Jacked (Trent Brothers #1)(6)

“You want to explain to me why you’ve got blood on your pants?”

I looked down to see what he was referring to, already chastising myself for not changing before I fled the hospital. Damn it, I didn’t know it was my uncle until we started working on him. There was a lot of blood.

“I’m a doctor. I, ah, I work in the trauma unit at University Hospital. I swear. I just left work.” I didn’t know why I was pleading with him but I was freezing and my knees felt like they were going to give out. “My ID—”

“Wait, you’re a doctor?” he asked.

Flashes, like torn pictures from a nightmare, barraged my every thought. Accusations and handcuffs, a hand pushing down on my head, a steal cage separating the front seat from the back.

“I’m… a doctor.” My vision fragmented, as though everything was reflected on broken shards of glass. So bright.

“Whoa, easy,” he said, gripping my waist and arm.

I fell into his chest, feeling strength I knew I didn’t have on my own at the moment. He moved me closer to the front fender. “Here, lean back. Easy. That’s it.”

The world started to spin in new directions as the paranoia rolled throughout my body. I knew I was in deep trouble all over again. “Please,” I whispered out, fighting the lightheadedness muddling my thoughts. I wished this nightmare could all just be over.

Part of me started to wonder if someone at the hospital, namely my ex’s new bitchy girlfriend, Mandy Haston, framed me by putting a dead body in the trunk of my car. It would be difficult, but not impossible.

Black combat boots and very long, muscular thighs clad in black cargo pants broke my view. A black leather-gloved hand brushed under my chin as he tipped my face up.

“Look at me,” he ordered, softening his touch.

It was difficult to do as he instructed being in this state of extreme mortification. I wanted to focus on the police badge hanging from around his neck instead of making eye contact with a handsome face and gorgeous brown eyes that were assessing me as if I were a common criminal. And was that a tiny microphone attached to his coat?

“Please,” I said again, remembering what I was asking for. Thoughts of the hospital administration having a valid excuse to squash my employment, and therefore killing my fellowship, made me shake. “Make them turn the cameras off. I can’t… My career… I’ve worked so hard. Please. Please. I’m begging you. Don’t destroy it.”

“Easy, all right? Don’t worry about them. You have any drugs or weapons on you?”

“What?” I was stressed and confused, still his question was insulting.

I felt his hands slide over my hips, my thighs, down to my ankles, even at the back of my pants and over my ass. What could have been sensual felt like a huge violation.

“No,” I said as his hands sought confirmation. “I’m not some lowlife criminal.”

He quickly patted the sides of my coat, unzipping it far enough to peek inside with his flashlight. I was grateful that he zipped me back up. My teeth were chattering.

“How about in the car?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Tell me how you got blood on ya,” he asked again, kinder this time. I wanted to scream at him that it was my Uncle’s, but what good would that do?

“I, um… I had seven trauma patients tonight. Last one was from a three-car accident on the Schuylkill.”

He instantly scowled at me as his grip on my coat tightened. “The rollover?”

I nodded, trying like hell not to cry or throw up from the stress. “We received the Life Flight.”

That seemed to agitate him further. He cursed under his breath a few times, eying the ginormous black officer at his side with some unspoken message, rocking me on my unstable feet in the process.

“Jesus Christ,” the huge black officer growled low, doing his own bristle of disbelief.

I turned my attention to the red splotches of dried blood on my sneaker, willing them to disappear. Along with running a red light and being handcuffed, I walked out of work with blood traces on me. “I didn’t see… I had booties on. I—I didn’t change my scrubs before I left.”

Another police officer—this one older, very tall and solid with a slightly grayed moustache—stepped next to me. “Miss, try to calm down. We’re going to tell you what’s going on. We received a nine-one-one call that this car was stolen at gunpoint and you have a fictitious plate on the back.”

The severe dizziness worsened by me shaking my head so adamantly. Vertigo was full-on.

“Fic? What? No. Can’t be. I bought it last month on my birthday. January seventh. It’s mine.”

Those dark eyes squinted at me. “Then explain why your plate is coming back as a stolen Toyota Corolla.”

Damn, you’re arrogant. “I have no idea. But that’s my car,” I bit out, incensed by his contradiction.

“Got any proof of that?”

I motioned with my chin. “The paperwork is all in the glove compartment. I never moved it. If you let me go I can show you.”

He put his hand on my shoulder. “Hang tight. You have any identification?”

“My license is in my purse.”

“Then you give us permission to search your vehicle?”