Gardiner, Meg - Jo Beckett 01 - The Dirty Secrets Club by Gardiner Meg

Author:Gardiner, Meg [Gardiner, Meg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2009-06-02T04:00:00+00:00

She stared at him, taken aback. His face was unreadable. "Usually I put them through the CIA psy ops interrogation regimen. I thought today I'd mix it up."

He put up his hands. "I didn't mean—"

"Maybe tomorrow I'll give him a multiple-choice quiz. 'Where did you get this information? A—Yellow Pages. B—Billboard. C—The voices inside your head.'"

"I wasn't complaining about your methods."

"You thought I should go easy on him?"

"I thought you were spectacular."

Her face heated. The light turned green.

Gabe smiled. "Jo Beckett, Samurai Shrink."

She revved the truck across the intersection, feeling touched and somehow embarrassed. "Fonsecca was nothing. You should see what I can do to a four-pound monkey."

Gabe watched the street rumble by. Outside a Mediterranean trattoria, a man in rags sat against the wall, holding a cardboard sign. Will take verbal abuse for small change.

His smile faded. "That remark you overheard at HQ after the air-ambulance crash. You have it all wrong."

"Gabe, I know what I heard." Clear as glass, never gonna fade.

She pulled up in front of St. Francis. She turned off the engine and handed Gabe the keys.

"Take the truck. I'll be here awhile. You go teach your class."

She climbed out. He caught her heading toward the hospital's automatic doors.

"Wait." He put a hand on her arm. He seemed off-kilter, his face strained.

"Don't try to sugarcoat things," she said quietly. "What happened to Daniel happened. I have to carry it."

"No."

"You saying I heard the guy wrong?"

"You heard him right."

A dark blade of pain cut through her. She looked away from his eyes, focused instead on his chest.

His hand went to her shoulder. "The guy's an asshole. Just to begin with."

"Gabe—"

"Listen to me. Maybe even a paramedic would have caught the cardiac tamponade. But, Jo." His hand tightened on her shoulder. "You weren't even a paramedic."

The blade seemed to cut back again, bright this time. She looked up.

"Paramedics are trained to handle trauma life support in the field. They arrive with a full complement of drugs and equipment, and radio communications with base. Their job is emergency care on the scene." He held on to her shoulder. "You were a forensic psych resident moonlighting on an angel flight."

He lowered his voice. "You were Daniel's wife. You'd just survived a near-crash yourself. You weren't a paramedic."

Light seemed to cascade over her, a jolt like being caught in an electric current. Tears spun up behind her eyes. She put a hand against his heart.

His chest rose and fell beneath her hand. His brown eyes were unfathomably full of pain.

"I was the paramedic," he said.

She seemed to see the invisible blade swing around one hundred eighty degrees and ring out a blow. Oh, God.

"Gabe, no, don't even start to think that you're responsible—"

"Please don't." He put his fingers to her lips. "Not now." He put the keys back in her hand. "I'll make my own way home."

Perry shrugged into the jacket of the suit, straightened his collar, and neatened the knot in his tie. The tie was blue, cheap polyester, but it covered the gnarled scar tissue that ringed his neck.

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