, I fully intended to do just that by using other crimes happening in the city, commenting on them, and massaging his ego by telling him what a good job he was doing “cleaning up the streets.” It seemed so cliché I thought it would work.

  As I watched the news, I was reminded of why I never watched the news. I was too sensitive, and entirely too compassionate. I couldn’t take it. Conceivably, my compassion was driving this new Aubrey. I didn’t know if I could go out and catch a rapist, but I knew I couldn’t sit idly by as he sent victim after victim into my trauma rooms. What I feared was that those weren’t the only ones. We weren’t the only hospital in town, and I wasn’t the only doctor taking these patients. There were so many unknown factors. But that was where handsome, egotistical Todd came in.

  I wasn’t sure how to dress for a non-date, drinks date where one party saw it as a date and the other as an opportunity. This would be where a girlfriend would come in handy. Still though, what would I say? Hey, girlfriend! I’m trying to manipulate a cop so I can go commit a crime. What should I wear? Even Cosmo didn’t have a section on that.

  I looked through the lackluster clothes in my closet and figured, with the size of his ego, the sluttier, the better. Even I had a little black dress. I slipped it on with my black and white heels. They gave me height. At work, I’d worn my long, dark hair pulled back in a bun or tied in a knot with a pencil, but I left it down for drinks. I also put on just a touch of makeup, a bit of light shadow to lighten my dark eyes, and dabbed on some clear lip-gloss.

  I looked myself over in the mirror. I didn’t know I still had it, but I totally did. I looked sexy. Not like a student, which I’d been for the past twenty years, or a doctor, which I’d been for the past several days, but like a woman. I smiled at my reflection, grabbed a clutch, and headed for the door.

  As juvenile as it seemed, I called my parents as I walked to the elevator of my building to let them know where I was going and who I was with. A habit perfected by hopping from one place to another while in med school. A habit that had once seemed ridiculous, but now, in my adult mind, was not only reasonable, but also necessary. After seeing the worst the big city had to offer, I felt that everyone should be so cautious.

  I was hanging up with my dad when I exited the building and ran right into Todd. He startled me so much that I almost introduced him to that Saturday night special handgun in my clutch.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked anxiously.

  “You said the Pubster, right? You told me it was around the corner from your building.”

  “And?”

  “And this is the only apartment building on the block. I thought I would walk with you. As you can see, this isn’t the safest city, yeah?”

  I deliberated for a moment, but of course, he was right. Creepy, but right. It wasn’t the worst city I’d ever been in, but rather, I’d seen the worst of this city. Besides, he was a cop. He’d probably looked up my address the moment that he had asked me out. I would have if I were him.

  He held out his arm, but I slapped it away with a laugh. He motioned for me to lead the way, so I did.

  “You look nice. I know that sounds like a come-on, but you do.”

  “Thanks. You clean up all right too, Todd.” I wasn’t lying. He was on point in a pair of dark jeans and a button-down shirt. It was sort of frat-boyish, but it worked for him.

  When we arrived at the establishment, it was bare. It was Sunday evening, after all. We took our pick of a corner booth. I chose it in hopes that privacy would help him feel like he could speak freely about his casework. I presumed from his grin that he was pleased with the privacy for much different reasons.

  I ordered a glass of their house white wine while he ordered a gin and tonic on the rocks. “Hold the tonic,” he joked.

  “Wow, straight liquor, huh?” I raised a brow. He was making it too easy.

  “Don’t judge me, Doc. It’s been a long week.”

  “Tell me about it.” I guess he thought I was just using the expression because he sort of laughed, but I wasn’t. I meant it. “No, really, tell me about it. I’m really interested in your work.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes. It’s so brave. Plus, you’re so young to have already made detective. How old are you anyway?” I began nursing his ego as he sipped his tonic-less gin.

  “Twenty-five,” he started and just kept going.

  With him being a cop, I thought he would’ve known better. Even I knew that you learned more about people by just letting them talk, but obviously, that concept was lost on him. He told me everything except the two things I wanted to know most: details on The Village Rapist and how he could hate Ben. I don’t know why the latter mattered, but it did. Even when Ben said mean things, he did so politely, as if it bothered him.

  I allowed Todd Morris to ply himself with alcohol until I felt like he was tipsy enough to let things slip, but still sober enough to remember the facts, before I began asking specific questions.

  “This Village Rapist case has me really concerned,” I told him.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you, beautiful.”

  I knew then I would have to play that girl. The girl who needed a man to take care of her. That was the kind of girl Todd would open up to.

  I batted my eyelashes and ran my han
d through my hair. “But you’re not with me all the time, Todd. Tell me, has he struck anywhere else?”

  “Ooo, you’re trying to get me in trouble, little miss. I’m not allowed to talk about the case.”

  “It’s just me. I already know more about it than most people because I’ve been the only doctor working on the case since I arrived in town.”

  “You aren’t the only doctor. This guy has spread his victims clear across town. They only call him The Village Rapist because The Village victims get the most media attention, despite the fact that they don’t even talk to the press. They’re rich bitches.”

  “Rich bitches, huh?” I wanted to slap him. He hadn’t implied they deserved to be raped, but it was such an inappropriate comment under the circumstances.

  “Yeah, I said it. So, what? You have to admit that they are only getting all of this attention because they’re rich or they come from money. The media isn’t talking about the downtown rapes or the prostitutes who are raped on a regular basis. They certainly aren’t putting nearly enough coverage on the crimes that take place in the lower-income districts. But hey, they have plenty of speculations about The Village victims.”

  “Wait, are you implying that there is only one rapist in the whole city?”

  “No, of course not. I’m just saying that this guy has more victims. They just aren’t getting their stories told because they are just regular chicks.”

  “Regular chicks,” I repeated. A sexist and a douchebag. “Okay, well, where are his other victims?”

  “Where? Everywhere. He’s raping women at least three nights a week. We can’t catch him because he’s switching up his location and he doesn’t have a type. He’s raped women of all races and body types. He’s completely indiscriminate. I’ve never seen anything like it. The only thing they all have in common is the ‘sugar tits’ thing and that sometimes he can’t get it up. Any other similarities in the cases could be coincidental, but he’s really smart. I will give him that.”

  “Well, that sucks,” I said. I turned up my glass and got another. The information he shared wasn’t helpful at all. No wonder the cops were having such a hard time catching him.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like an asshole, but The Village is in my district. Those are the only victims I’m assigned to, and these families…they think they’re better. Ya know? Like they deserve justice more than the other victims. They treat everyone like shit. It’s not right, yeah?”

  “I understand,” I said, sliding closer to him to pat his knee. Maybe he wasn’t a sexist douchebag. Maybe he was just a worn-down rookie who had taken a tongue-lashing or two from the victims’ families.

  As soon as I touched his knee, he grabbed my hand. I let him. He was cute, and it had been so long since I’d been touched that way by a man. I couldn’t even remember when I’d even been looked at the way Todd was looking at me.

  Chapter 6

  Todd released my hand, but only to call for the check. I felt a little ashamed that I didn’t feel ashamed at all about letting him come back to my place.

  As soon as we walked in, I turned toward him to offer him a beverage, but he covered my lips with his. He tasted bitter, like gin. I still let him kiss me because I wanted to be kissed. I wanted to be touched. I wanted to feel as beautiful as he kept telling me I was.

  I also wanted to feel that rush I felt when I was at work, or when I thought of stopping that rapist, and I knew there was more than one way to get a natural high.

  I let Todd take the reins. He was urgent with his movements, greedy even. I hadn’t had a lot of experience with this sort of thing, but I knew that I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the way he grasped my breasts through my dress like they were a couple of cantaloupes, and I didn’t like the way he kept pressing his mouth onto mine, even when I tried to break the kiss.

  “Slow down,” I told him, regaining control. I grabbed the collar of his shirt with both hands and led him to the couch where he sat down. When I straddled him, he smiled. He ran his hands up and down my thighs. I pressed his hand where I wanted it. There was a throbbing there that needed prompt attention. It had been a long time coming. Pun intended. He obliged. He slid my underwear to the side and pumped two fingers inside me fast and hard. He watched me, gritting his teeth as he brought me to climax.

  When I was done, I was done. He began unbuttoning his jeans, but I held his hand there.

  “Not tonight,” I said as I stood, straightening myself.

  “What?”

  “I just don’t think we know each other well enough to—”

  “You didn’t seem to mind a second ago when you were coming on my fingers like a fucking junior high school party date.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Nothing. Look, I’m sorry. I’ve had too much to drink. I should go, yeah?”

  “Yeah, I think you should.” I crossed my arms over my chest, feeling pissed off.

  He stood up and leaned in to kiss me, but I turned my head so he kissed my cheek instead. Then he headed for the door. I noticed a paper sticking out of his back pocket and grabbed it just before I closed the door behind him.

  It was a map with dots on it. I thought I’d just gotten super lucky. I sat down with it and studied it, but it didn’t make sense. It wasn’t a map of where the rapes had occurred because there were no marks in The Village community.

  I eagerly printed a map of the city from my computer for comparison. It was baffling. The map seemed like a guide of some sort, but I didn’t know to what. There were dots on eateries, stores, homes in different areas of town…there was no rhyme or reason to it. Was he stalking the original victim to see what she knew? Was he trying to discriminate between copycats?

  I looked at that map ten different ways and couldn’t make any sense of it at all. It was stupid of me to think he would just carry around a map of the rapes in his back pocket. Surely he had a dozen other cases he was working on.

  Coming down off of the wine made me feel tired and a little more disgusted with my behavior than I was expecting. Letting a stranger get me off would’ve been better than Todd Morris. Jeez. I had to face him regularly. What had I been thinking?

  My sleep schedule was off. It always got this way when I flipped from night shift to days off. If it were just a day off, I would wing it, but since the shift called for three on and four off, I was going to flip my sleep schedule back and forth. I took some over-the-counter sleep medicine around midnight and dozed until about five in the morning.

  I woke up still wearing my little black dress but no undies. Gross. I still couldn’t believe I’d done that. At least I’d stopped it before it had gone any further. As big of a dickhead as Todd had been, I still couldn’t imagine what he thought of me. I guess we would have to pretend to be more grown up than we really were, and get over it if we were going to be seeing each other at work.

  Other than the plans I’d made to work at the free clinic at the largest shelter in town two mornings a week, I didn’t know what I would do on my off days.

  I’d certainly ruled out Todd as a potential friend the moment I invited him back to my place. I slapped my forehead, feeling so stupid for getting involved on any level with someone I had professional dealings with. As I turned on the news, I saw another rape had taken place overnight. Todd and I would be seeing a lot more of each other, indeed.

  Chapter 7

  After I caught a glimpse of the story about the newest victim from The Village, I dressed and rushed to the hospital, even though it was my off day. I felt like the fewer hands the case had to go through, the better. I wasn’t sure they would bring the patient into ATL Regional, but since they had over the past several days, I felt it was a good possibility. Since I’d handled the previous few, I thought I should keep handling them, even if it meant I had to go in when I was off duty. It wasn’t like I had plans or anything.

  Within the hour, I was walking inside my workplace. As usual, it was bustling. I went straight to the desk to ask if the v
ictim had arrived. They looked at me like I was crazy. I didn’t even know the victim’s name.

  “Dr. Drake,” Mr. Fowler said as he approached me from behind. “Are you on duty today? I don’t remember putting you on the schedule for an extra shift.”

  “There was another rape, sir. I’ve been handling these cases over the weekend. I feel it would be best to have as tight of a circle as possible when it comes to this case. It leaves a much smaller margin for error since the kits are going through fewer hands.”

  “Excellent initiative, Doctor, and I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you can’t just come and go as you please. Will you become so involved in every criminal case that you work? You can’t get so personal, Dr. Drake.”

  “Is she here? Is the victim here?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I’m familiar with the case, sir. There’s no reason to hold me back.” Mr. Fowler seemed to consider me. “I’m already here.” I reasoned with a shrug. He pressed his lips into a thin line and nodded, before beckoning the chart from the person at the desk, and handing it to me. I opened it greedily and turned to walk toward the room.

  “Dr. Drake,” Fowler called out. “Don’t become obsessed. We can’t have that. Am I making myself clear?”

  I just nodded and kept walking. I was reading the chart, not paying attention to my steps at all when I ran right into a wall. Only it wasn’t a wall; it was Ben.

  “Ben, what are you doing here?”

  “I should ask you the same. I’m picking up an extra shift. I have student loans to repay.”

  “I thought you said you had a life,” I said sarcastically.

  “I do. When I’m not practicing with my boy band,” he joked, slinging his hair to the side dramatically, “I’m working. I didn’t say it was glamorous, Drake.” I assumed that was his way of apologizing for being such an ass, but I didn’t care. I wanted to get down to business.