Love Bats Last

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The park police and sheriff’s deputies were already at the Center when Alex and Jackie pulled into the lot. He helped her from the truck and tucked her close.

  “Water,” she said. She was trembling. Hell, so was he.

  “Yup.” He slipped his arm around her waist and walked her toward the hospital.

  Gage ran up to them just as a van with a satellite dish roared into the parking lot. Great. The press. They must’ve been monitoring the police radios. Word of his involvement would spread fast. A dead body and a woman and a ballplayer—that was real ratings material.

  “Let’s get her inside,” Alex said.

  Two deputies met them at the door.

  “Dr. Brandon needs a few minutes.” Alex signaled the deputies to join them inside the hospital, then closed and bolted the door.

  While Gage took Jackie into the surgery suite to get her some water, Alex told the deputies what he knew.

  Someone banged at the bolted door.

  “I’ll take care of it,” the taller deputy said, motioning for Alex to stay seated. “Looks like you could use some tending yourself.”

  Alex flexed his left wrist. It had already swollen to twice its normal size.

  “Ice,” Alex said. “Ice would be good.”

  The door to the surgery swung open. Jackie, already looking stronger and brandishing an ice compress, walked directly to him.

  “I may be twaddle-minded with post-trauma shock, but I am a doctor.” She knelt beside him and took hold of his injured wrist. “I think it’s worse than you’re letting on.” She curved the ice pack around his wrist and then wound an elastic bandage around the ice pack. “Gage, we’ll need one for his elbow.”

  “My elbow’s fine,” Alex said. But as she closed the Velcro on the bandage, the pressure made him wince with pain. “Okay, maybe some ice.”

  She ran her hand up his arm and examined the swelling at his elbow. “Your game—”

  “No worries,” the deputy said. “The Giants are winning, six to four.”

  “I meant tomorrow,” Jackie said.

  Alex flexed his fingers. “We’ll see about tomorrow when it comes. For now I think we have some explaining to do to these fine gentlemen.”

  They told the deputies every detail either of them remembered.

  “You’ll both have to talk to the FBI. They’ll investigate what the dead man told Dr. Brandon. If there’s sufficient evidence, they can bring Mr. Volkov in for questioning.”

  “Sufficient evidence?” Jackie said, crossing her arms.

  “Facts, ma’am. We want as many facts as possible before we drag the guy in.”

  “And you’ll have to fill out some paperwork,” the other deputy said. He looked at Jackie, then glanced at Alex’s bandaged wrist. “Likely it can wait a day.”

  “She’s exhausted,” Alex said. “I’d like to get her home.” He signaled to Gage. “Would you take someone out to pick up my car?”

  “There’ll be a line of people wanting to drive it,” Gage said with a half-hearted attempt at a smile. “No problem.”

  “We’ll be dusting her place for prints,” the officer said. “It’s probably not the best place to take her.”

  “I need some clothes,” she said, tugging at her torn sweater.

  Alex heard the catch in her voice. She needed more than clothes.

  He nodded, then tilted his head toward the window. The press had gathered in a knot of buzzing energy just beyond it. “Maybe you could give us a hand getting through them?”

  The officers escorted them out the door, but proved to be no match for the reporters. They surrounded Alex and Jackie on the steps of the hospital. Alex saw Jackie frown at one woman in particular, a pert blonde, who was intent on shoving a microphone in her face. Alex stretched out his arm, but the reporter ducked under.

  “Lady Jacqueline,” the reporter said, making sure her cameraman had them framed in her shot, “why do you think the attacker chose you as a target?”

  Jackie grimaced.

  “Doctor Brandon,” Alex said as he took Jackie’s arm and attempted to maneuver around the reporters.

  “Oh no, it’s most definitely Lady Jacqueline,” the reporter said, relishing the surprise on Alex’s face. “I did my research. She’s the late Lord Brandon’s only daughter.” She stepped aside so her cameraman could fully focus on Alex’s reaction.

  “Just go blank and walk on,” Gage said from behind them. “I’ve got the rear.”

  The pert reporter persisted, jutting her microphone closer to Jackie’s face with a smug smile. “When did your romance with Alex Tavonesi begin? What’s baseball’s most private guy like behind the scenes?”

  A dead man, a would-be killer, floated in the sea and they wanted dirt on him? Typical.

  A man with an even larger mike shoved toward Alex. “What’s your relationship to the dead guy?”

  Not to be outdone, the perky blonde shoved him out of her way. “Are you engaged?” She tossed her hair and nailed Alex with her best smile. “Was that man some sort of competition? Was it a love triangle?”

  Alex knew something about handling the press. He’d had plenty of practice swallowing down his anger and he knew better than to react. The press was necessary, but some of them overstepped decent boundaries. The eager young lady had just stepped across his.

  He gave the offending reporter his coolest smile.

  “Miss... ?” He peered at the press badge dangling from a clip at her waist, reached for it, then fingered it.

  “Drakely,” she said, with the broad and practiced smile of the media. “Mara Drakely. KNRX News.” She edged to the side to allow her cameraman closer, ready for her scoop.

  “Miss Drakely...” Alex dropped the press badge and took a breath to keep the edge of anger out of his voice. “Although we’d love to answer all your intelligent questions, Doctor Brandon is exhausted.” He smiled again, but shot out his hand and covered the lens of the camera. “That’s all for now.”

  He wrapped his arm around Jackie and steered her away from the door.

  Four of the volunteer crew members had come up behind them. They used herding boards to clear a path through the surprised reporters. The officers closed in the rear.

  “Don’t look back,” Alex said as he ushered Jackie to her truck.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said with a relieved smile.

  The trip to Jackie’s home was quick, and they discovered that the deputies had been right: two satellite news trucks and several police cars were parked in front of it.

  “My building has security guards,” he said as he slowed the truck. “If you stay here, you’ll be hounded.”

  “Tell me that you have a very big, very deep, bathtub.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Then your place it is.”

  She pointed to a side road leading up over the hills. “Turn here. We can avoid an ambush at the tunnel.”

  “You might get good at this,” he said as he steered up and over the hills.

  “I don’t plan to. I’ll take a quiet lab or fieldwork in a remote spot any day.”