In His Protective Custody

Why was this policeman so adamant about her being wrong about what she’d heard? Was he a friend of Harry’s and trying to protect the man?

“There was also banging,” Alyx insisted.

“Maybe he slammed a few drawers or cabinet doors to knock off some steam.”

“His wife had bruises.”

The statement caught him up short. “You saw bruises?” Zane demanded.

Moment of truth, Alyx thought. She could either lie and hopefully get him to go next door to confront the bully, or she could tell the skeptical-looking officer the truth and pray he’d still do the decent thing and question the man next door.

Opening her mouth, Alyx was about to go with the first choice, but then she stopped. If this policeman caught her in a lie, he’d dismiss her 911 call and everything else she said or would say as merely being a case of an overactive imagination.

So she went with the truth. “Yes. She tried to cover them up with makeup, but black and blue is a hard combination to camouflage if you’re looking at a person close up.”

“If the domestic violence was in progress when you made the call at—” Zane paused to look at the paper he’d been given to confirm the time “—twelve-fifteen, when would the alleged battered wife have had the time to try to cover the bruises up with makeup?” he asked suspiciously.

She’d hoped not to have to admit to this part. “I saw the last set of bruises. Or what I assume were the last set.”

Just as he’d thought. His deep-blue eyes pinned her, leaving no wiggle space whatsoever. “And exactly when was this?”

Her reluctance increased—but she really had no choice. She doled out the information between gritted teeth. “Two weeks ago. In the elevator. He was with her. And she looked very afraid,” she stressed. The officer appeared utterly unconvinced. Frustrated, Alyx added, “He came on to me. His wife was standing right there.” Didn’t he see what a reprehensible reptile Harry was?

“This got under your skin,” he theorized. “So are you trying to get back at him now by accusing him of being guilty of domestic abuse?”

How the hell had he gotten that out of what she’d just said?

Her eyes flashed. “I am not trying to get back at anyone,” she informed him indignantly, struggling to hold on to her frayed temper. “I am trying to prevent someone from getting hurt—or worse. I’m a doctor,” she informed him. “I know the signs that go with abuse. I also have excellent hearing. He was threatening her—and slapping her around, from the sound of it.” She drew herself up, wishing she was taller than her five-foot-four stature. “Now if you don’t want to go next door and talk to him, send over someone who will.”

The woman was feisty, he’d give her that, Zane thought. Whether or not that was a good quality in this particular case he hadn’t made up his mind yet.

“I will talk to him,” Zane replied, his voice distant.

It was essentially a matter of crossing his “t’s” and dotting his “i’s.” Otherwise, he would have told her to do whatever she felt she had to do and just walked away.

It wasn’t indifference on his part that was the deciding factor in the way he viewed this case. Neither was it that he condoned battery of any kind, whether it was against a wife or a husband. But he had seen the extent of damage a false accusation could create, the kind of havoc it could bring about.

He’d lived through it.

In an effort to get sole custody of her children when she divorced his father, Annie Calloway had filed charges of domestic abuse against her husband. False charges of domestic abuse. His father, a man he’d idolized from the first moment he drew breath, had been devastated that the woman he loved would have accused him of such a terrible thing.

At first, Jack Calloway fought the charges tooth and nail, but the court sympathized with her and ruled in his mother’s favor. Eventually, despondent and drinking heavily, his father wound up losing everything, including his job on the police force. His friends tried to shield him, but Jack was a lost cause. Unable to face what he had become and, more importantly, unable to cope with the emptiness of life without his family, Zane’s father killed himself using his service revolver.

His mother was the first to be informed of what had happened. Realizing that she had been instrumental in his death, Annie was never the same. Neither were Zane and his younger brothers. All three of them had a love-hate relationship with their mother that went unchanged until the day she died—a little more than a year ago.

Because of that, because of what his mother had caused to happen and then never attempted to rescind, Zane had trouble trusting women—all women—and was particularly distrustful of reports of domestic abuse. It was far too easy to wield an accusation as a weapon and gain favor with a sympathetic presiding judge.

As he turned to knock on the next door, Zane became aware that the petite blonde had left the shelter of her apartment and was not just out in the hall, but standing right next to him. So close that he could actually smell her perfume. It slipped in and out of his consciousness like a seductive whisper.

That was all he needed, a distracting sidekick. “Afraid you’re going to miss some of the show?” he asked her.

She should have brought a sweater with her to prevent getting frostbite. The officer’s tone was that cold. What was his problem?

“I accused him, I should be able to face him,” she answered, attempting to approximate the same tone that Calloway had used.

She didn’t quite achieve it. Friendliness was more her byword. Cold hostility didn’t begin to enter the bargain. She thought of Harry beating his wife, secure in the feeling that no one would challenge him and the coldness came, belatedly.

“Why don’t you just wait in your apartment?” Zane suggested crisply. “If there’s anything to tell, I’ll fill you in when it’s over.”

When it was over, he’d leave, she thought, fairly confident that she’d pegged the officer’s mode of operation. He was the type to only keep the promises he deemed worthy of being kept.

She made no effort to budge. “Doing it my way saves you an extra step,” she answered with a bright, broad, forced smile on her lips.

Just then, the door to 5F opened in response to Zane’s knock. A slightly rumpled Harry McBride stood in the doorway wearing only pajama bottoms. He looked from the officer to her, an affable, slightly puzzled expression on his face. She’d never seen anyone appear so bemused and seemingly innocent before.

The man’d had practice, Alyx realized. Which made him diabolical.

“Hello.” Harry nodded at Alyx, then looked back to the policeman. “Is there something I can help you with, Officer—?”

“Calloway,” Zane told him, filling in the blank. “There’s been a report of a domestic disturbance taking place in your apartment.”

Harry seemed properly chagrined. “My fault,” he admitted freely. “I’ve got a tendency to get a little carried away when I get excited about something I’m talking about. I don’t realize how loud I can get sometimes.” He deliberately looked at her and said with a sheepish, apologetic smile, “If I disturbed you, I am really sorry. I’ll try not to let it happen again,” he promised solemnly.

Alyx didn’t believe him. Not for a moment. Didn’t believe a word of Harry’s charmingly recited explanation or his promise to her. He was just going through the motions to get rid of the policeman. She’d bet her life on it.

“Would you mind if we spoke to your wife?” Zane requested.

Harry hesitated, seemingly concerned. “Abby’s had rather a hard day and she just now managed to drop off to sleep, but if you feel that it’s necessary to talk to her, I can wake her up for you.” With that, Harry turned on his heel, ready to go off to the bedroom and wake up his wife to accommodate the police.

Zane stopped the man before he went to his bedroom.

“No, that’s all right. Let your wife sleep. Just remember to try to rein in your ‘enthusiasm’ next time,” he cautioned the man. His business over, he saw no reason to put the other man out any further. “Have a good night, Mr. McBride. What’s left of it,” he added with a side glance toward Alyx.

With that, he turned away from the apartment.

“Good night,” Harry echoed behind him, shutting the door.

“And that’s it?” Alyx demanded, hissing the words at Calloway as the police officer began to walk away.

He stopped and deliberately pinned her with a less than charitable eye. “Unless you can think of something else.”

It was clear by his tone that he didn’t expect to be on the receiving end of any further input from her. His job here was done. He had a cold beer waiting for him in the refrigerator and he wanted to get to it.

“Unless I can think of something else?” Alyx echoed, staring at him in disbelief. “Yes, I can think of something else. How about talking to his wife? How about looking at his wife? One bruise one time means that she’s being clumsy. More bruises means that she’s someone’s idea of a punching bag. Women like that need to be helped, to be guided. Because after a while, they start to think that they deserve it.”

“Letting your imagination run away with you a little, aren’t you?” Zane asked.

Still out in the hallway, he cocked his head to listen. “Well, it looks to me like the battling factions have decided to call it a night.”

“They weren’t battling factions,” Alyx corrected tersely. “Battling factions would indicate that there were two sides. From the sound of it, Harry was the only one getting in his licks. All his wife was doing was whimpering pathetically like some wounded, frightened animal.”

Another woman “crying wolf.” She was wasting his time and he was tired. “Uh huh. Well, I don’t hear anything now. Look at it this way, maybe you scared him into acting responsibly.”

By the sarcasm in his voice, she knew the policeman didn’t believe that—and neither did she. Harry McBride was a bully who would continue being a bully as long as he felt that no one would challenge him and he could get away with it.

About to leave, Zane hesitated for a moment. It was always good to cover your tail. His father had taught him that while he was still on the force, still part of his life. There were times when he couldn’t help wondering how much more he would have been able to learn from his father had his father not cut his life so short.

Digging into his shirt pocket, Zane took out his business card. Handing it to the feisty, obviously dissatisfied blonde, he said purely for form sake, “If they start up again, call me.”

Did that mean he finally believed her, or was he just humoring her in an effort to make a quick getaway with a clear conscience?

In either case, she intended on taking him up on what he’d just proposed.

Closing her fingers over the business card, Alyx raised her eyes to his. “I’ll do that,” she promised, her voice even.

Zane barely managed to suppress a world-weary sigh. “I’m sure that you will, Miss Pulaski.”

“Doctor,” Alyx corrected the cocky police officer. He raised a quizzical brow, so she elaborated, “It’s Dr. Pulaski.”

Zane inclined his head. “Sorry. Dr. Pulaski,” he deliberately stretched out the name. “Good night now.” And with that, he was on his way.

“Good night,” Alyx echoed, calling after his retreating back. She walked into her apartment, trying her best to put the whole incident behind her.

She could more easily just stop breathing.

He didn’t believe her, she thought, chewing on her lower lip as she closed her door. Officer Calloway didn’t believe her. As an afterthought, she threw the dead bolt in place.

Why didn’t he believe her?

What could she possibly have to gain by accusing Harry McBride of something he hadn’t done? Only someone psychotic would do that.

With a shrug, Alyx tried to put the whole incident behind her again. She only had a few precious hours left before she had to turn up at the ER bright-eyed and bushy-tailed—and under the Dragon Lady’s thumb.

God knew she needed her rest for that to happen. And rehashing the events of the past half hour over and over again simply would not give her that rest.

Alyx was halfway across the living room, on her way to the bedroom and her bed, when she heard the doorbell ring. She froze.

Had the officer forgotten something?

Or, better yet, had he changed his mind about why she’d made the call?

Hurrying back to the front door, Alyx threw it open before looking through the peephole, something she never did under ordinary circumstances. But anger and exhaustion had made her sloppy. And the need for validation had done the same.

Surprise throbbed through her veins.

She wasn’t looking at the cynical officer with the sinful mouth. She was looking up at Harry McBride.

Gone like the pastel chalk marks of a brightly decorated sidewalk beneath the onslaught of a sudden, unexpected summer shower was the friendly, all-accommodating expression Harry had worn for the officer’s benefit.

In its place was a cold, calculating look that could easily make a woman’s blood all but contract within its veins.

The look in his eyes was positively malevolent. “Listen, I’m only going to say this once, hear? If you don’t back off and mind your own damn business, I am going to make sure that you regret the day you ever moved into the building and started meddling in my life. Hell, I’m going to make you wish you were never born. Do I make myself clear?” he growled.

Mama, Alyx knew, would have insisted that she say she understood and then meekly withdraw out of the hulking ape’s way. But she wasn’t about to do as Mama said; she was about to do as Mama did. And that involved not allowing herself to be intimidated by a Neanderthal oaf. Ever.

She issued a threat of her own.

“If I see you lay another hand on Abby, you will be the one with regrets, Mr. McBride. I will report you so fast, your head will spin. And not just to some indifferent police officer. I have three cousins who are married to NYPD police detectives and they, I assure you, are no pushovers. You won’t be able to snow them or lie your way out of the situation.”

With each word Alyx uttered, she could see that Harry struggled more and more to keep from lashing out at her. The only thing, she felt certain, that kept him from hitting her was the fact that he didn’t know whether or not she was telling him the truth about her relatives.

True cowards never tested boundaries—at least not when they could be easily identified. They fought dirty, with their identities hidden by masks or shadows. She would have to be extra careful for a while. And she would really need to watch her back.

“Go to hell!” McBride growled at her. The next moment, he stomped back into his apartment and slammed the door so hard her own door shuttered in response.

Now there was someone definitely in need of anger management classes, Alyx mused, testing the integrity of her locks and the one chain that Marja’s husband-to-be had put up for her at the insistence of all of her cousins. At the time she’d thought it was just so much overkill. After all, the building came with a doorman who didn’t allow just anyone to saunter to the elevators. But now, she was glad that her cousins had overruled her protest and installed the chain.

Alyx glanced at her watch. Oh God. She now had only six more hours until her shift. She hurried off to the bedroom and prayed for a few hours of sleep.

Chapter 3

Unlike his partner, Zane Calloway, Officer Ryan Lukkas liked to talk. When he was nervous, he had a tendency to talk more. And faster. He was talking fast now. Very fast. And driving the exact same way.

“Dunno what this city’s coming to, when two cops can’t even walk into a convenience store in the middle of the day to get a couple of hot dogs and two cans of soda without some kind of a gun battle erupting,” he complained loudly.

Officer Lukkas had raised his voice to compete with the blare of the siren that was piercing the usual ongoing din of the city. The siren was theirs and it was blaring for a very good reason. They needed to get to their destination. Fast.

Needed to, but so far it didn’t look as if that was going to become a reality. Didn’t people respond to sirens and flashing lights anymore? he silently demanded, cursing a blue streak in his head. Up to this point he’d managed to keep the words from erupting on his lips.

“Maybe it had something to do with you saying ‘NYPD, drop your weapons,’” Zane suggested, his voice somewhat labored.

The careless shrug only involved one shoulder. “Yeah, maybe.” He spared Zane a look, worried despite himself. “What else was I supposed to do?”

“Nothing else,” Zane did his best to assure the man, though it got harder for him to focus. The pain was worsening. “You did the right thing.”

C’mon, c’mon. Move! In addition to the siren, he blared his horn. Traffic slowed down even more. “You’re only saying that so I don’t feel guilty.”

“I’m saying it,” Zane replied in his dead, no-nonsense voice, “because it’s true. You want to feel guilty about it, hell, that’s up to you. Me, I’d say feeling guilty is a waste of time—and stupid—in this case anyway.”

Ryan gave Zane another look and swallowed a curse, allowing the words “Oh damn” to break through. “How do you feel?” he pressed anxiously.

Zane’s answer came out in a weakened growl. “Like I’ve been shot.”

“Maybe I can drive on the sidewalk,” he suggested as he looked at the area on either side of the street.

Today was particularly humid and miserable. Why couldn’t these people stay at their jobs or in their homes? It seemed as if every one of the eight million New York City inhabitants were out today, mostly milling around in the vicinity of the vehicle.

Lukkas blew out an impatient breath and slanted yet another look at Zane’s arm. Of course, Zane knew it didn’t look good. The towel that had been wrapped around it was heavy with blood.

“I want to be able to get to the hospital before you bleed to death,” Ryan declared nervously.

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re pretty lousy in the stay-calm department?” Zane asked him. “And I don’t need to go to the hospital,” he insisted, not for the first time. “Just stop at the closest pharmacy and get some bandages and gauze and peroxide.” He looked down at his injured arm. “I can take care of this myself.”

“Sorry, tough guy, you’re outvoted. We both know that you’d be better off seeing a doctor.”

“How the hell can I be outvoted?” Zane demanded sharply. “There’s just the two of us.”

“I’ve got two good arms to your one. That gives me two votes. Now shut up and save your strength.”

“If I save my strength for anything,” Zane warned him, “it’ll be to strangle you.”

“Fine,” Ryan bit off, snaking the car around an ice cream truck that had its annoying theme song on. “First we get you patched up, then we’ll discuss you strangling me. Fair enough?”

Zane inclined his head in agreement. There wasn’t exactly much he could do, since Ryan was the one behind the wheel. Zane usually let his partner drive because traffic snarls and logjam conditions didn’t seem to faze Ryan the way they did him.

“Fair enough,” Zane echoed, repeating the phrase grudgingly.

Ryan definitely looked concerned, Zane thought. The man kept glancing at him as if his partner expected him to go up in smoke at any second. There was fear in Lukkas’s eyes.

“I’m okay, Ryan,” he assured the other officer. “I’d be more okay without a bullet in my arm, but I’m okay,” he repeated. “Really,” he underscored when his partner of a little more than a year made no answer. “There’s no need to drive on the sidewalk. Look.” He nodded toward the front windshield. “The cars are beginning to clear a path for us.”

“About time,” Ryan declared, mumbling under his breath. “We’re the police—they should be clearing a path for us.”

“The ‘protect and serve’ is in our part of the deal, not theirs,” Zane reminded him. “They don’t even have to be accommodating if they don’t want to be—unless we arrest them.”

Ordinarily, his partner wasn’t this forgiving of the public. “You just want to argue,” Ryan accused, flooring the vehicle, going all of fifteen yards before he had to slow down again.

Zane slowly let out a labored breath. Was it his imagination, or was it getting harder to breathe?

“No, I just want to stop bleeding. You could have stayed on the scene and brought the gunman in,” Zane reminded him. There was no need for the man to do an imitation of a mother hen. “McKenzie could have taken me to the hospital. Hell, I could have taken me to the hospital.”

“Number one, it was your shot that stopped the thief, so technically you should have been the one to take him in, not me. Two, McKenzie can’t find his way out of a paper bag. It’d take him four hours to get to the ‘nearest’ hospital.” He glanced toward his partner. “And you would have probably bullied him out of taking you there altogether. Aha, aha.” One hand off the wheel, he pointed at Zane’s face. “You’re smiling.”

“I’m grimacing, Lukkas,” Zane corrected him. “You just drove over another damn pothole.” This one had felt as if it was big enough to swallow the whole squad car—with room to spare. The jarring motion accentuated the pain in his arm.

“Sorry. Not my fault the city’s falling apart faster than the mayor can come up with the money to fix it.” The siren was on and the lights were flashing. Craning his neck, Ryan stuck his head out the window and shouted, “Get out of the way, damn it! Can’t you hear the damn siren?” he shouted.

His words were all but swallowed up by the noise of the crowds as they made their way through the throngs of humanity that occupied the streets at any given moment of the day.

Zane stared straight ahead, trying to distract himself from the fire in his arm. The streets of the city were always crowded, but it seemed as if they were even more so at this particular time of the day. It was lunchtime.

He looked down at his arm, staring approximately where the bullet had gone in. He would have felt better if there was also an exit wound, but there wasn’t. The bullet was still inside his arm, and despite the hastily secured “bandage” created out of the convenience store clerk’s towel inventory, the wound was oozing blood. A lot of it.

And he was getting progressively more light-headed. Despite his efforts to concentrate, Zane could feel his grasp on his surroundings slipping away from him.

He didn’t like not being in control, and he wasn’t, not here.

Initially, Ryan had wanted to call for an ambulance, but waiting for one would have taken even longer, so he’d opted to allow his partner to drive him to the nearest hospital. In this case that was Patience Memorial.

He hoped that the name wasn’t an indication of what he was going to need to have while he sat around, waiting to be seen.

“Hallelujah, we’re here!” Ryan declared in much the same way that the Israelites must have sounded when, after forty years of aimless wandering, they finally reached the Promised Land.

Directly before the hospital’s main entrance, a security guard directed traffic. Barely out of his teens, the guard stopped making exaggerated hand gestures as Ryan all but stopped right on top of him.

The security guard did his best to sound official. “Emergency vehicle parking is to your left, Officer.” The cheerful grin that punctuated his statement spoiled the effect.

“I’ve got a wounded officer here,” Ryan announced gruffly, pulling the car into the first available space. “I’m bringing him in and then I’ll be out to re-park.”

Jumping out of the black and white, Ryan hurried around to the other side just as Zane opened his door. Zane felt as if the effort to do that simple thing had temporarily drained him. He struggled not to let his fatigue show. “I don’t need you to hover around me, Lukkas.”

“But you might need me to lean on,” the shorter officer pointed out as Zane rose unsteadily to his feet, one hand braced against the hood of the vehicle.