man’s arms, she scooted backward until her head bumped into the table beside the bed. “Leave me alone.”
“I will,” he said, his voice cold, menacing, “once I take care of you.”
The pillow came down over her face, pushing her head against the cool tiles of the floor.
She fought and screamed into the pillow, her struggles useless.
The man held her down with minimal effort, his body bigger, stronger—his goal, murder.
Chapter Two
“I have a court case at ten,” District Attorney Young said. “I left an officer at her door, but he knows he can leave as soon as you arrive. I’m counting on you to keep the woman safe. Can you handle it?”
Despite his self-doubt, Dawson nodded.
The D.A. handed him a business card. “As soon as she’s coherent, give me a call. I’ll be here. Hopefully she’ll wake up soon, this time with her memory intact so we can get down to the business of catching a killer.”
A killer who could be very anxious to finish the job. Dawson accepted the card and turned it over in his hand as the man in the suit walked away.
Okay, so he had his work cut out for him. One witness to a murder, one drug lord on a mission to kill the person who killed his son. A stroll in the park, no doubt.
He walked to the corner in the hallway. As he turned and spotted an empty chair outside the room Ms. Jones was supposed to occupy, the skin on the back of his neck tightened. Where was the cop? Had he gone in to check on the patient? Had he left his post?
Dawson jogged the remaining distance to the door, his hand raised to knock against the wood. He probably worried for nothing. The cop had to be inside.
A muffled thump carried through the solid door. Dawson shoved the door open and raced inside, his first impression one of an empty bed.
His first day on the job and he’d already lost his client.
Movement caught his attention on the floor around the other side of the bed. A figure wearing blue-green scrubs hunched close to the floor, a pillow in his hands, devils and a dragon tattooed on his forearm. Beneath him slim, curvy legs flailed and kicked.
“Hey!” Dawson grabbed the man by the shoulder and yanked him off balance. He threw the guy to the floor, away from the woman he assumed to be Savvy Jones.
Savvy shoved the pillow aside and gasped for air, her face red, her eyes wide. “He tried to k-kill me!”
The man masquerading as a member of the hospital staff rolled to his feet and swung a tree-trunk-size arm, backhanding Dawson.
Dawson raised his hand to block, but the force of the man’s swing sent him slamming against the wall. He stumbled and righted himself, but not soon enough to stop the attacker from racing for the door. Nor did he get a good look at him; his face was covered in a surgical mask. Dawson threw himself at the man, catching him by the ankle before he cleared the door.
The big man tripped, fell into the swinging door and out into the hallway, crashing into a nurse passing by with a cart filled with medication. The cart upended, the nurse hit the floor and pills scattered. The perpetrator scrambled to his feet. In one awkward leap, he cleared the nurse and ran for the stairwell.
Dawson followed, skirting the nurse and cart. Before he got halfway down the hallway, he realized he couldn’t go after the man. If he did, that left Savvy Jones unprotected. He stopped just past the spilled cart, his fists clenched, his heart pounding. Then he turned and helped the nurse to her feet. “Call the police. Tell them someone just tried to kill one of your patients. The man is headed down the stairwell.”
The woman nodded and limped toward the nurses’ station.
A man dressed in a Laredo police uniform rounded the corner and ground to a stop, his eyes widening. Then he ran toward Dawson, pulling a pistol from his holster. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”
Anger surged through Dawson and he advanced on the man.
The man’s eyes widened and he pointed the gun at Dawson’s chest. “I’ll shoot.”
“Then make it count.” In a flash, he knocked the pistol from the cop’s hand, sending it clattering across the floor. His next move had the cop slammed face-first against the wall, his arm locked behind his back in a painful grip. “Were you the officer assigned to guard Savvy Jones?”
“Yes,” he gasped. “Let me go, or I’ll bring you up on charges.”
“And I’ll have your badge,” Dawson said. “I’m the bodyguard the D.A. hired to do the job you obviously couldn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“You left your post.”
“I got called away to handle a shooting in the E.R.” He didn’t struggle. “It turned out to be a false call.”
“And you left Savvy Jones unprotected.” Dawson jammed the man’s arm up higher. “She was almost killed.”
“I’m sorry.”
Dawson shoved the man away. “Get out of here.”
The officer retrieved his weapon, holstering it. “I’ll have to clear this through the D.A.”
“Then clear it. I have a job to do,” Dawson said.
“As do I. Step aside.” A man in green scrubs, with a stethoscope looped around his neck hurried toward Savvy’s door.
“Stop right there.” Dawson’s tone brooked no argument.
The man in scrubs held up his badge. “I’m Savvy Jones’s doctor.”
Dawson scanned it, his eyes narrowed. “No one goes in here without my permission.”
The doctor crossed his arms over his chest. “And what clearance do you have?”
He patted his chest where his Glock usually rested in the shoulder holster beneath his jacket and moved to block the doorway. “I’m Ms. Jones’s bodyguard. If you need any more clearance than that, contact the D.A.”
“Don’t worry, I will.” The doctor performed an about-face and marched toward the nurses’ station. A gathering of orderlies and nurses keeping at a distance from Dawson’s threatening stance, parted to let the doctor through.
Dawson had been away long enough. He entered Savvy’s hospital room and dodged around the end of the bed to find a slim young woman lying on the floor, gasping for air. Her hospital gown had hitched up in the struggle, exposing a significant amount of peaches-and-cream skin and a silky slip of forest-green panties. Strawberry-blond hair spilled down her back and across the floor in long wavy strands. A bandage covered the left side of her head with a white band of gauze wrapped around her forehead to keep it in place.
“What’s going on?” She pressed a hand to her eyes, dragging in deep breaths.
