by Jay Hogan
“IT’S JUST a bang on the head, Cam,” he snapped at the charge nurse, deflecting the man’s attempts to pry open the wound’s edges. “Leave it.”
Anger flared in the nurse’s pretty eyes as he stepped into Michael’s space and jabbed a finger at his chest. “Is being a trauma doctor not enough of a fucking rush for you, you have to get mugged as well? And what about that guy who was out front looking for you earlier? Make sure you tell Mark about him. Christ, man. You’ve given me a mound of fucking paperwork to complete, not to mention Health and Safety crawling up my arse tomorrow. And stop dripping blood on my floor.”
Michael stared at the charge nurse, open-mouthed. The man never lost his shit. Oops. He reached for Cam’s hand. “Sorry, I’m just being a dick.”
Cameron sighed. “Whatever. I’m just pissed I’m not going to get off on time… again.” But he made no attempt to pull free of Michael’s grip.
They exchanged a silent look, and Cameron finally tugged his hand loose. “What have I said about touching me?”
Michael grinned. “Are my balls in mortal danger?”
The charge nurse patted his cheek. “They would be if I thought I could find them. Now, if you’re done screwing up my day, I have work to do.”
AN HOUR later and Michael had completed all the incident reports Cam had thrown his way. Mark Knight arrived at some point to walk him through his statement and collect security footage, though there was little hope of any useful evidence. Both in the car park and the ER reception the man had worn his hoodie up and kept his head low. The detective also took charge of the note Michael had retrieved from his windscreen, something he’d chosen not to share with Cam. The nurse was freaked enough as it was.
Keep your mouth shut about who you saw in the club if you don’t want that pretty face of yours shredded.
Charming. So, not exactly a random mugging, then. Michael didn’t know what to think about that other than being monumentally pissed off. He was supposed to go in and look at mug shots the next morning, but Mark said to give it a day. The knock on his head wasn’t going to help a valid ID.
Michael bristled at the implication. He knew what he’d seen, and he wasn’t about to be threatened into silence, but the detective made his concern clear. The cops were all out on this one, and they didn’t want anything fucking up a murder conviction for one of their own.
Mark also drummed into Michael the need to be extra vigilant with his security at home and at work until they got to the bottom of it. He’d then left, promising to call the next day, and with that Michael headed home with a freaking headache the size of Africa.
IT WAS 3:00 a.m. when he woke with a churning cesspool in his stomach, crawling skin, and his heart pounding out of his chest. White corridors and flashing lights slowly gave way to the soft green curtains of his bedroom—the iron-tanged stench of blood in his nose, and the heart-wrenching sound of a woman’s cries the last things to fade.
He pushed himself off the floor and sucked a bucketload of air into his lungs. He focused on his breathing and reining in the fear mushrooming in his head. It was the first panic attack in months. He’d really thought that shit was over. Think again, asshole.
Familiar tremors rolled through his fingers as the craving hit, that desperation for something to settle the flight of terror in his gut. His tongue rolled over his lips, and the thought oozed in like a slick stain on his heart. A drink. Just to get his panic back under wraps and let him sleep. Michael mentally slapped himself. Yeah, right, idiot. One drink and a fuckload of months clambering back on the wagon. Been there, got the T-shirt.
Marcia. Just the name was enough to cue the damn tears, let alone the nightmare. Goddammit. Why couldn’t he just let it go? Cute as hell at ten, she’d have been damn beautiful by womanhood. Latino skin with electric-blue eyes, cascading copper-blond hair, and great cheekbones. But he’d ripped that chance away. Dr Michael fucking Oliver, who hadn’t been able to pull his head out of his ass long enough to figure out the kid’s right renal artery had been sliced damn near through when the truck slammed into the rear of the small Toyota and threw her clear through the front windshield. Funnily enough, not having her seat belt fully secured had probably saved Marcia from immediate death. The impact had propelled the girl from the small Toyota before it was crushed flat as a paper plate, sending her mother, who was driving, to an early and undeserved grave.
Michael understood none of that was on him. Shit happens and life sucks sometimes. If you couldn’t leave the guilt and grief in the room, you didn’t survive as an ER doctor. He’d had no control over the accident, but the minute Marcia was rolled into his trauma room, that was his turf. He called the shots and took the hits. And that night, eighteen months ago, he’d taken the biggest hit of his career.
She’d come in spewing blood from a half-dozen major lacerations and a deep, sucking chest wound to her lower left lung from being impaled on a damn lawn sprinkler spike when she’d landed. It was chaos. The kid was blue, hungry for oxygen, and with a morbidly downward-tracking pulse and blood pressure. They got blood up and running, got her lungs plugged and vented, then found and tied off a nick to her femoral artery that had dumped nearly a litre of blood onto the trauma room floor in less than ten minutes.
With the obvious shit attended to, Michael had completed a more thorough top to toe, called for blood work and radiology, and allowed the girl’s aunt to duck in for a two-minute visit. Then he’d stepped outside the room to consult with a neurologist. He’d been gone less than a minute when the code alert called him back. The girl was damn near flatlining. What the fuck?
Apparently, the minute they’d tried to move her for the X-ray, Marcia bottomed out. Best guess, a hidden bleeder. But where? There was no time to get her to surgery. It was either get her open where she lay or book her a toe tag. But where to open up? Michael would get only one shot. Everyone held his or her breath. Red wire or blue? He opened her left side, directly under the lung injury, betting on the proximity to suggest a logical connection. But what he found was a lake of blood, and in seconds the girl was dead. A postmortem would reveal the right renal artery had been partially severed, not by the sprinkler spike but a splinter from a fractured rib, a fracture that would’ve shown on the aborted set of X-rays.
No one blamed him. Michael had done everything expected of him and no one suggested otherwise. But Michael knew. Going over his scrawled handover notes, he saw a paramedic’s mention of a crunching sensation in the lower right rib area, but it was nothing compared to the girl’s obvious injuries, so Michael hadn’t made the connection. But it was his fucking job to make the connections, to paint a fucking picture and save a life. It didn’t matter that no one blamed him, Michael blamed himself. And with that, Michael’s perfectly ordered little world blew apart.
Cue the indulgent self-recriminations, the nightmares, and the drinking. Not original but effective. Always sober during his rostered shifts, outside of those days Michael was a fucking disaster. Simon had been so patient, so understanding, so irritatingly supportive. He’d managed to hide his drinking for six months but then made the mistake of answering a call for an extra pair of hands in the ER on his day off. He’d felt fine, but his manager had smelled the alcohol from Michael’s previous night’s efforts and breathalysed him. He had blown well over the legal limit to even drive. To be truthful, he’d scared himself.
He was sent home on a month’s leave to sort his shit out, lucky to keep his job. The fact he wasn’t rostered that day but had been a last-minute ring-in, ultimately saved his bacon. He checked himself into rehab, got his life on track, forced Simon to cut and run so he wouldn’t have to deal with or talk to anyone, and returned to work. Not long after, encouraged by his manager, he applied for a medical exchange in New Zealand, figuring a change of scenery couldn’t hurt. He was now over a year sober, but fuck he missed it. Especially on nights like this.
He held out his hand, relieved to find the shaking eased. A shower and some binge telev
ision would sort the rest. Maybe then he could grab another couple hours of sleep. He could only hope.
WITH A beer in hand, Josh took a long guzzle and crumpled onto the couch. Every muscle ached, every joint rubbed like sandpaper. “When the fuck did I get so old?” he grumbled, eyeing Paris, curled at his feet.
The two-day training exercise had been grueling to say the least. Delta 4 Canine Section had been tasked to work alongside search and rescue southwest of Auckland in the Waitakere Ranges. Rainfall had meant the tracks were slick with mud, ensuring both dogs and handlers spent most of their time filthy wet. Paris had done well, with Josh’s team responsible for the eventual capture of the “fugitive.”
Josh had made the most of the opportunity to catch up with colleagues he hadn’t seen for a while, but bad weather meant the exercise was overlong and exhausting. He had, however, taken the plunge and accepted an invitation to coffee from one of the search-and-rescue guys. It took a minute, but eventually it came to him. Brent.
The guy was short but cute, had a Harley and a nice full sleeve of tatts. He spent perhaps a little too much time talking about both, but he seemed nice enough. Much more his style than Michael Oliver. So look at him, then, going out on a date and all. That should shut the others up. It would be worth it just for that. Wouldn’t it? Fuck.
Katie had stepped in, as usual, to look after Sasha while he’d been gone, depositing her home just minutes after Josh walked in the door. God, he loved that smile on his daughter’s face, so fricking pleased to see him.
Katie had seemed a bit distracted, not her usual bubbly self, but Josh was too tired to delve into the whys of that. She refused the offer of a drink and left them to it. And after hearing an exhaustive account of her time from Sasha, Josh had deposited a yawning daughter into bed and finally relaxed.
He finished his beer and was thinking about a refill when heavy footsteps on the kitchen floor stayed his meagre effort to rise. With Paris sounding no alarm at the new arrival, Josh didn’t have to think too hard about who it might be.
“Grab more beer on your way in, douchebag,” he shouted.
“Already there,” Mark answered, ambling in with two bottles in hand. Depositing them on the coffee table, he sank to his knees next to Paris, who dove in for a slobbery kiss before running a mad circle around the detective’s legs, whining softly.
“Hello there, gorgeous,” Mark cooed softly, grabbing the shepherd’s dark ruff and pulling him in forehead to forehead. “Missed me, huh?”
“Don’t encourage him,” Josh grumbled. Mark and Paris had a long-standing bromance to rival his own relationship with the shepherd, though it wasn’t unrelated to the fact the detective spoiled him rotten at every opportunity.
“Aw, poor baby.” Mark stood, his fingers tapping Paris’s nose. “Daddy’s got a stick up his butt, huh?”
“Fuck off.” Josh flipped the man off, then sent him a grin.
They’d known each other since teenage years, and along with Katie, the two had been his main support when Anna, Sasha’s mother, had left them to it and sought greener pastures when Sasha was barely six months old. Anna had become pregnant after a drunken one-nighter with Josh while he was still fucked-up and stupid enough to be tucked snugly into his closet. She’d handed over custody to Josh with barely a backward glance.
Josh “came out” pretty damn near the minute he’d thrown the remainder of Anna’s clothes in the bin. Anna’s parents helped with Sasha as best they could, but they were much older. Josh’s own parents, true to homophobic form, had been, in their words, appalled and sickened by Josh’s “gay” revelation, and not much had changed since. The unresolved issue wept like an open wound in the family, but Josh had learned to live with it. They adored their grandchild—the only reason he bothered keeping in touch. Sasha, though, was increasingly more reluctant to spend time with them, as they made little attempt to keep their bigoted views hidden from their granddaughter. It was a conversation Josh knew he couldn’t avoid much longer.
Josh had heard nothing from Anna until a phone call a year ago. Married to an architect, she had a child on the way, was living in suburban New York, and had decided it was time. Took her long enough. Josh was all kinds of wary, but for Sasha’s sake he listened. Now, mother and daughter skyped every month or so, and Josh prayed one day Anna might actually visit. Sasha still had a lot of healing yet to do.
Seated in the recliner, Mark raised his beer. “Here’s to kids, dogs, and fucking piss-awful weather.”
Josh snorted, returning the gesture.
“Two bucks in the jar, detective,” Sasha yelled from her bedroom. “That’s inappropriate language for a child my age to be exposed to.”
Mark’s grin widened. “Jesus, mate,” he whispered. “She’s like eleven going on seventeen. When did that happen? I’m gonna have to watch my mouth.”
“I know, I know.” Josh glanced toward the hall. “I’m seriously fucked for the foreseeable teenage future. Hang on.” He carried his beer to the hall, closing the door to Sasha’s room and then the lounge door as well, before taking up his spot on the couch once again.
“She’s asked to go to a boy’s party,” Josh whispered. “Jamie someone.” The fact that Mark’s eyes nearly bugged out of his face as much as Josh’s had was of some relief.
“Fuck.”
“Yeah,” Josh sighed. “Fuck. I said no, of course. So then she told me she wasn’t a baby anymore and that I was going all ‘psycho parent’ on her. That the boy was thirteen and just a friend. That they weren’t going to be raiding the booze cupboard or making out in the bedroom or nothing.”
Mark choked on his beer for the second time. “Holy shit. So what did you say?”
Josh slumped in his seat. “Fuck. I said I’d think about it. And I’d have to ring the parents.”
Mark sniggered. “Well, that told her real good, huh? I take it she gave you the pathetic ‘I love you so much, Daddy, and I’ll be such a good girl’ look, am I right?”
Josh hunkered down and took a long swig of beer. “Maybe.” He made a mental note to stockpile some Prozac.
“You are so fucked,” his friend whispered. “She’s got you pegged from here to Sunday and back.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Josh grumbled.
Mark shook his head. “I am never gonna have kids.”
“Only because no one would have your sorry arse.”
“And I’m damn proud of that fact. I can’t deal with all that clingy shit.”
Josh booted him with his foot. “Change of subject, please?”
“Fine.” Mark stretched his long legs out in front of him. “So, I got a call from your good friend, Michael Oliver, on Monday, while you were busy playing games in the bush.”
Josh’s eyes widened. “And? On second thought, let me guess. He wants to apologise for being such an obnoxious prick.”
Mark snorted, choking on his beer and sending it spattering down the front of his Pretenders T-shirt. “You have a real problem with him, don’t you?” He flicked the droplets off.
Josh said nothing.
Mark shook his head. “Whatever. Anyway, he called because someone left a nasty note on the good doctor’s car, at work. He caught them in the act, but the guy threw him to the ground and took off. The note pretty much warned him to stay away from the police and forget he saw anyone in the club that night or they’d ‘shred his face.’”
“What?” Josh rocked forward on his chair.
“Yeah, exactly what I thought. Seems our knife guy isn’t just some lackey. Someone like that would’ve just gone to ground and hoped for the best. This warning reeks of bigger fish at play.”
“Is he okay? Oliver?” Josh tried for casual, as if the man hadn’t been the subject of his jack-off shower fantasies for the last four days.
Mark grinned, not fooled for a minute. “A nasty cut above the eye, nothing more. He’s got some grit, though. Never even questioned ringing it in.”
Josh felt a sudden
urge to check on the doctor but what would he say? He didn’t want to encourage the guy but—“You get a description?”
“Nada. Guy wore a hoodie, and Oliver only caught a side view before he hit the deck.”
“Wow.” Josh sat back, thinking. “Kind of unexpected. You think it’s serious? Is Oliver in danger?”
Mark shrugged, rolling his beer bottle on the arm of the chair. “Who knows? Just thought you’d be interested, seeing as how you seem to have this weird connection with the guy.”
Josh glared. “I don’t have any connection with him.” Other than the irritating fact that he couldn’t get his mind off him, of course.
Mark rolled his eyes dramatically. “Of course you don’t.”
Josh ignored the comment. “Are you guys taking the threat seriously?”
Mark nodded. “Yeah, but there’s not much we can do without any leads. At least Oliver isn’t backing down, and he’s all for testifying. We need him, considering you saw zip of the offender, and Jackson really didn’t see too much more. For what it’s worth, I think you’re wrong about Michael. The guy’s okay.”
“Yeah, he’s a fucking riot.”
WEDNESDAY WAS a crappy day in the ER. The weather had thrown torrential rain and high winds into the usual chaos of school and rush-hour traffic. Toss a few idiots behind the wheel, and you had the perfect cocktail. The volatile mix resulted in five motor vehicle accidents before noon. None involved fatal or even major trauma injuries but that didn’t stop them from eating up hours and hours of paperwork and filling the treatment rooms while people were stacked up in the waiting room like a parking lot. Not to mention Michael’s head had throbbed like a bitch through the whole day.
