Sexual Healing for Three (40 page)

Oh God, he was going to kill her.

She wondered briefly why he didn’t use the bat he’d initially hit her with. Was he getting too much enjoyment employing a more personal and direct approach with his hands, intimately feeling the crunch of her bone beneath his hands and boots?

At the thought, her attacker reared his foot back for another assault, and this time when he tried to kick her, Donna caught his foot with both hands. But she was too weak to do anything more than momentarily throw him off-balance. He slammed the bat handle against her knuckles, then forcefully shook off her defensive gesture and kicked her in the face for her trouble.

For what seemed like the next hour but was probably closer to a minute, he released a volley of punches and kicks to her body that had her alternately blacking out and coming back around with the next blow before the elevator dinged.

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Gracie C. McKeever

Oh God, help me. Somebody, please…

Someone got off of the elevator and must have seen her attacker standing over her.

A piercing scream bounced off the walls, vaguely sounded like Russ’s daughter, but Donna was already too far gone to appreciate her apparent imminent rescue.

She blacked out for the last time right after her assailant ran off.

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He paused behind a Dumpster in an alley on the way to his truck, checking his clothes to make sure he hadn’t gotten any of the bitch’s blood on him. He didn’t find anything that would make him stand out.

He would burn everything he had on as soon as he got home anyway, including the latex gloves, ski mask, and bat he had wrapped in his light trench coat. He just needed to quickly get from point A to point B without drawing any undue notice.

He took several deep, invigorating breaths as he made it out onto the street, feeling more alive than he had felt in a long time.

Adrenaline pumped through his veins like liquid fire, making him feel hot and tingly all over.

Hot damn that had almost been as good as some of his best scenes! Hell, he even had a hard-on. But it would have been even better if he had Russ to go home to, Russ to hold him after a hard day’s work, Russ to discipline him for his misbehavior.

He caught himself jogging and consciously changed his pace to a leisurely walk. He needed to slow down and get his bearings. He didn’t want to bring attention to himself. He’d come this far without anyone catching on to him. Sure, he had killed the cop, but there were no witnesses to what he had done, except for that little brat who’d interrupted his work.

Damn it! He had only gotten started when Russ’s daughter came down and screamed her freaking spoiled head off. She’d caught him mid-punch, standing over the bitch, panting, with his fist raised behind him right before he delivered another blow.

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He spared the kid a look, shooting visual daggers that he wished could actually kill her. Then he flung the heifer down before running in the opposite direction.

He wasn’t concerned about Russ’s daughter recognizing him since he’d had on the mask. He’d almost risked doing the deed without it, had wanted the bitch to see who her competition was, let her know that she wasn’t strong enough for a man like Russ and that
he
was.

He’d decided against going without the mask at the last minute, good thing too.

So he’d put on the mask, and the kid hadn’t seen him. But by virtue of her presence, she had prevented him from doing what he needed to do, and that just plain stuck in his craw. He’d only needed another ten minutes or so. He had barely caused the hurt that she and all women like her had caused him, barely caused the damage that he’d wanted to, and he knew for sure the heifer was still breathing when he’d run off.

She wouldn’t be breathing for much longer though.

He needed to get home, regroup, then find out what hospital they had taken the bitch to and, unless she died en route, finish the job he started.

* * * *

Chance had just come back on duty with about two hours’ sleep under his belt and a cup of tea in his system when the ambulance arrived.

As soon as it backed into the loading dock to disembark, Chance’s extra senses immediately went on high alert.

Someone close to him was in the back of that ambulance.

The thought had only a moment to form before the ambulance’s back doors burst open and two paramedics leaped out, lowering the occupied gurney between them onto the tarmac.

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The occupant looked female, but it was hard to tell from all the bruises and blood on the face, and all the surrounding medical equipment dwarfed the small form.

Chance reached out to the battered and unconscious person on the gurney with his mind, felt the familiar red thread, just barely pulsing, and pulled back in shock. “Oh no.”

“You know the victim?” one of the paramedics asked as he and his partner began to roll the gurney toward the pneumatic doors and into the emergency room while Chance kept pace, jogging beside them.

“What happened to her?” Chance asked instead of answering the paramedic’s question.

“She was beaten to within an inch of her life from the looks of it.”

“The people who called it in are on their way and should be able to give you more details. Medically, she’s in bad shape…”

Chance’s head started to swim at the paramedic’s litany of Donna’s injuries, and he wondered how she’d survived her trauma.

He closed his eyes to concentrate, reaching for her thread and coiling his blue thread around her red one. Goddess, she was so weak!

“Hold on, baby. Hold on. I can still feel you. Feel me. Touch me.

Hold on.”

“Chance!”

He turned to see Suzie and Kim standing in the path between the waiting area and treatment rooms. He jogged over to them as two of his senior residents and a nurse helped the paramedics transfer Donna from the ambulance gurney to the treatment room stretcher. “You guys called it in?”

Kim nodded, tears streaming down her face as she clutched Donna’s large leather handbag against her chest. Chance recognized it from the day Donna had been brought in for treatment of her head injury and left without it.

Damn, had that only been a few weeks ago?

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“She forgot her earring, and Mom said I could go run down and catch her, and there was a man in the parking garage, and he was punching and kicking her and…”

Chance pulled her into his arms as she hiccupped and cried in earnest. He patted and rubbed her back, transmitting soothing vibes, trying to calm her down.

“She’s going to be all right, honey. We’re going to take good care of her.”

She pulled away to look at her mother and then at him, her blue eyes round and pleading. “Please make her okay. She has to be okay.”

“I’ll do my best.” He squeezed first Kim’s shoulder, then her mother’s. “You guys stay here, and I’ll let you know as soon as we have her stabilized.”

Damn, he sounded like he knew what he was talking about, like he could make her well. But after what he’d seen and felt, he wasn’t so sure.

Chance watched Kim and Suzie turn toward the waiting room chairs in unison before he ran back to the treatment room where the residents and nurse had already begun cutting away Donna’s clothes and assessing her wounds.

“What have we got?” he asked unnecessarily. He knew exactly what was wrong with her, which internal organs were damaged, how badly they were damaged, and…He choked back a sob, suddenly catapulted to his childhood when he’d held his mother in his lap and watched her life slip away, unable to do anything about it.

But I’m an adult now. I’m stronger. I can save her.

“Dr. Novak?”

Chance blinked and shook his head at the nurse’s question. He focused on Donna’s various injuries as he donned a pair of latex gloves.

She had bruises from her head to her waist, broken ribs, tension pneumothorax, internal bleeding, possible blunt liver trauma. Damn, this wasn’t looking good at all. She was more than likely going to
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need surgery, and he detested the idea of someone cutting her open, especially not if he could avoid the unnecessary ordeal.

Chance moved his hands over her abdomen, generating heat and energy as he caressed her rib cage and mended the broken bones so that he could get a better look at the damage behind them. He moved on to her kidneys next. All the while his eyes never left her bruised face. He wanted to heal it so that he could see her eyes, even if they were closed. He had a vague notion and tenuous hope that the woman lying so motionless on the stretcher wasn’t Donna. But he knew the truth. He had felt her essence. He had touched it.

Perspiration beaded on his upper lip and forehead, and his hands began to shake. His heat and energy quickly dwindled beneath his exertions. He grasped the crystal around his neck with one hand, desperate for help now, desperate for more strength, and unsure from where or how he would get either.

Davis, the surgery resident, burst into the room then, rubbing his hands together and looking like a hungry hyena who’d picked up the scent of a lion’s recent kill. “Someone call for a surgery consult?”

Chance didn’t want to tell Davis what they were looking at. He knew what the verdict would be. But he didn’t have a choice.

“Definitely a candidate for surgery,” Davis said. “At the very least we’ll need to do a peritoneal lavage to evaluate—”

“There’s no indication for surgery, not without a CT scan, Davis.

Surgical literature—”

“You can’t count on the bleeding to stop before exploration.

That’s too risk—”

“Damn it, I’m not cutting her open!”

“You’re right. You’re not, Novak,” Davis whispered, put his hand on Chance’s arm and squeezed. “You’re too close to this case, too close to this patient. You need to recuse yourself.”

Chance jerked away. “I know what I’m talking about, Davis. We need to go with conservative treat—”

“She’s going into arrest!”

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“Vasopressin 40 U IV!” Chance shouted as he charged up the defibrillator, and one of his residents rushed to prepare the intravenous solution as ordered.

She’s not going to die, she’s not going to die, she is not going to
die!

Twenty minutes later Donna was still flatlining, and Chance was just beginning to lose hope when all the doctors and nurses around him had given up hope ten minutes before.

He took a deep breath, tilted back his head, and that’s when he saw it—Donna’s apparition floating above them, reaching for a pair of glowing hands. “No!”

* * * *

When Russ saw Suzie’s cell number displayed on his cell phone’s caller ID, he vaguely wondered if she had had another change of heart. His stomach started to churn before he answered the call.

Damn, he hoped he wasn’t getting an ulcer. Maybe Chance had a point. He could definitely afford to cut back on the frequency that he ate meat, and consuming more vegetables wouldn’t hurt. He was just one of those lucky people who could eat anything he wanted, and it didn’t seem to do him any damage. He always came away from his annual physicals with optimal numbers for his blood pressure, sugar, and cholesterol, a fact that consistently baffled his brother. But he
was
getting older. He needed to watch it if he wanted to be around for his kids. Not to mention he was looking forward to sticking around another thirty or more years with Donna if she would have him.

“Hey Suzie. What’s up?”

“Oh God, Russ, I’m so glad I caught you! Something terrible has happened.”

His heart fell, but he kept his voice calm. “What’s going on?

Where are you?”

“We’re at Belfiore Hospital, Kim and I.”

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“Are you two okay? Where’s Wes?”

“Wes is at a friend’s house. Kim and I are okay. But Kim’s pretty shaken up. She witnessed some man attacking Donna in the underground garage of our building. She scared him off when she got off of the elevator but not before he did a lot of damage.”

Shit, what kind of damage was she talking about? “How badly is she hurt?” The sob he heard on Suzie’s end did not bode well for Donna. “Suzie, everything’s going to be okay. Just calm down and tell me how she is.”

“I’m not sure, but it didn’t look good when they brought her in.

She was unconscious and really banged up. Chance was in the treatment room working on her up until a little while ago, before another team of doctors rushed him out and into another treatment room to work on
him
. I don’t know what happened to him, but he wasn’t moving when they wheeled him by us and…” Another sob choked off her words, and Russ briefly closed his eyes as if he could block out the idea of Donna beaten and unconscious, a vision Chance had seen weeks ago.

Damn, he had just spoken to her a couple of hours ago. She had been fine, healthy, lively and in a teasing mood. They were making progress. He knew it, sure that she would soon tell him and Chance she loved them.

“What about the cop that was tailing her?” he blurted. “Do you know what happened to him?”

“Oh God, Russ! The other police that arrived on the scene, they found him in his car with his throat slashed.”

Had his daughter seen him? How close had she come to becoming a victim herself?

Russ shuddered at the idea that he could have lost his baby. Then he thought about Donna’s family. He knew how close and protective they all were and asked, “Do you know if anyone has gotten in contact with Donna’s next of kin?” He winced as the last three words 328

Gracie C. McKeever

left his mouth. Saying it felt like a betrayal, as if he had already written her off.

“One of the paramedics mentioned something about contacting the ICE numbers she had listed on her cell.”

Russ sighed in relief. He was glad she’d had the foresight to have

“In Case of Emergency” numbers with her. Technology actually paid off at times.