Sharon Sala - Race Against Time

X-ray techs wheeled the portable X-ray into the room.

“I’m sorry, Miss Davis. I’m going to need you to lie flat for these X-rays,” the doctor said.

“No, no. Not again,” Star moaned.

She felt hands on her shoulders, at her waist and at the backs of her legs trying to ease her back down, but when they rolled her down onto her back, the pain was so intense she passed out.

Dr. Fuentes came into the exam bay, recognized Dr. King and nodded.

“Dr. King.”

“Dr. Fuentes,” she replied, giving him a hard look. “What can you tell me about your patient?”

“That she lives with Anton Baba and she was in a wreck.”

Dr. King guessed the rest of what he wasn’t telling, which meant not asking too many detailed questions.

Seconds later, Anton and his two bodyguards entered the room.

“Wait outside,” Anton told the men and then aimed his questions at the doctor he didn’t know. “What is her condition?”

“Mr. Baba, I’m Dr. King. We’re just about to x-ray her, but she’s unconscious at the moment—the pain is quite intense. As soon as we’re finished, we’ll focus on the wounds on her back,” Dr. King said.

“Did she say anything?” Anton asked.

The doctor frowned.

“That she was in pain. If you will step outside long enough for us to get the X-rays we need, you will be allowed to return until we take her to surgery.”

Anton glanced at her, startled by this news.

“She needs surgery?”

The doctor folded her arms across her chest.

“I assume you saw her back?”

Anton nodded.

“Then you understand the severity of her injuries. She’ll need to be under anesthetic and in a perfectly sterile environment when we begin removing the debris embedded in her back and closing the wounds.”

“Yes, of course,” Anton said. With one last look at Star’s unconscious body, he stepped out of the room.

He was pissed all over again. Now she was damaged goods, which would definitely bring down her worth in a sale. She was still the best woman he’d ever had in bed. Maybe this accident was the nudge he needed to keep her with him. All he had to do was get their son back, and he knew she would stay.

Still, what a fuckup.

He would kill Ian all over again if he wasn’t already dead. It was just as well that the cops took Dev out, too. Saved him the trouble of doing it.

* * *

Nick was sitting on an exam table in the next bay waiting for a doctor to come back with the results of his X-rays. They had already cleaned and dressed his head wound, and his head was throbbing to the point of making him nauseous when he noticed the chaotic sounds of an emergency in the room next to his.

He heard the soft cries of a woman in pain and couldn’t help but hear what the EMTs were saying as they discussed her injuries. He heard the word “wreck” and then “in the desert” and frowned. But when he heard she was one of Dr. Fuentes’s patients and the name Anton Baba, Nick’s heart skipped a beat.

Could this possibly be the mother of the little boy Quinn O’Meara had found?

There was more shuffling in the room next door, and then he overheard Anton Baba introduce himself. He held his breath as he leaned close to the wall separating him from one of the most wanted criminals he’d ever known, not wanting to miss a word of what was being said. He didn’t dare make a phone call and take the chance of being overheard. He inhaled slowly but grabbed his phone and sent Lieutenant Summers a quick text.

Get word to the Feds. Anton Baba is in ER. I’m not certain, but I think the woman getting treated in the room next to mine might be the Feds’ missing witness. She said her name was Star.

Then he hit Send.

An answer came quickly.

Do nothing. They’ve been informed. Go home.

Nick sent back a final text, Will do, then slid off the table, slipped his handgun back into the shoulder holster and put on his jacket.

The moment he stood up, the room began to spin. Damn it. Most likely he had a concussion to go with that bullet wound, but after knowing Baba was so close, he didn’t care about orders or his injury. He wasn’t leaving the O’Meara woman alone when the man who wanted her dead was in the same hospital.

He tentatively fingered the bandage on his head and then slipped out of the exam room, stopping at the nurses’ desk long enough to tell them he would be on the fourth floor if anyone needed him, then walked out despite their protests that he had not been released.

The ER staff didn’t want him to leave, but his boss told him to go home. Since he couldn’t do two things at once, he decided to do his own thing. He’d stay with Quinn O’Meara until real backup arrived. Just in case.

* * *

Nick got back to the fourth floor, but was stopped at the elevator by a Las Vegas cop. After showing his badge, they let him pass. He made his way down the hall in his bloody clothes, fielding comments about his welfare until he got to Quinn’s room. Another cop was outside her door. He recognized Nick, eyed the bandage on his head and the blood all over his shirt and jacket, but stepped aside to let him in.

The room was quiet but for the machines hooked up to the woman’s body. The nurse stood up as Nick walked in.

“How’s she doing?” Nick asked.

“She’s doing well. Resting comfortably. Are you all right, sir?” the nurse asked.

“I will be,” Nick said. “I’ll be staying here with her.”

The nurse frowned, then scooted an overstuffed chair close to the bed for him to use.

“It reclines. If either of you need anything, press this red button,” she said, pointing to the call button fastened to the side of Quinn’s bed.

“I hate to ask, but if there is a clean scrub shirt in an extra-large anywhere around, I sure could use it. And...could someone bring me a cup of coffee? My head is killing me. Oh, and if any ER doctor comes looking for me, tell him where I am.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” she said and left.

Nick moved to Quinn’s bedside, still trying to figure out why she looked so familiar. She was pretty in a wild, unharnessed kind of way. Long red hair, with slightly darker eyebrows that framed her deep-set eyes, which he remembered as being a vivid shade of green. He turned her hand palm up, felt some calluses and wondered if it was from riding the Harley or something else that she did.

He brushed a flyaway strand of her hair from her forehead and then eased himself down into the recliner. From where he was sitting he had a clear view of her and the door. He patted the shoulder holster, making sure his phone and gun were in place, and then leaned back.

A few minutes later the nurse returned with a clean blue scrub shirt, his doctor-ordered meds, a cup of coffee and a sweet roll.

“From the break room,” she said and handed them over with a sympathetic smile.

“Thank you so much,” he said softly.

She nodded, then checked Quinn’s IV and heart monitor again before she left.

Nick changed into the clean shirt, and by the time he had finished the food and coffee, the sick feeling was gone from his stomach. His head wasn’t throbbing as much as it had been. He got up to throw his garbage into the trash can, and as he was washing up, he heard Quinn’s voice.

He hurried back to the bed, but she wasn’t awake, just talking in her sleep—and crying.

“Where is he? Where’s my Nicks?” she mumbled, then turned her head and slipped into a deeper sleep.

His heart skipped a beat. He hadn’t heard that name in nearly twenty years.

He backed up and sat down in the recliner again, and sent a text to one of the other detectives in Homicide.

Run a background check on Quinn O’Meara. Get license tag info off her Harley. It’s in police impound. Send it to my phone.