Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
“I’m more than impressed,” Hollis, Quincy’s girl, said as she ate some popcorn. “Truthfully, that was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen. And that girl agrees with me. You’re hot as hell in those tactical pants. That t-shirt pulls on your biceps nicely, and those mirrored sunglasses stay so securely on your face it’s as if they were glued there. And that look you gave her when she started talking.”
“Whose girl are you again?” Quincy growled, pulling her close.
Hollis giggled. “You know that girl, too.”
“I do?” Quincy asked.
“You do,” Hollis confirmed. “Those blue scrubs should give it away.”
Quincy’s head tilted slightly, then he snapped his fingers. “That’s the girl who works in the ER. Your friend?”
“Friend? I mean, I guess. I know of her. She’s always really nice. But I wouldn’t exactly say we’re friends,” Hollis explained.
My head twisted toward her, wondering if she’d give up any more information, but she just snuggled into Quincy’s chest.
“Is she the one we saw at the grocery store that one time?” he asked.
“That’s her,” she confirmed. “Auden, she’s the girl I saw you talking to last week in the ER.”
“She was cute.” He paused. “Even though I’m fairly sure she stole that drug dealer’s money.”
“What?” I asked, unsure if I’d heard him right.
“So, there’s this really weird Robin Hood thing going on in the ER right now,” Auden said. “Things are going missing. It’s gotten to the point where the director of the ER called us and asked for some help.”
“What’s happening?” I wondered.
“Well, let’s just start from the beginning.” Hollis twisted on the couch to face me better. “Remember last month, when all of those gang members came into the ER, throwing fits and stuff about how they weren’t being treated like human beings?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Well, some of the nurses and doctors took offense. But not because they were mad. It was because they were being accused of not taking care of the gang bangers. They were mad because not one, not two, but over fourteen incidents had occurred in the ER over the last year, and the director wasn’t going to bat for them and their protection,” she reported. “And they try to force the ER director to require multiple security guards to be on rotation in the ER to help protect the staff when these gang members come in needing help. The ER director throws a fit, and then says pretty much that it’s part of the ER staff’s job to take care of patients, no matter what the conditions. He assures them that they don’t have the funds to deal with it. Which pissed off the ER staff. And then the director’s really expensive watch went missing.”
The watch was the least of my concerns at this point.
It was downright terrifying that anyone would have to deal with that kind of worry. The sad fact was, unless you were trained to deal with it, nobody could really protect themselves.
If the public only knew how bad it was…
“Two weeks after the watch went missing—it was a Rolex Submariner, by the way—some gang member’s wad of cash was misplaced. But so were his drugs. Which he got pissed about and started accusing the staff of stealing.”
“A few days after that, some hoity-toity society princess had her thousand-dollar bangle set stolen,” Hollis added in.
“Actually, I have a theory about that,” Auden insisted. “I don’t think that was this Robin Hood at all. I think that was just the princess being a bitch. They had to cut that bracelet off to get to her hand because she broke her arm in several places. They gave it back to her in pieces, I think. She threw a fit and threw it away. I think someone from that person’s family came in later and tried to fish it out of the trash, but it was gone.”
“Interesting, but what makes you think all of this going down is on Ellodie?” I wondered.
But almost as I was speaking, Quincy asked the same thing.
“So, you think someone, more accurately that woman, is responsible for all of those incidents?” he asked curiously.
“Maybe not all of the instances were her,” Auden answered. “But it’s suspicious because she was the only one in the room when that money went missing. And the drugs.”
I’d met Ellodie only twice, and both of those times were very brief.
But I didn’t get a bad vibe off of her.
If she was behind this, there had to be a very good reason.
And, because I always liked a good mystery, I started to grin.
“Uh-oh.”
“What?” Hollis asked from her perch on the edge of Quincy’s seat.
“He’s getting that look,” Quincy murmured, his eyes gleaming. “You’re about to never let that girl rest, are you?”
“Not for a second,” I said.
I was like a dog with a scent, now.
I wouldn’t—couldn’t—leave it alone.
“What does that mean?” Hollis asked, sounding intrigued. “Y’all are acting like this is something funny.”