Covert M.D.

After five rings, the cell phone fell silent.

“Go away, Dr. McKay,” Cadaver Man said in an unexpectedly soft voice laced with the cadences of northern Maine, “and call off Nia French. Or else.”

And he shouldered his way through the door and out into the bustling streets of Chinatown.

Rathe lurched to his feet, thinking to give chase even though he knew it was no use. Then the cell phone rang again, and a name leaped to lightning-sharp focus in his mind. Nia!

The bastard knew their names and their purpose. What if he’d already gotten to her?

He slapped the phone open. “Nia? Are you okay?”

“McKay. What the hell are you doing?” The booming voice on the other end of the line was familiar, though it certainly wasn’t Nia.

“Jack,” Rathe held the phone to his ear and jogged back the way he’d come. “I’m glad it’s you. We have a problem.”

The elevator was slow in coming and he waited impatiently, telling himself she was fine. She was in her office. Safe. This was Boston, not Tehru, damn it.

Wainwright’s voice was sharp. “You’re damn right we have a problem. Nia French says you told her to quit.”

Rathe stepped into the elevator and stabbed a button. Forced himself to breathe evenly. She was fine. He was overreacting. He wasn’t going to let this happen again. “Yes, I did. There’s something going on in this hospital. Something bad. I want her out of here before she gets herself hurt.”

“You’re ditching the assignment?”

Rathe scowled into the phone. “Of course not. You know better than that, Jack. I’m staying, but I want Nia out of danger.” The service elevator let him off in the lobby, and he transferred to one of the brushed-steel lifts that would carry him up to the Transplant Department.

Wainwright’s grumble vibrated on the airwaves. “It’s her job to be in danger, McKay. Remember?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Rathe retorted. “She quit.”

“No. She didn’t quit. She phoned me and threatened to sue both our asses for sexual discrimination.”

“She did what?” Rathe ignored the curious stares of the two white-coated researchers sharing the car with him. He supposed the image was incongruous—a rumpled janitor shouting into a phone boasting technology that hadn’t yet transitioned from the military to the public.

“You heard me.” Wainwright’s voice dropped to a threatening hiss. “Fix this, McKay. I don’t care how you do it, but fix this. She’s one of the best young M.D.s I’ve got. I will not lose her, do you understand?”

The doors slid open and Rathe stepped out of the car. He glanced around to make sure he was alone, then lowered his voice and grated, “She’ll be lost for good if you don’t pull her off this case, get it? I just tangled with one of our suspects and he called me by name. Worse, he knew her name, too.”

There was a beat of silence. Then Jack sighed. “Proceed with caution, McKay. That’s all we can ever do in these situations.” He paused. “You’re in contact with the local police?”

Rathe gripped the phone so tightly his knuckles cracked. “Damn it! Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? Nia is in danger, and I want her off the case. Now.”

“This isn’t your call, McKay. I don’t want a harassment suit on my hands, and more important, I want Nia French in Investigations. She’s a brilliant doctor and she has no fear. I want you to train her, Rathe, not protect her.” There was a heavy silence. “If you can’t handle it, then I’ll pull you off the case and give her to someone who can. Jacobsen is free right now, or maybe Roscoe.”

Rathe cursed in Russian, his favorite language for profanity. “Jacobsen is practically a rookie himself, and Roscoe is—” too jaded, too handsome, too slick with the ladies and just a little bit careless “—not right for this case.” He lowered his voice further as a group of med students filed by in the wake of Director Talbot, who frowned as though wondering why his undercover operative was skulking near the elevator. “Please, Jack. Take her off this case. I’ll train her on another job, I swear it. Just not this one. I’ve got a bad feeling.”

Wainwright’s voice gentled, as though he knew something about the things Rathe preferred to keep hidden. “She’ll be fine. She’s smart and she’s tough. Just watch her back. That’s all partners can ever ask of each other.” And the line went dead.

“Damn it!” Rathe jammed the phone back inside his coveralls and strode to Nia’s borrowed office. “You’d better be at your desk, Nia French,” he muttered. “You’d better be okay, because if you’re not…”

Just watch her back, Jack had said. Well, Rathe hadn’t been watching just now. Not well enough.

He slammed through her door, which hung slightly ajar, and froze. Tension boiled like bile in his stomach.

She wasn’t there. And the office was a wreck.

Chapter Four

Emergency!

The call crackled over the intercom, and the hallway was suddenly filled with the noise of running feet as nurses and doctors rushed to answer the call.

In a supply closet nearby, Nia heard the commotion and felt her eyelid twitch. She shoved a box of syringes back onto its shelf, jammed the inventory list into her pocket and slipped into the corridor, hoping her tic was wrong.

She wanted a break in the case, yes, but not at the expense of a patient.

“Marissa! I told you to call me if she deteriorated!” Logan Hart shouldered Nia aside without apology and pushed his way through a knot of scrub-clad nurses into the patient’s room.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Hart. It happened so quickly, I didn’t—” The dark-haired nurse trailed off when she realized the handsome young doctor wasn’t listening. She made a face and turned away, then frowned when she saw Nia had witnessed the break in protocol. Her eyes flickered to Nia’s badge and she winced. “I’m sorry, Dr. French. That was unprofessional of me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Nia answered automatically, though her attention was on the crowded doorway.

Inside the room Hart’s voice barked a string of commands and the chaos gained a sense of order. From the hallway she could just see one of the patient’s hands peeking out from beneath the sheet.

Marissa grimaced. “We’re all tense these days, especially when we’re monitoring one of the high-risk transplants. Like Julia here.” Her voice softened on the name, saddened.

High-risk. It connected in Nia’s head with an almost audible click. She turned to the nurse, who stared at the still figure on the bed with shadows crowding her broad face. “I’m sorry.” Nia touched the other woman’s arm when the tension inside Julia’s room swung from hectic to frantic. “I’m sure you did your best. Rare-tissue-type patients don’t have the best of prognoses to start with.”

It was a fishing expedition cloaked in sympathy, and it made Nia feel faintly slimy. But this, like danger, was part of the job.

The nurse shook her head. “Julia was one of the lucky ones—or she should have been. She was rare type, but they found a match quickly. A really good match.” In the room frantic turned to desperate, and Hart barked one order atop the next, sending nurses and junior doctors scrambling. But the bloodless fingers didn’t move.

A vise tightened around Nia’s lungs and heart. “She’s rejecting?”

“She’s dying,” the nurse said flatly, turning away. “If you’ll excuse me, I have other patients to tend.” She hurried away and didn’t bother to glance back as she slipped into a nearby ladies’ room.

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