Tania watched her continue to struggle for exactly five seconds, muttered a sharp oath and then grabbed the unconscious stranger by the other arm. Marja looked at her in surprise.
“You are the most stubborn woman on the face of the earth,” Tania declared angrily. Between the two of them, they hoisted the all but dead weight up to his feet.
“Blame Mama. I got it from her,” Marja gasped, struggling beneath the unconscious man’s weight and doing her best not to pitch forward or to fall backward as they slowly made their way to the elevator.
Tania held on to the man’s wrist, his arm slung across her shoulders as she took unsteady steps toward the elevator. “You know this is crazy, don’t you?”
Marja kept her eyes on the prize, silently counting off steps until they finally reached the steel doors. “We’re doctors,” she pointed out haltingly.
Leaning her forehead against the wall to help brace herself, Marja pressed for the elevator. When the doors opened almost immediately, she had to keep from falling forward. Breathing a huge sigh of relief—they were halfway there—she punched the button for their floor.
“We’re supposed to heal people,” she concluded, drawing in a lungful of air as she braced herself for the second half of the journey—getting the man to their apartment once they reached the fifth floor.
Tania craned her neck around the man they held up between them. “That doesn’t mean going out and trolling the streets for patients.”
“I wasn’t trolling. I told you, I hit him with the car.”
“How—?”
She’d braced herself for that same question. “One second he wasn’t there,” Marja answered. “Then he was. And I hit him.”
“But you didn’t shoot him,” Tania insisted. The elevator came to a stop and Tania shifted, getting what she hoped was a better hold on the man. “Why didn’t you just take him to P.M. or call the paramedics?”
Holding tightly on to his other hand, lodging her shoulders beneath his arm, Marja began to walk. “Because he wouldn’t let me.” Why hadn’t she ever noticed before how far away their apartment was from the elevator?
Tania glanced at the unconscious face. “Doesn’t seem to be putting up much resistance at the moment. The man could be a criminal, you realize that, right?”
Almost there, Marja thought. Almost there. “He’s… not.”
Tania all but threw herself against the door, then waited as Marja fished out her key. “And you know this how?” she gasped.
Marja didn’t answer until she’d managed to unlock the door and resumed her forced march, this time through the doorway. “He doesn’t have criminal eyes.”
“Right. You’re crazy, you know that?”
Marja was getting a second wind. From where, she had no idea. “Whatever you say, Tania. Let’s get him… to the sofa,” she instructed.
Together, they deposited the man on the sofa. It was hard not to drop him, but they managed. Because of her position, Marja went down with him, then immediately scrambled to her feet.
“I can take it from here,” she told Tania, dragging in gulps of air. “You just get to the hospital.”
Tania took a step back. She glanced down at her clothes, checking herself over to see if any of the blood had gotten on her. Miraculously, it hadn’t.
Losing no time, Marja made her way to the kitchen for some clean towels and a basin of water. “I said you can go,” she called. “You don’t want to be late,” she added.
Tania glanced at her watch. “I’m already late,” she answered, seeming hesitant to leave. Tania shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Look, I really do have to go. I told them I’d fill in for Michaelson,” she said. “But let me call Jesse.” She began to take out her cell phone. “He can be here in ten minutes and he’ll stay with you until you finish being the Good Samaritan.”
“No,” Marja protested from the kitchen. In less than a second she was back in the room. Water sloshed out of the basin as she came. “No, let Jesse sleep,” she insisted, putting the basin down on the coffee table.
The cell phone remained in Tania’s hand. She wasn’t going to give up that easily. “All right, I’ll call Byron, then.”
That was equally unacceptable. She wasn’t about to put anyone out on her account. Besides, she could take care of herself. The fact that she was petite and young had nothing to do with her ability to defend herself if need be. “No.”
“Mike. Tony.” Tania offered up the names of their other two brothers-in-law, both of whom were detectives associated with the N.Y.P.D. Marja firmly shook her head at the mention of each. Tania frowned. “All right. Dad, then.”
Marja’s eyes grew huge. “No! Especially not Dad. You call Dad about this and you’re a dead woman.” There wasn’t a trace of humor in Marja’s voice.
“Better me than you.”
“I’ll be fine,” Marja insisted, depositing the towels beside the basin. Placing both of her hands to her sister’s back, she steered and then pushed Tania toward the front door. “Really.”
Tania looked far from convinced.
But defeated, she surrendered. Temporarily. “I’m going to call you every fifteen minutes,” Tania declared, stepping out into the hallway. “And you’d better answer.”
Marja nodded, already retreating into the living room. “I promise.” And then she stopped for a second. “And, Tania—”
“What?”
“I’m sorry I hurt the car.” There was a dent in the front bumper. It was minor, but there, and she knew how Tania was about her possessions.
Tania waved her hand, dismissing the words. “Yeah, whatever.” She looked back into the apartment, at the body on the sofa. “Just be careful.”
Marja grinned. “Always.”
“Ha!” It was the last word Tania said before she closed the door behind her.
Marja turned her attention back to the unconscious, wounded man on the sofa. Moving quickly, she made her way through two of the bathrooms. Between the two, she collected all the things she was going to need to remove the bullet from his side and then sew up his wound.
As a graduation present, her parents had given each one of them an old-fashioned doctor’s black bag. It was there that she kept the kinds of instruments for digging a bullet out of the man’s side. She grabbed hers out of her room.
After depositing everything on the coffee table, Marja pulled on a pair of gloves and got down to business.
They’d dropped him face-down on the sofa. She rolled him over, then pushed open his shirt. Very carefully, she peeled back the T-shirt beneath it. A solid wall of abdominal muscles
