Brain Storm by Cat Gilbert (detective books to read .TXT) 📖

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THE WONDERFUL AROMA of coffee woke me up the next morning. Trinity was gone, and Jonas now sat in the nearest chair, juggling a huge cup of coffee while trying to thumb through a file.

“I hope you brought some of that for me, or you can get out right now,” I threatened.

“Good, you’re awake. We need to talk.”

“No,” I replied, looking around with my good eye, for another coffee, which seemed to be missing. “We need to get coffee.” I thumbed the call button. Maybe the nurse could get me some coffee. My head was killing me, and I was sure that coffee would help.

Within seconds a nurse that I hadn’t seen before popped in. I put in my request for coffee, which she promptly ignored, much to Jonas’ amusement, instead slapping the blood pressure cuff on my arm.

“As you probably surmised, this guy, ‘Denzel’, as you refer to him, got away clean,” Jonas filled me in, as the nurse pumped up the cuff. “Trinity saw him, along with several others, when he came barreling through the ER doors. He knocked a guy down, jumped a set of seats and was gone before anyone knew what was going on.

“Well, that’s great news,” I said irritably, throwing the nurse a dirty look as she pumped the cuff up a second time. I mouthed the word “coffee” at her, but she was busy looking at the monitor on the cuff.

“No, the great news is the hospital has security cameras in that hallway, and we have him on tape. It also appears that in addition to breaking his hand when the car door slammed, our boy got cut, which the doctor also treated. We got DNA off the gauze used to clean the wound and lifted several good prints from the exam room. It will take a while on the DNA, but hopefully, the prints will give us an ID.”

That was good news. Better than I had hoped for. The nurse had finally finished taking my BP and was making notes in my chart. My head pounding, I asked again for coffee, only to be told that breakfast was on its way. As she left the room, I saw the guard again, stationed outside the door and frowned, hurting my swollen eye in the process.

“What’s with the uniform, Jonas?” I asked, although I already had a pretty good idea.

“Look. We saw the attack on the security tapes. It was brutal. The doctor has two broken ribs, a concussion, and a broken leg. As for you, you’re lucky to be alive. You took the brunt of the impact. Our perp tangled up with the doctor, and most of his injuries were from being kicked and punched while Denzel was trying to get away.” Jonas stopped to take a big swig of coffee. “Frankly, watching you go down that last time, it looked like you were a goner. You got lucky. Combine that with the shooting in the morning and the guard outside isn’t hard to understand.”

The door opened, and an orderly came in with my breakfast tray. I wasn’t quite ready for food, but the covered cup on the tray certainly caught my interest. I snatched the paper cover off only to find a cup of hot water and a tea bag. How was anyone supposed to get well here without coffee?

Jonas snorted. I had a funny feeling he was laughing at me, and I glared at him. What kind of person brought coffee into the hospital and drank it in front of another person? That’s what I wanted to know. I eyed his coffee cup and saw the startled look on his face just as Trinity sailed through the door.

“Taylor!” she shouted, startling me.

“What!” I shouted back, grabbing my head as the sound echoed through my brain, compounding my headache. Pain meds. Where were the pain meds?

“Stop it,” she ordered, her eyes widening in a silent warning.

Stop what? I gave her a wide-eyed look right back. What was with her? All I wanted was some coffee. Jonas had some, and I saw no reason why I couldn’t have some too. She just stood there looking at me, lips pursed, one eyebrow cocked, waiting for me to figure it out.

Realization of what had nearly happened finally dawned on me. It must have shown on my face because Trinity let out a very unladylike snort, which I took as a derisive comment on my mental acuity. Not that I could blame her. We had just nearly had a repeat of the coffee house incident right there in the hospital room. The fact that it had happened again was bad enough. That Trinity had known what was happening before I did was even worse. She, who sat firmly in the ‘refusing to believe it column’, had seen it the minute she came in the room, and Jonas obviously had felt something happening. I had just about managed to convince myself that everything had just been a weird coincidence and now this. The day just couldn’t get any better.

I didn’t dare look at Jonas as Trinity strode over to the bed and threw her briefcase onto my lap. Ouch. She might have seen and believed, but she sure wasn’t happy about it. Swinging a huge purse from her shoulder, she dropped it down on the end of the bed, reached in and came out with a large thermos. Shoving my breakfast tray out of the way, she slapped the thermos down on the bed stand in front of me, grabbed the cup from the tray, dumped the water down the sink and slammed the cup back down on the tray. The minute she opened the thermos, the rich smell of freshly made coffee filled the room. God love her! Coffee! I immediately forgave her for nearly crippling me with that briefcase. She poured a healthy dose and handed me the cup. I chanced a look at Jonas as I took a big sip. He was staring at me.

“Ah,” I said with a moan, trying to make light of the situation. “Just what the doctor ordered.” Trinity retrieved her briefcase from my lap and headed over to the other chair.

I decided the best thing to do was ignore what had happened, or had nearly happened, and try to get Jonas’ mind back on the business at hand.

“Jonas was just explaining the guard at the door,” I informed Trinity. “However, I think you have it wrong, Jonas.”

“Really?” He tossed back the last of his coffee, looked at the cup and then back at me, His little finger was tapping a beat against the now empty cup. I opted not to fill the silence, instead trying to look innocent, waiting for the shoe to drop. I couldn’t be sure but from the sound of things Trinity had completely stopped breathing.

“How do you figure that?” He said it so softly, I barely heard it, but I wrapped both hands around it like a lifeline. He was letting it go. With any luck, he had decided that he’d imagined the whole thing with the coffee.

“I don’t think he’s after me. I mean, he shot at you, not me,” I explained, trying hard not to babble as relief surged through me. He raised a questioning eyebrow, but didn’t say anything, so I plunged ahead. “At the hospital, he hit the doctor, not me. From what you told me, the doctor received most of the blows and kicks when he was trying to get away. I think I just got caught in the crossfire.”

“Actually,” Jonas said, rising to leave “ I’m not wrong. You’re right that he shot at me and that he didn’t attack you directly at the hospital. After reviewing the tape numerous times, I’m even willing to say that it appears he was trying to avoid kicking or punching you during his effort to escape, but rest assured, Taylor. He is after you. He just wants you in one piece. So you, and everyone who cares about you,” he said pointedly as he swung his gaze around to Trinity, “need to be aware and exercise extreme caution.” He crossed to the door and tossed his empty cup into the trash. Turning around he gave us one last look.

“Ladies, I am aware that something is going on here between the two of you. Whatever it is, if I find out it has something to do with this case, and you’ve withheld information, I’m going to be VERY unhappy with both of you.”

With that last admonishment, he left the room, letting the door close quietly behind him. Within seconds, Trinity was on her feet, pacing back and forth across the room.

“If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it! What were you thinking?” she hissed at me. She was in full lawyer mode, but we were both aware of the officer on the other side of the door, not to mention the possibility of Jonas coming back unannounced.

“Just what do you think you saw, Trinity?” I asked, unwilling to admit to what we had both seen and Jonas now suspected.

“Don’t play that game with me, Taylor. You know what happened here, you just don’t want to admit it.” She gave up the pacing and came to stand by the side of the bed with her hands on her hips. “If I hadn’t come in, you’d be wearing Jonas’s coffee. I repeat, what were you thinking!”

“I wasn’t thinking!” I answered back in a hushed whisper. “I just wanted