dark hair that was a bit on the longish side, curling over his ears and at the nape of his neck. She couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, but she felt the intensity of his gaze like a brand.
Jillian took a small step back, alarm bells jangling in her mind. He didn’t seem overtly threatening, but he wore only a hooded cotton jacket against the chill. Hunched though he was, she could see his muscles were drawn tight, tense with cold or withdrawal, she couldn’t tell which. It wasn’t unusual for junkies to patrol the neighborhood surrounding the hospital, although she wasn’t sure what they thought they would find. Occasionally violence would erupt when one desperate soul tried to rob another in a bid to get the next fix.
The man standing in front of her didn’t appear to be an addict, even though the burned-plastic smell of meth smoke clung to his clothes. He was too big, too healthy-looking, for one thing. He lacked the gaunt, haunted look that was so common among users, although he did have the same fierceness to his gaze. He reminded her of a coiled snake, ready to strike, and she had no desire to be in the vicinity when he did.
“If you’re injured, the emergency room is right there.” She withdrew her hand from her coat pocket to point. He didn’t seem hurt, but it was hard to tell in the shadowy light of the parking lot.
“It’s not me, it’s my friend. Can you please help me?”
Jillian bit her lip, feeling torn. As a doctor, it was her duty to help people, even if they gave her the willies. She glanced around, searching for his companion. There was no one else in the lot, and she took another step back, suddenly feeling very alone.
“Let’s find an orderly. Then we can get your friend inside.” And you away from me.
She turned to head back to the hospital, but the man moved quickly to stand in front of her, blocking her path. She stepped back, a strangled yelp dying in her throat.
“There’s no time for that. He needs help now.”
Jillian stared up at him, her mind racing. She could try to scream an alarm, but the hospital entrance was at least a hundred feet away and, with the doors closed, it was unlikely anyone would hear her. She glanced around, hoping against hope that someone was just arriving, late for their shift, but the parking lot was still and silent. There was no one around, no one to help her.
“Please, you’re a doctor, right? Can’t you please help him?”
She halted her slow retreat, the need to help warring with her desire to get away. Don’t be an idiot, she chided herself, knowing the right thing to do was to return to the hospital. There was no telling what kind of injuries his friend had sustained, and she couldn’t exactly treat him in a dimly lit parking lot. No, better to retrieve a wheelchair and bring it back to collect the injured man.
But she couldn’t exactly do that with this man standing in front of her, blocking her path to the emergency room entrance.
“I’m just going to get a wheelchair,” she said, speaking calmly as if trying to soothe an angry dog. “It’ll be easier to move your friend into the ER if we can put him in the chair, and I’ll be able to examine him better once we get him inside.”
The man let out a huge sigh, his shoulders slumping further when he dropped his head. Jillian stepped to the side, intending to skirt around him. He muttered something that sounded strangely like, “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” but before she could process his words, he moved, his hand shooting out of the darkness to grip her arm with painful strength.
This time she did yelp, but he hauled her up against his broad chest so quickly the breath whooshed out of her before she could gear up to scream. She kicked and clawed at him, but he grabbed her other hand and tugged both arms behind her back, braceleting her wrists with one hand and effectively restraining her. Desperate, frantic, she jerked her knee up, hoping to land a crippling blow between his legs. He swerved to the side, easily deflecting it, so she brought her foot down hard, aiming for his instep. Another miss.
Just as she sucked in the air to scream, he flipped her around and clamped a hand over her mouth. He released her wrists to band his arm around her torso, locking her own arms by her hips and effectively rendering her helpless.
He picked her up and hauled her between the rows of parked cars, pulling her into a dark corner of the lot. Part of her brain screamed at her to resist, to make noise, to do something! She kicked furiously, her legs windmilling in the cold air but missing him completely. Her foot made contact with a car and a sudden numbing pain shot up her leg. She blinked back tears and bit down on the hand clamped over her mouth. She was rewarded with a mouthful of leather, the taste so foul it made her gag.
The man ignored her attempts to escape, maneuvering her easily through the lot, as though he did this kind of thing all the time. Maybe he did. He stopped next to a dark, four-door sedan and removed his hand from her mouth so he could open the back door. He quickly pushed her inside before she had a chance to scream, but took care to keep her from bumping her head against the frame.
A considerate kidnapper.
The burned-plastic smell that clung to his clothes was even stronger in the car. Habitual drug use had saturated the upholstery, and she dimly wondered if she would get high just from sitting on the fabric. He released her wrists and shut the door. She waited until he rounded the hood to scrabble at the handle—if she could get the door open, she could run. She had a head start; she could make it back to the ER.
But the door wouldn’t open. She threw herself against it, hoping it was just stuck, but it remained stubbornly closed.
She heard the driver’s door open and the man slid inside. “Gotta love child locks,” he said, eyeing her in the rearview mirror. She glared back, defiance and anger quickly replacing the numbness in her limbs as she began to thaw out.
A soft moan next to her made her jump. She shrank against the door in a bid to get away. What she had thought was a shapeless pile of clothes was in fact a person. One who was in bad shape, if the pitiful sounds coming from the opposite side of the back seat were any indication.
“That’s Tony,” the man said softly. “He’s been shot.”
So the friend really did exist.
“I don’t know what you want me to do about it,” she snapped. “If you really wanted to help him, you’d let me take him inside instead of kidnapping me like this.”
The man shook his head as he started the car. “That’s not an option.”
“How do you expect me to treat him when I don’t have any medical supplies?”
He reached across the front passenger seat and lifted a paper bag, which he handed back to her. It was rather heavy, in a bulky, awkward way. Jillian glanced inside, surprised to find a large collection of vials, syringes and bandages. She lifted one out, straining to read the label as they drove. Ketamine.
“Where did you get this?” She picked up another vial. Acepromazine. Controlled substances, both of them, and neither of them routinely used in human medicine. Veterinary medicine, on the other hand...
“Does it matter?”
She shrugged. “Not really, but I typically don’t work with these drugs.”
“Keep digging.”
She did, pulling out a vial
