She froze to a halt three steps later.
Liam—that’s Detective Hollister to you, libido—stood just past the double doors leading in from the lobby, with Isabella and Carmen’s boss, Harlow Davenport-Bradshaw, on either side of him. He looked just as gorgeous as he had last night, with his dark red stubble perfectly trimmed and his T-shirt and jeans loving every last angle of his strong, lean frame. Looking up, he saw her just a beat before anyone else, his spine straightening as their eyes locked and held.
Now she had no escape and no pride. Fucking fantastic.
“Ah, Carmen, you have perfect timing,” Harlow said. Her smile was genuine, and okay, maybe this wasn’t going to be horrible. “Detectives Walker and Hollister want to ask you a couple questions about a case they’re working on. Is that okay?”
Annnnd maybe it would be pure, fiery hell. “Oh. But we’re really busy,” Carmen tried, lifting her chin at the intake board. “I’d hate for anyone who isn’t feeling well to have to wait.”
“I can pull Connor from the back to cover you,” Harlow offered. “I’m sure he won’t mind.”
“Don’t worry. We’ve only got a few questions,” Liam added, just as cool as the other side of the pillow, and God, how was Carmen’s heart beating even faster now?
Nope. No. She had to handle this, just as she had last night. “Suit yourself, I guess.”
“Would you like me to come with you, Carmen?”
She battled her shock, trying like hell to keep it from her face. Harlow was offering to come with her?
Isabella looked just as surprised as Carmen felt. “Oh, that’s really not necessary,” she said. “Carmen’s not in any trouble.”
“That never even crossed my mind.” Harlow looked at Carmen with a kindness she didn’t deserve. “What I meant was, I’m happy to go with you if you don’t want to do this alone.”
Carmen shook her head before things got any further out of hand. “No. Thanks,” she added, too late to soften the response. “Like they said, it’s just a few questions. No big deal.”
Both Harlow and Connor knew that Carmen helped Isabella from time to time on cases. Her criminal record was part of her employment history, full disclosure and all that crap. The background check would’ve kicked it all up, anyway. It’d been better to just throw out all that ugly in one go.
Two arrests for drug charges in the same six months tended to stick to a girl, even if she had testified against her dealer when he’d beaten a woman to death.
“If you change your mind, I’ll be right here,” Harlow said, bringing Carmen back to the clinic. “The conference room next to my office is nice and private. You’re welcome to use it. Take as long as you need.”
“Thanks,” Isabella said. Although Carmen knew better than to think it would affect how any of them did their jobs, she also knew that Liam and Isabella and Harlow were friends. The smiles and pleasantries that passed between them as they parted were genuine. Hell if that didn’t make lying to all of them about the night clinic that much shittier, but Carmen didn’t exactly have a choice. Anyway, she wasn’t like Isabella or Harlow, and she’d be fooling herself to think otherwise, no matter how kind either of them might be.
Steeling her shoulders, she followed Isabella and Liam down the hallway, past the exam rooms and curtain areas. The conference room was small but well-furnished, with a rectangular six-person table in the center, surrounded by comfortable office chairs, a series of framed black-and-white photographs of Remington, a large potted weeping fig tree (Harlow’s contribution), and a slender side table bearing a pod coffeemaker and a basket full of prepackaged snacks (one hundred percent Connor’s doing). Isabella closed the door behind her after ushering Carmen in, and Carmen pulled her armor into place, spikes and all.
“If this is about that guy from last night, you’re wasting your time,” she said.
“The guy from last night has a name.” Isabella tilted her head. Waited a beat. Then said, “But you already know that, don’t you, since you checked in on him this morning.”
Carmen covered her surprise with a heavy sigh. So she’d gone to check on the guy. Big deal. Just because she didn’t know him—or know how he knew her—didn’t mean she had no soul. For fuck’s sake, the guy had tried to call her for help. “Why are you here if you already know what I know?”
“Because you’re not telling me everything, mija, and I need to find out who stabbed Axel Franklin.”
“I am telling you everything.” Frustration sizzled through Carmen’s veins. “Oh Dios mío, Isabella, I’ve said it a dozen freaking times! I have no idea who he is.”
“Okay,” Liam said, holding up his phone. “But you do know this guy, don’t you.”
Carmen snapped a glance at his phone, fully prepared to tell him that no, she didn’t know whoever it was, either, thank you very much…
Except that was a lie.
Carmen stared at the picture of the young Black man she’d triaged and helped treat a couple weeks ago at the night clinic where she worked in North Point. Okay, worked might be a stretch, since she didn’t get paid. The doctors who ran the place she referred to in her head as the night clinic didn’t have the funds for that, and anyway, the whole place was off the books. The staff was all trained and certified, of course, and they never did major procedures, like surgery. If a person’s injury was severe, they always, always advised hospital care. But they did provide access to preventive and prenatal care, along with most services any local urgent care would provide.
The difference was, unless it was clear that a law had been broken, they didn’t ask a lot of questions. Most of their patients either didn’t have enough money or had no insurance to cover their expenses, and some were scared to go to hospitals or even wellness clinics for the most basic things, like vitamins or vaccines. But that didn’t mean they didn’t need or deserve healthcare. Dante, who had been hurt on a construction job but hired under the table for the work, had been no different.
Not that Carmen could actually say any of this without getting super-duper fired from her day job, and also possibly arrested. “Who’s that guy?” she asked, fishing for how much they knew and how Dante might be involved with Axel.
A muscle in Liam’s jaw twitched. “Come on, Carmen.”
“His name is Dante West,” Isabella said after a beat during which Carmen glared at Liam and the suddenly broody detective glared right back. “He and Axel exchanged a few calls last night. Just before and after Axel called you.”
Well, that explained how Axel had gotten her number. Damn it! “Sounds like you should be talking to him, not me,” Carmen said.
“We tried that,” Liam bit out. “But it seems he no longer lives at the address on his driver’s license. He moved out last month, and—funny thing—no one in the building has any idea where he might have gone.”
Carmen shrugged, although her shoulders had to work for it. “I don’t know where he is, either.”
This much was true. She might have called him to check up on his broken wrist after he’d been in for treatment, but she didn’t know where he lived. It was rule number one never to ask patients at the night clinic anything personal outside of a health history.