Wounds That Won’t Heal

by Calle J. Brookes

  “Luc, again. He’s nervous someone will find out about her—she’s an open secret, now—and use her to get to him. But she doesn’t like the guards and they keep to where she can’t see them. They are very good at what they do. Better than Houghton’s men—I spot them every time I have to have a guard.”

  "Why doesn't he have guards on you all the time?" Rafe would.

  "Because we want our freedom as well. Melody married Houghton, not us. And we follow precautions. All of us do. Houghton’s even had a guard on Lacy before." Rafe didn’t know what he thought of that. If it was him, and his family was threatened, he’d want them under guard at all times. Houghton Barratt seemed like a bit of a pushover where his wife’s sisters were concerned. Freedom or not, Rafe would do whatever he could to keep her safe—if she was his.

  “Has there been a need?"

  "Someone followed Syd for a few days a few weeks ago; it was a disgruntled employee of Houghton’s and it really scared her. Scared all of us. Mel goes nowhere without at least three guards. It drives her nuts, but she does it for him. His mother...well, they never caught the man who killed Houghton’s mother. And Houghton is almost insane over Mel’s safety. Sometimes I think he breathes Mel-air to live. We always have to make sure that Chance has a copy of our schedules and where we’re going to be. Even Lacy; Houghton has had guards on her time or two as well."

  They spoke a little longer until he pulled into his drive. Her house was dark. There were no cars in the drive. There were usually at least two. After their discussion, he didn’t want her there alone. Ridiculous of him, maybe, but it was how he felt. "I'll walk you home."

  "It's not exactly like it’s all that far away. You can watch me from here."

  “Still. Humor me. I’ll stay on the porch until you are safely inside. Just humor me, Jillian.”

  “Deal.”

  She smiled at him under her porch light, and just like the last girl he’d kissed who wore overalls, Rafe couldn’t help himself.

  He kissed her again. Just one more time.

  92

  Jillian avoided him for the next several days. Rafe knew that was what she was doing. That seemed to be her mode of operations when he made her nervous.

  She either fought him, or she ran. He was starting to get used to it.

  And he had his own problems to worry about.

  He resisted the urge to slam his office door or yell at the idiots he’d just left. He’d had to deal with the Board yet again. They weren’t exactly too happy with the idea of stopping the Solpalmitraln study, even temporarily.

  He’d spent an hour being lectured about budgetary concerns.

  Rafe wasn’t exactly happy about that. Screw the budget. It would take money to fix what Lanning and Daniels had screwed up. Money and time and someone willing to make decisions.

  He’d reminded them that they had agreed to that when they hired him.

  He hadn’t been finished with the Board ten minutes before Larry Hayes had stopped him outside the pharmacy.

  The head of Pharmaceuticals made one thing clear. Several dozen boxes of Solpalmitraln in liquid form was missing.

  He’d given Rafe a stack of requisition forms. Drugs of that magnitude—any drug, actually—were to be tracked within the hospital closely. The answers could be in those files.

  Rafe hadn’t had the time to look at them yet. They were going to have to be dealt with later and he knew it.

  It looked like he was going to be dealing with this for a very long while.

  Where the hell was that drug, and how had someone managed to smuggle forty boxes of it out of the hospital?

  Rafe called Fin quickly and explained what he wanted. She had the list of everyone who had even a moment’s access to the drug.

  He’d need that list.

  * * *

  Rafe hit the ER before leaving for the night, for two reasons. One, he needed to speak with Allen about the last four patients he’d prescribed Solpalmitraln. The reports didn’t match what he’d found in the pharmacy records.

  And two, Allen’s name was the one on the falsified records this time.

  Rafe trusted the other man—to a point. He hadn’t exactly trusted Logan Lanning, and like it or not, Allen was associated closely with that man.

  Allen had been ninety-five percent responsible for persuading the Board to allow the trial to happen at FCGH in the first place. That was a big red flag, and he knew it.

  Rafe had questions.

  The surgical department had told him Allen was downstairs tonight, working his shift in the ER.

  Rafe would admit it to himself, he wanted to see Jillian tonight. At least once before he left.

  It had been over a week since he’d kissed her there in that office across the street.

  A week of dreaming of her every night. A week trying to figure out exactly what he was going to do about her.

  Because he was for damned sure unable to forget that little she-devil in any way that mattered.

  93

  Jillian was the one who turned off the monitors. Allen was the one who’d sign off on the death certificate and notify the family.

  Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

  This guy was far too young for what had just happened. Far too nice and loving. She’d known him since she and Brynna had been in kindergarten. He hadn’t been a friend, exactly, but she had known him. Sam had been a good kid, who’d grown into a good man.

  His mother and father waited. She’d known them most of her life, too. “Allen, wait.”

  He looked at her as Izzie covered Sam’s body with a blanket respectfully.

  “I’ll go with you. I...know the family pretty well. It might help.” The hardest thing that any of them in the medical profession could face was grieving families. Allen shouldn’t have to face it alone.

  * * *

  Rafe stopped off at the desk. Wanda and that little brunette nurse Annie were working. “I need to see Jacobson, Wanda. Is he around?”

  Wanda hesitated. The two women shared a glance. Wanda shook her head. “He lost one tonight. Allen and Jillian. They just finished up with the family. Jillian clocked out a few minutes ago.”

  Rafe winced. Lost patients were par for the course, but it was never easy. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “And it was someone Jillian knew. She’s pretty upset,” Annie said. “He was in her class at school, I think. His mother...Jillian...it wasn’t easy, Dr. Holden-Deane.”

  Rafe’s plans changed immediately. The altered files could wait. “Where is she, Annie?”

  “The roof. She goes there sometimes. When she wants to be alone.”

  Rafe nodded. “If you see Jacobson, tell him to see me first thing in the morning.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  94

  Jessica knew what she had been doing was totally stupid. She’d pay for it eventually. But there was really no choice. The damned goon had his own agenda—and it didn’t always match his boss’s.

  She just hadn’t been able to play this time. It was too complicated—she was going to get caught.

  The Chief of Medicine was too damned close to finding out that the missing Solpalmitraln had all gone missing on her watch.

  The COM had to know. If he wasn’t so damned caught up in that bitch, Jess would probably have already been arrested.

  It was just that close.

  “I can’t.” She made certain the pharmacy was locked before she turned to the goon. “He’s getting too close.”

  “Who? That surgeon you’re leading by the dick?” The goon had huge hands and he used them, grabbing her right ass cheek. Jess forced herself not to jerk away. “He’ll eventually figure you out.”

  Instead, she sent him a deliberately sultry look and shook her head. “Hardly. The Chief of Medicine.”

  The goon snorted, then pulled her closer. He pushed his lower body into hers.

  He wasn’t a handsome man, but his body was in damned good shape. Hard.

  And bigger than av
erage—everywhere. She’d been with worse. “I can’t get you any more to sell. They are cracking down on me now. And you’re not even supposed to be back here. You’ll have to tell him no. At least not right now.”

  His face turned angry in an instant. He wrapped his hand in her hair and yanked her close. Jess forced herself not to fight him.

  She glanced up at the security camera overhead. She’d deliberately nudged it aside a few inches months ago. It gave her a private little alcove to do what she needed to do each evening before she closed down the pharmacy.

  They were still safe. She’d used the camera void hundreds of times now to smuggle products from Claireson Pharm right out of the FCGH pharmacy. She’d figured out early on how to get right around all the checks and preventative measures to do what she wanted.

  Jess wasn’t a stupid woman at all.

  “Hands off,” Jess wiggled suggestively, knowing she was playing with fire. She couldn’t piss him off.

  Piss him off, and she’d bring his boss right down on her head. She couldn’t afford that.

  Deal was that she smuggled out extra product sent their way from Claireson Pharm and a few other drug supply companies to the goon. He moved it down to the next step in the supply chain. In exchange, she got a hefty cut.

  She needed, wanted, that cash.

  And that meant playing the game. Distracting him with the tools every smart woman knew exactly how to use with dumbasses like this one. “Please? I might be able to get you something. I just...just can’t afford to get into trouble. I just don’t know what to do...”

  Jess let her eyes fill with tears and her body soften against his.

  There wasn’t anything she wasn’t prepared to do.

  After she gave him exactly what he wanted—both things that he wanted—and he had the cardboard boxes with Claireson Pharm labeled on the side under his arm, he smiled at her.

  He wasn’t too ugly. He was just stupid.

  And easily led by two things—his wallet...and his dick.

  “Don’t worry, babe. I’ll take care of that COM problem of yours. You just keep up your end of the bargain you made. Got to keep your word, you know. It’s all we have to live by in this world.”

  Great. The goon was a damned philosopher.

  Jess just smiled shyly and nodded. He grinned, saluted, and walked away.

  95

  Rafe found her upstairs, on top of that damned roof with the lights of Finley Creek spread out in front of her.

  She had on a light windbreaker, to ward off the chill of the rainy night. Light from the city below reflected in the red of her hair. She had never looked more beautiful to him. She looked over her shoulder at him and that's when he saw the tear tracks reflecting the light. He had suspected exactly what he just found. "Jillian?"

  "Rafe, I clocked out fifteen minutes ago. I just needed some quiet for a little bit."

  "I heard you lost a patient tonight. I'm sorry."

  "I knew him for twenty years, Rafe. I took his vitals at 8:04. He was dead at 8:26. Hell, we lose patients like that all the time. But Sam...He shouldn’t have died. Allen did everything right. So did I and Izzie and...We did everything right.”

  "And we will find out why. I'm sorry, sweetheart." Rafe acted on it, reaching out and pulling the woman toward him. Pulling her away from the ledge. He didn't want her standing that close to the edge ever again.

  Rafe hadn’t even hesitated; the moment he’d learned she might need him he’d left everything else behind to get to her. She was already beneath his skin in so many ways.

  As he held her on the roof, he finally admitted to himself it wasn't just attraction that he was feeling for her. It was something far more. He pulled her tighter and dropped a kiss to her hair and rocked her while she cried.

  96

  Jess had always enjoyed the roof. After her shift was over, almost every night, she’d head up there for a few moments and just look. Count the lighted streets that separated the hospital from Boethe Street.

  Boethe Street. Sometimes it felt like she’d never escape the tentacles pulling her back down to that hellhole.

  Tonight, though, her favorite place was already occupied.

  By that damned bitch.

  Of course. She took everything from Jess, didn’t she?

  It was so tempting to just step closer and push. It wouldn’t be too tough to make it look like a suicide.

  But Jess restrained herself.

  She half thought there were cameras up there.

  Allen had said there were.

  She’d met him up there, right next to where Jillian Beck was standing.

  Allen.

  He was getting...complicated. More complicated than Jess wanted to consider.

  When the door to the roof opened and a man walked through she almost thought Allen had followed her after their argument.

  Their first.

  She hadn’t realized fighting with him would hurt so much. That she’d care so much. She should have realized he was hurting from something before she’d snapped at him. She’d have to apologize somehow. Make it right.

  But the man wasn’t Allen.

  The man up there wasn’t up there for Jess. He was up there for Jillian.

  Jess hid herself in her second-favorite spot and just watched. Listened.

  And envied.

  97

  Riding home with him was becoming a habit. One that she wasn't sure she liked.

  Jillian wasn’t certain she didn’t like it, either.

  Neither one of them said anything. Until they were halfway to their homes and she just needed to talk about something. "What are you thinking? Why were you still here so late? Were you waiting for me?”

  She’d been planning on having Chance pick her up. But apparently Rafe had texted her brother-in-law on his way up to the roof.

  She should protest his high-handedness, but at the moment she didn’t want to be with Brynna’s husband.

  She wanted to be with Rafe.

  Be with someone who understood.

  "Something's going on in the hospital pharmacy. Numbers are not adding up, and there’ve been altered files. Files I know are altered—some were signed with Lacy’s name while she was in St. Louis at...my brother’s. Hard to argue with the proof of that. I’m trying to figure out what it is, who is responsible, and why Solpalmitraln is involved.”

  “I heard arguing coming from the pharmacy the day I hit my head. When I was walking back from my lunch break. I usually take that hall to avoid the crowd.” She barely remembered what had happened that night, but she was pretty certain of that.

  His attention sharpened. “Who was it?”

  “I think it was Jessica Ward. A man left the pharmacy after that. He didn’t have a security tag. And I haven’t ever seen him before. I don’t think. I walked by him in the hall. He had on a delivery uniform or something. I was focused on my phone.” She hadn’t paid too much attention, honestly. She and the pharmacy tech had never really clicked. Not that Jillian hadn’t tried, but the other woman had a strange sort of resentment where other women were concerned.

  Lacy had noticed the same thing, too.

  And she had been consumed with thoughts of the man next to her to focus on another she walked by in the hall.

  To be honest, details of that night were still pretty fuzzy. Something not uncommon with concussions—even mild ones. She’d probably never fully remember.

  “Was he in the stairs at the same time you were?” Rafe’s tone sharpened. Jillian looked at him closely. There was anger on his face. Why? Did he think that man had pushed her?

  Jillian didn’t have a clue if that was what had happened or not. She shivered; it was something she definitely didn’t want to think about.

  "Honestly, I don't remember. The last thing I remember was pushing open the door. Then I woke up and you were there. That's all I remember." Was it possible someone had pushed her? Jillian wished she could remember. "What do you think is going on? Be honest w
ith me, Rafe. I don't like it when someone lies. I… Can't handle it anymore."

  He was silent for a long moment; she thought he was going to tell her nothing. "I'm not sure. But I have something you may want to take a look at. To be honest, you know the people involved for better than I do. You probably do see more than I do. And I need help figuring it out from people that I trust. That's you, and Lacy. And Fin. Come to my place; I’ll show you what I have."

  She didn’t even hesitate, though she knew it meant being alone with him for even longer. "Okay."

  They didn't say anything else until he’d pulled into his front driveway. He always parked there when he drove her home. Then he would walk her across their yards to her front door.

  He’d insisted every single time; he’d stay on her front porch until she was safely inside.

  She hadn't appreciated his overprotectiveness before. Until the night he had driven Ari home and refused to pull away from the building until she had texted Jillian that she was inside and safe. Fierce, big, and protective—that was who he was when he wasn’t growling at her.

  Who was the real Rafael Holden-Deane? The big scary bear that everyone at FCGH feared, or the reluctantly protective big brother?

  Her father’s house was dark again, attesting to the fact that her father was out somewhere and Syd was once again in St. Louis.

  Jillian fought a moment of worry. Something was bothering her younger sister, and she had hurried back to St. Louis after being home less than a month.

  It seemed like there was a lot of that going around. Everyone was quiet, secretive, consumed with whatever was going on in their own lives.

  She missed her sisters. She missed Lacy, who now spent most of her time with Travis. And she missed Ari, who had been going back and forth between Austin, St. Louis, and Finley Creek, trying to get everything ready for W4HAV.