10. Lifesaver
10
LIFESAVER
“Alice?” I fly out of the double doors, the phone wedged between shoulder and ear. “What’s going on? Speak to me.”
“I’m fine.” The heavy breathing would suggest otherwise. “I’m just…in shock. And I’m sorry. It didn’t even cross my mind that you’d be working.”
“He strangled you?” Just saying the words boils my blood.
“Yeah, but not for long, and it wasn’t that bad, but he almost…”
“Almost what?” I press. “Alice?”
“I dunno. He was taking me somewhere.”
“Where?”
“Into his car maybe? I dunno. Honestly, I’m sorry I called. I just needed to?—”
“Never apologize. I’m not having a conversation again with you about apologizing.” I wipe my wrist over my forehead to erase the sudden breakout of sweat. “Where are you? Somewhere safe?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Just parked up at a Target.”
“That’s not a safe location.”
“I panicked and didn’t want to drive home in case?—”
“Come back to the hospital. Park in the ER, and as close to the entrance as you can get. I’ll register your car. Go straight in and ask for me at reception.”
“Alright. I’ll speak to you soon.” The line goes dead.
Jesus fucking Christ. Alice ringing me up and telling me she’s just been attacked is more emergency than the resus patient paramedics just brought in.
I think I’ll need compressions next.
My heart stopped.
The thought of another man putting his hands on her…
“Dr. Miller?” calls one of the nurses.
I turn around and stuff the phone back into my pocket. Phones are prohibited out on the floor, but Nurse Shelly keeps her mouth shut. The only time she opens it is to compliment my hair.
“Yeah?”
“The patient is okay. We managed to bring him back.”
“Amazing. Good work.”
She goes to turn away but falters in her step. “Who’s Alice?”
I purse my lips and attempt to string together a sentence. Do I tell her about the blonde baddie I can’t stop thinking about, just for her to relay the gossip to all of her nurse friends in the staff room? “Get back to work, Shelly.”
I enter through the double doors back into the resus room to assist moving the patient onto another bed. The ICU will be his home for the time being. Maybe Alice will even care for him.
Alice. Alice. Alice. Alice.
Five letters and I’m melting like ice cream in the desert. Since last night, none of us have spoken to her. She was working the afternoon-late shift. I checked her schedule on the system. Her car, registered on the system to an Alice Dyson, license plate 247-X41, showed that the vehicle was on the top level of the inpatient parking garage. And she drives a white Mercedes.
Either she hoards money, or the ICU pays better than I thought.
Nurses out of the room, I slip out my phone again and pull up the group chat.
Only Brander picks up.
“Get your ass to the hospital immediately. Tell Match to get his here too.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Alice.”
A name drop and dramatic hang-up will have them racing over here in no time. In the meantime, I need to locate a private room.
I swoop in behind the reception desk and flash my teeth at Sandra.
“Dr. Miller. What mischief are you causing today?”
Wouldn’t you like to know?
“I require a room, a private one, if you can be so kind and work your magic.”
She taps away on the keyboard. Two seconds later: “Room zero-fifty-two.” She slides open a drawer and reaches over the desk to hand over the key. “Who’s the lucky lady today?”
The luckiest, I feel like saying, but it’s quite the opposite.
Once, I hooked up with a girl in a private room two years ago, so the woman assumes sex is the only thing I do in them now, rather than my job. She was called Cait—the best blonde I met before Alice—and her short-term agency contract meant we could have some fun, no strings attached.
Except strings are very much still attached to the ER receptionists.
I pace down the corridor and unlock the room. It’s airy, cold, and a single bed with fresh linen bedding makes it very tempting to crash and take a nap.
Instead I perch on the end of the mattress and take out my phone to text Brander and Match the room number.
Incoming call from Alice
“Room zero-fifty-two,” I tell her. “The receptionist will show you the way.”
I hang up the call and throw the device onto the bed, allowing myself to fall back onto the mattress for a moment. Working at the hospital and riding for the Venom Vultures doesn’t do any favors to the body. When you reach your early forties, you’re supposed to cut back and start doing less physical things so your retired self will thank you later. Judging by my state, though, I’ll be buried six feet under in my first week of retirement before I can hop on a plane, travel the world, and achieve all my goals before the curse of old age arrives.
But I’d have this life no other way. The adrenaline of not knowing what’s around the corner. The satisfying sound of the grumbling Harley. Desert air at my back, propelling me down roads I’ve never traveled before.
Action and three hours sleep is the way I’ve been living my life, even before my driver’s license came through. Adventure was put into my bones the second they were formed. Ask Peter Dyson. The instinct to throw myself into anything was the only reason I was somewhat liked during school. I was a fast runner because adrenaline always surged through me at the starting line. Was I going to win or lose? The unpredictability pumped something exciting inside of me. Something that made the trees look extra green, and the desert sand appear even more orange. My love of not-knowing-what’s-around-the-corner is why I became a doctor in the ER, and why I applied to Venom Vultures as soon as I heard whispers of it among college peers.
If all this action and constant charging around sends me to an early death, so what?
The door bursts open and Alice falls in.
Sandra, holding the door open, raises her suspicious eyebrows at me, but Alice’s arrival scrambles my head. For once in my life, I’m struggling for a quick-witted comeback.
“Thanks, Sandra,” are the only words to come out.
The door closes, and Alice runs into my arms.
“It’s okay. You’re okay.”
“I know,” she says, pulling away from me to look into my eyes. Redness rings around hers. “I’m fine. Just surprised, that’s all. I wasn’t expecting anything like that to happen.”
“Did you get anything? Any facial features?”
She shakes her head.
“A car registration?”
Another headshake.
The door bursts open again, and Brander and Match stride in.
“What’s going on?” Match folds his arms over his chest. The gesture conceals many things, but unfortunately for Match, not the concern imprinted across his face. He looks terrified.
I stand from the bed so she can sit. “Alice was attacked.”
“Attacked?” Anger wobbles Brander’s brow. “By who?”
I turn to Alice, hoping for her to step in and give us some information.
She just shrugs her slender shoulders.
“They were wearing a mask,” she says. “I was more concerned with trying to get out of the choke hold than assessing who the choker was.”
“Choked?!” Brander and Match say in unison.
“Fucking hell,” Match adds. He strokes an unsteady hand through his curtains of hair. “We need to find this guy, and fast, before he comes back to perform attempt number two.”
“Slow down,” I say. Normally it’s Match speaking these words. “We need to think this through properly.”
Brander furls his brow. “What do you mean?”
“It can’t be some random attack, can it?”
“Why not?” Alice says. “Stuff like this happens all the time in Vegas. It happened to my mom when I was younger. I was just ten years old when I received the news that she’d been jumped and killed on the street.”
A pin-drop silence stretches between us all.
I hear sharp intakes of breath from the other two.
Jesus Christ.
“Oh, Alice, I’m?—”
“No. It’s fine.” She sits back on her elbows. “I’m just saying. It’s probably a one-off, right? Nothing to worry about. They tried to mug me or take me somewhere, but it failed.” She searches the floor, and when she looks back up, her eyes pool with fear. “But that only means they’ll move on to someone else. And maybe next time they could be successful.”
I bite the corner of my lip. “You definitely didn’t get any details?”
“None. They were hiding their identity. Black suit. Black pants and black balaclava. That’s all I saw running toward me as I was pulling out of the parking garage.”
“Bratva.” Brander whips around to us. “It has to be.”
Black suit and pants…
“The Bratva attack for a reason.”
“Not always,” says Alice.
We all turn to her, waiting for what else she has to say. Is this when she warps our innocent-angel perceptions of her? When she plot-twists our entire fucking lives to tell us she’s married to Vlad or some shit?
“My mom was killed by the Bratva. That was random.”
I narrow my eyes.
The Bratva might be cold-hearted killers with red-stained knuckles and angry, canine teeth, but they kill with intent. For a reason. Always.
Brander scratches his chin. “That’s strange.”
“Maybe,” Match says, “they thought she was somebody else.”
“Maybe…” I say.
But the Bratva, as much as it pains me to admit it, are smart. Possess more than enough brain cells to be able to identify the correct individual on their hit list.
They’re human after all, I suppose.
Maybe they made a mistake.
Alice, unable to prop herself up anymore, flops back onto the bed and shuts her eyes.
I follow suit along with Match and rake a hand through my hair. The fucking Bratva. If it’s not them planning to murder Peter, it’s them jumping on Alice.
What if she hadn’t escaped out of the choke hold? What if right now she was being transported to God knows where in the trunk of a car, knotted up in ropes? Working as a doctor exposes you to some very grotesque things, but never has my stomach churned like this before.
“What do we do?” I turn to Match, my voice lowered.
Match shrugs—something he’s been doing lots of ever since Alice walked into our lives. “I dunno,” he says. “You don’t think”—he lowers his voice—“any of this has to do with Peter Dyson’s assassination, do you?”
I turn around, unsure if this is something we should be discussing with Alice in the room. She was just attacked. Us discussing Bratva motives is the last thing I want her ears to hear.
But she’s zonked.
Shift work zombifies you.
I step away from the bed toward the other two. “What do you mean? How would this be linked? It’s two different scenarios.”
“I’m not sure,” Match says. “But you know what they’re like. It’s spiderwebs with them. Somehow things always end up being interlinked.”
Brander closes in and shakes his head. “Not always. Sometimes there’s branches. Multiple things occurring simultaneously. Besides, there’s no link between Peter Dyson and Alice.”
“Still,” I say. “It doesn’t mean we have any less work to do. We have hands in two different pies now. Alice and Peter.”
“They’re still in the early stages of planning the assassination,” Brander says. “Peter only released the statement two days ago. If they were close to taking action, there’d be no time for them to sip whisky and talk business in a strip club.” He eyes me. “Don’t be worried.”
“Well I am fucking worried,” I say, my voice louder than I intend it to be. “Clearly the two of you know squat about childhood friendships. Or anything long-term at all, for that matter.”
“Fucking hell, Lifey.”
I hold up my hands as if at gunpoint, because I kind of am. Nothing stops the heart quite like Brander’s protruding brow bone when he’s angry. “Sorry, bro, but I’m just saying. Peter might be mayor and an academic in all things politics, but he stands zero fucking chance against Vlad and his buddies.”
“Peter Dyson is on the Bratva’s hit list?” Alice shoots up.
“Uh.” I pause. Survey the other two.
Looks like I’m spokesperson for a change.
Blood drains from Alice’s face. “What are you talking about?”
“We were just…talking.”
“No,” Alice snaps. “What do you mean the Bratva want Peter dead? Why?”
“It’s okay, princess.” Brander wanders over to her. Takes her hand. “It’s nothing to?—”
“Be worried about. Yeah. You just said.” Fear glasses her eyes. Then her head whips around to me, tresses of blonde hair following her. “Lifesaver? You know him?”
Shocking revelation. I’m best friends with the mayor. Does this really surprise people? It’s not like I sat next to an A-list Hollywood celebrity in biology class every day, like Tom Cruise or Leonardo DiCaprio, and became best friends with them. Sure, Peter is the mayor of Las Vegas, but from a woman’s perspective, he’s nobody to fangirl and tense up over in response to hearing news of his planned assassination.
The guy hasn’t actually died.
“Yeah,” I respond. “I went to school with the guy. We’re good friends.”
Her face turns a new shade of white.
Match, Brander, and I all share a glance.
“Alice?” Match moves closer to her. “Are you okay?”
Stupid question to ask. She looks like she’s just seen a fucking phantom.
She clears her throat. Shakes out her hair. “Um. Yeah.” She forces a smile. “Fine.”
And that’s supposed to convince us all.
“So.” She lies back down again, elbows propped up behind her. “What’s the plan? What precautions can I take to make sure this doesn’t happen again?”
“I think,” Match says, “we’ll need one of us loitering around when it’s dark to ensure no subsequent attacks happen on you.”
“They won’t, most likely.” Brander rests his hand on her shoulder. “But none of us want to take any risks. That tattoo doesn’t just group us all together for the rest of our lives. It’s a sign of protection. We have to look out for you, and go to whatever extent necessary to make sure you’re safe.” He strokes her arm. “I mean it. There’s no need to worry.”
“But what about Peter?”
“That’s nothing you need to be concerned about,” Match says.
“Yeah,” I add. “We’ll deal with?—”
The door crashes open.
And who could possibly be standing on the other side…?
Peter fucking Dyson.
“Al, oh my god.” He barges past me and Match to wrap his arms around her. “Baby.” He pats her down. “I heard what happened. Are you hurt? Did they touch you?”
How the hell does Peter know…?
Fuck.
The four white walls close in on me, and a football-sized lump forms in my throat, rendering me speechless. My eyes can’t help but scan them for similarities. Father and fucking daughter. That would explain the excruciating panic on Alice’s face when she shot up.
They look alike. Both sport the same Amazon-Rainforest green eyes. Peter, like Alice, has a slim build, and they share the same petite, straight nose. Al. Alice. How did my brain never connect the two?
I catch Match side-eyeing me, amused.
Brander looks scared for my life.
And he should be, because as Peter envelops Alice in a hug using the continued nickname “baby,” all I can think about is the time I fucked his daughter.
Never mind being buried my first week into retirement.
I’m six feet under now.