by Lisa Eugene
Since reaching the hospital, she couldn’t quell her disquiet. Uniformed policeman were milling about in inquisitive clusters, speaking to hospital personnel. A burly security guard had stoically greeted her when she’d arrived. After escorting her to an enclosed waiting area he’d issued strict instructions not to leave. Maggie frowned again, wondering why she’d been detained.
“Are you Maggie Lawson?”
Maggie turned at the sound of her name and faced a very pregnant physician. Her eyes scanned the woman’s pretty face but kept returning to the large protuberance clearly visible beneath the strained edges of her lab coat.
“You’re huge,” Maggie blurted, and then winced apologetically at the verbal slip.
A soft laugh issued from the doctor as she lovingly caressed the hump of her belly. Her green eyes sparkled when she looked back at Maggie.
“It’s ok, really. I know I am. I’m due in three weeks. Everyone thinks I’m having twins, but there’s only one in there. My husband is huge. He takes after him, I think.”
Maggie returned her kind smile, thinking hers was the first friendly face she’d seen since walking into the hospital.
“I’m Dr. Nina Connolly. I have a few questions,” the doctor explained as she lowered herself into a seat opposite Maggie.
Dr. Connolly’s face sobered as she stared at Maggie. “Your friend is getting prepped for surgery now. He’s lost a lot of blood.”
Maggie blew out an exasperated breath. “He’s not my friend. I keep trying to tell everyone that! Why doesn’t anyone believe me?”
Dr. Connolly looked taken aback. “Do you know his name?”
“No!”
“Do you have any idea how he sustained the gunshot wound?”
Maggie’s felt her face leach its color. “Gunshot wound?”
“Yeah, he’s lucky. The bullet didn’t damage much muscle or tissue, but he’s lost a great deal of blood. We have to go in to stop the bleeding.”
Disbelief caused her breath to lock in her lungs. She hadn’t given a thought as to how the man had sustained his wound. My God! Why would anyone shoot a poor homeless man? She shook her head slowly and pushed back her hair.
“I’m sorry. I have no answers for you. I don’t know him.” She followed Dr. Connolly’s gaze to the man stalking towards them with two uniformed officers at his heel.
Maggie knew at once she didn’t like the gentleman. Keenly assessing eyes peered out of a lean, unshaven face. Oily hair was slicked back and plastered to his balding head, while his disheveled clothes looked as though he’d slept for days in them. She noticed what looked like a small ketchup smudge on his chin and had to squelch the urge to offer him a sani-wipe.
“Alright, Connolly, I need to speak to the John Doe,” he grated out.
Maggie watched as Dr. Connolly rose from her seated position, surprisingly graceful considering her added girth.
“No way, Detective Sullivan. He’s headed into surgery. He’s barely conscious.”
Maggie could see the anger radiating from the detective like a visible aura. He shifted his weight and pinioned the doctor with a menacing stare. “Look, I got three corpses and no explanations. I’ve got witnesses who saw your John Doe coming out of the alley where the bodies were found.” Maggie flinched backward as the detective stretched to his full height, towering over the auburn haired physician. “I need answers, and I need them now!” he bellowed.
Maggie’s jaw slackened. Oh God. Had her hobo shot those men? Had she resuscitated a murderer? And to think, she’d actually felt sorry for him! No wonder she’d been detained. Did they think she had something to do with those murders?
“Your answers will have to wait,” Dr. Connolly stated coolly.
“I’ve got a mind to arrest you for obstruction of justice!”
Maggie watched the doctor’s green eyes narrow. “I’m the director here, and I’m not going to let you run amuck in my ER. There’ll be plenty of time to question him after he’s out of surgery.”
Moments ticked by as the detective stood his ground. He finally scrubbed a hand across his patchy stubble and warned evenly, “You better make sure he doesn’t die during surgery or there’ll be hell to pay.” At that he turned to Maggie and barked, “I need to talk to you next!”
Maggie quivered with fear as she watched him stomp away. Her mind was still busy absorbing the exchange she’d just witnessed. Her hobo was most likely a murderer! She shook her head in a futile attempt to clear it. Had she been thinking of him as her hobo? What was wrong with her?
“Don’t worry. His bark is worse than his bite.” The doctor nodded to the hovering detective.
Maggie’s face pinched in distress. Her brain struggled to maintain a coherent thought.
She turned and stared at Dr. Connolly’s kind visage. She could feel panic widen her eyes. Her heart fluttered like a million butterfly wings beneath her breast, and her breath panted irregularly through her parched lips. She was absolutely certain now that she was going to faint. Would it be too much to ask for someone to lay a clean drape on the floor?
Maggie guessed it was almost midnight when she finally turned the key in the door to her apartment. She was depleted mentally and physically. Exhaustion wrapped around her like a fist, wringing out any remaining energy or rational thought. This harrowing experience had been many lessons learned. Never ride the subway. Never wear her nurse’s uniform in public. Never resuscitate a hobo murderer. And most importantly, never speak to David again! As if thinking of him had conjured his corporeal form, the door to the apartment across from hers cracked open. A shaggy dark head appeared, then the door flew open and David came bounding over to her.
“Where on earth have you been, Mag? I’ve been worried sick!”
She pursed her lips and blatantly ignored him. Which was difficult because he was wearing a flaming pink tutu over his jeans and tee-shirt. She pushed open her door and entered her apartment, David at her heels.
“Do you know what time it is? Where have you been?” David demanded, deepening his voice as he assumed his stern fatherly persona.
Just inside her threshold Maggie turned abruptly to face him, closing her door with a decisive thud. She handed him her work bag and initiated her post work decontamination ritual. She tossed her keys into the drawer of a small table sitting near the door.
“I would tell you, but I’m not talking to you,” she snapped.
“Why? Because—” David halted abruptly. His expressive brown eyes grew large as he took note of her dirty nurse’s uniform. “Why do you look like you’ve been attacked by an angry mob of bacteria?”
“David, it was infinitely worse than that.” She issued a bombastic sigh and ignored his teasing.
She slipped her shoes into a plastic bag and hung them on a hook in the closet beside the door. Ferreting through her pockets, she disposed of loose change and sundries. A clump of dirt on the back of her hand caught her attention and disgusted, she scratched at it.
“Wow. I’m sorry, Mag.” David’s brows drew up as he passed her a larger plastic bag from the closet. “Tell me what happened?”
Maggie stepped out of her nursing skirt, clucking her tongue at the dark blotches and streaky blood stains on its front. She folded it and placed it in the plastic bag.
“I took the subway.” She shot him an accusing look, and then continued, satisfied at least that he looked chagrined. “I had to do mouth-to-mouth on an injured homeless man who turned out to be a murderer, then he wouldn’t let me leave, and the EMS guys thought I was crazy and playing games with them, then I went to the hospital where this wretched detective interrogated me and threatened to throw me in prison!” she rushed her soliloquy out in one continuous, petulant breath.
David stood silent for a few heartbeats. His face then morphed with elaborate shock. “Wow,” he stated blandly. “I can’t believe you took the subway.”
Maggie harrumphed in frustration, about to vent her roiling emotions on her best friend. She could
n’t believe he was being flippant at a time like this. She knew he didn’t believe her story and thought she was just being melodramatic. He probably thought she’d just fallen into a ditch or something, and was now trying to hammer his guilt about not driving her home.
“No, really, I could have been killed by the hobo!” She handed him her nursing top to fold and place in the plastic bag while she peeled off her white stockings.
“There’s something left here in the pocket,” she heard him say.
“Take it out. These disgusting things have to go right in the laundry!” she exclaimed, and distracted by the clump of dirt on the back of her hand, started to scratch at it again. She balled up her stockings and added them to the heap then took the bag. David toed off his shoes, bagged them and hung them next to hers in the closet.
“I thought you said he was injured and needed mouth-to-mouth. He couldn’t have been much of a threat.” David followed her into the apartment.
Maggie turned and he almost collided with her. She was clad in a bra and panties. “Well, he was still dangerous! He was huge and packed with muscles.”
She watched David’s face crack with a salacious smile.
“Ooh. My kind of hobo.”
She threw her arms up with exasperation as she marched into her small kitchen. “And he was so dirty.” She shuddered, remembering his soiled face and clothing.
“Even better!”
She tossed David a warning glance, and he returned an impertinent grin.
She ignored him, filling and running the washing machine. She took out a large bottle of bleach and left it on top of the washer. “And to make matters worse, my wallet got stolen. Good thing I had money in my pocket or I don’t know how I would have gotten home.” She walked through her bedroom, David following, and headed for the bathroom. There, she flipped on the shower.
“You should have called me.” Genuine concern creased his face.
She snorted, recalling how unreliable David had been earlier that day.
“No, really, Mag,” he called from behind the bathroom door. “I’m sorry about today, but you were the one who walked away. I told you I was in a rush.”
Maggie gasped, suddenly remembering his date. She pulled open the door and stared expectantly. “Well? How’d it go?”
David sighed flamboyantly and rolled his eyes. “He’s not for me. Too crazy. Too gay.”
Maggie quirked her brow and stared pointedly at his pink tutu, causing him to laugh and twirled his willowy frame. He was just a few inches taller than she, but David was boyishly slim where she was generously curved.
“You like?”
“Not your color.”
“Seriously?”
“What’s it for?”
David shrieked. “What for? Only the biggest party in history!”
Maggie smiled. Now who was being melodramatic? She suddenly remembered David mentioning a costume party his friend was throwing.
“You promised you’d help me find something to wear.” He pouted sulkily. “I’ve been trying on outfits.”
“While you were worried sick over my wellbeing?” she commented dryly.
“Well, I had to keep my mind occupied. Will you help?”
“Yes. Fine. But it’s after midnight. I’m exhausted and in desperate need of a shower.”
“Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“I’ll make you something while you shower, then we can discuss my phatabulous outfits, my fruitcake date, and your hobo!” He pulled the door closed.
Maggie bristled from the bathroom. “He’s not my hobo! And I’m still not talking to you!”
Gabe slowly peeled his eyes open and stared at the ceiling of his small hospital room. His gaze probed the dark shadows then flitted to the IV pole next to his bed, intent on the slow drip of the saline flowing into his veins. Drip. Drip. Drip. He slowed his breathing and regulated his heart rate to sync with the cadence of the drops. Allowing calm to settle like a blanket over him, he trained his ears in the direction of the door. In exactly eight seconds the nurse would be in to change his IV bag, and in fifteen minutes the security detail at his door would change. He needed to make his move before a fresh cop showed up. The current officer had been posted now for almost twelve hours, and from the deep, even snores he could hear through the door, his watchman was more interested in his slumber than preventing his charge from escaping.
Gabe had no intention of tolerating another day of Detective Sullivan’s futile interrogation. The fact that Gabe had not uttered a word since awakening from surgery was pushing the detective beyond his frustrated limits. Gabe was certain it had only been the intervention of his doctor, who kept insisting he needed his rest, which had kept the man from inflicting bodily harm.
He tugged at the handcuffs binding his right wrist to the bed rail. This had posed a problem until he’d seen the terrified nurse come into his room earlier. As her trembling fingers had adjusted his IV, Gabe thought she’d faint dead onto his bed. That would have made his task all the more easy. He’d have to make sure this time that she did indeed faint onto the bed. Just one of those glorious hairpins which secured her hair in a tight bun would do nicely. He was a sitting duck here. Whoever had set him up would not let a uniform cop deter the retrieval of the flash drive. A timely shuffle at the door caused him to roll his lids down. He waited patiently.
Eleven minutes later Gabe was exiting the rear door of the hospital. It had taken a few extra moments to retrieve the wallet he’d stashed. The tight blue police uniform was less than ideal, but was infinitely better than that scrap of material he’d worn for the past few days. The officer he’d left bound and gagged in the closet of his room was a good deal smaller than him. At least now he had a weapon. The 9mm would have to suffice until he could get to his safe house. Pulling the dark cap further down on his forehead, he slipped into the delivery entrance of an adjacent building. In an empty stairwell he pulled a license from the small square wallet and examined it. The address wasn’t too far from his location.
His eyes strayed to the picture of the woman staring back at him. Maggie Lawson. The heart shaped face wore a discomfited smile, but the blue eyes sparkled with restrained mischief. Her slightly parted, lush lips caused his gaze to linger briefly before it shifted to note her statistics. Five foot four. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Blue? He remembered her eyes being a radiant blue-gray, with dancing pewter flecks in the center. Blue just seemed so inadequate. Gabe’s lips pulled in a sardonic smile as he scratched at the craggy beard still covering his face. He’d thought her an angelic apparition in all white when he’d first seen her on the train. She’d soothed him somehow, pushed away his pain and ever-present demons. At first he’d just needed her to get close enough for him transfer the drive, but he found he hadn’t wanted to let her go.
She hadn’t seemed inclined to help him, but had done so anyway. He supposed he should feel guilty for taking advantage of her kindness—reluctant as it might have been. Guilt. God, he had enough of that to last him a lifetime. Gabe shook his head and headed up the stairs. His ex-SEAL buddies would chastise him for the emotion. He couldn’t afford emotion. His head had to be clear. He needed answers and to get them he had to start by locating more serviceable clothing.
CHAPTER TWO
Gabe was searching the girl’s bedroom when he heard the distinct click of a key turning in a lock. Silently he eased behind the bedroom door and peered through the seam that gave him an unobstructed view of the front door. So far his search had yielded nothing, but he hadn’t really expected it to. The flash drive looked like any other ordinary computer drive, and she most likely would have just casually stored it. It would be more expedient for her to just tell him where it was rather than him tearing apart her apartment.
Her first floor apartment was small. He’d done a quick walkthrough after he’d come in through the window. He’d quickly noted the floor plan, usable stock, and number of exits. Her furnishings looked comfortably utilitarian.
He was surprised by the lack of frilly excesses or feminine touches. Although he found a certain charm in the calm simplicity of her décor, he realized he couldn’t get a good sense of the dweller’s personality. He didn’t stop to wonder why he was curious about that. What also surprised him was the space’s aseptic cleanliness and rigid organization.
He watched her enter and close the door. Deciding it was time to make his presence known, he shifted, about to take a step. What he saw next arrested him in his tracks and pulsed a tidal wave of desire to his groin. His quarry peeled away her loose white top, revealing naturally large, creamy breasts. The sight sent a flare of heat singing through him. Even from far away he could make out the dusky hue of her nipples beneath a lacy white bra. Her fingers rolled away a dowdy, unflattering skirt and he took a sharp inhalation at the gift that was revealed. A trim waist flared into voluptuous curves that tapered to long shapely legs. Gabe’s breath stuttered as she eased her stockings down and he imagined his fingers and tongue following its path. Beneath that boxy, severe uniform, none would guess at the visual treat she concealed. He squeezed his eyes shut and adjusted the growing weight inside his already restrictive pants. He had to get a grip on the desire barreling through his veins like a raging storm.
He quickly shifted back behind the door as soft steps treaded towards him. Unaware, she passed by him into the bedroom and headed to the bathroom, allowing a closer inspection of her delightful figure. From where he stood there was a direct view into the small bathroom. It was when she bent over to turn on the tub that Gabe thought for sure he’d be noticed. The globes of her ample bottom were barely covered by her cotton briefs. The undisciplined groan that broke away from his chest was audible. A tiny niggle of shame at his voyeuristic perusal nudged at his brain, and before it could become full blown, Gabe’s long legs ate up the space to the bathroom.
One arm snaked around a waist that was so softly pleasing that his breath stopped for a moment. He felt her body tense against him with the sudden draw of a shocked breath. Before the scream could be expelled it was stifled by Gabe’s large palm clapping over her mouth, effectively trapping it in her lungs. The sound instead erupted as a muffled grunt. A large mirror hung to his right, and he pivoted them so they both had a clear view. From behind, he observed her confused shock, and then saw stark terror widen her large blue eyes as recognition slammed into her brain. Her nostrils flared and her brows crinkled with an explosion of panic. Surging turmoil swirled in her dilated eyes.