"Do you have something you can take for it?" Nell asked.
Joe felt something coiling in his gut like panic. Or hunger. It couldn't be that easy. He couldn't resist… "You mean, like painkillers?"
Nell frowned. "Actually, I was thinking of an anti-inflammatory."
Joe's gut relaxed. He exhaled. "Yeah. Yeah, I've got something. Thanks."
He said goodbye and left. Despite his slow pace, he was sweating as if he'd run a mile.
Nell ate her yogurt at her desk while she read up on bimalleolar injury and deltoid ligament rupture.
She saw a lot of ankle injuries at the clinic. Basketball players, mostly, from the playgrounds and streets. Skateboarders. Tenants who slipped on their fire escapes, the elderly who tripped in their kitchens. Ninety percent of the injuries were sprains. Very few were actual fractures.
But even the fractures generally healed in four to six weeks. After eight, referral to an orthopedist was mandatory.
She jabbed her plastic spoon into the carton. Joe wasn't her patient. He didn't want to be.
Which was fine by Nell. She hadn't been able to cure her own mother. She hadn't been able to help her own husband. She definitely wasn't seeking responsibility for another wounded male. She could handle a stable type A fracture, but she wasn't even qualified to treat a complex orthopedic injury.
But Joe's limp nagged at her. If the shape and anatomy of an ankle were not accurately restored after a trauma, the patient suffered chronic pain, early arthritis, even deformity. How long had Joe been living with the pain in his left ankle?
"Nell?" Melody slid around the filing cabinets, blinking inoffensively. Her eyelids today were bright green. "You have a patient on line two. Judith Lawrence? She's having some kind of problem getting a prescription filled."
Nell abandoned the problem of Joe's ankle while she pulled up the Lawrence medical file. Judith Lawrence, thirty-eight, white female, recurrent kidney stones. Nell had seen her on Wednesday for cramps in her side and lower abdomen. She'd treated her for the pain and sent her home with instructions to drink two to three quarts of water a day until the stone passed.
Nell punched line two. "Hi, Judith. This is Eleanor Dolan. How are you doing?"
She listened as Judith, an experienced patient, ran down her list of symptoms. No fever or chills that would indicate an infection. No blood in her urine. Just the pain.
"I thought I was managing," Judith said, almost apologetically. "But I felt so much worse last night my husband went to get that prescription for Tylenol 3 you gave me, and the pharmacist wouldn't fill it."
Nell made a note. "Did he tell you why?"
"He said the insurance company refused to authorize payment."
A premonition of trouble fluttered, soft as moth wings in the dark. Nell brushed it away.
"Do you have drug insurance?"
"I have an independent co-payment plan," Judith said. "But, honestly, if it's this much trouble, we can't afford to keep it."
"All right, I'll call the pharmacist," Nell said. "I can authorize a new prescription if it's necessary. You just rest and drink plenty of fluids and get back to me if you experience any problems."
Judith Lawrence was a regular patient with a legitimate medical complaint, Nell assured herself as she waited on hold to speak with the pharmacist. Not a doctor-shopper. Not a drug abuser.
But when the pharmacist came on the line, he was adamant that a prescription had already been filled almost a week ago, before Judith came in complaining of pain. Fourteen days' supply, well in excess of the two or three days' required to get her patient through the usual discomfort of passing a stone. The insurance company was refusing payment until the term of the original dosage expired. Nell's heart hammered.
"Do you remember who picked up the prescription?" she asked.
The pharmacist sighed. "No, I don't. But you wrote it."
Nell felt cold. She hadn't. She wouldn't. She never prescribed narcotics without seeing the patient. She knew better.
She thanked the pharmacist and hung up, her hand shaking, feeling as though she'd slid down a long, dark tunnel into an old, recurring nightmare. A bad one. There was that same sense of suffocating terror, of breathless futility, of things waiting to catch her out. To trip her up. To devour her.
Just to be sure, Nell combed through Judith's file and her own appointment record in case there had been a meeting, a phone call, a contact she'd forgotten.
Nothing.
Which meant someone, somehow, must have copied or forged an old prescription. Judith? Or someone with access to Nell's prescription pad and the clinic's patient list?
Blood rushed in her ears. Nell resisted the urge to lower her head between her knees. She was not going to faint. She was not going to panic. Last time she'd panicked, and she'd paid.
This time she was going to be calm and in control and follow protocol exactly. She hadn't done anything wrong. All she had to do was call the police. She would be very honest, very open, and…
And pray to God, Joe Reilly didn't find out and use her troubles to catapult himself back onto the front page of the Examiner.
It was Friday, and Joe's youngest brother had apparently pulled the job of baby-sitting Joe for the night. Or else he wanted to watch the game without their mother scolding him about wet rings on the coffee table.
"Saw your drug dealer yesterday," Mike remarked as he reached for the pretzels.
Joe froze with his hand wrapped around a can of Coke and his gaze fixed on the TV. The Bulls were down by seven in the second quarter. When he trusted himself to speak, he growled, "What are you talking about?"
His brother leaned out of his seat. "No, no, no, don't let Odom have the ball! Jesus, Mary and Joseph, they're throwing this game away."
Odom passed to Darius Miles, who went for the layup. Down by nine to the Clippers.
Joe rotated the sweating can in his hands. "Mike. What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about their lousy passing." Mike stuffed another pretzel in his mouth and then grinned through the crumbs. "Oh. Before. The blonde. The nurse? We got called to her clinic because she was writing bad prescriptions."
Joe watched as possession went to the Bulls. His gut churned. His mind spun. Nell, clear-eyed, conscientious, compassionate Nell, involved in prescription fraud?
"Is this some kind of joke?" he demanded. "April Fools'?"
"That was yesterday," Mike protested, all innocence. Joe narrowed his eyes.
"Okay." Mike held up both hands, palms out. "So I tweaked the story to get a rise out of you. But we did get a call."
Joe was still dizzy. Lack of oxygen. He hadn't breathed since his idiot brother dropped his bombshell. "Who called you?"
"She did. Dolan."
Anger flared, catching Joe off guard. "Then you can't honestly think—"
"That your girlfriend's involved in drug fraud? I've got an open mind."
"What about your partner, Dietz? Does he have an open mind, too?"
"Tom's reserving judgment."
"But he's seen her. Talked with her."
"We both talked with her. She's saying somebody either photocopied an old prescription or stole her prescription pad and forged her signature."
"That happens, doesn't it?"
"Happens all the time," Mike agreed. "But when we collected the scrip from the pharmacy, it sure looked legit to me. Standard abbreviations. Real ink. Bad handwriting."
"Signature?" Joe asked, trying to sound like he was just after the truth, Joe Objective Journalist instead of Joe the Schmuck Who Cared.
"Looked like a match. But then, I've seen you sign notes from school so the teacher never knew they weren't from Mom. So a forger could have copied her signature."
"Are you—" Joe's throat constricted. Stupid. This was no big deal. Police blotter stuff. Only he doubted Nell would be able to see it that way. "Are you going to charge her?"
"Not yet. Sergeant'll probably put a detective on it, tho
ugh."
"Is it that serious? One patient altering one prescription?"
"If that's all it is. But we have to look for a pattern of abuse. Word is, there's been an increase in the number of prescription drugs hitting the street."
That was bad. But Joe's brain automatically kept on asking questions, testing theories, going after the facts.
"How recent an increase?" he asked.
"Recent," Mike repeated, which meant he either didn't know or couldn't say. "Beats me why the dealers want to move in on Tylenol when they've got the corner on the crack market already, but that's what's got the brass excited."
"Prescription drugs have better potency, consistency and purity than most street drugs," Joe said. "Which gives them a higher resale value, too."
"Nice to know." Mike watched as Jay Williams drove to the basket and scored. He turned his head, his eyes cool and flat, so that for a second he didn't look like Joe's baby brother at all. He looked like a cop. "How do you know?"
Joe's hand tightened on his soda can.
"Research," he said.
Experience.
But some things he couldn't say. Not to his brother. Admit to God, to myself and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs, fine. But not his brothers. Not his parents. God spare them all that.
"Some story you were doing, huh?" asked Mike.
Next he was going to ask to read it.
"Background stuff," Joe said. "You never know what you can use somewhere down the road."
"Yeah." Mike grabbed another pretzel. "Maybe you'll write the big story—Nurse Dolan Does Drug Diversion on the North Side."
Joe's jaw set. "You don't really think she's done anything wrong."
Mike shrugged. "I don't know. I like her. But Tom says in a lot of cases like this, the practitioner is working with the pharmacy. Maybe she uses, too. Or maybe she gets a kickback from the pharmacy."
"Except in this case, the pharmacy didn't fill the prescription."
"So that lets them off the hook. Not the blonde."
Temper licked through Joe at his brother's casual tone. At his careless appraisal of someone as good, as principled, as dedicated as Nell. "Her name is Nell."
"I know her—" Mike paused with a pretzel halfway to his mouth. "Hell. Are you sweet on her?"
"What is this, high school? No, I'm not sweet on her. I just think you should have some respect for the work she does, that's all."
Mike's face turned red. The curse of the fair-skinned Irish. "I respect her. But being a nurse doesn't mean she can't be a druggie. In fact, more medical professionals become addicts because they have access to drugs."
"Right. And more cops shoot their wives because they have access to guns."
Mike put down his pretzel. He picked up his beer and took a long, slow swallow while Joe cursed himself silently. He shouldn't have gone there.
Mike wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "You forgot brothers. We shoot our brothers, too."
He was forgiven. Cautiously, Joe relaxed. "Should I duck under the couch?"
"Naw. But you could bring me another beer."
"You got it." Joe levered himself to his feet, relieved that things were back to normal. Mike never could hold a grudge.
But as he hobbled to the kitchen, his brother called, "Wait till I tell Mom you're sweet on the nurse."
* * *
Chapter 7
« ^ »
One couldn't go through with it, Nell decided, staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her reflection stared back, eyes dark with worry, mouth tight with strain.
She didn't look like a woman getting ready for a date. She looked like a woman preparing for an audit from the IRS.
Nell resisted the urge to drag her hands through her hair and undo the careful curl achieved with her styling brush and blow-dryer. No wonder she never went out. Oh, she'd snuck out a few times in high school, experimenting with rebellion, torn by guilt. But for most of her adult life, she had been too stressed-out, too overcommitted, for the time-consuming rituals of Boy Dates Girl.
And that was before she became a suspect in an ongoing drug investigation.
At least she didn't have to worry Joe was going to dissect Billie in his newspaper. Yesterday, Nell had reviewed nine-year-old Trevor Parker's chart. Billie's nephew was receiving more than adequate levels of pain medication. James Fletcher's treatment plan might not be alleviating all the boy's symptoms, but it certainly didn't provide a motive for his aunt to steal drugs.
So Billie was out. That only left Ed Johnson, Melody King, Lucy Morales and several dozen volunteer nurses and physicians as suspects. All her friends, her surrogate family.
And Nell herself.
She scowled and dabbed blusher on her face. The makeup stood out like fever spots against her pale skin. What was she thinking? Any relationship now would be a distraction.
A relationship with Joe Reilly would be a disaster.
She needed support, stability, control. All the things her lonely, workaholic childhood lacked. All the things her empty, crumbling marriage hadn't been able to provide. She was out of her mind to think she could find them with a burned-out, cynical reporter in need of healing whose brother was one of the cops trying to tie her to prescription fraud.
She should never have agreed to have dinner with him. She should have called to cancel. She would have called, except she didn't have Joe's home number, and the newspaper switchboard was probably closed on weekends.
Nell met the eyes of the woman in the mirror. Liar. She could have reached Joe if she wanted to. Obviously, she didn't want to.
No, what she wanted was to forget all the reasons she couldn't behave like an ordinary thirty-year-old woman with a normal sex drive. Forget her troubles and responsibilities. Forget the Angel of Ark Street
. For once, she wanted to be selfish and have a good time.
She had a sudden vision of Joe, of his weary eyes and knowing grin, his surgeon's hands and lean, tough body. He would be a good time, she thought wistfully.
Being good hadn't earned Nell her mother's attention or secured her husband's love. Maybe it was time to see what being bad could do for her.
The buzzer rasped. Nell felt a purely feminine flutter as she pressed the button that released the security door downstairs. She stood in the hallway, her hands clasped nervously together, waiting for Joe's knock.
A quick tattoo announced his arrival. Taking a deep breath, Nell opened the door.
She had dressed with care in khaki slacks and a pink silk twinset, a leftover from her doctor's wife wardrobe.
Joe wore jeans and work boots and a deep blue shirt that matched his eyes. He looked so good her stomach contracted with lust. And then twisted with something else. Surprise. Delight. Longing.
He'd brought her flowers.
Not roses. Daffodils, tiny ones, the kind you could buy at the grocery store on the corner. Their bright gold trumpets and green spears rose bravely from a purple plastic pot.
"Here." He thrust them at her.
"Thank you." Not good enough. She tried again. "They're beautiful." The gesture was so unexpected, so unlike what she thought she knew of him, she was at a loss for words. Unable to help herself, she lifted the flowers to her face. The bright blooms had little scent, but their touch on her cheek was cool and gentle. "You didn't have to bring me flowers."
"Yeah, I did." Joe sounded grim. "You don't know where I'm taking you for dinner yet."
Amused, she smiled. "Bribes, Reilly?"
"I was thinking more along the line of incentives. These are for you." He took the pot from her and set it on the hall table, already overflowing with bills and circulars. "And this—"
He cupped her shoulders. His hands were hard and warm. "This is for me."
He tugged her against him, slid one hand into her hair and pulled her mouth to his.
Shock held her still.
He wasn't persuasive or coaxing this time. He was urgent. Rough. Nipping
at her lower lip, he plundered her mouth.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. Sensation crashed through her. He tasted like mint and smelled of tobacco and kissed as if he had something to prove. To her? Or to himself? But the thought dissolved as his tongue demanded her response and her mind turned to mush. Power, pleasure, desire swamped her body and rushed through her blood. It was wonderful.
It was insane.
Her arms were trapped between them. She wanted to touch, to feel him, and struggled to free her hands. He shifted just enough to allow her to slide her palms around his lean waist and up his muscled back. Amazing. They fit together, breast to chest, belly to belly, heat to heat. The hard ridge of his erection rode between her thighs. She rubbed against him like a cat, and he grunted and backed her into the wall.
Her head hit plaster. Her teeth bumped his lip.
He lifted his mouth. "Ouch. Are you—"
Impatient, she drew him back. "More."
He grinned, but she saw with satisfaction that he was breathing as hard as she was. And he gave her more, deep, wet, hungry kisses that fed and left her wanting at the same time. His arms were solid around her, his hot, insistent mouth making her mind a blissful blank.
Which was wonderful, Nell told herself, because as long as her brain was fogged with sex, as long as she was warming herself with his heat and breathing his breath and pulsing with his rhythm, she didn't have to think about… She wasn't going to think about…
His hand closed over her breast, firm, possessive, and whatever it was she wasn't thinking slid farther below the surface. Gratefully, she sucked in her breath; released it on a moan.
But when his hand slid under the hem of her sweater, his warm fingers brushing bare skin, a glint of sanity slipped through her absorption like the crack of light beneath a door.
One part of her accepted where this was going. The inevitability of it pounded in her chest. His arousal pressed purposefully against the seam of her thighs. They were both adults. They'd known each other… Okay, a week wasn't all that long. But he wanted her, and she wanted the forgetfulness she was pretty sure he could give her. Maybe it wasn't wise, maybe it wasn't romantic, but she was going to make love with Joe Reilly.
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