Dark Reasons Ch. 02-03

Chapter Two

Dr. Ethan Miller gazed longingly at the lumpy, hard couch that inhabited one corner of the doctor's lounge. A couch that he had intimate knowledge of, having spent many long nights trying to get comfortable enough on it for a nap. Tonight, he didn't think it would take much.

It had been a killer of a week. A flu bug had kept a lot of the staff home, leaving them at a skeleton crew. Not a good thing for a major metropolitan hospital. With his iron constitution, he had been immune and had ended up working doubles all week.

Not that he would complain about the money. School loans, almost--finally-- paid off, rent, and what he was putting aside for the little house he had found just outside of town, ate up most of his salary. And his parents had wanted him to become a doctor so that he wouldn't have to know the scrimping and saving that they had. It was laughable.

He shook his head, clearing cobwebs, and went back to work on updating files. Paperwork was a pain in the ass. He signed the last form, glanced at the clock, and then started toward the couch. He had about an hour and a power nap would be fantastic. He laid down, beat down a spring that wanted to pop into his back, set the alarm on his watch and closed his eyes. He sighed, pleasure seeping through him just to lay still for a while and relax. He was just this side of sleep when he heard his name being paged over the loud speaker, the code following alerting him to his being needed in Emergency.

Cursing took up time and energy, but he did a little of it anyway as he grabbed his white coat off the back of the chair he had been sitting in and scooped up his stethoscope to hang around his neck. He was out the door before the page repeated.

He pushed through the heavy double doors that separated Emergency from the rest of the hospital and turned through another set of doors that took him into the curtained areas. He noticed a police officer standing at attention outside one of the cubicles and was about to swing in there when a nurse caught his attention.

"Dr. Miller. Curtain three please."

He saw the diminutive figure surrounded by hospital personnel and thought they had an injured child. Until he got closer. Then the curves and swells of a nicely built female made themselves known under the light sheet she was covered with. He pushed closer, angling so that he was next to her and looked down.

Thick black hair was cut to curve next to her face in wisps that seemed to point toward huge green eyes. Black brows arched above them, now drawn together in pain. A pixyish face, pointed chin and lush mouth completed the picture. A nasty swelling bruise marred creamy skin across one cheekbone and down to the corner of her mouth. A gash just above one temple had bled onto her face. One nurse was cleaning that, another was taking vitals.

"Doctor, Jenna Donovan. Blood pressure 128 over 88, pulse 76. Car accident." She made a tsk tsking sound. "No seat belt."

"Well, now, Jenna Donovan. Let that be a lesson to you." He leaned over and played a pen light over her eyes calling out his findings as he did his exam.

Dr. Miller was a well loved member of the Emergency room, at least by most of the nurses. And the ones who didn't like him, respected him for the job that he did. He was known for his courtesy towards nurses and a genuine acknowledgement of appreciation for the job that they did. That alone made him a favorite. Add to that a tall, leanly muscled body, thick dark hair, liberally sprinkled with blonde above melted chocolate eyes that gleamed with intelligence. High cheekbones and a thick eyelashes were kept from being pretty by a crooked nose that was testament of a well planted punch back in his wild college days. A square jaw was covered with the whiskery beginnings of a beard. When he smiled, white teeth flashed and women had been known to take third and fourth looks.

He was known to get lots of cookies and other goodies from the ladies that he cared for, old or young, he treated them all the same.

And now, he beamed that smile down at Jenna. "We're going to get some x-rays, Jenna. And I'm going to have you admitted. Just overnight," he added as he saw the look in her eyes.

"Can't you just give me something for pain, slap a band-aid on my head and let me go. I got work." She hated hearing the whine and weakness in her voice but she hated hospitals worse.

"Okay, let's make a deal." He took her hand, slid his down to her wrist and checked her pulse himself. "Let's get the x-rays, stitch up your forehead, and then we'll go from there."

While he waited for her to answer, an answer that he had no intention of paying attention to anyway, he signaled to one of his nurses. The nurse put down the shoe she had been toying with and went to a phone against the wall, picked it up and made arrangements to have Jenna shipped down to x-ray.

The shoe on the tray caught Ethan's eye. Spiked heel, at least four inches of it with an intricate weave of straps. The shoe size was tiny. It was a shoe made to imply sex. A shoe she had been wearing?

He studied her face, intrigued. She just didn't look like the type to want to twist up her feet in shoes like that. But than again, what did he know of types.

"I don't know how I'm getting anything out of that deal, doc." Jenna was tired, she hurt and all she wanted to do was to have people quit poking and prodding her, go home to her tiny apartment and go to bed. A few hours sleep and she would be fine, ready to go and do her reports, take their suspect into interrogation and break him. She almost smiled at the thought of sitting across from him in that tiny airless room. Of winning despite the fact that she had actually thought she was going to die there for a while.

"Well, I'm not calling up to request a room for you right away. I'm going to let the nurses get you unstrapped from this contraption and get you sent down to x-ray. I don't think anything is broke, especially since you wiggled all the right extremities at all the right times." He smiled down at her and pushed the hair out of her face and away from the nasty gash that still was leaking blood.

Yummy, Jenna thought. With a smile and a face like that he could be making more money in front of a camera than behind a stethoscope. Tall, tanned and too tempting by half which added up to trouble to her. She sighed. She was more tired and hurt than she thought if she was having these kinds of thoughts. Maybe she would just lay here and let them poke and prod a little more. Just until she was sure her brain wasn't completely scrambled.

Hands were unbuckling straps and pulling away blocks when he walked away from her. He patted her foot in passing and turned as the sheet was pulled off of her.

Normally patients were in hospital gowns when he reached emergency but the back board and straps that had kept her immobile had hampered the nurses somewhat so he had arrived before they could change the patient.

His eyebrows winged up at the sight of long slender legs, a tiny leather skirt that was ripped at the side and showed off smooth skin and firm stomach that disappeared beneath another piece of leather, this one almost too miniscule to hide luscious breasts. The shoe had been a surprise. The outfit was a shock. And as he walked away, the image stayed in his mind, making him grin a little.

He was walking toward the first curtain, getting ready to stop by the uniform standing outside of it when Dorothy Allen, the huge nurse that he silently thought of as Nurse Tackle, stopped him.

"The girl from the car accident? Her man is out in the waiting room."

"Thanks, Dorothy."

He glanced in the curtained room as he walked by. A huge man sat silently on the gurney, both hands cuffed to the bed rails. He sat there, staring out with eyes that had all the warmth of a shark. Every few seconds he lifted his hands and shook them, making the hand cuffs rattle and clang against the metal of the rails.

He seemed to sense Ethan's presence and stopped rattling for just an instant, just long enough to lock gazes with the doctor. Then he stared off into space again, rattling and clanging as before.

Ethan felt a coldness sweep over him with that look. He had met a lot of different types in the years he had been here. He had seen some that he had liked at sight, and a few that he had wanted to turn away, professionalism be damned. This is the first time he had met someone who had actually frightened him for that instant their gazes had locked.

He turned away, giving himself time to settle as he walked out to talk to Jenna's 'man'. Husband? Brother? Pimp? He wondered to himself.

If she were a prostitute, she was wasting herself on the streets. With that face, beautiful in a fairylike way, and the body of a siren, she could charge what she wanted when she wanted. She could be set up in someplace like New York catering to all the rich and famous men. If it was her pimp, she needed to find herself a new manager.

He pushed through the doors of the waiting room and stopped dead. He had expected a single man to be sitting and waiting. This room looked like a coffee shop at shift change. There were more cops here than he could ever remember seeing at one time before.

One man got up when he saw Ethan. He pushed through the crowd of cops who became eerily quiet when they saw the scrubs the man was wearing.

"How is she?"

Ethan noticed the blood still on the man's hands. The scratches that he had to have gotten in the accident. And it clicked. She had to be a cop. Undercover. It made him grin.

"She's fine. Very unhappy about being here. I'm sending her down for x-rays but from what I can see, the most she has is a minor concussion, some bumps and bruises. I'm concerned about the bruise on her side, want to make sure there are no cracked ribs. We're going to keep her for observation."

"But she is okay?" Justin wanted to hear the words.

"You are?"

"I'm her partner and the about the only thing she has like family around here."

"Yeah, she'll be fine. I want to give her some time after the x-rays and then I'm going to be admitting her. "

"Can I see her?"

"After she gets back from x-ray. I'll send someone out to get you."

Justin grabbed Ethan's hand and shook it enthusiastically. Then he turned to the waiting room and said to everyone. "Told you, she's too ornery to be hurt bad."

Ethan smiled at the subdued cheer that went through the waiting room. Before he could turn, Justin grabbed his arm.

"There was a man brought in, right before Jenna. How is he?"

"You mean the gentleman back there rattling his chains?"

Justin nodded.

"I haven't gotten to him yet, but he's next. I'll let you know." Ethan accepted the card Justin handed him and left the waiting room.

He hurried back to the ER and nodded at the uniform in the doorway. The man sitting on the gurney, a bump on his forehead, his nose a bloody mess, didn't acknowledge his presence. He continued to rattle the chains on the cuffs.

Ethan picked up the file that had been started. It contained basics such as the information that could be gotten off a driver's license. That and not much else.

"Mr. Elliott," Ethan said in greeting, glancing at the sketchy file. The man didn't even so much as look at him. Ethan got closer and took out his pen light to check the man's pupils.

"Headache?"

No answer but for a rattle and a clank.

Ethan marked down his findings on the file. He could have a nurse in here, or orderly, or even an intern but he didn't trust this guy.

There was something about the eyes. A death like quality in the way he looked at you. He'd seen more life in the sharks that he had swam with on a vacation a couple years ago. He'd been inside a metal cage, steel bars between him and some of the biggest sharks he had ever seen. The look in their eyes, as if they could eat you and go on to the next without a backward glance, had sent icy shivers up his back. This man had that same look.

He gently pushed on the flesh around the bruised eyes, checking for breaks than cleaned up his nose and bandaged cuts and bruises. All without a single sound from his patient.

He didn't blame the uniforms inside the curtain for their nerves. They were standing on either side of the gurney, hands resting lightly on guns.

"Pain anywhere else, Mr. Elliott?"

Clank, rattle.

Ethan sighed. "Okay, Kevin." Personalize it a little. "I can't do anything more for you if you don't let me know what hurts."

Rattle, clank.

Ethan picked up the tray with the bloody gauze and started to walk away.

"Doctor."

His voice was deep, surprisingly with just a hint of an accent. Ethan turned back, setting the tray on the counter closest to the entrance. "Yes, Mr. Elliott."

"I've broken my forearm. My right forearm."

Ethan called for a nurse to get someone from x-ray up here with the portable x-ray machine. He would do the film himself rather than put one of his people in harm's way.

After the pictures were taken, involving lead vests for himself and both of the cops in the room and removing one of the cuffs. He got to work in setting the break and casting the arm. When he went to inject his patient with a local anesthetic, the man stopped him.

"Okay, but I warn you, it's going to be painful."

He set the arm, hearing the man grunt, looking up to see a smile that was almost feral in nature. It shook him a little so that he hurried with the cast. He was setting aside the last of the tape and turning from his patient when he heard a grunt. A big hand came around his neck and fingers wrapped tightly around his throat, squeezing.

"Tell them to unlock the other cuff, Doctor. I really don't want to but I could tear your throat out pretty easily. And even being in a hospital, I really don't think you'd survive it."

Ethan opened his mouth and nothing came out. His face was turning red and he was choking.

The officers in the room pulled their weapons.

"Let him go."

"Unlock the cuff and I'll walk out of here. I'll let the doctor go as soon as I'm away."

"We can't do that. Let him go."

Ethan could see the big cop's finger on the trigger of his gun, a huge thing that looked capable of putting a hole the size of cannon ball in someone. He put one hand up covering the big fingers, trying to wrest the hand from his throat.

Just then, Nurse Tanya Reynolds, a beautiful, big breasted blonde who was very good at her job but otherwise, was a bubblehead, walked past the curtained doorway carrying a metal tray of instruments. She glanced in, curious as all the gossip in the cafeteria had been about the big guy who they said had killed a lot of people. She saw the guns and drop dead gorgeous Dr. Miller with a hand at his throat. She did what any good bubblehead will do when confronted with guns and violence. She dropped the tray with a huge clanging and clattering, slapped both hands to her cheeks just like that kid in Home Alone and let out a shriek that could be heard in the employee parking lot on the other side of the building.

Then she fainted.

As soon as Tanya dropped the tray, Ethan felt the fingers on his Adam's Apple loosen. When she screamed, he pushed on the hand, plowed one tightly fisted hand backwards into the man's groin. Then he turned and, using the forward momentum of his foe, plowed a fist into his face. He felt the satisfying crunch of the already broken nose shatter more. Kevin Elliott fell to the floor and slumped, unconscious. His manacled wrist still secured to the bed rail.

He back away as the police, who had turned at the ruckus Tanya caused, came forward and rigged a new cuff to fit over the cast that Kevin Elliott now wore.

Ethan started to go to Tanya, saw one of the orderly's picking her up, a nurse stacking instruments back onto the metal tray. Instead, he found the rolling stool and sat down. Adrenaline was making his pulse race, his hands were shaking. He looked down at his bruised knuckles and smiled.

"I haven't done that since college." He cleared his throat and shook his hand carefully making a fist. "I forgot how much it hurts."

Chapter Three

If one more person came in here with a fake cheery smile on their face and asked 'how are we feeling', she might shove an IV stand down their throat.

How was she suppose to feel? She'd gotten knocked around by a serial killer, thrown around by a huge black sedan and smashed into by a SUV. She felt like shit.

She had bruises on top of bruises. She felt aches in places that she didn't know could ache. And, knowing how bruises and aches went, she didn't doubt that she would feel worse tomorrow.

She heard footsteps and then someone pushing through the curtained doorway. "I don't want any more pain killers. Ask me again and I'll probably shove that syringe up your ass," she said tiredly and without looking.

"Okay, save all the good drugs for Justin. So noted." He grinned as she turned her head to scowl at him

"Did you come to give a lame try at being funny or to spring me from this place?"

"Lame? I'm hurt." He place one hand on his chest and schooled his handsome features in a wounded expression.

"Shit," she scoffed. "You couldn't be hurt with a jackhammer."

He grinned cockily. "Thanks. Now, I have good news and bad news which would you like first?"

She shifted uncomfortably on the narrow hospital bed and then cursed the paper gown that got caught and pulled every time she moved. "Good news," she grumped.

"We got him Jen. Nailed him."

"Yeah?" she grinned herself.

"Oh yeah. You should have seen the evidence in the car. He had souvenirs in a box in the car. They spilled all over the inside. Plain sight. We got just cause for a search warrant for his residence." He rubbed his hands together in glee. "And as soon as he wakes up, I'm taking him into interrogation. I'll break him Jenna, and then he'll be put away for the rest of his life."

Jenna's smile slipped somewhat. She tried to ignore the feeling of disappointment. What should she be disappointed about? They had him. She just hated the idea that she wouldn't be in that room with Justin when he went at their suspect.

Justin saw the look. "Oh, honey." He rubbed his hand over hers. "I'd wait until you got out of here and could go back to work, but looking at you, it could be awhile."

"Fuck you, Justin," she said, but with no heat. "What did you mean, when he woke up?"

"Ahh, you didn't hear about the excitement around here. Must have slept right through it." He waited, knowing she'd bark at him.

"Slept through what? Damn it, Justin. You know I hate it when you do this."

"Your doctor punched out our suspect."

Jenna had an impression of compassionate brown eyes, a slow deep voice and gentle hands. He didn't seem like the type to punch someone. "Why?"

"Well, I guess he didn't like having fingers wrapped around his throat. The suspect tried to get away using the good doctor as a hostage."

"And he punched him out?"

"Yeah, I did."

Jenna tried to look past Justin toward the doorway. Justin moved just enough to block her vision until the doctor came in and stood next to the bed across from him.

Dr Miller was sporting a couple of nice bruises on his neck that kind of looked like hickeys and kept flexing his hand like it hurt.

"First time I hit someone since college."

Jenna looked between the two men, both handsome but in completely different ways. Justin was older, mid thirties somewhere. He never would tell her his exact age. His features were rougher, his skin a trifle craggy from sun and wind exposure. He hadn't always worked in the big city but had moved here for the excitement that he couldn't get in the tiny blip on the map that he used to patrol.

Thick blonde hair hung in shaggy locks around his face and touched the collar of his lightweight coat. Blue eyes that could twinkle with amusement or burn angrily out of a tanned, long face. His nose was crooked, his lips thin. He sported a mustache that had just a touch of gray starting to show in the blonde.