“Yes, but—”
“Stop.” Sara wasn’t looking for a discussion. She checked her watch again. “Dr. Connor is taking over for me, but you’ve got all of my numbers. Order the skeletal survey to see if there are any past breaks or fractures. Notify security to keep an eye on the mom. Call the other ERs to see if the girl’s ever been admitted.” Sara moderated her tone, trying to make it clear she was teaching him something, not punishing him. “Oliver, sixty-five percent of child abuse cases are flagged in emergency rooms. If you stay in pediatrics, this is the sort of thing you’re going to be dealing with on a weekly basis. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just saying you need to know all the facts before you turn this girl’s life upside down. And her mother’s.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He headed down the stairs, hands tucked deep into his coat pockets.
Sara didn’t immediately follow, cognizant that Oliver’s ego was fragile enough without her snapping at his heels. Instead, she sat on the bottom stair and checked her hospital BlackBerry. Sara’s eyes threatened to roll back in her head as she scrolled through the administrative detritus littering her mailbox. Meetings, conferences, denied requisitions, and new procedures for requisitioning, attending conferences, and scheduling meetings.
She felt around in her other pocket and traded the BlackBerry for her personal phone. This was much better. Her father had emailed a silly joke about snails that he’d heard at the Waffle House. Her mother had forwarded a recipe that was never going to happen. There was a long email from her sister with a picture of Sara’s niece attached. She marked this unread and saved it for later. The next message was a text from Sara’s boyfriend. An hour ago, he’d sent her a photo of his breakfast: six mini chocolate doughnuts, an egg and cheese biscuit, and a large Coke.
Sara didn’t know which one of them was going to have a heart attack first.
The door popped open. Dr. Felix Connor stuck his head into the stairwell. He eyed Sara suspiciously. “Why do you look so happy?”
“Because I can go home now that you’re finally here?”
“Gimme a minute to hit the can.”
Sara dropped the phone back into her pocket as she stood. Oliver wasn’t the only one who wanted to get out of here. Sara had pulled several night shifts in a row courtesy of a stomach flu that was running rampant through the hospital. She was beginning to feel punished for her own good health.
Home. Sleep. Silence. She was already making plans as she walked through the ER. Thanks to her crazy work schedule, Sara had four full days of freedom ahead of her. She could read a book. Take a run with her dogs. Remind her boyfriend why they were together.
This last bit widened her smile considerably. She got some curious looks in return. Not many people were happy to find themselves at Grady, which was the only publicly funded hospital left in Atlanta. The staff tended to take on the hardened demeanor of combat veterans. If practicing medicine was an uphill battle, working at Grady was on par with Guadalcanal. Stabbings, beatings, poisonings, rapes, shootings, murders, drug overdoses.
And that was just pediatrics.
Sara stopped at the computer by the nurses’ station. She pulled up Oliver’s patient on the monitor. The X-ray clearly showed where the child’s right humerus had been twisted. Either the mom was being truthful about what had happened on the stairs or she was savvy enough to fabricate a believable lie.
Sara looked up, scanning the open-curtain area, which was predictably filled with repeat customers. Several drunks were sleeping off benders. There was a junkie who threatened to kill himself every time he got arrested and an older homeless woman who belonged in a mental hospital but knew how to game the system so she could stay on the streets. Oliver’s little girl was curled up asleep on the last gurney. Her mother was in a chair beside her. She was sleeping, too, but her hand was laced through her daughter’s. She hadn’t yet noticed the security guard standing a few feet away.
Not for the first time, Sara wished that nature had devised a system to alert the rest of the world to people who were abusing children. A scarlet letter. A mark of the beast. Some sign that let decent people know these monsters couldn’t be trusted.
Up until a few years ago, Sara had lived in a small town four hours south of Atlanta. She’d done double duty as the county’s pediatrician and medical examiner. Her father liked to joke that between Sara’s two jobs, she got them coming and going. While this was certainly true, too many times, Sara had been put in the position of witnessing firsthand the awful things people could do to children. The X-rays that showed repeatedly broken bones. The dental records revealing teeth that had rotted from neglect. The skin that was forever marked from burns and beatings.
Now that she was living in Atlanta, Sara had the additional knowledge that came from dating a man who’d grown up in state care. Sara’s boyfriend didn’t like to talk about his childhood. When she touched her fingers to the healed cigarette burns on his chest, or kissed the jagged scar on his upper lip where the skin had been punched in two, she could only imagine the hell he’d survived.
Still, there were far worse things that could happen to a child. The system was flawed in many ways, but it was also there for a reason.
“I wish you’d stop smiling.” Felix Connor dried his hands with a paper towel as he walked toward Sara. “I gotta say, I’m still having a hard time shaking this flu.”
Sara made her voice chipper. “Better sick at work than sick at home.”
“Is that what you tell your patients?”
“Just the babies.” Before Felix could come up with an excuse to leave, Sara started running down her cases. She was wrapping up the details on Oliver’s patient when she felt a rush of heat come to the back of her neck. Sara glanced over her shoulder, feeling like she was being watched. She did a double take when she saw her boyfriend.
Will Trent was leaning against the wall. He was dressed in a charcoal three-piece suit that was nicely tailored to his lean body. His hands were in his pockets. His sandy-blond hair was damp, curving against the nape of his neck and stopping just shy of his collar.
He smiled at her.
Sara smiled back, feeling a familiar tingling in her chest. She had known Will for almost two years—met him in this very hospital—but lately their relationship had turned into something more. The depth of her feeling was an unexpected treasure. Sara had lost her husband five years ago. She had assumed she would spend the rest of her life alone.
And then she’d met Will.
Sara said, “Felix, I—” She glanced around, but he was gone.
Will pushed away from the wall and walked toward her. “You look nice.”
Sara laughed at the blatant lie. “What are you doing here? I thought you were working.”
“My briefing’s not for another hour.”
“Do you have time for second breakfast?”
Will slowly shook his head.
“Oh.” Sara realized he hadn’t just dropped by. She asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Maybe we could go somewhere?”
She led him toward the doctors’ lounge. The door was about thirty feet away, giving Sara just enough time to work up a full-on worry.
Will was a special agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. He’d been working undercover for the last ten days. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—tell Sara the details of his assignment, but he kept calling from strange numbers and showing up at odd hours. She had no idea where he came from or where he was going, and anytime she asked, he either changed the subject or found a reason to leave. When Sara wasn’t busy feeling mildly annoyed by all this, she was consumed with fear that something bad was going to happen. Or had already happened. Sara’s late husband had been a cop. He was murdered in the line of duty, and losing him had almost killed her. The thought of the same thing happening to Will was too much to bear.
“Let me get that.” Will reached in front of Sara to open the door. Fortunately, the lounge was empty. He waited for her to sit down
at the table before taking the chair across from her.
She repeated, “What’s wrong?”
Silently, he took her hand. Sara watched as Will ran his fingers along her palm, traced the inside of her wrist. Will watched, too, his deep blue eyes tracking the movement of his fingers. There was something about the way he watched himself touching her that made Sara’s skin start to tingle.
She stilled his hand. All she needed was for one of her students to walk in and find her purring like a cat. Besides, she recognized Will’s stalling tactics by now.
She leaned forward. “What is it?”
He gave a half-smile. “Diversion not working?”
“Almost,” she admitted.
Will took a deep breath and said, “My assignment got a little more complicated.”
Sara had been expecting as much, but she still needed a moment to absorb the information.
He said, “I can’t tell you why, but I’m going to be working longer hours. I won’t be able to make it back to Atlanta as much. See you as much.”
She wasn’t so sure Will couldn’t tell her about his job, but Sara didn’t want to spend what little time they had together rehashing what had proven to be a fruitless discussion.
She said, “Okay.”
“Good.” He looked down at their hands again. Sara followed his gaze. His wrists were tan, but only to the cuffs of his shirt. His hair was streaked with blond highlights. Whatever Will was doing, it required him to spend time in the sun.
“What I wanted to say,” he continued, “was that I didn’t want you to think I was disappearing on you. Or that I …” His voice trailed off. “I mean, what we’re doing.” Will stopped. “What we’ve been doing …”
Sara waited.
“I didn’t want you to take my not being here for—” He seemed to be looking for the right words. “Lack of interest?” He kept staring down at their hands. “Because I am. Interested, I mean.”
Sara studied the top of his head, the way his hair grew in a spiral from the crown. There was going to come a point in the near future when she would no longer be able to accept his evasions. He would either have to open up to her or she would have to consider her options. The more Sara thought about it, the closer she felt to the looming crossroads.
She stopped thinking about it.
Instead, she said, “Just promise me that whatever you’re doing, you’re being careful.”
He nodded, but she would’ve felt better if he’d actually said the words. Will wasn’t the only detective in the relationship. The GBI was to the state of Georgia what the FBI was to the United States. Except in cases of drug trafficking or child abduction, the agency had to be specifically asked to work a case, and the local police departments didn’t tend to ask unless they were desperate.
Any way Sara looked at it, whatever crime had caused Will to go undercover was too dicey for the locals to handle. Worse, being undercover meant that Will’s partner wasn’t there to back him up. He was completely alone, probably surrounded by men with violent histories and addictions.
Will asked, “So, we’re all right?”
Sara pressed her lips together, forcing back the words she really wanted to say. “Of course we’re all right.”
“Good.” Will slumped back in his chair, his relief almost palpable. Not for the first time, Sara wondered how a man who’d spent his entire adult life solving puzzles could be so willfully obtuse in his private life.
She asked, “How long will this take?”
“Two, maybe three weeks.”
She waited for more, but in the end, Will simply looked away. The gesture was artlessly executed, as if he was going through a checklist of casual movements. Blink. Scratch jaw. Feign interest in the notices on the wall.
Sara turned to look at the posters that suddenly held his rapt attention. They were typical to a hospital: warnings about HIV and hepatitis C alongside a rudely defaced hygiene series featuring SpongeBob SquarePants.
Sara turned back around. She’d never been good at passive-aggressive game play. “Can we at least acknowledge that there’s something else going on? Because I can feel it, Will. There’s something else to this and I think you’re keeping it from me because you don’t want me to worry.”
To his credit, he didn’t offer false protests. “Would it make you feel better?”
She nodded.
“All right.”
Sara chewed her bottom lip. She waited for more, then remembered she wanted to leave the hospital before she was old enough to retire. “That’s it?”
He shrugged.
She was too tired to keep pushing the boulder up the hill. “You are driving me absolutely crazy.”
“In a good way?”
She squeezed his hand. “Not exactly.”
He laughed, though they both knew she wasn’t kidding. He asked, “Did you hear Homeland Security arrested SpongeBob at the airport?”
“Will.”
“I’m serious. They showed it on the news this morning.”
Sara groaned. “Public indecency?”
“That goes without saying, but the big charge was they caught him trying to take too many fluids onto the plane.”
She shook her head. “That’s awful.”
“He said he was framed.” Will paused for effect. “But it’s obvious nobody hung him out to dry.”
Sara kept shaking her head. “How long did it take for you to come up with that?”
Will leaned forward and kissed her—not an apologetic brush across the lips or a quick goodbye, but something longer, more meaningful.
Briefly, Sara considered the fact that the entire emergency room was on the other side of the door, that anyone could walk in on them, but then Will deepened the kiss and none of that mattered. He was out of his chair, on his knees in front of her. He pressed closer, pushing her back against the chair. Sara started to feel lightheaded.
“Jell-O cup!” a man screamed from the ER.
Sara jumped. Will sat back on his heels. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Sorry,” she apologized, as if she could control the patients. Sara straightened Will’s collar, smoothed down his tie. She could feel his pulse pounding in the side of his neck. It matched her own beating heart. “The drunks are waking up.”
“I like Jell-O, too.”
“Will—”
“I should probably get to work.” He stood up and brushed the grime off his pants. “Remember what I said, okay? I’m not going anywhere.” He grinned. “I mean, I’m leaving now, but I’m coming back. As soon as I can. Okay?”
Her mind filled with things to tell him—that she wanted him to promise that he would stay out of harm’s way, that she needed him to assure her that everything was going to be all right. Sara knew these promises would be meaningless at best and a burden at most. The last thing a cop needed to think about when he was in the line of fire was whether or not his girlfriend would approve.
In the end, she told him, “Okay.”
He smiled at her, but again, Sara could tell that something was off. She could see it in his eyes—a hesitation, a concern. As usual, Will didn’t give her time to question him.
She caught a glimpse of the crowded hallway as he opened the door and left. The morning rush had arrived. The cacophony of beeping monitors and machinery had started to rev. Patients were already parked on gurneys in the hallway. The drunk screamed for Jell-O again, then another screamed for the first one to shut up and also that he wanted some Jell-O.
Sara clasped her hands together in her lap, silently reviewing her conversation with Will. What was he really trying to tell her? Why had he come to the hospital when everything he’d said could’ve been relayed over the phone? At least he’d admitted something else was going on. He could be so damn inscrutable, and Sara was not too proud to admit that she often found herself outmaneuvered.
She touched her fingers to her lips, felt where Will’s mouth had been. Was that the point of his visit
? Was kissing her Will’s way of making sure she didn’t forget him while he was gone? Or was he marking his territory before he left town?
Only one of those options was flattering.
Sara’s phone rang. She dug around in her pocket, feeling for the telltale vibration. She expected—hoped—that it was Will, but the caller ID read TALLADEGA CO, AL. Over the last week, he’d called from a lot of strange places, but never from Alabama.
Sara answered, “Hello?”
There was no response, just a low humming sound.
Sara tried again. “Hello?” There was still no response, but the humming got louder, more animal than electronic.
“Hello?” Sara was about to end the call, but, unreasonably, her mind flashed up the image of Will lying on the pavement, his body rent in two. She stood from the chair. “Will?”
There was a huff of air down the line.
“Hello?” Sara pulled open the door. She ran into the hall, nearly colliding with a patient. This was ridiculous. Will was fine. He’d just left less than two minutes ago. She could still feel his mouth on hers.
“Hello?” Sara pressed the phone to her ear. “Who is this?”
“S-s-s-ara?” The woman on the other end could barely speak.
Sara put her hand to her eyes, relief washing over her body. “Yes?”
“It’s … it’s … I’m sorry, I …”
“Nell?” Sara quickly put together the pieces, recognizing the voice of her husband’s high school sweetheart. He’d had a child with Darnell Long, but not much else.
“Nell?” Sara repeated. “Are you okay?”
“It’s Jared!” the woman wailed. “Oh, God!”
Sara leaned back against the wall. Jared, her stepson. Sara had only met him a few times. He was a police officer, just as his father had been.
“I didn’t—” Nell’s voice caught. “I should’ve—”
“Nell, please. Tell me what—”
“I should’ve listened to you!” she cried. “She’s got him … oh, God …”
“Listened about—” Sara stopped. She knew exactly who Nell was talking about.