“City had a doctor’s appointment in the medical building across the parking lot, so I was already on campus,” Liam said with a nonchalant shrug as if to preemptively minimize what was about to be an explosive situation.
“You sent him ahead, you mean? You’re not telling me everything, Declan.” Dace turned to Liam. “And neither are you.”
Declan side-eyed Dace, letting him know his attitude was less than desirable. “Does it really matter?”
“Well, since his name isn’t Dace and…” Dace ran his hand through his hair, his mood darkening moment by moment. “Look, I got this. Why don’t you guys go home to your wives and kids? I’ll take this one since I’m clearly already involved somehow. I get it. You know something, and since you won’t come out with it, I’ll go see for myself.”
Dace pushed past his brothers.
“Whoa.” C.T. stood in his path and grabbed Dace by the arm, intercepting him as he breached the doors between the waiting room and patient rooms. “Where you goin’, buddy?”
“She’s back here, right?” He pointed at the row of curtained and glass-doored rooms along the perimeter of the emergency department. “The Jane Doe? If my name is on a near-dead woman, I’m hearing the message loud and clear. So let me go...” Dace tried to push past C.T.’s grip to no avail.
“Man, I’m not letting you back here. Not yet. You need to cool down. Smells like you’ve been drinking, so how about some coffee first?” C.T. offered in a low timbre as not to alert the staff to Dace’s semi-inebriated state.
“I’m fine, perfectly sober, man,” Dace fired back through gritted teeth, arms stretched wide as if he was daring C.T.’s next move. “Who put you in charge, Charlie Tango?”
“The city of Portland, asshole. This is my investigation. I’m trying to be understanding, but starting off as a jackass helps nobody.”
With the brothers flanking Dace, Liam said, “I don’t think you need to be in here, bro. I was…I was already back here.”
“What the fuck? He was already back here? What are you hiding from me?” There was a sense of knowing in Dace’s question. His nerves fringed, gripped tightly as he waited for the ultimate blow he knew was coming.
His past was tickling the back of his neck, forcing the fine hairs to stand on end. The past that landed Dace in Betsy’s or Rip’s chair more times than he could now count. The past he’d just been defending mere minutes before. The past that had him icing one woman while he pined for the memory of another. What were the odds his past had finally caught up with him?
“Dace, she’s about to go into surgery. They needed an…ID.” Liam tried to soften the blow, but he knew his brother was already reading between the lines.
“And?” Dace asked, shaking his head. “C’mon, man. Who is it?”
C.T. exchanged looks with Liam and nodded, granting him permission to tell Dace what he wanted to know.
Liam dropped his head. “We aren’t hiding anything from you. It’s just…”
“Hmph.” Dace’s shoulders went slack. “You think you’re protecting me, but you don’t need to. I’m a grown-ass man. Just say it. It’s her, isn’t it? It’s Ivy. That’s why you’re acting like this…with the secret shit.”
When the silence got the better of him, Dace charged past the group of men and marched down the closest row of beds, pulling back each curtain.
“Ah, Christ,” Wylie said, “I got him.”
Wylie was the youngest brother but by far the biggest. Being the youngest of six – five broody brothers and a sister who could hold her own in the bunch – it was necessary to be the biggest.
“What the hell is going on in here?” a man said, turning to the nurses’ station. “Get security in here, now.”
Dace looked at the man and snickered. “Like that’s going to stop me.”
“It’s okay, Doc,” C.T. said, now toe to toe with Dace. “I got him. He’s with me.”
“This is a hospital, not a…” The doctor turned up his nose in disgust, offended by the odor Dace was emitting. “Sleazy biker bar. Get the hell out of my ER. As of right now, you’ve already broken about half a dozen privacy and trespass laws.”
“Where is she? Where’s your Jane Doe?” Dace moved face-to-face with the doctor, puffing out his chest and rolling his shoulders back to intimidate the truth out of the guy – privacy laws be damned. “You can either show me where she is, or I’ll find her on my own…I’m trying to be polite here.”
“This is polite?” the doctor chided.
Dace moved in even closer, clearing any space left between them. “You really don’t want to see me pissed, Doc. Good thing you’re already in a hospital.”
The doctor’s eyes widened, and he stumbled back right into the nurses’ station. He looked at the others. “Pull your goon off me. If you think you can intimidate me into a boozy brawl, you’re mistaken. I’ll have you locked up. I-I…know people.”
Dace let out a boisterous laugh and poked the doctor in the chest with every word. “So. Do. I.”
Liam stepped between the two. “Dace. It’s her, okay? You can’t tell by looking at her because she’s messed up real bad, but it’s her. Please…you don’t want to see her like this. Let them do their job. She isn’t going anywhere.”
“How. How do you know it’s her?” Dace’s voice was reduced to a near whisper as he jutted out his quivering jaw in an effort to suppress his emotions.
Liam looked down, mustering up the courage to say what was going to feel like a knife to the heart. “The tattoo. She has the tattoo.”
Dace slumped and let out a breathy moan he didn’t realize he’d been holding. The tattoo was small. It was a thorny vine that wrapped the base of her left ring finger and attached to a heart that rested on top. He had the same thorny vine. It was their promise to one another. A promise of a forever that never happened. That was the last thing they did together before he left on his last mission – and she disappeared.
That tattoo was the reason he knew there was more to the story, and that she didn’t just get sick of waiting and leave. That tattoo – a symbol of their past and future – was the reason he never stopped searching for her. And now, it’s how he finally found her.
Feeling an ounce of compassion at the sight of Dace’s pain-filled expression, the doctor said, “Corner room. Number fifteen.”
Dace marched the final paces to the place where his life was about to change forever. Whether forever good or forever bad had yet to be determined. The room she was in wasn’t like the others. It was much larger, had a sliding glass door rather than a privacy curtain, and contained more medical equipment than the others.
He scanned the row beyond and realized all the rooms on this side were like hers. This wasn’t where they kept the patients with a sprained ankle or a nasty cough. The critical patients – the ones they staged for emergency surgery and intensive care – were kept here. These were the worst of the worst, and when he looked at her, he could see why.