by Cassie Wild
She hung up before I had a chance to even apologize.
Lowering the phone, I stared at the screen until it slowly went dark. A fragmented thought formed, then drifted away. Apologize. I should apologize.
But I couldn’t even summon up the motivation it took to open my messenger app and send my sister-in-law a text.
Falling backward onto the bed, I rolled onto my side and curled my knees into my chest.
Tears burned my eyes as I thought about Frankie.
It was bad enough to learn that the sweet man was connected in a sordid way to my father, but what if she was right about everything else?
What if Cormac somehow was tied into this?
What if he’d lied to me?
I didn’t want to think about it, but in a bitter, twisted way, there was a sense to it all.
Marcos was a mean bastard. I’d known that from the minute I met him. He was a petty man who wouldn’t take it lightly if he was humiliated, and he had been humiliated when Brooks and Daria came out on top. I hadn’t taken anything more than the standard psych courses all doctors were required to take, but I could still understand the basics.
When a narcissistic, mean bastard like Marcos was humiliated or beaten—even in his mind—by somebody else, he was going to strike back.
Was that what this was?
I wracked my brain, hoping to find some way of convincing myself that wasn’t the case.
And I couldn’t.
Nineteen
Cormac
I slid into bed next to Briar, half-hoping to find her naked and waiting for me. Sliding a hand out, my fingers brushed against smooth cotton. I wasn’t disappointed, though.
Peeling her out of her clothes was a pleasure in and of itself.
I closed the distance between us and rested a hand on her hip as I pressed my lips to her shoulder.
She didn’t stir.
After a few more seconds, I came to the conclusion that she was already asleep.
Part of me wanted to wake her back up, but she’d been up before six, and it was already after ten. Yeah, my dick protested at the thought of me just lying there, breathing in the scent of her skin, but I wasn’t so selfish that I’d begrudge her some sleep.
I stretched out more completely and slid my arm around her waist, moving until I had my head resting on the pillow just behind hers.
I could smell the scent of her shampoo, and the warmth of her body, while an erotic tease, was also just…pleasant.
I willed myself to relax.
Bit by bit, it happened, and my thoughts started to drift.
Tomorrow was New Year’s Eve.
Briar had to work the day shift on New Year’s Eve, but then she was off for three days straight. Neither of us had any plans that required us to leave the house. We’d already stocked up on food, booze, painkillers, and movies. I didn’t normally do anything to celebrate the New Year. One year was the same as the last, or at least that was the way it had been for so long.
But it didn’t have to be that way, right?
My eyes drifted closed, and I focused on the rhythm of Briar’s breathing. It skipped a beat, and I smoothed a hand down her hip. “Baby?”
She didn’t stir, and after a few seconds, I sighed.
I needed to get some sleep myself.
Maybe I hadn’t been working my ass into the ground like she had, but it had been a lousy few days. Stressing about Marcos and wondering if he’d call, wondering about just how things had gone with whatever job he’d run…
But he hadn’t called, and other than what I could pick up online, I didn’t know shit about the businesses they’d hit.
I couldn’t even go investigate without risking being noticed by either a cop or one of Marcos’s men.
Sleep, I told myself.
I needed it.
Tomorrow, I’d focus on my relationship with the woman beside me.
Maybe it was all over. Maybe I could put this whole damn mess behind us, and the two of us could maybe just focus on…us.
“You’re quiet.”
Briar looked at me from the chair where she sat, her hands folded around a cup of coffee, knees drawn up to her chest. “Am I?”
Shadows lay under her eyes like bruises, and as I sat down in the recliner across from her, I couldn’t help but notice that she seemed pale. “Yes. Are you feeling okay? You’re a bit pale.”
“Tired.” She went back to staring outside. “It’s been a rough week.” She lifted the steaming mug to her lips and sipped, still gazing outside as though something she saw fascinated her.
“Want to talk about it?”
She laughed. The hollow sound hit me right in the heart. But she didn’t answer me.
Clearing my throat, I pushed again. “I mean, I guess if it’s work-related, it’s nothing you really can tell me. I know you’ve got that confidentiality thing, so there are some things you just can’t tell me. If that’s what it is.”
“Hmmm.” She looked down into her cup, her expression pensive. “Yes. I guess there are some things I just can’t tell you.”
The quiet grew so heavy and taut, I thought my skin might peel off, just from the tension.
Finally, she got up. “Are we still doing movies and drinking tonight?”
“That was the plan,” I said, tipping my head back to look at her. “Unless you’re not feeling up to it?”
“Oh, I think I could use the drinking.” Her voice was oddly grim. “I’m going to go soak in the bathtub for a while. Maybe read a book.”
There was something about the set of her shoulders that kept me from asking if I could join her.
It was pretty clear she wanted to be alone.
It had to be something related to work.
Everything between us, finally, was going just fine.
Wasn’t it?
Twenty
Briar
The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day could be anything from a turtle crawl to an outright marathon, something I’d come to accept as a fact of life when it came to the medical field.
Today was a turtle crawl. Outside, it was clear, bright, and cold—very cold. The most urgent cases we’d had come through the door were a few homeless people who were suffering from issues having to do with exposure and hypothermia.
That kind of shit always sucked.
Homeless people made me terribly sad. Yeah, of course, there was nothing happy about homelessness, but so many of them were veterans or people struggling with mental illness. If they just had a little help, they could get out. But our country’s system worked against people just as often, if not more, than it helped.
I watched with weary eyes as a patient advocate for a local mental health center walked out of the department, next to the gurney that carried a woman just a few years older than me. She was the only female combat vet I’d ever met. On top of PTSD from combat, her record showed she’d been the victim of sexual assault while on duty. Once she came back home, the combined traumas had eaten away at her.
Eventually, her husband divorced her—I had some serious personal opinions about that guy.
Dr. Moyes had treated her several times before, according to the record. When she’d come in near the end of the third shift, she’d been crying and asking for him, but he was off today. I’d taken her, and thanks to some scrambling by our well-trained patient advocates, we’d been able to secure a bed for her at a mental health facility. Then I’d spent four hours convincing her to give it a shot.
The mental health advocate from the hospital had arrived just a few minutes after I got back from lunch, and I’d had to spend a good half-hour talking with the patient so she wouldn’t back out again.
It didn’t exactly fill me with hopeful feelings.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, the pattern too long and complicated for it to be a message.
Daria’s picture filled the screen. I frowned, then shot a glance at the nurse behind the desk. “I’m going to duck into the lounge an
d take this. It’s my sister-in-law. Just want to make sure it’s nothing important.”
I couldn’t think of a single time when Daria had called me during work hours. Swiping my thumb over the screen with one hand, I used the other to tug my Bluetooth earpiece out. “Hello,” I asked, shoving the Bluetooth device into my pocket.
“Briar!”
The urgent panic in my sister-in-law’s voice made my blood run cold. I went stiff and rigid, standing in the middle of the hallway, still a good dozen feet from the lounge. Darting into an empty patient bay, I dragged the curtain shut. “What’s wrong?” I demanded.
“It’s Brooks,” she said, her voice ragged and broken. “I just got a call…hell. He didn’t even bother calling me. I had to hear about it from somebody else because he didn’t want to worry me while I was out of town. I’m going to kick his ass—”
“Daria, I need you to take a deep breath and calm down. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
A sharp, sudden intake of air on the other end of the line told me that Daria had taken me literally.
I rubbed my temple in the sudden spate of silence and shot a look at the clock. Three hours. I was supposed to be on for another three hours.
“One of your father’s assistants just called me,” Daria said. She was a little calmer now, her voice tight and strained. She no longer sounded like she was on the verge of collapse though. “I think she told me her name was Vera. Brooks had called her. He’d been following up on something about an attack on one of the businesses and a couple of men jumped him. They’re taking him to the hospital, Briar! I’m on the train to New York, and I can’t get down there—”
“Okay, Daria. Take another deep breath,” I told her, cutting her off before she could veer out of control again.
My mind raced, bouncing from one thing to another before finally settling on one crucial point. Vera.
Yes, I knew Vera.
“I’ll get a hold of Vera and get some more information from her.”
“Thank you.” Daria’s voice was lower, softer…weaker.
“That’s what family does,” I said gently. “Why are you going to New York?”
“A performance,” she said after a few seconds of taut silence. She laughed, the sound brittle and shrill. “Isabel is here with me. I’m so stupid. She wanted to stay home. Kept complaining about how lousy she felt, and I talked her into coming with me. I insisted she could hold it together for the performance. It’s not like it’s a long one. But now I wished I’d listened to her and that I’d called in sick too. She’s practically holding me up right now. There’s no way I can perform now. I just can’t…”
Her voice wobbled, then fell.
“It’s okay,” I said soothingly. “Come on. Don’t worry about performing or anything else. Just take a deep breath and calm down. Focus…”
She finally got her emotions under control and was able to talk.
Nothing she told me made me feel any better, although I was careful not to let any of the strain I felt show in my voice.
“I…Briar. I need to get home. I need to be with Brooks,” she said, her voice hollow. “He’ll fuss at me, tell me I’m worrying over nothing, but…”
“Where are you now?” I asked softly.
She laughed, the sound sharp and discordant. “I don’t know. Somewhere in New Jersey. We’re supposed to meet for rehearsals in ninety minutes, and the performance starts in three hours. What am I supposed to say?”
Rubbing my temple, I poked around at the puzzle as I tried to figure out one solution, only to discard it.
“Okay. I need to talk to whoever is in charge of your…troupe or whatever it’s called.” I told Daria. “Isabel’s with you?”
“Um…yeah. I…why do you need to talk to the instructor?”
Rubbing my temple, I focused my attention on the narrow slice of corridor I could make out between the gap in the curtains. “You need to get out of the performance, don’t you? Just get me the number for whoever is in charge.”
“Your understudies will cover for you,” I told Daria when I called her back five minutes later. I still hadn’t been able to get much information on Brooks, but at least one problem was solved.
Daria had the phone on speaker, and I heard her mumble something in Russian.
Isabel was the one who spoke directly to me. “I guess as soon as we hit New York, we’re back on the train and heading out.”
The grim note in her voice had me wincing in sympathy. “I’m working on that. Can you give me a few minutes?”
“Sure. I’m stuck on the train another forty minutes,” she said in a dry voice. “All I have to do is keep Daria from falling apart.”
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “I wish I could be there to help.”
“You’re where you need to be,” Isabel said. “You’re there in Philly, and you’re handling shit there. You can talk to Seamus, right? Get us some more information?”
“Yes. Want me to call Sean?”
She hesitated a split second too long before answering. “Yeah. Can you? He left before I woke up. He’s flying down to Florida to deal with shit there. He probably doesn’t have his phone on, but you’ll have more luck than I will right now.”
“Okay.” I rubbed my eyes and focused on the clock. At the same time, I tried to judge my schedule by the noise out in the corridor. It still sounded quiet. Could I maybe slip out early? I had no idea. “Is he doing something for Dad or Declan?”
Isabel huffed out a breath. “Yeah. I guess you could say that. He caught a red-eye flight out of the city this morning, said he was checking a few things out. It has to do with a robbery at a business your dad owns or is a partner with…something like that.”
My breath lodged in my throat, and I tightened my grip on the phone. “Oh. Any idea how long he’ll be gone? Where he’s staying or anything?”
“He wouldn’t tell me,” Isabel said in a careful, controlled voice.
Those four simple words told me more than I wanted to know—and I suspected they revealed more than Isabel wanted to reveal.
“Okay,” I said again, striving for a casual indifference that wouldn’t reveal a damn thing. I had no idea if I succeeded or not. Clearing my throat, I strove for calm. “I’ve still got a little while before my shift is over, but I’m going to work something out. Hopefully, I’ll get somebody up there who can drive you home, so you’re not stuck waiting through stops and shit. I’ll call you once I hear something, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”
“Take care of Daria,” I told her. “And yourself.”
“Sure.” There was a ghost of humor in her voice now. “That’s one thing I’m really good at, at least. Right?”
She hung up before I could answer, and I closed my eyes, staring over at nothing.
My eyes were dry, my head pounding when somebody found me a few minutes later. “Dr. Downing?”
I stared unblinkingly at the nurse, not recognizing her.
“Um…hi?” She shifted from one foot to the other, looking over her shoulder back at the desk. “Dr. Collier needs you. Something about a consult? And we’re going to need this bay in a few minutes. MVA a few miles out. They just radioed ahead.”
“Fine.” I gave a short nod and strode past her.
But as I was gathering up my gear for the consult, Charissa caught sight of me. “Whoa…hey, doc. Are you okay?” She looked me up and down, her hand on my arm.
I went to brush the question off, a ready lie forming on my tongue. But when I opened my mouth to give it voice, nothing came out. “I…”
The rest of the words locked in my throat. Staring at her, I tried again.
She gave me an alarmed look, then caught my arm and guided me into the nearest private space—one of the patient bathrooms. She locked the door and fixed me with a determined stare. “What gives?”
“I’m supposed to be consulting on a patient with Dr. Collier,” I said weakly.
In respon
se, Charissa tapped on her earpiece. “Dr. Collier? This is Charissa. Dr. Downing is aware of your request of a consult, and she’ll be with you as quickly as possible…” I opened my mouth to say something, but she held up a finger. “Yes, sir. It might be a few minutes, but she’ll be there as soon as she can. No, sir. Thank you.”
Then, eyes still fixed on my face, she pulled the Bluetooth piece from her ear and dropped it into her pocket. “What’s wrong?”
Closing my eyes, I tightened my grip around the datapad. Isabel’s words chased themselves around in my mind, over and over again, never quite finding purchase, but never flying away either.
“My brother was attacked,” I finally said, opening my eyes to meet hers.
Her jaw dropped. “What? How? Why? Where?”
The tumble of questions elicited a weak smile. “I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to get many of those answers. My break ended before I had much of a chance to dig around.”
Charissa crossed her arms over her chest, staring at me. Her right foot started to tap on the floor in a monotonous rhythm, then finally, she held out a hand, gesturing.
“What?”
“Your datapad. I’m going to go find Dr. Reyes, but you’re going to be removed from the floor.”
I snorted. “I can’t—”
She snapped her fingers. “I mean it,” she said, pointing a finger at me. “You are in no shape to be giving consults, ordering tests or medications. Not while your mind is who knows where while you worry about your brother. Now…go.”
I hesitated for a moment.
She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Go!”
I didn’t wait another minute.
Twenty-One
