“Last tetanus shot?” the doctor asked.
“Two years ago. I’m current.”
“Keep the wound dry for twenty-four hours. Clean it twice a day with peroxide. And call if it gets red or warm.” He gave her the ER sheet to sign, then headed for the door. “Come back anytime,” he said over his shoulder. “I can’t wait for the next installment.”
Back in the hospital lobby, Kat waited for Adam to call his house. Collect, of course; the punks had done a thorough job of emptying their pockets. It was a helpless feeling, being penniless. When Kat had told the ER billing clerk she’d mail in her payment, the clerk had given her a yeah, sure look. No respect at all.
“Thomas is on his way,” said Adam, hanging up. “We’ll give you a ride home.”
“Who’s Thomas?”
“Sort of my man Friday.” Adam glanced down at his soiled shirt. “And he’s not going to be pleased when he sees what I’ve done to his ironing job.”
Kat looked down at her own wrinkled shirt. “Maybe I should borrow him sometime,” she said. “Along with his iron.”
They sat down in the waiting area. A nurse walked by, carrying a cup of coffee from the vending machine. Kat would have loved a cup of coffee, but her pockets were empty. Broke and in purgatory, she thought.
Half an hour passed, forty-five minutes. It was almost midnight, and things were still hopping at Hancock General. The next shift of nurses dribbled in from the parking lot, lugging umbrellas and lunch sacks. At the front door, an armed guard eyed everyone who entered. This was front-line medicine, and Hancock General was the equivalent of trench warfare. Every stabbing, every shooting that took place within a three-mile radius, anything on South Lexington, would roll in these ER doors. So would the drug ODs. Kat wondered if another Nicos Biagi or Jane Doe had been found.
“He’s upstairs, you know,” she said. “In the ICU.”
“Who?”
“Nicos Biagi. I came by to see him, earlier today.” She shook her head. “He didn’t look good. Whatever it was he shot up, it’s fried his brains. And kidneys.”
Adam was silent. Coldly so.
“The ER doc says it’s something new. Something he’s never seen before …” She paused as a chilling thought suddenly came to mind. She looked at Adam and saw that he was avoiding her gaze. “You said you gave Maeve a job. Was it at Cygnus?”
He sighed. “Yes.”
“Which department?”
“Really, this has nothing to do with Maeve—”
“Which department, Adam?”
He let out another breath, a sound of profound weariness. “Research and development,” he said. “She was doing cleanup in the lab. Running the autoclave. Nothing vital.”
“What was the lab working on?”
“Various projects. Everything from antibiotics to hair restorers.”
“Morphine analogues?”
“Look,” he snapped. “We’re a pharmaceutical company. And pain relief is a big market—”
“You’re cooking up something new in that lab, aren’t you? Something no one else has developed yet.”
A pause. Then, reluctantly, he nodded. “It’s … a breakthrough. Or it will be, if we can iron out the kinks. It’s a close relative to natural endorphins. Latches on to the same enzyme receptors as morphine does, holds on to those receptors like Krazy Glue. So it’s very long lasting. Which makes it perfect for terminal cancer patients.”
“Long lasting? How long?”
“A dose will give pain relief for seventy-two hours, maybe longer. That’s its advantage. And its disadvantage. If you overdose an animal, you’ll put it in a long-term coma.” He looked up at her; what she saw in his eyes was worry, maybe guilt. And absolute honesty.
She rose suddenly to her feet. “Come upstairs with me.”
“The ICU?”
“Nicos Biagi’s tox screen might be back. I want you to look at it, tell me if it matches your miracle drug.”
“But I’m not a biochemist. I’d need confirmation from my staff—”
“Then take the report back to them. Have them confirm it.”
He shook his head. “Hospital tox screens aren’t specific enough.”
“Why are you so reluctant? Afraid to hear the truth? That it could be a Cygnus drug that’s killing people?”
Slowly he rose to his feet. His height put her at a disadvantage. Now she was looking up at him, confronting the chilly silence of his eyes.
Up till now, she hadn’t felt in the least bit intimidated by Adam Quantrell, not by his wealth or his power or his good looks. But his anger—this was something else. This she couldn’t brush off, couldn’t turn her back on. Their gazes held and all at once something new flared inside her, so unexpected she was stunned by its intensity. Suddenly she was unable, unwilling, to take note of anything else in the room.
It was a woman’s voice, calling Adam’s name, that finally broke the spell.
“Adam! What on earth did you do to yourself?”
Kat turned and saw Isabel, still in full evening dress. She’d just come through the waiting room doors and now was staring at Adam in dismay.
“Look at your clothes! And your face! What happened?” Isabel reached up and touched the bruise on his cheek.
He winced. “We got into a little … trouble,” he said. “What are you doing here, Isabel?”
“I heard Thomas say he was coming to fetch you. I told him I’d do it instead.”
“I’ll have to talk to him about this—”
“No, I insisted. I thought you’d be glad to have me rescue you.” She flashed him a smile. “Aren’t you glad?”
“You shouldn’t be down here,” he said. “Not at this time of night. It’s not safe.”
“Oh well.” Isabel glanced around in disbelief at the tired army of people waiting on the benches, and she clutched her wrap more tightly around her shoulders. “I can’t imagine what you’re doing in this part of town.” She looked at Kat’s equally bruised face. “It appears you both got into a little trouble.”
“Dr. Novak needs a ride home, too,” said Adam. “Her car got stolen. And at the moment, we’re penniless.”
There was a brief silence, then Isabel shrugged. “Why not? The more the merrier, I say.” She turned toward the exit. “Come on. Let’s get out of here before my car gets stolen.”
“Wait.” Adam looked at Kat. “There’s something we need to do first.”
“What’s that?” asked Isabel.
“We have to go upstairs. There’s a patient we have to see. In the ICU.”
Kat gave him a nod of approval. So he was finally ready to hear the truth.
“I’ll just come along,” said Isabel. “You wouldn’t leave me down here all by myself, would you?”
With Adam and Isabel in tow, Kat retraced the steps she’d taken earlier that day. Down the hallway with the tired aqua walls. Up the elevator. Down another hall. Isabel’s high heels clacked across the floor.
The ICU was a hive of activity, nurses scurrying about, monitors beeping, ventilators whooshing. At the central nursing desk, two dozen heart tracings zigzagged across a bank of oscilloscopes.
The ward clerk glanced up in surprise at the trio of visitors. “Are you visiting someone?” he asked.
“I’m Dr. Novak, ME’s office,” said Kat. “I was here earlier with Dr. Dietz, looking over Nicos Biagi’s chart. Would you know if his tox screen came back?”
“I just came on duty. Let me check the reports.” The clerk turned to the in-box, riffled through the stack of newly delivered lab slips. “There’s no tox screen here for a Biagi.”
“How is he doing?”
“You’ll have to talk to one of the nurses. Which bed is he in?”
“Bed thirteen.”
“Thirteen?” The clerk looked at the Kardex file and frowned. “There’s no one in bed thirteen.”
“That’s his bed number, I’m sure of it.” Kat glanced at the oscilloscope, where every patient’s hea
rt rhythm wriggled across the screen. Number thirteen was blank.
A nurse walked past the desk, carrying an armful of charts. “Excuse me, Lori?” called the ward clerk. “There was a Mr. Biagi in bed thirteen. Do you know if he’s been moved?”
Lori stopped, turned to look at the trio of visitors. “Are you friends or relatives?”
“Neither,” said Kat. “I’m from the ME’s office.”
“Oh.” The look of caution eased from the nurse’s face. “Then I guess it’s okay to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“Mr. Biagi died. Two hours ago.”
JANE DOE. XENIA VARGAS. NICOS BIAGI.
They were all dead.
How many more would die?
Kat sat in the backseat of Isabel’s Mercedes and stared out at the midnight scenery of South Lexington. She’d forgotten about her bruises, her empty stomach, the throbbing of her freshly sutured neck. She was numb now, shaken by the new addition to the death toll. Three in two days. It was lethal, this drug. It sucked the life out of its victims as surely as a dose of strychnine. Unless the word got out on the streets, there’d be more Jane Does checking into private drawers in the morgue. She only hoped Wheelock had stressed the urgency in his press conference. Had there been a press conference? She’d missed the evening news …
Exhausted, she sank back into the luxury of soft, buttery leather. She’d never been in such a clean car. She’d never been in the backseat of a Mercedes, either. This she could learn to like. She could also learn to like the smooth ride, the sense of insulated safety. Maybe there was something to be said for money.
Isabel had stopped at a red light, and she brushed back Adam’s hair with her manicured fingers. “You poor thing! Look at those bruises! I’ll have to get you all cleaned up when we get home.”
“I’m perfectly fine, Isabel,” Adam said with a sigh.
“What happened to your overcoat?”
“They took it. Along with my wallet.”
“Oh! And you got hurt trying to fight them off?”
“No, as a matter of fact, I got hurt trying to get away.”
“Don’t say things like that, Adam. I know perfectly well you’re not a coward.”
So do I, thought Kat.
Adam merely shrugged. “Keep your illusions, then. I’ll try not to shatter them.”
The red light changed to green. Isabel drove up the freeway on-ramp. “We missed you at dinner, you know,” she said.
Adam looked out the window. “Hope you left some wine in my cellar.”
“Enough for a nightcap.”
“I’m really pretty tired. I think I’ll probably go straight to sleep.”
There was a silence. “Oh,” said Isabel. “Well, there’s still tomorrow night. You are up for that, aren’t you?”
“What’s tomorrow night?”
“The mayor’s dinner. Adam, how could you forget?”
“I just did.”
Isabel gave a laugh. “You’ll be a hit, you know. All those lovely bruises. Like some macho badge of honor.”
“More like a badge of stupidity,” said Adam.
“What is the matter with you?”
“Get off here,” said Adam. “Bellemeade exit.”
“Why would I want to go to Bellemeade?”
“It’s where I live,” said Kat from the backseat. Had Isabel forgotten she was there?
“Oh, of course.” Isabel took the exit. “Bellemeade. That’s a nice neighborhood.”
“It’s close to town,” said Kat, a neutral response that could be taken in many different ways.
After a few blocks and a few turns, they pulled up in front of Kat’s house. She was proud of that house. It had three bedrooms, a charming front porch, and a lawn that wasn’t loaded with chemicals. It wasn’t Surry Heights, but she was happy here. So why did she feel the sudden urge to apologize?
Adam got out and opened her door. To her surprise, he also offered his hand. She stepped out onto the sidewalk beside him. The streetlamp spilled light across his golden hair.
“Can you get into the house?” he asked.
“I keep an extra key under the flowerpot.”
“You don’t have a car.”
“I’ll catch the bus to work.”
“That’s crazy. I’ll arrange something.”
“I’m really okay, Adam. I’ve gone without wheels before.”
“Still, I feel responsible. You got into this mess because of me. So let me take care of it. A taxi to work, at least.”
She looked up at him, sensed how very much he wanted her to accept his help. “Okay,” she said. “Just for a day or two. Until I come up with a new car.”
She headed up the walkway to her front porch. Then she glanced back.
He was still watching, waiting for her to go inside.
Only when she’d entered the house and turned on the hallway light did he get back in the car. She looked out the front window and saw the Mercedes drive away.
Back to Surry Heights, she thought. Back to his world.
And Isabel’s.
She locked the front door and wearily climbed the stairs to bed.
After he’d sent Isabel home, Adam holed up in his study and nursed a much-needed glass of brandy. His head ached, his eyes were bleary, and his ribs hurt like hell when he took a deep breath, but he couldn’t quite drag himself off to bed yet.
He kept playing and replaying that terrifying image from tonight: Kat Novak, down on her knees, her hair yanked back, her throat bared. And the switchblade, pressing against her flesh. He closed his eyes and tried to shut it out, but couldn’t. At the instant he’d seen it, he’d lost all fear for himself, had stopped caring what would happen to him. All he knew was that they were going to kill her, and there was nothing he could do to stop it, not a single damn thing.
He clutched the brandy glass and drained it in one neat gulp. She came through it better than I did, he thought.
But then, Kat Novak was something extraordinary. A true survivor who would land on her feet every time. Considering her roots, she had to be a survivor. He wondered what she saw when she looked at him.
He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know.
Finally he set down the brandy glass and hauled himself out of the chair. On the way out of the room, he passed the photo of Maeve. It sat on the end table, a quiet portrait of his smiling stepdaughter. Was Maeve smiling much these days?
He should have known. He should have seen it coming.
He had no excuses, except that he’d felt overwhelmed, by his work, by single fatherhood, by a daughter who was so traumatized by her mother’s death that she slipped into an eternally sullen adolescence. He couldn’t talk to her; after a while he’d given up trying and had resorted to a father’s tactic of last resort: asserting his authority. That hadn’t worked, either.
By the time he’d realized Maeve was in trouble, it was too late. She was on a constant high—booze, pills, everything, anything.
Like Georgina.
Maybe it was in their genes, some cruel twist in their DNA that preordained their addictions. Maybe it was simply that they couldn’t cope with life or stress.
Or was it him?
He turned away from the photograph and climbed the stairs. Once again, alone to bed. It didn’t have to be this way. It had been clear tonight that Isabel was ready and willing—and frustrated by his lack of interest. They’d known each other for years, had been seeing each other on a regular basis for months. Shouldn’t he be making some kind of move?
But tonight, when she’d driven him to his door, he’d taken a good look at her. She was perfect, of course—her hair, her dress, her smile—perfect in every way. And yet he felt no interest whatsoever in taking her to bed. He’d looked at her, and all he could see was Kat Novak, her face as bruised as a prizefighter’s, grinning at him by the light of that Bellemeade streetlamp.
Wonderful, he thought. After all these years I finally admit to the possibility of
romance, and look who inspires it. A woman who almost gets me killed over some beat-up Subaru.
Could there be a less promising match?
Kat woke up with every muscle in her body aching. It took a massive infusion of willpower just to roll out of bed. She went into the bathroom and saw, in the mirror, the evidence of last night’s brawl: three neat stitches on her neck and the bruises and scrapes on her face. So it hadn’t been a nightmare after all.
She managed to wash around that painful minefield of facial cuts and sweep her hair back in a ponytail. Forget the makeup; she’d wear her bruises to work instead.
Downstairs, fueled by a cup of extra-strength Yuban, she started in on the tasks at hand: canceling her credit cards and her bank card, replacing her driver’s license. When the punks had grabbed her purse, they’d made off with most of her financial identity. At least she still had her checkbook—she’d left it safely at home last night. She made one last call, begging a locksmith to come change her locks ASAP. Then she got up and poured herself another cup of coffee. The caffeine was having its blessed effect—she was feeling human again. And feisty. Getting beaten up and robbed wasn’t good for her disposition.
So when she heard the footsteps on her front porch, she was expecting the worst. Were the punks there already to try out her house keys?
She scurried into the living room, grabbed the baseball bat out of the front closet, and stood poised by the front door. When she heard the clink of keys, she raised the bat, expecting the door to swing open any second.
Instead the mail slot squealed open, and a set of car keys slid through and clattered to the wood floor. Kat stared at them. What the hell?
Whoever had dropped them off was now walking away. She yanked open the door and saw Adam Quantrell’s butler climb into a car driven by another man.
“Hey!” Kat yelled, waving the keys. “What’s this?”
The butler waved back and called, “Compliments of Mr. Quantrell!”
Bewildered, Kat watched them drive off. Then her gaze shifted to her driveway.
A lemon-yellow Mercedes was parked there.
She looked down at the keys she was holding. Then she went to the driveway and slowly circled the car. It was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. REGIS LUXURY RENTALS, said the license plate frame. She peered in the window—leather seats. Clean. She opened the door, climbed in behind the wheel, and just sat there for a moment. There was a note taped to the dashboard, addressed to Dr. Novak. She unfolded the slip of paper and read it.