Hot Schemes by Sherryl Woods Read Free Book Online

reaction.”
    “How’s O’Hara?”
    “You know him?” she said, regarding the young African-American woman with surprise. In a hospital complex the size of JMH with its eight thousand or so employees and physicians and its huge daily volume of traffic, she was astonished anyone even remembered the names of their coworkers.
    “Sure. He turns up here all the time when probable homicides roll in. That’s how I knew it was him. I recognized his car and tag number. The man refuses to park where he’s supposed to. You must have got that from him.”
    “Bad habits do tend to get around.”
    “So, is he okay? Nobody’s come out I could ask. We’ve got a full moon. The whole damn place is filled up with crazies. Nobody takes a break on a night like this.”
    “Michael’s okay. At any rate, he insists on leaving. I’m supposed to be out here scrounging for clothes for him to wear.”
    “You sit right where you are. I’ll get ‘em for you.” She scrambled into the back of the wagon, sorted through the clutter of soccer balls and knee pads, and emerged triumphantly clutching a pair of grass-stained jeans and an embarrassingly wrinkled T-shirt. “They’re not pretty, but they’ll do, right?”
    Molly laughed for the first time in hours. “They won’t exactly enhance his image as the best-dressed cop on the force.”
    “He is one slick dude, isn’t he?” the guard said, grinning at the comedown from Michael’s usual spiffy designer suits. “Serves him right for leaving against advice. That is what he’s up to, isn’t it?”
    “You’ve got it.” Molly took the clothes. “Thanks. We’ll no doubt see you shortly.”
    “Tell him I want this car out of here before shift change or the boss will bust my butt.”
    “I’ll tell him,” Molly said. “But I don’t think he intends to waste a second more than necessary as a guest of the hospital.”
    Back inside the treatment room, Molly found Michael trying to persuade Metro-Dade Safety Director Lucas Petty to assign him full-time to investigate the bombing and his uncle’s disappearance. The burly black man with his tough, by-the-book philosophy of operating the department wasn’t buying Michael’s reasoning for an instant.
    “Last I checked you were a homicide detective, O’Hara. We’ve got no body.”
    “Dammit, my uncle left on that boat. Now he’s missing and the boat’s been bombed. In my book that adds up to reasonable cause to suspect foul play.”
    “It surely does,” Petty said with a genial nod of agreement. “And I will even go along with the idea that your uncle was taken against his will. You, however, will not be conducting whatever investigation this department decides to launch. You’ll be home with your sorry butt resting in bed, like the doctor ordered.”
    Marshall and Domínguez turned away to keep the public safety director from spotting their commiserating grins. Obviously they knew, as did Molly, that Lucas Petty didn’t have a prayer of keeping Michael out of this particular investigation. They all waited for his anticipated declaration of intent.
    Sure enough, his jaw set stubbornly, he fumbled in the pocket of his ruined pants, came out with his wallet, and removed his badge. “As of now, I’m on leave.”
    Petty looked as if he wanted to strangle him. He rocked back on his heels and glared. “You take sick leave, then you’d damned sight better stay home and act sick.”
    “I’m taking vacation leave.”
    “Not without prior authorization.”
    “Don’t push me, Lucas,” Michael said quietly, his expression lethal.
    Unfortunately, Lucas Petty didn’t appear to be in any mood to have his buttons pushed either. He took two steps forward until he was in Michael’s face. “O’Hara, you are treading on very thin ice here.”
    Michael never even flinched. “Is my leave granted or not?”
    “If it’s not?”
    “Then I’ll quit, dammit. Right here and right now. You’ll have a hell of a time explaining to the