“Good to see you, Dr. Lou,” Desmond said.

“Sorry this keeps happening, my friend. Want us to send for the police?”

“Ain’t worth it. Just some bandages and fix my nose if it’s broken. How you been?”

“Doing fine.”

“Still at the gym?”

“When I have time. A little sparring, some training when one of the up-and-comers asks for it. Listen, we got to get you undressed and cleaned up. Then we’ll check you over and get an X-ray of your nose and any other part that needs it. Desmond, that gorgeous young woman over there is my daughter, Emily. She’s here helping us out for the day.”

“Ms. Emily,” Desmond said, nodding and managing a weak, toothless grin. “It’s fine with me if you want to stay.”

Lou considered the situation and shook his head.

“Yeah,” Emily said. “You walk around your apartment all the time in your boxers.”

Had Barbara Waldman been chewing gum, she would have swallowed it.

“You have your hands full with that one, Dr. Welcome,” she managed.

“Listen, Em,” Lou said, “I don’t think so. Why don’t you wait in the lounge until we get Desmond taken care of.”

He missed his daughter’s glare as she left the room.

Nurse and doc gently stripped the vet down and helped him into a pair of disposable scrub pants and a johnny. He had absorbed a pounding, but it was hardly the first time. His abdominal wall was a road map of scars—the result of wounds, Lou had learned, that had led to two Purple Hearts.

Lou clenched his jaw. He had encountered more than enough violence and depravity to have developed something of an immunity, but in truth, he knew he would never be inured—especially when the victim was a guy like Desmond Carter.

He was preparing to examine the man when he heard the soft clearing of a throat from the doorway. Emily was standing there, hands on her hips, looking incredibly like her mother.

“Dad, you know how much I hate being treated like a baby,” she said. “I’ve seen street people before and black people, and even hurt people. It’s okay for me to watch—I promise you. You’re not protecting me from anything.”

Lou looked up at the ceiling and then the wall—anyplace but at his daughter’s wonderful face. He had been outmatched by her from the day she was born. Besides, exposing her to Desmond Carter this way seemed right. Still, it was probably something he should discuss with Renee. He envisioned his ex after the fact, arms folded, tapping her foot in exasperation, and heard her reminding him that she did, in fact, have a cell phone.

Better to ask forgiveness than permission, he decided.

“Barbara, does Desmond have a record of an HIV test?”

“Negative test drawn here four months ago,” she said.

“Em, you can come in,” he heard himself say. “But stand over there by the wall. Barbara, how about getting her into double gloves and a gown. Might as well give her a face shield as well.”