by Graylin Fox
“Ellie, its Owen Mata. We have the husband in custody. He attempted to attack her when she left the hospital. She’s fine and was able to catch a flight out of the airport headed north just a few minutes ago. He's still here, but we have him locked up on a number of charges. I wanted you to know he’s not a threat to you anymore. Call me when you can.”
Well, that was nice of him. A knot of tension released between my shoulder blades. I didn't feel like talking to the hot cop, so I texted him a thank you and let him know I would stop by his office at work tomorrow. He suggested lunch, and I agreed.
I had trouble focusing on the mindless television I used each night to lighten my mood. Not because I was thinking of psychotic men in wife beaters, but hot cops without shirts.
At one point, my imagination merged Dr. K and Chief Mata and I must have dozed off because I realized I was kissing a hot Russian cop with a cut body and a cute accent. Okay, bedtime. I drifted off to sleep with those images in mind and woke up rested and in need of a cold shower.
I walked into the office and was greeted by the effervescent Lee. She handed me a coffee and followed me into my office. A smile on her face stopped me from asking any questions. She gestured to my chair so I sat down, and she turned to make sure no one had entered the office.
“So, Chief Mata or Dr. K?” she asked.
“We had this conversation yesterday, nothing has changed.” I looked at her and she blushed. “Okay, what changed?”
“Dr. K came in early today and was yelling at his residents. When they asked him why he was so upset he just said, ‘Someone I care about was threatened yesterday, and I'm worried.’” She glowed and her smile could not have been bigger.
“I see you are still pro-Dr. K,” I noted. “He barely met me, so the someone he cares about could be someone else.”
“Like you said, we discussed this yesterday. And now, it seems he is very interested in you. Even his residents came by to see if you were all right.”
I shook my head. The speed gossip travels at hospitals wasn’t exaggerated by television medical dramas. If anything, it traveled faster and my assistant was part of the network. That would work to my advantage if it wasn’t me they were talking about.
My phone messages consisted of a few concerned staff members checking on me and the rest were requests for help. I headed first to the intensive care unit. If you’ve never seen someone going through alcohol withdrawal, you should save yourself the agony. It was an ugly sight. Anger, pain, and hallucinations are present at the same time so I get yelled at, propositioned, and then accused of being evil all within one thirty minute interview.
Family members stand by trying to apologize for the patient, appalled by what they hear, and offer stories of how wonderful the person tied to the bed really was. It was harder on them than me, and I tried to get them to stay home until the patient came out of it. Unless they were the ones giving their loved one alcohol, in which case keeping them nearby lessened the chances they'd buy them alcohol after the patient went home.
It was a rough start to a day, but I managed to calm the person down and removed their family with a promise to have the nurse call when the patient began to recover.
I next headed to the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). This was where tiny bodies tried to recover from accidents and beatings. The older ones tried to tell me they weren’t attempting to kill themselves, they just wanted to see how many of their parent’s pills they could take at one time and survive. The experienced ones could say that to me with a straight face. At fourteen years old.
I stepped out of the PICU when Chief Mata showed up.
“Hello,” he said.
“Are you following me?” He was sexy and a little dangerous. The warning bells went off in my head, the ones I ignored every other time a sexy man who would break my heart walked by. I was amazed by how persistent they were given that I’d never heeded the warning before.
“I don't have to. We have security cameras everywhere.”
I didn't want to tell him I was grateful after yesterday, but a part of me was also concerned the people who report to him could watch me everywhere I went. “That's a little creepy.”
“I promise to tell them to stop looking if you pull me into a janitorial closet.” He laughed as he escorted me to the cafeteria.
“That's nasty. Only on TV would they get it on in a room full of that many chemicals.”
He looked like I slapped him.
“Not when we are in a building full of beds,” I added.
I smiled stepping in front of him as we entered the cafeteria. Chief Mata couldn't go into the doctor's lounge, so we dined in the cafeteria near a group of surgical residents. A few stolen glances from the residents didn't go unnoticed, but he didn't mention it.
“We still have him locked up,” he said as he finished his meal.
“I assumed that or you would have told me,” I replied. I wondered why he kept bringing it up. “Are you trying to scare me, or are you genuinely concerned?”
The pause before he answered told me he was concerned before he admitted it.
“I'm worried. That man doesn't care about hurting women.” He stopped and finished off his sweet tea. “In fact, I think he enjoys it.”
“The worst kind,” I finished for him. “They love what they do, and that makes them more than mean. It plows through cruel and heads into serial killer territory.”
His eyes locked onto mine, and I was struck again by his raw sexuality. This was a man who would take you to bed, make you beg for more, and leave while you trembled in gratitude. I knew the type well, depths of sensuality and passion that would pull me in and drown my own needs with his. I mentally shook the intoxicating image from my mind to find him impressed with my knowledge.
“You have done your homework.” He looked impressed.
The remainder of the image shattered as I realized he was surprised. Law enforcement officers tended to forget that serial killers and other depraved individuals were studied in detail in psychology.
“It's my job to study anyone who falls outside of what society decides is normal,” I replied.
“You sound offended.” His gaze softened with an unspoken apology.
“I don't agree with the idea that psychologists are just paid to be friends; we notice subtleties in human behavior that others let pass by as quirks. I also disagree with the separation of what is normal and abnormal. Labels separate and categorize symptoms and you lose the individuals in there.” I hated labels with a passion. And somehow, I ended up in a profession that not only assigned and sorted people by labels, but I wrote them down in medical charts.
It's why I was very careful with every diagnosis and made sure I treated every person as an individual. In a busy hospital, it's highly likely I'm the only one who could take an hour each day to visit my patients and listen to both them and their families.
“Labels help me decide who I need to spend resources on,” he defended himself. But it was a soft-spoken, weak defense.
Dr. K is looking better, Lee will be thrilled. So will my family.
As if he could read my thoughts, Dr. K walked up to our table.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Quinn.” He nodded at Chief Mata. “Mata.”
“Doctor,” Chief Mata responded leaning toward me in his chair. It was like he wanted to mark the table, and thus me by association, as his territory.
“Doctor," I nodded to him and took the offered hand. A gasp went up from the residents’ table across the way. Apparently, we had an audience. I smiled and waved at them and watched their embarrassed faces snap back to stare at the tabletop.
“Dr. K, I need to speak with you about the patient I saw this morning,” I explained, hoping it would also ease Chief Mata's mind about my prompt exit. I didn’t need to upset the security chief.
“I'll stop by your office this afternoon," Chief Mata said, staring pointedly at me.
“Good, I'd love to continue this later.” I smiled and
released my hand from Dr. K's soft grasp and walked with him to the elevator.
“The security chief looked jealous,” he said as he put his hand on my back to guide me into the elevator. My back tingled and I found myself slowing down to feel the pressure of his hand.
Damn, that accent was hot. Every time I heard it I thought of the sexy spies in old movies, the ones where we knew who the bad guy was, but when he whispered something his Russian accent made me want him anyway. I was sure Dr. K could whisper anything to me and I would nod and hold on.
I imagined him in a tuxedo guiding me on the dance floor while he whispered in my ear. It took me a moment to refocus on where we were. “He might have been upset you interrupted our lunch.” I smiled back at him as he hit the floor for our offices.
The doors opened to reveal Lee standing with one of the security guards.
“Is there a problem, Lee?” I asked.
She looked flustered and this, I knew without being told, was unusual for her. She usually looked closer to my twenty-nine years than her forty-two except for now, when she looked worried and older.
“There was a strange warning on the voicemail when I came back from lunch. I thought it might be that creepy man from yesterday, but security said the call came from inside the hospital.”
She clearly didn’t believe them.
“Is her office safe?” The question came from Dr. K who had his hand now firmly planted in the small of my back as we exited the elevator.
Two more security guards rushed toward us. They looked like they wanted to run but couldn't, so the result was actually pretty funny. I tried to stifle my smile as they were in obvious distress. I wasn’t taking this threat seriously, the “creep” Lee referred to being in jail.
“He’s in jail, Lee. Chief Mata reiterated it today.” I hoped this would calm her down.
It took a lot to get me upset, which helped in my line of work. When normally cool and calm people started to get antsy, it set off my alarms and I tended to follow suit, even if I wasn't sure exactly what the fuss was about.
She appeared to calm down, especially when they explained they found a couple of over-exhausted residents in a conference room who confessed to making the call. The security guards had hurried to tell us it was a bad prank.
“Why?” I asked.
Security didn't have an answer, only one of them attempted a guess. “They haven't slept in two days, we’re lucky they can still stand up right now. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Make sure their attending knows what they did.” I was pissed, but I had no authority over residents to discipline them directly.
Lee was furious. “Inconvenience? Inconvenience? They scared me! Those idiots must have gone through the chart because they knew things that they shouldn't have about that family.”
I didn't want to alarm Lee but that last bit from her stopped me cold. “What did they know?”
“We need to get out of this hallway, Doctor. Now.”
Dr. K pushed Lee and me down the hallway to our offices. He made sure we were both tucked in and then closed and locked us inside. We walked to my office and sat down.
“What the bloody hell was that about?” Lee asked in a frightened, low voice. “If this is what it’s going to be like to work for you, I'm sorry, Doctor, but I'll quit today.”
“I'll turn my notice in with yours.” Day Two at work and the sexy doctor locked me in? It didn’t bode well. “You said the residents knew too much. I doubt they read the chart, Lee. And I'm beginning to doubt they were residents.”
I watched her face as we both followed that trail. I went back over everything I saw in the hallway a moment ago. Two men in scrubs had entered the other end of the hallway and walked to us. They were ten yards from our office door when Dr. K got us inside. They had neck tattoos that didn't register with me right away, and they both wore surgical gloves. No one wore surgical gloves beyond a patient's room, too much chance of contamination.
“My perception is excellent, Lee. But sometimes, it takes a minute to register. Those two guys in the hallway right now weren't residents or doctors.” My stomach turned. Travis was in jail, but that didn't mean he couldn’t find ways to get to me. Either that or I was paranoid and spent too much time watching crime dramas on television.
“I can't hide here not knowing anything.” I was determined to get into the hallway. My mother told me repeatedly I was too stubborn for my own good, and today, it looked like I was going to prove it. I walked around my desk and started toward the hall door. The small reception area just off the hallway with Lee's office to my right was empty, leaving just a couple of feet of hallway to my door. As I entered the reception area, the door flew open and I jumped back, managing to trip over a footstool. I fell backward and landed with a thud on the ground as I realized it was the security chief.
Lee greeted him while stifling a laugh at my predicament. “Afternoon, Chief Mata. May we help you?”
I love a smartass. I really love a smartass assistant. Lee bent down and grabbed me under my arms helping me up.
He stood there not quite sure what to say.
Once I was upright again, I helped him out. “Did you catch the two guys pretending to be doctors?”
“Yes,” he answered, and looked sheepish. “I'm so sorry, Dr. Quinn. We should have investigated further after the phone call. We probably wouldn't have noticed at all if Lee here hadn’t insisted on it.”
“Some of Travis's friends, I assume,” I asked. I wanted him to say no, because otherwise, I would have to consider resigning.
“No. This was simply a prank by a couple of residents. Those two work out at a local gym with the residents who placed the call. When I explained you had been threatened, they were embarrassed and apologetic,” he answered and glared at me. “I will not let them hurt you.”
Something in his tone made me take a step backward. “I know you will do your best.”
“Please call me Owen, most of the staff here refers to me as Mata, but I would like if you used my first name. I'm going to go check on your doctor friend. He tackled one of them before my guards got to him.” He walked away.
“Nice arse on that one, very nice,” Lee said as she walked into her office to get the ringing phone.
“Dr. K fought them?” I walked back to my desk to sit for a minute.
“You only have one more appointment today; you could swing by his office afterwards to make sure he is okay.” Lee handed me the consult request.
An adult woman was admitted for a slight cough that wouldn't go away. She’d thought she needed an antibiotic; instead, she’d been diagnosed with lung cancer. Her attending physician was Dr. K.
“Seems I have to talk to him. This is his patient.”
She smiled and winked at me. “You are going to keep me busy, aren't you?”
It was a rhetorical question, of course I was. Although after the last two days some peace and quiet would be nice. I went upstairs and talked to his patient. She was beautiful, in her thirties, and devastated by the news. She thought smoking didn't kill you until you were at least sixty so she had another decade or so before she had to quit. She was wrong. Her family gathered around her in the room all looking devastated and sad.
I left her room, wrote the note in the chart. The clock said it was four in the afternoon. My stomach told me lunch had been gobbled up by fear and anger so I headed to the lounge to pick up a diet coke and a snack. It was deserted this late in the afternoon with only a few pieces of fruit, sodas, and some sweets lying about. I sat down at one of the tables to catch my breath before seeing Dr. K.
I had succeeded in pushing aside my fears about my own safety before. I'd been threatened before by people with schizophrenia whose medications weren’t working, condemned to hell by half a dozen or so whose meds were definitely working, and I'd had items thrown at me by patients on the general medical floors. This was the first time someone not only threatened me, but frightened me. Something about this guy unse
ttled me, and even though he was in jail, it would be weeks before I stopped looking over my shoulder. The residents’ jackass joke didn't help that at all.
I stood up and headed for the door.
Behind me, I heard Owen's voice.
“Are you okay?”
I turned to see him leaning against the far wall.
“I will get him. I promise you I will save you from him and his entire family, if that is what's necessary.”
He meant it. Every word was spoken with the precision and conviction of a sacred vow.
“Thank you,” I replied, and felt responsibility overwhelm me for a moment.
He took his job seriously and if that meant protecting me from patient’s family members then he would do so. I would have to step very carefully around people whose mental state was fragile, or I would feel very guilty for taking up Owen’s time.
Even in my state of slight shock, I found myself appreciating his body. Each time he took a breath the polo shirt he wore strained to cover his muscles, his arms threatened to shred the sleeves whenever he bent his elbows. The blue slacks he wore looked like standard issue, but they sat on his hips and accentuated his thighs with each step he took. Why did the bad boys always look so good?
Chapter Three
The walk through the halls was quiet, and I took my time. Dr. K was laughing when I got to his door. I raised my hand to knock, but he saw me over the heads of his concerned colleagues and waved me inside.
“I'm so sorry,” I said and took his outstretched hand.
He laughed and kissed my forehead. “I grew up in Russia with the KGB leering over everything we said and did. Those fools do not scare me. They are amateurs. Scaring women is for little children, not for grown men.”
His buttoned-down shirt and dress slacks didn’t have a wrinkle that I could see. His tie clip and cufflinks looked like they were a matched pair, and he smiled as he saw me looking over him. His shoes were polished to a mirror shine. He kept a firm grip on my hand.