“Oh, I’m sure.”
There was something in her voice that caught his attention. “That was your bullet I took out.”
“Yes.” And he was going to condemn her for it, she thought. She could see it coming. There was a time for compassion and a time for justice. This was the latter. Lydia raised her chin. “We chased him down into the rear loading dock behind the mall. I shot him because he was about to shoot my partner.”
The hour was late and he should be on his way. But something kept Lukas where he was a moment longer. “I didn’t ask you why you shot him. Figured that was part of your job.”
She didn’t like the way he said that. “You weren’t there.”
“No, I wasn’t. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a life to get back to. Or at least a bed.”
Finished, he brushed past her and accidentally came into contact with her shoulder. The woman bit back a moan, but he heard it. Lukas stopped and took a closer look at the bloodied area around her shoulder. When she’d first come in, he’d assumed that the blood belonged to the prisoner. Now he had his doubts.
“Take your jacket off.”
Startled by the blunt order, she stared at him. “What?”
“I thought that was pretty clear.” There was a no-nonsense tone to his voice. “Take your jacket off,” he repeated.
Even as a child, she had never liked being ordered to do anything. It raised the hairs on the back of her neck. “Why?”
The last thing he wanted right now was to go head-to-head with a stubborn woman. “Because I think that’s your blood, not his.”
Lydia turned her head toward her shoulder. Very gingerly, she felt the area around the stain. Flickers of fire raced up and down her arm. Now that he said it, she had a sinking feeling he was right.
Dropping her hand, she gave a dismissive shrug with her uninjured shoulder. “Maybe you’re right. I can take care of it.”
Lukas glanced over her head. The operating room was free now. The orderly had wheeled his patient into the recovery room. Administration had sent in a security guard to watch him. That should please Ms. Law and Order, he thought.
“So can I. Come with me.” It wasn’t a suggestion. He caught her hand and dragged her behind him.
She had no choice but to accompany him. “You have a real attitude problem, you know that?”
Lukas spared her a glance. “I was going to say the same thing about you.” He released her hand and gestured toward a gurney. “Sit there.”
Lydia looked around the empty room, panic materializing. “Where’s the prisoner?”
Opening a drawer in a side cabinet, he took out what he needed. “They took him to recovery.”
Lydia turned on her heel, about to leave by the rear door, the way she assumed Conroy had. “Then I have to—”
He caught her hand again. This woman took work, he thought.
“Stay right here and let me have a look at that shoulder before it becomes infected,” he instructed. “Relax, your prisoner’s not about to regain consciousness for at least an hour.”
She frowned, torn. Her shoulder was beginning to feel a great deal worse now than it had earlier. “You know that for a fact?”
The surgical pack in place, Lukas slipped on a pair of latex gloves. “Pretty much.”
Maybe she was overreacting, at that. “Is he still handcuffed to the railing?”
In reply, Lukas nodded toward the metal bracelets lying on the countertop. “They’re right there.” He saw her look and watched her face cloud over. Like a storm capturing the prairie. “I figured you might be needing these for someone else.”
She bit back a curse. Unconscious or not, she would have felt a great deal better if Conroy were still tethered to the railing on his bed. “This isn’t a game.”
“No one said it was.” He nodded at her apparel. “Now take your jacket off. I’m not going to tell you again.”
Tell, not ask. The man had a hell of a nerve. Setting her jaw, Lydia began to shrug out of the jacket, then abruptly stopped. The pain that flared through her left shoulder prevented any smooth motion. Acutely aware that the physician was watching her every move, she pulled her right arm out first, then slid the sleeve off the other arm. She tossed the jacket aside, then looked at her blouse. It was beyond saving.
She sighed. The Wedgwood blue blouse had been her favorite. “What a mess.”
“Bullets will do that.” Very carefully, he swabbed the area and then began to probe it. He saw her eyes water, but heard no sound. The woman was a great deal tougher than he’d assumed. He knew more than a couple who would have caused a greater fuss over a hangnail. “How is it you didn’t realize you were shot?”
She measured out every word, afraid she was going to scream. “The excitement of the moment,” she guessed. “I hit the floor when he fired. I just thought I banged my shoulder.” Lydia sucked in a breath, telling herself it would be over soon. “It wouldn’t have been the first time.”
“And not the first time you were shot, either,” he noted as he began to clean off the area. There was a scar just below her wound that looked to be about a year or so old.
Lydia pressed her lips together as she watched him prepare a needle. “No, not the first. What’s that for?”
“That’s to numb the area. I have to stitch you up.” He injected the serum. “How many times have you been shot?”
She hated needles. It was a childhood aversion she’d never managed to get over. Lydia counted to ten before answering, afraid her voice would quiver if she said something immediately.
“Not enough to make me resign, if that’s what you mean.”
He couldn’t decide if she was doing a Clint Eastwood impression or a John Wayne. Tossing out the syringe, Lukas reached for a needle. “You have family?”
Watching him sew made her stomach lurch. She concentrated on his cheekbones instead. They gave him a regal appearance, she grudgingly conceded. “There’s my mother and a stepfather.” She paused to take a breath. “And my grandfather.”
That made her an only child, he thought, making another stitch. “What do they have to say about people playing target practice with your body?”
Did he think she was a pin cushion? Just how many stitches was this going to take? “My mother doesn’t know.” She’d never told her mother about the times she’d gotten shot. “She thinks I live a charmed life. My father was killed in the line of duty. I don’t see any reason to make her worry any more than she already does.”
Lukas glanced at her. She looked a little pale. Maybe she was human, after all. “What about your grandfather?”
“He worries about me.” Lydia kept her eyes forward, wishing him done with it. “But he’s also proud. He walked a beat for thirty years.”
“So that makes you what, third generation cop?”
“Fourth,” she corrected. “My great-grandfather walked the same beat before him.” Lydia looked at him sharply. He was asking an awful lot of questions. “Why? Does this have to go on some form, or are you just being curious?”
Lukas took another stitch before answering. “Just trying to distract you while I work on your shoulder, that’s all.”
She didn’t want any pity from him. “You don’t have to bother. It doesn’t hurt.”
He raised his eyes to her face. “I thought FBI agents weren’t supposed to lie.”
His eyes held hers for a minute. She relented. “It doesn’t hurt much,” she amended.
He knew it had to hurt a lot, but he allowed her the lie without contradiction. “That’s because the wound was clean.” He paused to dab on a little more antiseptic. It went deep. “The bullet cut a groove in your shoulder but didn’t go into it. That’s why you probably didn’t realize it. That and, as you said, the excitement of what was happening. They say that when Reagan was shot, he didn’t know it until someone told him.”
It felt as if he was turning her arm into a quilting project. Just how long was this supposed to take? The last time she
’d been stitched up, the doctor had hardly paused to knot the thread. “Maybe I should run for president then.”
The crack made him smile. “Maybe. You’d probably get the under-twenty-five vote. They don’t examine things too closely.”
Another slam. Did he get his kicks that way? Or was it because she didn’t crumble in front of his authority? “Anyone ever tell you your bedside manner leaves something to be desired?”
He found that her feistiness amused him despite the fact that he was bone-weary. “Most of my patients are unconscious when I work on them.” He cut the thread. “There, done.”
Gingerly, she tested her shoulder, moving it slowly in a concentric circle. She felt the pain shoot up to her ear. “It feels worse.”
“It will for a couple of days.” Rising, he set the remaining sutures aside, then preceded her to the door. He held it open for her. “If you ride down to the first floor with me, I’ll write you a prescription.”
She paused long enough to pick up her now ruined jacket before following him to the door. “I told you, I don’t need anything for the pain.”
He began to lead the way to the elevators, only to find that she wasn’t behind him. “But you might need something to fight an infection.”
She looked down at her shoulder, then at him accusingly. “It’s infected?”
“The medicine is to keep that from happening,” he told her, coming dangerously close to using up his supply of patience.
“I have to go guard the prisoner.” And to do that, she needed to know where the recovery room was located. She had a feeling he wasn’t going to volunteer the information.
She was right. “There’s a security guard posted outside the recovery room. You need to get home and get some rest.”
The security guards she’d come across were usually little more than doormen. They didn’t get paid enough to risk their lives. Conroy was part of a militant group, not some misguided man who had accidentally blown up a chem lab. “You ever watch ‘Star Trek’?”
The question had come out of the blue. “Once or twice, why?”
“Security guards are always the first to die.”
“Your point being?”
“Someone professional needs to be posted outside his room,” she told him impatiently.
That was easily solved. “So call somebody professional.” He saw her open her mouth. “As long as it’s not you.” The issue was non-negotiable. “Doctor’s orders.”
Certainly took a lot for granted, didn’t he? “So now you’re my doctor?”
Taking her good arm, he physically led her over to the elevator bank.
“I patched you up, that makes me your doctor for the time being. And I’m telling you that you need some rest.” He jabbed the down button, still holding on to her. “You can bend steel in your bare hands tomorrow after you get a good night’s sleep.”
She pulled her arm out of his grasp, then took a step to the side in case he had any ideas of taking hold of her again. “Look, thanks for the needlepoint, but that doesn’t give you the right to tell me what to do.”
“Yeah, it does.” The elevator bell rang a moment before the doors opened. He stepped inside, looking at her expectantly. She entered a beat later, though grudgingly, judging by the look on her face. “Your mother has gray hair, doesn’t she?”
“Does yours?”
He inclined his head. “As a matter of fact, it’s still midnight-black.” After writing out a prescription for both an antibiotic and a painkiller, he tore the sheet off the pad.
“Then you must have left home early.” She folded the prescription slip he had handed her. “I’ll fill this in the morning.”
“The pharmacy here stays open all night. I’ll ride down with you if you like.”
He certainly was going out of his way. But then, she knew what it was like to be dedicated to getting your job done. She couldn’t fault him for that. “I thought you had a bed you wanted to get to.”
“Like your prisoner, it’s not going anywhere.” He pressed the letter B on the elevator keypad. “A few more minutes won’t matter.”
Lydia had always been one to pick her battles, and she decided that maybe it would be easier just to go along with this dictator-in-a-lab coat than to argue with him.
With a sigh, she nodded her head in agreement as the elevator took them down to the basement.
Chapter 3
The scent of vanilla slowly enveloped her, began to soothe her.
Ever so slowly, Lydia eased herself into the suds-filled water. Leaning back, she frowned at her left shoulder. The cellophane crinkled, straining at the tape she’d used to keep the wrap in place.
Graywolf had warned her about getting her stitches wet just before she left him and, though she’d pretended to dismiss his words, she wasn’t about to do anything that might impede her immediate and complete recovery. There was no question in her mind that she’d go stir crazy inside of a week if the Bureau forced her to go on some sort of disability leave. She had no actual hobbies to fill up her time, no books piling up on her desk, waiting to be read, just a few articles on state-of-the-art surveillance. Nothing she couldn’t get through in a few hours.
Her work was her life and it took up all of her time. Yes, there was the occasional program she watched on television outside of the news and, once in a while, she took in a movie, usually with her mother or grandfather. There was even the theater every year or so. But for the most part, she ate and slept her job and she truly liked it that way. Liked the challenge of fitting the pieces of a puzzle together to create a whole, no matter how long it took.
It hadn’t taken all that long this time, she thought, watching bubbles already begin to dissipate. The tip they’d gotten from Elliot’s source had been right on the money.
Looking back, she thought, things seemed to have happened in lightning succession. An informer in the New World supremacy group they had been keeping tabs on had tipped off the Bureau that a bombing at a populated area was in the works. Initially, that had been it: a populated area. No specifics. That could have meant a museum, an amusement park, anyplace. For a week, with the clock ticking, they’d all sweated it out, having nothing to go on.
And then they’d gotten lucky. Very lucky, she thought, swishing the water lazily with her hand, letting the heat relax her. If that informant hadn’t had a run-in with Conroy and been nursing a grudge against him, they would have never been able to piece things together. Even so, they’d gotten to the mall only seconds before the explosion had rocked the western end, the site that had just been newly renovated and expanded and had been filled with Native American art and artifacts.
As Elliot had driven through the city streets, trying to get there in time, she’d been on her phone, frantically calling the local police and alerting mall security to evacuate as many people as possible.
It been an exercise in futility. They’d reached the mall ahead of the police. She’d scanned the parking lot, taking in the amount of cars there, appalled at the number, even though by weekend standards, it was low.
The explosion had hit just as they’d parked. The force had sent one teenager flying into the air. He was dead by the time she’d reached him. It was then that she and Elliot had spotted Conroy running around the rear of what was left of that part of the structure.
She barely remembered yelling out a warning. All she could focus on was Conroy turning and aiming his gun in Elliot’s direction. The rest had happened in blurry slow motion.
And try as she might, she still didn’t remember being hit.
There were others involved; she knew that they were going to be caught. It was a silent promise she made to the teenager who wouldn’t be going home tonight. Or ever.
Lydia sank down farther into her tub, the one luxury she had allowed herself when she moved in, replacing the fourteen-inch high bathtub with one that could easily submerge a hippo if necessary. Some people took quick, hot showers to wash away the tension of the day; she took
baths when she had the time. Long, steamy, soul-restoring baths.
The phone rang, intruding.
Glancing at the portable receiver she’d brought in with her, Lydia debated just letting her machine pick up the call. But the shrill ringing had destroyed the tranquillity that had begun seeping into her soul.
Besides, it might be about Conroy.
Stretching, she reached over the side of the tub for the receiver and pressed the talk button. “Wakefield.”
“Don’t you ever say hello anymore?” The voice on the other end had a soft twang to it.
She smiled, sinking back against the tub again, envisioning the soft, rosy face, the gentle, kind eyes that were too often set beneath worried brows. “Hi, Mom. What’s up?”
“Nothing, darling. I was just lonely for the sound of your voice.”
Lydia knew evasion when she heard it. For now she played along. “Well, here it is, in its full glory.”
“You sound tired.”
Her mother was slowly working up to whatever had prompted her to call, Lydia thought. That was the difference between them. She pounced, her mother waltzed. Slowly. “It’s been a long day.”
There was just the slightest bit of hesitation. “Anything you can tell me about?”
Her mother knew better than that. “Just lots of paperwork, that’s all,” Lydia told her. Idly, she moved her toe around, stirring the water. Bubbles began fading faster. The scent of vanilla clung.
She heard her mother laugh shortly. “You lie as badly as your father did.”
Lydia glanced at her shoulder to make sure it was still above the waterline. Keeping it up wasn’t easy even if she was leaning against the soap holder.
“You don’t want to know details, Mom.” It was supposed to be an unspoken agreement between them. Her mother didn’t ask and she didn’t have to lie. Her mother was slipping. “All you need to know is that I’m okay. I’m soaking in a tub right now.”
In Graywolf’s Hands Page 3