No Regrets (28 page)

“Gracious,” Molly said, her shock not entirely feigned. As she wiped away a smear of catsup from Grace's lips, she hoped Mary Beth's predatory tendencies did not rub off on her daughter who, at this stage in her young life, seemed to prefer playing wedding with her Barbie dolls than practicing for the real thing.

“Mary Beth is definitely too young to be kissing boys,” Reece agreed. “But when you get older, Grace, you'll discover that kissing isn't yucky at all.”

“You should know,” Molly muttered beneath her breath.

Reece seemed determined to date every bimbo in Hollywood. She'd been meaning to speak with him about the example he'd been setting for his daughter. When reporting his Emmy,
Variety
had mentioned his
well-known tendency to go out with all the women who appeared on
Night Thrills.

“Excuse me?” Reece arched a chestnut brow. “Did you say something?”

“Molly said, ‘You should know,'” Grace said helpfully.

“Yes.” Reece's expression, as he met Molly's unflinching gaze was a challenge. “I suppose I should.”

“
Variety
did a nice piece on your Emmy win,” she said, meeting the challenge. “It really is quite wonderful, Reece.”

Although her tone was mild and her expression smooth, Reece knew she was referring to that crap about, as
Variety
had put it, “Longworth's girl of the week.”

“You should have heard them announce Daddy's name, Molly,” Grace said, oblivious of the silent battle taking place over the hamburgers, corn on the cob and tossed green salad. “Aunt Theo and I just screamed and screamed. And even Uncle Alex shouted.”

“I did hear it.”

Frown lines furrowed the smooth young forehead. “Did you watch the show at the hotel in San Diego?”

“Now there's a thought,” Reece murmured. From his expression, Molly realized the idea of Joe and her being in a hotel together wasn't exactly a pleasant one.

“Actually, I was already back at home when they called your daddy's name.”

“That was an early evening.”

Molly thought she heard questions in Reece's tone and wondered if he could possibly be jealous. She decided that her imagination was definitely running away
with her. Even before winning the Emmy, he could have had just about any woman in town. With competition like that, she wasn't even in the running for his attention.

“We had an early dinner so we could watch the sun set. Afterward, Joe flew back to Arizona.” Molly smiled. “He said he was worried about the clinic, but I think he really just missed Naomi.”

Reece knew a lot about missing the woman you loved. Although the pain had eased, he doubted there was a day that went by that he didn't think of Lena.

Before he could respond to that, the portable phone on the table rang. Reece picked it up.

“Hello. Oh, hi. Yeah, she's here. Just a sec.” He handed the phone across the table to Molly. “It's Dan. For you.”

Afraid something might have happened to Alex, Molly grabbed the phone. Out-of-the-blue calls usually meant some tragedy. “Dan? Is your dad all right?”

“Last I talked to him, which was this morning, he was great,” Dan assured her. “I was calling to ask a personal favor.”

“Anything,” Molly said.

“I'm in Beverly Hills with this woman. Actually, an informant. She's been beaten and is in pretty bad shape.”

“Shouldn't she be in the hospital?”

“Probably. But she doesn't want the cops called in, which the ER doc would probably have to do.”

Molly didn't understand. “But you're a cop.”

“I know. But the situation's a little sticky, Molly. Anyway, I was wondering if you could come by and
check her out. If she's in real danger, I'm going to have to take her to the hospital, but if it's just cuts and bruises, I'd rather handle it myself.”

Molly was more confused than ever. She also didn't want to be the one to make what could end up being a life-and-death decision. “Give me twenty minutes to take care of a few things,” she said. “And I'll be there. What's the address?”

She took the pen Reece handed her and wrote the Beverly Hills address on a paper napkin, then hung up and immediately dialed Theo, and without going into details, asked if she could come stay with Grace for a little while.

“Reece and I have to go out,” she explained.

“No problem, sweetie,” Theo assured her. “I was just fine-tuning a script, and Alex can watch the basketball game on Reece's television just as easily as our own. Give me a couple minutes to put a pair of shoes on and we'll be right over.”

“So, where are we going?” Reece asked, irked by Molly's not even bothering to ask him if he had other plans for the evening. “And why?”

Molly stood up and began carrying the empty plates into the kitchen. “It's a bit complicated,” she hedged. “I'll tell you on the way.”

Twenty minutes later, Reece was about as angry as he'd ever been. “You had no goddamn right to do this, Molly.”

“I'm sorry, Reece.” Glancing down at the instructions Dan had given her, she turned right on Beverly Drive. “But I didn't have any choice.”

He folded his arms. “Well, I do.”

She found the house. It was Spanish-style with a red-tile roof, smaller than its neighbors, but still quite lovely. Or it would be with a coat of new paint and a lawn service to tend to the overgrown bushes and weed-filled lawn.

“No, you don't,” she said mildly as she pulled into the driveway behind Dan's fire engine red Mustang GT. She cut the engine, pulled the key from the ignition and looked over at him. “You took an oath—”

“You'd have a better chance at bringing Elvis back from the dead than getting me to ever treat another patient. I'm not a doctor, dammit.”

“I told you over two years ago, you'll always be a doctor. Besides, you've renewed your license.” When he gave her a surprised look, she shrugged. “I checked. I wanted to make certain the option to do something useful with your life would still be open when you got tired of life in the fast lane with all your twenty-two-year-old playmates.”

That said, she retrieved her medical bag from the back seat, got out of the car and headed for the house.

He should just stay here, Reece thought, enjoying the icy fury running through his veins. Who the hell did she think she was, talking to him that way? Didn't she realize that in his world—a lofty world far more influential than the one he'd left behind in the ER—he was an important man? Nobody, not even the president of the network, would dare talk to Reece Longworth with the disregard she'd just shown him!

What he ought to do, Reece considered blackly, was to just stay the hell in the car. What was she going to do? Send Dan out with his gun and handcuffs to drag him into that house?

Remembering the determination on Molly's face, and knowing her as well as he did, Reece reluctantly decided she might, when pushed, do exactly that.

Cursing viciously, he climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind him. As he marched up the flagstone sidewalk, Reece vowed that as soon as this so-called emergency was over, he and Molly were going to have a very long, no-holds-barred talk.

Molly thought it looked as though an earthquake had hit in the middle of the living room. Furniture was overturned, glass shards from a shattered gilt-frame mirror glittered like diamonds all over the mahogany floor, a fist-size hole had been punched into the ivory silk wallpaper.

In the middle of the destruction, Dan sat on a white linen sofa. Next to him was a woman dressed in an emerald green satin robe. Her face was horribly battered and she was holding a washcloth filled with ice against her forehead.

“Christ,” Reece, who'd entered the house after Molly, muttered as he surveyed the scene.

“Hi, Molly, Reece.” Dan stood up. “Thanks for coming.”

Reece nodded. The fact that Dan didn't show an iota of surprise at seeing him made him angrier than he'd been when he'd learned of Molly's subterfuge. Despite the fact that some perverse impulse had made him renew his license to practice medicine, he hadn't thought of himself as a physician for more than two years. He'd earned the right not to care. So, why couldn't people just leave him alone to live his life as he wanted?

But, no. Those two do-gooders, Dan Kovaleski and Molly McBride, had to drag him back into the fray.

He shook his head with frustration. “What happened?”

“The lady agreed to help me with an investigation.” Reece easily recognized the self-recrimination in Dan's voice, having lived with it himself these past years. “Obviously, I miscalculated the risk.”

“It wasn't your fault,” she murmured, her words barely understandable due to her swollen jaw. “If I'd been more honest with you up-front—”

“Why don't you two discuss this later?” Reece suggested. “I'm Reece Longworth.” He introduced himself to the battered young woman. “Looks as if I'm going to be your doctor tonight.”

Tessa's good eye narrowed as she looked up at him. “Do I know you?”

“I don't believe so.”

“You look familiar.” She chewed on a peach-lacquered fingernail, then shrugged. “Then again, I've never been very good at remembering faces.”

“In a lot of ways, L.A.'s a small town,” he said. “It's possible our paths have crossed, but I'm sure I'd remember you.” His smile managed to somehow reveal masculine admiration without appearing unprofessionally seductive. “Let's see what we've got here….”

His touch, while gentle, made her flinch as he ran his fingers over the swollen flesh that was rapidly turning a vivid purple and blue. As she heard the familiar caring tone, Molly felt a rush of hope.

He looked at the cut the woman had been holding the ice bag against. “You've got a pretty good gash.” The
bleeding above her right eye had almost stopped, but the swelling was so intense, her eye was almost closed. “I could try a butterfly bandage, but I think you'd be better off with stitches.”

“Won't stitches scar?”

“Not that badly.” He smiled, the slow, reassuring smile that had once calmed countless patients. The smile Molly hadn't seen for too long. “It'll be faint enough for makeup to cover. And without makeup, if it shows at all, you'll just look a little dashing.” He pressed his fingers against the swollen flesh. “Like a lady pirate.”

She managed a weak smile at that, flinching as it pulled her split lip.

Since the ice had slowed the bleeding, Reece decided to take the time to do a thorough exam. “Why don't we go in the bedroom?” he suggested. “Where we can have more privacy?”

Instead of being relieved by that suggestion, her eyes widened in apparent panic and she looked over at Dan.

“It's okay,” he assured her. “I'm not going anywhere.”

Molly heard the uncharacteristic gentleness in his voice, then watched the relief and trust flood into the woman's good eye and realized that whatever was happening here was more than just a typical cop/informant relationship.

Reece turned to Molly. “I could use some help.”

“Yes, Doctor.” Her tone was professionally deferential, but she knew that Reece wouldn't have been able to miss the satisfaction underlying the words. “Give Elvis my regards,” she murmured as she followed him into the bedroom.

The examination revealed a great deal of bruising, but the patient didn't seem to have suffered any internal damage. She was also fortunate that no bones had been broken, although Reece did locate two ribs he suspected could be cracked.

“We'll want an X ray,” he said.

“No.” Tessa shook her head. “I can't go near a hospital. He told me if I talked to anyone about this, he'd kill me.”

“No one's going to kill you,” Molly said soothingly, stroking the blood-matted hair back from the woman's forehead. Without the ice pack, the wound had begun bleeding again. “Dan will see to that.”

“Yeah, he's been a real big help so far.”

Molly felt her temper rise, but managed not to point out that if the woman had been living a blameless life, she wouldn't be in whatever mess she appeared to be in in the first place.

“Here.” She picked up the woman's limp hand and pressed it against the washcloth. “Make yourself useful and hold this in place.”

Reece shot Molly a quick, warning look, but didn't reprimand her for her sharp tone. He frowned when he viewed the marks on the woman's stomach, then stopped when he got to her thighs. Along with the vermilion impression of ten fingers, there were crescent-shaped marks that could only have come from a man's teeth. The same marks marred the smooth flesh around her navel.

“Did he rape you?”

Tessa didn't answer. But the way she shuddered and closed her eyes when he touched the marks with a tender fingertip, told them everything. “Let me go get some
disinfectant to clean those wounds,” he said. Since Molly had brought her bag into the room with her, she realized he wanted an excuse to talk to Dan.

He left the bedroom and went back to where Dan was pacing the floor. “She needs to go to the hospital.”

“She insists she won't go. Says he'll find out about it and kill her.”

“Do you think that's possible?”

Dan's look became hard. “Unfortunately, since I know the guy—I used to work with him, believe it or not—I do. But I'm not going to let it happen, so we'll have to come up with some other plan.”

“You could always just take her into custody.”

“I already have. Then I convinced her to help me try to solve a murder tied to the prostitution ring she's working for. That's what got her into this in the first place.” He shook his head. “No, she's right. We've got to be more careful.”

“I think I've got an idea,” Reece said. “But meanwhile, there's something else. She was raped.”