Covert M.D.

Rathe stood, uncoiling slowly from the chair as though afraid she might bolt.

But bolting was the last thing on her mind as she identified the heady, racing sensation that had pounded through her during the fight. Excitement. This was the adventure she craved, the thrill she’d been seeking.

The adrenaline poured through her body. She wanted to run. She wanted to dance, to sing, to tip her head back and scream.

She grinned at Rathe.

His eyes narrowing, he advanced on her and leaned down so they were face-to-face. “This is not a joke, Nia. Don’t you get it? You could’ve been killed,” he said, then placed a palm flat against the door, effectively trapping her.

“Well, I wasn’t, thanks to you. That’s why the doctors here work in teams, remember? So we can watch each other’s backs.” She shoved at his chest with both hands, but he was immovable. “Damn it, let me go!”

She saw the change in his eyes. Her body answered the call and he bent close and whispered, “I can’t.”

Then he kissed her, and all that restless energy redirected itself to the places where their bodies merged.

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

Spring is in the air and we have a month of fabulous books for you to curl up with as the March winds howl outside:

 Familiar is back on the prowl, in Caroline Burnes’s Familiar Texas. And Rocky Mountain Maneuvers marks the conclusion of Cassie Miles’s COLORADO CRIME CONSULTANTS trilogy.

 Jessica Andersen brings us an exciting medical thriller, Covert M.D.

 Don’t miss the next ECLIPSE title, Lisa Childs’s The Substitute Sister.

 Definitely check out our April lineup. Debra Webb is starting THE ENFORCERS, an exciting new miniseries you won’t want to miss. Also look for a special 3-in-1 story from Rebecca York, Ann Voss Peterson and Patricia Rosemoor called Desert Sons.

Each month, Harlequin Intrigue brings you a variety of heart-stopping romantic suspense and chilling mystery. Don’t miss a single book!

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

Covert M.D.

Jessica Andersen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my friends in the New England Chapter

of Romance Writers of America.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Though she’s tried out professions ranging from cleaning sea lion cages to cloning glaucoma genes, from patent law to training horses—Jessica is happiest when she’s combining all these interests with her first love: writing romances. These days she’s delighted to be writing full-time on a farm in rural Connecticut that she shares with a small menagerie and a hero named Brian. She hopes you’ll visit her at www.JessicaAndersen.com for info on upcoming books, contests and to say “hi”!

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Dr. Nia French—Nia and her first lover are partnered in a deadly hospital investigation of failed transplants. Will she learn to forgive him before it’s too late?

Dr. Rathe McKay—The guarded doctor-adventurer has two equally difficult tasks: to protect Nia from a vicious killer and to avoid the chemistry between them.

Cadaver Man—The tall, gray man sees through Nia and Rathe’s covers quickly. Too quickly.

Tony French—Nia’s father drove Rathe off years ago. After his death, will Tony’s memory separate the onetime lovers or bring them closer together as danger escalates?

Dr. Logan Hart—The young transplant specialist wants to assist in the investigation of unexpected patient deaths. Or so he says.

Marissa Doyle—The nurse has overseen many of the dead patients and has hidden secrets.

Dr. Michael Talbot—The head of the transplant department, Talbot is a giant within the field. So why is a killer stalking his patients?

Short Whiny Guy—Cadaver Man’s partner has seen too much.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

The damp subbasement of Boston General Hospital smelled faintly of death and fabric softener. Corridors folded back on each other without apparent reason, which was both a blessing and a curse for Nia French.

A blessing because she was able to stay out of sight. A curse because she had to follow close or risk losing Cadaver Man, Short Whiny Guy and the rattling laundry cart.

“You got the keys?”

Nia froze. The voice was near. Too near.

Heart pounding, she breathed through her mouth and eased closer to the off-green cinder block wall, wishing for some cover. Wishing the fluorescent lights weren’t so relentlessly bright.

Wishing she knew for sure she’d followed the right guys.

“Yeah, I got the keys. Why, you think I lost them already?” The second speaker was Short Whiny Guy, who had complained incessantly during the trip down from the sixth floor. There was a metallic jingle, and the sound of a door being unlocked.

“Just shut up and let’s get this thing loaded,” Cadaver Man ordered. She called him that because of the grayish skin and shadowed eyes she’d glimpsed when the elevators had shut on the men, leaving her wondering why they were changing the linens at two in the morning.

And why none of the beds in the Transplant Department were stripped.

Nia had followed them because this was her first assignment in HFH’s Investigations Division, and she was determined to prove herself.

Her previous assignments for Hospitals for Humanity had sent her to outbreaks and disaster areas worldwide, where her medical degree made her useful and her guts were taken for granted. It was good work, but it wasn’t where her heart lay. More than anything, she wanted to be an investigator—and now, finally, she’d been given the opportunity to work a case.

Hearing a metal door slide open and the men’s voices move away, Nia crouched down and eased around the corner, forcing her hands not to tremble from a mixture of nerves and excitement.

In contrast to the rest of the hospital, the loading bay was dark. The smell here was stronger, both of decay and of fabric softener, though the wide garage door let in a thin breath of Chinatown funk.

The men were gone. The big laundry hamper they had wheeled down from the sixth floor sat on the loading dock.

“Transplants failing for no good reason,” the dossier on this assignment read. “Supplies and pharmaceuticals disappearing from the Transplant Unit.”

Though the assignment didn’t officially begin until the next day, when she’d meet her new partner and they would be briefed on the full scope of the problem, Nia had sneaked into the hospital at midnight. She’d been hoping to discover something useful. Hoping to get a head start on impressing the senior investigator HFH had assigned to train her.

And here was her chance.

Stepping quietly on her soft-soled sneakers, she eased around the corner and crept toward the hamper. She had no concrete reason to suspect there was anything inside but laundry. But her left eyelid had twitched a warning, and the shift schedule indicated the linens in the Transplant Department were changed at seven in the morning, not two. Holding her breath, she stood on her tiptoes and peered inside the tall hamper.

It was full of laundry.

“Damn it,” she muttered under her breath, “why can’t they make these things shorter?” Twenty-eight-year-old Nia had topped out at five-two. Usually she could mask her short stature with determination, but the hamper didn’t care how tough she was, it still came up past her breasts. She had two choices—dive in and hope for the best or hang back and wait.

The sound of an engine and the rhythmic beep of a truck backing into the loading dock told her that “wait” was the better option. Darting behind a half-open door, she pressed her eye to the crack by the hinge and congratulated herself on a fine hiding spot.

She’d be a good investigator. No matter what certain people thought, she was going to make it. It had been her dream for nearly ten years now, ever since she’d first heard the stories about a swashbuckling HFH doctor saving the world.

“Come on, let’s get it loaded and get out of here. This stuff gives me the creeps.” Short Whiny Guy’s voice preceded him onto the loading dock. Cadaver Man, looking grayer in the half-light, unlatched the back of the laundry truck and ran up the door. Nia froze.

That was no laundry truck.

An empty gurney was secured to one side. Equipment sprouted from every flat surface and dangled from the ceiling. A faint white mist wafted out, as though the air-conditioning had been turned from “chill” to “preserve.”

“Ay-uh. We wouldn’t want to keep him waiting for his things, would we?” Cadaver Man, who hadn’t spoken up to this point, gave a ghastly grin that was at odds with his down-home Maine accent.

Nia’s pulse raced. Her first night on the job and she already had a huge break. If she got on that van and figured out where it was headed, what it was doing, then she could solve the case in a single night.

Score one for Nia French.

Short Whiny Guy pushed the laundry hamper across a narrow ramp and into the cleared center of the cargo area. The cart’s dirty canvas and worn wheels looked incongruous amidst so much stainless-steel and high-tech equipment.

“Come on, guys, give me a break here,” Nia whispered, her burst of optimism draining when Short Whiny Guy climbed into the back with the laundry hamper, as though it was his job to watch over the dirty linens. Cadaver Man shut the door and latched it securely.

Damn. Now what was she going to do? Her car was parked in the main garage on the other side of the hospital, so there was no way she could follow the men. Unless…

Her eyes narrowed on the back bumper of the van, which was fitted with a hydraulic cargo lift. The lift was wide and flat, with plenty of hand holds. She could jump right on.

She touched her back pocket and was reassured by the shape of her miniature tool kit. Given the chance, she might even be able to get the van open.

Cadaver Man reached up and pulled the loading dock’s garage door down, but the vehicle was still visible through a smaller opening nearby.

Nia’s heart pounded as the van’s engine started up. She rubbed her sweaty palms against her dark jeans and slipped out from the hiding spot.

“I can do this,” she said, reaching for the latch of the outer door as Cadaver Man ground the gears, searching for first. “I can do this. I can—”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Rough hands grabbed Nia, spun her and shoved her up against the wall, into the deep shadows. She panicked and screeched in terror.

Her assailant was taller than she, though only by seven or eight inches, and his rangy body jostled against hers as they struggled. She shoved against him. “Let me go!”

Oh, God, had she missed a third man? Panic spurted through her veins, and she shot an elbow at her attacker’s chin in a one-two move that her self-defense instructor had assured her should be followed by a knee to the groin.

Her captor blocked the elbow, but his grip slackened. “Nadia?”

She knew his voice instantly, but it was too late to stop the “two” of her one-two attack. She kneed him right where it hurt. Hard.

Rathe McKay, the most famous of HFH’s investigators—and Nia’s first lover—went pale, sank to the floor and wheezed.

Outside, the van revved and pulled away, its occupants unaware of the scuffle behind them on the loading dock.

Nia stood, stunned, as emotions battled within her. Guilt that she’d hurt him. Confusion as to why he’d sneaked up on her and why he was even in the hospital. And above all else, excitement at seeing him again after all this time.

Although his desertion had nearly destroyed her before, he still had the ability to leave her breathless. Because, damn it, even curled up on the floor, swearing, Rathe McKay looked good to her. Real good.

His close-cropped hair was lighter than she remembered, prematurely silver, though he was only thirty-eight. The seven years since she’d last seen him had added new lines to his angular face, making him look older than his calendar age even as they added to his appeal. His wide shoulders and chest spoke of coiled energy, and his arms and legs still boasted the leashed power she remembered, the grace that could carry him soundlessly through rainforests or dance him elegantly through the classiest ballroom.

And his eyes, when he opened them, still stared through her as though he could see into her soul.

“Rathe, I’m so sorry—” Horrified guilt swamped the shock. She offered a hand, but paused when a terrible possibility occurred. She withdrew her hand. “What are you doing here?”

He scowled, though something else moved in his eyes. Surprise, maybe, or wariness. Then those abstract emotions were gone, blanked out by the familiar stoniness. “I should’ve known something was wrong when Wainwright wouldn’t tell me who I’d be training.”

Rathe was her mentor? No. Impossible. Her stomach roiled, though there could be no other explanation for his presence at Boston General in the wee hours of the morning. But how had their boss, Jack Wainwright, managed it? Everyone knew Rathe McKay only took exotic assignments overseas. And more important, everyone knew he didn’t work with women.

Nia was one of the few who knew why.

Dismay pounded in her temples. She couldn’t work with Rathe. He would ruin everything.

“No,” she whispered. “This can’t be happening.”

“My thoughts exactly.” Rathe cursed in Russian, his voice dark and rich like the language. “Was that kick for—” he sucked in a pained breath and straightened slowly “—self-defense, or for what happened before?”

The question jabbed right beneath her heart. She wasn’t prepared for this. Wasn’t prepared for him.

“Before?” Though guilt stung—she wouldn’t have kicked him if he’d identified himself as friend rather than foe—she wasn’t willing to apologize again. Wasn’t willing to be vulnerable to him again. She crossed her arms and stared at the ceiling to buy a steadying moment. For all the times she’d thought about seeing Rathe again, this scenario didn’t even come close to what she’d imagined. “Let me see. Would that be before when you took my virginity, kicked me out of your hotel room and disappeared without a word…or before when my father, your best friend, begged you to come visit him on his deathbed and you never showed?”

Eyes dark, Rathe advanced on her, walking gingerly. She stood her ground and lifted her chin so she could glare scalpels at him, though her stomach knotted with nerves and a flare of traitorous warmth. They stared at each other for a heartbeat. Two.

Finally he turned away, muttering, “This is why women shouldn’t be allowed in Investigations—they can’t separate their personal lives from their professional ones.”

And there it was. Rathe McKay’s motto: Women Don’t Belong in the Field. Period.

Denial howled in Nia’s head, in her heart, but she held the emotions in check because, damn it, he was right. This wasn’t the time or place to bring up the past. She had a job to do.

And part of that job was proving to her HFH mentor that she was a capable investigator, fully ready to work in the field.

So she found a frosty smile that hopefully showed nothing of her tumultuous emotions. “You’re right. I apologize for being unprofessional. What’s done is done. Jack Wainwright said he was pairing me with an older, more experienced investigator, so I suppose I should be honored he chose you. You’re as old and experienced as they get.”

It was a low blow, aimed at what her father had laughingly called Rathe’s Methuselah complex. Though only ten years her senior, the HFH superoperative had always acted twice that.

He narrowed his eyes and scowled. “There won’t be an investigation. I’m calling Wainwright in the morning and having you reassigned. This is no place for…” He gestured as though the words were unnecessary.

“This is no place for a woman?” Nia clenched her fists at her sides. Though the HFH Head Office didn’t discriminate, there were a few old warhorses who did. Rathe, who’d been in the field more than fifteen years already, considered himself one of them.

“This is no place for Tony’s daughter!” He grabbed her by the arms and shook her as though she was eighteen years old again and he’d caught her prying into his field notes. “For God’s sake, Nadia. You know this isn’t what your father wanted for you. What would he say?”

Righteous anger speared through her. “He’s dead. The last thing he said on this earth was, ‘Where’s Rathe?’” And for that she had hated them both.

Emotion darkened his eyes, though she wasn’t sure that it was remorse. He spread his hands. “Nadia, for what it’s worth, I’m—”

“Don’t,” she interrupted, not willing to hear the apology, not willing to let him think that a betrayal of such magnitude could be scrubbed away with a few words. “Don’t bother. You’re right, this isn’t the time or the place for personal conversations. We have a job to do.”

She turned and stalked toward the freight elevators at the far end of the subbasement.

“Nadia.” His voice seemed to caress the word, bringing back memories best left unremembered.

She stopped and glanced back, steeling herself against the sight of him, strong and virile, an image that could have stepped out of her aching, mindless dreams.

Or her nightmares.

“I prefer to be called Nia now. Nadia is a child’s name, and I’m not a child anymore.” She lifted her chin, daring him to comment. “We have a meeting with the heads of the Transplant Department at 9:00 a.m. sharp—don’t be late.”

This time she didn’t look back, not even when he called her name. They had three hours until the meeting. She’d need every minute of that to prepare herself for the case.

And to armor herself against the disturbing presence of Rathe McKay.

BY NINE THAT MORNING, Rathe was back to walking upright as he stalked through Boston General, but his temper hadn’t mellowed much.

It was temper, he assured himself. Temper that had his blood surging through his veins with a tricky tingling sensation. Temper that had him feeling more alive, more engaged than he had in months or maybe longer.

Temper.

What was Wainwright thinking, partnering him with a woman trainee? He didn’t work with women. And even if he did, Nadia French was the last girl he’d choose.

Rathe shook his head, annoyed. No, that wasn’t right. This was about her being a woman, not about her being Tony’s daughter or about a mistake he’d once made in an airport hotel.

His refusal to work with the opposite gender was based on logic and experience. Period. There was nothing personal about it, and nothing personal between him and Nadia.

Sure, his first glimpse of her had been a kick in the gut, a surge of warmth and energy, but that was only basic man-woman biology. His yang approving of her yin. Nothing personal.

Her thick, dark hair was shorter than he remembered. In fact, she was shorter than he remembered, as though his mind had decided her scrappy personality couldn’t fit inside such a tiny shell. He’d remembered her eyes right, though. Dark brown, swirling with darker promises, they used to look at him with adoration, as though he was the hero he’d once thought himself.

Now they shone with anger. That was personal. And it was unacceptable in a partner.

Already five minutes late for the briefing, Rathe ducked into a windowed alcove and punched his superior’s number into his mid-wave cell phone, a high-tech HFH toy certified safe for use in hospitals. When Jack Wainwright answered, Rathe wasted no time with pleasantries. “I want her off the case. Now.”

There was a rumble of amusement. Jack had trained Rathe himself, back before a stray bullet had landed the older man behind a desk. There was respect between the two but little reverence. “McKay. I didn’t expect to hear from you until at least nine-fifteen. The meeting can’t have even started yet.”

“It hasn’t. I met my partner in the laundry room at 2:00 a.m. this morning. She was getting a jump on the case. She doesn’t seem to get that investigators never, ever go Lone Ranger.” It was HFH policy, and might be enough to convince Jack to pull her off the job.

“You were there, too, so don’t pretend you give a damn about policy.” Jack’s shrug carried down the line. “I know you don’t work with women, McKay, but it’s not like you two are in the middle of a war zone. It’s a bit of petty drug trafficking at a well-funded urban hospital. Enjoy it.”

Rathe gritted his teeth, knowing the cushy assignment was Jack’s way of saying he thought Rathe needed a break from the real action. “She’s a liability.”

“No, she’s not. She’s a transplant specialist, she’s fearless, and she was requested by name.” Jack’s voice hardened into a direct order. “Use her. Teach her. This is what the next generation of HFH investigators looks like, McKay. Get used to it.”

The phone went dead in Rathe’s hand, and he scowled.

Enjoy it. Get used to it. Jack’s words replayed in his mind as he jogged up the stairs to the sixth floor, which housed the Transplant Unit.

Fine. They thought he was burned out? He’d show them. He’d make this the fastest, cleanest investigation they’d ever seen. And he’d do it handicapped with a female partner.

He hit the top of the stairs, and an echo of heat reminded him that it wasn’t that simple.

His partner was Nadia French. Nia. Tony’s daughter.

Rathe had wanted to see his old friend one last time, had ached to apologize, to forgive and be forgiven and to hold Nadia when her father died.

But sometimes a man had to break a promise to keep a promise. And so he had stayed away.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed through the doors into the office of the director of transplant medicine.

“You’re late.” From her chair on the visitor’s side of the lake-size desk, Nia frowned at him. “I’ve already told Dr. Talbot about the men with the suspicious laundry hamper, and the van with the—”

“I’ll take it from here,” he interrupted. “Try to remember that I hold seniority on this case.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, sir, Dr. McKay, sir.”

Rathe ignored her and held out a hand to the older of the two men in the room, a distinguished, white-haired gentleman sporting a bow tie and elegant, steel-rimmed glasses. “I’m Rathe McKay.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dr. McKay. Your reputation as the medical community’s answer to Indiana Jones precedes you.” The older man’s handshake was firm. “Michael Talbot. And this,” the director of transplant gestured to his companion, a handsome, well-groomed man, “is my assistant director, Logan Hart.”

The assistant director nodded but didn’t offer a hand. In his early thirties, Hart exuded breeding and education from the ends of his professionally sculpted hair to the tips of his tasseled black leather shoes. He looked a far cry from Rathe, who’d gone from the foster-care system straight to a combined undergraduate/medical degree on an HFH scholarship.

And where had that thought come from, Rathe wondered. He was the man he’d become, not the boy he’d been.

Frowning, he took the visitor’s chair beside Nia and focused his attention on the men. “My superior has been in direct contact with your administration. I expect you to grant me all of the necessary access and let me run my own investigation. In exchange I’ll provide you a written report of my findings once a week. Is that clear?”