Page 8 of Better than Famous

Again. Again. The sound was louder than the thunder outside. I had run three thousand miles to escape the lens, and here I was, trapped in the harsh fluorescent light of a hospital waiting room, staring down the barrel of the one thing I couldn’t survive.

I had nowhere left to run.

Chapter Four

BEN

The back of an ambulance was designed to be wiped clean. Every surface was non-porous, every corner rounded, every cabinet sealed. It was a box built to hold trauma for twenty minutes and then erase it with bleach and cleaning wipes so we could do it all over again.

I was on my knees near the stretcher-locking mechanism, back inside the bay of Dove Key Fire Station and performing the end-of-shift deep clean. We’d received another call after the woman in the ditch—a fender bender on the bridge—and shift change was breathing down our necks. I was searching for a rogue pair of forceps that Gator swore he’d dropped when a glint of gold caught my eye. Something was wedged tight between the rubber matting and the base of the captain’s chair.

I reached down, my gloved fingers prying it loose from the grit. It wasn’t the forceps. It was a locket.

I sat back on my heels, holding it up to the harsh LED dome light of the rig. It was old. Heavy gold, oval-shaped, with delicate engraving that had been worn smooth by decades of thumb-rubbing. Not something you’d buy at a tourist shop on Duval Street. It looked like an heirloom.

"Did you find them?" Gator stuck his head through the rear doors, still wearing his rain jacket. "Please tell me you found them. If Miller finds sharp forceps on his pre-trip inspection, he’s going to file a report, and then I have to file a rebuttal."

"No forceps," I said, standing up and climbing down onto the concrete floor of the station bay. "But I found this."

I held out the locket. Gator squinted at it, unimpressed. "Jewelry? Probably belongs to the Jane Doe. The one in the wig from the ditch. Look, man, just toss it in the lost and found bin on the desk. Or leave it for Miller to deal with.” He let out a desperate exhale. "My date actually agreed to keep waiting for me at the bar. She’s an angel, Ben. I did my penance for saying the Q-word. You were right, as usual, but please tell me we’re done."

I dropped my gaze to the locket. The woman in the wig had been terrified. She had curled into a ball to hide her face, stripped of her purse, her car, and her dignity in that swamp. This locket was likely the only thing she had left. If I tossed it in a bin, it would end up buried, and she’d never see it again. And it wasn’t like I had a hot date tonight. "I’m going to run it back to her. Yeah, we’re done so you’re off the clock. Go."

Gator stared at me, eyes wide. "You’re going to track her down at the hospital? For a necklace?"

"It belongs to her," I said simply, stripping off my gloves and tossing them into the biohazard bin. "Go. Before I change my mind and make you finish the rig checklist."

"You are a saint, Benjamin Coleridge! A saint!" Gator didn’t need to be told twice. He sprinted for his car.

I wasn’t a saint. I just liked order. And separating a woman from her property was disorder. It was a loose end, and I didn’t like loose ends.

Twenty minutes later, I pulled my truck into the parking lot of the Lower Keys Medical Center. The truck was my pride and joy—a 1978 Ford F-250 Ranger XLT. I’d spent three years restoring it, stripping it down to the frame and rebuilding it bolt by bolt. It was painted a deep, midnight blue, with chrome that I kept polished to a mirror shine. The engine rumble was a low, throaty growl that vibrated through the chassis. It was a beast of a vehicle, sitting high on 33-inch tires. Not exactly a limousine, but it was safe.

I put it in park, killed the engine, and jogged through the rain toward the automatic doors.

The ER lobby was quieter than the treatment area, but it still hummed with that anxious energy of people waiting for bad news. A TV in the corner muttered about the tropical depression while a vending machine buzzed against the far wall.

And near the vending machine, a predator was cornering prey.

The body language registered before the faces did. The guy was young, scruffy, and wearing cargo shorts that had seen better days. He was leaning forward, invading the personal space of a woman slumped with her head tucked into her shoulder. Her brown hair looked suspiciously like a wig. I recognized the woman in the ditch immediately. He held a camera—a big DSLR—up to his eye and snapped rapidly.

Click-whir. Click-whir.

The woman was trying to turn away, pressing her face into her shoulder, but she was trapped between the vending machine and a row of plastic chairs. “No! Don’t.”

"Come on," the guy said, his voice wheedling and aggressive. "Just one, face forward. Give me a smile."

A cold, hard knot formed in my stomach. I hated bullies. I hated them with a biological intensity that dated back to my teenage years, back to the days when I used my fists to solve problems I didn’t have the vocabulary for. I had spent a decade learning to leash that anger, to channel it into saving lives rather than breaking jaws, but the instinct was still there. It lived in the basement of my brain, doing pushups.

I crossed the lobby in four long strides. I didn’t run because running attracts attention; I walked, letting my boots hit the linoleum with a heavy, deliberate rhythm. The guy didn’t hear me until I was right behind him. I stepped close, looming over him. At six-foot-three, with my turnout gear adding another two inches of bulk, I tended to block out the light. I reached out and placed my hand over the lens of his camera.

"That’s enough.” My voice was low, but I didn’t shout. I used what Harper called my Voice of Doom—the tone I used to tell drunks to sit down or to tell bystanders to back the hell up.

The guy jumped, nearly dropping the camera. He spun around, looking up at me, his eyes becoming round as he took in my uniform, the radio strap across my chest, and the expression on my face, which wasn’t friendly.

"Hey! Don’t touch the equipment! That’s assault."

"Assault is touching you," I corrected him, keeping my hand hovering near the lens. "Touching your camera is a public service. You’re harassing a patient."