Round Five #2
I shrug. I honestly have no fucking clue. “She’s terrified of everyone equally. Male and female. Even Janine—who I typically bring in to calm a patient—is sending Jane over the edge.”
Thoughtful, he warms the side of my face with his stare. “You call her Jane?”
“Jane Doe.” I drag my bottom lip between my teeth, exhaling until my lungs empty. “It’s her official name till we know different. But she doesn’t like it, so I don’t say it to her face.”
“Jane.” He says it again, softer on his tongue. “Gossip vines are saying she’s not afraid of you.”
“Yeah, well…” I move onto the backs of my heels, curling my toes.
Stretching them. My feet will be stuck in a pair of shoes again soon, and they won’t be free again until tomorrow.
“She was plenty scared when she first woke up. Busted her stitches and nearly threw herself off her bed trying to escape. But I stayed, and I talked to her. Kept hanging around. Figured consistency would create familiarity, and familiarity would help her trust.”
“You’re big-brothering her.”
I cough out a cathartic laugh and drop my chin until it almost touches my chest. “It comes naturally to me.”
“Oliver.” Billy Caster comes to a stop on my right, his broad shoulder brushing mine, while twenty feet behind us, his kid shouts and huffs his way through a class. “How’s Jane doing?”
“Better, now that the asshole cop isn’t in her space.” I turn and sit on the edge of the cage floor, my back pressed to the fence. “You’ve been listening to the Plainview gossip mill. That’s why you went into her room with a bad attitude.”
“The fuck is wrong with you?” Tommy growls. “You gave her the Barbara treatment?”
“She wouldn’t be the first person looking for a six-figure payday in this economy,” he grunts. “She’s a stranger with not a single dollar to her name, not enough clothes to cover her back, and a convenient head injury to blame for her lack of answers.”
“Convenient? She has a traumatic fucking injury,” I snarl.
“She’s got bleeding on the brain, bruises on every inch of her body, stitches popping because she’s so fuckin’ skinny, and her skin has no stretch, and she has no clue where she is or what her name is.
If she was in it for the insurance fraud, she doesn’t even remember her plan. ”
“You let small-town-bullshit bleed into your work,” Tommy rumbles. “Listening to the book club instead of treating a victim with the respect and tact she deserves.” He folds muscular arms and tut-tuts under his breath. “I’m embarrassed for ya.”
“Shut the fuck up.” He turns with a huff and sits on the cage frame beside me, staring across the room while his kid and my sister skip and laugh.
“It’s my job to consider she might have shitty intentions.
It’s not like I cussed her out, and I didn’t straight-up call her a liar, either. I didn’t even make her cry.”
“Did you run her prints and face through the system?” I demand. “Find prior insurance fraud attached to her name?”
“No, smartass. In fact, she’s not popping up anywhere. No criminal record, and if she has a driver’s license, I’m tempted to assume she walked into that photo booth with a heavy layer of makeup or two hundred pounds and a different nose to the one she has now.”
“So, no license,” Tommy concludes. “Jesus. No record at all? I thought everyone had a rap sheet by their nineteenth birthday. It’s a rite of passage.”
“Just the Watkins boys,” Billy drawls, “setting shit on fire and making a career of pissing everyone off. Doctor Darling, on the other hand—”
Venom burns in my veins as I rotate and meet his eyes in warning as
Don’t do it, you prick. Don’t fucking start.
Reconsidering, he clamps his lips shut and pushes to his feet. “Whatever.”
“You’ll conduct yourself better next time,” I grit out. “That woman is a victim who needs our help. She’s not a sacrifice to be made to satisfy the book club bitches’ rabid hunger for gossip.”
Billy turns, slamming his pointed finger against my chest. “Just because you—”
“Oh, look! Your kid walked into a pole.” Tommy shoots between us and shoves Billy back a step, turning him toward Eliza’s watchful class. Then he spins and presses his hands to my shoulders. “You know you and Billy are banned from interacting when you’re on night shift.”
“Tommy—”
“No sleep makes you mean, and bitterness makes him stupid. Everyone knows you wanna save ‘em all, Ollie, and, fuck, you’d rather die than let one of ‘em suffer. Now you’re going full white knight for this chick, and Billy’s out here throwing a bad attitude in your face?
That’s a recipe for disaster, and you know it. ”
“Move along, Tommy.”
“Not gonna move along.” He pounds his palms to my chest, shifting to stop me from walking away.
“But I’m not gonna give you shit for being good to her, either.
She’s a patient, and you’re one of the best guys I know.
Until we hear differently, she deserves comfort.
Not interrogation.” He tilts his head toward the cage. “You wanna fight him?”
“Billy? Absolutely.”
He smirks. “I could get him up there, I guess. Gloves on, mouth guard in. Beating the shit out of him is legal when it’s sport, and his kid would see him crying, which would make us all feel a little better.”
“But he ain’t volunteering.” Chris presses his bloodied face to the cage wall, his eyes alight with desire for another human punching bag.
“If he isn’t volunteering, then it’s not sport.
It’s just a beatdown, and that makes it illegal again.
But I’ve got a little energy to work off.
” He hooks a thumb over his shoulder to Cliff, writhing on the floor.
“He tapped, and when a dude taps, the law says I’ve gotta stop.
But if you wanna work through some stuff, I’m good to roll. ”
“Not even if you paid me a million dollars.” I exhale a breath of frustration and turn to make sure Eliza is where she’s meant to be.
Behaving herself. Not talking to that motherfucker, Billy.
“Think I’ll work on the bags by myself tonight.
Put in an hour and open my lungs. Then I’ve gotta shower and head back to the hospital. ”
“You work too much.” Tommy bumps my shoulder, knocking me a full step to the left. “You’re gonna end up a patient soon if you’re not careful.”
“I’m fine with how things are.” I catch sight of Alana Watkins, the champ’s wife and radiant baby-momma, wandering this way.
She’s rugged up in a thick jacket and a rainbow beanie covering most of her wavy blonde hair.
More notably, she’s carrying their sweet baby girl, Hazel, against her chest. The baby I got to deliver.
My partial reparations for sins I’ll never truly be absolved of.
“You gotta stop looking at my wife like you’re in love with her, Doc.
” Tommy claps the back of my head and steps in front of me, opening his arms wide, and accepting both girls with a rumble of contentment and a hug so tight, Alana releases a long, happy sigh.
“I’ve been looking at these dudes for way too long, Lana.
Didn’t even realize my eyes hurt till I saw you, and it felt good.
” He presses a noisy, bordering-on-indecent kiss to her lips.
And when he’s done, he scoops his baby straight out of her arms. “Come to Daddy, pretty girl. Did you do a big poo today? You’ve had a tummy ache for days. ”
With a roll of her eyes, Alana steps around him and leans in to hug me.
It’s not the same kind she gives her husband, but it’s a hug that speaks of friendship.
Of decades of love. It speaks of forgiveness, like she knows she needs to remind me, day in, day out, that I’m not as horrible as my conscience would have me believe.
When my conscience is quiet, Billy’s always nearby to point shit out.
“Hazel’s been having tummy troubles,” Alana murmurs, pulling away with a grin. “Tommy’s taken it upon himself to be chief and commander of the poop schedule.”
“Did she drop a load today?”
“She sure did. Destroyed her outfit. And the couch cushion,” she snickers. “But I can’t even be mad, because I’m just glad she got it out.” She searches my eyes that way she does, so fucking wise, so knowing. “Heard you got a mess on your hands down at the hospital. You look tired.”
“What version of the story did you hear?”
She snorts. “That the chick was looking for a quick payday and retribution, though Barbara can’t possibly imagine why this woman would do such a thing since she—Barbara—is such a wonderful soul.
She hopes to sneak into the hospital sometime tomorrow and speak to your patient.
Plead her case and convince her not to sue. ”
“I’m fuckin’ exhausted.” I crush the heels of my palms to my eyes and groan. “She’s making it messy, even when it doesn’t have to be.”
Alana slides her fingers around my wrists, gently tugging my arms down, then she gifts me with a kind smile and dancing eyes.
“It’s gonna be okay. You should come to the house this weekend and have dinner with us.
Fox was sick last week, and Chris had a whole seven days of locking her up and sharing her with no one. ”
“I contained the germs!” Chris growls. “How is that a bad thing?”
“He got used to the quiet,” she teases. “Now he’s pissy because we’re forcing him to socialize again. Dinner this weekend.” She raises a pointed brow. “We insist.”
“I mean…” I peek across at a dopey, happy Hazel and her dopier, happier father. “If you insist. Can I bring Eliza?”
“Of course.” She pats my chest. “Even though she scares me.”