“Hero?” Awareness dawned in Robin’s eyes. “Then Ryan is your colleague. I should have guessed. Why is it that all the hot guys band together?”
Marc had to laugh at that one. “I’ll duck that question and just say thanks for the compliment.”
Robin fumbled in her purse and pulled out a piece of paper, scribbling down her phone number. “Call me—Marc.” She stuffed the piece of paper in his hand. “Maybe we can coordinate dog park visits.”
“Maybe we can.” Marc pocketed the slip of paper and lifted his hand in a wave as Robin strolled off to join some of the women across the way. Judging from her friendly demeanor, she knew them. Dog park buddies. A nice way to pass the lunch hour.
Marc continued to stare at his iPhone, not even seeing it.
All he could see was Maddy.
How long had it been? Nine years? No, ten.
A lifetime. And a heartbeat.
They’d met in the hospital cafeteria. Maddy’s eight-hour nursing shift had just ended, and she was grabbing a cup of coffee and a crumb bun to tide her over until she could get a decent meal. Marc had recently gotten back from an overseas mission to the Middle East, and he was at Bethesda for a routine physical, which he’d just passed with flying colors.
They’d bumped into each other on the cafeteria line—literally.
As she’d juggled to balance her tray, Maddy had pivoted, walked smack into Marc and knocked the cup of hot coffee he’d been holding all over him.
She’d been totally mortified. He’d been totally amused. Yeah, the hot liquid stung, but he’d gotten a kick out of the way she took care of the problem, folding and applying napkins to his shirt as if she was dressing a wound.
Chewing her lip, deep in concentration, she’d been so serious about the task at hand that it had taken a good five minutes before she spotted the twinkle in Marc’s eyes.
Then she’d risen to her feet, tossed down the napkins and, without a single word, went over and bought Marc another cup of coffee.
“Here you go.” She’d handed it to him. “I’d say we’re even.”
His grin had turned into a deep-throated chuckle, and his gaze had scrutinized her from head to toe. “Not unless you sit down and share a cup with me. Then we’ll be even.”
She had. And that’s when and where it had begun.
Marc didn’t open up easily. He was reserved by nature—a trait which had been accentuated by his covert role as a navy SEAL. Yet with Maddy, he was relaxed, comfortable. She was easy to talk to. She didn’t pry and she didn’t pursue any subject he chose to avoid. She was open about her own life—a small-town girl who’d read six biographies on Florence Nightingale and had always wanted to be a nurse. ROTC had paid her scholarship to college, and she’d gone on to be a navy nurse, stationed here in Bethesda Medical Center. From the additional info Marc had made sure to dig up, Maddy had completely undersold herself. It was no wonder she’d become an E.R. nurse. She had an incredible gift. There were military guys in the hospital who, by all rights, should have died from their injuries, but hadn’t—thanks to Madeline. She wasn’t beautiful, but there was something incredibly sexy and stunning about her. Dark hair, big brown eyes, delicate features and a body to kill for, she possessed a certain warmth and style that was impossible to miss.
The sexual pull between them had been instant and overwhelming. Even that first evening, when Marc had done nothing more than walk her to her door and kiss her good-night, they’d both felt the burn. It had taken all Marc’s self-control not to back her into the apartment, tear off her clothes and bury himself inside her until neither of them could breathe.
Maddy had felt the same. He saw it in her eyes when his lips left hers—the wonder, the astonishment, the desire. And her heart had been racing; he could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest.
All from one kiss.
One kiss that had led to another date, and then another.
By that third date, Marc’s iron control snapped.
He was barely able to get through dinner before he tossed down his napkin and stared straight into Maddy’s eyes.
“I can’t do coffee and dessert,” he said bluntly. “I’ve got to get inside you.”
Maddy didn’t bat a lash. She folded her napkin neatly, placed it beside her half-eaten meal and rose.
“I’ll get my coat. You get the check. I’ll meet you outside in five minutes,” she replied.
It took Marc three.
They sat apart in the taxi, not even daring to touch each other. They both knew that once they did, it would be all over. But the sexual tension in the backseat was so thick it was suffocating.
By the time Marc kicked her apartment door shut and reached behind him to flip the lock, Maddy was unbuttoning his shirt. Marc finished the job for her, shrugging out of the shirt and tossing it aside.
Then he reached for her, pulling her against him.
He took her mouth in a devouring kiss that nearly brought them to their knees. Maddy pressed herself against him, and Marc backed her toward the bedroom, never breaking the kiss. He pulled off her clothes as they staggered down the short hall and into her room.
They were naked when they hit the bed.
Neither of them could withstand the preliminaries—not this first time. There were no gentle strokes, no soft words, no tender touches. It was fast, and it was hot and it was primal.
Afterward, Marc collapsed on top of her. Never in his life had he lost control like that, coming with the urgency and explosiveness of a teenager. He’d barely been able to hold back long enough to feel Maddy unravel beneath him, pulse all around him, cry out his name.
He knew he’d shouted hers, as well. And he knew he was lost.
“Shit,” he’d muttered.
A soft laugh had shimmered through Maddy’s body. “Nice. Just the thing a girl wants to hear after...this.”
With the greatest of efforts, Marc had propped himself on his elbows, gazing down into Maddy’s deep, dark eyes.
“Did you feel it, too?” he asked bluntly.
A soft smile through kiss-swollen lips. “Yes,” she whispered, tracing his jaw with her fingertip. “I felt it. I’ve never felt anything like it before. But you knew that.”
“I knew it because it was the same with me.” Marc shut his eyes, pressed his forehead to hers. “Shit,” he said again.
Maddy was silent for a moment. “We don’t have to give this a name or overanalyze it, Marc,” she murmured. “We can just enjoy it—whatever it is and whatever it becomes.”
“We both know that’s a cop-out, Maddy. The name is hanging out there, whether or not the words are said. The feelings are real and they’re off the charts. I’m already in so deep I can’t get through a meeting without thinking about this.” He pushed his hips gently against hers. “And that was before it happened. Now I’ll probably walk around with a 24/7 hard-on.”
Maddy began to laugh. “I like that image. Very SEAL-like.” Her fingertips caressed his back, and her breath caught as she felt him harden inside her. “Let’s not talk. For now—I’m here.” She wrapped her legs around him. “Right here.”
Right here had gone on for months—the most emotionally consuming months of Marc’s life.
And emotionally consuming was not the mindset of a navy SEAL. It couldn’t be.
An outburst of barks, followed by Hero slamming his full weight against Marc’s legs, snapped Marc out of his trip down memory lane in a hurry. Hero jumped up, scrambling, without much success, to get his beefy body onto Marc’s lap.
“Down,” Marc commanded, snapping his fingers.
Instantly Hero obeyed.
“Sit.”
Hero’s bottom hit the ground and he gazed at Marc, waiting for his reward.
“Very subtle.” Marc reached in his pocke
t for one of the organic carrots Claire had cut up this morning. “Good boy.” He extended his hand and gave Hero what he was waiting for.
As Hero chomped down the carrot, Marc rose, now very much in the present. “I take it you’ve had enough playtime with your buddies and are ready to head back. So am I.”
Robin waved at Marc as he leashed Hero, and he grinned and waved back. She brought her hand to her ear in a gesture that said Call me. Marc nodded. He wished he was in the market for a hookup that would be that simple.
But simple had never been his forte.
Feeling restless and in a foul mood, Marc walked Hero briskly back to work.
“Have a good outing?” Casey asked as he passed by her office.
“Hero got some exercise and I got hit on. So I’d say, yeah, it was a good outing.”
Casey glanced up and watched the tension in his broad-shouldered body as he continued on his way.
“I’d try the gym,” she called after him. “It’s probably better for what ails you.”
5
CASEY ARRIVED AT Madeline’s apartment at 11:00 a.m. sharp, the time Emma had confirmed with her first thing that morning.
“Hey, John,” Casey greeted the security guard at the door. John Nickels was one of Patrick’s best and sharpest.
“Casey—hi.” John gave her a professional smile. He was well over six feet, with the body of a linebacker. He’d served the NYPD in the homicide department for twenty-five years. No one was getting by him, that was for damned sure.
Now he stepped aside for Casey to ring the bell. The doorman had already announced her and gotten Madeline’s okay to send her up. “Everything here’s been quiet,” he said.
“Good.” Casey rang the bell. “That’s how I like it.”
Madeline opened the door. She was wearing jeans and a pale yellow sweater. Again, expensive but understated.
She was still moving stiffly as she showed Casey in, urging her to make herself comfortable on the living room’s deep-cushioned, pebble-brown club chair, which was positioned diagonally across from the sofa.
“Don’t even offer to get me anything.” Casey cut off what she saw was coming, hanging her coat on one of the polished brass hooks adjacent to the door. “Just sit down on that sofa and relax. We’ll talk.”
“I feel like a ridiculous invalid,” Madeline said, lowering herself to the sofa with a grimace. “I’m sitting in the exact same spot as I was yesterday when Patrick was checking out my apartment. Other than showering, eating and creeping in and out of my bed, I’ve done very little but lie here and read.”
“You’re healing,” Casey replied. “You need the rest.”
“I haven’t slept well since the break-in, and certainly not since the attempt on my life,” Madeline admitted. “I wouldn’t have shut an eye if John hadn’t been outside my door all night. I can’t thank you or Patrick enough for arranging security for me.”
“We protect our clients.” Casey was adamant. “Nothing is going to happen to you. Not on our watch. You can count on it.”
“I am.” Madeline folded her hands in her lap. “Go ahead. Ask me whatever you’d like.”
Casey held up her iPhone with a questioning look. “All right if I tape the convo? I want to concentrate without taking notes.” A grin. “And unfortunately, Yoda isn’t transportable.”
Madeline chuckled, waved her hand to indicate that Casey should go ahead. “Record away.”
Casey pressed the appropriate button and set the iPhone on the coffee table. She sat back, crossing one leg over the other. “Let’s review potential suspects. Starting with Conrad.”
Madeline inclined her head in surprise. “Conrad? Isn’t that a reach? I mean, I know the spouse is always number one on the list, but under the circumstances, my ex is in no position to try to run me down.”
“Your ex is a rich man with lots of connections and pull. He’s in a health care facility, not a prison. He could have hired someone to do his dirty work.” Casey propped her elbow on her knee and leaned forward, her chin resting on her hand. “You said your divorce was amicable, but it was still a divorce. Were you seeing someone else? Was there a dispute over money? Did you get anything in the settlement that Conrad badly wanted to keep?”
Casey stopped her litany of questions to ask the most important one. “Was Conrad unstable enough to let any one of those things push him over the edge?”
“And hire a hit man to kill me?” Madeline’s tone was filled with disbelief. “Absolutely not. He’s severely depressed and in a very dark place. But his anger is all aimed inward. Our conversations have been few, but they’ve all been civil, even friendly. And no, I wasn’t and am not seeing anyone else. Nor did I demand anything in the divorce. Conrad was more than generous. I really think you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Casey intentionally kept her posture relaxed. She was easing the conversation in a strategic direction that could possibly put Madeline on the defensive—especially since she’d just written her ex-husband off as a suspect. “Would you object if I were to drive up and have a talk with Conrad?”
Madeline’s eyes widened, more in surprise than in defensiveness.
“Just being thorough,” Casey added lightly.
After considering that for a moment, Madeline shrugged. “I guess not,” she said. “The truth is, Conrad and I may be divorced, but I still care about him. I have no idea what his current state of mind is, and I don’t want to cause a setback. So let’s talk to his doctor first and get her opinion. Her name is Dr. Marie Oberlin. I’ll call her before you leave. If she gives us her okay, I’ll text you all her contact info, and you can make the trip up to Danbury.”
“That would be great.”
Madeline’s eyes narrowed quizzically. “I wasn’t expecting you to take such an aggressive stance when it came to Conrad. You weren’t that way yesterday. What changed? Did you dig up something I should know about?”
“No.” Casey was blunt. “What changed is that you and I are now alone and Marc isn’t in the room.”
A flush stained Madeline’s cheeks, and she dropped her gaze. “How much did Marc tell you?” she asked.
“Marc doesn’t share. Not his personal life. But I’m sure that comes as no surprise to you.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Is there anything you’d like to share?”
Madeline’s hesitation was brief. “I guess I came to Forensic Instincts because of and in spite of Marc. Your company’s reputation is stellar. I also know how extraordinary Marc is at everything he does. Failure’s not in his vocabulary. But I didn’t expect to react so powerfully to seeing him again. It’s been ten years. Maybe I made a mistake coming to you.”
“You didn’t. We just need to work this through.” Casey wasn’t surprised by anything Madeline had just said. “Here’s what I know. You two met in Bethesda during Marc’s navy SEAL days. I gather you had a relationship—a pretty intense one, judging from both your reactions. I won’t pry. But you have to take the lead with me on this one. How much do you want Marc to be included in or excluded from? How hard will it be to separate business from personal? I’ll handle this any way you want me to. And it can be handled. But you have to tell me what you want—Marc’s expertise or his absence. Either can be arranged.”
There was a long silence—one that Casey had anticipated. She just sat quietly, watching Madeline pick at a fingernail and waiting for her response.
“I trust Marc with my life,” she said at last. “I’d be an idiot to exclude him. We’re both adults. We’ll have to get past our residual feelings—that is, unless Marc’s indicated otherwise.”
“To the contrary, Marc is his usual proactive self, ready to take on and solve the case. But you’re our client. You have to be at ease.”
“What I have t
o be is alive,” Madeline responded. “So yes, please include Marc in your investigation.”
“Fine.” Casey nodded. “Next question. I’d like to take Marc with me when I visit Conrad. I rely on his intuition and his strategies. Does Conrad know about Marc?”
“He knows I was involved with someone in Bethesda years ago. He’s not privy to the details. And I didn’t exactly leave photos lying around. So he wouldn’t recognize Marc or his name.”
“Good.” Again, Casey nodded. “So you’ll call Dr. Oberlin before I leave. If all goes as planned, Marc and I will visit Crest Haven Residential Treatment Center. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“Let’s move on, then. I’ll need a list of all your friends, supposed friends and associates, both inside and outside the hospital—everything from Ronald Lexington’s wife, to his professional successor, to your coffee or lunch buddies, to your dentist and hair stylist. Start composing it as soon as I leave. I’ll need it ASAP.”
“Wow.” Madeline rubbed a hand across her brow. “That’s going to be quite a challenge.”
“I’m sure. But it has to be done.” Casey could see that Madeline’s strength was waning. “One more thing and then I’ll let you make that phone call and we’ll call it a morning. What’s changed in your life—either personal or professional—over the past few weeks or months? Anything at all that comes to mind?”
“The merger,” Madeline replied without missing a beat.
“Yes, the hospital merger.” Casey wasn’t surprised that Madeline responded so quickly and went straight to that particular subject. Based on Ryan’s preliminary research, the health care industry was abuzz with news of the merger between Manhattan Memorial Hospital—the hospital where Madeline and Conrad worked—and New York Medical Center.
“Ryan did some digging,” Casey said. “According to him, the merger you’re describing recently went from being a dead issue to a done deal. I understand why the hospital board put it on hold—Ronald Lexington’s death. I also understand that he’s been gone for several months. What rekindled the interest in the merger now?”