Free Protecting the Pregnant Witness by Julie Miller Page A

from Lassen and Montgomery to the details they could pick up from Michael Cutler’s side of the phone call.
    By the time Cutler hung up, they were already half briefed. “Show’s over for us, guys. We’ve got a domestic disturbance over on Paseo with reports of a gun on the premises. We need to move out.”
    “Yes, sir.” Rafe, Trip, Alex and Randy answered in unison. As the other three jogged to the stairwell leading down to the garage where the SWAT van was parked, Rafe spared another moment to scan Detective Montgomery’s smooth facade and gauge the reaction of the reporters as they viewed the computerized image of the RGK being flashed up on the viewscreen.
    “Sergeant.” The captain’s voice commanded action. “You’re driving. Let’s move.”
    With a nod, Rafe backed away from the chaos and followed the captain to the stairs. But he stopped and turned one last time to get a good look at the heavyset reporter with the receding points in his hairline. It took only a second to imprint Steve Lassen’s face and build in his memory, and then Rafe was jogging down the stairs, taking them three at a time to catch up with the others.
    Lassen had terrorized Alex Taylor’s fiancée, an assistant district attorney, opting for an exposé on her personal life instead of doing some serious reporting about the gang leader she’d convicted for murdering Calvin Chambers. Then Lassen had moved on to heiress Charlotte Mayweather, the wealthy recluse who’d barely survived a kidnapping as a teenager. When she’d come out of hiding to pay her respects to a close family friend who’d been slain trying to protect her, Lassen had been at the cemetery to catch the grieving woman on camera. Trip had rescued Charlotte that day—and wound up marrying her. But not before the RGK had come close to killing them, too.
    Steve Lassen was a magnet for trouble. And the lowlife devil scum as Alex had so eloquently put it, was something even more dangerous.
    If Lassen came within a mile of Josie, Rafe would recognize him on sight. And if he showed any hint that he knew she was Montgomery’s anonymous witness, Rafe would see to it personally that Lassen’s reporting days were over.

    “G REAT WORK .” J OSIE’S supervising R.N., Julia Taylor, signed off at the bottom of the screen where she’d scanned each of the supplies in this bay of the Truman Medical Center’s emergency room. “I’ll add these to my requisition list.”
    As the friendly trauma nurse closed down one computer file and pulled up another, Josie succumbed to the length of the day, rolling her shoulders forward and twisting to reach the muscle knotting in the small of her back. But a soft moan gave her away.
    “Unfortunately, nursing seems to be as much about paperwork as it is…” Julia stood up from the stool where she’d been sitting and rolled it across the floor toward Josie. “How long have you been on your feet today? Sit.”
    Josie hesitated, not wanting to give any indication that she wasn’t fit for this job she’d been training so long and hard for.
    “Sit,” Julia ordered, her easy smile softening any hint of a reprimand. “I think I was in my third month with MacKinley when the twinge in my lower back started. It lasted right through to the second week past her due date when we finally had to induce her. Thank goodness my husband knows how to give a good massage.”
    A massage from a loving husband. She wished. Josie had been settling for hot showers and strategically placed pillows to give her swelling body some relief at night. She willingly sank onto the cushioned seat, splaying her hands over her belly and smoothing her loose green top over the telltale baby bump. “Is it that obvious I’m pregnant?”
    Julia arched a dark blond eyebrow into a skeptical frown. “Is it supposed to be a secret?” Before Josie could answer, her supervisor pulled the curtain separating this trauma bay from the one beside it to give them a little more