All the Pretty Girls - J. T. Ellison [31]
Baldwin nodded at him. “Great, that will be a big help.”
“He’s also bringing photos of the scene so you can see exactly how they found it.”
“Then let’s hope there’s something that will give us an idea of where he’s taken her.” Baldwin slid lower in the seat, chewing his bottom lip. He had a bad feeling that they weren’t going to find anything that would let them save Marni Fischer.
Thirteen
Taylor and Fitz pulled up to Baptist Hospital’s emergency entrance and parked. Making their way through the emergency-room throng was an adventure. Taylor counted six patients that had blood streaming from various places along their bodies. The fluorescent lights made the blood look orange. She swallowed back a moment of distaste. The last time she had come through these doors was on a stretcher, her own blood threatening to spill onto the linoleum floor.
Her last major case popped into her mind—it was always there, just below the surface.
She and Baldwin had met on that case four months prior. He’d been in town on a sabbatical, Metro had needed the help of a profiler. A mutually beneficial relationship ensued, one that pushed Taylor and Baldwin into long hours and tense situations. Being thrown together, two strong personalities in conflict, there had been an inevitable attraction. They had been on the trail of an armed suspect. In the end, cornered, the desperate suspect had gotten into a face-off with Taylor, and lost.
But it wasn’t without a price.
Even all these months later she could see the knife swinging at her, feel it bite into her flesh. She’d killed the man, but not before he left her a permanent souvenir, a wicked slash across her jugular.
Her hand went to her throat. She wouldn’t have it any other way—she and Baldwin made a good team. When she nearly died, he’d been right at her side, and hadn’t left. Still, being back in this emergency room gave her the chills. She tossed the thoughts away.
“Fitz, where would she be?”
“Probably up in surgery. Chief asked the E.R. doc to put her down as Jane Doe so the media wouldn’t get their hands on the story. Let’s see if it worked.” He went over to the information desk, badged the receptionist and asked for Jane Doe’s whereabouts. He turned to Taylor with a smile and pointed toward the elevator, then lumbered away before the receptionist could get too interested. The subterfuge was working so far.
Taylor joined him, and they rode up to the surgical floor in silence. The antiseptic smell leaked into the elevator before the doors opened. Taylor was assaulted with a memory of time served in the hospital. She was sorry that Betsy would have to experience the other side of policing—recovering from assault. It happened, not to everyone, but often enough. The elevator doors opened before she could fully relive her pain, and they went to the nurses’ station.
“You have a Jane Doe up here?” Taylor asked, trying to look noncommittal. The woman looked right back at her and Taylor immediately saw that everyone knew Betsy Garrison was Jane Doe. But the nurse played along.
“She’s just back from recovery. The doctor is with her now. Down the left hall, she’s in 320.”
They thanked her and walked toward the room. Taking a look inside, they could see two men, one the doctor in his green scrubs, the other Brian Post, Betsy’s partner. He looked stricken, but after a moment he laughed and sat down next to the hospital bed. Taylor knocked softly on the door. They looked up and beckoned her and Fitz in.
Betsy Garrison, the tough, feisty head of the Nashville Metro Sex Crimes Unit, was sitting up in the hospital bed, a huge white bandage covering the left side of her head. She looked beaten up and tired but gave as genuine a smile as she could muster.
“Taylor, Fitz, c’mon in. Join the party.”
Taylor took up residence on the opposite side of the bed from Post, who was