Sleight of Hand Read online

  He closed his eyes. She felt his inhalation echo through his chest. Then his eyes snapped open and he pushed her away. Cassie drew her breath in, swallowing her disappointment.

  "What's wrong?" she demanded, hands on her hips, hoping he didn't notice the tremble in her voice. She'd screwed up. Again.

  He seemed fascinated with the hospital issue linoleum as he spoke. "I don't want–"

  "You don't want to be with me? Is that it?" Her words tumbled over each other as her worst fears were confirmed.

  That was why he didn't want to touch her; he was trying to find a graceful way out of this. What a gentleman, even brought flowers with him to cushion the blow.

  Might as well beat him to it. Less painful that way.

  "Why didn't you just say so? I don't need you hanging around out of pity or duty or whatever." She flung the door back open. He opened his mouth, began to speak, but she steamrolled over his words as the sucker punch of hurt and humiliation spiraled into her gut. "You don't have to pretend anymore. Take off, get back to your life. Get out of here."

  CHAPTER 3

  Drake stared at Hart, her small frame silhouetted in the light from the hall, long, dark hair bouncing in frizzled curls, anger hunching her shoulders. The color in her cheeks glowed against her pale skin while her eyes blazed with fury.

  Christ, he wanted to shake her. Why did she have to always rush into everything?

  "Just go," she repeated, gesturing to the open door.

  Heat flooded over Drake. He moved to the door, but instead of going through it, he reached above her and slammed it shut. Caging her with his arms, he pressed her body back against the door, even though he knew she despised being trapped, confined in any way.

  "I was trying to say," he placed one finger over her lips before she could protest, "that you are too important. There's no need to rush. I was trying," he lowered his head so that his forehead rocked against hers as she caught her breath, "to tell you that I'm not like your ex-husband, and I'm not going to force you into anything."

  Her gaze rose to meet his. She glared up at him, crimson flushing her face. Drake saw a glint of humor enter her eyes and felt a surge of relief. One thing about Hart–she had a temper but never held a grudge.

  "I'm so sorry," she said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. "Were you going to inform me about this 'slow and easy' plan of yours?"

  He opened his mouth to answer, but she hooked her good leg behind his recuperating one and pivoted him into the chair. His breath emerged with a whoosh of surprise. Then her body was straddling his.

  "What if I don't want to go slow?" Her hands tugged at his shirt while her mouth buried his.

  He struggled for a moment, just enough to sooth his dignity, then allowed himself to answer her passion with his own. With his eyes locked onto hers, drowning in their dark depths, it was almost as if the shooting had never happened. His heart geared down from panic to the steady thrill of arousal.

  "I guess we can discuss it," he said when they parted for air.

  She slid one hand around to the small of his back, her fingers working their gypsy magic. They found their target, the sensitive area at the base of his spine where her touch could make his blood boil. He closed his eyes against the surge of pain and delight that resulted.

  "Discussion's over," she announced, nipping at his earlobe.

  Drake had to agree.

  A loud rapping on the door echoed like gunfire from the concrete walls. Drake's heart slammed against his chest. He almost dumped her on the floor as he leapt to his feet. The sudden movement sent a wrenching pain through his thigh muscles.

  Hart pulled her top back into place and opened the door. Drake heard a male voice. His hand moved to his right hip. But of course his gun wasn't there. His world teetered off balance, his heart raced out of control. He sank back into the chair, rubbed his sweaty palms against the coarse denim of his jeans, trying to relax the clenched muscles of his thighs, forcing himself to breathe.

  "Dr. Hart? I have that tape for you," the unseen man said.

  "That was fast. Thanks."

  Hart closed the door, tossing a video onto her desk with a clatter that made Drake jerk. He had a hard time meeting her gaze, certain that she too was overcome by memories of the awful night when he couldn't protect her, when he was forced to watch, helpless, while she confronted a killer.

  "You want to tell me what the problem is?" She leaned against her desk and looked down at him.

  A jagged length of pink-tinged flesh extended along the inside of her left arm. His eyes followed the length of the scar, then squeezed shut as he remembered the others she carried from that night. None of it would have happened if she hadn't rushed into something she had no business being involved in….No, Drake quashed that thought. He was the one who had gone in blind.

  His feelings for her had superceded everything: his training, his good sense, his judgment. He should have known better. It was his job to know better, to stay in control.

  He would not allow anything like that to happen again. He couldn't let the passion Hart aroused in him to overwhelm his judgment. Never again.

  He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. When he opened them again, Hart was still there, watching him, a frown creasing her forehead.

  "You're angry with me. You blame me for what happened–"

  "No, of course not," he protested. He pushed up to his feet, ignored the pain in his leg. "I'm just tired, that's all. I'd better go. The shrink wants me in for an early session tomorrow."

  "We need to talk."

  He said nothing, made his way to the door and was through it before he could change his mind. Before he allowed the truth of how he felt to spill out.

  <><><>

  Richard King wheeled his way towards Ella's office. He couldn't think of her as Cassandra Hart–to him she would always be his Cinderella.

  He stopped as a tall, dark-haired man emerged. The man was a cop, Richard remembered, the one whose life Ella had saved. He felt a surge of anger and knew he hadn't liked the man even before his accident had stolen parts of his memory and scrambled the rest. Drake, that was the cop's name.

  Richard leaned back, bouncing the front wheels of the wheelchair, his new favorite thinking position. The rhythmic movement soothed him, allowed him to get past the tsunami of emotions that sometimes threatened to engulf him.

  Ella emerged from the office carrying a videotape, and he could see even from this distance that she was flushed. Had she and Drake been doing it right there in the office–while he watched?

  The thought was maddening. Richard rammed his chair into the tile wall. Something had to be done. It wasn't fair. Here he was, trapped in this metal prison, while she strutted around making love to strange men in his place. He'd lost everything–and it was all her fault, that much he knew.

  The most important thing he remembered, what filled his days and nights as he tried to piece his life back together, was that he'd been happy when Ella had been his. Richard had a favorite photo, one that he kept coming back to over and over. He wasn't certain exactly when it was taken, so he spent hours staring at it, recreating the scene, spinning tales of romance everlasting.

  In the photo, he and Ella danced on the deck of a boat, the Riverstar. City lights glittered behind them, cascading them in color. She smiled at him, a smile that promised him the world.

  Richard would do anything to go back to a time where Ella would always be his. That hope was the one thing keeping him sane.

  <><><>

  "Ella!" A voice called from behind Cassie.

  She whirled as a blond man in a wheelchair approached. Richard. What was he doing here? Looking down on her ex-husband brought back a rush of memories Cassie thought she'd left behind in her nightmares.

  Although Richard had caused his share of suffering, she hated to see him a prisoner of his disabilities. After spending two weeks in a coma, the once-talented surgeon now had limited use of his right side and suffered from cognitive
defects as well.

  "Ella, Ella!" he repeated loudly, using the nickname Cassie despised.

  Instead of the designer Italian suits she was accustomed to seeing him wear, he wore baggy sweat pants and a T-shirt. Around his neck hung a bib to catch the drool slipping from his mouth. His speech was slow and hesitant, but understandable. He whirled the wheelchair in a reverse three-sixty, then came to a stop in front of her. "How do you like my new toy?"

  "Nice wheels," she said, uncertain of how to deal with this new Richard. "What do you want, Richard?"

  "Hey, where's your ring?" He grabbed hold of her left hand.

  Her ring? She hadn't worn a ring on that hand since the night she'd left him almost two years ago. Then she saw he wore a familiar gold band on his left hand. Surely he didn't think they were still married?

  "You didn't lose it, did you? Don't worry, Cinderella, your Prince Charming will buy you a new one." He beamed up at her with a happy grin, and the knot of apprehension in her gut tightened.

  She crouched down so that she was level with him. "Richard, we're not married anymore. Not for over a year and a half."

  Richard blinked, trying to process her words, then frowned. His grip on her hand tightened painfully.

  "No. I remember. You promised to love, honor and," he groped for the word, then finished triumphantly, "cherish for the rest of your life. That means for always, forever and ever, amen."

  He squeezed her wrist so hard her bones began to grind together. She tried to pull away, but he leveraged her closer to him.

  "You can't break your promise, Ella," he told her, tiny bubbles of saliva spraying as he hissed the words.

  Cassie knew the look in his pale eyes now. Richard's fury was an old familiar friend and the reason she'd left him. She thought she'd closed this chapter in her life, had shelved it away under painful lessons learned. But here she was again.

  "I'm sorry, Richard. It's over. It's been over for a long, long time. You just need to get used to it, that's all," she said in as gentle of tone as she could manage. She wrenched her arm free and stood.

  His gaze locked with hers. "No. You're my wife, till death do us part." Tears welled from his eyes as his mood shifted once more. "Please, Ella. Give me a chance."

  Cassie watched tears slide down his up-turned face and felt even worse. Richard had lost everything important to him–his career, command of his own body and apparently a large chunk of his memory. "I'm sorry, Richard," she said in a low voice, "I can't."

  "You bitch! You think you can run out on me just because I'm in this?" He slammed the wheelchair with his fist, his raised voice capturing the attention of the rest of the ER staff. She looked around, searching for a graceful way to disengage herself from the confrontation.

  "I have to go now," she said.

  "You don't go anywhere until I say so!" He moved the wheelchair forward, pinning her against the wall.

  Angry now, she glared at him. No damage to Richard's narcissistic ego. That, combined with his new lack of impulse control, made him as volatile as a cornered junk yard dog. Or, given Richard's blue-blooded pedigree, a pure-bred Rottweiler.

  Cassie awkwardly stepped over the footrest of the wheelchair, very aware of the audience behind her watching their little drama.

  "Good bye, Richard."

  She stepped into the nurses' station where his chair couldn't follow and walked back to the staff lounge, shutting the door behind her. She took a deep breath, but her nerves still buzzed with adrenalin after the encounter. Would she ever be able to face Richard without churning up all the anxiety that came with those past memories? She'd made bad choices, terrible choices–how long would she be punished for them?

  Collecting herself, she shoved the tape into the VCR and pushed the play button. Nothing happened. She ejected it and tried again. Still nothing.

  "Damn it!" She pounded the machine with the flat of her palm.

  "Yeah, that'll teach it." A woman's voice came from behind her. "Is this a private tantrum or can anyone join?"

  She turned to Adeena Coleman, a social worker at Three Rivers and her closest friend. "I can't get this stupid machine to work."

  "That's all? I thought it might be something to do with Drake. I passed him in the parking lot, and he looked like he'd just lost his best friend."

  "If he did, it's his own damn fault!" Cassie stabbed play once more. Still nothing.

  Adeena moved over to the machine, reinserted the tape, then hit rewind. A whirling noise rewarded her actions. "Want to talk about it?"

  Cassie glared at her friend's superior technical mastery of video equipment. Why couldn't the hospital go to digital like the rest of the world? She and Adeena had gone to grade school together at Our Lady of Sorrows. Both outcasts, the plump black girl and skinny white girl forged an ironclad bond.

  Adeena was the good girl, never in trouble, levelheaded, able to talk her way out of any situation. Cassie had been the troublemaker, constantly conspiring against the nuns' authority, getting into fistfights, teaching the other children swear words and the real facts of life when she should have been studying her catechism.

  Together they had made an outstanding team, able to outwit and out maneuver teachers and students alike. Cassie sighed at the memory and hoped Drake wasn't only a memory as well.

  "He won't talk to me," she confessed. Adeena poured them both cups of coffee. Cassie took a sip of hers and stared down into its depths.

  "You've both been through a lot," Adeena said. "Drake came close to dying–"

  "I know that!" She softened her voice. "Sorry. I understand what he went through. I know he's upset he's still not back at work. But I was there too. I wouldn't have made it without him. So why won't he tell me what's going on, let me help?"

  "Everyone heals in their own way." Adeena delivered the cliché as if it were a novel idea. She held her hand up, cutting off Cassie's protest. "You go into solitary confinement when you can't deal with things."

  Cassie shrugged. "Sometimes I need time by myself to work things out, think things through."

  "To an outsider, the way you handle things appears self-destructive, a form of depression, even."

  "It's not! And you know that. It doesn't mean I'm crazy just because I need to shut out the rest of the world for a while."

  "That's your style of coping." Adeena dropped into her clinical mode. "What do you think Drake's is?"

  "I don't know," Cassie admitted. "At first, he seemed fine last week when he came back from his mother's."

  She smiled, remembering how great it had felt to have Drake back in her life. He'd painted a watercolor for her, a portrait of her parents that she'd hung in her living room. They'd talked about everything–school, family, friends, work–everything except the shooting. Or their relationship. Whenever she tried to get close to him, he made it very clear that other than casual handholding and the occasional hug, deeper intimacy was off limits. "I think he felt like he was somehow rescuing me."

  "But you left him to come back to work early."

  "I couldn't let him keep taking care of me. I was being smothered. I wasn't rejecting him–"

  "Maybe Drake's way of coping with this is by doing, keeping busy taking care of someone, so he doesn't have to think about that night or face his own feelings."

  "But why won't he touch me?" Cassie asked, desperate to understand. She hung her head. "I even tried to seduce him earlier," she admitted. "I felt him respond–I know he wanted to–but then, nothing. He just left."

  "Why don't you give him some space?" Adeena suggested. "A little time to sort things out for himself. Maybe you need more time yourself as well. You look exhausted."

  The VCR clicked as it finished rewinding. Adeena hit the play button, and a picture filled the screen. "Is that Virginia Ulrich?" she asked. "Is Charlie sick again? I thought he was doing better."

  "They came in today. How do you know her?"

  "I've worked with her before. Both with Charlie and her other son, George
. Before George died." Adeena shook her head, her bead-festooned braids clicking together. "I can't imagine what that poor woman has been through. Losing one son is bad enough, but then finding out the other has the same illness. And she does such a great job taking care of everything."

  "What's their diagnosis?"

  "There's been about two dozen different ones. I think the current thinking is some rare genetic defect that affects their muscles."

  Cassie considered that. Made sense. Muscles lined the respiratory tract, if they weren't working properly, she could understand the breathing problems. But it didn't explain the seizure or the petechiae.

  "Virginia's a wonder," Adeena continued. "Somehow she's even found time to volunteer with the Children's Coalition. It's an activist group trying to get support and funding for children with rare, debilitating diseases. You might have seen her on their TV commercials."

  "Here comes the intraosseus." Cassie focused on the image on the monitor.

  Adeena made a face. "I'm out of here. Think I'll run upstairs, say hi to Virginia and Charlie. You–go home and get some rest, all right?" She quickly left before the video revealed the painful procedure.

  Cassie watched the IO insertion. Textbook. She rewound the tape and played it again. Then she frowned, ignoring the procedure and focusing on Virginia. Cassie watched once more in slow motion. At the moment her son's bone was drilled into, Virginia Ulrich appeared to be smiling.

  Cassie leaned back, freezing the image. The mother's expression appeared grotesque as it spread over the TV screen. Was it a smile, or a grimace? Maybe Virginia Ulrich was simply relieved that her son would be out of danger.

  Or maybe she enjoyed seeing her son suffer?

  Cassie shook her head. She was trained to assume the worst and hope for the best, but even so, there was nothing in Virginia Ulrich's actions to condemn her as an abusive parent.

  Even abusive parents did not enjoy their children's sufferings. Most of the abuse Cassie had seen occurred from a lack of impulse control rather than a lack of caring. She thought upon her own experiences with Richard. He'd been violent only when drunk or high on drugs. And she was certain in some warped fashion that he had loved her–loved her still despite everything that had happened.