When he finally surfaced from the rock-’em, sock-’em, his face was mashed up against the marble and he was breathing like he’d sprinted from one side of Caldwell to the other.
Or maybe all the way to Canada.
Turning into the spray, he rinsed off again and stepped out, nabbing a towel and . . .
Manny looked down at his hips. “Are. You. Kidding.”
His cock was just as erect as it had been the first time: Undaunted. Proud and strong as only a dumb handle could be.
Whatever. He was done servicing it.
Worse came to worst, he could just disappear the damn thing in his pants. Obviously, the “relief” method wasn’t working, and he was out of energy. Hell, maybe he was coming down with the flu or some shit? God knew, working in a hospital you could pick up a lot of things.
Including amnesia, evidently.
Manny wrapped a towel around himself and walked out into his office—only to stop dead. There was a strange scent lingering in the air . . . something like dark spices?
Wasn’t his cologne, that was for certain.
Striding across the Oriental in his bare feet, he opened his door and leaned out. The administrative offices were dark and empty, and the smell wasn’t anywhere around.
With a frown, he looked back at his couch. But he knew better than to allow himself to think of what had just happened on it.
Ten minutes later, he was dressed in fresh scrubs and had had a shave. Mr. Happy, who was still making like the Washington Monument, was tucked up in his waistband and tied in place like the animal it was. As he picked up his briefcase and the suit he’d worn to the track, he was beyond ready to put the dream, the headache, the whole godforsaken evening behind him.
Walking out through the surgical department’s offices, he took the elevator down to the third floor, where the ORs were. Members of his staff were doing their thing, operating on emergency cases, dealing with patient setup or transport, cleaning, prepping. He nodded to folks, but didn’t say much—so as far as they knew, it was business as usual. Which was a relief.
And he almost made it to the parking lot without losing it.
His exit strategy came to a screeching halt, however, when he got to the recovery suites. He meant to go steaming past them, but his feet just stopped and his mind churned—and abruptly, he felt compelled to go into one of the rooms. As he followed the impulse, his headache was Johnny-on-the-spot with a return to life, but he let it roll as he pushed into the isolated bay that was all the way over by the fire exit.
The bed against the wall was neat as a pin, the sheets tucked in so tight they were all but ironed flat across the mattress. There were no staff notations on the dry-erase board; no beeping of machines; and the computer wasn’t logged into.
But the scent of Lysol lingered in the air. And so did some kind of perfume . . . ?
Someone had been in here. Someone he’d operated on. Tonight.
And she had—
Agony overwhelmed him, and Manny pulled another sag-and-grab, latching onto the doorjamb and leaning in to keep standing. As his migraine, or whatever it was, got worse, he had to bend over—
Which was how he saw it.
Frowning against the pain, he stumbled over to the bedside table and got down on his haunches. Reaching underneath, he patted around until he found the folded, stiff card.
He knew what it was before he looked at the thing. And for some reason, as he held it against his palm, his heart broke in half.
Flattening the crease, he stared at the engraving of his name and title and the hospital’s address, phone, and fax. In his handwriting, in the white space to the right of the St. Francis logo, he’d written his cell phone number.
Hair. Dark hair in a braid. His hands undoing—
“Mother . . . fucker.” He threw out a palm to the floor, but went down anyway, hitting the linoleum hard before rolling over onto his back. As he cradled his head and strained against the agony, he knew his eyelids were bolted open, but damned if he could see anything.
“Chief?”
At the sound of Goldberg’s voice, the sharpshooter at his temples faded a little, as if his brain had reached out for the auditory lifesaver and been dragged away from the sharks. At least temporarily.
“Hey,” he moaned.
“Are you all right?”
“Yup.”
“Headache?”
“Not at all.”
Goldberg laughed briefly. “Look, there’s something going around. I’ve had four nurses and two admins take to the floor just like you have. I’ve called in for extra staff and sent the others home to bed.”
“Wise of you.”
“Guess what.”
“Don’t say it. I’m going, I’m going.” Manny forced himself to sit up, and then, when he was ready, he pulled his sorry ass off the floor by using the rails of the hospital bed.
“You were supposed to be gone this weekend, Chief.”
“I came back.” Fortunately, Goldberg didn’t ask about the horse race results. Then again, he didn’t know there were any to be shared. Nobody had a clue about what Manny did outside the hospital, mostly because he’d never thought it was important enough compared to the work they did here.
Why did his life feel so empty all of a sudden?
“You need a ride?” his chief of trauma asked.
God, he missed Jane.
“Ah . . .” What was the question? Oh, right. “I took some Motrin—I’ll be fine. Page me if you need me.” On the way out, he clapped Goldberg on the shoulder. “You’re in charge until tomorrow at seven a.m.”
Goldberg’s response didn’t register.
Turned out that was a theme. Manny wasn’t tracking at all as he found the north bank of elevators and took one down into the parking garage—it was almost as if that last round of the owies had TKO’d everything but his brain stem. Stepping out, he put one foot in front of the other until he got to his designated space. . . .
Where the fuck was his car?
He looked around. The chiefs of service all had assigned parking spots, and his Porsche was not in its slot.
His keys were not in his suit pocket, either.
And the only good news was that as he became royally incensed, the headache backed off completely—although that was obviously the result of the Motrin.
Where. The. Hell. Was. His. Goddamn car.
For shit’s sake, you couldn’t just bust a window, roll start it with the clutch, and head out. You needed the pass card he kept in his—
Wallet was gone, too.
Great. Just what he needed: a stolen billfold, a Porsche on the way to an illegal chop shop, and a go-around with the cops.
The security office was down where you checked out of the garage, so he hoofed it along instead of calling because gee-frickin’-whiz, his cell phone had been taken, too, natch—
He slowed. Then stopped. Halfway to the exit, in the row where patients and families parked, there was a gray Porsche 911 Turbo. Same year as his. Same NYRA sticker on the back window.
Same license plate.
He approached the thing like there was a bomb taped to its undercarriage. The doors were unlocked, and he was cautious as he popped the driver’s side open.
His wallet, keys, and cell phone were under the front seat.
“Doc? You all right?”
Okaaay. Apparently, there were two theme songs of the night: no memories and people asking him the one question he was guaranteed not to answer truthfully.
Looking up, he wondered what exactly he could say to the security guard: Hey, has someone turned my marbles in to Lost and Found?
“What you doing parked down here?” the guy in the blue uni asked.
I don’t have a clue. “Someone was in my spot.”
“Damn, you should have called, my man. We’d have fixed that quick.”
“You’re the best.” At least that wasn’t a lie.