Читать книгу Emergency Contact - Susan Peterson - Страница 13

Tess lifted her fork and bit into the syrup-soaked pancake. Sweetness burst across her tongue, and she sat back to savor it. She hadn’t realized until that moment how truly hungry she was.

As she chewed, she tried hard to remember the last time she’d eaten. Nothing came. No memory of food or any other interesting tidbit about her life floated to the surface. What she felt was a total void.

She shifted slightly on the hardwood chair, thankful that Betty had found some clothes for her. Strange, but until the moment Betty had put an arm around her and ushered her into the tiny laundry room off the kitchen, Tess had no idea she was naked. It was if her mind had lost its ability to register anything about herself. As if she’d suddenly become this clean slate, aware of nothing.

The jeans Betty had given her were too big, and none of the belts Betty offered had fit her small waist. So, she’d been reduced to using a piece of clothesline to keep them from falling down around her knees.

The T-shirt, one with a logo of a giant combine and Mid-State Farm Equipment lettered across the pocket was long enough and boxy enough to serve as a dress. One side kept sliding down, baring one shoulder, and she had to keep hitching it up. But the clothes were soft, smelled freshly laundered and rested smooth as silk against her skin.

She took another bite and then glanced around, surprised to find everyone’s attention focused directly on her. Four pairs of eyes held the same questioning look, but Tess knew she didn’t have any of the answers.

Heck, she couldn’t even answer her own questions, and things didn’t get much scarier than that. She was totally lost. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember anything other than her first name.

And even then, she wasn’t sure that was her name. It was simply the one that had popped into her head when Donovan had asked her for a name. But that sure didn’t mean it was the right one. She’d realized fairly quickly that no amount of trying to force the memories was going to help.

Even now, as she tried to pull something—anything—out of the confusion swirling around in her brain, a stab of pain shot through the center of her head. The harder she tried, the more it hurt. It was as if someone had done a nasty root canal on her without the required Novocain.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Tess, are you all right?”

She recognized the voice immediately. Ryan Donovan. The handsome doctor’s voice. She cringed inwardly. She’d barely met him and already she was thinking of him in terms of looks.

But what bothered her even more was the fact that he seemed to hold some kind of power over her—at least his voice seemed to possess that kind of power. The sound of it soothed her jitteriness. She wasn’t sure why but it unsettled her.

She kept her eyes shut, determined not to respond to those deep raspy tones with the velvet undertone to it. Something told her that if she looked at him, she’d be giving in, submitting to him in some way. And as crazy as that sounded, Tess wasn’t about to let it happen.

But as soon as the thought flashed into her consciousness, she questioned it. Why in God’s name would she think that a doctor, a man who insisted he only wanted to help her, was out to hurt her? He was a healer, held to a higher oath. Dedicated to helping people. Wasn’t he?

Finally, Tess looked up, steeling herself to meet his gaze, and she immediately found herself drowning in a sea of Caribbean blue. She bit her bottom lip, trying to keep her focus. His eyes were so stunningly blue that she found it hard to breathe. Hard to look away. He smiled at her and she felt as though she might melt.

It wasn’t a particularly beautiful face. Rather, it was a tough face, one that was in direct contrast to the velvety tones of his hypnotic voice. A face shadowed with lines of fatigue beneath beautiful light-colored eyes. A face with interesting angles and deep grooves in lean cheeks. The grooves deepened with his smile, telling her that things hadn’t always been easy for Ryan Donovan.

He leaned forward, his muscular arms coming to rest on the table, and his broad shoulders shifted effortlessly beneath the somber-colored cloth of his suit. His movements were graceful for such a big man.

His hair was black, thick and meticulously styled. An expensive haircut. One that spoke of a man who took care of himself and liked looking good. But in spite of the precision cut, several strands had escaped and fanned out over his forehead, giving him a slightly unruly appearance. A few shots of gray highlighted the sides. Not much, but enough to make things interesting.

Tess wanted to respond to the smile but she didn’t. Couldn’t. She recognized Ryan Donovan for what he was—danger. Someone to be avoided. The sooner she got herself outside his range of charm and potent masculinity, the better off she’d be.

She broke eye contact and rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to concentrate, trying to understand why her mind was screaming for her to back off. To be cautious.

“Are you in pain, Tess?”

Apparently Donovan wasn’t in the mood to back off, because instead of picking up on her unwillingness to engage in any type of verbal exchange, he was going to use that deep, whiskey-smooth voice until she couldn’t ignore him for one more minute.

She looked up again, and her chest tightened. She forced a smile. “I’ve got a slight headache, that’s all.”

“We need to get—”

Before he could finish, the phone rang. Betty reached over and picked up the receiver, cradling it between her shoulder and ear as she flipped the remaining cakes on the grill. “Hello?”

“Just a moment, please.” She turned and extended the phone toward Chief Cole. “It’s for you, Chief.”

The big man grunted and stood up, pulling the napkin out of the neck of his shirt. He grabbed the phone. “Cole here.”

Tess shifted restlessly, trying not to stare. For some reason, the beefy cop made her nervous, created an anxious flutter in the pit of her stomach. Whenever he moved, the gold bars on his collar glittered, sending off a blinding flash of light. She squinted, trying to hear what he was saying on the phone.

But she couldn’t make it out. The Chief talked low, darting covert glances in her direction every few seconds. Suddenly he straightened up, his dark eyes meeting hers across the length of the room.

He nodded. “All right. We’ll be right there. Don’t let anyone touch anything.” He hung up the phone hard, the receiver rattling in its cradle. He hit her with his best cop stare.

“What?” she asked.

He didn’t answer.

Tess swallowed against the lump of pancake that caught in the back of her throat. She fumbled for the glass of orange juice, trying to wash it down. It tasted like grit.

“Something wrong, Chief?” Donovan asked, his coffee cup halfway to his lips.

Chief Cole’s gaze moved over to Donovan. “Seems that this was a night for strange happenings. There’s been an accident out on the Plank Road. A car plowed into Bill Johnson’s cornfield—the one that borders Bud’s and is backed up against the research center’s fence.” He moistened his thick upper lip with the tip of his tongue. “The driver’s dead.”

From beneath lowered lashes, Tess watched Donovan stand up, towering over the table. Damn, he was tall and powerfully built. Concern etched deeper lines around those magnificent eyes. “Anyone else hurt?”

The Chief folded his arms, the leather of his holster creaking loudly. “No.” He turned, his cop stare back on her. “No one else in the car. Just the driver.” He moved over to stand next to Tess, his frame seeming to loom over her, his bloated belly inches from her face. “You wouldn’t know anything about that car in the cornfield, now would you, miss?”

Tess shook her head and took another bite of pancake. She didn’t know anything about the car, but her stomach was clenched up tighter than a fist. It took all her concentration to get the small bite down.

“I think it’s time you told us your full name,” Cole said, pulling a notebook out of his hip pocket.

“I—I’d love to.” Tess laid her fork alongside her plate. “Unfortunately, I seem to have forgotten it.”

Donovan moved to the other side of her, and he reached out to lightly touch her shoulder in a protective gesture. She could almost feel his concern, his compassion, radiate down through his long, masculine fingers. Welcome warmth saturated her shoulder. She shot him a grateful look.

“Don’t push so hard, Cole,” Donovan warned.

The Chief snorted. “Look, you two, I ain’t playing games here. I want her name, address and an explanation of what the hell she’s doing here in Half Moon.”

“You seem to think I’m trying to be uncooperative.” Tess paused, pressing the tips of her fingers to her forehead. Her head ached. “But I—I can’t tell you anything that I have no memory of.”

Ryan held up his other hand. “Back off, Chief. She isn’t yanking your chain. She really doesn’t remember.”

“Yeah, right. And I’m the freakin’ Pope. Give me a break, Doc. She’s playing you—playing all of us. That little nudie show was to keep us all interested.”

Anger surged through her, and Tess stood up, pushing her chair back so quickly it crashed to the floor. “I don’t have to take any of this.”

She started for the door, but Cole stepped in front of her, grabbing her upper arm. Tess struggled, but he had a good grip on her.

“You aren’t going anywhere, missy,” he said. “I want answers and I want them now.”

Tess stopped struggling and stepped in close. So close she could smell the heavy stench of old coffee and bacon on his thick breath. Her stomach recoiled in protest.

But she didn’t back down. “I don’t need this kind of harassment from you or anyone else.”

Cole matched her toe-to-toe. “Don’t sass me, little lady, I’ll—”

Donovan stepped between them. “That’s enough,” he ordered. “You,” he said to Tess, “sit back down.” When she hesitated, he gently spun her around and pointed to the chair. “Now.”

He waited until she was actually seated before turning back to the police chief. “And you need to back off. You’re not going to get anywhere with that tone of voice. If Tess knew her name, she’d tell you. She isn’t trying to hide anything, and you trying to force her to answer questions obviously isn’t working.”

Tess watched as skepticism fought for dominance on the cop’s ruddy features. No big surprise there, she thought. All cops and military types held that take-no-prisoners attitude. It was second nature to them.

She paused, her fingers tightening on the arm of the chair. There it was again, another thought that seemed to trigger a value statement out of nowhere. Did it mean that she normally distrusted cops and other people of authority?

“Maybe if she comes with me and takes a look at the crash site, she’ll remember something.” Cole grabbed his cap off the sideboard and slapped it on his head. “Let’s go, miss. We’ll take a drive out to Plank Road and see if you experience a sudden memory flash.” The last sentence dripped with sarcasm.

Donovan shook his head, signaling she shouldn’t get up. “She’s not going anywhere. She needs medical attention, Cole. Not the third degree.”

“I wasn’t about to whip out the rubber hose, Doc.” Irritation flickered across the Chief’s face. “You have to go by the crash site to get to Doc Reed’s. You can come along for the ride. That way you can make sure I don’t abuse the little lady.”

“I’m taking her out to the center. The facilities are better there,” Donovan stated.

Cole threw up his big hands. “Take her wherever the hell you want. But first let her see the car. It might jog her memory. Okay?”

Donovan finally relented and Cole stomped out the door.

Tess stood up, carefully setting her napkin next to her unfinished breakfast. She smiled at the Carsons. “Thanks for the clothes and the delicious meal. It was very gracious of you.”

Betty clucked her tongue and glanced out the window. Her glare of disapproval directed at the Chief’s back spoke volumes. “Ted Cole can be a bully sometimes. Don’t you let him push you around.” She shifted her attention to Donovan. “You make sure to watch out for her, Ryan.”

Donovan nodded and then stepped aside to let Tess go first. A pang of regret shot through Tess. She missed the feel of his hand on her shoulder, the warmth and comfort of those long fingers against her skin. Somehow his touch seemed to reach down and fill a cold, empty place deep in her chest.

And that spot seemed to get bigger and wider with each passing moment, especially when she imagined seeing a car in the middle of a cornfield. A car with a dead man inside it. She hid a shudder as she climbed into the police chief’s cruiser. Something told her she didn’t want to go anywhere near that car.

RAW TRACKS CUT THROUGH the freshly mowed grass leading up to the edge of the cornfield and then continued on into the heart of the field. The ground leading to the crash site was uneven, and Tess stumbled a bit as she skirted the broken stalks.

“Easy, Tess,” Donovan said, reaching out to steady her. “There’s no rush to get there.”

The corn on either side of them seemed to rise up and close in around them, creating a green chute. The raw earth smelled pungent, and a light breeze slipped through the rows, making a soft rustling sound.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?” he asked, his big body so close a whiff of his aftershave, something tangy and enticing, swept up her nose. She tried to ignore its effect.

“I’ll do whatever he wants. Just as long as he gets off my back.”

The car was about twenty or thirty yards in. A sleek gold Intrepid. It looked as if the driver had simply lost his way, plowed through a high fence on the end of the field and driven directly into the corn. Broken stalks were caught in the door handles and under the wipers. All the doors were open, and a uniformed policeman was rummaging around in the back seat. He ignored her.

For the first time, Tess realized the car hadn’t left the road and plowed into the field. The tracks they’d followed in had been made by a farm tractor, the farmer’s attempt to make it easier for the police to get to the site.

The car had crashed through the fence straight ahead. It had a huge gaping hole in it. Tess couldn’t help but wonder what all that lethal-looking metal fencing surrounded. Was it meant to keep something in or out?

Guards—private security guards from the looks of them—stood on the opposite side of the hole, watching the local cops conduct their investigation. One of them was speaking into a cell phone.

“Does the car look familiar?” Cole asked.

Tess shook her head. “No. But it’s a nice-looking car.” She glanced at the cop. “If you’re asking me if it’s mine— I have no idea.”

“Does anything about it look familiar?” Cole pressed.

“No.”

“Pretty convenient response,” Cole said, his expression sour.

“A fairly typical response for someone who has amnesia,” Donovan said. He glanced in Tess’s direction, and she could tell without him saying anything that he was assessing how she was holding up.

His concerned expression bothered her for some reason. She didn’t want him hovering over her, worried if she could handle things. She wasn’t some shrinking violet that needed a caretaker, especially not this sexy-as-sin doctor.

She turned away. She didn’t need him or anyone else. Trust was not something that came easy. Wait a minute. She paused and rewound what she’d just thought. Interesting. She wasn’t supposed to even know her name, yet suddenly she knew she was fiercely independent.

She smiled inwardly, savoring the knowledge.

“I want you to take a look at the body,” Cole said. “Tell me if it’s anyone you recognize.”

Tension gnawed at the pit of her stomach. “If I’m having trouble remembering my own name, what makes you think I’d remember some guy who is sitting in a car I’ve never seen before?”

“Humor me.” Cole pushed her up toward the driver’s side of the car.

The driver lay slumped over on his side, his head resting in a pool of blood, his eyes wide and staring. Tess’s fingers tightened into fists, her nails digging raggedly into the palms of her hands. Oh God, please don’t let me know this person, she prayed.

The coppery stench of blood seemed to fill the air trapped in the car and for a moment, she thought she might lose her breakfast. But she breathed shallowly, determined not to give Cole the reaction she knew he was looking for.

Cole reached around her and tipped the man’s face up so she could see better. Tess sucked in a relieved mouthful of air. The face didn’t strike any chord of recognition in her.

“Anything?” Donovan asked.

She shook her head. “Sorry. Nothing.”

“Any feelings of remorse? Guilt perhaps,” Cole drawled.

Tess met his gaze head-on. “I don’t feel anything, Chief. Zip. Zero. Nada.” She yawned. “Are we done yet?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she tried to gauge Donovan’s reaction to her staged attitude of callousness. She’d decided early on that it was better not to let any of them know what she was feeling. But with the exception of one dark eyebrow quirking upward, he didn’t appear anywhere near as appalled as she might have thought.

In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken, one corner of those magnificent lips twitched upward a touch, as if he knew she was doing her best to yank the persistent police chief’s pompous chain.

And for a brief moment, Tess found herself wondering what those lips would taste like, especially the full bottom one. The one with the small crease in the center that bowed out just a little, bordering on being almost too full. Too ripe. Not fitting with the overall toughness of the rest of his face.

She’d give anything for one small taste, and the thought almost made her burst out laughing. Whoever she was, amnesia obviously didn’t seem to put much of a damper on her libido.

“All right, I think we need to go down to the station and talk this out,” Cole said.

“She’s not going anywhere, Chief,” Donovan said. “We agreed to stop here on the way to the center. Your questions will have to wait until after I’m done conducting a few tests.”

Cole scowled. “Just make sure you don’t leave town before checking in with me.” He turned away, throwing one final threat over his shoulder. “I’ll have more to go on after the forensics people finish up with the evidence gathered from the car.”

Tess watched him walk off, unable to deny the tiny twist of fear that coiled in her belly. What if she really did have something to do with this accident? What if it wasn’t an accident but a murder? Would the Chief’s men find something to connect her to the man’s death?

“You can tie yourself in knots over this, Tess. Or you can let it go for now.” Ryan moved up to stand next to her. “Let the Chief and his men figure out what happened and then we’ll deal with whatever they find. Until then, let’s you and I focus on finding out more about you.”

“Sure, that sounds reasonable,” she agreed, deciding that agreeable was the tack to take at the moment. But she wasn’t foolish enough not to listen to the warning in her gut that no matter how honorable Ryan Donovan seemed at this moment, when things heated up, he would throw her to the wolves.

IMPATIENT, RYAN SHOVED the CT scan onto the view box and studied it. No big surprises. Her brain was uniform and the ventricles were normal, no sign of a bleed.

Not that he’d expected the scan to show anything significant, but he’d insisted Tess have the head CT anyway. He believed in covering all the bases.

He glanced at the screen showing a camera view of Tess lying on the table waiting for them to tell her she could get up. Her eyes were closed, her lips, pink and lush and lightly parted as if she were sleeping. There was no panic in her relaxed limbs.

The technician turned in his chair to check and make sure Ryan didn’t have any last-minute instructions before he told Tess that the examination was complete. Ryan shook his head and headed for the door leading to the examination room.

Inside, he hit the light switch and Tess turned her head.

“Everything looks good,” Ryan reassured her.

Tess nodded and jumped gracefully off the table. As she bent down to scoop up the striped cotton robe lying across the back of a chair, a section of her gown parted and allowed him to see the smooth glide of her skin and the line of her backbone. He’d never thought of a cotton hospital gown as particularly sexy, but somehow Tess had made it seem that way.

He jerked his thoughts off that particular track. Better to keep focused on Tess’s mind, not her body. Anything else would lead to trouble. The kind of trouble he didn’t need now or anytime in the future.

“So, no idea why I can’t remember anything?” she asked as she shrugged into her robe.

Ryan shook his head, trying to ignore the twinge of regret as she cinched the robe around her slender waist. “Not a clue. Sorry. But then I wasn’t really expecting to find one. I ordered the scan as a precaution only.”

“I take it that’s a good sign.”

“It is.” Ryan motioned toward the door. “Why don’t you go get dressed and have a seat in the waiting room. I’m going to go over the scan with the neurologist on call. At this point, I’m going with the diagnosis of a mild concussion. We’ll see what he has to say.”

Tess didn’t move. “Then why can’t I remember who I am? I’ve had a concussion before and didn’t lose my memory.”

“When was that exactly?” Ryan probed.

Tess tilted her head, those exquisitely clear eyes unfocusing slightly as she accessed the memory. “I was rock climbing and my rope slipped. I fell about ten feet and hit my head on the rock face. Got a nasty bump and a real shiner.” She stopped, and her green eyes cleared. She locked gazes with him. “How did you do that—get me to remember like that?”

Ryan smiled. “Your memories are still all intact. Something is just blocking you from getting to them.”

Her shoulders tensed, as if she was ready to rev up for some kind of unforeseen battle. “So how do I unblock them?”

“You don’t.” Ryan reached out and touched her shoulder, trying to impart some comfort. A zing of awareness shot through him, but he kept his face carefully neutral. “The more you try to force your way through the wall, the stronger it gets. You and I are just going to have to find a way around it.”

Frustration flickered in her eyes, and her fingers tightened into fists at her sides. “Why can I remember the fall but not my name?”

“Relax, Tess. You’re trying too hard. Let the memories come back on their own. You haven’t lost them—they’re all still there.”

She yanked on the belt of her robe, cinching it tighter. The tops of her knuckles turned white. Her agitation was clear. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one who can’t remember if you like cream in your coffee or mustard on your hot dog.”

Ryan laughed. “Food jokes. Something tells me that you’re hungry again.” He pulled two doughnuts wrapped in a napkin out of his jacket pocket and offered them to her. “I happen to have these. I thought you might get hungry later. Want one?”

Tess accepted the doughnuts and slipped them into the pocket of her robe. “Not at the moment, but I’ll be keeping a close eye on them.” She glanced toward the technician’s booth. “What now?”

“Why don’t you go get dressed. When I’m done talking to the neurologist, we’ll go to my office and talk for a while?”

“Oh, so now you get me on the couch.”

“No, just a comfortable chair.” He flashed her an easy grin.

“I already told you I’m not in the market for a shrink.”

“Fair enough. We’re only going to talk. Decide on what you want to do next, okay?”

She nodded and then headed for the small dressing cubicle across the hall. After she was out of his sight, Ryan leaned down to pick up the sheet that had fallen to the floor.

“Where is she?”

The voice broke into Ryan’s thoughts. He glanced up to see Sidney Bloom, his boss, standing in the doorway. The light from the brightly lit hall silhouetted his stubby figure.

In spite of being a few inches short of five feet seven inches and on the plump side, Sidney never had to work to gain anyone’s attention. When he walked into a room, people sat up and took notice.

“I assume you mean the young woman I brought in a little while ago?” Ryan said, draping the sheet over the back of the chair.

Sidney nodded, his bald dome catching the light. He didn’t appear happy. In fact, he looked downright peeved. Ryan sighed inwardly. Only on the job a few weeks and he already had his boss breathing down his neck for some perceived infraction. Sad fact was, it made him feel right at home. Breaking infractions seemed to be his lot in life lately.

“She’s across the hall dressing.” Ryan cocked his head. “Who mentioned to you that she was here?”

Sidney smiled. “This is my facility, Ryan. I know everything that goes on here—especially when patients are admitted without my approval.”

“She sustained a mild concussion, Sid. She needed to be checked out. The closest medical center is over two hours away.”

The door behind them opened and a petite redhead poked her head in. “Someone in here request a consult from the neurologist on call?”

Before Ryan could answer, Bloom angrily waved the woman off. She shot a quick glance of sympathy in Ryan’s direction before closing the door again.

“I requested a consult with Dr. Adams.”

“You don’t have time to waste treating patients, Ryan. That isn’t why I hired you.”

“I thought you told me you were working on fostering good relationships between the center and the townspeople?”

Bloom’s lips tightened. “Chief Cole tells me this woman isn’t from Half Moon and isn’t cooperating with his investigation. How exactly is that helping the relationship between the center and the town?”

Ryan didn’t have an answer for that, but the fact that Cole had already gotten to Bloom told him that most of his avenues of defense were cut off anyway.

“I’ll take over the treatment of this patient,” Bloom said with an air of authority. “I want you to focus on the reason I brought you here in the first place—your research.”

The demand angered Ryan. He wasn’t about to ditch Tess right now. She was just beginning to trust him, and he had a strong feeling that trust was a major issue with this woman. Abandoning her now was more than therapeutically dangerous; it was downright unethical.

ACROSS THE HALL, Tess stepped tentatively into the small waiting area. The receptionist glanced up and gave her a chilly smile before resuming typing at her keyboard.

Hoping she wasn’t in for a long wait, Tess plopped down on the couch and grabbed a news magazine off the pile sitting on the coffee table. She restlessly started leafing through the magazine and stopped at a page. A picture of a grisly-faced man with tattooed arms stared out at the camera from between heavy bars. “Waiting For Clemency” was the title.

A quick skim of the opening paragraph told Tess that it was an article about a man on death row. Wonderful. Nothing like a little light reading to calm her already-jangled nerves.

She flipped the page and came face-to-face with a picture of the death chamber—a stark white room with a stretcher in the middle. Padded straps crisscrossed the thin mattress, ready to clamp some death-row inmate to the table.

Tess’s fingers tightened on the edges of the slick paper. The pages of the magazine started to shake, and a jolt of terror shot through her. A strange, searing flush blazed across the surface of her skin, and the page ripped beneath her suddenly sweaty hand.

Her head dropped back, bumping the wall. Her vision seemed to darken along the edges. Suddenly, it was as if she was strapped to the table and pain coursed through her body. The straps seemed to tighten over her bare limbs and she strained against them, fighting them. Her back arched off the table as the leather cut into her flesh.

She opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. The magazine dropped from her nerveless fingers and her entire body shook violently.

“Miss!” A voice cut through the pain of the nightmare. “Are you all right, miss?”

Numbers, the color of shiny brass flashed in front of her eyes—5-6-8-7. They drifted and floated as if carried on a current of air. Hovering over her, Tess could see the outline of a small ghostly figure. Then, from somewhere far away, she could hear the roar of a crowd.

She frowned, straining to hear. She was seeing people. People cheering someone. Calling his name. She strained harder, trying to make out the name. But the cheering died away, and the corner of the dream folded and disappeared.

Tess opened her eyes to find the receptionist standing over her, an expression of concern on her tight, narrow face. “Are you okay, miss?”

Tess leaned forward and wiped the palms of her sweaty hands along the sides of her legs, trying to hide the fact that they were trembling. Her hair fell over her shoulders and hid her face. “I—I’m fine,” she said, her voice raspy and uneven to her own ears.

“I thought you were having a seizure,” the woman said.

Tess swallowed. Her mouth had become so dry that her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Speech was near impossible.

What had happened? Sucking in a mouthful of oxygen, Tess peeked through the curtain of hair falling over her face. She watched as the woman bent down and snatched the magazine up off the floor.

“I’ll have to throw this out. The entire article has been destroyed,” she said.

Tess grabbed the arm of the couch and levered herself up off the cushions. Her knees quivered, and she almost fell over backward. But she locked her knees and straightened up. Sweat broke out between her shoulder blades and ran down the column of her spine, pooling in the small of her back.

“I’m sorry. I guess I got a little dizzy.” She reached up and wiped a line of sweat off her forehead. “Please tell Dr. Donovan that I had to leave.”

Concern flickered across the secretary’s pinched face. Tess was pretty sure it had nothing to do with the fact that her face was probably the color of rice paper. More than likely the woman was simply worried she’d be somehow blamed for Tess’s sudden departure.

The receptionist touched Tess’s elbow with her perfectly manicured nails. The hard tips skittered across her skin, giving her goose bumps. “Why don’t you sit back down, dear. I’m sure Dr. Donovan will be finished very soon and you can tell him yourself that you’d like to leave.”

“Tell Dr. Donovan I got tired of waiting,” Tess said, trying to tamp down her rising hysteria. She had to get out of there.

The woman protested further but Tess ignored her, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. Her breath came in short pants. By the time she reached the door leading to the hallway, her shirt was plastered to her body with a fine sheen of perspiration. Amazing how quickly a person’s body went into hyperdrive.

She yanked open the door and stepped out into the empty corridor. She could barely breathe, hot air catching in the back of her throat. She ran the palm of her hand along the cool wall, attempting to steady herself.

Seeing the scowling secretary standing in the doorway Tess took off. Rushing for the front door, she felt her legs grow steadier with each stride. She hit the release bar of the door with an urgent smack and the door swung open. A slight tickle at the back of her neck made Tess glance over her right shoulder.

The receptionist was still framed in the office doorway, but now two men in dark suits flanked her. In spite of the fact that they were inside, both men wore mirrored sunglasses, their facial features frozen, unreadable. The woman whispered something to the one on her right, and he nodded, his head never moving from staring straight at her.

Tess tried to ignore the chill that swept through her as she turned and walked out into the warm afternoon.