Primary Suspect. Laura Scott
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was used to dealing with the Callahans; in fact, Matt had recently paid for extensive repairs several months ago, which had given them extra brownie points. The damage hadn’t been entirely his brother’s fault, but they’d pooled their money to pay for it anyway. So when he presented himself at the front desk, the woman behind the counter didn’t give him any trouble, obviously recognizing his name. She took his offered cash and slid two plastic key cards across the counter.
“Thanks.” Mitch walked back outside and found Dana standing near her compact car, her arms crisscrossed over her chest. “Here, you’re in room three. I’ll be next door in room four.”
She took the card, slipped it into the pocket of her scrub jacket and got back in behind the wheel. He reached in to take the tissues and sanitizer, then walked over to the motel door, leaving her to park the car.
He unlocked his side of the connecting door and then sat down in a chair at the small table to wait. A few minutes later, Dana unlocked her side and stepped through the opening, carrying an ice bucket full of warm water and towels tucked under her arm.
“I need to cut part of your T-shirt collar out of the way,” she said, pulling a pair of bandage scissors out of her pocket. He wondered what else she had in there and counted his blessings that she was a nurse capable of providing care.
“Have at it,” he said.
She didn’t hesitate, and he found himself mesmerized by the intensity of her green gaze as she worked on him. After cutting away the bloodstained fabric of his shirt around his neckline, she began cleaning the wound. Then she tsk-tsked under her breath.
“Three stitches need to be replaced,” she said, taking a step back. “Leaving it open will only increase the risk of infection.”
He didn’t like it, but nodded. “Okay. Can you do it?”
“Me?” Her eyes widened comically. “Are you crazy? I need a sterile needle, suture, instruments...” Her voice trailed off. “No.”
“Come on, you can improvise. I saw a small sewing kit in your glove compartment,” he said. “There’s a book of matches in the lobby, too.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “You really won’t go back to the hospital?”
“No, I can’t. It’s too dangerous.”
She sighed again and tipped her head back to stare at the ceiling, as if she might find answers written there. “You understand the risk of infection? And how much this will hurt? I’ll need to clean the area with the sanitizer, which will burn like mad.”
“Better pain than infection and death.”
Her lips thinned; she was clearly not happy with his suggestion, but then she abruptly turned and went back outside to find the sewing kit and matches.
Another hurdle cleared. But he had no idea how many other barriers he’d have to navigate before getting to the truth of who’d killed Janice and why.
And even more important, who hated him enough to frame him for her murder?
* * *
Dana tried not to think too much about what she was about to do as she gathered everything she needed to replace the three sutures in Mitch’s incision. How had this happened? How was it that she had ended up here, providing care to Mitch Callahan while he hid from the law? This kind of thing didn’t happen to her. Her life was boring—well, other than the variety of patient scenarios she encountered at work.
Oddly enough, her earlier exhaustion had vanished, leaving an unusual sense of exhilaration in its wake. She told herself it was because she was just as crazy as Mitch for agreeing to his harebrained scheme, but deep down, she knew that wasn’t really the source.
The sad truth was that she’d been living by rote. Work, eat, sleep and work. Volunteer at the local food pantry, then go back to repeat the process all over again.
Giving herself a mental shake, she focused on the task at hand. First she used a match to sterilize the needle, then threaded it with black thread. She washed her hands with the antimicrobial solution.
“This is going to burn,” she reminded him, before pouring a dollop of hand sanitizer on his neck. Using the tips of her fingers, she cleaned the area around the incision. To Mitch’s credit, he held himself perfectly still and didn’t utter a sound.
“Okay.” She took a deep breath and picked up the needle and thread. She’d learned how to suture in nursing school, during a rotation in the operating room, but that was different. The patients were under general anesthesia and couldn’t feel the needle poking through their skin. And nurses didn’t place stitches in the ER, doctors did.
She braced her hip against Mitch’s chair, taking another couple of deep breaths. For some odd reason she was far too aware of the scent of his skin, something pine beneath the faint smell of smoke.
“Are you okay?” Mitch asked.
He was the patient, asking her if she was okay. Pathetic. Enough of being a wimp about this.
“Fine. It’s going to hurt,” she said, pressing the tip of the needle against his skin.
He sucked in a breath but didn’t move or make any other sound of distress. Sweat beaded at her temples and the room felt impossibly warm. She passed the needle through the other side, then used the thread to pull the edges of his skin together. She tied the knot, cut the thread with the bandage scissors and released her pent-up breath. “One down, two more to go.”
“You’re doing great,” he encouraged, as if this whole thing was harder on her than it was on him.
“So are you,” she murmured. She subtly wiped her temple on the sleeve of her scrub jacket, wishing there was a way to do this without hurting him. There wasn’t, so she resolutely picked up the needle again and went back to work. This time, she tried to keep going steadily along, figuring that the sooner she repaired the wound, the sooner she could stop hurting him and the sooner he’d feel better.
“There! All finished,” she said, clipping the thread to the last suture. “Just let me clean it up one more time, okay?”
“You’re the boss.”
That brought forth a rusty chuckle. “Not hardly. No one has ever called me that before.”
When she finished cleaning the area around the incision, she stepped back and surveyed her handiwork. It wouldn’t win any prizes for being pretty; her sutures were big and clumsy next to the neat ones that Dr. Crowley had placed.
But they’d hold, which was all that mattered. Now, if only she had some oral antibiotics to give him...
“Thank you,” Mitch said in a low, husky voice. “I appreciate your expertise.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, surprised at the lump that had risen in the back of her throat. Why was she getting all emotional about this? She looked into Mitch’s blue eyes and tension shimmered between them, making her hyperaware of him.
What was wrong with her? She broke away from his mesmerizing gaze and reached out to begin cleaning up the mess. But Mitch reached out and captured her hands in his.
“I mean it, Dana,” he said. “I feel terrible about how you’ve been dragged into this. I wish there was something I could do to make it up to you.”
She stared at their joined hands. His grasp was warm, his skin tanned by the summer sun a striking contrast to her pale fingers.
“I—I have to go.” She pulled her hands from his and turned so quickly she almost plowed face-first into the television perched on the top of a low dresser. “Good night,” she managed, as she rushed through the doorway of their connecting rooms, closing her side and locking it behind her.
Safe at last, she leaned back against the door and put a hand over her racing heart. She felt breathless and dizzy, as if she’d run a marathon rather than briefly holding