Anytime Darlin' (2 page)

Jake threw open the doors and was out the back before Kyle had even come to a complete stop. He saw Janice waiting for them and ignored the familiar jolt of anger that shot through him. The girl was what mattered right now. She clung to his hand, her eyes closed. He and Lou had gotten her stabilized, but Jake wasn’t sure how long that would last. As he and Lou burst through the ER doors, he could hear Kyle and Leanne filling Janice in on the girl’s condition. Mike trailed behind them, talking on his radio.

Nurses and the ER doc moved out of their way as they wheeled the gurney into the nearest cubicle. It was Dr. Workman. Good. Mary was all business. The last person Jake wanted to run into was that asshole Peters.

“Pressure’s ninety over forty,” Jake began. “She’s been in sinus tach, one-thirty to one-sixty a minute. Just as we were bringing her out of the Kmart, she looked like she was going into respiratory arrest, so I intubated her. The tube slid in easily. Last temp was 103.4 axillary, and she’s got rhonchi bilaterally. Leanne inserted a twenty-three gauge, and she’s on her first bag of normal saline. Her name’s Devlin. Somebody also beat the crap out of her. You’ll see when you pull the blanket off. And Mary,” he added quietly in Dr. Workman’s ear, “you better get a rape kit.”

Dr. Workman glanced up at him and then in Mike’s direction. She stuck her stethoscope in her ears, took a breath, and pulled the blanket away. The girl’s hands suddenly fluttered to life as she clutched at the blanket and attempted to cover herself. Jake lowered his head and put his mouth close to the girl’s ear.

“Devlin,” he said, his voice soft. “Devlin, it’s okay. This is Dr. Workman. She’s going to help you. Let her help you.”

Jake could see the tears in her eyes as the girl fought for control.

“Look at me, Devlin,” he commanded. “Look at me. It’s okay. These people are going to help you. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

Devlin did look at him then. His heart clenched. She was helpless. Her eyes bored into his, stark, desperate, and pleading. There was something about this kid. Jake couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it was something deep and silent and brave. Suddenly he knew he wanted to be there for her. Jake found he wanted that more than anything. And he wanted to kill the bastard who did this to her.

She felt for his hand, and Jake reached out.

“I’m right here,” Jake responded firmly, finding her roving hand with his own and holding it still with gentle pressure, “and I’m not going anywhere.”

“Kyle,” he called, “I’m off duty, and I’m staying here.”

Jake sat on a stool in the curtained cubicle. He did his best to stay out of the way, but the girl wouldn’t release his hand, and Dr. Workman, Mary, didn’t have a problem with it. They’d been friends for two years. They’d had a brief affair when he arrived in Denver. She was fresh out of her residency, and he was the newest member of the paramedic team. He’d majored in geology at Idaho State in Pocatello, and then trained for a year with the sheriff’s department mountain search and rescue team in the Mission Mountains in Montana. When his college roommate and best friend, Mike Jones, moved to Denver to take a job with the police department, Jake followed. It was a whim. Jake wanted to give city life a try.

Mary Workman was a down-to-earth, no-nonsense, farm girl from Iowa, a few years older than Jake. They had a lot in common and hit it off right away, but mostly, they were just good friends. The sex had been an experiment, to see if they could take that next step. They discovered pretty quickly they couldn’t. They were too similar. But their friendship remained. Jake trusted her medical skills and her judgment implicitly.

Mary was confident and very competent. She’d already ordered a stat chest X-ray, drawn blood gases and labs, and started IV antibiotics and pain medication. The respiratory therapist had given the girl a breathing treatment, and Mary had ordered the ET tube pulled. She seemed to be holding her own. Jake would have thought the girl was asleep but for the way she curled her fingers around his, like a little kid clutching a security blanket. The rape exam had been especially brutal. Despite Devlin’s closed eyes, Mary explained to her what she was going to do clearly, step by step, and she was as gentle as possible. Jake didn’t watch. He kept his eyes on the girl’s face. He saw how she bit her lip to keep from crying out, but the tears squeezed from between her eyelids anyway. Jake stroked her wet cheeks softly with his fingertips, murmuring in her ear.

She reminded him of a half-tamed young filly, shy, sensitive, all legs, ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. Mike had stayed nearby too, holding her other hand, talking softly with the female officer he’d called from Vice. Though his shift had ended, it was his case until he officially handed it off.

“I’d like to kill the son of a bitch,” Mike said leaning close to Jake, keeping his voice low.

Jake looked back at him. He pitched his voice for Mike’s ears alone. “I think everyone in this room wants to do that right now.” Jake paused, considering. “When you find out who did this, let me know. I’d like first crack at him.”

“Get in line, buddy. Get in line,” whispered Mike hoarsely.

“Okay,” interrupted Dr. Workman, “we got a room in ICU?”

Janice answered, “Yes, they just called down, and they’re ready for her. They want to know if we have a full name yet.” She looked at Jake, her cheeks pink with what Jake assumed was embarrassment.

“No,” Jake answered in her general direction, “no name yet, just Devlin.”

Jake didn’t feel like giving Janice any more information about the girl than he had to. For some reason, he felt protective of her around Janice. He knew he was being irrational. Janice had a lot of qualities, not all of them good, but she was an excellent nurse, and she wouldn’t hurt a kid. He almost smiled. That was the most he’d said to her in a long time. Looking at her, Jake realized he wasn’t angry anymore. He simply didn’t care. After he got over the initial insult to his pride, the truth was, he didn’t actually mind at all. He’d been trying to figure out how to let Janice down gently for almost a month when she finally brought things to a head. She was beautiful, she was amusing, she had a killer body, she looked good on his arm, and the minute they met, Jake was determined to feel those lovely legs clenched tight around his hips while he pumped into her.

Much as he wished it had been different, he discovered that the wanting was a lot better than the having. Once she got in his bed, she wanted to be in his head too. She tried hard to make it a permanent arrangement, to spruce him up, make him fit in with her country club crowd. Janice was the spoiled only child of a well-known cardiac surgeon and his social climbing mortgage broker wife. Jake knew she felt like a disappointment because she’d dropped out of pre-med classes and taken what her father considered the easy way out. She’d become a nurse, a career path that ranked about as high in her father’s estimation as a housemaid.

It became obvious pretty fast that Janice wanted to be back in her father’s good graces. Jake figured, from her perspective, he had the right amount of machismo to hold his own against her parents. He could probably hold his own against just about anybody. It didn’t hurt that his family owned one of the most profitable cattle spreads west of the Missouri. But Janice had an image to maintain, and she had an agenda, a marriage agenda. He didn’t. Wearing a suit and tie and butting heads with Janice’s father for the rest of his life were about as far from Jake’s agenda as you could get. He thought he’d made that clear up front.

“Ask Shauna over there how to handle this,” interrupted Mike, reading Jake’s expression. “She’s already put in a call to Social Services.”

Janice looked like she was about to hurl the clipboard at both of them, but instead she stomped out of the cubicle. Jake shrugged. If she was angry, it was her own problem.

The gurney jolted slightly as the brakes were released, rousing Devlin. Thanks to the pain medication Dr. Workman had given her, she’d relaxed enough to doze. The examination had been humiliating, especially with all those people watching. She hated the fact that they all knew. They knew. They just didn’t know who had done it. If they’d known, Devlin thought, it would have been even worse. She’d have felt more ashamed, though Devlin wasn’t sure that was possible. If Jake hadn’t been with her, if he hadn’t kept talking to her, his voice calm and low and soothing, she couldn’t have stood it. She would have attempted to roll off the table and crawl away.

Devlin tried to concentrate, but her brain felt slow, and her thoughts were fuzzy. Was Jake still holding her hand? She cracked open her eyes, catching a glimpse of the ceiling as it swam by. Nausea threatened to overwhelm her. Then she felt a gentle squeeze on her right hand. She knew Jake was still there. She squeezed back, grateful for the pressure of his strong hand around hers. Devlin assumed they were taking her to a room. She vaguely remembered Dr. Workman mentioning intensive care. That was good, she thought as she let herself drift off to sleep. She’d be safe from him in Intensive Care.

Janice paced in the ICU waiting room. She was irritated and exhausted after having spent a sleepless night in the ER. She felt the same nausea she’d felt every morning for a month. Her anger with Jake was growing exponentially. He was still in there with the girl, he, Dr. Workman, Mike Jones, and that annoying Social Services officer. She’d arrived as Janice was reporting off to the ICU manager. When Janice approached the room and tried to get Jake’s attention, the Social Services officer slid the glass door closed in her face.

“Oh,” she said, “Excuse me,” but she closed it all the same and turned her back on Janice. Why did they need Jake, she wondered, her irritability increasing.

More than anything, Janice just wanted to go home and sleep, but she couldn’t keep putting off this conversation. If there was any chance, any chance at all that he’d come back to her, she had to do this now. She didn’t care that the father of the baby she carried was Jim Peters. Janice didn’t want Jim Peters. She wanted Jake. And if she waited too much longer, she’d start to show, and there would be no way to pretend the baby was Jake’s. All she needed was one more time in bed with him, without a condom between them.

With a little luck, she could convince him he was the father. He knew her family. He knew what she’d face. He’d do the right thing, because that was Jake. He always did the right thing. And when the baby arrived early? Well, babies arrived early all the time, didn’t they? Jake was too responsible to abandon a baby. Janice was counting on that.

Janice snuck a glance into the unit. Dr. Workman was deep in conversation with the nurse assigned, while Mike and the other officer stood off to the side, listening but keeping out of the way. Jake leaned over the girl protectively. It looked like he might be talking to her, Janice couldn’t tell. Since the girl seemed to trust Jake, maybe they wanted him to ask the questions.

Janice sighed. Suddenly, hanging around the door to the ICU, as ancillary staff came and went, didn’t seem like the best idea. Janice was starting to feel not only conspicuous but pathetic. Besides, she needed a Coke, and her bladder was growing distinctly uncomfortable. It didn’t appear as if anyone would be leaving the room soon, so Janice decided to risk a trip to the bathroom and then to the cafeteria. She could always wait for Jake by the ER.

His crew had gone home long ago. Chances were Mike was giving him a lift back to the station. Mike’s patrol car sat in the ER parking lot. She could steal Jake away, offer him a ride to his car, and maybe get him to stop for some breakfast on the way.

He knew they needed to talk. If nothing else, he’d want to clear the air. That’s how she’d handle it—they needed to clear the air. After all, they were going to have to see each other at the hospital. If she was lucky and one thing led to another, they’d be in bed together before Jake knew what hit him.

A little luck, Janice thought, and this would work out just fine.

* * * *

Jake watched the girl sleep. Despite her worrisome pallor and the dark circles beneath her eyes, she appeared relaxed. Her hands lay loosely at her sides, IVs flowing into veins showing very blue through her delicate skin. Mike was right, she hadn’t only been beaten and raped, Mike was right, she looked as if she’d been starved. Running his fingers along her too prominent collarbone made him want to hit someone. He didn’t know why, but he felt protective of this girl.

In two years, he’d treated a lot of kids—runaways, ODs, gunshot wounds, motor vehicle accidents, bike wrecks, drownings. You name it, the paramedics had seen it. They and the cops were the first-line responders. Devlin touched him. When he’d looked into her eyes, those wide, panic-stricken eyes, he’d felt an instant connection, and he wanted to be there for her to make sure that the bastard who did this would never, ever have a chance do it again.

“Jake, buddy.” Mike called Jake over to the corner. “Cherie needs information. The girl tell you anything at all?”

“No, just her first name,” answered Jake, “Devlin.”

Cherie, the young Social Services officer, joined them. She shook her head.

“Mike said she had no ID on her. I double-checked her clothes. Nothing. She was wearing old tennis shoes. No socks. The Denver Broncos sweatshirt you cut off was a man’s large. Maybe it was stolen from a Goodwill or something. I’d like to ask her a few questions.” Cherie glanced at Jake. “You think she’s up for that right now?”

Mike answered for Jake. “Think there’d be any harm in waiting twenty-four hours? She’s not going anywhere.”

Cherie sighed. “No, I don’t have a problem with it. My supervisor might, but I’ll explain the situation, let him know how sick she is. Like you said, we don’t have a missing persons report that matches this kid.” She paused, considering. “Yeah, it can wait. I just don’t like leaving her alone. She might have some family somewhere that actually cares. If so, I’d like to get in touch with them. I’ll see if Shauna got anything. I don’t think there was much, some blood under her fingernails, maybe semen…” Cherie trailed off. “She did get a set of prints. I’ll see if the kid’s got a file. Let you know if I find something,” she said. “You two sticking around?”