It was Paul who answered. “Only long enough to gather some belongings.”
“We’ll need to know where you are, Ms. Hagen.”
“You can contact my office.” Paul pushed a higher degree of authority into his tone, handing them his card. “Obviously, your department has been leaking information as it is, given the Black Widow inferences I’ve already seen in the press. I don’t want to give her attacker any further chances to utilize loose gossip to get another shot at her.”
Torie let the battle of words rage over her head. They were arguing technical points, like boxers, or umpires. She just wanted to go home.
That thought brought her right back to thinking Valium was a good idea.
“Excuse me, but I need to get to my patient,” a brisk voice said, as a short dark-skinned man pulled on the curtain. “All of you need to leave.” In the face of his cross-armed stance and obvious medical authority, the police officers cleared out. Their parting shot was melodramatic, like something out of
“Stay available, Ms. Hagen.”
“Yeah, right,” Paul muttered, mustering a smile for her behalf.
“You need to leave, too, sir, unless you are family or her husband,” the doctor stated.
Paul winced. “No, just her attorney.” To Torie, he added, “I’ll be right outside. I’ll get you where you need to go.”
She managed a nod, then looked at the doctor.
“Good, now that they’ve all gone, perhaps you can tell me if your head hurts? Your eyes, are they sensitive to the light?” He flicked the tiny flashlight into her eyes, as the nurse had done. “No? Good. Our lovely Nurse Pickering has dressed your hands, yes? Let me look.” She held out her hands and he peeled back the dressing just a fraction. “Good, good. Now, here is a prescription for a good antibiotic ointment. Some of those scrapes are sure to be painful, but they’ll heal quickly. Probably won’t even need the bandages by day after tomorrow. However, we don’t want infection.” He ripped a paper off and handed it to her. “There. Fill that tomorrow. But for now, get some rest. You look terrible.”
“Thanks a lot,” she muttered sarcastically, sliding off the table.
Grinning, he put out a hand, steadied her descent. “You’re welcome. I always try to tell my patients the truth. You need sleep, and probably a good meal. Make him stop and get you something, yes? And wait.” He pulled the curtain, but went behind the nurse’s station, got the nurse to retrieve some tablets. “Take this. It will help you sleep. You won’t need more than one, yes? But get some sleep tonight.”
He pressed a two-tablet blister pack into her hands. Tylenol Three with codeine. Oh, yeah, she’d sleep. The stuff knocked her out.
“Thanks, Dr. Paresh.”
“Most welcome. Now go.” He handed her a sheaf of papers with his signature scrawled along the appropriate lines. “Get out of here before you catch something.”
The doctor’s humor was appreciated, but Torie couldn’t even muster the energy to laugh. She managed to get out to the waiting area where Paul was talking to the police. He hurried to her. “You okay?”
“I guess.”
“Let’s get you out of here.”
“Mister Jameson,” one of the officers protested. “We need to—”
“You can talk to her tomorrow, my office. Ten A.M.”
Paul hustled her out to a sleek Mercedes sedan and, holding open the door, held her purse as she got in. She’d never experienced Paul in this kind of solicitous mode. Gone was the joking or angry man. Here he was all concern.
“I made a reservation for you. It’s under my name for now. I don’t want anyone to be able to call around and find you.”
“Okay.”
She managed to answer his other scant questions, but was worn out by the time they pulled up under the portico of the Hilton.
“Wait here.”
Like she could move.
Paul took care of the mundanities of checking her in. When he came back, he helped her out of the car and got her settled in her room.
“Give me your key to the other room at the Suites. I’ll go get your bags from your trip. If you want to, go on to bed. I’ll just set them inside the door.”
“You’ll need a key.”
“I got one for this room, too.”
“Oh.”
“Go on. Get yourself to bed, Torie.”
At this point, she couldn’t find words to protest. She just nodded and headed for the bathroom. For once, she didn’t mind following someone else’s orders. With everything topsy turvy in her world, she just wanted to sleep.
