Chapter 9
NINE
CROIS
He’d never thought that he’d be in the situation where he was having to fend off an amorous suspect in a DUI.
The size of the room that they had to put her in at Cole Medical was tight enough that he couldn’t help but be close enough to suffer through her murmured comments and the clang of her handcuffs against the metal railing of the bed as she reached for him.
Harmony had left moments after they’d arrived at the Emergency Room and he was still waiting for Pilar to join him.
There had only been one tow truck available at first and she was still on scene waiting for the other tow truck to arrive.
Where the first car was being towed to a garage for repair, the second car that belonged to the lovely woman that was handcuffed beside him was being impounded.
There was going to be damage that she’d need to fix later, but she’d have to get her car out of impound first. Pilar had been unable to find insurance associated with the vehicle and the registration was out of date. Until those things were fixed, her car would be kept in the impound lot.
“You know…”
He sighed.
While he’d been at the Emergency Room, nearly everything out of the woman’s mouth had been preceded with ‘You know…’ or ‘I can’t believe…’
It wasn’t just the words; it was also her tone.
Waffling from high-pitched whining to a drunken slur, it was playing havoc with his patience. Now that she’d started talking again, it was enough to make him want to pound his head against the wall.
“You’re hooooot.”
He sighed, not bothering to hide his reaction.
“If you wanted to get me in cuffs for fun,” she giggled, “all you had to do was ask.”
He rolled his eyes since she’d repeated the same phrase at least three times before.
Some people, when they were drunk, repeated things over and over and oooover again.
Crois heard the cuffs rattle against the bedrail and he turned to look at her.
She jerked on it again and then whined.
WHINED like air escaping a small hole from a balloon.
“My wrist hurts!”
He smiled, a tight, thin line.
“If you didn’t jerk on the handcuff, it won’t hurt.”
She smiled at him as if he’d just told her that she was pretty. “Why can’t you use something softer? Have you seen those fuzzy handcuffs? You know the ones with fake fur?”
Breathe, he told himself. Breathe.
“You’d like that, right? Me in fur handcuffs?”
That wasn’t one of his fantasies for sex. Especially after he’d had to cuff people like over-served Barbie here.
“Can you…” He sighed. “Can you just… be quiet for a few minutes?”
“Be quiet?” She pursed her lips together. “You work for me, buddy!”
Oh boy, like he hadn’t heard that gem before.
“I might be a public servant, ma’am, but that doesn’t mean I take orders from you.”
She went from pissy to prissy in a moment. “Oh… that’s right,” she purred, “you probably want to give me the orders, right?”
He started counting in his head. One. Two. Three. Four. Five-
“You know…”
Dear Lord in Heaven, take me now.
“If you wanted to close the curtain… We can get a little frisky before the doctor comes back.”
I’d rather gouge my eyes out with a dull butter knife.
“What about that, Officer Hotness?”
He closed his eyes for a moment trying to maintain his relative calm but opened it the moment he heard someone clearing their throat.
Crois saw Doctor Roan Ashley standing in the doorway, a folder in his arms. “We should be good to release her to the jail soon. Do you want me to examine her again?”
“Don’t ask him!” The woman literally rattled her handcuffs again. “Ask me! I definitely want you to examine me! How about a full cavity search?”
Roan’s expression was nearly a flatline of enthusiasm. “I won’t be doing anything of the kind, ma’am.”
“Oh…” she sank back against the mattress. “Are you gay?”
Crois rolled his eyes at the woman’s question.
Roan stepped closer and looked at the IV on the pole. The ‘banana’ bag was nearly done.
He looked at Crois and Crois saw the frustration in the doctor’s eyes. “After the bag is done, we’ll be able to release her.”
“Oh, good.”
Roan’s expression lifted at the sound of Pilar’s voice.
She stepped up beside her fiancé and Crois saw the effort it took for her not to reach out and touch Roan. They were both on the clock and everyone was in view of a handcuffed suspect. Still, Crois, who knew them both, could see how the couple was drawn to each other.
Pilar looked at Crois. “The second tow truck showed up and took her car.”
“What?”
The woman’s shriek ricocheted off of the walls of the narrow room.
“You towed my car?”
Crois turned and stood with his back against the wall. “We told you that at the scene. I told you that when we arrived here at the Emergency Room. And at least one more time since.”
Roan frowned at the suspect and then opened the chart he was holding. “She had a CT scan,” he shook his head, “she might not remember because of the alcohol she’d consumed earlier.”
Pilar lifted a hand and touched his arm. “We’ve seen worse.”
Roan leaned in closer to his fiancé. “When do you have a meal break?”
Pilar turned her back to the room and Crois knew it was because she didn’t want the suspect to see her expression. “I don’t know yet. It might not be when you have a break.”
Crois could see how disappointed the doctor was.
He couldn’t blame him, he wanted to check in with Harmony and see if they could find time to meet while they were both on shift, but he didn’t think that was going to be possible.
He’d likely have to shuffle off while Pilar ate with her fiancé.
He’d be happy to let her because he knew better than getting in the way of love.
That, and later, he’d get the same break after he started to date Harmony in earnest.
He felt a smile pull at his lips.
“Uh… hello! I’m the victim here!”
“Victim?” Crois turned his head to stare at her. “Hardly.”
“My car,” she insisted, “is ruined!”
“Because,” Pilar leaned in to remind her, “you hit someone else’s car with yours. The damage to the car and yourself is self-inflicted.”
The woman in the bed, who was still known as Jane Doe since she hadn’t carried her identification with her, glared at Pilar. “You’re a bitch.”
Crois stepped in and glared at her. “You need to stop.”
“You,” she shot back at him, “need to shut up and suck my dick.”
Crois blinked his eyes at her. “So… you’re a man?”
She gasped loudly at his words. “I. Am. Not!”
He shook his head and looked up at the IV bag. It was almost done.
Crois turned back around. “Doctor Ashley,” he grinned, “my partner can go with you to fill out the discharge paperwork, right?”
Roan smiled at him and Crois saw Roan’s hand lift to touch PIlar’s back. “Great idea. Then you can take her to jail. They won’t have to send her back for medical clearance.”
Crois was relieved to hear that. “I’ll stay here and wait with our suspect.” He made sure to put emphasis on the word so that the woman cuffed to the bed would hear him clearly. She might want to see herself as a victim, but she clearly wasn’t.
He wasn’t about to feed into her delusions.
Roan walked down the hall with his hand on Pilar’s back while Crois stood in the way. Their suspect wouldn’t react well to seeing the personal relationship between the two.
She seemed to have an anger issue with women and a different kind of issue with men. He didn’t want to think about it if he didn’t have to.
“Hey… hey, hot stuff.”
Groaning inwardly, Crois turned to look at her again. “It’s Officer.”
She grinned. “Officer Hot Stuff.”
Crois ground his back teeth together to the point he was fairly sure that she could hear it.
“Seriously,” she grinned at him, but he didn’t grin back, “all fun aside, you should know that this is all… ridiculous.”
He raised a brow at her comment.
She was telling the truth, but he didn’t think it was the truth she was thinking of.
“When my uncle finds out what you’ve done, you’re going to be S. O. L.”
He folded his arms across his chest.
“Do you know what that is?”
He let out a pent-up breath. “I know what it is.”
“It means,” she drew out her words, “Shit Out of Luck.”
His smile was a thin stretch of his lips. “I said, I know.”
“Then you should let me go.”
She dropped the last three words as if they were enough to get him to uncuff her and send her on her way.
Right.
It wasn’t happening.
“You’ll see a judge in the morning and then you can see what he’s going to do.”
She lifted her chin and gave him a haughty, withering look.
“It’s not going to go that far, because I know something you don’t.”
Crois shrugged.
He didn’t care what secret she thought she had.
It didn’t make a difference.
She had a stack of charges that she was facing.
That kind of thing didn’t go away.
“Once I get my fucking phone call, you’re going to be screwed for doing this to me.”
He shrugged again. “I can’t think of any reason why a phone call would do anything for you.” He pondered her words for a moment. “Even if you were related to… the president or something like that, you still have to go through an arraignment tomorrow.”
She lifted her free hand and flicked her hair back over her shoulder. “That’s so sweet that you think that, Hotness.”
He sighed and willed Pilar and Roan to hurry up a little. He wanted to get this woman to the jail so they could get back on the streets.
Babysitting drunks in the Emergency Room?
Fun.
“You don’t think I’m telling the truth, do you?”
He didn’t answer her directly.
“Everyone,” he emphasized the word, “has to take responsibility for their actions.”
She laughed.
She fucking laughed!
“Maybe someone like you or your bitch of a partner, but me?” She laid back and looked up at the tiles above her head. “I’m not like you two. I’m special.”
‘In the head,’ he kept his words inside his head. It wasn’t because he was scared of what she’d say. He just didn’t want to aggravate her. He had a feeling she could make the last leg of their journey one for the record books and he didn’t have much patience left.
“Did you hear me?” Her voice was building in volume.
“Yes,” he managed a weak smile, “I heard you.”
“Good,” she nodded, seemingly satisfied. “Because when you find out who I know, you’re going to be shitting your pants.”
He wanted to laugh out loud, but he didn’t want to poke the bear.
She might look and act like a self-important idiot, but his mama would have grabbed his ear and twisted if he’d given her a dose of that particular medicine. Judging people by their looks was something his mother had drummed out of him.
Even the sweetest face, he knew, could hide a devil if pushed.
So he left her warning alone.
It was safer that way.
Or so he thought.
He had no way of knowing that he was really, really wrong.