Read Online Nerves of Steel by C.J. Lyons - Free Book Online Page B

scarlet color her cheeks.
    "Your timing always so good?" she asked. 
    "It's what they pay me for."  He wished it had been better.  Wished he'd heard the entire conversation, could be certain it had nothing to do with stolen drugs.  "Did that have anything to do with my case?" 
    She shook her head, still looking down, hiding her features behind a veil of dark curls. 
    So different from the woman he'd seen fighting desperately for her patient.  He curbed the urge to reach out to her, to stroke her hair, pull it back so he could see her face.  "So, who was that creep?"
    Hart slid the ice pack from his hand as she stepped away from him.  Her posture was stiff, brittle.  The fading bruises on her arms were a yellow-ochre color made garish by the bright lights.  "That creep was my ex-husband, Dr. Richard King."
    "Domestic dispute."   Drake pretended he'd never heard of King or his recent problems with drugs.  He opened and closed his fist, keeping his face impassive.  "You want to press charges?"
    "No, it won't happen again.  He caught me by surprise, is all."
    "I see.  Just like I did earlier?"  Her dark eyes flared at his sarcastic tone, but then her gaze sidled away from his to stare resolutely at the Ethicon poster on the wall.  He opened the door.  He could take a hint.  Hart was none of his business.  Other than proving if she had anything to do with the FX thefts.  "Guess I'll get back to work." 
    And why not?  She'd given him a cup of coffee.  He'd given her an ice pack.  Because of her, he'd done his first real art in months.  Because of him, she'd been saved from an unpleasant encounter with her ex.  It all evened out, just the way Drake liked it.  So, why couldn't he force his feet past the threshold? 
    He turned back to her.  The case could wait another minute or two.  "Why was he calling you Ella?"
    Her head jerked up at that.  "What's the R in your name stand for?" she flung back at him.
    "Rembrandt."
    She scowled in surprise, then laughed, a rich, bubbly sound that echoed through the tile-walled room and was choked off too soon.  Drake wasn't certain if she was more surprised by his answer or that he'd answered at all.    He leaned against the open door.  "My mom wanted an artist in the family."
    "So you became a cop to spite her?"
    "No, just following in my father's footsteps.  And," he returned to her side, let the door swing shut, "I'm good at it."
    "Modest too.  Rembrandt Michael Drake." 
    "Mickey to my friends," he added and immediately chided himself for it.  This woman couldn't be a friend, could not be anything but another suspect until this case was over.
    "Think I'll just stick with Drake."   
    "What are you going to do about King?" 
    "Nothing."  Her grip threatened to strangle the ice pack.  It bulged, ready to explode from the pressure.  She stalked to the door.  "Just forget about it."
    "Anything you say. Ella," he delivered the last with a grin, wondering how she'd gotten the nickname. 
    She whipped the ice pack at him.  He snatched it from the air with ease. 
    "Don't call me that."
    Drake tracked Richard King down in one of the cast rooms.  He was surprised to see the surgeon treat his patient, an elderly woman, with kindness.  King could be charming when he wanted, Drake noted as the woman laughed at the surgeon's jokes.  He watched King closely.  The way he moved, the way his eyes shifted, the catch as he turned and regained his balance.
    The man was on something.  It was just a hunch.  Drake had no reasonable--or even unreasonable, as Miller would tell him--grounds for suspicion. 
    King patted his patient's hand and looked up.  His confident grin didn't falter when he saw Drake staring at him.  "Mrs. Kertesz will be needing a bed pan," he told Drake, brushing past him.
    "I'll send someone right in," Drake assured the woman.  He followed King out to the empty corridor.
    "Didn't catch your name earlier," King said, his speech slow,