Читать книгу Beast in the Tower - Julie Miller - Страница 10

The fire was all around him, climbing up the walls and leaping across the ceiling.

Dr. Damon Sinclair crawled toward the emergency exit at the back of his lab. The door where he’d entered minutes earlier to pick up his notes for tomorrow’s board meeting was no longer an escape route. The glass entryway had shattered and the fire was now licking its way into the hallway on the opposite side.

Beakers exploded from the heat and rained glass on his back. Their contents fed the flames. The few sprinklers that had survived the explosion were doing little more than creating steam as they spat out water at irregular intervals.

If he hadn’t smelled the chemicals—if he hadn’t reacted to the searing stench of the volatile combination and dived beneath his desk to avoid the initial blast—he’d already be dead. The milliseconds of warning had left him with a head wound, an armful of research documentation and a chance at survival. But that chance was slim if he couldn’t find a way out.

Blinded by the blood seeping into his left eye, feverish from the blazing heat, he moved forward by instinct alone. When he hit a wall instead of the exit, he knew he had to make a choice. He set the binders on the floor with a reverence for the miracles contained inside. His work could save lives—it had saved lives. And now he’d set it aside to save his own life.

The answers were all inside his head, anyway. Given enough time, he could recreate them if he had to. If he ever got out of this hellfire, he’d have all the time in the world to…

A farewell look at his work elicited a choice curse.

“What the hell is this garbage?” These weren’t his notes. Just pages and pages of numbers and equations that didn’t make sense. He hurled the worthless counterfeits into the growing flames.

Was that what this was about? This treacherous, purposeful destruction, just to hide a theft?

Whoever was responsible… Whoever had planted that damned incendiary… Reams of notes and calculations—gone. Successful equations and rejected experiments he could learn from—gone. State-of-the-art technology designed by his own hands…

His hands…

“Son of a bitch!”

They were on fire.

Damon reengaged his brain and fought off the groggy disorientation that consumed him.

Whoever was responsible for this betrayal would not go unpunished. There were means a man of his intellect and bank account could use to make the bastard who’d sabotaged his life’s work pay.

He let the rage suffuse him. Give him strength. He clutched his arms to his stomach and doubled over to stifle the flames with his own body. “You’ll pay.” The heat from his own hands seared his flesh. “You’ll pay.”

“Help! Damon! Help me!”

“Miranda?” A pain far more cruel than any physical torture twisted in the pit of his stomach. Oh, no. God, no. “Miranda!”

His wife’s screams hurt worse than the scorching agony of the skin blistering on his fingers. Her terror cut deeper than the shrapnel in his forehead. He’d gladly give up any medical secret he could devise, but please, please, spare his wife.

“Miranda!” He shouldered aside burning tables, melting plastic and shattered glass, desperately searching through the roiling smoke. “Miranda! Ans—” He choked on the toxic gases coating his lungs and crumpled to the floor. A hoarse cough racked his body and ravaged his throat before he could summon the strength to push to his knees. “Answer me!”

“Damon!”

Her screech of desperation drove him on. He crawled through corrosive puddles and ruined work and unknown treachery to find the only thing that truly mattered. “Miranda? Please. Keep talking. I’ll find—” Coughing cut like broken glass through his raw throat. The spasms drained his strength and he collapsed again. But he pulled himself toward her ragged sobs. “I’m coming.” His administrative assistant. His love. His life. Work be damned. “I’m coming.”

“Damon…”

A chunk of ceiling gave way and crashed to the floor, shooting up a snarling roar of white heat and orange flame. Damon rolled to the side, sucking in the last breath of oxygen hovering above the floor. The firefighters and paramedics were on their way. But even if they were already in the building, they had twenty-eight stories to climb. Damon was his wife’s last—her only—hope for survival.

“Miranda!”

He found her curled into a ball in the corner of a storage closet. Her clothes and hair had caught fire, and though she’d managed to douse the flames, she’d already suffered serious burns.

If she was still breathing, Damon couldn’t tell. He could only cradle her in his arms while he carried her to safety. Outside the burning lab, he collapsed and lay her on the floor. His damaged hands couldn’t detect a pulse, but he put his lips against hers and breathed. “Come on, baby,” he rasped. “Live, Miranda. Live.”

The old images faded as Damon twisted in his sleep. But the nightmare wouldn’t end. It merely transformed—into something hideous and ugly. Like him.

They were at the asylum now. Months later. Miranda’s willowy figure was lost beneath the green hospital gown. And she was crying. At least, her shoulders moved with the sounds of sobbing. The tear ducts beneath the bandages that wrapped her face could no longer cry.

“Why won’t you help me?” Her blue eyes pierced him straight to the core, adding to the weight of well-deserved guilt he carried. “How can you make yourself right and not help me?”

She should never have been a part of this. Miranda was an innocent pawn, caught and trampled by someone’s jealous greed. If only he’d been an ordinary man. Less rich. Less powerful. Less of a visionary brainiac. None of this would have happened. His work wouldn’t have been stolen. His lab wouldn’t have been destroyed. She wouldn’t have been hurt.

Damon Sinclair loved like an ordinary man, but he was cursed with being anything but.

“We nearly lost you in the E. R. when you reacted to the treatments. I won’t risk that again until I run more experiments. For some reason the tissue regeneration formula doesn’t work on you. I haven’t figured out why. Yet. But I will. I promise.” He joined her at the window. It was the last time he remembered feeling the heat of sunshine on his skin. “In the meantime, there’s reconstructive surgery—”

“That takes too long. I’ll never be the same.”

He gently stroked her arm. “Money is no object. Whatever it takes. Whatever experts we need—”

“I thought you were the expert.” She shrugged off his touch. “Your hands have healed. But my face…?”

Damon reached for her again, but she slid away, crossing to the far side of the small room whose posh amenities couldn’t completely mask its clinical purpose. “Miranda, you are beautiful to me. Inside. Where it counts. I love you. I will always love you, no matter what.”

“But I’m not beautiful outside anymore, am I?” She faced him then, the bandages masking everything but the accusation in her eyes. “You can’t look at me and say I’m beautiful on the outside, can you?”

His medical breakthroughs weren’t infallible. “I can’t fix my eye, either, and the nerve repair is still incom—”

“But you fixed the skin on your hands. What about the skin on my face? It’s not vanity. It’s humanity. I have no face left. No lips, no nose. Just…scars.”

She hated him. So much. Where once he’d seen love, he saw nothing but blame and contempt. Hell, he hated himself. He’d worked miracles for so many patients. “Miranda—”

“Fix me, Damon. Fix me!”

“I don’t know how.” The admission twisted cruelly through a brain that had always had the answers. Always. Until now. “I don’t know how.”

“I don’t know how,” he muttered, finding no peace in slumber. “I don’t know how!”

Damon lashed out at himself in his nightmare and awoke to the crash of glass.

He blinked his good eye into the glaring brightness of lights reflecting off stainless steel. Even as he pushed himself away from the lab table where he’d fallen asleep, the frustration and guilt that haunted his nightmares were still with him. He had a shattered petrie dish and contaminated solution on the floor by his feet, to boot. “Damn.”

Another experiment gone to waste. Not that he’d expected this one to work better than any of the others he’d run in the last month. He didn’t know if his equations were off, or if the sample had been tainted. But as he rolled the kinks from his neck and adjusted the black strap that crossed his forehead and held the patch over the empty socket where his left eye had been, he knew the answers would continue to elude him tonight.

A glance out the window of his twenty-eighth-floor lab told him it was well past midnight, even before he noted the time on the clock above the door. Time would forever be his enemy. No formula or device his clever mind could conjure would ever grant him the time he needed. The time he’d lost with Miranda.

Their marriage hadn’t been perfect. He’d worked too much in the lab; she had loved to travel. But she’d given him a beautiful home life and a trusted voice in the Sinclair Pharmaceuticals office; he’d given her everything she’d asked for.

Except her humanity.

He hadn’t found the answer to heal her in time. He hadn’t made her feel whole again. He couldn’t save her from her injuries—or the resulting depression. His skills weren’t enough. His money wasn’t enough.

His love wasn’t enough.

Wide awake, as he searched for a broom and dustpan, he saw the vision—as clearly as he’d seen it that morning at the asylum.

Miranda. Dead.

An empty bottle of pills beside her on the bed.

No stomach pump, no science, no miracle could bring his wife back to him.

The note she’d left him had been brief.

D—

I can’t do this anymore.

M.

Some lousy chromosome in her genetic makeup kept the miracle drugs that had earned his company millions from working. He’d even tested the tissue-regeneration formula on himself. The prototypes might be scarred and ugly, but he’d regained the use of his hands. The fingerprints hadn’t all come back, but he had sensation in almost every nerve, and most of his dexterity had returned. He could do his work. He could type his notes and mix his chemicals and write his equations. He could feel heat and cold and pain.

God, yes. He was a pro at that now. Through and through. Some days, pain was all he could feel.

Damon paused in the center of his new lab. He pulled back the front of his white coat, propped his hands at his hips, tipped his head back and roared at the soundproof ceiling.

It wasn’t fair that he should be alive while Miranda was dead. It wasn’t fair that he should have more money than some small countries and not know happiness anymore. It wasn’t fair that he couldn’t find the solution to Miranda’s Formula—the tissue-regenerating miracle intended to save patients who shared the same genetic predisposition she’d had.

He couldn’t even honor her memory with that.

“So what are you going to do about it, Doc?” he asked aloud, breathing deeply and talking to himself in a way that had always cleared his thoughts and enabled him to concentrate. “For starters, I’m going to see if that persistent bastard has made any progress breaking into SinPharm’s restricted files.”

With something new to engage his brain, Damon was a happier man. He rolled a stool over to his computer and logged in to his company’s database. In just a few keystrokes, he located the illegal activity and grinned. The nosy SOB was back. “Welcome, Mr. Black Hole of the Universe.” Catchy online name. Appropriate since the hacker had tried a dozen different ways to download his research codes. In the middle of the night, when SinPharm’s corporate offices were closed and the satellite labs and production facilities had been secured, someone was trying to hack into Damon’s private files.

It had been another restless night a couple weeks back when he’d first detected the unknown computer geek trying to access his research through online channels. The hacker had broken in three different times to download codes that were misdirecting fakes to begin with. Once the false codes were applied to the data that had been stolen from his lab eighteen months ago, the thieves would realize that they’d been duped. Again. They’d wind up with cotton candy or a laxative—not any of his patented medicines or experimental drugs.

Though he’d had no luck tracing either the location or the identity of Black Hole yet, Damon had led the intruder on a merry chase. He sat and watched the screen as his opponent peeled away layer after layer of security protocols, getting closer to the translation codes that could turn Damon’s equations from gibberish into millions of dollars.

And just when the perp was about to reach the innermost level, Damon pushed a button and scrambled the codes all over again.

His laughter was rare, a rusty sound that stretched the scarred muscles of his throat. SinPharm’s security firm had their way of preventing industrial espionage, and Damon had his.

“That should keep you busy for a few more days.” Hell, if the enemy wanted to reproduce his formulas and market competitive medical treatments without doing their own research, then they were damn well gonna have to get past him. Unless he tracked them down first and introduced them to the FDA, the FCC and any other government organization whose laws they’d violated.

And if Damon discovered the hacker was in any way responsible for the theft and fire that led to Miranda’s suicide, then he would personally put him out of business.

Permanently.

While he relished the image of the unknown spy throwing up his hands and cursing at the computer screen, Damon knew he had problems closer to home he needed to deal with. He glanced at the broken glass and dissipating chemical on the floor. “Like you.”

Damon rolled his stool over to another desk, where two rows of monitors helped him keep an eye on the Sinclair Tower through adjustable interior and exterior security cameras. He typed in a command and brought up a view of the main rooms in the penthouse upstairs. Good. All was quiet. His housekeeper’s seemingly intuitive ability to know when he’d screwed up and needed a little extra help hadn’t awakened her from her sleep.

But by morning, if he didn’t clean it up tonight, then she’d somehow know. She’d be down here at first light, cleaning and tutting herself into a worried state until she verified for herself that he hadn’t been cut or injured in any way.

Corporate spies he could handle. But it was funny how such a tiny little woman, who’d once changed his diapers and sent him to his room, could transform six feet, three inches of brains and testosterone into a guilty little boy, as eager to please as he was to cover his tracks and stay out of trouble with her.

But the bonded cleaning crew he hired to sterilize the lab once a week brought their own supplies, and if there was a broom to be had, he wasn’t finding it.

Mental note: buy cleaning supplies for the lab.

In the meantime, he could raid his housekeeper’s private stash. Damon draped his lab coat over a hook beside the rear exit, swiped his key card through the lock and hurried up the back stairs to the penthouse where they lived on the top two floors.

His plan was simple: sneak into her unguarded kitchen to borrow a broom and dustpan, then dispose of the evidence and hide the fact that he’d spent yet another sleep-deprived night working in his lab.

Yet as he tiptoed past the darkened hallway that led to her quarters, something made Damon stop. Everything was as neat and tidy as it had appeared on the monitor downstairs. But something was off. Perhaps it was the absence of any familiar sound that pricked his senses and put him on alert. There was no humidifier running, no television chattering on after his housekeeper had fallen asleep. He heard no soft, denasal snore. Damon leaned the broom and dustpan against the wall, turned the corner and gently knocked on her door.

There was no answer. The woman had raised him after his mother’s death, had stayed on after his marriage. She’d been there through his father’s passing. Had remained with him past her own retirement, the accident and Miranda’s suicide. They were as close to being a family as two people who shared no bloodline could be. Squashing a flare of panic beneath cold, rational purpose, Damon opened the bedroom door to check on her.

“Helen?”

“MISS SNOW?” A nurse joined Kit at the ICU window, looking through the criss-crossed steel filaments inside the glass to the fragile, wan woman in the hospital bed on the other side.

“There’s no change, is there.” Kit had stayed as close as the hospital staff would allow while surgical and neurological teams stitched up the elderly woman’s head wound, monitored cranial pressure and vital signs, and tucked her into the sterile room for observation. Until she regained consciousness, there was no way for the doctors to completely assess how much damage the three attackers had done. No way for the police to get any more information on the mugging beyond Kit’s concise—but all too incomplete—statement.

“We’re doing everything we can.” The plump nurse shrugged. “The rest is up to her.”

The mysterious Helen didn’t look strong enough to fight off a pesky fly, much less fight for her life. We’re all dead?

Where was the hope in that? Was that going to be Helen’s last, despairing thought? Kit splayed her fingers at the edge of the cool glass, wishing she could hold Helen’s thin, bony hand again, and share whatever warmth and encouragement the woman needed to survive. Truman Medical Center was already a dim, ominously quiet tomb at three in the morning. Walking away and leaving the elderly woman in the care of staff who knew even less about her than Kit did felt like abandonment.

Kit’s parents had been found holding hands when their bodies were discovered after the fire, with debris from the explosion blocking their escape. According to the arson team who’d combed through the diner afterward, Matthew and Phyllis Snow had most likely succumbed to the toxic smoke long before they’d been burned or crushed by the collapsing ceiling. But they’d had each other—they’d known love and a hopeful connection to something outside themselves—right until the end of their lives.

Kit curled her fingers into a fist. Someone should be in there, holding Helen’s hand, giving her hope. “She shouldn’t be alone.”

But the nurse hadn’t come to give a medical report, and she had no clue about Kit’s frustrated sense of justice for all. “It’s long past visiting hours. And since you’re not family, well…I’m sorry.” Her apologetic frown didn’t ease the sting of dismissal. “Our Jane Doe needs her rest.”

“She’s not a Jane Doe,” Kit insisted, fighting for her neighbor the only way she could. “Her name’s Helen. She lives in the Sinclair Building. You put Helen on her charts, didn’t you? I can’t imagine how disoriented she’d feel if she woke up and you started calling her by someone else’s name.”

“Yes. We have her listed as Helen Doe. Sorry to alarm you. We passed along all the information you gave us to the police. I’m sure they’re checking their missing persons files right now.” The nurse’s rueful sigh recaptured Kit’s attention. “Go home. It’s late. You’ve already done more for her than most Good Samaritans would.”

“Someone had to be here to answer questions.” That was the practical excuse she’d given for climbing into the ambulance while the paramedics worked on Helen.

“I heard you chased away her attackers. It’s all over the hospital. She might be dead if it wasn’t for you.”

“That’s not why I’m here.” Kit had left Germane back at the diner to wait until Matt showed up. She intended to call him before she left, to see if her brother had gotten home safely. In the meantime, Helen’s needs had been more pressing. Kit had held the older woman’s chilly hand until the staff chased her away. Now all she could do was keep her distance and watch and wait. “People shouldn’t be alone. Especially when they’re hurting or afraid. Someone needs to be here for her.”

Her brother might not appreciate her vigilance. The neighborhood might think her more busybody than philanthropist. But the unconscious Helen couldn’t stop her from caring.

The nurse nudged her toward the lobby. “One of the staff will check her regularly throughout the night. But until we get word from her family, or visiting hours resume at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait someplace else.”

Kit exhaled a deep breath and finally acknowledged the aches and fatigue of her own banged-up body. “I should have lied and said I was her granddaughter, shouldn’t I?”

The nurse offered a sympathetic smile. “Come back in the morning. You need your rest as much as she does.”

Without further argument, Kit nodded and dragged her feet toward the deserted lobby. Since she hadn’t paused to grab her purse before climbing into the ambulance, Kit’s cell phone was still back at the diner. Posted signs warned her she wasn’t allowed to use her cell on the ICU floor, anyway, but out here she could access a bank of landline telephones to call Germane and Matt.

Maybe she should phone for a cab instead, and head on home as the nurse had suggested. After a few hours’ sleep, she could search out which apartments above her were occupied, and start knocking on doors. Other than the model apartments, the rooms above the fifth floor weren’t finished. But someone had to know Helen. Maybe one of the construction workers had met her and could provide some information. Kit would ask them when they came in for lunch the next day.

But the cops were probably already going through the building tonight. Hopefully, they’d have better luck getting hold of her landlord at Sinclair Pharmaceuticals than she’d ever had, as well. Though she’d never had any contact with the man beyond letters and leases and rent checks, Easting Davitz, Esq., had her entire financial history on file. Chances were he’d have files on the other tenants, as well.

And, if the cops and Mr. Davitz couldn’t find out anything more about Helen, Kit would still have plenty of time to come back to the hospital to visit in the morning. She could spend a couple of hours holding the woman’s hand—maybe read a book or just talk—before she had to get the ovens fired up and the diner opened for lunch at eleven.

With that much of a plan giving her legs a reason to move, Kit picked up the receiver on the first wall phone and deposited fifty cents. When Germane’s cell number kicked her over to his voice mail, she hung up and called Matt directly. When his voice mail answered, Kit spoke the familiar words. “Matt? It’s way past curfew. If you’re there, pick up. I just need to know you’re okay. I’ll see you at work tomorrow. Right?” If she was lucky. “I just need you to answer me and let me know you’re safe.”

Of course no one answered. Matt didn’t seem to answer to anyone these days. When the recorder beeped, Kit hung up.

Maybe Matt had gotten home and Germane was hanging out with him at the apartment until she returned. Maybe he hadn’t shown up at all and Germane had gone out to look for him. Matt was her brother. She should be the one out searching—not her sixty-year-old Dutch uncle with arthritic knees.

Buzzing her lips to dispel a gathering tension, Kit dipped into her jeans pockets to find more change. She pulled out several folded dollar bills from the tips she’d jammed inside. But change for a single phone call? She found one quarter.

“Come on.” Fatigue made her easily frustrated. All she wanted was to ensure Matt was okay and that Germane wasn’t doing anything foolish. Kit set the coin on the counter and dug for more. A measly dime. A movie ticket stub that had gone through the laundry. A penny. “I thought you were supposed to be lucky.”

Kit swallowed hard, squelching the sarcastic thought. The Snows made their own luck. They took care of what needed to be taken care of without some random flip of a coin to make their lives easier or not. But she was getting a little tired of being stuck in the “or not” category. She glanced toward the nurses’ station, wondering if they could make some change for her. But the desk had been deserted by the skeleton staff out making their rounds.

With her pockets practically empty and her patience wearing thin, Kit decided she was just going to have to hike downstairs to the main lobby. If she couldn’t make a call there, then she’d hail a cab. Of course, the pitiful sum lying on the counter beneath the phone wouldn’t get her two city blocks, much less back to the heart of downtown. And without the coat she’d left back at the diner, it would be a mighty cold walk home. Maybe Tariq would do her a favor and let her ride for free. But she couldn’t even make that call without another quarter for the phone.

Her shoulders stiffened with an unconscious bracing that was almost as second nature as breathing. This wouldn’t be the first time she’d had to find her way home at night. Alone. On foot. She’d spent too many nights out looking for a brother who just couldn’t seem to forgive the world and grow up. “Be there, Matty,” she prayed, scraping the cash back into her pocket and pulling the receiver from her ear. “Please be there.”

“Operator. May I help you?”

“What?” Hallelujah! Kit quickly drew the friendly voice back to her ear. “Yes. I have an emergency. Of sorts. I’m at Truman Medical Center, and I need to call home to make sure everyone’s all right. At the very least, I need to call for a ride, but I don’t have the right change. I know it’s late…”

The operator didn’t need to hear any more excuses. “In the event of an emergency, you can reach the phone company by dialing zero. No charge for a limited call. What number are you trying to reach?”

Kit recited the number for her apartment, thanked the operator and tapped an anxious foot in time with the ringing of the phone. It was hard to block the unsettling images that were half memory, half imagination. Her waiting at the police station to post bail. Matt turning his back on her and walking away when she wanted to hug him in her arms and keep him close. The three muggers returning to the scene of the crime and breaking into the diner. Meeting Matt on the street. Forcing him to join their little crime spree. Or worse—making him their next victim.

Kit shifted on her feet, hating how easy it had become to imagine the worst. “C’mon, guys. Pick up.”

Her home number rang three times. Four.

A crackle of static buzzed in her ear, and the line went dead.

“Limited call, my ass.” Kit jiggled the disconnect button, trying to get a dial tone again. “Operator? Op—?”

Every light on the floor went out, plunging her into darkness. Kit grabbed the edge of the counter, anchoring herself in the sudden, disorienting abyss. “What the heck?”

Almost instantly, a hum of disembodied voices and quick movement rolled down the hallways from the patients’ rooms. But they sounded far away from the bubble of black silence that engulfed her in the lobby.

An uneasy fear quickly replaced her frustration. “Hello?”

She’d welcome any answer from the phone or the nurses’ station. But, blinded by the instant night, Kit didn’t know where to turn. Which distant voice to call to.

“Where’s that backup?”

“Ten-second delay.”

“Check every patient.”

“Why does this always happen at night?”

“Critical systems are still online.”

Kit curled her toes into her boots, staying put out of the staff’s way. She clutched the dead receiver to her chest and held on, counting off an eternity until those ten seconds passed and the backup generators kicked on.

…two one-thousand, three one-thousand…

A breeze swept across the back of her neck, raising goose bumps beneath her ponytail. Someone was right here.

Before she could turn around, a gloved hand clamped over her mouth. In the same instant a strong arm looped around her waist and dragged her back against an unyielding chest. Kit screamed behind the muzzle and twisted in her assailant’s grasp.

“Shh. Be still,” a deep voice grated against her ear.

Still? Like hell.

Kit threw down the phone and clawed at the glove. The leather was soft, supple, warm. But the hand inside wouldn’t budge. Protests rang inside her ears but found no outlet. Had the mugger in the Chiefs parka followed her to the hospital? Was this surprise attack his way of keeping her from saying anything to the police?

Man, had he picked the wrong cookie to mess with.

She kicked at an instep, braced her foot against the wall and tried to shove him off balance. His arm slipped, then grabbed again, hooking beneath the swell of her breasts. When he fought to regain his hold on her, he palmed one feminine mound and squeezed. Even through layers of a sweater and glove, Kit lurched at the contact, alarmed as heat bloomed beneath his way too personal grasp. The man cursed and jerked his hand away. A surer grip tightened around her jaw, stifling any cry for help. Then, just as she thought she might wiggle her way free, the vise of hard arm and harder body lifted her clear off the floor. He carried her forward a step, pinning her between the counter and the wall of his chest.

“I said be still.” The lips that brushed the warning against her neck startled her into silence as much as the man’s alarming strength did. His hips cupped her bottom, his thighs pressed into hers. His moist breath burned a path behind the shell of her ear. Kit held her breath. Oh, God. What did he want from her? What did he— “I won’t hurt you,” the gravelly voice promised. “I just need you to listen.”

Understanding the unspoken bargain that cooperation was her best deterrent against more unwanted gropes and her only chance at freedom, Kit nodded.

Suspended in the darkness, deprived of sight, Kit could do little but absorb the impressions of heat and masculinity that bombarded her senses. He wasn’t the same man who’d attacked Helen. There was no trace of an accent in his unusual voice. He wore a tailored leather coat, not a parka. He was too tall to be the mugger’s sidekick. And while he could have been the third man who’d thrown her up against the wall, she was beginning to think this guy had a different purpose beyond intimidation. The men in the alley had been more than willing to hurt her. And though there was something disturbingly intimate about being pressed shoulder-to-thigh against a stranger in the darkness, this man made no effort to take advantage of her vulnerable position.

That wasn’t the only detail she noticed.

With every deepening breath, Kit inhaled medicinal soap and leather, along with the odd scent of roses. Though shadowy in form, there was no mistaking the reality and substance of this man. He was lanky. Long-limbed. Solid. The crisp chill of winter clung to his coat, but his mouth radiated a heat against her skin that was dangerously enticing. The beeps of distant monitors chirped in the distance, but it was the gravelly husk of his low-pitched whisper that commanded her attention.

“Thank you for taking care of Helen.”

Helen? He knew Helen? Kit mumbled the question against his hand.

“I will repay my debt to you.”

Her toes touched the floor as he released his grip on her. Kit sucked in a deep breath and worked the stiffness from her jaw. “What debt? Who—”

“No. Don’t turn around.” A large palm at the center of her back seared her to the bone. The heat of that firm, commanding touch was enough to hold her in place. “Don’t.”

Kit pressed her lips together and peered straight ahead into the darkness. A chill swept in and raised goose bumps beneath her sweater as his hand left her. Hadn’t ten seconds passed yet? Or had she lost all track of time the instant her vision had failed her?

“I don’t want your money. Who are you?” The heat was gone. He was gone. “Wait.” Ignoring his order, Kit whirled around.

Ten.

Emergency lights flickered on, bathing the lobby and hallways with a greenish glow. Kit blinked until her eyes adjusted to the eerie twilight. “Hey.” What happened to Tall, Dark and Creepy? “Mister?”

She thought she caught a glimpse of black stealing around the corner. The sweep of movement was longer and more flowing than the white coats and colorful uniforms of the nurses and staff. Kit hurried after it. “Wait. Tell me about Helen. The hospital needs to know her last name and address.”

By the time she skirted the corner, the shadowy figure had vanished. “No way.”

The dead-end hallway was empty. The door to a utility closet stood ajar and Kit peeked inside. Nothing.

Almost nothing.

She squinted as a small box on the closet’s back wall caught her eye. Kit touched it with her fingertips, then flinched from its ticking pulse. It was some sort of timer linked to an electrical conduit. Was it just an unlikely coincidence that this door stood open? Was that box part of the backup generator system? Or had the man with the ruined voice done something to the power grid? Why? Surely not just to cop a free feel and thank her for being a good neighbor to Helen.

Helen.

With suspicion thumping her heart against her chest, Kit ran back the opposite direction, past the warning call of the attending nurse, back to the ICU rooms. “Helen?”

The white-haired woman still lay in her bed, unmoved, unconscious. But there was something different, something out of place. Kit zeroed in on the unexpected spot of color on the white blanket.

“What is going on?” Kit’s whisper fogged the viewing window.

Instead of wiping it clear, she pushed open the door and went inside the chilled room for a closer look. A single pink long-stemmed rose lay next to Helen’s hand. The familiar scent and suspicious timing told Kit that he had brought the flower, and that the dark, powerful scrawl on the card tied to the rose was his.

Kit leaned in closer to decipher the handwriting in the dim light. “Helen Hodges. Age: 72. Allergies: Penicillin.” The back side of the card listed medications for asthma and arthritis, as well as an insurance number.

“Not much of a romantic, is he.” But definitely someone who cared enough to ensure that Helen Hodges received the proper treatment. Someone who cared, period. Kit wrapped her fingers around the woman’s fragile hand. “Who was he, Helen?”

Who was the secretive man with the warm lips and ruined voice?

A son who had an aversion to hospitals, perhaps? A grandson who preferred the darkness? A lawyer or accountant who was afraid he’d get stuck with the hospital bill if he was seen?

“Is he a criminal? Ex-husband?” No. His body had been too young and strong to be a contemporary of Helen’s. “Is he part owl or bat?”

But Kit’s tired attempt at humor couldn’t even elicit her own smile. “Do you even know he was here?”

The pale, expressionless face gave no answer.

A sweep of warmer air told Kit the door had opened behind her. She stiffened for a moment, then relaxed, quickly ascertaining that he hadn’t returned.

“You need to leave, Miss Snow.” Judging by the sharp tone, any sympathy the nurse had felt for Kit’s persistent vigil had worn off. “We can’t have anyone extra in the way when the main power’s off-line like this.”

“The monitors never stopped working, did they?” Kit was thinking out loud as much as asking a question. “He didn’t jeopardize the patients. He just wanted to remain anonymous.”

But why?

Why?

“He?” the nurse asked.

“You didn’t see anyone besides me come into this room, did you?” But Kit already knew the answer was no.

“Good night, Miss Snow.”

Kit acknowledged the dismissal with a nod. “Her name is Helen Hodges. There’s health information on the card here. I’d double check everything, of course, but I have a feeling it’s accurate.”

“Now.”

Pulling the rose’s soft bud into Helen’s palm, Kit closed her slender fingers around it. “He must care about you an awful lot to go to all this trouble.” The nurse cleared her throat and Kit raised her hands in surrender. “I’m going. I’m going.”

As soon as Kit stepped outside the door, every light on the floor flashed back on. She reached for a wall and braced herself while her eyes readjusted to the harsh intrusion of brightness. First the darkness had blinded her, and now the sudden glare rendered her just as helpless.

A perfect diversion.

“Damn.”

Curious to know more about the man who’d grabbed her like an attacker while insisting he meant her no harm, Kit hurried to the lobby. Empty. No one but uniformed staff prowled the hallways. She went back to the utility closet to inspect her only clue to the man’s appearance and mysterious vanishing act.

But the timing device had disappeared now, as well.

She could almost chalk up the entire incident as a fantasy of her weary imagination. The blackout had lasted a matter of seconds. The backup lights had run just a minute or two longer. Everything was back to normal. Back to quiet. Back to her being alone in the middle of the night without the change to call home.

Then she detected it. The lingering scents of leather and soap stirred her pulse. That man—Helen’s unseen friend—had been in here. He had caused that precise, patient-friendly power outage.

Kit strolled back to the phones, trying to organize her observations into a pattern that made sense. The man in the leather coat and gloves had sought her out in the darkness for a reason. He’d come to see Helen. But he’d come for Kit, too.

She caught her breath and froze, knowing for certain that their meeting hadn’t been accidental.

I will repay my debt.

And Kit had a funny feeling he wasn’t talking about the stack of quarters scattered across the telephone counter in the lobby.