Page 68 of Hell On Heels
The last thing Lottie wanted was to put more worry on Razor, but she was worried about the same thing. “Maybe we should…”
“Don’t say take a break. I don’t wanna hear those words fall from your lips.”
“I was going to say, maybe I should pack a bag and come back to your place.”
Kissing Lottie quickly, he pulled out his phone and called Vicious. He needed to have someone take Lottie home. Before he could make the call, she shut him down.
“I’m not going home where all I have to do is sit and worry,” she told him.
“Alright. Nurse McDaniels, we have patients to see,” he told her, pointing her towards a patient’s room. If she was staying, they had work to do, the busier Lottie.
was the less she could think about Shannon.
The fact that Shannon was still delusional about being pregnant worried him. And worried him in a big way.
* * *
Lottie couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling Shannon left behind, even as she tried to focus on the tasks at hand. The clinic was her sanctuary, a place where problems had answers, where wounds could be stitched, infections treated, and diagnoses delivered with precision. It was the one part of her life that made sense—a stark contrast to the chaos Shannon had brought into her world.
She moved methodically, checking the patient chart in her hands and trying to ignore the flicker of irritation creeping up her spine. Shannon. The name alone made Lottie’s chest tighten, not with fear, but with a heavy blend of anger and pity.
In another life, Lottie might have felt more sympathy for her. After all, wasn’t Shannon just another person crying out for help in her own twisted way? The symptoms of pseudocyesis weren’t something a person could fake entirely, not when the body itself responded to the mind’s desperate belief in a pregnancy.
She’d read about cases where women’s stomachs swelled, their menstrual cycles stopped, and even their breasts produced milk. Shannon might not have chosen this path consciously, but she was walking it now, and she seemed determined to drag everyone around her into the delusion.
Lottie sighed as she stepped into the supply room to grab fresh gloves. Part of her hated herself for the way her feelings toward Shannon had shifted. There was a time when Lottie’s compassion would have been the dominant force, urging her to see Shannon as a patient in need of care.
But with Razor in the picture, it was harder to maintain that professional distance. Shannon wasn’t just a woman suffering from a psychological condition; she was a threat. To Lottie. To Razor. To whatever fragile happiness they were building together.
Her thoughts drifted back to the conversation on the street. The smugness in Shannon’s voice had been unmistakable, a needle hidden beneath layers of saccharine sweetness.“I wanted to make sure you were okay at hearing the news.”As if she were some benevolent queen bestowing mercy upon her lowly subject. The audacity of it made Lottie’s temper burn.
And yet, underneath the anger, there was something else—something darker. A whisper of doubt. What if Shannon’s delusion wasn’t as harmless as it seemed? What if she was willing to go further than anyone expected to make her fantasy a reality?
Lottie had seen it before, in different forms. Patients who clung so fiercely to their version of the truth that they couldn’t bear the thought of letting it go. There was the man who insisted he was perfectly healthy, even as his body betrayed him with symptoms of advanced cancer. Or the young girl who swore she hadn’t taken the pills, even as her bloodwork painted a different story. Denial could be a powerful force, capable of warping reality in ways that left everyone around it gasping for air.
But Shannon’s case was different. It wasn’t just her mind and body at stake—it was Lottie’s life, her relationship, her sense of safety. And that realization sent a ripple of guilt through her chest. Was it wrong to think of herself in this? To want Shannon gone, not just for her own peace of mind, but because she didn’t have the energy to play nursemaid to someone who seemed determined to destroy her.
The sound of Razor’s voice startled her out of her thoughts, his presence steady and grounding. She glanced up to find him watching her with concern, his brow furrowed as if he could see the storm raging behind her eyes.
“You, okay?” he asked, his voice low.
Lottie forced a smile, nodding. “Yeah. Just... a lot on my mind.”
“Shannon?” he guessed, his tone sharper now.
“Yeah,” she admitted. “I can’t stop thinking about her. About what she said. And what she might do.”
Razor stepped closer, his hand brushing hers in a quiet gesture of reassurance. “We’ll figure it out,” he promised. “I won’t let her hurt you.”
The words were comforting, but Lottie couldn’t help the flicker of doubt that remained. Shannon wasn’t just a problem to be solved or a threat to be neutralized. She was a person, a broken, complicated, and dangerous person. And that made everything so much harder.
As Razor moved away to check on a patient, Lottie stood there for a moment longer, letting the weight of her thoughts settle over her like a heavy cloak. She knew she couldn’t afford to letShannon consume her, but it was hard not to feel the edges of her life closing in.
Taking a deep breath, she pushed herself back into motion. There were patients to see, tasks to complete, and a world that still made sense, at least within the walls of the clinic. Tonight she’d pack a bag and go back to Razor’s. And hope that Sherlock with his skills would find Shannon and stop her before she did something they’d all regret.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Traffic had been a nightmare coming from downtown. Pulling into the driveway, Lottie tried remembering if she had left a light on or not when they left for work. She could’ve sworn she’d left the kitchen and porch lights on. Neither were on now. Instead, the bedroom window was lit. Too tired to care, she climbed out of the car anyway, shutting the door behind her.
