Firstborn (8 page)

“It’s been an interesting evening, Jaclyn.  Thank you.”

And then he turned and walked to his car.  He drove away without a wave or nod of acknowledgement. 

“So much for gut instincts,” she said, dropping her hands to her side in disappointment and then using her key to let herself into her apartment.
  She knew that he wouldn’t call her for a second date, and that certainty left her feeling a little devastated.

***

Will drove without the usual background noise of his alternative rock radio station.  He kept replaying the conversation, wondering where it had gone wrong.  When he intended to tease, he came off sounding offensive.  When he tried to flirt, he came off sounding accusatory.  He simply couldn’t do anything right.  And yet, through it all, she had been cool and comfortable. 

He had been kicking himself for the entire walk home, wondering
how he had messed up so badly.  Women usually liked him and enjoyed an intellectual discussion.  He had thought, initially, that Jac MaCall would also appreciate an intellectually stimulating discussion.  They had had some interesting conversation and debate, and he found her fascinating.  The next thing he knew, she was changing the topic to discuss the damn weather.  She was bored with him.  That much was obvious.  And as much as he’d looked forward to kissing her at the end of the night, he sensed that she was no longer interested.  To avoid further humiliation, he thanked her and quickly left.

He should have at least seen her safely inside of her building instead of just leaving her outside while he ran away like a jackass.  He’d screwed that up, too.

At the last minute, he turned down the side street that would take him to his office instead of heading home.  He was irritated and would toss and turn in bed tonight thinking of all the things he’d done wrong.  Instead, he would grab some files and do some work tonight.  His practice always allowed him to feel in control.  His evening with Jaclyn had left him feeling incompetent.  Now he needed to get his equilibrium back.  He needed to work.  Once he calmed down, he could probably sleep a bit better.

He parked in front of his building and used his key to let himself in.  He went immediately to the alarm keypad and punched in the code.  As soon as the digital monitor read-out said “disarmed,” he flipped the switch to turn on the office lights.  In a matter of only four minutes, he had grabbed the physical notes he had taken on tomorrow’s patients and was heading for the front door.  He set the alarm again and opened the exterior door. 

He had no sooner pushed the door open than it was ripped out of his hands and a dark shadow came at him, swinging something at his head.  He turned in time to take the blow to the side of his head rather than his face.  As he fell, he hit the concrete hard.  Struggling to remain conscious, he felt two pairs of hands grab his arms and legs and dragged him back inside.  One of them moved to his alarm and efficiently disarmed it, probably having watched him five minutes ago through the large glass windows of the door.

Both men went into his office as he struggled to fight back nausea and blackout.  He heard his computer start up and knew they were accessing his files.  He attempted to drag himself toward the front door to get out to his car
, but his movements were slow and painful.  He knew that he could press the panic button on his alarm system, but he could not possibly stand to reach the red button.  He had only made it past a couple of rows of ceramic tile when the men came back out of his office. 

He lifted his head to try to get a glimpse of them, and one of the men kicked him forcefully in the gut.  Will curled into the fetal position, gasping for air while simultaneously trying to not vomit.  He heard the external door close behind them, the magnet latching behind them so that they could not get back in.  Only then, did he drop his head to the cool tile and pass out.

Jaclyn grabbed her ringing cell phone with impatience. 
“I can’t talk now, Taryn.  I’ll call you in the morning.”  She knew that she had no call to be rude to her sister, but frustration--sexual and otherwise--seemed to create a mental manners block.

“Jac, don’t hang up.  We got a call from the panic alarm at Will
Archer’s office.”

“Tonight?  That can’t be right.”  She mentally calculated if it was possible for Will to have gone to his office after dropping her off. 
She’d been home for an hour.  That was plenty of time.  “When did the alarm come in?”

“Twenty minutes ago.  Security called me after they made sure that the first responders got to him.  Sean was our first guy there.  He saw the lights on during his drive-by and heard the call over the scanner and was in there waiting with Will when the first responders showed up.”

“What did they do to him?” she asked, bracing herself for the worst.  If Sean had been waiting “with Will,” then he must be alive, she argued with herself.

“It sounds like they beat him.   Sean said he was in and out of consciousness.”

“He was taken to the hospital?”

Taryn could hear the urgency in her sister’s voice.  “Yeah.”

Jaclyn was wrapping up the call as she raced outside to hop in her car.  She parked in the emergency room parking lot in record time and walked briskly into the lobby.  After their date, it was possible that Will wouldn’t want her there, but she didn’t really care.  She liked him and needed to make sure he was okay.  And once she was sure that he would be fine, she was going to personally drive to MSC and modify his contract and escort his security detail back to his office and his home.

Knowing that the front desk wouldn’t tell her where to find him, she called Sean’s cell phone and was given the location of
Will’s examination room.  When she stepped into the room, he looked up with surprise and reached behind himself to self-consciously pull his gown together in the back.

“I got the call, Will.  How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay.”

“You don’t look okay.  You look like hell.”

“I can’t help but think that if I’d tried to get you into bed, I wouldn’t have been at my office when those guys showed up.”

She laughed softly and
leaned forward to plant a soft kiss on the side of his head.  The discoloration of the bruise caused her to wince.  The gentle pressure of her lips on his sore temple caused the same reaction in Will.

Jac surprised
him again when she greeted the officer beside him by name.  “What are you guys thinking, Detective Wilson?”

“Not sure.  The first time, we thought a robbery.  Drug search.  But they’ve been through the place once and know that there are no drugs on the premises.  Why would they come back a second time?”

“Good point.  Did they take anything?”

“Dr. Archer said that on the way out, one of them kicked him in the ribs and dropped a file folder.  He then picked it up when he walked out.”

“And they were on my computer.”

“So they’re after patient files?”  That didn’t make any sense.

Will gestured to Jac with a shooing motion.  “I need to get dressed and get out of here.  I hate hospitals.  I’m fine.  I may be a bit concussed, but there’s nothing they can do about that.”

“Will, stop.”  She reached out to keep him from hopping off of the exam table.  “You need to finish your exam.  You took a blow to the head and could have some serious damage that you don’t know about.”

“Dr. Archer, you heard the doctor say he wanted to keep you for observation,” Detective Wilson reminded him.

His head hung in defeat.  “Okay okay.”

A couple of minutes later, the detective stepped out of the room and Will looked up fiercely at Jac.  “Turn your back so I can get some clothes on.  You’re taking me back to the office.  If someone is after one of my patients, I need to find out and warn them and the police.”

“But the doctor said--”

“I’ll come back.  It won’t take a half hour.  C’mon, Jac,” he pleaded.

She nodded reluctantly and turned her back.

They were able to slip out of the hospital without any interference and made it quietly to Jac’s car.  By the time they got to the office, the police had cleared out for the night and the office was dark.  Will opened the door and Jac nudged him out of the way.

“Wait here.”

He turned to her, surprised and prepared to argue but gasped instead when he saw she had a gun aimed at the floor in front of her.  “Where did that thing come from?”

She smiled suggestively and
then tapped the purse at her side.

“You carry a gun?”

“Don’t act surprised, Dr. Archer.  Just this morning you accosted me outside of the bank where you were trying to weasel a date out of me by asking me to share my gun training with you.”

She moved past him stealthily and swung her gun around in front of her as she entered the office doorway.  She paused to flip on the light switch as she inspected the office and closet.  Once she was confident that the entire building was secure, she stuck her head back into the front lobby and
gestured for Will to follow her.

“All clear?” he asked.

“All clear.  Where are you going to start?”

Will moved straight to his computer and moved the mouse, watching the screen come to life.  “They didn’t turn the computer off.”  As the screen brightened, Will realized that they had been through his email.  “
What the hell?”

“What is it?”

“An email I wrote earlier today to a patient of mine.  But what interest would they have in Dianne Huntley?”

Jac moved closer to read the email over his shoulder.  “
’I saw some wonderful potential today.  I truly believe that this relationship will continue to grow with the effort that we saw today.  I’ll look forward to seeing you next week.’” 

“Yeah.”

“Are you dating this lady or seeing her as a patient?” she teased.

“Just a patient,” he answered with his hands held up disarmingly.

“It is a pretty harmless email.”

Will moved past her and opened his file cabinet.  “It was Dianne’s folder that they took.”

“What do you know about this woman?”

“That’s privilege
d information,” he answered firmly.  “Her husband and son were killed in a car accident that she and her daughter survived.  That’s public information.  Beyond that, I can’t share anything.  But I can tell the police so that they can get over to her home and make sure she’s okay.”

“I can call Detective Wilson.  Is it possible the accident that killed her husband and son wasn’t an accident?”

He threw his hands up.  “I have no idea.”

“In my vision, the younger man asked why they couldn’t just eliminate you.  The other guy said that they needed to find the girl
to make sure that the ball wasn’t already set in motion.  I don’t see how that could point to a beef with the dead husband and son.  I definitely think that they are after you, Will.”

“How will Detective Wilson feel when you share that part with him?”

She smiled at the implications of his question.  “Detective Wilson already thinks I’m a bit crazy.  He takes me seriously as a former member of MSC.  But he doesn’t buy into the visions.”

“I still think you should tell him.”

“You don’t exactly believe me either.”

He tilted his head from side to side.  “I don’t know what to believe.  I just think that the possibility of your visions being true is the worst case scenario; and I like to prepare for the worst when people might be interested in killing me.”

He set the alarm this time when they left the building and followed her to the car.  Behind the wheel, Jac tucked her firearm back inside her purse while Will watched with appreciation.

“Just for the record, the gun part was hot,” he muttered.

A broad grin lit up her face.  “Thanks.”

She backed the car out of her parking spot and headed back to the hospital.  “Call the police station and make sure Detective Wilson is going to meet us back at the hospital.  But tip them off and get a car out to your patient’s house, too.”

She waited patiently while he made the call.  They rode in silence for another minute or two when he asked, “What went wrong tonight?”

“That’s what the police have to figure out.”

“No, I mean the date.”

“Oh.  I’m not sure.  One minute we were talking,
and then you sat silently for a minute or two and seemed uncomfortable.  I thought changing the subject would help.  But you kind of shut down on me after that.  It’s okay, Will.  You’re not the first guy to get turned off by the discussions of my lifestyle and gifts.”

“Nothing about you turns me off,” he corrected.

She smiled out the windshield.  “Back at you, Dr. Archer.”

“I wasn’t uncomfortable.  I’m pretty firm in my convictions, but you had me thinking tonight.  That’s why I got quiet.  I was just thinking.  Then you were changing the subject and it seemed pretty clear to me that you were wrapping up the date.”

She laughed and shook her head.  “I think we need to try again.”