Covert M.D. (7 page)

And crashed into Rathe.

RATHE GRABBED HER by the upper arms and felt terror morph to anger in an instant. He shook her. “Where the hell have you been?”

She didn’t fight back, just sagged against him, which he found more unsettling than Cadaver Man’s whispered threat. When an attendant shuffled out of a nearby patient’s room and gave them a strange glance, Rathe muttered a curse, kicked a nearby supply closet open and dragged her inside. He flicked on the lights, shut the door and took a long, hard look at her, still not sure what had taken place in her office, what had happened just now.

She was pale. Her eyes were dark, stark holes in her head, and one hand was clamped to her side.

“You’re hurt.” It came out as more accusation than sympathy, and when he advanced with hands outstretched to check the wound, Nia backed away, sudden color flooding her cheeks.

“I’m fine.” When he reached for her, she batted his hands away and snapped, “I said I’m fine. See? No blood.” She lifted her dark, businesslike blazer to show him that the shirt beneath, wrinkled and smeared from when she’d been attacked in the lobby, bore no red stains.

She was unhurt. All the images that had raced through his mind when he saw the ransacked office bled away, leaving frustrated anger in their wake. She was okay. And he’d panicked needlessly. Unprofessionally. The knowledge sent him forward a step. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The question brought her chin up, though the vulnerability lingered in her eyes. “What am I doing still working our case, do you mean? I’m working it because I’m staying, as you very well know.” She lowered her voice and her color flared higher. “Don’t blame me for calling Wainwright. You forced my hand.”

“I’m not talking about bloody Jack Wainwright!” Rathe barked, advancing and feeling a spurt of triumph, or maybe shame, when she backed away. “I’m talking about here. Now.” He cursed and scrubbed a hand over his short, spiky hair. Lowered his voice. “You weren’t in your office.”

And thank God for that.

“No, I wasn’t.” She sighed as though defeated. “I’m not going to hide there and wait for the case to solve itself, Rathe. I’m here to investigate, and I’m going to do my job with or without your help. Got it?”

He wasn’t sure whether to kiss her or lock her in a
supply closet for the duration. The bloody woman made no sense, had no idea of the size of the tiger she was tweaking—either in him, or at Boston General.

“I got it,” he snapped, “but I’ve got something else, too.” He took her arm, opened the closet door, and ushered her none too gently out into the hall. “Come on. Into your office.”

She balked. “We shouldn’t be seen together.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he replied, half dragging her down the hall. “Our cover’s blown.”

“What do you—” She stopped spluttering the moment he opened her office, urged her inside and locked the door behind them. She froze. Her color drained again. “What happened in here?”

“That’s what I’d like to know.” Now that he knew she was safe, Rathe felt the adrenaline leak out of him, leaving his chest empty and aching.

He brushed the tattered remains of a cheerful travel poster off the desk and sat, briefly wishing he was on that tropical island. Alone. Or perhaps with a woman who looked like Nia but didn’t have her guts. Her lack of respect for seniority.

Her hell-bent determination to succeed in a dangerous profession.

“When did you find this?” She turned in a full circle, and he saw her eyes light on her gutted handbag and the empty envelope that had contained Talbot’s lists of missing drugs.

“Five minutes ago, maybe less. I ran into your Cadaver Man downstairs and he called me by name. I
came up here and found your office trashed.” Remembered panic flickered at the edges of his mind, memories of the images his consciousness had drawn—Nia bound and gagged. Beaten for information she didn’t have. Shot dead and left in a jeep outside HFH local headquarters as a warning. A taunt.

“I’m not her.”

“What?” Rathe jolted his focus back to the ransacked office and found Nia watching him, her dark eyes steady and filled with a compassion he wanted no part of.

“I’m not Maria. This isn’t Tehru. I can take care of myself.”

Anger lashed through him, anger that she’d seen into him, anger that she knew what had happened to Maria and still couldn’t tell that it was exactly the same. The danger was the same. “Is that what you call this?” He swept a hand toward shattered bookshelves. “Taking care of yourself? Just what were you doing while your office was being tossed? And why the hell didn’t you lock the door?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I
did
lock the door. And for your information, I was watching a woman die. A rare-type kidney transplant rejected her organs and died, even though she was a high-risk case. She was young. Healthy. They found a donor quickly…”

Yet still she had died. Rathe felt a stab of sorrow for the patient, a slice of remorse for having manhandled Nia right after she’d run from the patient’s room looking as if she’d seen—

What? A ghost? Something else?

He sighed. “Listen, Nia—”

“No,
you
listen, Rathe. I’m staying on this assignment no matter what you say. Our cover’s blown? Then we’d better figure out how it happened. My office is trashed and my files stolen? Then let’s start asking why someone doesn’t want me to have Talbot’s information, and how they got a key. A woman is dead?” She faltered and took a deep breath before continuing, “Then we’re damn well going to figure out how and why, so we can stop it from happening again. Got it?”

He frowned down at her. “Pretty speeches won’t get the job done, Nadia.”

“No, but
I will.
And don’t call me Nadia.”

She walked to the corner of the office and stared down at her pillaged handbag. When she bent to retrieve it, he stopped her with a quick, “Leave it. We’ll want Talbot and the detectives to see the mess.”

She straightened. “Does that mean you’re still on the case? You’re not going to ask Wainwright to reassign you?”

“I’m on the case.” Rathe scowled. “
We’re
on the case. On one condition.” He reached for the doorknob, needing to be somewhere, anywhere that wasn’t two feet away from Nadia French.

Her eyes lit with a hint of the excitement he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. The thrill of the hunt. “What condition?”

He stared at the blank wood of the door. “Don’t mention Maria to me again. Ever.”

FIVE MINUTES LATER, after she’d mastered both her irritation with Rathe and her grief for a stranger named Julia, Nia went in search of Logan Hart. She found the doctor in his office and tapped on the door frame. “Dr. Hart?”

He looked up from his paperwork, and his frown tilted up at the corners. “Dr. French, come in, please. And call me Logan.”

“Then I’m Nia.” As she sat she was surprised to realize that Logan Hart was actually quite attractive in a clean-cut, unlined fashion. Though he appeared only a few years younger than Rathe’s chronological age, a decade or more could have separated them.

Of the two, Nia found Rathe far more attractive in a completely wrong-for-her sort of way.

He’d pushed her away seven years earlier, when she would have followed him anywhere. He’d abandoned her, and worse, he’d abandoned her father.

Given that, why did she still want to grab on tight and kiss him until he admitted there was something between them?

“Nia? Is everything okay?”

Flustered and suddenly warm, she waved a hand at Logan. “I’m fine. I’m just…” Just what? And why did it seem as though she’d spent the past three days assuring everyone she was fine?

“Still recovering from that nasty scene down in the atrium?” He leaned back in his chair, concern evident in his eyes. For some reason the expression didn’t grate on her as it would coming from Rathe.

She inclined her head. “That, and someone trashed
my office while I was watching you work on your patient Julia.”

Hart jolted. “You what? Who?” He lurched halfway to his feet then sat back down. He took a deep breath and pressed his palms to the desk. “Was anything taken?”

“Some of my working files.” Nia shrugged, hoping he wouldn’t ask why she’d kept her notes in the office. Rathe hadn’t crucified her for the lapse, but she knew it had been a mistake. If the intruder had any doubt about her involvement in the case, those files had provided proof. “They’re replaceable. My pocketbook was upended but nothing was taken.”

“Which means it wasn’t robbery.” When she cocked an eyebrow, he shrugged. “It happens. This is a big hospital.” He glanced at her, and Nia knew he was seeing the smudges on the collar of her once-white shirt. The wrinkles she’d tried to brush out and failed. “You’ve had a hell of a day, haven’t you?”

His expression invited her confidence, but something held her back. Maybe it was the smoothness of his cheeks, marked with neither stubble nor character. Maybe it was the feeling that something was slightly…off in Hart’s office. Or maybe it was the sudden realization that she’d made a grave tactical error. He’d been shocked by her earlier announcement, but he’d hidden it quickly. Naturally she’d assumed he was reacting to news of the break-in.

But what if he was more worried to hear that she’d seen the transplant patient die?

“It’s been—it’s been quite a day,” she stammered as
the idea took root. Who better to warn Cadaver Man of the HFH investigation than someone inside Transplant? But why? And how did the patients figure in? The missing pharmaceuticals? She needed to know more about Logan Hart. More about the department.

“I’ll phone those two detectives and have them look at your office,” he promised. “Why don’t you head back to the apartment building and get some rest? It’s almost quitting time.”

He knew where she was staying. And, as a ranking doctor, he could probably talk his way right past the guards in the lobby. Nia suppressed a quick shudder, then realized she could use it. She tilted her head down and glanced up at him. “I’ll do that, thanks. But it’s a little lonely there. And after what happened today…”

His eyes changed. Maybe they softened or maybe they took on a predatory gleam.

And maybe she was falling in love with her own theory and needed to back off until she had more facts.

“What about your…partner?”

“Rathe?” She shrugged. “He’s an incredible investigator. But he’s not exactly the kind of guy I’d choose to spend an evening with. He’s not very warm and fuzzy.”

Hart coughed, and she couldn’t tell if he was covering a laugh. “Go home and get some sleep, you look bushed.” He glanced at her, eyes betraying nothing. “There’s a formal dinner tomorrow in honor of Director Talbot and his contributions to transplant medicine. I’ll pick you up at seven.” He lifted up the phone. “Right
now I’ll call the detectives, then find you another office to use.”

“Thanks, Logan.” She stood, mission accomplished almost too easily. “I think I’ll follow the doctor’s orders and quit for the night. It’s been a long day.”

She feigned a tired slump as she left, but once out the door, she turned right, away from the garage access. Maybe Logan was involved, maybe he wasn’t.

But it didn’t hurt for him to think she’d gone home when she planned on more snooping. If she could find a connection between him and Cadaver Man…

She’d have the case solved before Rathe knew what hit him.

LATER THAT NIGHT nerves and excitement thrummed in Nia’s chest as the service elevator carried her down into the depths of Boston General. The doors slid open with a hiss, and she stepped out into the damp corridor. It was warmer than before, and machine noise echoed from every surface until she could hear almost nothing else. She took another step, heard her heels echo on the cement floor.

And heard something else behind her.

She spun, but not quickly enough. Strong fingers gripped her upper arms. A powerfully muscled leg wrapped around both of hers, and a firm, warm body pinned her against the wall, effectively neutralizing all her hard-learned defenses.

“You promised not to come back down here alone.” Instead of shouting the words, Rathe nearly whispered
them, his mouth near her ear, his breath warm on the side of her neck. His pulse, fast and strong, beat against her skin, reminding her of another time.

You promised to love me,
was her first response, quickly stifled. Those had been empty words spoken in the heat of the moment, soon forgotten. And they had no place in the present. So she glared into the gray-blue eyes above hers, raised an eyebrow and said, “I lied.”

His eyes darkened. They breathed in tandem, pressed together at hip and chest like lovers. He released her abruptly and stepped away. “Darn it, Nia—”

She held up a hand. “Don’t start.” She breathed past the ball of warmth in her stomach. “Now. Do you want to compare notes, or would you rather we run parallel investigations and waste time repeating each other?”

“Fine. Have it your way.” He glared at her and finally backed down an inch. “But if anything happens to you, it’s on your head, not mine.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you all along.” She crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “Now. What have you got?”

He stepped closer before he answered. She knew it was important that they keep a low profile, and they needed to shield their information from anyone listening in the deserted space, but the touch of his breath on the side of her face sent a rush of heat through her body. She held her ground, though she was equally torn between leaning in and running away.

“I had a look at the ID photo database in human resources,” he murmured quietly. Nia didn’t bother ask
ing how. He’d either hacked his way in or charmed his way in. Either way, it was part of the job.

She tilted her head so her lips were just beside his ear, and whispered, “Did you find Cadaver Man’s picture?”

Though they weren’t touching, she could feel him tense. The thin layer of air between them vibrated with energy.

He leaned closer, until his cheek nearly grazed hers. “No. He wasn’t on the maintenance roster. He’s either working with a fake ID, or his records were deleted by someone higher up in the Boston General food chain.”