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CHAPTERTWO
Alec's stomach clenched as he and Dr. Jillian Davis stared at the individually wrapped percocet tablets lying across the palm of his hand. He'd pulled these out of the sixteen-year-old Evergreen Doe’s pocket, and for all he knew the kid had been selling them on the street to other kids. Younger ones. He'd found the two gunshot victims in Barclay Park after all. The idea of a child, like his five-year-old daughter Shannon, finding drugs of any kind made him feel sick.
“We can't discuss this here,” Jillian said in a low tone. “Give me a minute to check on the status of our patients in the arena and then we can meet in my office.”
Alec gave a tight nod, trying to remain calm. Thoughts of anything happening to Shannon haunted him. He'd only known about his daughter for the past nine months, when Shannon's mother had died and left a letter claiming he was the girl’s father and granting him custody. If he had known about Shannon sooner, he would have been a part of her life long before now. It had burned to know Shannon’s mother had kept her a secret. Still, he was more than grateful he had his daughter now. Shannon had changed him for the better. He was more relaxed now, less intense.
Less lonely.
He and his daughter—the words still gave him a tiny thrill—had grown close over the past nine months. Seeing kids as victims was doubly hard now. He knew his heightened awareness was due to Shannon. He couldn't imagine anything happening to his daughter.
Shannon was safe for today, in his sister Andrea's care. Andrea was the sensible sibling in the family. Not the wild Monroe, like he had once been. He trusted his older sister with his life.
Shannon was his life.
Swallowing hard, he closed his hand over the evidence bag containing the individually wrapped pills and followed Jillian from the trauma room into the next room. He slid the evidence bag into his pocket and stood off to the side. To take his mind off the seriousness of the situation, he concentrated on watching the pretty doctor in action.
Jillian looked at a computer screen with one of the nurses, no doubt to review a specific patient's medical needs. Alec knew more than he wanted to about how emergency departments functioned. His brother Adam was a doctor and his younger sister, Amber was a nurse, and at one point he'd been trained as a medic in the army with thoughts of following a similar career path.
Unfortunately, healing wasn't his area of expertise.
Maybe that wasn't entirely true, he silently amended. He'd helped to heal Shannon's loss of her mother. When she'd first come to live with him she'd cried all the time, the sound of her quiet sobs breaking his heart. Now she hugged him easily and called him “daddy” without hesitation.
A reluctant smile quirked the edge of his lips.
Maybe Shannon had helped heal him, too.
He fingered the pills through the plastic evidence bag in his pocket. Had the fight between the two teenagers been over drugs? Or a girl? Or something else entirely?
He didn't know. Regardless he couldn't do anything to bring the kid back, as much as he wished he could. Shoving thoughts of the dead teenage boy aside, his gaze followed Jillian’s lithe figure as she entered a patient's room.
A few moments later she emerged from the small glass enclosed room and returned to the nurse’s desk. His gaze lingered on her, the cute way her forehead puckered in a slight frown as she peered at the computer no doubt reviewing that patient's chart. Her serious expression made him wish he could make her laugh. Her long pale blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail and he wondered how she would look with her hair down, framing her face.
When he'd been brought to Trinity’s emergency department after one of his suspects had sliced him with a knife, he'd been thankful the pretty doctor had been assigned to take care of him. As she'd tended his wound he'd been hyper aware of her dainty capable hands on his skin. For the first time since Shannon had come to live with him, he'd considered asking a woman out.
Thankfully, it had been a fleeting thought. His life was complicated enough, he didn't need to add another element that might disrupt Shannon's newfound peace.
He straightened from the wall when Jillian walked toward him. Despite his mini-lecture, his body responded when he caught a whiff of her scent. Something flowery, but not overpowering. “Alec? My office is this way.”
She'd remembered his name. Stupid to be flattered, but he was. She led him to a tiny, compact office without so much as an outside window and waved him toward a seat as she settled in behind the modest desk.
Her medical school diplomas were framed and hung in prominent display on the wall behind her head. The reality of her extensive education punched him in the gut. Pretty as she may be, it was obvious Dr. Jillian Davis existed in a world very different from his.
“May I see those percocets again?” Jillian asked. “I need to check the lot number.”
He dug into his pocket and drew out the evidence bag. He tossed it on her desk. “Please don’t remove the pills from the evidence bag. Are you planning to see if you can match the lot number to that of the drugs missing from this hospital?”
“Yes, but I'm not sure hospital administration would approve of me discussing the details of that with you,” Jillian admitted. She turned over the bag and peered closely at the pills inside. She jotted a series of numbers on a pad of paper. “I think it's best if I get you in touch with our risk management department.”
He frowned. He would have preferred to work with Jillian directly. In his experience, once hospital administrators were involved, the lines of communication became convoluted. If not chopped off completely.
He leaned forward, pinning Jillian with a sharp gaze. “Dr. Davis, I don't really have time to mess around with your hospital administration. First of all, it's past seven on a Friday night and I am sure most of the administrative staff has already gone home. If you make me wait until Monday, the trail will be cold. A sixteen-year-old kid died after exchanging gunfire with another, who is right now undergoing surgery. We need to know if these drugs cost this boy his life. Or, even worse, if other innocent kids are in danger.”
She worried her lower lip between her teeth and a wave of awareness washed over him. He needed to stop thinking of the pretty doctor as an attractive woman. He had more important issues to deal with than his sudden awareness of a member of the opposite sex.
Not just any member of the opposite sex. Jillian was a doctor, with years of education and training behind her. He'd admired the way she'd managed the situation in the trauma room, taking charge, confronting the apathy of the surgeon on call.
It reminded him of the moment when the forceps had dropped from her dainty fingers. Jillian hadn't seemed like the clumsy type. He wasn't a doctor, but from where he stood it had looked as if she'd suddenly lost feeling in her fingers.
