Marisela Morales 03 - Dirty Little Christmas - Julie Leto by Contemporary Romance Page A

give the police any information they might need, but she’d follow her own leads and hopefully, beat them to the punch.
    Literally.
    In that pursuit, she slipped down to the ER before meeting up with Frankie. She found Dr. McFuego chatting up a pair of nurses, though when he spotted her, he made a beeline in her direction, grabbed her by the arm and tugged her into an empty exam room.
    “Hey!” she objected. “Some bedside manner you have.”
    “What’s wrong?” he asked, snapping his pen light out of his breast pocket.
    She grinned alluringly. “Aw, how sweet. You’re worried about me.”
    He held her chin still and flashed the light in her eyes, then felt around to the bump on the back of her head—the one that hadn’t been hurting until he pressed hard on the tender flesh.
    “Ow!”
    “I was hoping not to see you again.”
    She pouted. “You’re hurting my feelings. And my head,” she said, jerking out of his hold.
    He held his hands up in mock surrender. “You left AMA. Unless you’re experiencing pain in a more vital organ than your thick skull, I have real patients to deal with.”
    “Any gunshot vics?”
    He narrowed his intensely blue eyes. “Why? Did you shoot someone?”
    “Recently or just in general?” she replied, avoiding giving an answer that would force him to call security.
    “Ms. Morales—” he started, but she cut him off by snagging his cell phone from where he’d clipped it to his waist.
    “Look, doc, I’m not in the business of hurting people randomly, okay? But I am trying to track down a really bad guy who might be suffering from a GSW, but who also might have information about someone who could be hurt worse. If he shows up here bleeding out of his left shoulder, right about here,” she said, pressing her finger into the spot on the doctor’s shirt that matched where she’d shot the kidnapper, “I can guarantee you he’ll be less willing to talk to the cops than me. And that person who is hurt worse? She’s also very pregnant. If I don’t find this creep, she might not get the help she needs. Entiendes ?”
    With unexpected swiftness, he grabbed her wrist and twisted it, then pushed aside the leather bracelet she always wore to cover up her tattoo—a purple crown topped with a trio of blood-red jewels. “Don’t try to appeal to my Hippocratic Oath, Ms. Morales. What I understand all too clearly from working in this ER is that vigilante justice makes my job a bitch.”
    She tugged her hand out of his, then shoved the cuff back into place. She resisted the urge to shove him, too, but she couldn’t afford the luxury. She needed his help. “I haven’t run with Las Reinas in years.”
    “Not since they tried to kill you,” he shot back. At her obvious surprise, he added, “The hospital keeps good records.”
    “The hospital doesn’t know the whole story.”
    “Then tell me,” he insisted. “If you want me to believe that you’re not just some gang-banger looking to settle a score, I need more information than you’re providing.”
    She wanted to tell him that her past was none of his fucking business, but she held her tongue, too interested in soliciting his help than in shutting down his questions. She’d been a kid then—barely old enough to know anything except that the gang life had lost its shine real quick. “Listen, doc, I won’t deny that I was once a hard-ass bitch. And maybe I haven’t changed so much deep down, but this time, I’m trying to help someone I love. One day, we’ll sit down to some café con leche and I’ll tell you my whole sob story, but right now, I’ve got a pregnant woman to find. If you hear anything that could help, I’d be forever grateful if you’d call, even if it’s after you’ve notified the police.”
    She hadn’t wanted that concession, but she knew do-gooders well enough to know he wouldn’t help her any other way. If Dr. McHottie caught wind of a gunshot wound victim in this or any other local ER, she