Page 47 of Take the Bait

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Calling a cab.”

“Cancel it. I’ll drive you down to the jail. I need to find out how Koronov is doing, too.”

“You can’t gather any evidence if you see him tonight. He’s injured and possibly medicated. I’ll get anything he says to you thrown out of court.”

“I’m a human being, Dani. Not a bloodsucking ambulance chaser. The guy’s been hurt. I want to make sure he’s okay, not depose him.”

She stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “Okay.” She turned off her phone and stuffed it into her purse. “Cab canceled.”

He nodded his thanks to her. No way was he letting her go to the rough neighborhood around the jail, in the dead of night, in bad weather, by herself.

As she followed him through his kitchen, she said, “Do you promise not to interrogate Alex or try to use anything he says tonight against him?”

“Of course,” he retorted, a bit offended.

She shrugged apologetically. “You know what they say about those prosecuting attorney types.”

He paused at the top of the stairs down to the garage, spun around and swept her sexy curves up against his body. “What do they say about us prosecutors?”

He kissed her before she could answer, though, and he’d completely forgotten what he’d asked her by the time they finally broke apart breathing hard and staring hungrily at each other.

“Work first,” she said breathlessly.

“Then sex. Lots and lots of sex,” he finished for her.

She smiled so brilliantly at him he thought he felt his heart crack a little in response.

If they didn’t go now, they weren’t leaving his house for at least an hour, and his kitchen counter was never going to be the same after he had carnal knowledge of her on it.

Mentally cursing, he forced himself down the steps into the garage He barely managed to keep his hands off her as he held her car door for her.

The hour was late and the weather lousy, which meant the city’s streets were unusually deserted. They made it across town fast, and he was able to find a parking spot right in front of the jail.

They ran inside together, sharing the only umbrella he owned. He made a mental note to buy a second one and stow it in the trunk of his car for her.

A guard led them to the jail’s infirmary. Cam held the door for Dani, who rushed past him to a bedside.

Alexei Koronov was in the nearest bed, an IV drip hooked to his arm. His chest was bare and the top of a bandage spanning his torso peeked out from under a plain blue blanket.

“What happened?” Dani was already asking as Cam joined her.

Koronov looked back and forth between his lawyer and Cam before answering, “I was stabbed in the right side just below my first rib by a narrow, improvised blade. It was poorly aimed and missed both the appendix and intestine, catching mostly muscle. However, as a precaution, intravenous antibiotics are being administered to prevent possible peritoneal cavity infection and/or sepsis.”

A man in green surgical scrubs came over. “I couldn’t have said it any better. And I’m Doctor Lane, by the way.”

“In other words, you were shanked?” Cam asked Alex.

Koronov shrugged while the prison doctor nodded.

“Was the weapon recovered?” Cam asked without any real hope. Shanks—improvised knives made from all kinds of objects ranging from spoons to toothbrushes—were the bane of prison authorities. They had a strange tendency to disappear after a stabbing incident, never to be found.

The doctor grunted sardonically. “Yeah. Koronov disarmed his attacker, used the shank to take out the three other guys who’d helped the first one jump him, then administered first aid to his surviving victims, staunched his own bleeding, and laid down to wait for guards to arrive. He still had the shank when I got there. I bagged it up for you.”

“Surviving victims?” Cam asked sharply.

“Nothing’s admissible,” Dani snapped just as sharply.

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