She looked at Reeves. “I’m on duty. I don’t have time to baby-sit.”
The administrator’s smile chilled but didn’t disappear. “You can make time.” Looking at Tremaine, he said cordially, “Dr. O’Riley is at your disposal, Detective. Please don’t keep her too long. The E.R. is slow right now, but that has a way of changing suddenly.”
“I appreciate it. If they page her, I’ll send her right down.”
Nodding, the other man strode from the room.
There was nothing quite so annoying as feeling like a pawn in a situation of someone else’s making. Shae made no attempt to keep the irritation from her voice as she asked Tremaine, “Just what is it exactly that I’m here for?”
The detective shoved away from the wall he’d been leaning against, crossed to her side and cupped her elbow. “We can talk outside.”
“Hey, where you taking her? Tremaine? Tremaine!” LeFrenz bellowed as Cade inexorably guided her resisting form to the hallway. “She’s here because I said so. Bring her back. Now, Tremaine!”
Before they’d taken a dozen steps outside the room, Shae yanked her elbow out of the man’s grasp and turned to face him. “Care to tell me what this is all about? I have patients downstairs to tend to.”
The detective just gazed at her, his dark-green gaze inscrutable. “You have a patient up here, too.”
“LeFrenz isn’t my patient anymore. He’s Dr. Lyndstrom’s.” Something about the steady intensity of his regard made her uneasy. Since no man made her nervous, not ever, she decided the reaction had to do with his occupation. Dealing with cops had always raised her stress level.
“I’ve been in to question him every day since he got out of surgery and he hasn’t given me jack. The only thing he has said, more than once, is that he wants to see you.” He gave her a mocking smile. “Apparently you made quite an impression on him, Angel Eyes.”
She gave an impatient shrug. “And this concerns me how?”
“Jonny hasn’t been exactly cooperative up to this point. But he promised that your presence would change that. I thought it was worth a shot to see if he would be any more talkative with you in the room.”
Giving an incredulous laugh, she said, “You mean, I’m a bribe? Drop dead, Tremaine.” Turning, she walked toward the elevator.
He stepped into her path and she stopped, rather than risking running into him. “I wondered if there was a temper to match that red hair.” His mouth quirked. “Now I know.” As quickly as the humor flashed into his face, it was gone again. “Are you telling me you can’t spare fifteen minutes to help the NOPD?”
She raised a brow. “Appealing to my sense of civic duty? Maybe that would have worked if you’d approached me first, instead of running to Reeves.” Even as she said the words, she tasted the lie in them.
Cade shoved his fingertips into the front pockets of his jeans. “Reeves? Oh, you mean the suit. I figured you might need permission to leave the floor for a while. Yeah, okay, so I’m using you. I admit it. But I got a kid dead because of the sh—drugs that LeFrenz sold him. We’re not so different, you and me. We both try to keep people alive.”
Bitterness twisted through her at his words. Professionally, at least, his words were true enough. But personally… Tremaine would be shocked to discover just how far apart they were.
He moved closer to her, his head tilted intimately toward hers, his voice now low and persuasive. “C’mon, Doc. What’s the harm?”
Startled, her gaze jerked to his. He had a smoker’s voice, slightly raspy, with more than a hint of the South in it. She’d heard it hard, demanding, expressionless. But she’d never heard it sounding like this. That coaxing tone he’d adopted was pure sex, honey-coated temptation that issued its own beguiling invitation. She imagined there were few women who’d ever stood firm against it.
With new eyes she reassessed him, not as a doctor but as a woman. His long narrow face wasn’t conventionally handsome, but it was strong, with its slash of cheekbones, straight nose and sensual lower lip. A lock of his dark-brown hair seemed permanently out of place, usually falling across his forehead. She’d noticed him shoving it away more than once. Coupled with those penetrating jade eyes and rangy build, his physical presence no doubt made it easy for him to persuade women to do just about anything he asked. The slight pallor he still wore would only make him more convincing.
He reached for one of her hands, held it in his as his thumb skated over her knuckles. At the touch, her eyelids lowered, her lips parted.
“Tell me something,” she murmured throatily.
Although he hadn’t moved, somehow he seemed closer. “Mmm-hmm?”
“Does this little act of yours usually work?” When he went still, she retrieved her hand, angled her chin and looked him squarely in the eye. She saw comprehension register there, followed by a flicker of amusement.
“Yes.” There wasn’t a hint of apology in his voice.
“Well—” her smile was brittle as she stepped away from him “—I’ll have to readjust my estimate of women’s intelligence.”
He tucked his fingers in his pockets again and rocked back on his heels. “It was the hand holding, wasn’t it. Too over the top for you? I was afraid so, but you’re a tough one to read.”
She didn’t know whether to be annoyed or disarmed by his matter-of-fact admission. It suited her to be annoyed. “Has it ever occurred to you to just be upfront about what you want?”
“Sure, I tried that first. Figured you for a more straightforward approach. When that didn’t work, I had to improvise.”
Even as she was shaking her head at his blatant confession of manipulation, he was continuing. “You won’t be in any danger in there, if that’s what you’re afraid of. LeFrenz can’t get out of the bed, and if he could, the officer and I will be in there with you.”
“I’m not afraid of him,” she said automatically.
“You should be.” His voice was grim. “He may look like a choirboy, but he’s got a rap sheet as long as my arm. His juvie record dates back to when he was ten and mugged a homeless woman for her social-security check. He’s one of the major drug dealers in the city now.”
Despite herself, a chill chased up her spine. The detective was painting a picture of a hardened criminal. But she was painfully aware of the spin law enforcement types could put on people’s pasts. She had no doubt that St. Theresa herself would be demonized beyond recognition if an ambitious prosecutor dug into her life.
It was that knowledge, rather than any real sympathy for LeFrenz, that kept her carefully noncommittal. “I don’t know what help I’d be in there.”
“You’ll only be there to pacify LeFrenz.” The detective’s mouth curled. “The scumbag is being manipulative, but you’re the only lever I’ve got on him. For some reason he’s fixated on you. If he gets what he wants, seeing you, he might give up some information in return.”
“He didn’t seem about to give anything up in the emergency room a few days ago,” she pointed out.
He shrugged. “I’ve got nothing to lose, do I? What do you say?”
Shae stalled by checking her watch. If she walked away as she wanted to, she’d certainly hear about it from the hospital administrator. But