Slow Hands

and Raoul stuck around, both to keep an eye on the man’s condition and because they’d already been told they’d probably have to give a statement to the police. This suspect was apparently one nasty character and the cops wanted him bad.
    Raoul had gone to secure the truck and to radio the station that they were going to stay for a few minutes. Grabbing himself a cup of coffee from the lounge, Jake hung around the E.R. information desk, watching the clock, hoping the team of detectives showed up soon. There were EMTs back at the station, but he was the only actual paramedic on today.
    Finally, a stocky, solid woman with short, iron-gray hair and a no-nonsense attitude approached him. “You Wallace?”
    “I am.”
    “Detective Harriet Stiles.” She flashed a badge. “My partner spotted yours out in the truck and he’s taking his statement.”
    She began asking questions, routine stuff. Jake only wished he could actually be of some help. He spoke clearly and concisely, telling what little he knew, since he hadn’t seen the assailant, just the victim lying on the floor.
    When he finished, Detective Stiles nodded and snapped her notebook closed.
    “All done?” a man’s voice asked the officer.
    Jake glanced up and saw that a dark-haired guy, solidly built, a few inches shorter than him, had joined them.
    “Looks like it. You?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Mr. Wallace, this is my partner, Detective Santori,” the first officer told Jake.
    “Good to meet you. Huh…Santori. That name is familiar.”
    The other man laughed softly. “There are a lot of us.”
    Jake suddenly remembered how he knew the name. The woman from the charity—the one who’d tried to help him track down Madeline. She’d been named Santori.
    “I met a woman—Nicole Santori, maybe? It was at a charity auction a few weeks ago.”
    The other man stiffened, his jaw jutting out the tiniest bit. “Are you talking about my wife, Noelle? She founded the Give A Kid A Christmas program.”
    Suddenly realizing why the other man had tensed—since the wife had, he recalled, been very pretty—Jake put both hands up, in a universal no-harm, no-foul gesture. “Hey, no offense. I was only asking because I wanted to try to get a message to her. There was a major printing mix-up that night with the program.”
    Santori visibly relaxed. “She won’t be happy to hear that.”
    “Look, it turned out okay—in fact, great—on my end.”
    “Spoken like a man in love,” said Detective Stiles with a low snort. She didn’t exactly look like the romantic type.
    Hell, he probably was wearing some kind of sappy, guy-in-love grin. Frankly, though, Jake didn’t give a crap. He was a sappy guy-in-love.
    “Like I said, I’m fine. But I don’t know how the bachelor who was mistaken for me—and got my bio—is feeling about it. Whoever ‘won’ him was expecting a blue collar rescue worker. And, uh, I really don’t think that’s who she got.”
    “I see,” Santori said. His brown eyes twinkled. Noting the laugh lines on the detective’s face, Jake sensed he was pretty laid-back, when he wasn’t going all alpha in claiming his wife. “Noelle told me about a few of the more high-maintenance guys who showed up that night.”
    Jake had no idea whether the real gigolo was high-maintenance or not. He only knew he probably wasn’t the kind of man who’d offer a woman baseball and beer. So whoever he’d ended up with probably had quite a surprise on her hands.
    “Anyway, I just wanted her to have a heads-up. We were numbers nineteen and twenty, I think.”
    “Got it. Thanks for letting me know, I’ll be sure to pass it along.” He extended his hand, and Jake shook it. “Good to meet you…Wallace, was it?”
    Jake nodded.
    “Well, I know my wife was thrilled at the money earned that night. It went a long way toward helping meet her annual goal.” He grinned. “From the sound of it, you guys really went through the wringer.”
    Groaning, Jake confirmed that. “You have no idea. I now know what a brownie at a Weight Watchers meeting feels like.”
    Both the officers were grinning as they murmured their goodbyes and turned to leave, though Jake knew their smiles wouldn’t remain during the very long day ahead of them.
    Before they’d gotten more than a few steps away, Jake remembered something. Something big. “Wait!” Reaching into his back pocket, he retrieved his wallet, digging out the folded piece of paper he’d stuck in there the day he