Man Shy by Catherine Mulvany

Author:Catherine Mulvany
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-04-02T23:34:08+00:00

EIGHT

Mallory had been relieved to discover Brody’s injuries weren’t as serious as they’d first appeared. He’d come to before the ambulance arrived, more mad than hurt, furious that he’d taken another blow from an unseen assailant. “With head wounds you always bleed like a stuck hog,” he’d told Mallory. “I swear, when I catch up with this joker, I’m gonna stick him in a trash bin and see how the hell he likes it.”

“At least this Dumpster didn’t stink like the other one,” Mallory’d said, her comment earning her a disgusted look.

After giving Officer Armstrong his statement, Brody’d been rushed off to Brunswick General. Mallory had stayed behind to answer a few more questions, then trailed the ambulance to the hospital in Brody’s Jeep.

She entered the emergency room through the automatic doors and approached the woman behind the admitting desk. With iron-gray hair permed to a frazzle and the poker-stiff posture that suggested a military background, she was what Mallory’s father would have described as a starchy old trout. Busy attacking the keyboard of her computer as if she had a grudge against it, she didn’t even glance up at Mallory’s approach.

“Excuse me?” Mallory said.

The receptionist glared at her. “Hang on. I’m almost done.” She bashed away, clickety-click, for another minute or two before looking up again, this time with what was probably meant to be a smile, though Mallory’s first thought was: Grandma, what big teeth you have!

“I’m here to see Brody Hunter. An ambulance brought him in half an hour ago. Head injury.”

“You a relative?”

“No.”

The woman’s face closed up. “Then I’m afraid—”

“I’m a friend,” Mallory said quickly. “Close friend. Fiancée, in fact.” She jammed her left hand into the pocket of her jacket to hide its ringless state.

The woman’s disbelieving stare probably would have intimidated most people. Fortunately, Mallory was used to her mother, and by comparison, this receptionist was a marshmallow.

“Where is he?” She peered over the woman’s shoulder into the emergency room proper, where white- and green-clad figures rushed back and forth like industrious ants.

The receptionist pointed heavenward and Mallory’s heart gave a lurch, even though she was positive Brody’s injuries hadn’t been serious enough to send him to the pearly gates. “Second floor,” the woman said. She checked her clipboard. “X-ray department.”

Mallory heard Brody the instant she stepped off the elevator. No doubt the rest of Brunswick could hear him too.

She found him in a waiting room at the end of a long, empty corridor. The scene was like something from One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Two LPNs held him on one side, two orderlies on the other, while an RN, a statuesque brunette built along the lines of an Amazon, strapped him to the gurney. And the whole time Brody was yelling, his language foul enough to bring a blush to a truck driver’s cheek.

“What is going on here?”

The tableau froze at the sound of her voice. Everyone stared at her, including Brody, his harangue halted in mid-epithet.

He soon found his tongue, however. “Mallory, tell these officious morons they can’t keep me here against my will.

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