30 Seconds (4 page)

You read too many romance novels
, she snapped at herself.
Stop being a romantic.

She turned her back on her fantasy and, with stealthy moves, made her way to the front door. She looked for signs of an alarm system, and when she didn’t see one, she shook her head at Blake’s lack of security
.

He calls himself a police officer?
She eased the door open and smiled devilishly when it didn’t even creak.

The air outside bit her cheeks, sank its teeth into her neck, and slipped its icy fingers into her hair. She hadn’t bothered with a coat other than the white coat that told the world she was a doctor. She made her way through the snow to the edge of the street where she waited for the cab and hopped in place to keep warm. The yellow cab turned onto the street and pulled up to her.

“I’m a doctor,” she told the cabby. “There was a huge accident and I need to get to the hospital pronto!” The driver turned the car and sped down the snowy road. “Whoa! Slow down! I don’t want to get to the hospital strapped to a gurney.”

The cab pulled up to the hospital just ahead of three ambulances. She threw money at the driver, not caring if she gave him too much, and flew out the door, slamming it behind her. She was at the closest ambulance as the doors to the hospital opened and doctors flooded out.

Dr. Norland saw her immediately. “Right on time. Take the next one, I’ve got this.”

She nodded, skirting around the ambulance as the paramedics lowered the gurney. She glanced at the man strapped to it and saw the giant piece of windshield sticking out of his chest. That type of trauma was Norland’s specialty; it was probably in his heart and removing it would cause him to bleed out.

She hurried to the next ambulance. “What do we have?” she asked the paramedics.

“Head injury. She was unconscious when we found her.”

Dani looked at the young girl lying on the gurney. She had bright gold hair and clear cerebrospinal fluid was seeping out of her nose. Dani froze because she knew the girl had a serious head injury, as she had when she was eighteen years old, but she wasn’t going to let this girl end up in a coma. She grabbed the gurney and rushed her to a trauma room.

She lifted the girl’s right eyelid and shone a penlight directly onto her eye. She went to check the other eye when the girl started to convulse violently. She ordered a nurse to give her a dose of anti-seizure medication. After thirty seconds, the convulsions died down.

“I need to do a Craniotomy,” she told her team.

The nurses looked startled. “But you don’t know what kind of head injury she has. She needs a CT.”

“She has bleeding and swelling in the brain. If we don’t relieve the pressure now she will go into a deep coma or a vegetative state. I’m opening her skull. If you don’t like it get out of my damn trauma room!”

****

Four hours later, the E.R. was finally back to its normal chaotic state. The pressure in the young girl’s brain had gone down thanks to the window Dani had cut into her skull. She treated dozens of other car accident patients, stitched countless lacerations, and performed intensive surgery. Now she was walking down the sterilized hallway, her clean white coat tapping her legs, her hair tucked beneath a surgical cap. A smile was on her face because when she stepped out of the operating room, Deena told her the girl, Tara, had woken up.

She was on her way to check on Tara when she saw them. Six men were crowding the nurse’s desk. One had a long, jet-black ponytail and olive skin. His arm lay across his stomach, his hand hidden beneath his buckskin jacket. She had seen enough movies to know it caressed a gun. Next to him was a man with a thin goatee framing a sinister smile. Another had carpet sideburns. One man towered over all of them and, standing on the edge of the group, was a man with arm muscles as big as her head. In the middle was a man in a long, leather coat with brown hair draped over his forehead.

Dani pressed her back against the wall and peeked around the corner. “I’m looking for a doctor, ma’am,” the man in the middle said to the nurse. She recognized his voice instantly. It was the voice of one of the men who broke into her apartment—Red.

“Well, you’ve come to the right place. Is there a specific doctor you’re looking for?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m looking for Dr. Hart.”

“No problem.” She picked up her phone. “I’ll see if I can find Dr. Hart for you.”

Dani retraced her steps and opened the door to the waiting room. She ignored the stares of all the people hoping she would take them into an exam room next for treatment. She made it to the entrance of the waiting room, a few yards past the nurse’s desk, and a few yards closer to the hospital’s doors. She slipped out, desperately trying to be invisible as she walked toward the doors, but the nurse looked up and saw her.

“Oh.” The nurse hung up the phone. “Dr. Hart is right there.”

Dani bolted and was out the door instantly. Her feet ate the pavement. With a head start, combined with her long legs and cheetah speed, she was far ahead of them. She flew down the sidewalk; the many pedestrians a blur. Behind her, she could hear the thunder of six pairs of boots as the men ran after her, but she never slowed her pace.

Then a shot rang out. She didn’t know where the bullet went, but terrified screams erupted all around her. Some of the people fell to the ground as the rest scrambled into the street with oncoming cars.

When she realized they didn’t care about shooting her in broad daylight, she doubled her speed. She dashed across the road, ignoring the blinking red hand that warned all pedestrians not to cross. A blare of a horn forged toward her. It grew louder the closer she got to the sidewalk. She leapt onto the curb a second before a delivery truck plowed by, its horn still screaming. Not even the fear of being hit by a car could slow her down a fraction.

Two more shots rang out. She ducked, losing some momentum, but she quickly straightened her body and forced her legs to go even faster. The wind whipped around her and a curl fell onto her face. She could feel the elastic band of the surgical cap slipping off her head as she blew past cars stuck in traffic.

When another clump of hair fell free, she cursed. The last thing she needed was for the cap to slip off and set loose all of her hair. She eyed a building under construction a few paces ahead and the alley beside it. She whipped around the corner. Once hidden inside the alley, she ripped the cap of her head, yanked her arms out of her white coat, and pulled the scrub top off so all she wore were her blue scrub pants and a long-sleeved shirt. She chucked the clothes into the dumpster nestled in the corner of the alley and jumped over a slimy puddle. When the men entered the alley, she had already slipped inside the building. She slithered through the slabs of concrete, beer cans, piles of wood, and fast food bags. Through the half-completed walls she could hear the beat of twelve heavy boots.

She reached the front door and calmly stepped onto the sidewalk. Even though her leg muscles were yelling, “Go, go, go,” she walked as coolly as she could manage with her heart thudding inside her chest.

With a sly peek over her shoulder, she could see the six men running toward the cluster of pedestrians. She inched her way through the mess, her hand trailing along the wall, groping for the corner that was a foot away. Her heart raced faster as she fought to get to the edge of the building. If she could get there, she knew she’d be able to change direction and run before they could see her again.

She snuck through the cramped bodies, trying to blend in because if they saw her scrubs they’d know her identity immediately. She slipped around the last person in her way and slithered like a snake around the corner. As soon as she was out of sight, she broke into a dead run. She figured she could duck inside a shop or dive inside a dumpster, as unappealing as that sounded.

Suddenly, a peal of sirens cut the air and a police car zoomed past. She peered over her shoulder to see the pedestrians streaming across the road, but she couldn’t see anyone coming after her. She turned back around and ran right into Blake’s arms. He held her tight and she gripped his jacket in her hands as her heart thumped wildly.

“It’s okay,” he told her. “It’s okay.” He pulled her back and examined her. “Are you hurt?”

Panting, she shook her head. She was cold and her muscles were quivering, but she was fine.

Blake pulled her back to him, holding her hard against his body as though he wanted her inside him. It felt good to be in his arms, as if nothing could hurt her.

His hands moved up and down her chilled arms to rub away the cold. “Here.” He took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “Put this on.” She slipped her arms through. The inside was warm from his body. She hugged his jacket around her, wanting his body heat to seep into her skin.

“Can you walk?” He looked at her with concern. “I can carry you.”

Her muscles were trembling and her legs were shaking. She would’ve loved to be carried by Blake, but he would’ve been carrying her pride too. She smiled and shook her head. “I’m fine.” Her declaration didn’t stop him from putting his arm around her though.

When they came out onto the street, a cop car pulled up beside them. “Where are they?” Blake wanted to know.

“Hell if I know,” the officer answered. “They were heading toward the pedestrians waiting to cross the street. By the time I got there, they were gone. They must’ve split up in the crowd.” He looked at Dani. “Are you all right, Miss?”

“Fine. Thank you.”

“My name is Max. I’m Blake’s partner.” She took the hand he held out to her through the opened window. “You’re freezing. You should get in, warm up.” Blake opened the door for her.

She smiled at the back of the police car. “Twice in twenty-four hours. I’m on a roll.”

They took her to the police station to file a police report. She told them everything that happened from the beginning as she sipped water from a Styrofoam cup.

“And I ran,” she said. As a matter of fact, she had run two miles.

“Thank you, Ms. Hart.” The officer writing the report nodded to Chief Witten, a built man with cocoa skin and amber eyes, who leaned over the table.

Chief Witten handed her a fat binder. “Now I need you to identify the men you saw in the hospital.”

Heaving an exhausted sigh, she flipped the cover and scanned the faces on each page. She forced herself to focus.
Find them,
she ordered herself.
Find them.

Several pages in, she pointed at a picture. The man’s hair wasn’t in a ponytail or as long, but it was as black as ever. “He’s one of them.”

The young officer glanced at Chief Witten and they smiled at each other. “That’s Tony London, a man charged with nearly every crime.”

Next, she found the man with the goatee, the man with the thick sideburns, the tall man, and the bulky man, but she couldn’t find the man who had been standing in the middle of the group. With a few pages left, all the faces were blending into one.

She paused, looked at a picture through squinting eyes, but she couldn’t tell.
Damn it
, she couldn’t tell. She turned the page. The two men looked at one another. Chief Witten shook his head.

Frowning, she turned the page back and leaned forward for a closer look. “He has brown hair now,” she said while starring at a picture of a man with blond hair. “This is the man they call Red.”

Chief Witten took the binder from her. “Good job, Ms. Hart.”

“Why do they call him Red?” she wondered.

“Because of all the blood on his hands.”

She swallowed. “Who is he?”

“He’s the leader of a Mob.”

All of the blood drained from her face. “I’m sorry, what? Mob? As in a criminal family?”

Chief Witten nodded. “They’re not all of blood, but they certainly are family. They aren’t after drugs, diamonds, or money though. Their goal is to kill cops.” He let out a breath before continuing. “When Red was twelve-years-old, a cop killed his father during a sting operation. At sixteen, he killed his first cop and got away with it. Ever since he’s been hell bent on getting vengeance. Last month, he and his men killed ten police officers.”

Dani stood abruptly. She was too shocked, too scared to stay seated. She put a hand over her trembling heart to calm it. “I remember,” she said, her voice shaking. “Ten officers were brought to my hospital, I was the resident on that night, and they all died. Even the one I fought for five hours to keep alive.” She didn’t like to lose a life, especially one who died protecting the lives of everyone else. “And Blake went undercover? He pretended to be one of them? Why the hell would anyone do that? He could have been killed!”

“We needed to know which officers they were going to target next,” Chief Witten explained. “Blake wanted to do it. He knew the risks.”

Dani’s head spun. “They believe Blake is Dr. Hart. What if they find out I’m really Dr. Hart and think I’m working with the man who tricked them? They’ll want
me
dead too!”

“We won’t let that happen, Ms. Hart.”

At that moment, Blake stepped into the room. She glanced at him and put a hand to her forehead. She was breathing fast and the room was whirling. She knew the signs, knew what was going to happen. She looked at Blake. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Blake made his way to her. “For what?”