Unseen by Nancy Bush Page A

door, but Mandy was actively not listening to anything they said that alluded to—or explicitly described—the van and its special chains, cuffs, and restraints.
    “You should be the one with the guard outside your door,” Mandy declared in a shaking voice.
    Gemma’s lips tightened. “I’d choose my words carefully if my husband were a predator.”
    “Wait.” Will put up a hand and blocked Mandy’s view of Gemma and vice versa.
    “You’re the one who started those vicious rumors! I should sue you for assault and slander!”
    “If your husband survives, he’s going to jail,” Gemma stated certainly. “He earned that all by himself.”
    “He’s going to survive. And you’ll be the one going to prison for attempted murder!”
    “Ms. Letton, I’m going to escort you downstairs,” Will said, turning to Gemma’s orderly. “I’ll meet you down there,” he said, actively blocking Mandy from any further progress toward Gemma.
    Gemma was having none of it. She climbed out of the wheelchair and walked the last few steps to the elevator, slamming her palm on the call button of the second elevator. “I’m leaving on my own power. You can tell whoever’s in charge of hospital policy, what they can do with that wheelchair.”
    Mandy Letton tried to get past Will, who kept his body between her and Gemma. He realized he would probably find humor in the situation later on, but in the moment he was aware that, given their own devices, these two women could end up in a physical fight. Stranger things had happened.
    Mandy struggled again to get past Will. The orderly tried to convince Gemma to get back in the wheelchair. Gemma’s elevator car arrived with a bell-like ding. Will watched her get inside and turn to tell the orderly she didn’t want him or the wheelchair anywhere near her, then the elevator doors closed.
    Mandy Letton pushed Will hard in the center of his back. “Damn you. You’re letting her go? She tried to kill my husband!” Hysteria flooded through the anger.
    The orderly said in awe, “You just pushed an officer of the law.”
    Mandy whirled her flash-fury on him. “Shut up. Shut up! Everybody shut up!”
    “Ms. Letton, you need to get control of yourself,” Will warned. He didn’t want to arrest her. Didn’t want this scene to become a deep hole and more fuel for the media on the Letton case.
    Her mouth quivered and her eyes grew hard. When the second elevator arrived, she turned into it blindly and faced to the back. Will and the orderly joined her. Nobody said a word.
    As soon as they hit the street level, Mandy pushed past both Will and the orderly. They watched her hightail it to the parking lot and Will was hot on her heels. If she was looking for Gemma LaPorte, he was going to make sure no physical violence occurred.
    Gemma was nowhere in sight and Will was annoyed. He followed Mandy out to her car, a white compact, and waited under a watery sun as the wind threw a shimmer of rain at him.
    Then he slowly turned around, searching the lot for a glimpse of a woman with straight brown hair whose movements were cautious with the need to keep pain at bay.

    She had no idea how to get home, but she was outside the hospital. In the parking lot in a fitful rain. No purse. No socks. No damn underwear. No funds. No means at all. She couldn’t think of the number of a close friend—for that matter she couldn’t think of the name of a close friend—and her half-baked plan to ask hospital administration to loan her cab fare and add it to her bill, was out the window. She wasn’t going back in there for any reason. Any reason at all.
    She was free, and she intended to stay that way.
    And she was insanely furious at Letton’s deluded wife. Insanely furious. The pounding in her head was rage which was aggravating her injuries.
    Had she tried to kill the man? She hadn’t believed herself capable, but God, she hadn’t expected the depth of her revulsion, the extent of her anger. She wanted to