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Chapter Two

Four months later..
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“I told you we could take ‘em.”

Justin Grant slammed on his brakes and spun into the circular drive outside Kansas City’s Truman Medical Center. “Yeah, so why are we the ones at the ER?”

He killed the engine and the lights, checking the street to make sure he’d lost the two thugs from the parking lot behind Nathan’s Bar. They’d struck him as the type to want to finish what they’d started.

And despite his tough talk, Mickey Larkin didn’t have much left in him to finish anything off.

Justin ran around the hood of his Chevy SS, counting off the minutes since he’d dumped his new best pal into the front seat. He’d been buttering up Mickey for a month now, desperate to infiltrate the gang of twenty-something mobster wannabes that KCPD suspected was behind the two explosions and countless bomb threats that had plagued Kansas City for the past six months. Lending a fist in a parking lot brawl and then providing the getaway car was one hell of a way to gain a suspect’s trust, and get in good with the gang.

But if Mickey didn’t make it...

Mickey fell into Justin’s arms when he swung open the passenger-side door. “Man, I don’t feel so good.”

“We need some help!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Easy, buddy.” Bending his long legs, Justin got his shoulder under Mickey’s arm and lifted him out onto the sidewalk. The shorter, stockier man grabbed his stomach and leaned heavily on him. “Can you walk?”

“I think I need another drink.”

Way to prioritize, buddy. But then Justin didn’t suppose any amateur bomber who’d earned the infamous nickname “Two Toes” after he’d mis-set the timer on one of his creations was known for his smarts.

“Let’s get you inside.” To the casual eye, most people would dismiss Mickey’s stumbling steps and slurred speech as the result of the number of beers he’d consumed. But Justin knew blood loss could have the same effect- and a knife wound to the gut could cost a man a lot of blood.

Justin hurried his steps through the fading winter slush that still lined the streets at the end of February, half dragging, half carrying his best chance at getting a lead on this investigation.

“I need some help here,” he shouted as soon as his thick boot hit the rubber door sensor and the doors slid open. Ignoring the sharp catch of pain in his forearm, Justin boosted Mickey into his arms and carried him to the first empty gurney he could find. “Anybody?”

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Justin turned at the clipped female voice of authority. The big brown doe eyes and creamy olive skin didn’t match the battle-ax image the voice had conjured in his mind. But he wouldn’t let the intriguing contrast sway him from his purpose.

“Making sure my buddy gets some help. He’s cut up pretty bad.”

She signaled an orderly at the front desk. “Let’s move him into Exam 2.” She raised the side bars, pulled on a pair of gloves and rolled the bed into a private room. Justin fell into step behind her. “Get me the surgeon on call,” she snapped with every bit of the authority KCPD’s Captain Cutler used with his men. She palmed the center of Justin’s chest and pushed him back to the door while a team went to work on Mickey. “Not you.”

“I stay with him.”

“Not on my watch.”

Justin backed off from the steely set of shoulders that barely reached his chest and tried to catch a glimpse of the name tag attached to her white lab coat. “You a doctor?”

“Dr. Rodriguez, assistant shift supervisor. There are procedures we follow here. Rules about prioritizing and stabilization.” She picked up the clipboard at the end of the gurney, frowned at the blank sheet of paper, then hung it back in place.

“Where’s the ambulance he came in?”

“I’m the ambulance that brought him. Are you gonna stitch him up or are you gonna talk rules and procedures and get in my face until he bleeds out?”

“Your friend needs more than a few stitches, Mr...?”

“Justin Grant.”

She nodded toward the neat slice in the sleeve of his leather jacket and the blood oozing through the narrow gap. “Apparently, so do you.”




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