Lethal Lies. Lara Lacombe

grabbing Tony’s arm and raising it as instructed. “Keep hold of him,” she said, meeting his eyes for a brief second so he would know she was serious. “Don’t let go.”

      Jillian bent to make the first cut. “Wait,” the man said. She looked up at him to find his eyes wide and his face pale. “Aren’t you going to give him something first? Something for the pain?”

      She gritted her teeth, unused to having her actions questioned in an emergency. “I can’t,” she explained with a patience she didn’t feel. “He’s lost too much blood and I can’t risk sedating him when I don’t have control of his airway. You didn’t steal me any local anesthetic, so I have nothing to give him to numb the area. Now, hold him down.”

      Tony’s eyes flared open and he grunted as she sliced quickly and cleanly through the skin, making a small cut to insert the tube. She stuck her finger inside, probing through the deeper tissue until she felt the bone of his rib. Keeping her finger in place to hold the incision open, she picked up the plastic tube and positioned the tapered end.

      “Now it’s really going to hurt,” she warned, and thrust the tube through the opening she’d created. Tony let out a guttural scream and writhed on the bed, trying to wriggle away from the pain. “Hold him.” She bit the words out, working fast to push past the resistance of muscle and connective tissue until the tube broke into the free space of his chest cavity with a pop she felt in her fingertips.

      There was a soft hiss as the air in his chest began to escape through the tube, a sound that always made her think of opening a soda bottle.

      Jillian held her breath, looking for a flash of red. If the bullet had nicked an artery and his chest cavity was filled with blood, it was unlikely the man would live. She couldn’t treat an internal hemorrhage in a motel room.

      Fortunately for him, the tube stayed clear. She kept one eye on the dressing that covered his bullet hole, gratified to see the gauze suck into the wound as Tony’s chest cavity decompressed. The shower curtain liner seemed to hold, as well, creating a seal to prevent air from re-entering his body. As the gas left his chest he began to cough, gasping in great lungfuls of air between the racking spasms that shook his thin frame. Jillian bared her teeth in a fierce grin, the familiar rush of satisfaction washing over her as she rode the high that came from saving someone’s life.

      When the hissing sound stopped, Jillian twisted the stopcock on the end of the tube to seal it off and picked up her stethoscope. Normal breath sounds on the left and the sweet sound of slightly labored, but functional, breathing from the right. His heart sounded good, too, the frantic cadence settling into a steady rhythmic pulse as his breathing evened out. Excellent.

      She leaned back, looping the stethoscope around her neck. “We’ll leave the tube in place for a few hours, make sure the dressings don’t leak. If he still looks good, we can take it out.” She taped the tube in place to keep it from moving too much, then picked up the gauze and petroleum jelly. Time to make another dressing. It wouldn’t do to have air re-enter his chest through the hole she’d just created.

      “I need another square of the shower curtain.”

      The man didn’t move right away and she looked up, wondering if he’d heard her request. He was staring down at his friend, his expression a mixture of anger and hope, almost as if he couldn’t bear to believe the young man was going to make it. While Tony was stable for now, he wasn’t out of the woods yet, and Jillian knew there were many things that could still go wrong. It would be so much better to get him to a hospital where his condition could be properly monitored, but since that wasn’t going to happen, she’d just have to make do as best she could.

      “Hey,” she said again, waving her hand to get her kidnapper’s attention. “It’s not time for a break yet. I need another square of curtain liner.”

      He blinked at her, as if he was coming out of a trance. With a short nod, he rose from the bed and disappeared into the bathroom.

      Jillian pressed the saturated gauze over the incision she’d made and allowed herself a brief moment of rest. Treating patients always brought an adrenaline rush, and tonight was no different. If anything, she was even more on edge, given her current circumstances. Still, she had done her job, and done it well. She had saved this kid’s life, and if he cooperated, nothing else would go wrong. Maybe the kidnapper would even let her go—after all, she’d done what he’d asked her to do. Surely there was no need to keep her now?

      That thought made her shudder as she circled back to the realization she’d had in the car. While she didn’t know his name, she had seen his face. He wasn’t just going to let her walk out of here—no way.

      That didn’t mean she had to make things easy for him. She heard him stir in the bathroom and knew she didn’t have much time. Glancing quickly over the supplies on the bed, she grabbed a syringe and a vial of sedative and shoved them both in her pocket. When she was finished with Tony, she’d ask to use the bathroom and draw up a dose of the drug while she had privacy. It was a risky defense, since she’d have to get close to the man to administer the drug, but it was the only option she had.

      She wasn’t going down without a fight.

      * * *

      God, he was actually going to make it.

      Alex sagged against the wall of the bathroom and shook his head at the realization, relieved beyond words. Tony was going to survive, which meant he was one step closer to discovering the identity of the mole who had betrayed him. It had seemed like such a long shot that he had hardly dared hope Tony could be saved. His death certainly would have been the low point of a truly crappy day, but now there was a chance he could make things right.

      And all thanks to her.

      She’d been amazing, he reflected as he bent to his task. So totally focused and intense, as though she could heal Tony through the sheer force of her will. It had certainly made him sit up and take notice, and he could only imagine what her patients thought when she brought that energy to them. He couldn’t have asked for a better doctor, and felt a fresh wave of guilt at the knowledge he had forever changed her life.

      He wanted to let her go, wanted to return her to the nice, safe life she’d led before. But now that he’d pulled her into this mess, he couldn’t leave her until he knew she’d be safe. With the 3 Star Killers after him and the FBI thinking he was a traitor, he had to clear his name and make sure she had protection before walking out of her life. Hopefully she’d forgive him for what he’d done, once she knew why he’d done it. He paused, wondering why with everything else going on, the thought of her anger upset him. Not like he didn’t have enough to worry about right now.

      He cut the plastic square free and stood, folding his knife and putting it back in his pocket as he returned to the bedroom. She was still sitting on the side of the bed, her hand pressing a square of gauze to the place where the tube entered Tony’s body. A small part of him felt a perverse satisfaction at the memory of Tony’s reaction as she’d inserted the tube—he deserved all the pain he could get.

      The doctor glanced up as he neared, but quickly looked away when she took the square from him. Interesting. She’d never had trouble meeting his eyes before. He watched as she taped it into place with brisk, efficient movements. Then she sat with her hands in her lap, as if at a loss for what to do next.

      He could relate. When he geared up for an operation, adrenaline was a palpable rush in his limbs, coursing through his veins in a powerful rhythm. During the operation was no different, his body seeming to move of its own accord, his actions perfectly choreographed thanks to endless hours of training. But afterward, when the danger was gone and there was nothing left to do, it was hard to come back down to earth. He imagined emergency medicine, with its life-or-death stakes, was much the same way.

      Without stopping to question his motives, he decided to distract her. “Alex,” he said softly in answer to her earlier question.

      She looked up at him, confusion in her eyes.

      “Before, you asked me my name. It’s Alex.”

      “Oh,”