Personal?
Hayden eased toward him. “You dropped the reporter off at her hotel last night?”
Josh nodded.
Hayden’s head cocked to the right. “Didn’t realize you two knew each other so well.”
They didn’t know each other well. So his reaction to her shouldn’t be as intense as it was. But... “She’s a victim. And my job is to protect victims.” Lately, it seemed as if all he’d done had been to discover the dead. Casey wasn’t dead, and he damn well wasn’t going to let anything else happen to her.
Hayden’s stare was assessing. “Better watch yourself. Once emotions get involved, the cases become even harder.” His lips twisted in a humorless smile. “Trust me—I know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Josh knew the guy was speaking from experience because the woman Hayden loved, Jill West, had been targeted by Theodore Anderson. Theodore had first kidnapped Jill when she was just a kid, but Jill had managed to escape him. Years later, she’d returned to Hope, determined to finally solve the mystery of her past. But her return had set off a deadly chain of reactions... In the end, Jill and Hayden had both been fighting for their lives.
They’d won, though. They’d stopped the killer. They’d unmasked Theodore Anderson. And now Jill and Hayden were finally free to work on their future together.
But Josh wasn’t Hayden, and Casey...she wasn’t Jill. They didn’t have a past that linked them, and as far as how he felt about her... “Emotions aren’t an issue for me. She’s just a case.” Simple words. Emotions didn’t get to him. He did his job, and he moved on. Simple.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Hayden mumbled.
Josh climbed onto the motorcycle. He glanced over at the house and saw the yellow line of crime scene tape.
Casey could have died in that house.
His jaw clenched. The killer wouldn’t get close to her again. Not on his watch.
* * *
SHE’D BEEN POKED and prodded for hours. Hours. And Casey was not a happy woman. Her control was barely holding on, and any moment, she was afraid she might just break apart.
She didn’t want to break in front of the too friendly nurses. Or the steely-eyed doctors. Or anyone.
“Are we done yet?” Casey asked, fighting to keep her voice calm.
Dr. Abernathy, a young African American woman with small, wire-framed glasses and a no-nonsense manner, looked up from Casey’s charts. “You are a very lucky woman, Ms. Quinn.”
She had to swallow three times before she could manage to speak again. “Luckier than the other victims.”
A faint furrow appeared between the doctor’s eyes.
“I don’t feel sick any longer. I don’t have the headache—”
“It’s good that you’re feeling better, but I’d like to keep you for observation a bit longer. You took a severe blow to the head—”
“I just told you my head felt fine now.” Only a tiny lie. Her head still ached a bit, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle.
“In concussion cases, the victim may suffer from seizures or convulsions. It’s possible that you could become confused and agitated—”
“I feel plenty agitated right now,” Casey muttered as she fiddled with the paper hospital gown that she was wearing. Her clothes had been taken, confiscated as evidence by the authorities. “Thank you for all that you’ve done. Really, thank you. But I want to get out of here, okay? I don’t have nausea, no blurred vision, no memory lapses. I know our president. I know my birthday. I know—”
The curtain on the side of her bed swung back. “You know that you’re causing trouble.”
Her breath left in a quick rush. Josh. “I—I thought you were at the crime scene.” She pulled up her covers—or rather, the thin sheet that was her only cover, other than the paper gown. “How long have you been here?” Had he just been hanging around, eavesdropping on her talk with the doctor? Didn’t he get there was a whole patient privacy issue going on?
He stepped closer to the bed. A line of stubble coated his hard jaw. “Been here long enough to know that you’re pushing yourself too hard.”
“No, I’m not. I let the doctors check me out. I did everything they wanted.” Her shoulders straightened. “Now, I want to go back to my hotel—” But even as she said the words, she stopped. No, she didn’t want to go back to the hotel. She didn’t want to return to that dark room and remember what it had been like when the attacker grabbed her.
“Your room isn’t an option.”
Because a crime scene team was still there? “I’m sure I can get another hotel room.”
His jaw hardened. “What you’re getting is a safe house.”
A what?
“Um, excuse me,” the doctor began.
Josh flashed his ID at her. “FBI. I’m Josh Duvane, and I’ll be seeing to Ms. Quinn’s security.”
“I told you to call me Casey,” she reminded him, again.
He flashed her a hard look.
Fine. Enough of this. Casey shoved back her thin cover. If need be, she’d leave that place in her paper gown. She swung her legs over the side of the bed. She started to rise—
Josh locked his hands around her shoulders and pushed her back down. “You aren’t going anywhere.”
Her eyes narrowed on him. “Yes, I am going someplace. I’m getting out of here. Because I don’t like hospitals. I don’t like getting poked and prodded, and since nothing is wrong with me, there’s no reason I can’t just walk right out of that door.”
There was more to it than that. She had a very specific reason for not liking hospitals. Once, she’d spent far too much time in a hospital. She’d grown to hate those white walls and the scent of antiseptic. That scent was like death to her.
He glanced at the doctor.
“She needs someone to stay with her,” Dr. Abernathy said. “In case she has any issues—blurred vision, slurred speech, convulsions...”
Oh, yes, that lovely list again. “I’ll bunk with my camerawoman. Katrina can make sure I’m okay.” Speaking of Katrina, the woman was probably freaking out. Casey needed to talk with her immediately but no one had let her have a phone.
Not helpful.
“If I make sure she isn’t alone,” Josh said, his hands still around her shoulders, “will she be able to leave?”
Dr. Abernathy nodded. “Yes, but if she displays any of those symptoms, she has to return to the hospital right away.”
He nodded. “Done.”
Done?
“I’ll get an orderly to help Ms. Quinn to the car,” Dr. Abernathy stated briskly. “Patient pickup is located at the front side of the building—”