Читать книгу Covert M.D. - Jessica Andersen - Страница 9

The damp subbasement of Boston General Hospital smelled faintly of death and fabric softener. Corridors folded back on each other without apparent reason, which was both a blessing and a curse for Nia French.

A blessing because she was able to stay out of sight. A curse because she had to follow close or risk losing Cadaver Man, Short Whiny Guy and the rattling laundry cart.

“You got the keys?”

Nia froze. The voice was near. Too near.

Heart pounding, she breathed through her mouth and eased closer to the off-green cinder block wall, wishing for some cover. Wishing the fluorescent lights weren’t so relentlessly bright.

Wishing she knew for sure she’d followed the right guys.

“Yeah, I got the keys. Why, you think I lost them already?” The second speaker was Short Whiny Guy, who had complained incessantly during the trip down from the sixth floor. There was a metallic jingle, and the sound of a door being unlocked.

“Just shut up and let’s get this thing loaded,” Cadaver Man ordered. She called him that because of the grayish skin and shadowed eyes she’d glimpsed when the elevators had shut on the men, leaving her wondering why they were changing the linens at two in the morning.

And why none of the beds in the Transplant Department were stripped.

Nia had followed them because this was her first assignment in HFH’s Investigations Division, and she was determined to prove herself.

Her previous assignments for Hospitals for Humanity had sent her to outbreaks and disaster areas worldwide, where her medical degree made her useful and her guts were taken for granted. It was good work, but it wasn’t where her heart lay. More than anything, she wanted to be an investigator—and now, finally, she’d been given the opportunity to work a case.

Hearing a metal door slide open and the men’s voices move away, Nia crouched down and eased around the corner, forcing her hands not to tremble from a mixture of nerves and excitement.

In contrast to the rest of the hospital, the loading bay was dark. The smell here was stronger, both of decay and of fabric softener, though the wide garage door let in a thin breath of Chinatown funk.

The men were gone. The big laundry hamper they had wheeled down from the sixth floor sat on the loading dock.

“Transplants failing for no good reason,” the dossier on this assignment read. “Supplies and pharmaceuticals disappearing from the Transplant Unit.”

Though the assignment didn’t officially begin until the next day, when she’d meet her new partner and they would be briefed on the full scope of the problem, Nia had sneaked into the hospital at midnight. She’d been hoping to discover something useful. Hoping to get a head start on impressing the senior investigator HFH had assigned to train her.

And here was her chance.

Stepping quietly on her soft-soled sneakers, she eased around the corner and crept toward the hamper. She had no concrete reason to suspect there was anything inside but laundry. But her left eyelid had twitched a warning, and the shift schedule indicated the linens in the Transplant Department were changed at seven in the morning, not two. Holding her breath, she stood on her tiptoes and peered inside the tall hamper.

It was full of laundry.

“Damn it,” she muttered under her breath, “why can’t they make these things shorter?” Twenty-eight-year-old Nia had topped out at five-two. Usually she could mask her short stature with determination, but the hamper didn’t care how tough she was, it still came up past her breasts. She had two choices—dive in and hope for the best or hang back and wait.

The sound of an engine and the rhythmic beep of a truck backing into the loading dock told her that “wait” was the better option. Darting behind a half-open door, she pressed her eye to the crack by the hinge and congratulated herself on a fine hiding spot.

She’d be a good investigator. No matter what certain people thought, she was going to make it. It had been her dream for nearly ten years now, ever since she’d first heard the stories about a swashbuckling HFH doctor saving the world.

“Come on, let’s get it loaded and get out of here. This stuff gives me the creeps.” Short Whiny Guy’s voice preceded him onto the loading dock. Cadaver Man, looking grayer in the half-light, unlatched the back of the laundry truck and ran up the door. Nia froze.

That was no laundry truck.

An empty gurney was secured to one side. Equipment sprouted from every flat surface and dangled from the ceiling. A faint white mist wafted out, as though the air-conditioning had been turned from “chill” to “preserve.”

“Ay-uh. We wouldn’t want to keep him waiting for his things, would we?” Cadaver Man, who hadn’t spoken up to this point, gave a ghastly grin that was at odds with his down-home Maine accent.

Nia’s pulse raced. Her first night on the job and she already had a huge break. If she got on that van and figured out where it was headed, what it was doing, then she could solve the case in a single night.

Score one for Nia French.

Short Whiny Guy pushed the laundry hamper across a narrow ramp and into the cleared center of the cargo area. The cart’s dirty canvas and worn wheels looked incongruous amidst so much stainless-steel and high-tech equipment.

“Come on, guys, give me a break here,” Nia whispered, her burst of optimism draining when Short Whiny Guy climbed into the back with the laundry hamper, as though it was his job to watch over the dirty linens. Cadaver Man shut the door and latched it securely.

Damn. Now what was she going to do? Her car was parked in the main garage on the other side of the hospital, so there was no way she could follow the men. Unless…

Her eyes narrowed on the back bumper of the van, which was fitted with a hydraulic cargo lift. The lift was wide and flat, with plenty of hand holds. She could jump right on.

She touched her back pocket and was reassured by the shape of her miniature tool kit. Given the chance, she might even be able to get the van open.

Cadaver Man reached up and pulled the loading dock’s garage door down, but the vehicle was still visible through a smaller opening nearby.

Nia’s heart pounded as the van’s engine started up. She rubbed her sweaty palms against her dark jeans and slipped out from the hiding spot.

“I can do this,” she said, reaching for the latch of the outer door as Cadaver Man ground the gears, searching for first. “I can do this. I can—”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Rough hands grabbed Nia, spun her and shoved her up against the wall, into the deep shadows. She panicked and screeched in terror.

Her assailant was taller than she, though only by seven or eight inches, and his rangy body jostled against hers as they struggled. She shoved against him. “Let me go!”

Oh, God, had she missed a third man? Panic spurted through her veins, and she shot an elbow at her attacker’s chin in a one-two move that her self-defense instructor had assured her should be followed by a knee to the groin.

Her captor blocked the elbow, but his grip slackened. “Nadia?”

She knew his voice instantly, but it was too late to stop the “two” of her one-two attack. She kneed him right where it hurt. Hard.

Rathe McKay, the most famous of HFH’s investigators—and Nia’s first lover—went pale, sank to the floor and wheezed.

Outside, the van revved and pulled away, its occupants unaware of the scuffle behind them on the loading dock.

Nia stood, stunned, as emotions battled within her. Guilt that she’d hurt him. Confusion as to why he’d sneaked up on her and why he was even in the hospital. And above all else, excitement at seeing him again after all this time.

Although his desertion had nearly destroyed her before, he still had the ability to leave her breathless. Because, damn it, even curled up on the floor, swearing, Rathe McKay looked good to her. Real good.

His close-cropped hair was lighter than she remembered, prematurely silver, though he was only thirty-eight. The seven years since she’d last seen him had added new lines to his angular face, making him look older than his calendar age even as they added to his appeal. His wide shoulders and chest spoke of coiled energy, and his arms and legs still boasted the leashed power she remembered, the grace that could carry him soundlessly through rainforests or dance him elegantly through the classiest ballroom.

And his eyes, when he opened them, still stared through her as though he could see into her soul.

“Rathe, I’m so sorry—” Horrified guilt swamped the shock. She offered a hand, but paused when a terrible possibility occurred. She withdrew her hand. “What are you doing here?”

He scowled, though something else moved in his eyes. Surprise, maybe, or wariness. Then those abstract emotions were gone, blanked out by the familiar stoniness. “I should’ve known something was wrong when Wainwright wouldn’t tell me who I’d be training.”

Rathe was her mentor? No. Impossible. Her stomach roiled, though there could be no other explanation for his presence at Boston General in the wee hours of the morning. But how had their boss, Jack Wainwright, managed it? Everyone knew Rathe McKay only took exotic assignments overseas. And more important, everyone knew he didn’t work with women.

Nia was one of the few who knew why.

Dismay pounded in her temples. She couldn’t work with Rathe. He would ruin everything.

“No,” she whispered. “This can’t be happening.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Rathe cursed in Russian, his voice dark and rich like the language. “Was that kick for—” he sucked in a pained breath and straightened slowly “—self-defense, or for what happened before?”

The question jabbed right beneath her heart. She wasn’t prepared for this. Wasn’t prepared for him.

“Before?” Though guilt stung—she wouldn’t have kicked him if he’d identified himself as friend rather than foe—she wasn’t willing to apologize again. Wasn’t willing to be vulnerable to him again. She crossed her arms and stared at the ceiling to buy a steadying moment. For all the times she’d thought about seeing Rathe again, this scenario didn’t even come close to what she’d imagined. “Let me see. Would that be before when you took my virginity, kicked me out of your hotel room and disappeared without a word…or before when my father, your best friend, begged you to come visit him on his deathbed and you never showed?”

Eyes dark, Rathe advanced on her, walking gingerly. She stood her ground and lifted her chin so she could glare scalpels at him, though her stomach knotted with nerves and a flare of traitorous warmth. They stared at each other for a heartbeat. Two.

Finally he turned away, muttering, “This is why women shouldn’t be allowed in Investigations—they can’t separate their personal lives from their professional ones.”

And there it was. Rathe McKay’s motto: Women Don’t Belong in the Field. Period.

Denial howled in Nia’s head, in her heart, but she held the emotions in check because, damn it, he was right. This wasn’t the time or place to bring up the past. She had a job to do.

And part of that job was proving to her HFH mentor that she was a capable investigator, fully ready to work in the field.

So she found a frosty smile that hopefully showed nothing of her tumultuous emotions. “You’re right. I apologize for being unprofessional. What’s done is done. Jack Wainwright said he was pairing me with an older, more experienced investigator, so I suppose I should be honored he chose you. You’re as old and experienced as they get.”

It was a low blow, aimed at what her father had laughingly called Rathe’s Methuselah complex. Though only ten years her senior, the HFH superoperative had always acted twice that.

He narrowed his eyes and scowled. “There won’t be an investigation. I’m calling Wainwright in the morning and having you reassigned. This is no place for…” He gestured as though the words were unnecessary.

“This is no place for a woman?” Nia clenched her fists at her sides. Though the HFH Head Office didn’t discriminate, there were a few old warhorses who did. Rathe, who’d been in the field more than fifteen years already, considered himself one of them.

“This is no place for Tony’s daughter!” He grabbed her by the arms and shook her as though she was eighteen years old again and he’d caught her prying into his field notes. “For God’s sake, Nadia. You know this isn’t what your father wanted for you. What would he say?”

Righteous anger speared through her. “He’s dead. The last thing he said on this earth was, ‘Where’s Rathe?’” And for that she had hated them both.

Emotion darkened his eyes, though she wasn’t sure that it was remorse. He spread his hands. “Nadia, for what it’s worth, I’m—”

“Don’t,” she interrupted, not willing to hear the apology, not willing to let him think that a betrayal of such magnitude could be scrubbed away with a few words. “Don’t bother. You’re right, this isn’t the time or the place for personal conversations. We have a job to do.”

She turned and stalked toward the freight elevators at the far end of the subbasement.

“Nadia.” His voice seemed to caress the word, bringing back memories best left unremembered.

She stopped and glanced back, steeling herself against the sight of him, strong and virile, an image that could have stepped out of her aching, mindless dreams.

Or her nightmares.

“I prefer to be called Nia now. Nadia is a child’s name, and I’m not a child anymore.” She lifted her chin, daring him to comment. “We have a meeting with the heads of the Transplant Department at 9:00 a.m. sharp—don’t be late.”

This time she didn’t look back, not even when he called her name. They had three hours until the meeting. She’d need every minute of that to prepare herself for the case.

And to armor herself against the disturbing presence of Rathe McKay.

BY NINE THAT MORNING, Rathe was back to walking upright as he stalked through Boston General, but his temper hadn’t mellowed much.

It was temper, he assured himself. Temper that had his blood surging through his veins with a tricky tingling sensation. Temper that had him feeling more alive, more engaged than he had in months or maybe longer.

Temper.

What was Wainwright thinking, partnering him with a woman trainee? He didn’t work with women. And even if he did, Nadia French was the last girl he’d choose.

Rathe shook his head, annoyed. No, that wasn’t right. This was about her being a woman, not about her being Tony’s daughter or about a mistake he’d once made in an airport hotel.

His refusal to work with the opposite gender was based on logic and experience. Period. There was nothing personal about it, and nothing personal between him and Nadia.

Sure, his first glimpse of her had been a kick in the gut, a surge of warmth and energy, but that was only basic man-woman biology. His yang approving of her yin. Nothing personal.

Her thick, dark hair was shorter than he remembered. In fact, she was shorter than he remembered, as though his mind had decided her scrappy personality couldn’t fit inside such a tiny shell. He’d remembered her eyes right, though. Dark brown, swirling with darker promises, they used to look at him with adoration, as though he was the hero he’d once thought himself.

Now they shone with anger. That was personal. And it was unacceptable in a partner.

Already five minutes late for the briefing, Rathe ducked into a windowed alcove and punched his superior’s number into his mid-wave cell phone, a high-tech HFH toy certified safe for use in hospitals. When Jack Wainwright answered, Rathe wasted no time with pleasantries. “I want her off the case. Now.”

There was a rumble of amusement. Jack had trained Rathe himself, back before a stray bullet had landed the older man behind a desk. There was respect between the two but little reverence. “McKay. I didn’t expect to hear from you until at least nine-fifteen. The meeting can’t have even started yet.”

“It hasn’t. I met my partner in the laundry room at 2:00 a.m. this morning. She was getting a jump on the case. She doesn’t seem to get that investigators never, ever go Lone Ranger.” It was HFH policy, and might be enough to convince Jack to pull her off the job.

“You were there, too, so don’t pretend you give a damn about policy.” Jack’s shrug carried down the line. “I know you don’t work with women, McKay, but it’s not like you two are in the middle of a war zone. It’s a bit of petty drug trafficking at a well-funded urban hospital. Enjoy it.”

Rathe gritted his teeth, knowing the cushy assignment was Jack’s way of saying he thought Rathe needed a break from the real action. “She’s a liability.”

“No, she’s not. She’s a transplant specialist, she’s fearless, and she was requested by name.” Jack’s voice hardened into a direct order. “Use her. Teach her. This is what the next generation of HFH investigators looks like, McKay. Get used to it.”

The phone went dead in Rathe’s hand, and he scowled.

Enjoy it. Get used to it. Jack’s words replayed in his mind as he jogged up the stairs to the sixth floor, which housed the Transplant Unit.

Fine. They thought he was burned out? He’d show them. He’d make this the fastest, cleanest investigation they’d ever seen. And he’d do it handicapped with a female partner.

He hit the top of the stairs, and an echo of heat reminded him that it wasn’t that simple.

His partner was Nadia French. Nia. Tony’s daughter.

Rathe had wanted to see his old friend one last time, had ached to apologize, to forgive and be forgiven and to hold Nadia when her father died.

But sometimes a man had to break a promise to keep a promise. And so he had stayed away.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed through the doors into the office of the director of transplant medicine.

“You’re late.” From her chair on the visitor’s side of the lake-size desk, Nia frowned at him. “I’ve already told Dr. Talbot about the men with the suspicious laundry hamper, and the van with the—”

“I’ll take it from here,” he interrupted. “Try to remember that I hold seniority on this case.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, sir, Dr. McKay, sir.”

Rathe ignored her and held out a hand to the older of the two men in the room, a distinguished, white-haired gentleman sporting a bow tie and elegant, steel-rimmed glasses. “I’m Rathe McKay.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. McKay. Your reputation as the medical community’s answer to Indiana Jones precedes you.” The older man’s handshake was firm. “Michael Talbot. And this,” the director of transplant gestured to his companion, a handsome, well-groomed man, “is my assistant director, Logan Hart.”

The assistant director nodded but didn’t offer a hand. In his early thirties, Hart exuded breeding and education from the ends of his professionally sculpted hair to the tips of his tasseled black leather shoes. He looked a far cry from Rathe, who’d gone from the foster-care system straight to a combined undergraduate/medical degree on an HFH scholarship.

And where had that thought come from, Rathe wondered. He was the man he’d become, not the boy he’d been.

Frowning, he took the visitor’s chair beside Nia and focused his attention on the men. “My superior has been in direct contact with your administration. I expect you to grant me all of the necessary access and let me run my own investigation. In exchange I’ll provide you a written report of my findings once a week. Is that clear?”

There was dead silence in the office as the balance of power shifted neatly into Rathe’s hands—which had been his intention. He needed to take control of the situation right away.

When he was in charge, nobody made mistakes. Everyone lived.

But he could feel Nia fuming at his casual dismissal of what she’d seen in the loading area. The aggravation poured off her in waves. He could smell it coming from her skin, like the memory of—

Like the memory of a mistake. A betrayal.

A lost opportunity.

“Gentlemen?” Rathe forced his voice to sound level when it would have—what? Cracked? Faltered? Impossible—he was a grown man. Things like that didn’t happen to him. That was for kids such as Nia. “Do we have an agreement?”

Logan Hart, who looked like a kid himself, frowned, but his boss, Talbot, smiled with a glint of respect in his eyes. He held out his hand a second time, this time in affirmation. “We have an agreement, Dr. McKay. We would be fools not to take advantage of your expertise.”

In his peripheral vision, Rathe saw Nia curl her lip. Surprisingly, he had to fight a kink of amusement.

But this was no laughing matter. It was an investigation, and if her little stunt down in the subbasement was any indication, she was going to be a hell of a lot of work to baby-sit while he went about his business.

The director leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers together. “Basically we’re stumped. Transplant patients who would’ve survived a year ago are dying, and there are gaps in our supplies that suggest theft, but nobody’s seen anything.” He spread his hands. “I brought this to the head administrator’s attention, and he called you.”

“What sorts of supplies?” Rathe asked.

At the same time Nia said, “Are there connections among the dead patients?”

Logan Hart grinned at her, and a dimple appeared in his cheek. “Good question. They’re all rare type.”

Rathe shrugged. “If they’re rare tissue type, then they probably waited longest for their transplants and had the worst prognoses. You may just be seeing a blip. Let’s focus on the supplies to start with. What’s been disappearing?”

Nia frowned but didn’t argue.

Talbot pushed a bulging envelope across the desk. “There’s a list in here, along with your ID badges and supporting information. Jack Wainwright picked your cover stories. I hope you’ll find them acceptable.”

Rathe could have sworn Talbot was laughing at him but wasn’t sure why. He opened the envelope, shook out its contents and glanced at Nia’s information before passing it to her. She would be posing as a transplant specialist visiting the hospital to observe Boston General’s procedures, and give a short lecture series. Perfect. She wouldn’t have to dissemble much to maintain her cover, which was good. She didn’t have the experience he did at sliding into new roles. Chameleonlike, he could assume any cover, pass himself off easily as any of a number of people, such as…Rathe glanced at his packet.

“A janitor? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

Nia lifted a hand to stifle a snicker. When Rathe glared at her, she managed to straighten her face before she said, “It’s perfect. You’re working the night shift, so you’ll be able to watch the loading docks and see what comes and goes. So far, that’s our best lead….”

She was right, damn it. But Rathe also knew she was thinking that working the day shift, when he was off, would give her time to do some digging on her own. To prove herself.

He knew, because he’d once been like that himself. He’d learned his lesson the hardest way possible, and he’d be damned if he’d let Tony French’s daughter find herself in the same situation.

So he nodded. “You’re right. Working the night shift will give me plenty of time to help you with your end of things.”

She scowled back. “You’ll need to sleep sometime, McKay.”

“Not necessarily.” He scooped their IDs into the envelope. “I don’t sleep much.” He nodded to the transplant doctors, who were following the exchange with rapt attention. “Gentlemen. I’ll be in touch.”

Rathe didn’t miss the frown Nia directed at him, nor did he miss noticing how Logan Hart held her hand a moment longer than necessary when they shook.

Kids will be kids, Rathe told himself fiercely, and the words echoed in the voice of Nia’s father. Though Rathe had shrugged off his experiences as an on-loan medic in the war-torn country where the two had met over a transfusion, the place had marked Tony. Not long after, Tony had retired from the Army to hunker down in the suburbs with his wife and daughter while he waited for the nightmares to fade.

Rathe hoped they had in the end.

Trying to ignore the tug he felt in his gut when Nia laughed at something Logan Hart said, Rathe spun on his heel and left the office. He never should have come back to the States.

At least when he was abroad, it was easier to forget that he’d slept with his best friend’s daughter.

He stalked down the hall, away from the woman and the memories. But he didn’t go far. He had a feeling she was going to find every possible opportunity to place herself in danger during this assignment.

Hell, it’s what he would do in her situation.

EIGHT HOURS LATER, still annoyed that Rathe hadn’t waited around after their meeting so they could plan their case and divvy up the responsibilities, Nia stalked to the garage where she’d parked her car. She couldn’t wait to get back to the swanky apartment building that had been donated to Boston General for use by visiting scientists and patients’ families.

She’d spent the day going over the notes and familiarizing herself with the setup. Slick and well organized, Boston General’s Transplant Department boasted twenty beds and enough high-tech gadgets to satisfy even Nia—especially since she had designed a few of them herself during her two years in grad school.

“Brilliant,” they had called her, when in reality she had simply been bored. Bored by the classwork, by her fellow students, and by the city itself. She had longed for faraway places that could be reached only by overgrown paths, for adventures like the stories her father had told her. Stories with titles like, “The Time Rathe Was Adopted by Cannibals” or “The Time Rathe Saved the Congo.”

Those stories had stopped the day she announced to her parents that she wanted to join HFH when she grew up. Come to think of it, so had Rathe’s visits, for the most part.

In the damp garage, Nia missed the car door lock and dropped her keys to the pavement beside her silver Jetta. She bent and retrieved them, and was surprised to find her throat tight with the memory.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” she murmured as she unlocked the car and slipped inside its interior, which smelled of leather and hospital disinfectant. “I know this isn’t what you wanted for me.”

But her father’s plans and hers had diverged a long time ago, even before he got sick.

She backed the Jetta out of her hospital parking slot and drove the vehicle out of the garage, shielding her eyes against the reflected glare of headlights in the rear-view mirror. “Geez,” she muttered over the classic rock on the radio, “I know it gets dark early this time of year, but are the high beams really necessary?”

The headlights followed her out of the garage and down Washington Street, where she merged slowly with the rest of the “rush” hour traffic.

It wasn’t until a mile and three lane shifts later that Nia realized the high beams were still just a few cars behind her.

She was being followed.

“Nonsense,” she told herself as nerves prickled in her stomach. “The whole apartment building is owned by the hospital. They’re simply going the same place you are.”

But that didn’t stop her left eye from twitching, as it had the night before when she’d seen the two white-coated men pushing a laundry hamper out of the Transplant Department. And it didn’t stop her heart from picking up a beat in fear.

She gripped the leather steering wheel tightly as traffic pushed her toward the entrance to the apartment building’s parking garage. Should she drive by and see what Mr. High Beams would do? Or should she park and make a run for it?

What would Rathe do in this situation?

“Argh!” She slapped the steering wheel in frustration and turned into the garage. She had purged that silly, teenage question from her head years ago, along with the crush she’d had on her father’s dashing friend. Or so she’d thought. But there it was, reminding her of the man she’d loved at twenty-one and hated not long after.

Mr. High Beams didn’t follow her into the garage, and Nia felt faintly ashamed for jumping at shadows. A good investigator needed to be tougher than that.

She parked, climbed out of the Jetta, slung her purse and soft-sided briefcase over her shoulder and tried to stop herself from hurrying to the elevators.

A voice spoke out of the shadows. “We need to talk.”