“My dad was a cop, actually a sheriff’s deputy,” she said quietly.
Since Jennifer McKay, her mother, had been a widow for as long as Cash remembered, that was had happened a long time ago.
“He died when he was working on a task force to shut down a drug ring.”
As traumatic as losing a parent at a young age was, there was something more to this story. He’d heard bits and pieces about her dad’s death through the years, but the details weren’t the important part here. Emmy’s feelings about it were.
She shifted from his lap and rose from the bed. Dammit. If she wouldn’t let him in, they didn’t have a chance.
Emmy disappeared into the bathroom. A flush and water run later, she came out with a washcloth and a hand towel. She nodded toward his lap. “We were probably already beyond the time limit on that thing.”
Shit. Yeah. While they’d been sitting there, things had definitely gotten messy.
“Don’t worry,” she said as she handed him the clean-up kit. “I’m on birth control.”
In a way, that disappointed him. If she got pregnant, they’d have to come to grips with one another. Have to decide what they could be together.
That’s not fair to her. Stop being a dick.
No matter how much he might want children one day, he was getting way ahead of himself by even thinking about that with Emmy.
Cash tossed the condom into a nearby trashcan and did a quick cleanup. Then he reached for Emmy, tried to pull her back into bed, but she said, “I need to walk.”
In the bedroom’s gloom, she paced a U around the bed, expanding her distance from it with each pass. But Cash just sat and watched her. She’d talk when she was ready.
Finally, she stopped near the window and fiddled with the pull string on the shade. “Kris is actually my cousin. Very few people know that. They assume she was adopted.”
It was a start. She was talking, sharing, and that was what mattered most. Cash stayed silent and still, waiting.
“Her dad and mine were brothers.” Emmy laughed, but the sound was flat and tired. “Sort of like Cain and Abel. Kris’s dad happened to be the bad boy to my dad’s good guy. I don’t remember much about him, but apparently, he was always looking for the easy money, the quick buck. Especially after Kris’s mom died. I guess he was never happy again, no matter how much he might’ve loved Kris.”
The need to reach out to her, to pull her back in the bed and against his body made Cash clench his fists.
“He got involved with some Japanese mafia types who were trying to establish a money laundering and drug manufacturing base nearby. Maybe you already know this whole story.”
“I’ve heard a few things, but I want to hear it from you.”
“Okay.” Emmy abandoned the window and returned to her pacing. “My dad was working with a group of law enforcement agencies who’d gotten word of a big amphetamine operation. They raided it and…”
Fuck it. He needed to touch her and she needed to be touched. Cash caught her hand and pressed a kiss against the damp skin of her palm.
“…and he had no idea my uncle was involved. So when they went in, my dad was surprised. You know what they say—to hesitate is to die.”
“Please tell me someone else—”
“My uncle shot my dad. Of course, at the time, all I knew was that he was gone. It wasn’t until later that I wheedled my way into the records that confirmed he’d suffered a tension pneumothorax.”
“God, Em…”
“He died before they could get the raid locked down and bring in medical help. All he needed was a damn chest tube, but nobody was there to put one in.”
He now understood what had driven her. If this happened twenty years ago, maybe more, then medics wouldn’t have been part of the raid team. Her dad died because he’d had no one to save him. Cash stroked Emmy’s arm, but she still wasn’t looking at him, lost in a history that she hadn’t actually been a part of.
“It’s funny. Most people can’t remember much about their childhoods before they were about ten, but I remember my dad so clearly. Remember what he used to tell me all the time. ‘Life is serious, Em. Give it your very best.’”
So that’s what drove her to be all work and no play. He doubted that her dad had meant for his encouragement to scar her life. Careless words from an adult could cause a kid a lifetime of pain and self-questioning.
“Em, if you’re thinking you somehow failed your dad today, you’re wrong.”
“How crazy is it that I want a dead man to be proud of me?”
This time, when he tugged on her hand, she didn’t resist. So he drew her back into the bed and into his arms. “We all have voices in our heads. Advice and guidance from people we love and respect.”
“The difference is that most other people know better than to let those voices take over their lives.”
“You are a great doctor. You’re a great TMT lead. You know that. The situation with Jesse Giddings today doesn’t change any of that. You’re not infallible. No one is.”
“What if I was never meant to be a doctor? Maybe I was supposed to work in a bank or be a teacher.”
“The only way you were meant to work in a bank is if it was being robbed. You get off on the pace and the thrill of life-and-death situations as much as any of the rest of us. Em, we land exactly where we’re supposed to be. I believe that implicitly. Don’t let today shake your faith in yourself.”
“That’s the problem with slowing down. Having fun and taking the time to meditate.” She leaned her forehead against his shoulder, and her defeated posture broke Cash’s heart. “It opens up space. Too damn much space.”
Yeah, he knew about the World of Doubt. When you just kept blowing and going, you didn’t have to wonder if you were on the right track. Giving the proper attention to and appreciation of the life God gave you.
From the other room, Cash’s phone rang. Damn. Talk about shitty timing.
“People don’t call at this time of the morning unless it’s important,” Emmy said. “Go get it.”
Reluctantly, he released her and got out of bed. When he swooped up his phone from the coffee table, the display said St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Cash Kingston.”
“Cash, this is Peggy Gallo. I’m a post-op nurse.”
Yeah, he’d known that the second he looked at the screen. “Do you have an update?”
“I…uh…was supposed to call Dr. McKay, but I just couldn’t. The young man she called about yesterday is gone.”
“Gone like left the hospital or…”
“Twenty minutes ago, Jesse Giddings suffered a postoperative complication and died.”
* * *
It had been over twenty-four hours since she found Cash in her living room staring at his phone as if it had just turned into a rattlesnake. But the sick emptiness Emmy felt inside after hearing of Jesse’s death hadn’t abated.
If anything, the intensity of her nausea had gone from Zofran level to Phenergan-worthy. But damned if she could afford to dope herself up with a pill that would knock her out for hours.
She had important things to do. Like meet with Sheriff Kingston and Captain Styles.
“I’m here to see the sheriff and captain,” she said to the sheriff’s assistant, whom she’d met briefly when talking with Maggie and Jonah about the TMT.
“Are they expecting you, Dr. McKay?”
Emmy got the impression that Maggie’s assistant didn’t like her, but she forced a smile and said, “Yes.”
The receptionist picked up the phone and said, “Sheriff Kingston, Dr. McKay is here to see you and Captain Styles.” When she replaced the receiver, she told Emmy, “You can go on in.”
The sheriff was behind her desk, and the captain was sitting in a visitor’s chair in front of it.
Captain Styles turned around when Emmy walked in, and the woman looked as if she’d been run over by the megabus that traveled between C
harlotte and Durham. Her short gray hair stood out in little tufts. The lines on her face showed her age. And the sorrow in her eyes was a direct shot that pierced Emmy’s heart.
Sheriff Kingston’s expression, on the other hand, was blank. She gestured to the other seat in front of her desk. “Have a seat.” She pushed a report across the desk toward Emmy. “You’ll probably understand this better than we do.”
Emmy sat and took the papers. Jesse Giddings had died from apparent postoperative pulmonary complications at 0314. PPC could be anything from pneumonia to a spontaneous pneumothorax, or partially collapsed lung.
The questions that Emmy had been chewing on since the nurse called swirled in her head. A postoperative complication was curious enough, but a PPC in an otherwise healthy teenage boy with a gunshot to an extremity?
Was it possible? Yes. Anything was possible when it came to the human body.
Probable? Not in Emmy’s opinion.
Which meant Emmy’s reason for asking for this meeting was valid. She needed some time to figure out what had happened to Jesse Giddings.
Maybe she was being too cautious. Maybe she was trying to alleviate her own guilt about Jesse’s death.
“Are they planning an autopsy?” Emmy asked.
“The mother is resisting. Says she doesn’t want anyone else to hurt her son.”
Inside, Emmy cringed. Normally, she would balk at that decision based on the way the boy died. She should tell her superiors that they needed to push for the autopsy, but something held her back. “People are emotional after a loved one’s death. If the morgue can hold him for a few days, she might change her mind.”
And give Emmy time to get there and check out his body.
Captain Styles rubbed her eyes and sighed. “Maybe. I guess I don’t have to tell you that the swatting call-out just got a lot more complicated.”
“That’s actually why I’m here. Based on the situation, I think it’s only right that I’m taken off the SWAT team, at least for now.”
“Dr. McKay, we are going to investigate further into the shooting and subsequent death of this boy, but we have no intention of suspending you from the team.”
“I really think it’s for the best.”
“We can’t really afford to be down a medic right now,” the captain protested. “Not with the team just starting to gel. And with no one to lead the TMT—”
“You do have someone,” Emmy stated, her voice steady and sure. “You’ve had him all along. Cash Kingston.”
18
After the call about Jesse, Cash had tried to get Emmy to talk, but she’d had an early shift at the hospital and had used that as an excuse to put a little distance between them.
And today, he was on C shift at the station. It was eating him up to be away from Emmy when she was still so torn up about the kid.
Their lovemaking had been passionate and tender in turns, and all he’d wanted was to spend time talking, holding her, and then doing it again. He didn’t like this physical and emotional distance when everything was so fragile between them.
Unfortunately he had another eighteen hours on this unbearably long shift.
Today was the type of day some medics and firefighters loved—full of sports TV and a batch of chili. It made Cash want to pull out his fucking hair. If he had to be at the station instead of with Emmy, then at least the universe could throw him the bone of some decent ambulance runs.
But it seemed like after the chaos of the swatting call-out, everyone had decided to actually be smart and stay out of harm’s way.
“Kingston, if you make one more loop around this living room, I’m gonna put buckshot in your ass,” Stan Jackson said, his surliness clear.
Cash didn’t even look at him. A guy he’d once considered his brother, Jackson was now a douche who didn’t deserve to be a part of the TMT, even if he hadn’t thrown that brick at Emmy’s building.
He was tempted to stalk over to Jackson’s easy chair and dump his ass out of it. The other man was in good shape, had to be to qualify for the tac team, but Cash could take him.
At the thought, Cash’s breath sped up and his hands curled into fists. But before he could do something monumentally stupid, Callahan stuck his head in the living room and said, “Kingston, someone’s here for you.”
That someone just saved your worthless life, Jackson.
“Coming,” he told Callahan.
“In the LT’s office.”
Cash drew up short when he walked in to find his lieutenant, Captain Styles, and Emmy all sitting, their attention glued to the door he’d walked through.
“Uh…hey,” he said like an idiot.
His LT pointed to a chair and Cash dropped into it.
“Kingston, we’ll get right to it,” Captain Styles said. “Dr. McKay is resigning her position—at least temporarily—as the head of the tactical medical team.”
Cash’s gaze shot to Emmy, but she was busy studying the LT’s certificates hanging on the wall. Like a Union Rep of the Year certificate was the most mesmerizing artwork in the world.
Emmy was resigning—what the actual fuck?
“Which means we need someone to step into her spot. She recommended you.”
His hands curled around the chair arms as the shock went through him. It was everything he’d wanted at one time. Now it left him with an empty pit where his stomach had once been. “No.”
The captain’s eyebrows rose. “Does that mean you don’t want it?”
“No. Yes.” Fuck. Maybe Maggie had been right all along. He’d been hungering for a position that was way too big for him to chew, much less swallow. “Was Dr. McKay forced to step down? Because if the brass thinks she screwed up yesterday, I want to go on record that—”
“This is completely voluntary,” Emmy said softly. “It’s best for the team.”
The fuck it was. Emmy had more tactical medical knowledge in the tip of her pinky toe than the rest of them did put together.
“The rest of the team already looks to you as a leader,” she said to him. “They respect you, and they should. I expect the transition to be easy. We can coordinate on training—”
“Could Dr. McKay and I talk privately?” he barked out.
His LT and the captain exchanged quick looks, but they both rose from their chairs. The captain said to Cash, “Come by to see me when you’re off shift tomorrow so we can discuss the particulars. Until then, Kingston, you’re on lead if we have a call-out.”
Once his two superiors walked out of the office, Cash jumped up and closed the door behind them. “Emmy, what the fuck are you—”
“It’s done.” Emmy nodded once as if convincing herself. “And I’m not changing my mind.”
“Didn’t our talk last night mean anything?” Cash put a hand on each of the arms of Emmy’s chair, blocking her in. “You can’t really believe you have to perform perfectly to deserve to lead this team. Hell, if that were the case, I wouldn’t have a shot at doing it.”
“I made some very serious mistakes. But more than that, I need a little time and distance.” The way she said time set off a ding-ding-ding in Cash’s head.
Time for what?
“The people who hired me were wrong,” she continued. “You are absolutely ready to lead the tac team. Maybe more ready than I was.”
“That’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
“I’m questioning whether or not I should’ve ever come back to Steele Ridge at all.”
Now that hit him hard, like a boxing glove filled with lead. If she was questioning being here, then she was questioning if she should be with him.
“I’ll be honest,” she said. “I was more than a little arrogant, thinking I could come in here and teach people something. Could elevate the quality of the tactical medical team. Sometimes the worst thing you can do is bring in an outsider. The cracks started the first day. Your colleagues thought the job was yours and they were ready to follow your lead. I screwed that up.”
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“They should want to learn from and be led by the best.”
“Look at what’s happened since I came home, Cash. A brick through the Murchison building window, a lawsuit, and now a boy is dead.”
“And you think it’s all connected somehow?”
“I’m not sure. No, not really, because I think Oliver—my ex—encouraged the Hernandez family to file suit. It just feels like I brought the bubonic plague with me.”
Brought it with her. Like the chaos followed her. But how could a random swatting incident relate to Emmy?
Something was there, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. And when that happened, it meant he needed to look a little deeper. “I need to make a call.”
* * *
“Why?” Emmy asked, but Cash ignored her to stand and pull out his phone. “Cash…”
“Gimme a sec here.” He dialed and a few seconds later, his posture relaxed. “Sully, can you come in and cover the rest of Davidson’s shift?”
At the other person’s response Cash’s mouth tightened. “Dude, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. Get your ass in here and I’ll mow and trim your yard for three months. No charge.”
Another pause. Then Cash grunted and said, “That’s what I thought. Be here in thirty.”
Cash shook his head. “No, an hour won’t cut it. Thirty minutes or I’ll be forced to tell you-know-who about you-know-what.” He disconnected and looked up at Emmy.
“Did you really just blackmail one of your coworkers?”
“Guys need motivation.” He must’ve caught the look of disbelief on her face because he laughed and said, “It’s nothing terrible. Just a surprise party he’s been trying to pull off for his wife with no luck in six years.”
“And people think you’re just a simple, easygoing guy…”
“I can play a little hardball when I need to.” He stole a piece of paper from the desk and scratched something down. Then he shoved it into her hands. “My address. I need to change clothes before we head out.”
“Head out where?”
“To talk with Jonah.”
Tasting Fire Page 17