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“I put in the call to the sheriff’s office. His deputy kept giving me a bunch of silly reasons why he was not available, so I tracked him down with his debit card.”
“And?” Fox prompted. He couldn’t look sane standing there in the middle of the hall appearing to have a full conversation with himself. “I’m gonna need the Reader’s Digest version here, Free.”
“His card was used at the Super 8 off of Route 16 at twenty minutes past twenty-one.”
“What the hell is he doing there?”
“Well.” Free sighed. “I am pretty sure he’s not meeting with his poker club.”
“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ shittin’ me. Send me what you have on him too.”
“Copy.”
The hospital was small compared to Emory or Grady in the city, but it was clean, and the staff seemed friendly, though he and Bull looked anything but. The few patient rooms that lined the two halls had a nurses’ station or central hub in the middle. There wasn’t a lot of medical staff scurrying around, maybe because of the hour, but there were a couple of women in light pink scrubs standing at the counter talking. A young lady, possibly in her late teens, early twenties, was stacking blankets in a warmer until her eyes landed on Bull. She immediately dropped what she was doing and came to join the other ladies.
But Fox wasn’t interested in talking to any of them. He made a beeline for room four when one of the nurses called out—he wasn’t sure which one—that he couldn’t go in there unless he was family. Fox ignored her as he shoved the curtain to the side, Bull so close on his six he could feel his body heat.
“Robert R. Abbott,” Fox barked and shoved the curtain closed behind him.
An older doctor in a white lab coat and high-water chinos jerked his head up in surprise at Fox’s sharp tone. He snapped his gloves off and pushed his tray of medical supplies to the side. “Can I help you?”
The young man in the bed was twenty-two years old, but there wasn’t even a hint of peach fuzz on his face, and he had big brown doe eyes that were already starting to water as he stared at Bull. He knew exactly who he was and why he was there. Which meant he also knew he’d been caught.
The doctor gave them what he probably thought was a no-nonsense tone. “Unless you’re a relative, neither of you can be in here.”
“I just have a couple of questions for your patient… I’ll be in and out,” Fox replied as he sat on the doctor’s stool and rolled it right up to Robert’s bedside.
“If you’re not family, I’m going to have to insist you leave. He’s in a considerable amount of pain. I need to administer his—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Fox made a meh gesture as if he didn’t give a damn. He didn’t. “Beanbags hurt like a motherfucker, don’t they?” He smirked at Robert. “I lost a bet once. Had to take two to the chest. Thought I was gonna suffocate for sure.” Fox draped his arms over the bed rail, glaring hard at the kid’s pain-laced face. “Maybe next time, I’ll use rubber buckshots.”
Abbott groaned when his shoulder hit the metal rail on the other side of the bed as he tried to get away. He was ghostly white when he turned to his doctor, holding one hand out as if he needed a savior. “He shot me… this man shot me! Call the sheriff, Dr. Bain.”
“I thought you said your arm was dislocated when you fell off the forklift at work.” The doctor glanced over his notes, then back at his patient.
Fox leaned over and yanked the ice pack off Robert’s shoulder, causing him to flinch violently before he hollered in agony. The doctor rushed to the bed with a horrified expression as he returned Robert to his back, then adjusted his arm in the sling.
“What the hell are you doing? Security!”
“Look at his shoulder.” Fox pointed at the multiple round bruises littering Robert’s upper blade. “Does this injury look consistent with a fall to you? Where the hell did you get your medical degree, Dr. Bain… online?”
Fox scowled up at the fuming doctor. His thick gray brows were pointed down into an angry ’V’, and his throat and jowls were turning a disturbing shade of red. It took a lot for Fox not to laugh and keep his menacing fuck-you face on, but he managed. However, Bull was shooting daggers at Robert beneath the dark brim of his black Stetson. He had his big fists clenched at his sides and his feet shoulder-width apart, as if he could lunge across the room at any second, now that he was face-to-face with who’d been vandalizing his property.
Fox had to turn away because Bull didn’t look intimidating at all in that heavy black Carhartt coat. He looked sexy as fuck. Or maybe he was just feeling some type of way because of what they’d been doing right before this jackass had interrupted. Which made Fox’s ire return with a vengeance.
