“No. Please, don’t.” Reaching up, she managed to grasp his wrist, the warmth of his skin oddly reassuring. “I—Just give me a few minutes, okay? I’m sure I’ll remember everything soon enough.”
Officer Sinclair’s deep brown eyes held indecision. She tightened her grip.
“Please. I need some time.”
He glanced down at her hand on his arm, then lifted his gaze back to hers. “Okay, I’ll hold off for now. But I hope that doctor comes back soon. I have a few questions.”
“Thank you.” Her hand slipped from his arm and she closed her eyes in an attempt to clear her mind. Her poor brain cells were scrambled like eggs. All she needed was a little rest.
She concentrated on breathing, in and out, allowing her muscles to relax. Someone, maybe the cop, turned the overhead lights off, leaving her alone.
Oh, that was much better. She had no idea if she normally did this type of relaxation technique, but it seemed to come automatically.
In and out. In and out. Slow your breathing and your heart rate.
Ignoring the vague sounds coming from the hospital staff, she concentrated on keeping her mind clear. Was it always this easy to think of nothing in particular?
She must have dozed a bit, because someone suddenly bellowed, “Hey! What are you doing in there?”
Prying her eyes open, she saw a deeply tanned man hovering close to her bedside. For a moment, his pale eyes held an angry malevolence, but then he turned away. “Cleaning,” he muttered, pushing past the cop and the doctor and then hurrying away.
“Did he hurt you?” Noah demanded.
“No. He’s just one of the cleaning staff.”
“Maybe,” Noah said in a low voice, his gaze following the tanned man as he made his way into another room. “I don’t like it, though. I think it’s best to get you out of here as soon as possible.”
She looked up at Noah, searching her memory for anything that would help her remember. But there was only a vast emptiness. No name. No memory.
Nothing.
A horrible sense of helplessness tightened her chest. She’d asked for some time, but so far, that hadn’t helped much. She still didn’t remember anything. And then another terrifying thought hit her squarely in the gut.
What if her memory was gone forever?
* * *
Noah leveled the doctor with a hard stare. “Does she have bleeding in her brain or not?”
The ER doctor, Daniel Wagner, shook his head. “No, her scan was clear.”
“Then I’d like to take her home.” Noah had been upset to find out that Maddy Callahan had been mugged near the courthouse. But what was even more disturbing was that she didn’t remember her own name. Or anything about her family.
The only thing working in his favor at the moment was that Maddy didn’t remember him, either. Which meant she wasn’t glaring at him or telling him to get lost in that lofty tone of hers.
Noah knew she blamed him for her brother Matt being stabbed in the stomach eighteen months ago. Matt and Maddy were twins, and truthfully she had a right to be angry. Noah had hesitated a fraction of a second too long, allowing the female drug addict to lunge at Matt, sticking the blade deep.
At least Matt hadn’t been injured too badly; the tip of the knife had managed to miss his liver by a fraction of an inch. Matt claimed the assault wasn’t Noah’s fault, yet right after the injury, Matt had abruptly decided to pursue becoming a K-9 cop.
Noah knew the real reason was that Matt didn’t trust him to be his partner any longer, and he couldn’t shake the guilt that clung to him like a soggy woolen sweater. After all, Matt wouldn’t have been hurt in the first place if Noah had reacted instantly to the threat.
Old news, he reminded himself. Time to get over it.
His radio went off, and he quickly turned away to answer it. His latest partner of just over six months, Jackson Dellis, was asking if he needed assistance to question the mugging victim. He assured the younger man he had it under control. Since their shift was officially over, he told his partner to go home and that he’d file the report on the mugging victim himself. Jackson didn’t hesitate to agree.
Noah turned back to the doctor. “I’m a friend of the family and I’d like to take her home now,” he repeated.
“Well...” The doctor hesitated, obviously not happy with the thought of letting his patient go. “She still seems to have some cognitive issues.”
“More like amnesia, don’t you think?” Noah countered. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you trying to tell me she has to stay in the hospital until her memory returns?”
“Not exactly,” Wagner backtracked. “But she needs to be watched closely for worsening signs and symptoms.”
Yeah, he could understand that. “Listen, Doc, I promise I won’t leave her alone. But since we don’t know what happened to her, I think she needs to be taken someplace safe.”
That made the doctor bristle. “Our hospital is safe,” he protested.
Noah wasn’t in the mood to argue. When he swept another gaze over the ER, he noticed the mop that the tanned guy had been using was lying on the floor as if it had been dropped and abandoned. The man himself was nowhere in sight.
Maybe he was being paranoid, but Noah couldn’t help but think that Maddy’s injury was related to the case she was scheduled to take to trial in less than a week.
Noah knew all about Alexander Pietro’s drug-running business; he was one of the cops who’d helped arrest him. They had plenty of evidence, but Pietro had serious mob connections in Chicago, and Noah wouldn’t put it past them to attempt to free Alexander by doing whatever was necessary.
Even threatening to take out the assistant district attorney handling the case.
The fact that Maddy was still wearing a pair of black slacks, topped with a dark gray blazer over a blue blouse that matched her eyes, confirmed that she’d been working late down at the courthouse.
“I’ll check with my boss,” Dr. Wagner said. He left Maddy’s room and Noah remained where he was at the foot of her gurney. As far as he was concerned, no one was going to touch Maddy without his permission.
He glanced back at her, noticing once again the long slice along the front of her neck. A small portion of the scratch had been deep enough to require a few stitches. Imagining the way the mugger must have held a knife to her throat brought a flash of anger.
Nope. No one was going to touch Maddy Callahan again. No way, no how.
“Is there a problem?” A female physician entered the room. She was tall and beautiful with long curly red hair and it took him a minute to recognize her as Dr. Gabrielle Hawkins, the infamous trauma surgeon who’d saved the lives of numerous cops on the force. She was the best trauma surgeon on staff at Trinity Medical Center.
The prettiest one, too. Married, of course, to Deputy Shane Hawkins.
“Dr. Hawkins, I’m Officer Sinclair.” Noah held out his hand and she gave it a firm shake. “This patient is Maddy—”
“Callahan,” Dr. Hawkins finished, her eyes on the patient lying on the gurney. “I recognize her from when I took care of her brother Miles after he suffered a gunshot wound last April.”
Noah figured he shouldn’t have been surprised; rumor on the street was that Dr. Hawkins was exceptionally smart and never forgot a name or a face.