Chapter 14
Stop blaming video games. Some of you played MortalKombat your whole lives and never learned how to finish her.
—Quaid, Carter family group text
QUAID
3 weeks later
“Hey,” I said distractedly. “I can’t talk right now. I’m in the middle of a traffic stop.”
There was a lengthy pause and then a frustrated, “Call me back as soon as you’re done.”
The way Ellodie’s voice shook had my stomach in knots the rest of the way through the stop.
By the time I called her back, she didn’t answer, which only made me even more worried.
After debating with myself for all of five minutes, I decided to take an early lunch, skipping lunch with my brothers and dad, to head to the hospital to see Ellodie.
And thank GodI did.
I arrived in the middle of chaos.
There were people everywhere, and not the good kind of people.
The gang kind of people.
Why wasn’t this called in?
“What’s going on?” I growled to the first nurse I saw.
The nurse looked flustered as she said, “It’s a full moon.”
As if that explained everything.
Truthfully, it kind of did.
“What’s going on with the gang members?” I asked.
“Two separate things that collided,” she explained. “One came in with what we suspect is appendicitis. The other came in for a finger being smashed in a car door.”
I looked between the two groups, feeling like shit could hit the fan at any second.
Reaching for my mic, I spoke into it. “This is unit 1093. I’m going to need some blue uniforms at DallasMemorial. Also, make sure that you let QuinnCarter know his presence is required.”
I’d text him individually, but I wasn’t liking the way this was building.
Heading farther into the depth of the ER, I found myself looking around and wondering where to go first.
The question was answered when there were raised voices behind a closed off curtain.
Then, a very familiar female voice saying, “Keep your hands off of me!”
“I think you stole my money, bitch. The last time I was in here!” an angry male voice said.
“I didn’t take anything,” she snarled. “Let. Me. Go!”
I ripped back the curtain to see a large guy backing Ellodie farther and farther into the corner of the room, his hand so tight around her wrist she was losing color in her hand.
Without even thinking, I reached forward and whirled the teen around, had him on the ground, his hands cuffed behind his back in seconds.
He was kicking and cursing, pissed as hell.
“Get off me, pig!” he snarled.
“You’re under arrest for the assault of a medical professional,” I said with barely controlled anger. “You have the right to remain silent…”
Ellodie watched on with wide eyes.
A couple more uniformed officers showed, and I handed the kid off—and he was just a kid. All of eighteen at most—to the first officer to come my way and said, “Take him in, Assman.”
“Will do,” Assman promised. “More are on their way.”
Luckily, with the uptick of police presence, the gang bangers disbursed, leaving their buddies behind.
I waited until it was completely cleared out and calm again before I turned to my woman who’d gone back to work in the interim.
She was sitting at the nurses’ station, writing something on a piece of paper.
There was a doctor at her side, speaking to her in low words.
“Baby,” I said when I walked up to her. “Do you get lunch?”
The doctor and her both looked up. “Actually, that was what we were just doing. Writing a lunch order. Would you like anything?”
“I don’t have all that much time left on mine. Do you want to grab something from the cafeteria?” I asked, hopeful.
She smiled, marked something out on the paper, and then handed it back to the doctor.
He was around five-foot-ten and a hundred and ninety pounds. His hair was blond, and so perfectly styled that I wondered if it ever fell out of place.
I’d also seen him before.
At the gas station a couple of weeks ago.
Ellodie must’ve seen me looking because she said, “Quaid, this is Dr. Brewn. He’s the favored ER doc. Dr. Brewn, this is my…”
When she hesitated, I filled in the blank for her. “Man. I’m her man. QuaidCarter.”
“Nice to meet you,” he didn’t offer his hand. “Have a good lunch.”
Then he was gone, going to the next nurse and handing her the paper Ellodie had been putting her order on.
Ellodie caught my arm and wrapped herself around it, leaning into me slightly. “I’m glad you came.”
I looked down at her as she led the way to the cafeteria two floors up.
“How often does that happen?” I said through gritted teeth.
And why the fuck did knowing she faced danger while working scare the holy hell out of me?
No wonder they wanted armed security guards.
IfI hadn’t been here, hadn’t walked into the room when I had, what would’ve happened to her? To the other two nurses who were just as small as she was?
“All. The. Time,” she grumbled. “It’s gotten so freakin’ bad here, Quaid. That’s originally why I started looking into something else. TheER just isn’t it for me anymore.”
“What was the deal with the gang banger accusing you of stealing?” I asked, a suspicion starting to form in my brain.
This girl.
She was up to something…
“I might, or might not, have had something to do with his missing money,” she admitted quietly, looking sheepish.
“What?” I asked.
She looked away and down, her face flushed. “Well…”
“Tell me,” I ordered.
“So it went like this…”
Then she went on and explained how the last few months had been going at the hospital, and how horrible it’d gotten. To the point where she was determined to hire her own security.
On one hand, I was mad that she was stealing from people. On the other, she was stealing from the people who were causing her to need security in the first place. So, could I really blame her?
“Don’t do it anymore,” I ordered.
She sighed. “I haven’t done it since the day you came into the ER looking for me.”
I blew out a breath.
I remembered that day.
I remembered seeing her talking to the woman with the baby, too.
Had seen her give her something.
“Shit,” I said softly. “You could’ve really gotten hurt.”
“I didn’t,” she said. “And that kid never knew. I also, um, flushed his drugs down the toilet.”
I shook my head, unable to comprehend how this brave, crazy woman had crawled so deep into my heart.
But every time I woke up in the morning, there she was, taking up more and more of it until there wasn’t a single piece she didn’t have control of.
“I love you.”
Three words, just blurted right out of my mouth.
Her eyes widened, and then they started to tear up and she said, “I thought I was crazy for already loving you only a few days after meeting you. But every morning I get up and the words are on the tip of my tongue. I just got scared that you wouldn’t feel the same way.”
I curled a piece of her hair behind her ear before saying, “I’ve felt like this for a long…”
“Hey, peeps!” Hollis slid into place beside Ellodie, completely ignoring the deepness of our conversation. “What are y’all getting to eat? Quincy was supposed to be bringing me lunch, but some shit was going down in the ER. So now I’m here.”
“That was our shit,” Ellodie sighed and explained.
Together, the three of us went through the line. Hollis got a burger and potato salad. Ellodie got a chicken sandwich and fries. AndI got all four.
I cracked open a Dr. Pepper once we took our seat, and I sighed at the first hit. “This. This is what I needed.”
Dr. Pepper had always been my drug of choice. I didn’t care how bad it was for me. As long as I died with a Dr. Pepper in my hand, I’d be happy.
Ellodie’s eyes were shining as she said, “Your daily hit of DP?”
“Yep.” I groaned and reached for my burger. “These better be good for how much I just paid for them.”
“They’re decent,” Quincy took the seat beside me, stealing a fry off of Ellodie’s plate. “Family lunch?”
“Hey, no touching!” Ellodie growled, protecting her tray with her body. “Go get your own!”
Hollis caught his ear and tugged, then pressed her lips to his when he turned toward her.
Ellodie grinned as she watched the couple interact with each other.
Meanwhile, I watched her.
“Was a great couple of lunch companions until you sat down,” I chuckled, dipping my fries into the ketchup in a little paper cup on my plate.
I’d need about three more, but sometimes it was easier to just not argue with the ketchup distributors until absolutely necessary.
“That’s not nice, baby brother,” Quincy drawled as he got up to head to the line for his own food. But not before he stole yet another French fry off of Ellodie’s plate again.
Ellodie growled in frustration. “Bring extra fries.”
“And ketchup. Two of them at least,” I ordered.
Quincy gave me the finger and stepped into line.
Meanwhile, Hollis turned to Ellodie and asked, “Not a fan of people eating your food?”
“Not a fan of people eating my food when there’s not much to be eaten,” she said. “I can eat like a man, Hollis. This is going to hold me over until like two o’clock at best. And since I wasn’t at home today, I didn’t have the time to grab any of my regular snacks.”
I scrunched up my nose at that.
Pulling out my phone, I texted my mom and asked her if she could pick up some snacks at the store today and deliver them to my place.
It wouldn’t be a hardship or anything. Mom went to the store every day after work for dinner for her and whomever said they were going to be attending at their house that day.
And since my plan was to bring Ellodie over there with me, I could grab them then.
Mamasauce:
Yes. What kind?
Me:
Whatever. I think the girl will eat anything.
She really would, too. I’d yet to see her not willing to try anything. And every time I’d witnessed her eat, she’d been more than eclectic with her food choices. Veggies. Meat. Starches.
She would eat it all.
Ellodie’s phone beeped, causing her to pull it out of her pocket.
Mine vibrated, but I was in the middle of a bite of hamburger and didn’t reach for it.
“So what was happening downstairs when you came up here?” Hollis asked.
“I…” Quincy started, but Ellodie interrupted.
“That’s the least of our worries right now,” she said, eyes haunted, as she held out her phone for all of us to see. “Look.”
She twisted and placed the phone on the table, and I saw the message on the screen from the app she’d been using to date before we’d started what we had going.
That’s when I saw the username. FarmerJoe122
FarmerJoe122:
How do you feel about coffee?
My stomach squeezed, and I was already reaching for my phone before I’d consciously told myself to.
I had the phone in my hand, and Tobin’s name pulled up in seconds.
He answered in two rings.
“Yeah?” he grumbled.
“Ellodie got contacted by the FarmerJoe guy again.” I murmured quietly.
There was a moment of silence and then he said, “I’m not at my work computer. Can you tell me her login information and her password?”
I heard a woman grumbling in the background, and knew he had to be with his wife.
Jesus, the man was investigating a serial killer, and she had a problem with someone interrupting their time?
God, I hated her.
I wish Tobin had never agreed to marry her. Or hell, never agreed to have a date with her.
I gave him the information as Ellodie relayed it to me, and then he was humming softly for a few seconds before saying, “Okay, I’m hooked up. Go ahead and tell her to engage. Don’t make any plans. Just tell her to get to know him.”
I wanted her to do nothing of the sort.
But, upon hearing Tobin’s words through the speaker, Ellodie reached for the phone.
Hollis beat her to it, though.
She started typing furiously, her face a mask of concentration. She typed for what felt like forever before nodding, then hitting send.
Then she placed the phone back onto the table.
Ellodiecandriveatractor:
Hi, I love coffee. But it has to have lots of cream and sugar. ButI don’t do coffee with strangers, I’m sorry. What do you do for a living? Where are you from? What’s your favorite color? Do you wear jeans a lot? What’s your favorite number? What time do you go to bed?
“That’s a good start,” I admitted. “If he answers any of that truthfully, it could help locate him.”
“All right,” Tobin said. “Yeah, good start. AndI agree with Quaid, if he answers any of it truthfully, it could definitely help locate him. Or pinpoint a few things about him.”
FarmerJoe didn’t answer, though.
He stayed silent.
“Wonder if he knows it’s not me?” Ellodie asked, but then sighed. “I have to get back to work.”
She stood up and bent down, pressing her lips to my own.
“Do you want to keep my phone?” she asked.
I was already shaking my head, stopping her with a hand on her thigh when she went to take her trash.
She looked down at me, both of us completely ignoring the two across the table from us, and said, “Yeah?”
“Be careful, okay?” I pleaded.
She nodded her head, her shoulders loosening as she said, “I’ll do my best.”
That was what I was afraid of.
Her best wasn’t good enough, and we both knew it.