Racing Against the Clock

“I don’t.”

“What does it mean?” Tyler asked, stopping just short of the house and drawing her into the moonlight. His eyes searched her face. “Tell me, Jane, what’s going on?”

Had he guessed that she was lying about her amnesia?

“I can’t. Not now. Not yet.”

“But soon?”

She shook her head. “It’s safer if you don’t know.”

He raised their joined hands above their heads. “We’re connected, you and I, whether we like it or not.”

Fear vaulted through Hannah. What he said was true. She felt it. He felt it. And the feeling was almost as terrifying as the knowledge that Daycon and a renegade CIA agent were planning on using her miracle drug as a deadly weapon in a foreign country.

“No,” she denied.

She could not be united with this man. She was in this alone. Only Marcus Halpren could help her. Only her ex-partner would understand what was at stake. Tyler was an innocent bystander, sucked by his big heart into something he could not comprehend. She would not allow him to wade any deeper.

With a twist, she jerked her hand from his. It felt as if her arm had wrenched from its socket.

Panic descended upon her. An anxiety so sharp in its intensity she was left breathless. Her chest refused to expand to full capacity. She yanked in small swallows of air and sweat beaded her brow.

“Jane!” he cried.

She dropped to her knees, sand filling her penny loafers. Hannah clasped her hand over her chest and tried to speak, to tell him she was all right, but the words would not come. How could she say she was fine when she obviously was not?

A roaring noise sounded in her ears. Her vision blurred and her stomach burned.

What was happening?

A reaction to Virusall?

Hannah knew the drug was volatile, unstable and had some serious side effects, but she couldn’t tell Tyler about it.

Without hesitation, he bent and scooped her into his arms. “I knew something like this was going to happen,” he muttered under his breath. “I knew that you weren’t well.”

Her chest still encompassed by an invisible band that squeezed tighter with each inhalation, Hannah leaned her head against Tyler’s shoulder. Even though she weighed only a hundred and twelve pounds, he was much stronger than she had anticipated. For a lean man, he was quite stout. He carried her as if she weighed no more than thistledown, holding her aloft as he stalked up the stairs toward the house.

If Hannah had thought holding hands with this man had been an earthshaking experience, it was nothing compared to what zinged through her body now.

Desire.

Quick and hot.

Never had she wanted any man the way she wanted this one. Suddenly, the woman who disliked being touched, who hated being kissed, could think of nothing but this man’s lips upon hers, his hands tracing a brush fire across her body.

What would he do if she were to kiss his cheek? Why was she thinking like this? She wasn’t the sort of woman who fell willy-nilly into relationships. She was cautious, practical, sensible.

Maybe she had a head injury from the accident. Or perhaps she was shell-shocked. She longed to cling to the explanation but she feared her attraction to this man was due to much more than trauma.

And yet, she had waited all her life to feel like this, had waited for someone to unlock her passion. No matter what her parents had told her, deep down inside Hannah had secretly believed in the Cinderella fable. She had hoped against hope that it was true.

Now that she felt these unfamiliar stirrings, she was terrified. This couldn’t be happening. Not at this juncture in her life. Not with so much at stake. Not with her future so uncertain. Not when she could drag him down with her.

She clung to Tyler’s neck, tossed helplessly by her emotions, more frightened of what she was feeling than the increasing tightness twisting through her chest. Were the two connected? Her emotions and her physical distress?

Tyler sat her on the porch, then reached into the pocket of his scrub pants for the key, keeping one arm curled around her waist.

The door sprang open at his touch. He reached inside, fumbling for the lights. They came on with blinding brightness. Hannah shielded her eyes with her forearm.

Picking her up again, he then hurried inside and kicked the door closed with his foot.

He was right. The house did smell musty. She crinkled her nose against the odor of mildew. Her head ached. The living room furniture was covered with sheets that made it appear like squat, silent ghosts.

Carefully, he deposited her on the sofa, and then disappeared into another part of the house. He returned seconds later with a small black medical bag. He popped an old-fashioned glass thermometer under her tongue and strapped a blood-pressure cuff around her right arm. Hannah peered up at him. His eyes were so filled with concern she experienced an unexpected urge to cry. She was not given to displays of emotion and she fought against the tears.

His bare arm brushed her hand and she lost her breath. She stared at him, unable to look away. He compelled her in a way nothing, beyond her work, ever had.

The green of his scrub suit contrasted nicely with his tanned complexion and straight white teeth. Most people looked blah and shapeless in scrubs, but Tyler Fresno looked astonishing. The cotton scrub top lightly grazed his chest, coyly hinting at the streamlined muscles lurking under the material. Even though he was slim, the man was built like the Rock of Gibraltar.

She felt herself blush. The heat burned her cheeks. What was this? She never blushed. She’d been trained to be passionless, clinical, in control of her emotions.

Disassociate. Disconnect. Disengage. But her favorite mental chant failed to stop the alien sensations from tumbling over her.

His prying fingers were strong yet tender as he examined her. He raised her scrub top, exposing her chest, slipped a stethoscope into his ears and placed the cold bell against her rib cage, his warm hand skimming over her skin. She closed her eyes and battled the hot yearning sensation that surged through her. She ached for him to drop that stethoscope and cup her breasts in his palms.

Why? She had never hungered for anyone’s touch.

Tyler told her to take several deep breaths and then cough. Avoiding his eyes, she did as he asked.

He took her blood pressure, then removed the thermometer from her mouth and held it up to the light. “Temp and BP are normal,” he proclaimed, his relief unmistakable. “Your breath sounds are clear. How do you feel?”

“Better.”

“That’s good.” He lowered her scrub top and patted her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I don’t know what happened back there on the beach. Or why I collapsed.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he soothed. “You’ve had a rough day. I think it’s past time that you got some sleep. Give me a few minutes and I’ll put sheets on the bed in the guest room.”

Hannah nodded. She was so touched by his kind heart she couldn’t speak. A few minutes later, he returned to lead her upstairs and into the guest bedroom.

The room contained a canopied bed, a white wicker chair and a full-length mirror. There was a dressing table with a round-faced clock sitting on it and a small a.m./f.m. radio. Plain white curtains hung at the windows and several pastoral photographs of the beach adorned the walls. It was an understated but elegant room. Had his late wife decorated it?

Her own domestic genes were nonexistent. She’d been a scientist for so long she had no idea how to simply be a woman.

“You can wear one of my T-shirts,” Tyler said, tugging her from her disturbing reverie and handing her a white cotton T-shirt.

She thanked him and when he left the room a forlorn emptiness overcame her. She pressed his cotton shirt to her nose and breathed deeply. It smelled nice and she was surprised to discover the scent comforted her. She took off the borrowed hospital scrubs and pulled the T-shirt over her head. It came to her knees, hugging her in a cloth embrace. Startled, she realized she had never worn a man’s garment before.

Hannah tried to sleep but her mind whirled. She closed her eyes and willed her disturbed thoughts away. She dozed for a while, but then the nightmares came. Vivid ugly dreams in which she relived the car crash again and again. Above it all, she kept seeing Lionel Daycon’s cruel twisted face laughing at her.

At five o’clock, she jerked awake to the sound of rain hitting the window. Her chest tightness returned along with her labored breathing. She had an awful premonition that something terrible had happened to Marcus. She had to speak to him. Now. He should be home at this hour. It was 4:00 a.m. in New Mexico and although she would probably wake him, she didn’t care. She had to know he was safe, plus, she was desperate to get his opinion about the bizarre things that had been happening to her.

Easing out of bed, she tiptoed downstairs, running her hand along the wall to guide her. In the strange house, she was lost and found herself stumbling through the living room before realizing she didn’t know where the telephone was located.

Her pulse rate increased. She padded through another room and skipped her fingers along the wall searching for the light plate. Eventually, she found it and flicked the switch, bathing the kitchen in a fluorescent gleam.

It was a nice kitchen. Open, airy, done in blues and yellows, with a wide picture window that looked out over the ocean. She paused a few moments to get her bearings. Cocking her head she listened for sounds of movement upstairs and prayed she hadn’t awakened Tyler. She didn’t want him involved in this.

A phone was mounted on the wall over the bar. Relief poured through her, and she grasped for the receiver. Sitting down on a bar stool, she punched in the number of her telephone calling card with trembling fingers.

An automated voice came on the line telling her the calling card number was no longer valid. Certain that she had punched the number in wrong, Hannah hung up and tried again.

The same monotone recording greeted her ears.

Damn! Daycon Laboratories issued her calling card and Daycon had probably canceled it the minute she’d left Austin. He had not been idle in the hours she was infirm. She wondered if he could somehow trace her through the card. Terrified at the prospect, she slammed down the phone. She regretted the company phone card, corporate bank account and car they’d leased for her.

Oh, no, what if Daycon had frozen her checking account, as well? A sharp pain rippled through Hannah’s chest, then disappeared.

Don’t panic, calm down, think. What next?

She couldn’t risk dialing direct and having Marcus’s phone number appear on Tyler’s telephone bill. She would call collect. Hannah dialed again and gave her name to an automated operator. Nervously she drummed her fingers on the counter.

“Hello,” a sleepy male replied.

Relief shot through her, and she unclenched her fists. Marcus was safe.

“Hannah?” he said once the call had been patched through. “Is that you?”

“Listen Marcus, listen to me very carefully—you’re in grave danger.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Something very strange is happening,” she whispered. “It’s about Virusall.”

“What’s the matter?”

“The drug is amazing. Much more effective than we guessed. It eradicates every virus I’ve tested it on. HIV, Ebola, hepatitis, influenza, even the common cold.”

“You’re kidding! That’s world-changing news.”

“I know, but wait, here’s the bad part. There are serious side effects. Everyone with type O blood that took the drug during the clinical trials eventually had psychotic breaks. They all became extremely violent.”

“But only people with type O blood?”

“As far as we know. The effects seem permanent.”

“My God, Hannah, that’s catastrophic.”

“It gets worse.”

“How much worse can it get?”

“I went to Daycon with my findings.”

“That unscrupulous bastard.” There was no love lost between Marcus and Daycon. “What did he do? Try and doctor the clinical trials?”

“He’s more unscrupulous than you ever dreamed.”

“Tell me.”

“I found out he was attempting to sell Virusall to overseas terrorists. He wants to create made-to-order assassins.” She gripped the receiver hard.

“Did you call the police?”

“I couldn’t.” She lowered her voice. Paranoia had her thinking Tyler’s phone was tapped, even though she knew it wasn’t possible. “He has a rogue CIA agent making the contacts for him.”

“Hannah!”

“I knew I had to destroy the drug but I also knew I had to find an antidote for those poor test subjects. I packed up a few samples, e-mailed an encrypted version of the formula to you and then I torched Daycon Laboratories to the ground. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it. The fire was all over the news.”

“I don’t even have a television up here, Hannah, and I haven’t checked my e-mail in a few days.”

“That’s why you’re in danger. If Daycon even suspects I sent you the formula…” She let her words trail off. “You’ve got to download it, put it in a safe place and then eradicate that e-mail.”

“I’ll take care of it. In the meantime, where are you?”

The tender note of concern in his voice almost had her losing her control. She had to stay calm and not give herself away. While Tyler’s phone probably wasn’t bugged, Marcus’s definitely could be.

“I’m safe for now. It’s better if you don’t know where I am, but I’ll be headed in your direction as soon as I can.”

“You sound odd. Is there something else you’re not telling me?” he coaxed. Her old friend knew her too well. She was trying to be brave, but it was so tempting to let down her guard just a bit with someone she trusted.

“Daycon’s men found me.” She gulped, then briefly told him about the accident.

“My God, Hannah, are you okay?”

“Marcus, I’m really scared. Some very bizarre things have been happening to my body.” Gingerly, she reached down to rub the leg that had been fractured and then traced her fingers over the right-upper quadrant of her abdomen. “And I think it was because the vials of Virusall broke during the accident and burned my skin.”

“The drug is toxic?”

“Not exactly.”

“What exactly? Talk to me. I want to help.”

Deciding to tell him everything, Hannah took a deep breath and related her suspicions that absorbing Virusall through her skin had cured her injuries.

“That’s amazing,” he said.

“But how would it be possible?”

“You said the drug was very unstable and that it did have miraculous healing properties.”

“We’re talking spontaneous regeneration here, Marcus. It’s the stuff of science fiction. And nothing of this magnitude occurred during the clinical trials.”

“Did any of the test subjects have AB negative blood like you do?”

“No, but would my blood type actually make that big a difference?”

“Look what Virusall did to the people with type O.”

“I can’t believe it’s simply the drug and my blood type responsible for my healing. There’s got to be something more.”

Marcus’s tone dropped an octave. “I know what it is.”

Her heart thundered. She couldn’t even believe they were having this conversation. The discussion flew in the face of rational scientific evidence, but she could not deny what was happening to her.

“What?” she whispered, bracing herself for his theory.

“Remember when we were experimenting with radioisotopes last summer?” he said. “And there was a radiation leak at the lab? Daycon hadn’t installed the proper safety ventilation and we both got sick.”

“But he assured us the exposure was minimal. We were even tested for chromosomal changes and we came up clean.”

“And you believed him? You’ve already learned how ruthless he is. The man would lie about anything to serve his own nefarious purposes.”

Hannah sucked in air as the reality of the situation hit her. Inexplicable as it seemed, with the triple combination of her rare blood type, the topical absorption of Virusall and her recent exposure to radiation, she’d become her own human guinea pig. While the womanly part of her was horrified at the realization, the clinician in her recognized what an amazing opportunity she’d been given.

“But, Marcus, what does it all mean?” she cried.

And that was when the line went dead.

Chapter 4

Tyler couldn’t sleep.

No matter how hard he tried to quiet his turbulent thoughts, his mind stayed hitched on that fascinating woman sleeping in his guest bedroom right down the hall. It had been an eternity since anyone had entranced him, much less set his soul ablaze.

And he was scared spitless.

He recalled the way her skin had felt beneath his fingers when he had examined her—smooth, cool, creamy. He remembered the way her chest rose and fell with rapid breaths as he had placed his stethoscope above her breasts. He recollected the manner in which she had peeped surreptitiously up at him from behind those long, pale eyelashes.

He thought of the way she’d looked swaddled in his T-shirt that was five sizes too big for her. Her eyes wide and round as she’d studied him. Her blond hair floated softly about her slender shoulders. Her feet were bare, her toes appearing childishly innocent in their unpainted state. She’d looked china-doll fragile, except for the hard set of her determined chin.

Who was this mysterious Jane Doe? More important, why was he so drawn to her? And most interesting of all, how could he explain her instantaneous recovery from life-threatening injuries? Concern for her welled up in him from as far south as his feet and throbbed through his chest.

How had she managed to resurrect his emotions so completely in such a short time? How did he fight these dangerous feelings while at the same time help her?

He felt confused, baffled by both his attraction and her extraordinary afflictions. He found himself caught up in backwash he did not understand, unable to solve his dilemma but equally unable to retreat. Like it or not, he was caught up like a fish in a net. He was involved.

High time you got truly involved with something again, his conscience gloated.

But he feared he was not up to the challenge. It had been a long time since he’d put himself out for another human being and he wasn’t so sure he could handle the implications. What had he gotten himself into?

She was an enigma, a riddle, a paradox that compelled him despite his reservations. If only she could remember something about herself. If only he knew what chemicals she had been carrying with her and for what purpose. If only he could explain this inexplicable pull toward her.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face—those vulnerable lips, those wide blue eyes, that mass of golden hair.

After wrestling with the covers for over an hour, Tyler switched on a small bedside lamp, slung his legs over the side and browsed through the books mounted on the shelf over the headboard.

There weren’t many medical books here. Yvette had been loath for him to work at the beach, so most of the volumes were either basic textbooks or short paperbacks on first aid. Nothing about chemicals and certainly nothing about spontaneous healings. Then one title jumped out at him, squeezing off his airway.

Healing Your Cancer From Within.

After all these years, any reminder of Yvette still had the power to knock the wind from his lungs. She had been so young, so pretty and full of life, looking forward to conceiving their first baby. It had been during a routine visit to the ob-gyn, in preparation for getting pregnant, that the doctor had discovered she had leukemia. But it had been over four months before she had broken the bad news to him.

Tyler fisted his hand as the familiar anger rocked back into his life. His wife had cheated him of precious moments, all because she hadn’t wanted to worry him while he was finishing his surgical residency.

The memory of that awful day when she finally told him the truth was burned into his subconscious. Metastasis. To her lungs and liver. Prognosis poor. Six months to live. With chemo. Four months had already passed and she had decided on her own not to have chemotherapy. Single-handedly she had made the choice without him.

There would be no babies. They would not grow old together.

Shocked, Tyler had slumped into denial. He simply could not bring himself to accept the cruel diagnosis. The doctors had to be wrong. This could not be happening. Not to his young, beautiful, vibrant wife. She could beat it. She would live.

Yvette had handled the news with her usual quiet calm. She had always been spiritual and she turned deeper into her religion. Buying books such as this one that promised if you just prayed hard enough God would heal you.

Rubbish. Tyler jerked the book from the shelf and flung it across the room. It struck the wall with a resounding whack.

He’d lost whatever naive beliefs he’d ever held about miracles.

He was still angry, still very guilty. He should have detected her cancer himself. But no, he had been as useless as a third thumb, and even after the diagnosis he had been unable to do anything but sit idly by and watch her die. There was no greater torture for a physician. Because of his denial, he had never said the things that needed to be said, but he had brought her to the beach in the end, as she had wished.

It was hard for Tyler to come back here. He associated the beach house with her death and could not say why he hadn’t sold the place years ago.

It had been too late to save his wife. Maybe he wasn’t too late to save Jane Doe. Perhaps that was why fate had deposited her in his emergency room. He was a doctor, dammit. He should be able to save someone.

It frustrated him that the hospital laboratory had been unable to identify the toxic chemicals in Jane Doe’s car. Running his hands through his hair, Tyler paced. Over and over he tried to rationalize what he had seen this past evening. How one minute Jane had been broken and bleeding, hovering on the verge of death and later that night she had been in his car wolfing down a hamburger, her battered body completely healed.

There had to be a logical, rational explanation, and he would find it if he just looked long enough.

Then he remembered the symptoms she’d suffered when they were walking on the beach. Obviously, she wasn’t completely healed. And what about those lab reports? The ones that indicated she might have cancer?

The conundrum intrigued him almost as much as the lady herself. He had the strangest feeling she was faking her amnesia. But why? What was she hiding from him? Was she in trouble with the law? And how could he get her to trust him enough to give him the answer? She was a very private person and by her own admission, distrustful. Her remoteness evident in the way she held herself aloof, a little shy, as if she wasn’t quite sure how to react to people.

What was he going to do with her? What if her amnesia was real? He should report her case to the police but Tyler knew he wasn’t going to do that.

An odd excitement raced through him. A sensation of aliveness he hadn’t felt since Yvette’s death. If he could find out how Jane Doe had been healed, he might be able to heal others in the same manner. The possibilities were mind-boggling and flew in the face of all rational thought, but Tyler knew something miraculous had happened and he intended to find out exactly what it was.

Fingers trembling, Hannah called an operator and had her re-dial Marcus’ telephone number. She held her breath. It rang.

Once. Twice. Thrice. Four times.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the operator interrupted, “no one seems to be answering.”

“Please, could you let it ring longer? My friend was just there. We were cut off.”