Which made sense. He was a cop. Being observant was probably in the job description. Regardless, he didn’t need to be so rude. Or to call me on it. He could have just ignored it and been nice.
When I didn’t respond, he cocked his eyebrows, waiting for me to answer his question.
“Can you speak?” he grumbled.
Jackass!
All previous thoughts of his perfection were pushed way, way back in my mind. You could be seriously hot on the outside but if you were nasty on the inside, all the exterior goodness disappeared.
I’d known a man like that once. Nate Fletcher. He’d b
een hot, cocky and confident. He’d taught me that lesson. And the way he’d taught it made sure I never forgot. Never.
I inhaled a deep breath and clamped my mouth shut. Because the words that wanted to come spewing out of my mouth were not good ones. I really wanted to call him an asshole and tell him to go to hell. But verbally accosting the town sheriff wasn’t on my list of things to do today so I mustered all of the mental fortitude I had and swallowed my insults.
“The doctor hasn’t been to see him yet,” I said, my smile saccharine. “I’m almost finished cleaning him up but Dr. Peterson will want to do the stitches.”
The sheriff stared at me for a moment, his jaw clenched.
“Fine. Make it fast,” he muttered, giving me one last glare. “When you’re done here, head to the station,” he told Milo. “I’ll meet you there after I talk to Sam.”
Turning on his boot heel, he stormed out of the room, grabbing the curtains and jerking them closed. They flew in the air and fell quickly but not before I caught a glimpse of him from behind.
I was right. He had a great ass.
Damn.
One day later, the hospital was still abuzz. After Sheriff Jess Cleary had stormed out of the hospital, both Maisy and Milo had made it a point to apologize for his behavior. And since he hadn’t bothered to introduce himself before being a jackass, they’d also told me who in the hell he was.
Both Maisy and Milo seemed relieved I wasn’t holding the ordeal against Jess. I’d nonchalantly brushed it aside, blaming Jess’s behavior on the intensity of the situation. As far as they were concerned, Jess was on my “Good” list.
But as far as I was concerned? Jess was in the number two spot on my “Go to hell” list.
Remarkably, the John Doe brought into the ER yesterday had made it through surgery and was currently in an induced coma. Dr. Carlson, who had insisted I start calling him Everett, had decided the coma would last for four full days, until Friday, to let the man’s severe swelling subside and give his broken body a chance to heal.
Even in a coma, John Doe had attracted a lot of attention from the sheriff’s office. Three times a day, a deputy checked in on his recovery. Thankfully, the great Sheriff Jess Cleary was above these personal visits and had sent others in his stead. Sometimes it was Milo, other times it was Sam or Bryant, both of whom were very friendly and nice.
Apparently, the only asshole in the Jamison County Sheriff’s Office was the sheriff himself.
John Doe had also attracted attention from the local newspaper. The weekly Tuesday bulletin had come out this morning with the entire front page dedicated to John Doe’s story, or lack thereof, seeing as no one knew who he actually was.
John Doe had been discovered behind the Silver Dollar Saloon’s large Dumpster by the gentleman who cleaned the bar before it opened each day. John Doe hadn’t had a wallet in his possession and none had been found in the surrounding area.
None of the other bar patrons had known his real identity either. Everyone had just assumed he was one of the many tourists passing through Prescott. Unfortunately for the investigation, he had also paid in cash, leaving no credit card trail.
Maisy and I learned all this from Milo, who had stopped by this afternoon to have his stitches examined. Maisy had been relentlessly pecking at him since the minute he had walked through the door, and after realizing there was no need to keep it a secret and that she was absolutely not going to stop pestering him, he told us how he had gotten hurt.
“When the call came in from the bar, I was covering the dispatch desk. Our dispatcher, he was, ah, indisposed. So I took the call and panicked. I wrote a note for the dispatcher and then hightailed it out of there. Got to the Silver Dollar and found the guy was still alive. Freaked out and called the ambulance and Sam from my cell, since they hadn’t gotten there yet. Asked them where in the fuck they were. Guess that should have been my first clue that no one saw my note.”
“You think?”
“Shut up, Maze,” Milo said.
“Then what happened?” I asked before the two of them could start bickering again.
“The guy’s body was pushed way behind the Dumpster, so I snapped a few pictures of the scene and then started moving the Dumpster, thinking that would help the EMTs get him out of there. Between the phone to my ear and trying to push a heavy Dumpster, I lost my footing and fell. Landed on a big shard of glass. Dug right into my hand.”
“Now, don’t you feel better for telling us?” Maisy asked smugly.
