Читать книгу Red Alert - Jessica Andersen - Страница 10

Raine knocked on the door to Meg’s office almost an hour later, still looking polished and professional. Beautiful.

In comparison, Meg felt like a train wreck. Jemma had managed to find her a T-shirt to wear under a set of green scrubs, along with a pair of gym shoes, but that had been the extent of scroungeable spare clothes.

Meg was itchy and uncomfortable, and beginning to wish she’d taken that trip to the ER and from there gone home.

But she’d wanted to speak with Raine personally. The dark-haired beauty might work for FalcoTechno, she might have come to the lab under false pretenses, but she’d inadvertently made herself one of Meg’s patients. Besides, whatever she’d done, she was a human being.

A woman. An expectant mother.

Meg waved her in. “Have a seat, Ms. Montgomery. I need to talk to you about something.”

“If it’s about what Erik and I did this morning, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“It’s not about that,” Meg interrupted. “It’s about the blood sample you gave us. There’s a problem.”

The bloom in the other woman’s cheeks drained to pasty white, then took on a hot flush. “With the pregnancy?”

She didn’t call it the baby. She called it the pregnancy. That, in Meg’s clinical experience, was a telling detail. But this wasn’t a counseling session, so she focused on the information that could save Raine’s life. “It’s not just the pregnancy. Our genetic screen revealed that you carry two gene mutations that put you at a high risk for developing blood clots in your arms and legs, or having a stroke or heart attack.”

Meg had long ago learned that the blunt delivery was usually best in these cases. Just get it out there and deal with it.

“The pregnancy increases all of these risks exponentially. In addition, you have an increased risk of miscarriage—it’s your body’s way of trying to protect you from the other problems. There’s good news, though—we can put you on supportive therapy starting now. If you’re on interferon gamma and a strict monitoring program for the duration of the pregnancy, your chances are very good.”

Raine moaned, a low exhalation of air that carried shock and fear. Her face reflected a shifting gamut of emotions, but she didn’t say anything. Just clasped her hands in her lap and breathed deeply.

Tears glistened in her eyes.

“Is there someone you’d like to call?” Meg asked. “A family member, perhaps? I’ll be happy to give you some privacy, if that would help.”

But Raine shook her head. “No. No family.”

“Your boss, then?” Meg realized she’d been petty to order Erik away from the lab. He and Raine might not be married, but she’d definitely sensed a connection between the two.

And why did the thought bring a twinge?

“No.” Raine shook her head, took a deep breath, and lifted her chin. “I can handle this on my own.”

But there was a faint quiver in her voice, and she looked as though a finger tap could knock her over.

“I’ll have one of my people take you down to Admissions and start the paperwork. We’ll need you to stay here for a day or so. After that, we can do the treatments on an outpatient basis.”

Raine nodded slowly. “Fine. Of course.”

Though the other woman had lied to her, and worked for the enemy, Meg’s heart ached in sympathy.

God, she hated this part of the job.

She rose, detoured around the desk and leaned down to touch Raine’s arm. “We’ll take good care of you. I promise.”

Swallowing what sounded like a sob, Raine nodded. “Thank you.”

Meg led her out to the lab reception area. Jemma was away from her desk, but she saw Max’s silhouette just inside the lab. She touched Raine’s arm. “Wait here.”

She pushed through the lab doors. “Max, I need you to do me a favor.”

The big, dark-haired man set his lab notebook aside. “Sure, boss. What’s up?”

“Remember those clotting factor and Factor V Leiden mutations you found the other day?” She jerked her head in the direction of the door. “She’s out in the lobby, and pretty freaked out—with good reason. She didn’t want me to call anyone, so can you take her down to Admissions and help expedite wherever you can? I think she could use somebody on her side right now.”

Max nodded. “Of course.” He rose, shucked off his lab coat to reveal jeans and a heavy flannel shirt, and headed for the lobby.

When he was gone, Jemma’s voice spoke from behind Meg. “Bad idea, boss.”

Meg turned, startled. “What?”

“Sending Max off with her. You’re going to trigger his DIDS.”

“His what?”

“Damsel In Distress Syndrome. That’s what we call it behind his back, anyway.” Jemma shrugged, but her eyes were clouded with faint worry. “Max is big and tough and mean-looking, but he’s a sucker for a pretty woman with a sad story. Classic knight-on-a-white-horse mentality. If she doesn’t watch out, he’ll try to rescue her.”

“I didn’t know.” Meg stared out into the now empty lobby. “Should I call him back?”

“Too late now. And besides, who knows? Maybe it’ll work out for him this time. She looks like she could use someone to lean on right now.”

“True enough.” Figuring what was done was done, and the important thing was getting Raine started on the life-saving therapy, Meg headed back to her office. But as she packed to leave for the day and tasted cement dust at the back of her throat, she was plagued by a faint sense of resentment that nobody ever volunteered to rescue her.

Or rather, someone had, but he was no white knight.

More like a sapphire-eyed devil intent on taking over her life’s work.

MEG SLEPT POORLY that night, haunted by dreams of suffocation. Near 2:00 a.m., she gave up, snapped on her bedside lamp and read until dawn.

She was at the lab early, wearing the high-cut burnt-orange suit she only hauled out when she needed to remind herself that she was smart enough and tough enough to deal with whatever was going wrong.

Jemma met her at the door. “Cage wants you in his office, ASAP.”

Meg cursed. She wasn’t ready to meet with the head administrator before she’d even had her second hit of coffee. But with her work in a state of legal flux, she couldn’t afford to ignore the summons. She took the elevator up from the fifth floor to the tenth and pushed through the door to Cage’s office without knocking. “Sorry I’m late. I was discussing some extremely promising results with—”

She broke off and her stomach dipped to her toes.

She’d expected to see Zach Cage, the darkly handsome ex-major league pitcher who had taken over the reins of a troubled Boston General some three years earlier. She hadn’t expected to see Erik Falco, wearing another dark gray suit and lighter gray shirt, this time with a vivid blue tie that picked up the cobalt in his eyes.

Worse, before the door had shut behind Meg, it opened again to admit a thin-hipped woman in her early forties with short, dark hair and piercing eyes. Annette Foulke, the nontenured Assistant Director of the Biochemistry Department at Thrace University, was Meg’s equal in the hospital’s hierarchy and had been anything but subtle in her efforts to block Meg from being voted tenure.

As far as Annette was concerned, the position should be hers.

Gritting her teeth as Annette sat primly beside Falco, Meg turned to Zach Cage, who sat behind his large, efficiently cluttered desk. “I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,” Falco said. His lips twitched briefly, and she had to give him points for knowing his Monty Python.

But all humor fled when Cage gestured her to the remaining empty chair. “Sit. We need to talk about what happened yesterday, and what we’re going to do about it. Annette is here because she’s the head of the hospital ethics committee. Mr. Falco is here to represent his interests.”

Meg winced. Oh, hell. Somehow they’d figured out that Max had used Raine’s DNA for an unauthorized test. She sat, but stayed forward in her chair as she said, “If we hadn’t done that genetic screen, the patient wouldn’t have been identified as having—”

Cage held up a hand. “I’m not talking about your patients, Dr. Corning. I’m talking about what happened yesterday at the construction site.”

Meg frowned and played it cool, as though she hadn’t dreamed of the fact that she’d almost died. “It was an accident. I’m fine.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” Cage said quietly. He tapped a file folder on his desk. “The permanent railing was removed and somebody sawed through the temporary wood railing. The police have ruled it sabotage. They want to talk to you as soon as we’re done here.”

“But I—” Meg’s breath whooshed out as his words caught up with her brain. “Sabotage? Impossible!”

But she flashed back on the jostling crowd. She’d pushed through the pedestrians near the construction site, called Erik’s name, reached for him—

And she’d been bumped from behind. Hard.

“We think the hospital may have been targeted by someone who doesn’t approve of the new wing. This is the latest in a string of problems with the new construction,” Cage said. “When I took over, it seemed reasonable to continue building the Gabney Wing, though of course, under a new name.”

Meg nodded, brain spinning with too much information, too many questions. “Of course.” She knew that the previous head administrator, Leo Gabney, had put the project into motion before being fired. Though the construction was a major undertaking, so much of the preliminary work had already been done—and paid for—that it had made fiscal sense for the hospital to break ground.

That had been eighteen months ago, and broken ground was almost all they had to show for it now. Broken ground and some cement forms.

Cage shifted in his chair, face creasing with regret. “This added delay—on top of cost overruns—puts me in a tough position. Gabney left us with debts, and the plans weren’t nearly as complete as they appeared at first. We probably shouldn’t have gone ahead with the project, but now that we’ve started building—and made promises to the clinicians and researchers who are lined up to use the space—we can’t turn back.”

Meg’s heart picked up a beat as she realized where this was going. “We’ve already nixed the idea of selling off the NPT technology to cover the construction costs. We agreed that the long-term licensing income outweighed the short term gain from a sale.”

“That was before someone tried to kill you,” Erik said bluntly.

“That’s ridiculous!” She shot to her feet. “You heard what Cage said—the construction project was the target. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Detectives Peters and Sturgeon aren’t so sure,” Falco countered. “Are you willing to bet your life that they’re wrong?”

She glared at him. “You set this up, didn’t you? Cage turned down your repeated offers to buy my patents, so you came up with this…this farce to sway him. Well, do you know what? It won’t fly. I wouldn’t sell my work to FalcoTechno if it were—”

“Sit down, Dr. Corning.” Cage’s voice cracked whip-sharp. When she’d taken her seat, his tone softened with regret. “I know you oppose the sale and I know why. I even agree with you to an extent. But I can’t let that dictate hospital policy. With all the cost overruns, we need the money. FalcoTechno has made a more than generous offer, far exceeding what the other companies have—”

Annette broke in. “Excuse me for interrupting, but I’m confused as to why you asked me here. I thought you wanted my opinion on a matter of ethics.”

“Not quite.” Cage nodded to Falco, who leaned down and lifted a briefcase off the floor. He popped the top and withdrew a fat stack of papers as the head administrator said, “I need a committee head to witness any deal over fifty million dollars. Your schedule was open.”

Annette stood. “Next time, ask before you decide my schedule is open. I was in the middle of an important experiment. Get someone else to do your paperwork.”

She stalked out, tension humming in her wake.

Meg expected the head administrator to call her back with a reprimand. Instead he rubbed the back of his neck. “God, she’s a pain. And she wonders why she keeps getting passed over for promotion.”

Seeing a slim opening, Meg stood and placed herself square in front of the administrator’s desk. “If you can’t do the paperwork right now, give me a chance. I’ll license out the NPT technology to a smaller company, but make sure that Boston General keeps managing interest. Surely you can see the value in that?” She had to protect her work, protect the patients who would benefit from the noninvasive prenatal testing. She lowered her voice so only Cage could hear. “We’ve talked about this. I have to make sure the technology is used correctly.”

There was too much potential for disaster.

Cage looked at her for a long, considering moment before he said, “The sabotage could have been aimed at you, not the hospital. We’re talking about a ton of money here. If someone’s trying to kill the deal by eliminating the driving force behind the technology, then putting the sale through sooner than later will keep you safe.”

“Nobody asked you to protect me,” she said. “I’m tougher than you think. Don’t let Falco talk you into believing something that suits his purposes. I’m not the target. If anything, someone’s finally decided to sabotage Leo Gabney’s white elephant of a construction project. Shut it down and be done with it, but don’t shut me down. I can make the licensing work for both of us. I swear it.”

The head administrator stared at her for so long, his expression so closed, that she expected him to say no. When he nodded reluctantly, she nearly wept with relief. “Okay,” he said. “You’ve got a month to pull together a profitable licensing proposal that’s ready for my signature, with a company that’s willing to pay for the technology but let us retain veto rights on development.”

“My offer will be revoked once I walk out that door,” Falco said smoothly. “And you know damn well it’s better than you’re going to get anywhere else.”

Meg turned on him. “You want the NPT technology? Then license it.”

He shook his head. “No thanks, I don’t share control. I’ll buy your work, but now, not a month from now.”

Cage snorted. “Don’t try to outnegotiate a negotiator, Falco. If you want the deal badly enough, you’ll wait. Give us one week.”

“One week,” Erik said, his expression suggesting that was what he’d wanted all along. “I can wait that long to own my new technology.”

Meg’s smile held an edge. “You’ll be waiting longer than that.” She headed for the door. “Excuse me, I have calls to make.”

As she strode down the hall toward the elevator, she was already running through the options in her head. A week was better than nothing, but she was going to have trouble licensing out a technology that hadn’t even passed full beta testing yet.

No, that wasn’t true, she acknowledged inwardly. There were a half dozen companies—Falco’s included—slavering to get their hands on the NPT technology. But it would be more difficult to find one willing to sign the agreement she had in mind, which would restrict the scope of the license to prenatal testing alone.

She and Cage had planned to patent the other aspects of the work and sit on them.

The world wasn’t ready for every facet of the NPT process. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

A door opened and closed behind her, and Falco’s voice called, “Dr. Corning. Meg, wait!”

She stabbed the elevator call button, hoping to escape before he reached her. But his hitching stride ate up the distance between them, and the glowing elevator light stalled on the eighth floor.

He stopped beside her, loomed over her. “Not so fast. You and I are going to be spending some quality time together.”

She glared. “I don’t think so. You heard Cage. I have seven days.”

The elevator doors finally whooshed open, too late to do her any good. She set her teeth as they stepped into the empty car together. Falco hit the button for the ground-floor lobby before he said, “Yeah, and I’m going to stick very close to you for those seven days. Let’s just say I’ve learned my lesson when it comes to trusting women.”

Fuming, Meg turned on him. “How dare you insinuate that I would ever—”

The elevator jolted, throwing her against him. She gasped in alarm and reached up to push away from him, winding up with both palms flat against his hard, masculine chest. She felt his heartbeat, quick like hers.

Something changed in his expression. “Look, I—”

A grating, popping noise drowned out his next words. A metallic pinging reverberated through the elevator car. The lights died.

And the floor dropped out from underneath them.