LITMIR.BIZ

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The few times she had awakened, she had seemed calm and at ease.

      Lauren didn’t want to wake her patient, but she also didn’t want to leave after coming all this way without at least checking on her.

      As she paused outside the door to her room, a strange whimpering noise sounded from inside and her heart sank. Despite what the night nurse had charted, maybe the mild painkillers Rosa had been treated with weren’t quite cutting it.

      She pushed open the door to check on the girl, then gasped.

      The horrific sight inside registered for only about half a second before Lauren started screaming for security and rushed inside to attack the man who was trying to smother her patient.

      Chapter 4

      After that first instant of disoriented, stunned panic, everything else seemed a blur. She rushed the man, almost tripping over the mop and bucket on her way toward him as she yelled for him to stop and for security at equal turns.

      With no coherent plan, she slammed into him to knock him away from her patient. The force of her movement knocked them both off balance and they toppled against the rolling bedside table, sending it crashing to the floor and the two of them after it.

      The man scrambled to his feet to get away and Lauren lunged after him, barely registering the coarse fabric of his janitor’s uniform as she grabbed hold of it. For some wild reason she was intent only on keeping him there until security arrived, but he was just as intent on escape.

      He shoved her to get her away from him, hissing curses at her in Spanish as he fought her off. Finally he just swung his other beefy fist out and slugged her, the blow connecting to the cheekbone and knocking her to the ground.

      White-hot pain exploded in her skull. In an instant he was gone. She couldn’t have stopped him, even if she hadn’t been forced to release him when she fell.

      Lauren’s vision grayed and her stomach twisted and heaved from the pain. She wanted to curl up right there on the floor, but Rosa was clutching her throat and still gasping for air. Lauren forced herself to keep it together for her patient’s sake. Using the bed for support, she pulled herself to her feet and hurried as fast as possible to the terrified girl’s side.

      “Come on, sweetheart,” Lauren urged, grabbing the oxygen mask from the wall above the bed and placing it as gently as possible over Rosa’s mouth at the same time she hit the emergency call button.

      “Take deep breaths. That’s the way. You’re fine now. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

      Though she forgot all about the language barrier and spoke in English, Rosa seemed to understand her. The shaken girl made a ragged, gravelly sound deep in her throat and Lauren handed her the water glass by the side of her bed just as the first nurses rushed in.

      “What is it? What happened?” the first one asked. “Are you okay?”

      Lauren was shaking, she realized, and her head throbbed like it had been crushed by a wrecking ball. “No. I’m not okay. A man just attacked my patient. Call security. Have them block all the exits and entrances. They need to look for a Latino male in his mid-twenties. He was wearing a maintenance worker’s uniform but it was too short for him so I’m guessing it wasn’t real.”

      “You’re bleeding!” the nurse exclaimed.

      “Forget about me,” she said harshly. “Just call security!”

      The nurse rushed out and Rosa gave a strangled whimper. Lauren saw she was inches away from hysteria. She slid onto the bed and gathered the girl to her, as much to comfort her as to find a safe place to sit for a moment before her legs gave out.

      “You’re okay. You’re safe now.”

      “Mi bebé. Mi bebé.”

      “Okay, okay. We’ll check everything out but I’m sure your baby is all right.”

      As the adrenaline spike crested, Lauren had to fight to hold on to her meager breakfast. It wasn’t easy.

      She had been physically attacked only once before in her life and finding herself in this situation again brought back all those long-dormant feelings of shock and invasion she thought she had worked through years ago.

      She didn’t know what was stronger, the urge to vomit or the urge to crawl into a corner and sob.

      “Rosa. Is that the same man who hurt you?”

      The girl hesitated, though Lauren could tell she understood her fractured Spanish.

      “The only way you can be safe is to report what happened so he can be arrested.”

      The gross hypocrisy of her words struck her, but she couldn’t worry about that now. Not when her patient’s life was at stake.

      “Rosa, you’re going to have to tell someone what happened. You have no choice anymore. Will you talk to Sheriff Galvez?”

      Rosa let out a sob and curved both hands over her abdomen. After a moment, she gave a long, slow nod.

      He was bone-tired, so tired all he wanted to do was pull over somewhere, put his hat over his face and doze off for a few decades.

      A smart man would be home in bed right about now dreaming soft, pleasant dreams that had nothing to do with crimes or accident reports or people in need.

      He, on the other hand, had decided on a wild hair to drive into the big city after his shift ended to check on their assault victim. He could only hope a night in the hospital had changed her mind about talking to him about what had happened to her.

      He worked out the kinks in his neck as he parked his SUV and headed for the front entrance of the hospital. Four security guards and a Salt Lake City police officer stood just inside, a pretty heavy security force. Maybe they had beefed up security for some kind of high-profile patient. His guess was that some kind of A-list movie star from the film festival had broken a leg on the slopes or something.

      He recognized the city cop as Eddie Marin, an old friend from police training. “Hey, Eddie. What’s going on?”

      The officer greeted him with familiar back-slapping. “Galvez, long time no see.”

      “What’s with all the uniforms?”

      “Incident up on the medical unit. Some dude tried to off a patient. We’ve sealed off the entrances but the guy seems to be in the wind. We can’t find any trace of him.” He gave Daniel a considering look. “Not saying we don’t appreciate all the help we can get, but isn’t this one a little far out of your jurisdiction?”

      “I’m off duty, just following up on an assault victim dumped in my neck of the woods. What does your suspect look like? I’ll keep an eye out for him on my way up.”

      “We had an eyewitness who caught him in the attack and was hurt trying to fight him off. She was pretty shaken up but Dr. Maxwell described a Latino male in a janitor uniform, five feet eleven inches, one hundred ninety pounds, half his left eyebrow missing from a scar. Only problem is, we can’t find the bastard anywhere in the hospital.”

      Daniel registered none of the description, too caught up in the words preceding it. “Did you say Dr. Maxwell? Lauren Maxwell?”

      “I think that’s her name. You know her?”

      “She was injured?”

      Eddie blinked at his urgent tone. “Perp punched her and knocked her to the floor. She’s pretty banged up and needs a couple stitches but she won’t leave her patient.”

      “What room?”

      Eddie gave him a careful look. “You okay, man?”

      “What the hell room are they in?”

      The officer told him and Daniel didn’t bother waiting for the elevator, he just raced for the stairs, his heart pounding.

      He wouldn’t say he was intimately

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