Page 20 of Hell Breaks Loose

I see her through my binoculars.

Stepping from the doorway in a bedroom on the second floor, the curtains pulled back to just show me part of the doorway and the four-poster bed.

She’s drying her hair, wrapped in a soft robe.

She looks a little haggard and tired.

But she’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

Studying her as she sits on the edge of the bed, I notice the bruises, dark spots on her arms. It’s no surprise that she would resist. What I can’t figure out is why she's in this rich, opulent room.

Maybe they just roughed her up at first.

A few hours later, she’s fast asleep in bed.

I can’t bring myself to leave, even when Norris calls me and orders me to go home, to sleep. But there’s no way I’m letting her out of my sight until I see her awake, get some clue as to her wellbeing, her status.

I’m nodding off near dawn when I see them come into her room.

They grab her, drag her out.

The last I see of her is downstairs, through a window, kicking and screaming.

It’s everything I can do not to yell, to run toward the wall below and try to kill every one of the bastards inside.

I know that won’t do her any good.

In my emotionally-addled state, I stagger back down the trail, back to Norri’s Subaru.

On the drive home, I get an idea, right in line with Norris’s idea from the other night.

“His name is Doctor Oxy.”

“Last or first?” I tease.

“I assume it’s a family name,” Norris quips. “Rumor has it he treats all sorts of lowlifes around here. He used to work at my hospital, but he quit when allegations of drug use and shady prescriptions came up.”

“I think I see where you’re going with this. Does he do house calls?”

“Something like that. There’s been a lot of drug users popping up at the hospital over the past year, one of the reasons I was able to get a good position at such an in-demand hospital. Their staff was leaving because it’s gotten dangerous all along the West Coast.”

“That would be Marco’s influence.”

“Whoever is at fault, we started noticing the criminals stopped coming in a month or two back.”

“Like they’re getting help elsewhere.”

“Right. So I got a little curious. Did some digging.”

“Norris, that sounds downright dangerous.”

“I’m just watching out for my community. I like it here. I don’t want some Mob doctor creating a waystation for killers in my back yard.”

“There’s my dark white knight.”

Norris raises one eyebrow, making a face. I bite my lip to keep from laughing. I see the faintest hint of a smile pull at his lips as he continues.

“He’s holed up in a motel on the edge of town. I was able to get a number from a girl who came into the hospital. She said he wouldn’t see her because she was pregnant. Said it wasn’t his “wheelhouse” to get involved with broke gangsters’ baby mommas.”

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