Kiss the Girl by Susan Sey Page B

and their secret codes.  God . 
    The door opened just wide enough for her and the goon squad to be yanked through. 
    “All right,” she said, digging into her bag for a pair of rubber gloves.  “Where’s the bleeder?”  She snapped them on and looked around the circle of painfully young faces gazing at her with such open hostility.  They hated her, she realized with a sinking certainty.  No, not her.  Just her face, her hair, her skin.  Her privilege.  Her refusal to show fear to a group of heavily armed teenagers.  She hardly knew which .
    “The bleeder?” she asked again, this time putting a little more authority into her voice.  She glanced around the room like she was taking it in, but in reality, she was just avoiding eye contact.  It was one thing to be authoritative.  It was quite another to issue a direct challenge. 
    The apartment was small and generic, but clean.  There were more bookshelves than anything, each one stuffed to overflowing with everything from economic and political theory to John Grisham’s latest.  A laptop hummed gently on a table by the window, another blinked from the kitchen counter.  She could see it from the door.
    The floors were a dull grey linoleum, but clean except for the blood.  There was less here, she saw with a surge of relief.  He must have either clotted on his own or done a little first aid.  Temper skated in hot after the relief, and she flipped her bag back onto her shoulder.
    “Never mind.  I’ll just follow the trail.”
    The bodies parted silently for her and she didn’t bother to knock.  She stepped up to the closed door that presumably led to the bedroom -- Ty’s bedroom, God help her -- and let herself in.  She closed the door against the blank, hateful eyes that followed her, then turned and found him there.  Perfectly alive if a little dinged up.  Relief was a choking pressure in her throat, so she glared at him.
    He smiled back at her from the bed where he sprawled, shirtless, a bloody bandage swathing his left shoulder.  In spite of the chilly air, his chest was sheened with sweat and Mary Jane tried not to notice the way his dark skin gleamed .  H ow it threw all those long, lean muscles into gorgeous, touchable relief. 
    “Dr. Riley,” he said, his voice was as smooth as aged whiskey even if his smile was a little pinched around the edges.  “How good of you to come.”
    “ Did I have a choice?”
    He lifted his good shoulder in a lopsided shrug.  “ I’ve been drilling the boys on their manners but t hey were a little worked up when they left. ” 
    “First time they’d seen a gunshot? ”  Mary Jane dropped her bag on the bed next to his shoulder .  She smiled when he winced.
    “In this neighborhood? ”  He gave her an amused look .  “ We see more blood than this before breakfast most days. Nah.  They were just worried Marcus P was going to kick their asses .”
    “For what?”
    “For shooting his money man.”
    Mary Jane froze.  “Those were the boys who shot you?”
    “Accidentally.”  He shrugged.  “ Occupational hazard .”
    “Sure.  I guess you should expect to get shot when you arm children for a living .”
    “ Hey, I didn’t give them guns.  I just crunch the numbers .”
    “So they can make more money to buy more guns.”
    “So they can run their business as efficiently as possible, which, yes, results in more money.  A great deal of which goes back into the neighborhood.”  He slanted her a look, formidable even sprawled across the bed.  “I don’t see anybody else lining up to give these folks money or jobs, do you, Mary Jane?”
    She glared at him, a familiar helplessness already curling into her belly.  “I’m not having this argument again,” she said . They’d had it too many times already and Mary Jane never won. “Just...show me your shoulder, all right?”
    He waved a casual hand toward his bandage.  “Help yourself, doc.”
    S he snipped through the gauze