The Impossible Alliance (15 page)

He cleared his throat again and pulled his hand away.
The fog cleared as she straightened. Chained to the cot by the damned IV line and dangerous desire to keep her at his side, he snagged her wrist and glanced toward the center of the triage bay. “What was on the paper you gave the old woman?”

She stilled beneath his hand, but her pulse thundered.

He probed her gaze slowly, deliberately shifting his fingers, sliding them directly over the pulse point as he continued to stare, letting her know by his own steady gaze, as well as the gentle but firm pressure directly over her wrist, that he was gauging her every reaction, her every emotion. Her every word.

“Well?”

It was last night all over again and she knew it. Only now he held the gate, the syringe and his jeans.

“A phone number.”

He pressed his fingertips ever-so-slightly deeper into her flesh. Into her pulse. “Whose?”

“Harold Blaine.”

ARIES's own master of disguise. Their prosthetics expert. The man who'd crafted her face, her jaw, her chest.

“Are you sure that's wise?”

“Yes.”

The fierce light in her eyes startled him, as well as that flash of intense, almost bottomless pain.

He loosened his grip without thinking.

Before he could stop her, she'd tugged her wrist from his hand and turned to flee. He tracked her with his gaze as she headed for the gradually dwindling mountain of supplies at the far end of the triage bay, assuring himself he was studying a fellow agent as she moved, attempting to ascertain whether or not she was lying or telling the truth. Whether or not she was using him for her own bizarre end. He was not lying here, chained to this damned cot, willing her to come back so that he could pull her close and soothe that inexplicable, but absolutely genuine pain from those green eyes.

By the time she returned to Orloff's side, she'd managed to mask whatever it was that he'd seen. He was certain when the man shifted his attention from the manifest in his hands to her. She returned Orloff's smile easily.

Too easily.

She sure as hell had never smiled at him like that.

Dammit, he was not jealous. He was
not.

He sighed heavily.

“Have no fear. He will not encroach.”

Jared swung his gaze to the cot beside him, up to the speculation swimming within those still sleepy and still rheumy, but also very sharp, blue eyes. The old man nodded and patted his slumbering wife's hand, tucking it beneath the blanket once more before he turned to face Jared full on.

Jared opted for obtuse. “Who?”

But those rheumy eyes saw right through him. The old man smiled. “I think you know. You would be wise to keep an eye on your wife,
Doktor.
You are both young, prone to the doubts and insecurities that befall the young. Trust me when I say there will be many men in the years to come who will see the jewel you see in her. Though I do not believe
Doktor
Orloff would try to woo her from you, there are those who would. Worse, those who would simply take.”

Jewel?

No, it had to be a coincidence.

Still, two warnings in two days. From two different men. Though motivated by two separately perceived reasons, it was more than enough for him to take note.

While he doubted the latter half of this second warning pertained to DeBruzkya and his men, he'd be a fool to rule them out. Jared dropped his stare to the old man's wife, to the thin strands of white that had been carefully combed during the night. He knew full well by whom. He didn't need to draw on his memory to know that the old woman was beyond even the most basic of personal hygiene min
istrations. Proof enough that, given the nature of his wife's dual illnesses, the old man had probably run into DeBruzkya during the general's weekly visits more than he'd cared to.

Jared nodded slowly and formed his response even more quietly, in case any of the other patients surrounding them spoke English, as well as the old man did. “Are you referring to someone…high up?”

The speculation smoothed into respect.

Jared knew then his instincts were right about more than Alex. Despite the man's eighty-odd years, he suffered none of the symptoms of his wife's underlying illness. The man's brain was still as sharp as his tongue—in several languages. But was he brave enough to use it?

“DeBruzkya?”

To his surprise, the man didn't nod his snowy head, he shook it. “But you are…not far off.”

“How far?”

To his irritation, the man shrugged and fell silent.

Now what? The old man knew something. Something big. But for some reason, he'd decided to clam up.

Guilt settled in as that gnarled hand slipped back to the cot, back beneath the blanket and threadbare sheet. Jared knew exactly why the man wouldn't finish. His wife was in this cot by the grace of DeBruzkya's thugs. They had let him in those double doors week after week, month after month. Given the woman's deteriorated mental state, they'd been letting him in for several years. He should know; he'd seen the old man corralling the woman in line for hours the morning before.

Were anyone but Orloff chief of staff, full-blown cancer or not, Jared sincerely doubted that a woman suffering from the latter stages of dementia would ever have been given a bed in Rajalla's remaining hospital. Not with all but one clinic gone, as well. Resigned, he met the man's rheumy gaze. “You're lucky to have such a capable neurosurgeon available.”

Again, the man shrugged.

Jared knew the feeling.

But when that faded blue gaze connected with his again, they both searched, studied, recognized. This time, the old man sighed. “You must understand, I am careful not because I fear him for myself. I fear for others. Just know when you meet him that he will never understand what you did. He will only see what is before him. What cannot be fixed. This makes him more dangerous than you can ever know. Fear him.”

What the devil was he talking about?
Who
was he talking about?

The boy? The transfusion?

Jared pushed his stare past the next four cots and shifted it to the opposite side of the triage bay to study the boy he'd hooked up to the second bag of packed red blood cells. The boy's grandmother was snoring lightly in the wooden chair beside the kid's cot. Other than the old woman, no one had been in to see the boy.

He turned back to the old man. Unfortunately he was done talking. At least for the time being. A vigilant night spent on death watch had finally done the old man in. Those rheumy eyes had drifted shut. A not-so-soft rhythmic snore escaped the man's lips as his chin dropped to his chest. Jared snapped out his free arm to steady the man as he swayed against the back of his chair.

Jared glanced at the unit of packed RBCs.

All but a few milliliters had been drained into his arm. He released the old man long enough to disconnect the IV line and tape a wad of cotton over the seeping puncture site on his forearm, rising easily for the first time in days as the fresh supply of red blood cells sucked up enough oxygen to feed his body, as well as his brain, succeeding in rejuvenating him where even a ten-hour stretch of sleep and rear end full of Demerol hadn't. He glanced at his watch: 0736.

Except for emergencies, the hospital doors wouldn't
open for another two and a half hours. Long enough for a nap—and time enough to cull a few answers on his own. Jared scooped the old man up and gently laid him on the canvas cot he'd just vacated, three feet from his snoring, seventy-something wife. Then Jared turned, his gaze automatically seeking out his own much younger “wife.”

She wasn't there.

Jared spotted the back of Orloff's head as well as the fluttering tail of his lab coat as the man stepped out through double doors of the triage bay. Jared headed across the bay after him, drawing on every one of his new red blood cells, pushing them to the limit as he pushed his stride to catch up as quickly, yet inconspicuously as he could.

He left the triage bay and turned down the still-vacant, dimly lit main corridor, consciously working to keep the heels of his cowboy boots below a scuff as he rounded the turn at the end. He immediately whipped back around the corner as Orloff stopped at the base of the chipped granite stairs that led to the second floor—and his office.

Alex was with him.

He watched as Orloff retrieved a small brown box from the side pocket of his lab coat and tucked it neatly and discreetly into her waiting hands. Jared whipped his head back from the corner a split second before Alex's gaze swept the dank hallway.

What the hell was
that
about?

The exchange had happened so quickly, so smoothly, he'd almost missed it. But he'd definitely witnessed an exchange. That morning came slamming back. The doubts. He snatched another glimpse, confirming the worst. Something was going on, all right. He didn't care if every one of his marbles were cracked clean through, his instincts weren't. Nor were his eyes. The woman heading up those granite steps as Orloff headed down the far end of the corridor had an honest-to-God hidden agenda, an agenda he was not privy to.

But Orloff was.

God bless Harold Blaine.

Alex clutched the twine-knotted cardboard box in one hand, the key to Orloff's private office—more importantly, the man's very private mirror—in the other as she sent another round of praise heavenward. She didn't know how she'd find a way to thank Harold for responding to her SOS on such short notice, but she'd manage. Somehow. For now, she concentrated on watching her back as she reached the top of the granite staircase. A third and final glance over her shoulder assured that her nerves were simply working overtime. Jared was not following her.

She swung to the left, high-tailing it down the remainder of the darkened corridor—hoping to get into the office, get it done and get back downstairs to the main triage bay before anyone, especially Jared, realized she'd left. She reached the door to Orloff's locked office only to curse her slick fingers as she fumbled the key.

Relax!

Great. Bad enough that she'd had Jared's slight, but toe-curling Texas drawl in her good ear for days; now she had him in her head. She ordered the man out and her nerves back into line as she regained her grip on the key and made short work of the lock. Relief burned through her as she twisted the brass knob and pushed the door open. She stepped into the shadowy room and immediately pulled the door shut, relocking it firmly behind her before she dared to step far enough into the heavily paneled office to reach for the chain hanging from the pewter lamp on Orloff's desk.

She drew a deep breath and switched the lamp on. Light flooded the room, illuminating a scarred walnut desk, a pair of worn leather armchairs, as well as several rows of haphazard bookshelves, each filled to the brim. She skirted the desk quickly, setting the box in the middle of the leather blotter, then pulled the slim, center drawer of the desk open and retrieved a pair of scissors. She clipped the stiff twine tied around the length and width of the box, then moved
on to slit the label marked
“Doktor Orloff—Personliche!”
and the strip of reinforced tape beneath. Her breath seared out as she opened the box and stared at the priceless contents.

Priceless to her, anyway.

Her new hearing aid.

Hell, she was alone, behind a locked door. She could be honest. The contents of this box might be priceless, but this was far more than just her new hearing aid. It was her entire right ear, right down the synthetic cartilage that made up the outer auricle cup and the softer lobe beneath.

Her fingers shook as she reached inside the box to carefully slide the prosthetic ear from the familiar bed of molded, cushioning foam. Harold had included the additional remote volume control she'd requested, too. Jared wanted to know what else she'd done during those fifty-eight minutes she and Orloff had spent inside this office? Too damned bad. She didn't regret concealing this from him for a second.

Okay, perhaps one. Maybe even two.

But that was before the man had coolly informed her that while he was definitely interested in her, he'd never lower himself to act on that interest. She retrieved the vial of adhesive from the box as well and slapped it on the blotter before sliding the upper right drawer of the desk open to search for the mirror Orloff had promised would be waiting. There it was, tucked beneath a yellowing prescription pad.

She was about to shift the pad when she recognized several of the words scrawled down it, as well as the penmanship. It was Jared's. “Quad infection. No Cipro; Reminyl.”

His leg. The blood loss.

Dammit, she was not going to start feeling sorry for the man, let alone feel something else. He was fantasy fodder, nothing more.
Wrong.
He wasn't even that anymore. Not after last night.

She shoved the allergy reminder aside and retrieved the smudged mirror beneath. Using the empty box, she propped
the mirror up onto the blotter, staring at her reflection as she raised her right hand, staring at the illusion Harold and his genius had enabled her to maintain ever since Sam had contacted him on her behalf seventeen years earlier. She lowered her hand, this time staring into reality. A very cold, very lopsided reality.

One that did not include Jared. No matter how much she might want it to.

The Jared Sullivan in her dreams was just that. A dream. Like her ear, he was an illusion she'd held tight to so that she could pretend she had a normal life. So she could pretend she was a normal person. Well, she wasn't. She'd figured that out in grad school.

She'd suspected it throughout high school and college, but the prosthetic had enabled her to hide from the truth. Leave it to Don to drive the iron spike home. She still couldn't believe she'd loved him. But she had. So much so she'd decided to tell him the truth. To show him. Why not? Love could withstand anything, couldn't it?