“Your leg is hurt, too?”
“Yeah. Not as bad as the arm.” He bent from the waist and stepped into the shorts, then worked them up his legs to his thighs. Before standing up, he gave her a pointed look.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Hammond. I’ve seen it.”
Whisking back the sheet, he stood up and pulled on the shorts, then reached for a bottle of water on the nightstand and drained it.
“Are you going to tell me what happened or not?”
“I told you I got—”
“Mugged. I got that part. What about your arm?”
“Slashed. My leg, too.”
“My God, you could’ve been killed. Where were you?” When he told her, she said, “Well no bloody wonder. What were you doing in that part of town?”
“Remember Loretta Boothe?”
“The lush?”
He frowned, but nodded. “She’s sober, wanting to do some P.I. work again. She asked me to meet her at one of her hangouts. On the way back to my car, this guy jumped me. I resisted. He got slaphappy with his switchblade. I fought him off long enough to get away in my car. I drove home and called a doctor. He stitched my arm.”
“Did you notify the police?”
“I didn’t want the third degree. Which I’m getting anyway. From you.”
“Why didn’t you go to the hospital?”
“Same reason.” He hobbled toward the bathroom, favoring his left leg. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“Not that bad! Hammond, there’s a trash bag of blood-soaked towels downstairs.”
“It looks a whole lot worse than it is. I only needed two pain pills all night. Do you mind?” She had followed him into the bathroom.
She went out and he closed the door. Through it, she hollered, “I’ve seen you peeing before, too.”
Returning to the bed, she sat down where he had been sitting moments earlier. Along with the now-empty bottle of springwater and a drinking glass on the nightstand were a standard-issue cloth sling and a plastic bottle of pills. It was a pharmaceutical sample; the doctor’s name wasn’t on it.
Hammond came out of the bathroom, limped over to her and nudged her off his bed, then pulled the duvet up over the sheets.
“When did you get to be so prissy?” she asked.
“When did you get to be so nosy?”
“Don’t you think I’m entitled to a little nosiness? Hammond, the first thing I saw when I came in was a bagful of bloody towels. Call me sentimental, but it caused me to wonder if my colleague—not to mention my former boyfriend, for whom I still have an affectionate regard—had fallen victim to an ax murderer.”
He raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Who cleans up after himself?”
“Some of these guys are compulsive. But you’re missing the point.”
“No, I’m not, Steffi. You were concerned for my well-being. If the situation had been reversed, I would have reacted in a similar fashion. But as you can see, I am still breathing. Sore, bruised, and battered, but breathing. I’ll feel a lot better after a hot shower and a few cups of even hotter coffee.”
“My cue to leave?”
“Now you’re catching on.”
She looked at the bandage on his right forearm. “Who was the doctor?”