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  CHAPTER THREE

  Hospital socks.

  Nothing was as instantly humbling as hospital socks, unless it was a hospital gown that never closed in the back. But at that moment, Larkin might as well have been wearing one of those too.

  She’d paid $135 for those stunning grey shoes to celebrate her new job, signing bonus, and impressive paychecks to come—an extravagance she had never indulged in before because she’d never been able to. But life would be different now. And the shoes were a great way to show the world that she was part of it.

  She’d gotten her slacks off the sale rack, and her trendy paisley blazer was a cast-off from an old roommate, but the shoes had made her feel like she’d just walked off the set of a makeover show. And even if there’d been no one to see her complete ensemble, except for a couple of tired nurses in a parking garage, that memory would have to last her. Because she was back to her thrown-together self as she pushed the security button outside the doors to the Crisis Unit, feeling a whole lot smaller than her lack of famous footwear accounted for.

  “May I help you?” asked man’s voice.

  “I’m Lark— I’m Doctor Nash. Nurse Cottrell called me. I’m covering for Doctor Rentmeister.”

  “All right,” he said, then buzzed her in.

  Of course they noticed the socks first. A skinny guy in scrubs with a nurse ID, and a guard with a stained tie stood at the security desk waiting to secure her cell phone and any personal items that might be used by a patient to harm himself or others. She didn’t offer her belt. The guard didn’t ask for it. After all, if belts weren’t allowed, there were a lot of men in that wing, including the guard, who would lose their pants.

  They both frowned at her feet, then looked up at her face like they expected her to confess she wasn’t a doctor after all.

  “Yes,” she said. “I am a doctor, not a patient. I just had a wardrobe malfunction with my shoes.” Shoes that she’d been unable to clean. And, in the end, she’d tossed both into the giant barf bag to make sure she wouldn’t be tempted to rescue them. She would just pretend she’d never bought them in the first place. “Someone sent for a psychologist?”

  The guard pointed to an open doorway behind him. From inside, she heard a familiar voice—Deputy Tommy Nowak’s to be precise—and her stomach dropped.

  “I’ve got bad news, and worse news,” he said.

  “What?” Justice didn’t sound happy.

  “The bad news is, Rent sent a woman to evaluate our guy.”

  “Oh, that’s just great. And?”

  “And…she’s your girlfriend.”

  A loud bang made her jump along with the guard and the male nurse.

  She had to give Justice some credit. He hadn’t cursed. But whatever he hit, he hit it hard enough to make him suck air after he hit it. She’d been tempted to walk through the door to keep him from saying something he might regret her hearing, but she decided to wait it out—at least long enough for his hand to stop stinging.

  “Larkin?” Justice called, tentatively. She could imagine him closing his eyes and praying she wasn’t there.

  “Yeah?”

  Okay. So then he cursed.

  Tommy came to the doorway and nodded for her to come inside. He looked about as pleased to see her as she’d been to hear his voice, but that made no sense at all. Granted, Justice was a bit of a male chauvinist at times, but he was also well-educated and intelligent enough to know that a woman could do most jobs as well as a man, and many of them better.

  She took a step toward the doorway and the guard looked like he was about to restrain her for her own safety. So she gave him a wink and a quick head shake, then stepped through. Justice was already walking toward her with a repentant grimace for a smile. She grimaced back.

  “Congratulations on your graduation,” he said, then took hold of her upper arms and dropped a kiss on her forehead. She kept her chin down so he wouldn’t kiss her lips and taste puke on her breath. “And congratulations on the new job. I didn’t know Rent was already throwing you into the ring. I guess I thought you’d take a big vacation first.”

  She shrugged and bit her tongue. Justice never took a day off, let alone a week—long enough to really go somewhere and have some fun. So what fun would it be to go on vacation alone?

  Tommy patted her awkwardly on the shoulder. “Yeah, congratulations.” But he kept frowning at Justice.

  “I can’t stand the suspense,” she said. “Why don’t you want a woman to evaluate your prisoner?”

  Justice squatted a bit to stare straight into her eyes, demanding her complete attention. “He’s not just a suspect, honey. He killed Sheriff Reiser. We were there.”

  “Robert?”

  Justice nodded, then pulled her against him for a brief squeeze, like he expected her to fall apart.

  Robert Reiser was the sheriff of Cass County. Larkin and Justice had been to a lawn party at his home. She’d met all four of his children and had thought that she and Robert’s wife, Anna, might become good friends one day, if she and Justice remained together.

  “Poor Anna,” she whispered.

  “Maybe we should have Melanie call someone else. It’s not like we can remain impartial at a time like this…”

  Larkin shook her head and blinked away the tears forming in her eyes. “No. You don’t need to call anyone else. I can do this. Besides, who knows how long it might take to get someone else here.”

  “She has a point,” Tommy said. “And we want to get this guy locked away, you know, before too many lawmen find out what he’s done.”

  Justice nodded, stared at her for a full ten seconds, then nodded again. “All right, Princess. Let’s get this over with. I’ll tell you what happened, and you won’t have to worry about speaking with the prisoner. You just prescribe—”

  “Hang on,” she said. “I will need to speak to him. I can’t possibly know what’s going on in his head unless I do. And I can’t help him if I don’t know what he’s thinking.”

  Tommy took a nervous step toward a door at his back. It had a small observation window in it. Obviously, the patient/suspect was on the other side of it, and Tommy was trying to put himself between her and the danger. It was sweet, really. But she wasn’t there to be protected.

  Or at least, that’s what she thought until she saw the raw anger on Justice’s face.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  His jaw jumped a couple of times. “You’re not here to help him, Larkin. You’re here to help us get him put away. You just write a prescription for Haldol—”

  “Justice. I’m a doctor of psychology—”

  “I don’t give a rat’s ass what you are—”

  “Not the kind of doctor that can write prescriptions.” She pretended she hadn’t heard the rest of what he’d said. After all, one of his friends had just been killed, and he’d apparently been a witness to it. It was understandable for his emotions to be a little wild. She’d be a fool to take it personally.

  He sighed. “You can’t?”

  She shook her head and wiggled her arms to signal he needed to loosen his grip, which he did. Then he rubbed them in apology.

  “I can make a recommendation to the ER doctor, though. And he can write a prescription—”

  Justice finally smiled. “That will work—”

  “But I can’t do that unless I evaluate him first.” She tilted her head. “And I can’t give an honest recommendation without an honest evaluation.”

  Justice’s jaw twitched again, and he stepped back quickly like he thought he might hurt her if he stayed where he was. She chalked that up to the trauma he’d been through as well, but inside, her little Jiminy Cricket of a conscience recorded the moment in his little notebook.

  “Don’t worry. The second I am sure he’s a danger, to himself or anyone else, I’ll get out fast.”

  Tommy looked through the little window. “That means we’ll have to restrain him…”

&
nbsp; “He’s not restrained?”

  Justice frowned. “He was.”

  She quick-stepped over to the window before he could stop her, then nudged Tommy out of the way. As soon as she realized what she was seeing, she started laughing.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Though she tried to never to have preconceived ideas about patients, especially before she met them, she admitted that the man pacing the room like a giant cougar wasn’t what she had expected. But now she knew why Justice hadn’t wanted a woman looking him over.

  He was an ancient Scottish god, complete with a blue and green plaid kilt, long hair, and a vest that looked like a bunch of animal skins sewn together. It was caught against his body by leather straps that no longer held any weapons. A long metal sheath had no sword handle sticking out the top. And smaller leather holsters were empty too.

  As he paced back and forth in the small space, his hair and the loose ends of that vest swayed like they were alive.

  “You need to remove all those leather straps,” she said, not taking her eyes off him. “And the laces out of his boots. And if that plaid is all one long piece, like it looks, you’re going to have to make him change out of it—” She stopped speaking when she turned and saw the flush and frustration on Tommy’s face. “What?”

  He hesitated, stared at the floor. “When we tase him, it only lasts a few seconds. We got his weapons the first time. It took two to get him into the car.”

  She looked again at the beast in the cage. He didn’t look the least bit subdued. “Just how many times have you tased him?”

  Tommy lifted a hand and started counting on his fingers, then lifted his other hand.

  Justice leaned close so he could watch the prisoner with her through the little window. “Sixteen,” he said next to her ear.

  “Sixteen?!” She’d allowed herself to be tased once, so she would be able to relate to difficult patients who had experienced it. She couldn’t imagine going through it twice in a lifetime, let alone sixteen in one day. “It might have been kinder to shoot him.”

  Tommy nodded. “We tried.”

  Justice’s arm reached around Larkin to slap Tommy in the side of the head. “Really?” He tried to slap him again, but Tommy moved out of reach. “Of course we didn’t shoot him. You see any blood?”

  Tommy bit his lip for a second, then forced a laugh. “I was just kiddin’, Larkin. We never tried to shoot him.”

  She nodded and smiled like she believed him. But then she looked back at the Scottish god…and wondered.

  “You remember that Highlander movie?” Justice spoke quietly next to her ear again. She might have mistaken it for affection if she hadn’t known his attention was fixed on his prisoner, and not her. “This guy thinks he’s the real deal. Chopped off Reiser’s head, too. Or at least he tried to.”

  “Please,” she said in her doctor tone and held up a hand to insist he move back. “Let me speak to him. I’ll find out if he’s delusional. What is his name?”

  Tommy opened his mouth to answer, but after a glance at Justice, he clapped it shut again.

  “Hasn’t said a word.” Justice stepped back and pointed to the intercom installed below the little window. “Go ahead and try. But unless you want him tased again, so we can restrain him, you’ll have to use that.”

  She nodded, motioned for Tommy to give her some space, then pressed the little black button. “Sir?”

  The beast/god stopped pacing immediately, and looked at the door. His eyes bore into hers while he waited. His chest lifted the vest and a sash of plaid with every breath, but he was calm in spite of his pacing.

  “Sir? My name is Doctor Nash. I would like to come in there and talk to you, to get this all sorted out. But these officers are concerned for my safety. So I’m going to need you to sit down at the table and allow them to restrain your arms. It is the only way they will allow me to speak to you.”

  He frowned for a couple of seconds, then spoke in a language she couldn’t identify. It sounded a little German, a little Dutch, and a whole lot of something else. “Must be Gaelic,” she guessed. “I don’t suppose there is anyone in the hospital that speaks Gaelic?”

  Tommy pushed in front of her and pressed the button. “Do you speak English?”

  The god spoke again. This time, it sounded like he’d repeated the word English, but he sort of growled it, then spit on the floor.

  Larkin sighed. “We’re going to need a translator.”

  ~

  While Justice paced like a caged and grumpy lion, Larkin tracked down a woman in Human Resources. As it turned out, a janitor named Rocha, originally from Peru, spoke Gaelic. He also spoke six other languages, including Mandarin Chinese. Why he was a janitor in Minnesota was anyone’s guess. But ten minutes later, Larkin laid out her problem again, which was translated, sentence by sentence, through the intercom.

  “My name is Doctor Nash. I would like to come in there and talk to you, to get this all sorted out. But these officers are concerned for my safety. I need you to sit down at the table and allow them to restrain your arms. It is the only way they will allow me to speak to you.”

  The janitor translated it all. After a minute of considering, the ancient god nodded and moved to the table. He sat in the chair and laid his forearms on the surface next to metal loops that could be used with handcuffs. Then he waited.

  “Remember,” Justice murmured, “he’s a killer. His fate is sealed and he knows it. He’ll say anything to escape.”

  She, Justice and Rocha watched with anticipation while two security guards entered the little room and moved cautiously toward the table. Through the intercom, the interpreter repeated a few phrases in soothing tones.

  The suspect watched the guards with narrowed eyes. He didn’t trust them. Understandable, considering.

  Larkin’s heart leapt the second she realized that the Scottish god had changed his mind. His jaw jumped. His gaze glanced at the gun on the hip of one guard while that man’s attention was on his handcuffs. The other guard reached for his own weapon.

  “Tell him not to do it,” she told the translator. But it was too late. Rocha was already running for the outer door. She feared everyone would be hurt if she didn’t try to intervene, so she pulled the observation door open, stepped inside, and held her hands out to her sides. “Everyone relax—”

  The suspect knocked the gun out of the first man’s holster, caught it, then threw it across the room where it landed behind the undisturbed bed. He shoved the second guard backward and took his gun from him before he could catch his balance. That gun landed near the first one while the first guard was spun in a circle. When he stopped, his hands were cuffed together. He ran toward Larkin and the open door, but the towering prisoner appeared behind him and caught him on the shoulder. Back at the table, the second guard was struggling, trying to free his cuffed hands from the table.

  Too late, Larkin backed toward the door. Someone, perhaps Justice, grabbed her hand, but he let go when the first guard was pushed through the opening between them breaking their grip. The prisoner stepped close. An urgent but gentle push of his hand turned her and she was suddenly walking forward, out through the open door—with a Scottish god pressed up against her back.

  “Relax,” she repeated, as she shuffled quickly through the room. No one was hurt—yet. No need for panic—yet.

  The first guard raised his still-cuffed hands in a plea for Justice to unlock them. But the sheriff shoved him out of the way and aimed a taser. The Scotsman moved Larkin between them, but continued through the room, pulling her along by the back of her thin belt.

  Why didn’t I give up the belt!

  Tommy raised his gun, but it looked like he was aiming at her head! She squeaked and her hands raised automatically to protect her face.

  “That won’t do any good,” Justice told him. Then he aimed his taser at her. She could imagine what he was thinking, that if he tased her, the prisoner would feel it. But what would she feel?! He grimaced, like h
e knew he was going to regret it. His slight shrug told her he had no choice.

  “Don’t you dare!”

  Justice looked like he was still considering it when the next door closed between them.

  Nurses backed away down the hall with their mouths hanging open. The imposing warrior pulled on her again, this time spinning her around to face forward, and together, they pushed through the doors that led them out of the Crisis Unit.

  The alarm sounded too late. The unit was locked down with Justice and the others trapped inside. But at that moment, she was almost relieved. At least her boyfriend couldn’t tase her!

  It was embarrassing, really—this brain delay—when it finally occurred to her that she had run from one danger only to find herself knee deep in something even more perilous. If she’d have been thinking clearly, would she have thought to struggle, to keep the Scotsman from dragging her out of there? Because now, she was a hostage.

  If she’d have never opened that door, to try to intervene…

  Her eyes closed and she groaned, fairly certain she had just lost her what-in-the-hell-is-he-doing-with-me boyfriend. And she was pretty sure she’d be added to a list of doctors to never call, even in an emergency. If the folks at Landry Medical Center didn’t have a list like that already, they would now.

  A two-toned alarm sounded overhead, to warn that the hospital was locking down. The Crisis Unit doors flew open just as she and the prisoner reached the bend. As they turned, she strained to see beyond the big body. Tommy had his gun drawn again. Justice had the taser in one hand and his gun in the other.

  She was going to die—all because she’d opened that door!

  The grip on her arm was suddenly gone. The Scotsman had slowed and turned back. If she was smart, she would run. But the elevators were right there. She could duck inside one…