The Ideal Man (11 page)

“Because he’s better at this sort of crisis than I am. He knows what’s going on inside that boy’s head. Max can help him, and pretty soon the boy will know he can trust him.” He went on, “There was this case about a year ago. An uncle was using his nephew as a punching bag, and one day the kid had had enough. He got hold of his uncle’s gun and was going to kill him. The two of them were locked in the boy’s bedroom. I remember the walls were green, and there were posters of superheroes all over.”

“What happened?”

“There was a standoff, and the boy held the uncle at gunpoint. It took some convincing for the boy to let Max come in. He found out that the uncle had tried to sexually assault the boy, and that was when the boy went for the gun. Max understood that the boy wanted his uncle to suffer, and so he described in detail what was going to happen to the uncle when he was sent to prison. It was pretty gross stuff, but it placated the boy, and he gave Max the gun.

“The uncle started screaming at the kid then, so Max walked over and coldcocked him. By the time I was there putting the cuffs on him, the pervert had come around and was blubbering. I guess what Max had told the kid scared him. The prick,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“What if that boy had turned the gun on Max?” she asked.

“He was prepared for that. He knows how to handle these situations.”

Ellie kept watching the closed door. “Scalpels are sharp,” she said. “If the boy slashes an artery or—”

“Max won’t let him hurt him.”

And he was right. The door opened and Max walked out. He had one hand on the shoulder of the little boy, who was glued to his side, and he held the scalpel in his other hand.

The boy seemed too little to be nine or ten, Ellie thought, and he looked so scared. She wanted to find Gorman and sock him. As she walked toward them, the child’s eyes got big and he shuffled to get behind Max.

Max looked down and said, “It’s okay. She’s with me. Let’s let her look at your arms, okay? Then we’ll find you some food and a bed. You’re staying here tonight.”

The boy’s name was Kyle, and both of his arms had red streaks from being wrenched. Max lifted him onto an exam table.

When Kyle saw Ellie putting on gloves, he said, “No shots.”

“No shots,” she agreed. “I just want to examine you.”

She helped him remove his T-shirt.

“The other doctor said the seat belt saved me,” Kyle whispered. “See? There’s the bruise where it held me. I was in the backseat.”

Ellie was more interested in his left shoulder and his arms. The skin was red and inflamed from his wrist to his elbows, and the left wrist was sprained. The right arm wasn’t as bad.

“Where are your parents, Kyle?” Ellie asked.

“My mom died, and I don’t know my dad,” he answered.

“Any other family?”

“Just my brother. I live with him. My aunt lives in Chicago, and she said she’ll come tomorrow and get me.”

Ellie looked at Max. “I’m going to admit him,” she said.

“What does that mean?” Kyle asked with a frantic look in his eyes.

“It means you’re going to sleep here tonight.”

“With my brother?”

“When your brother gets out of recovery, I’ll make sure he’s on the same floor. All right?” Ellie asked.

“What about that man? He said he was going to put me in jail.”

“I’ll take care of him, like I promised,” Max said.

“I’m sorry I took that knife. I thought they’d leave me alone if I could scare them.”

Ellie went back to the nurse’s station to start the admission process. She called the office and explained that an aide employed by the hospital had inflicted some of the injury to the child and that there was a possibility of a lawsuit. Since she was the admitting physician, she would determine when the child could be released. By the time the paperwork was completed, Kyle was sound asleep.

“It’s a bad sprain in his wrist,” she told Max. “I’m surprised Gorman didn’t pull his arm out of the socket. He’ll need ice packs on the shoulder, too.”

She waited at the nurse’s station while Max and Ben went into the waiting room to talk to Gorman and the aide.

She heard Officer Lane say in a raised voice, “You have the right to remain silent . . .” She couldn’t hear the rest because Gorman was shouting.

A minute later Max returned to her. “You ready?”

She turned back to the nurse. “Thanks, Mary.”

“Don’t worry. I know the night crew on three. They’ll watch out for that boy,” Mary assured.

Nodding, Ellie followed Max out into the night air. Ben called good night as he headed to his car.

“How did you get Kyle to calm down?” she asked.

“I didn’t say anything. I just let him talk. The poor kid was scared out of his mind. When he was ready to listen to me, I promised him no one was going to lock him up and that I would keep that social worker away from him.”

“He obviously believed you. You were good with him.”

They reached the car, and Max opened the door. “You’ll check on him in the morning?”

“Of course I will, and I’ll make sure someone stays with him until his aunt arrives. You don’t need to worry.”

“With you looking out for him, I won’t worry at all.”

Ellie slipped into the passenger seat, clipped on the seat belt, and closed her eyes. They hadn’t even pulled out of the parking lot before she was asleep. Had Max not been watching, he wouldn’t have believed it. Her deep, even breathing indicated she had drifted off into a sound slumber. As he drove, he thought about her. She was a woman who was used to being in control, and yet she felt comfortable with him. She wouldn’t have let herself sleep if she didn’t feel safe.

He remembered the route she had shown him, and it didn’t take any time at all to get her home. He parked the car in front of her building, turned the motor off, then unhooked his seat belt and hers.

“Come on, sweetheart. You need to get to bed.”

The second he touched her arm she was alert. “You don’t need to walk in with me.”

“Yes, I do.”

When he opened her car door, he took her hand.

Neither one of them said another word until they were inside her apartment. He did a quick check, pulled her phone out of his pocket, and handed it to her. Then he bent down and kissed her. She leaned into him and that was all the permission he needed. He wrapped his arms around her and deepened the kiss. She followed his lead and used her tongue to drive him as wild as he was driving her.

What was the harm in a few kisses . . . farewell kisses . . . she thought, as her arms curled around his neck.

Max pulled back, looked into her eyes, and with a low growl kissed her again. He loved the taste of her, like sugar and mint, and the feel of her soft, luscious body pressed against him. Most of all he loved the way she responded to him.

How could he resist her? The kiss was hot, wet, thoroughly arousing, and when Max realized it was getting out of control and he didn’t want to stop, he forced himself to end it. He couldn’t seem to let go of her, though. Holding her tight, he took a couple of deep, shaky breaths, trying to regain some semblance of control. He knew he shouldn’t have started this. He should let go of her and walk out the door. Yeah, that’s what he should do. Ellie wasn’t the one-night-only kind of girl. She wasn’t a hookup or a throwaway, as some of the guys in the office called their one-night stands.

Let go and walk out the door
. He silently chanted the command and still didn’t move. How could he? Ellie was kissing the pulse at the base of his neck, making his heart rate accelerate. She kissed the side of his neck, then moved up to his ear. Her mouth was soft against his skin, and her tongue was driving him nuts.

He tightened his hold on her. “We need to stop this,” he began, realizing his words contradicted his actions, since he couldn’t make himself let go.

“I know,” she whispered, kissing him again.

“I’ve got to get back to Honolulu, and I don’t want to . . .” He was losing his train of thought, and all he could think about was kissing her.

“You don’t want to what?” she asked. Her fingers splayed into his hair as she leaned up to kiss his jaw.

He had to think about the question for several seconds, then said, “Hurt you. Yeah, that’s it. Sex tonight, gone tomorrow, I don’t think you could handle that.”

The truth was, he wasn’t sure he could handle it either. Ellie was going to be real hard to walk away from, almost impossible. He didn’t question why he felt that way, just knew it in his heart. She was so different from the other women he had known. She wouldn’t be forgettable.

“Ellie, it would be easy for me to get you into bed . . . ,” he began.

Easy? She felt her spine stiffen. How egotistical! A couple of seconds passed before honesty kicked in. He was telling the truth. It would be easy for him, but it would be just as easy for her to get him into bed. And hadn’t she decided that was a bad idea?

Her lips brushed his jaw when she said, “And I’d end up getting hurt?”

“Yes.” His voice shook. “I think you would.”

Ellie pulled away. “You’re right,” she said with a sigh. “You need a more experienced woman, someone who knows what she’s doing.” God, he was arrogant, but oh was he sexy. It took all she had not to throw herself into his arms again, but instead, she opened the door. “Have a nice flight home.”

B
en surprised Ellie early Sunday afternoon when he knocked on her door and told her he would drive her to the police station to look at some photos. If he had arrived fifteen minutes later, he would have missed her. Dressed casually in jeans, a white T-shirt, and tennis shoes, Ellie was throwing her phone into her purse with her lipstick, brush, wallet, latex gloves—she had learned never to be without them—a pack of tissues, and a small plastic bottle of disinfectant. She never left home without that item either.

She didn’t ask Ben where Max was, but he volunteered the information anyway. “Rob—that would be Agent Hughes,” he explained, “wanted Max’s help interviewing another possible witness. A young man was cutting through the park and says he saw the Landrys.”

“He can identify them?”

“We’ll see,” Ben said, unwilling to say more.

“So he won’t be at the station?” she asked as she slid into the passenger seat of Ben’s car.

“Who? Max? No.”

“I meant Agent Hughes,” she explained. “I thought he wanted to be there when I looked at the photos.”

Ben shook his head. “He’s so anxious for you to identify the Landrys, it’s been suggested that he might inadvertently steer you toward those photos, so he’s going to stay away.”

She nodded. “That’s fine.”

“Agent Wahlberg will be there to observe,” he said. “He’s local.”

Ellie’s cell phone rang. She looked at the screen and said, “Excuse me. It’s the hospital.” After a brief conversation, she put the phone back in her purse. “I just dismissed Kyle. His aunt is there to pick him up. He’ll be staying with her,” she announced.

“That’s good,” Ben said. “I’d hate to think he’d have to deal with another Gorman.”

“He’s not a typical social worker. Most are very competent and understanding,” she said. “Hopefully, Gorman’s replacement will be more compassionate.”

A few blocks later Ellie said, “Tell me about the Landrys.”

“They’re a piece of . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence, although he thought of several choice words he could have used to describe the pair. “They started out in Omaha,” he began. “That’s where they lived until about five years ago.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he added, “They sell weapons to anyone who can pay. Untraceable weapons. They started small—handguns, every make and model, then moved up to semiautomatic, then moved up again. . . .”

He pulled onto the highway and cut over to the center lane. “There are guns on the street now with bullets that can cut through steel. Bulletproof vests don’t stand a chance.”

“I know. I’ve seen the damage they can do. We call them spinners.”

“We?”

“The other surgeons and I,” she said. “The bullets spin around inside the body, shredding arteries and organs. Last winter I tried to repair the damage one did to a ten-year-old boy. His mother told me he was walking across the street when the shooting started.”

“Did he make it?”

“No, he was gone before we could get it out. I promised his mother I would never forget him, and I won’t. He was such a beautiful little boy. His name was Joel Watkins.” She turned to look out the side window as she said, “I know the Landrys didn’t sell that specific gun to the man who killed Joel, but to me they’re just as responsible. Anyone who puts guns on the street should be held accountable for every death.”

He didn’t disagree. “There are hundreds of other dealers, but the Landrys . . . well, they’re going to get a special place in hell.”

“No doubt,” she said.

“They moved to Honolulu a couple of years ago when they got into bigger and better weapons.”

“They must have had something very big going on to bring them all the way here.”

“Yes,” he said. “Unfortunately, the men they were meeting were killed in the park. It would have been nice if we could have turned one of them.”

They reached the station, and Ben found a parking spot in the lot around the corner.

Ellie followed him through a set of double doors and asked, “How long do you think it will take before you catch them?”

“Hard to say, but I’m sure they’ll eventually show up. If not here, then in Honolulu. They’re used to getting pulled in.”

“And they’ll see what evidence you have?”

“And witnesses.”

She felt a shiver. She had been warned how they worked. Witnesses disappeared, and if there was no clear evidence to indict them, the Landrys went back to business as usual.

Agent Wahlberg was waiting for them at the front desk and escorted them up to the second floor to a long, spacious room. The walls were industrial beige, and the desks were all but on top of one another. Every desk had a computer monitor on it and a chair sitting adjacent to it. Most of them were empty, but it was Sunday and still early in the day. Tonight, she guessed, would be another story if the station was anything like the ER.