Military Man. Marie Ferrarella

twisting hallway.

      “And this is my cell phone,” Emmett told Daniels, handing one of his cards to the physician. “We’ll be in touch,” he promised, then turning on his heel, he took the same path out that Lucy had a minute earlier.

      Collin had no choice but to follow. They walked quickly to the elevator bank.

      Emmett’s face remained without expression as he kept it forward, not sparing a glance at his cousin. “Why didn’t you take a picture? It would have lasted longer.”

      Collin suppressed a smile. He didn’t know about that. The mind was an incredible keeper of important details, as well as useless ones. The woman’s face would last in his mind’s eye for approximately the duration of time that he found her likeness pleasing.

      He figured that would fade quickly enough. Lucy Gatling wouldn’t be the first woman he was physically attracted to and she wouldn’t be the last. But he could wait it out. He always had before, successfully avoiding conflicts and complications, both of which were unwanted.

      “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Collin disavowed.

      This time Emmett did look at him. And nearly jeered. “Yeah, right. The only way you could have looked any harder at that woman back there was to have taken out one of your eyeballs and handed it to her.”

      “Now there’s a gross picture.”

      The bell announcing the elevator car’s descent sounded. It arrived a half beat later, opening its doors. There was no one in the car.

      “So is watching you become all slack-jawed over a woman in a white lab coat,” Emmett countered as they walked into the elevator.

      “Still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

      Emmett ignored the denial. Instead he looked at Collin, a light dawning. “Is it my imagination, or did she look a little like Paula?”

      Collin felt himself stiffening the way he did just before a battle, just before the adrenaline went pumping through his veins. “Paula?”

      If that was meant to be an innocent tone, it had failed miserably. They’d been friends far too long for him to be fooled by his cousin. Emmett knew, perhaps better than anyone, what Paula’s walking out on him had done to Collin. Nothing messed with a man’s mind more than a woman did.

      “Yeah, Paula. You remember, six-years-engaged-to-you Paula,” he said sarcastically, knowing that nothing more was needed than that. But just in case, he added, “The one who married someone you called your best friend.”

      “He was my best friend,” Collin confirmed quietly as they stepped out of the elevator again and began to walk toward the front entrance. “He took care of Paula every time I was away on assignments. Couldn’t expect her to sit home four, five weeks at a time while I was taking care of business.”

      Taking care of business. It was a euphemistic way of describing what he’d done for a living. What he still did. Infiltrating drug cultures in South America, crossing borders in European countries that were so close together they could have been opposite walls of a medium-size closet, all while tracking down a fugitive who was increasingly becoming desperate.

      Not unlike what he was setting out to do now, he thought.

      “Paula was young.” He continued his defense of the woman he figured he was always destined to remain in love with. “She wanted a good time.”

      Emmett laughed shortly. There was no sign of humor on his mouth and his eyes were flat. In this case, he took umbrage for his cousin even if Collin wouldn’t take it for himself. “And good old William certainly gave it to her, didn’t he?”

      Collin refused to think about that. Going there served no purpose. She was married and that was that. “Bottom line, he made her happy. I didn’t.”

      Emmett’s frown became deep enough to bury pirate treasure in. “Don’t act like it doesn’t bother you, Collin.”

      “It did,” he admitted, then shrugged good-naturedly, wanting the subject to be dropped, “but it’s over and I learned a lesson from it.”

      Emmett spared him a side glance as they walked to the car. “Which was?”

      “That I’m not cut out to maintain something that needs constant care, constant watching. Constant nurturing.” And that was what marriage was, something that needed continuous work. He was never around long enough to put in the hours.

      The denial sounded too pat to Emmett. “Is that what was going through your head while you were looking at Ms. Med Student and drooling?”

      The image of himself as a lovesick puppy was enough to almost make him laugh out loud. “No drooling was involved. I was just surprised that there could be two women who looked so much alike.”

      “Looks, yeah,” Emmett conceded, “but once she opened her mouth, that woman was no Paula. This one’s got a head on her shoulders.”

      They went down another row of cars. “It’d be better if it was on her neck.”

      Emmett shook his head, a smile peeling back his lips. “You always were the only one who could ever make me laugh.”

      “I was the only one who ever tried,” Collin pointed out. He stopped to look around and finally spotted Emmett’s car two aisles over. He motioned the man to follow him as he lengthened his stride. “Let’s go to the hospital and see if the other driver is back among the living yet.”

      Emmett nodded. He’d already decided on that course of action himself. “That’s why we work so well together, Collin. We think alike.”

      “No, we don’t,” Collin denied, reaching the vehicle first. He waited for Emmett to unlock it. “You just like to take the credit for my ideas.”

      Putting his key in the lock, Emmett laughed. It was good being around Collin again. He’d forgotten what it felt like to interact with his cousin. Forgotten what it was like to feel human again.

      Or as close to human as he could manage, under the circumstances.

      The policeman whose job it was to guard the comatose prison transport driver looked as if he’d sent his brain out for the afternoon so as not to succumb to the mind-numbing task. He sat on a chair, tilting the rear legs so that the front ones were off the floor, his chair balanced against the wall. An unread magazine was spread over his lap and the officer was staring off into oblivion when they came on the floor.

      The sound of footsteps had him turning around and nearly pitching off his chair. He recovered himself at the last moment, rising to his feet.

      “You can’t go in there,” he announced, his voice a great deal deeper than would have been expected, given his shallow physique. Collin suspected that the man was lowering it for effect and didn’t normally speak in that timbre.

      Emmett gave the policeman a dark look and then flashed his credentials. He glanced toward Collin, who followed suit. The policeman read both with great interest. Collin could almost hear him saying, “Wow.”

      The officer’s Adam’s apple, rather prominent, danced a little as it went up and down. He nodded his head at both IDs almost as if he was paying homage to them.

      “I’m sorry, no one told me you were coming to see the driver.”

      Emmett awarded him with one of his frostier looks. “Why should they?”

      “Um, that is…” The officer’s voice trailed off as he looked completely at a loss for words or any sort of an adequate reply.

      “Taking no prisoners today?” Collin asked his cousin as they walked into the room.

      “Not today,” Emmett confirmed. There was nothing he detested more than incompetence, even if it worked in his favor.

      Collin eased the door closed behind them.

      The