Читать книгу Under His Skin - Rita Herron - Страница 7

Shivering, Grace flipped on the TV and checked the news while she ate a salad. Maybe they’d found the culprit and he was in jail now.

The report was already midway: “Tonight, we’ve had another case of what the police believe to be vandalism.” The camera panned to a cemetery outside of town. “Someone flooded the graveyard by Shiloh Church, saturating the ground so badly that several feet of dirt washed away and caskets have risen to the surface. A Halloween prank or is someone robbing graves now?”

Grace frowned and waited to see if they mentioned the corpse from the night before, but the reporter spent most of the segment on interviews at the church scene. Sighing, she chided herself for worrying, took her salad plate to the sink, rinsed it and stuck it in the dishwasher, then stepped outside on the back patio. The smell of the marsh assaulted her, and the sound of the ocean crashing against the shore filled her ears. But thunder rattled her nerves, and the wind brought the whisper of her brother’s voice.

“Help me…”

She froze. She must have imagined the words, had been thinking about Bruno too much lately because of these missing corpses.

That and the fact that his killer had never been caught.

Suddenly exhausted, she went back inside, stripped her clothes and slipped into a cool, cotton nightshirt. For a brief moment she allowed herself to think about Parker Kilpatrick, and imagined him beside her, watching her undress. Imagined him smiling as he ran his hands over her bare breasts. Imagined him erasing thoughts of dead bodies and replacing them with an erotic night of lovemaking.

But the image of his frown when he’d told her to leave returned, drowning out the fantasy, and she crawled into bed, reminding herself that nothing could happen between them.

He was a cop. She’d lost her mother and the two most important men in her life, everyone she had ever loved, to the job, and she refused to take the chance on that again. Besides, he wasn’t interested in her.

Feeling claustrophobic, she left the window open so she could feel the breeze and hear the waves during the night and soon fell into a deep sleep.

But rest didn’t come. Instead nightmares of her childhood did.

THE STORM RAGED outside, shaking the walls and beating the thin windowpanes. She was seven years old, huddled in bed with her teddy bear, trying to drown out the noise by covering her ears with her hands. Her little brother had gone to a friend’s for the night, and she wanted to climb in bed with her parents, but her daddy told her earlier she had to be a big girl.

Her chin wobbled as she fought tears. Suddenly a loud boom split the air. The storm?

It sounded like thunder. No…someone had screamed.

Her heart pounding, she slipped from bed and padded toward the door to the den. Mommy would hold her and make everything all right. Would keep her safe from the storm, and tell her the screams were all in her head.

But when she peered through the crack in the door to the den, she saw her parents hovering together on the sofa. Her mommy was crying.

Then she saw the other man. A big guy in black clothes with a ski mask over his face. He was waving a gun at her parents.

Another streak of lightning fell across the room and he shoved her father back onto the sofa and pointed the gun at his head.

Her mother screamed, then a gunshot blasted the air. Blood splattered the floor and walls. Grace closed her eyes and sank to the floor in horror, then covered her ears as a second shot blasted.

Without looking she knew her parents were dead.

TIME TO GO under the knife.

Parker grimaced as the first strains of daylight stole into the hospital room. In spite of his resolve not to get involved with Grace Gardener, he searched the faces of the nurses for her sea-blue eyes. Another nurse prepped him for surgery and when she started to give him a shot to relax him before they transported him to the operating room, he finally accepted that Grace wasn’t coming.

She had given up on being his friend. He’d driven her away.

Good. He didn’t need or want her hovering over him. Doing him any favors. Smiling at him like he meant something special to her when she probably treated all her patients the same way.

Besides, he knew she wanted answers about her brother’s death. Answers he didn’t have. As soon as he’d joined the precinct, the serial arsonist had struck and he and his partner had been swamped with the case.

But when he got back on track, he’d investigate and see what he could find out about Bruno’s death. All he’d heard when he’d replaced the investigating cop was that Bruno had committed suicide, although some of the locals suspected he hadn’t killed himself. He’d been found with a bullet in his head and had fallen over a cliff. They wouldn’t have a body if a storm hadn’t washed it back in. Which made him suspicious.

That was probably the only reason Grace had been so friendly. She wanted his help.

Still, he felt a tug of disappointment in his chest that she hadn’t dropped by to see him this morning. Hadn’t he learned? People only used you when they needed something. Promises were only words that were broken.

The medicine kicked in and his head became fuzzy, the room a kaleidoscope of beige on white that swirled in a drunken haze.

Suddenly two blue circles appeared in the haze. Grace’s smiling eyes. Then her angelic voice penetrated the fog, calling his name.

“You’re going to do great, Parker,” she whispered. “And when this is over, you’ll heal just like you want. One day you’ll walk out of here and we’ll never see you again.”

He smiled, or at least he thought he did. His face felt funny, as if it was melting clay, and his lips seemed gluey, his tongue thick as if it was swollen inside his mouth.

“I’ll see you when you wake up.” She squeezed his hand and he tried to squeeze back to let her know he heard, that he appreciated her visit, but he didn’t know if he’d actually moved his fingers.

Then they were rolling him into a room with bright lights. The operating room. A mask slid over his face. Faces blurred, voices became a rumbling echo, distant and indiscernible.

Slowly the world faded into nothingness, where he dreamed about death. He was being buried but someone had stolen his body from the casket…

GRACE TRIED NOT TO WORRY about Parker during the surgery—after all, this was routine compared to the condition he’d been in when he’d first been admitted. But something about the tissue recalls disturbed her.

What exactly was the problem with the initial tissues? Although the hospital was affiliated with CIRP and took advantage of all the cutting-edge techniques, it had an impeccable reputation. The area had become a hubbub of high-tech medical research, and patients came from all over the States to utilize the latest treatments available. Sometimes in desperation, they agreed to new treatments offered through the research projects as a last resort.

But these tissue transplants were fairly common. Perhaps the problem wasn’t with the hospitals but with the tissue banks.

She spent the morning tending to other patients, and when the orderlies wheeled Parker to ICU after he was released from recovery, she rushed to check on his condition. He was breathing fine, his vitals were normal, and he had come through the surgery with flying colors. He didn’t need her, just a nurse to take care of routine tasks.

So why did she stay close to his side all morning? Why did she run every time she heard his breathing turn erratic or hear him moan in pain?

Furious with herself, she allowed another nurse to help him walk the first time. And when they transported him to a regular room, she was relieved. No more making a fool of herself over the man. He was on his own.

Still, the questions concerning the tissue transplants needled her. When she stepped into the hospital lounge for a midmorning cup of coffee, two surgical nurses hovered together in low conversation. “So far, we’ve had at least twenty patients affected,” one of the nurses said.

“The hospital will get flack for this,” the other nurse muttered.

“I just hope the police don’t ask questions,” the first nurse said.

“Why would they?”

“With this many patients involved, and with one of them a cop, the press will have a heyday. There’ll probably be lawsuits.”

Suddenly they spotted her and clammed up. But the rest of the morning, their conversation haunted Grace.

When she slipped into the hospital cafeteria for lunch, she spotted Dr. Whitehead and his colleague Dr. Nigel Knightly in deep conversation. She grabbed a chicken salad sandwich and a glass of sweet tea, half hoping to avoid Wilson Whitehead, but he cornered her and insisted she join them for lunch.

Dr. Knightly had performed Parker’s surgery so she decided to broach the subject of the tissue transplant with him. “The surgery with Parker Kilpatrick went okay?”

“Yes, it was a success,” Dr. Knightly said.

“This tissue was checked prior to surgery so we don’t expect any more problems,” Dr. Whitehead added.

She sipped her tea. “Did you get any more details on the recalled tissue?”

Dr. Knightly shrugged. “It wasn’t processed properly after extraction. That causes infection, rejection in some cases, and in one case now the patient has reacted, become septic and a limb had to be amputated.”

“Where do you think the problem originated?” she asked, digging for more information.

Dr. Whitehead arched his blond brows. “Why are you so interested, Grace?”

“Patients ask questions,” she replied quickly. “Sometimes they’re afraid or hesitant to go to the doctors. I just want to be prepared.”

He studied her for a long moment as if assessing the truth of her statement, then offered a small smile. “The problem didn’t occur in our hospital, that’s for sure. Probably an inexperienced or sloppy lab technician who didn’t know what he was doing.”

And since more than one hospital received tissue from designated tissue banks, other facilities and patients might be affected. “Then the problems might be far more widespread than our hospital here. Have the necessary parties been notified?” Grace asked.

The doctors exchanged an odd look, then Dr. Whitehead covered her hand with his. “Yes. Now, don’t worry yourself over this, Grace. We have the situation under control.”

She tensed at his patronizing tone. And the strange look in Dr. Knightly’s eyes sent a tingle of nerves up her spine. They obviously didn’t want her asking questions about the transplants.

THE NEXT WEEK passed in a blur of pain, physical therapy and frustration for Parker. Not wanting to grow addicted to the medication, by midweek he refused the pain pills.

By Friday, his leg felt remarkably better than after the first surgery.

He walked the halls with the help of one crutch instead of two, and hoped to be transferred to the rehab facility soon.

The only downside to the transfer was that he wouldn’t get to see Grace every day. Pathetic though it was, he looked forward to the five-minute, drop-in visits that she’d carved out of her busy day for him.

Unfortunately while he’d been laid up, several more bodies had been stolen from different morgues, two of which were involved in pranks. Three others had gone missing, only to be discovered later at a different morgue or funeral home. The coroner’s office had argued improper tagging and blamed a shoddy body-moving service.

Tests were being run to see if any trace evidence had been left on the bodies.

He’d also heard whispers about other patients being brought in for tissue replacement surgeries. One man had died from an infection.

He shuddered, knowing he should be grateful. And he wanted to repay Grace by finding out the truth about her brother’s death.

Dark storm clouds cast a gray fog over the sky, the rolling thunderstorms mirroring his mood. He hadn’t been out in days and missed the sunshine on his face and the fresh air.

The barometric pressure seemed to affect his knee and made it ache. Thunder burst into a roar, and the power flickered off then back on, making him think about the hospital and potential problems if a power shortage occurred. Backup generators would kick in, but what if they lost a patient during the time that took?

Funny how he never considered those issues before he’d been imprisoned in the facility. He had too damn much time to think. Which he’d been doing a lot of. The problems with the tissue banks disturbed him. He’d heard rumors that one of the doctors might have known about the problems but used the tissue anyway.

He was taking a final spin around the hospital wing when he spotted Grace approaching him. She looked tired and agitated but so beautiful his gut tightened, and arousal speared him. At least that part of him hadn’t been injured. The only pleasurable sensation he’d experienced lately.

Unfortunately he couldn’t assuage the ache.

He had to spend all his time and energy on getting better. Returning to his job was all that mattered.

HE CHECKED the toe tags on the stiffs in the crypt, choosing the one that had been preordained for his mission, a John Doe. It was past midnight, the place was deserted, and although corpses didn’t faze him, being inside the cold room alone at night reminded him of the chilling stories his grandmother told about ghosts rising from the dead.

The heavy scent of formaldehyde and other chemicals blended into the icy air, the shadows casting ominous shades of gray across the chalky-white pallor of the deceased. Sometimes he thought he heard their voices calling from the steel tables, heard whispers of lost ones trying to rise again.

Dressed in surgical scrubs, he blended in with the other staff members as he zipped up the body bag and pushed the gurney through the side door for transport by the body movers.

There would be no rest for him tonight, though. He had work to do and only hours to perform his tasks. He’d better get started.