Hold Still (10 page)

NINETEEN

October 8th

“I spend more time here
than I do in my own goddamn living room,” Kevin grumbled as he and Jocelyn breezed through Einstein’s ER doors. The automatic doors swished closed behind them. Kevin stopped in the vestibule and studied his reflection in the glass wall. He brushed the thinning hair on the top of his head back, dipped his chin for a better look, and then brushed it forward.

Jocelyn stood behind him, hands on her hips. “What are you doing?”

Kevin squinted at his ghostly reflection and rubbed the stubble on his chin. “How do I look?”

Jocelyn arched a brow. “You goin’ to the prom or something?”

Kevin turned to her and smiled. He pointed to the second set of doors leading inside. “I want to look good in case Nurse Bottinger is on duty.”

Jocelyn rolled her eyes and turned away. “Good lord.”

Kevin caught up to her just inside the ER. “Come on,” he said. “She’s cute.”

Jocelyn studied him momentarily. He had a flush that she hadn’t seen in about four years—not since his ill-fated affair with a schoolteacher fifteen years his junior. They were hot and heavy for three months, and then the woman acted like Kevin never existed. It had crushed him.

Jocelyn sighed. At least Nurse Bottinger was more age appropriate. “You look good, Kev.”

Again he stroked his chin. “Even with the stubble?”

“Yeah, makes you look rugged. Now can we go talk to this guy?”

She walked off without him, weaving her way through the various patients lingering in the hallway in chairs and on stretchers. One man sat hunched over in a wheelchair, vomit fanned out at his feet. Jocelyn stepped around it, cringing at the smell. They reached the curtained area of the ER, where Jocelyn and Anita had been the night of the carjacking. A male doctor with glasses and a dark buzz cut emerged from one curtained area. A splatter of blood arced across the front of his blue scrubs. He pulled his latex gloves off as he approached, bundling them together. “Oh good, you guys are here.”

Jocelyn and Kevin showed him their credentials. He took a cursory look and deposited his balled-up gloves into the nearest trash receptacle. “You’re here for the bar fight, right?” he asked, looking from Jocelyn to Kevin and back again.

“Yeah,” Jocelyn said.

“All right, good. I need this guy out of my hospital. We’re busy, and we need that room.” The doctor turned, and Jocelyn and Kevin followed behind him.

“The lady he hit with the beer bottle is there,” the doctor said, pointing to a curtained area on his left. “The bottle didn’t break, so all she’s got is some contusions.”

Jocelyn poked her head around the curtain to have a look at the woman, who was snoring openmouthed, her arm propped on a pillow and hooked to an IV. She was in her midthirties with straw-blonde hair, tattooed wrists, acid-washed jeans that looked about three decades too old, and a black T-shirt that was at least two sizes too small. A large raised purple bruise made a path along her jawline, starting at her chin and spreading across her cheek to her ear.

“That’s a nice one,” Kevin said from behind Jocelyn. His breath stirred the hair near her ear. She smelled peppermint gum. Kevin’s breath never smelled like anything besides coffee. Nurse Bottinger was really in for it.

“She had a pretty whopping headache. We gave her something for pain,” the doctor explained. “You can wake her up, but I’m not sure how coherent she’ll be. The bartender, on the other hand, is over here.” The doctor pulled the curtain across from the woman, where a broad-shouldered older man sat on the side of his gurney. He was trying unsuccessfully to contort his body so that he could see the line of stitches running the length of his triceps.

“This guy intervened and actually did catch some broken glass. Twelve stitches. He’s lucky it wasn’t worse. He can give you the story. Down there,” the doctor went on, pointing at a private room at the end of the row of curtained areas, “is the guy who started the whole thing.”

Kevin frowned. “You gave him a private room?”

The doctor spun and stared at Kevin, impatience tugging at the corners of his thin mouth. “He needed a private room. He’s quite belligerent, and his blood alcohol level is through the roof.”

“Who brought him in?” Jocelyn asked.

The doctor shrugged. “I don’t know, some officer. He’s back there with the guy. Guy’s name is Martin, Todd Martin. Anyway, the sooner you can get him out of here, the better.”

He walked off, leaving them standing in the middle of the triage area. Jocelyn sighed. “You talk to the bartender. I’ll check out the drunk.”

Kevin gave her a mock salute and disappeared behind one of the curtains. Inside the private room, a large, barrel-chested man lay on the gurney, one of his meaty wrists bound to the guardrail with a set of handcuffs. He had long, stringy brown hair and a patchy beard. Jocelyn estimated Todd Martin to be in his midthirties. He wore a black Slipknot shirt and a pair of frayed jeans. She could smell the booze on him before she even walked through the door. A row of stitches kinked over his left eyebrow. His upper lip was split; dried blood caked in his facial hair. Beside the bed sat a tray table, a discarded suture kit and a pile of bloody gauze scattered haphazardly over its surface.

Martin’s head swiveled in her direction as she entered. His eyes had all the glassy blankness of someone who’d been drinking like it was his job. “Get me the fuck out of here,” he said, his voice rising in volume with each word. Jocelyn ignored him and scanned the room, muttering, “Fuck,” under her breath when she saw Finch sitting in a chair in the corner of the room.

He looked up from the magazine he had been flipping through. “Christ,” he breathed. The line of his chiseled brow wrinkled in consternation.

Jocelyn studied Martin for a moment. “I don’t think this guy is in any shape to be questioned. Let’s take him down to the Division and let him sleep it off.” She motioned to Martin’s wrist. “Those your cuffs, Finch?”

He nodded, and, with what looked like great effort, stood and walked to the bed to uncuff Martin from the bed.

Martin looked from Jocelyn to Finch, his eyes bulging out of his head. “Get me the fuck out of here!” he bellowed.

Jocelyn and Finch ignored him. “Sit up,” Finch commanded.

“I said get me the fuck out of here, you fucking pig.”

The blast of whiskey breath was hot on Jocelyn’s face. Finch grimaced openly. “I said sit up!”

Martin reached over to the guardrail and rattled the cuffs, trying to pull them off. Jocelyn grabbed his legs and threw them over the side of the gurney. “Get up. Now,” she said in her best no-nonsense voice. He stopped struggling with the cuffs and sat up. Silently, he stared at the two of them.

“Did you Mirandize him?” Jocelyn asked.

Finch slipped the handcuff key into the locking mechanism. “What do you think?”

“I ain’t gettin’ locked up,” Martin said. “I ain’t gettin’ locked up.” Once again, his voice rose in pitch and volume.

When Finch freed the cuffs from the guardrail and reached for Martin’s other hand, the man shot upward, stumbling forward. He lashed out with one arm, knocking Finch backward, sending him flat on his ass. As he fell, Finch knocked the tray table over, and remnants of the used suture kit flew everywhere. Before her brain had even completely registered what was going on, Jocelyn’s hand was reaching for her gun. She was too late. Martin lunged at her and crushed her against his chest before she could unsnap her holster. He wrapped a meaty forearm around her throat. She reached up and pulled down on it with both hands, prepared to struggle until she felt the cool blade of a knife against the flesh of her throat.

“Hold still,” he breathed into her ear, the smell of alcohol burning her nostrils.

Where the fuck had he gotten a knife?

She had time for one word before the forearm clenched, leaving her only enough room to breathe, nothing more. “Finch.”

Martin hollered again. She couldn’t hear him because the adrenaline surging through her momentarily silenced the entire world. He kept squeezing her throat, then releasing slightly and pressing the blade against her skin. She strained her eyes, trying to see Finch in her periphery. He was getting up, slowly. His hand went to his holster, a little too slowly for her taste.

Martin looked at him, pressing the knife into her throat. “Don’t do it, pig. I’ll fucking slice her throat.”

For a split second, she thought Finch would reach for his gun anyway. But he stopped and raised both hands in the air. “I’ll fucking kill her,” Martin said, alcohol-laced spittle flying.

All Jocelyn could think about was Olivia and the way she looked when she slept, the roundness of her cheeks and the way the fine blonde hair along her jawline shone by the light creeping in from the hallway. Jocelyn was going to die. She was going to get her throat sliced by a worthless drunk while Finch stood by uselessly, and all she could think about was Olivia. She’d made provisions of course, in her will, but as good a mother as Inez was, Jocelyn was the one who wanted to be there to watch Olivia grow up. This wasn’t fair.

Her hands trembled as she pulled down again on Martin’s arm. The rushing in her ears came back.

Then Kevin’s voice, calm and slightly annoyed. “Finch, why does this motherfucker have a knife?”

Jocelyn looked front and center to Kevin, who stood in the doorway, his Glock trained on Martin’s head. His eyes blazed with an intensity he rarely showed. He wouldn’t look at her. He wouldn’t take his eyes off the man with the knife, she knew. Not even for a second.

“Finch,” he said again, his words slower, more pronounced. “Why does this motherfucker have a knife?”

It was the same tone he might use if he were asking Finch where his coffee was. From her left, Jocelyn heard Finch stammer, “I—I don’t know. I—I—”

“Didn’t you pat him down?”

A growl tore from Martin’s throat. “Hey,” he shouted at Kevin.

Jocelyn’s breath sounded like Niagara Falls in her ears.

“Shut up,” Kevin said quietly.

For a brief second, Martin loosened his hold, and Jocelyn sucked in a noisy breath. “What?” he said.

“I said shut up,” Kevin replied. “I’m talking to this fucknut over here, who apparently forgot to pat you down.”

“Hey—” Finch said, a hint of indignation in his voice.

“You shut up too,” Kevin said. “This is a nice mess you’ve got us all into, isn’t it?”

Now it was Finch’s turn. “What?”

“Hey,” Kevin said to Martin. “Look at this dumbass over here. He just fucked you.”

Martin’s grip loosened even more as he shifted to look again at Finch. For just a second, the blade left her skin. She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears of relief that stung her lids. Then he tightened his grip again, and the point of the knife needled her carotid.

“What?” Martin and Finch said in unison.

“He just fucked you,” Kevin repeated.

“I’m the one with the knife, asshole.”

“Exactly. You’ve got a knife that this dumb shit forgot to take from you when he arrested you—for what? Drunk and disorderly? Simple assault? You’re holding it to the throat of a police officer. You know what that means? You’re fucked, man. You put the smallest scratch on this broad, and the brass is gonna charge you with attempted murder—probably kidnapping too. Those are felonies. That’s twenty to fifty years.”

An audible scoff. “Kiss my ass, old man.”

“I’ll pass,” Kevin said. “But don’t worry, where you’re going there will be plenty of men interested in your ass.”

Jocelyn could feel Martin’s hesitation even as he spit out a “Fuck you” in Kevin’s direction.

“You like that?” Kevin asked. “Ass fucking?”

“Shut up!”

“I’m just sayin
’
. You’ll get all the ass fucking you can dream about if you keep hanging on to this broad here. They’ll even do you two or three at a time. They like that.”

“I’m not going to prison,” Martin hollered, his voice growing high-pitched.

Kevin laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “You are.”

The point of the knife threatened to puncture her skin this time. Only Kevin’s voice stopped him. “Unless . . .”

Martin froze. Kevin let the moment stretch out, made the man come to him. “Unless what?”

“Unless you let her go right now. It’s just the three of us in here. We keep it that way. You let her go—she gets to live. I don’t have to shoot you, and this dumbass over in the corner doesn’t get his ass handed to him by the brass for not patting you down. You walk with a drunk and disorderly—probation and a fine.”

The man’s grip had loosened considerably. Jocelyn sucked in great gulps of air.

“So what’s it gonna be? You wanna drop the knife and let this broad go, or you wanna do hard time?”

Jocelyn waited. But he took too long to decide—just a beat too long. That was when Kevin finally met her eyes. It had the same effect as if he had yelled, “Now!”

The entire thing took only seconds. Jocelyn pulled down on his arm, her splint catching against his arm hair. She gripped the hand with the knife with both hands and held his entire arm out to the side, like an archway that she quickly slipped through, so that she was behind him. She kept hold of his wrist as she turned so they were both facing the same direction. Twisting his wrist sharply, she wrenched his hand up toward his opposite shoulder until the knife dropped from his grip. He cried out in pain, too stunned to react with his free hand. Kevin was at her side instantly, and together they took Martin down hard, Kevin’s knee on the side of his neck. He pulled Martin’s hands together behind his back and cuffed them with Finch’s cuffs, which still dangled from one of his wrists. The sound of the cuff cinching closed was one of the best sounds Jocelyn had ever heard.

“Get the fuck off me,” Martin yelled, squirming erratically.

Kevin glanced over at Finch, who remained stock-still. “Hey, limp dick.”

Finch narrowed his eyes. “What did you call me?”

Kevin left Martin wriggling on the floor and retrieved the knife, handling it carefully as he deposited it onto the gurney. “Limp dick,” Kevin said. “You know, a man who can’t perform. Nice of you to jump in there.”