Read Online Nothing Sacred (FBI Agent Dan Hammer Series Book 1) by Douglas Wickard - Free Book Online

If you need anything, you call. I’m here.”
     
    “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I’m just a little shook up.”
     
    “Did I tell you that I had to wait an hour for that bus tonight… an hour! Then, the bus was full…”
     
    There she goes.
     
    “I had to stand. And you know, George, how nasty people can be sometimes. I try turning the other cheek, but they just sit there and stare, as uncomfortable as I am standing on that bus. With my bad leg and all…”
     
    “I gotta go, sweetheart. I’ll see you later. ‘Bye.”
     
    This time, George hung up. Whew! The questioning at the precinct would be a breeze compared to that.
     
    George hurried back into the Emergency Room and took a seat. He looked around the reception area for the detective. What was his name? Detective… Hammond? No. Hammer. That’s it. Like Mike Hammer from the Mickey Spillane novels. He read a few of them when he was younger.
     
    George picked up an outdated People Magazine from the table. A couple of cops stood outside smoking cigarettes. George was glad he was inside. He hated the smell of smoke. C’mon Hammer, let’s get this show on the road.

June 15 , 2007
    1:48 AM
    MUSC
     
    7
                 
    Curiosity always got the best of her. Thank God, she wasn’t a cat. She’d have been dead years ago! No, really, Janice had a relentless, aggressive nature, which tended to get her into trouble. A lot. It was a compulsion. Be first, be the best, get the scoop. Before anybody else. To rule. Some people jogged, Janice ran. Why waste time? She wasn’t the type to sit around and wait. She had to get there. As fast as she could. Before there was nothing left to get. Good thing she had an excuse.
                 
    She was an only child.
                 
    The Medical University was about twenty minutes from her apartment, unless she was in a hurry. Which she was, so it took about half the time. She should have brought Jake. He loved exercise. The more the better. She was positive the hospital staff wouldn’t appreciate a ninety pound dog running around their Emergency Room. Even if the dog was as adorable as Jake.
                 
    MUSC was enormous. A sprawling brick complex positioned smack-dab in the heart of downtown Charleston. Janice was out of breath as she ran by the front entrance of Roper Hospital (private, well-to-do), past the side entrance and around to the back, where the ER was located. Evans’s voice greeted her as she rounded the corner.
                 
    “You remembered to wear clothes for a change?” Evans snapped his fingers, loudly. “Damn the bad luck.”
                 
    Evans was a police officer friend of Donny. They palled around together, went out for pizza, bowled on the same league, played in the police softball team. Janice tagged along with “the guys” from time to time. Men . She ran up the cement steps two at a time. She neglected holding onto the steel banister. “That call was from you, wasn’t it?” She whispered into his ear. “I might have guessed.”
                 
    Evans looked around, then nodded. “Yours truly.”
                 
    Evans had been diligently trying to make a move on Janice since the first day she arrived in Charleston. Call it Southern hormones. Or plain old stubbornness. Janice didn’t have the heart to tell him he was barking up the wrong tree. She guessed Janine and Donny didn’t either, because Evans just kept right on coming, exerting a whole lot of exhausting effort in her direction. Eveready , she called him. She hoped he might run into Lisette and her out one night. It would certainly make things a hell of a lot easier. Besides, she hated the job of crushing another male’s ego. Southern gentlemen were so, so sensitive. “Everybody’s Ashley.” Then again, if it helped get her a story, hells bells, Janice could flirt and play and cajole with the best of them. And did.