Read Online Gather the Sentient by Amalie Jahn - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Amalie Jahn
Ads: Link
anywhere.”
He considered the ammunition he had at his disposal in the form of the legal system. He could write up her statement. Send it to the police. Certainly someone in law enforcement could protect her from this thug.
“He can’t drag you back if he’s in jail, Andrea.”
She smiled then. A painful looking grimace of a smile. “And who’s gonna put him in jail. You? Me?” She put a hand to her face, testing to see if the laceration beside her eye was still there. She winced. “Besides, I don’t want him to go to jail. I want him to go back to being the guy I fell in love with a year ago. I just know that guy is still in there, if I could just stop pissing him off.”
Before he had a chance to respond, Dr. Unger appeared in the doorway. Jose could smell the disinfectant on the doctor’s hands as he wrestled on a pair of latex gloves.
“Miss Morillo, I’m so sorry to see you back again,” he said, glancing at Jose as if to get a read on the conversation he’d just interrupted. “Another accident? In the kitchen this time?”
Feeling frustrated and inflamed, Jose excused himself from the room, mumbling weak wishes for Andrea’s recovery as he backed through the door. Given what he knew of her, he was certain she wouldn’t confide in the doctor as she’d done with him, and that she would perpetuate the thinly-veiled narrative to explain the origin of her injury. This made him angry. Angry that she didn’t value her life enough to see herself out of an abusive situation. Just the same, he hoped Unger could mend her eye and save her sight because without a plausible means of access to her in the coming days, he knew it would be impossible to cure her himself.
Impossible, unless of course the next injury she sustained at her boyfriend’s hand landed her in the ICU.
CHAPTER
10
MIA
Thursday, September 1
Baltimore
“You wanna grab something from the Shake Shack for lunch?” Jack asked Mia as he eased their patrol car onto I-83 toward the station.
Instead of responding to her partner, she massaged her temples with the pads of her fingers. She had a splitting headache, and the thought of ingesting a greasy burger made her nauseous. Sleep had evaded her since the night of Dalton’s conviction, and she blamed exhaustion for the way she’d been feeling in the week that followed.
“What’s going on with you? Is it this case?”
Their latest assignment involved tracking down a local scam artist selling fake insurance policies to cancer patients. They’d spent the better part of two weeks interviewing men and women at chemotherapy infusion centers hoping to identify a pattern with regard to the origin of the calls. Without a single lead to go on, they started from square one, requesting personal information about physicians, clinics, and insurance companies. Luckily, most of the patients were happy to help. So far they’d discovered 18 patients who had been contacted by the bogus insurance company. And they felt certain it was no coincidence that the majority of them were being treated by a Dr. Frances Wu.
“It’s hard being around cancer patients all day, isn’t it?” he continued when she didn’t reply for the second time. “Knowing some of them aren’t going to make it. That some of them are going to go through all that treatment and heartache and are still going to die in the end?”
“We’re all going to die in the end,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“You know what I mean, Mia.”
She did know what he meant, but it was the prophecy, not the case, that was upsetting her. She actually enjoyed talking to the patients - listening to their stories while she sat with them during their infusions. The truth was, finding the scam artist preying on the innocent patients gave her something to focus on instead of the prophecy.
Now, as she sat stewing beside her partner, her mind returned
He considered the ammunition he had at his disposal in the form of the legal system. He could write up her statement. Send it to the police. Certainly someone in law enforcement could protect her from this thug.
“He can’t drag you back if he’s in jail, Andrea.”
She smiled then. A painful looking grimace of a smile. “And who’s gonna put him in jail. You? Me?” She put a hand to her face, testing to see if the laceration beside her eye was still there. She winced. “Besides, I don’t want him to go to jail. I want him to go back to being the guy I fell in love with a year ago. I just know that guy is still in there, if I could just stop pissing him off.”
Before he had a chance to respond, Dr. Unger appeared in the doorway. Jose could smell the disinfectant on the doctor’s hands as he wrestled on a pair of latex gloves.
“Miss Morillo, I’m so sorry to see you back again,” he said, glancing at Jose as if to get a read on the conversation he’d just interrupted. “Another accident? In the kitchen this time?”
Feeling frustrated and inflamed, Jose excused himself from the room, mumbling weak wishes for Andrea’s recovery as he backed through the door. Given what he knew of her, he was certain she wouldn’t confide in the doctor as she’d done with him, and that she would perpetuate the thinly-veiled narrative to explain the origin of her injury. This made him angry. Angry that she didn’t value her life enough to see herself out of an abusive situation. Just the same, he hoped Unger could mend her eye and save her sight because without a plausible means of access to her in the coming days, he knew it would be impossible to cure her himself.
Impossible, unless of course the next injury she sustained at her boyfriend’s hand landed her in the ICU.
CHAPTER
10
MIA
Thursday, September 1
Baltimore
“You wanna grab something from the Shake Shack for lunch?” Jack asked Mia as he eased their patrol car onto I-83 toward the station.
Instead of responding to her partner, she massaged her temples with the pads of her fingers. She had a splitting headache, and the thought of ingesting a greasy burger made her nauseous. Sleep had evaded her since the night of Dalton’s conviction, and she blamed exhaustion for the way she’d been feeling in the week that followed.
“What’s going on with you? Is it this case?”
Their latest assignment involved tracking down a local scam artist selling fake insurance policies to cancer patients. They’d spent the better part of two weeks interviewing men and women at chemotherapy infusion centers hoping to identify a pattern with regard to the origin of the calls. Without a single lead to go on, they started from square one, requesting personal information about physicians, clinics, and insurance companies. Luckily, most of the patients were happy to help. So far they’d discovered 18 patients who had been contacted by the bogus insurance company. And they felt certain it was no coincidence that the majority of them were being treated by a Dr. Frances Wu.
“It’s hard being around cancer patients all day, isn’t it?” he continued when she didn’t reply for the second time. “Knowing some of them aren’t going to make it. That some of them are going to go through all that treatment and heartache and are still going to die in the end?”
“We’re all going to die in the end,” she said, matter-of-factly.
“You know what I mean, Mia.”
She did know what he meant, but it was the prophecy, not the case, that was upsetting her. She actually enjoyed talking to the patients - listening to their stories while she sat with them during their infusions. The truth was, finding the scam artist preying on the innocent patients gave her something to focus on instead of the prophecy.
Now, as she sat stewing beside her partner, her mind returned
Similar Books
