Anne Stuart's Out-of-Print Gems

by Anne Stuart

  Uncle Vinnie just looked at her. “I’ll put the word out. No one will touch you. But you keep away from Dr. Crompton. I don’t want any accidents. If and when he gets his, I don’t want you within range. Do you understand?”

  “Vinnie…”

  But he’d already moved toward the door, silent despite his bulk. “Watch your back, cara. And keep away from that man.”

  He was gone before she could utter another protest, and she leaned back against the pillow, letting out her pent-up breath. Ever since Uncle Vinnie had come into her life almost ten years ago, he’d been mysterious and beneficent, a wise, almost comical figure, there when she needed a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen to her problems. It had taken all her determination to keep him from pulling strings for her. If it had been up to Vinnie, she’d probably be managing editor at the Washington Post by this time.

  But she’d made it brutally clear that what she had in this life she intended to earn. She’d had too easy a life. She was the only child of doting parents with too much money. When they’d died while she was still in college, all Uncle Vinnie’s protective instincts had come into play, but Suzanna needed to fend for herself. After twenty years of having things handed to her, she was suddenly out on her own, and she’d been determined to make her own way, without Vinnie pulling strings. She’d accepted his friendship, and even the occasional tip, but she wasn’t about to let him tender any offers on her behalf that people couldn’t refuse.

  Keep away from Dr. Crompton, he’d said, and she’d be wise to listen when a man like Uncle Vinnie spoke. If Vinnie said Crompton was a doomed man, then it was highly unlikely Suzanna could do anything to save him, and she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to. The man was overbearing, unpleasant and too damned smart for his own good. He was just the kind of man she found most irritating, and she preferred thinking of him as the enemy.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t going to be that clear-cut. Somebody else saw Daniel Crompton as the enemy, someone who used noxious fumes and sneak attacks and who didn’t care if someone besides Crompton got killed, as well.

  Suzanna had the choice of siding with Crompton or siding with the forces of darkness, which meant she didn’t really have much choice at all.

  Of course, Vinnie had meant for her to steer clear of the whole thing. But she couldn’t. Not with an organization like Beebe Control Systems International in her backyard, one shrouded in secrecy and security worthy of national defense. Crompton might work for them, but she wouldn’t put it past them to be behind that lab explosion.

  Maybe it wasn’t a murder attempt. Maybe it was just a warning. But a warning against what? And how in heaven’s name was she going to find out exactly what he was working on?

  The lab was trashed now. She hadn’t found anything of interest in the few minutes she’d had before Crompton’s precipitous return, but she suspected he didn’t keep his most important work there. Whoever bombed the place wouldn’t have dared risk destroying it.

  His home was the obvious place to check. She needed to get out of this hospital and go check out the place. He had to be in worse shape than she was—he’d been covered with that revolting green slime that had burned her hands. He’d be in the hospital for days, but if she didn’t get moving soon, someone would get to his home before she did.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed. She was wearing one of those damnable hospital nightgowns. It was slit up the back and chilling her spine, and the bathrobe looked as if it were made out of ancient dish towels. Nothing, however, compared with the foam-rubber slippers. Suzanna wondered whether she could fashion a sari out of the sheet.

  She wasn’t alone. There’d been no sound, not even a whisper of noise, but the air around her shifted, and she looked up, staring at the tall figure in the doorway.

  Another damned doctor, she thought wearily. This one in hospital greens, as if he’d just come from the operating room, or was about to return to it.

  “Go away,” she said flatly. “I’ve been poked and prodded enough. You’re not doing any more tests.”

  He moved forward, into the pool of light, and she had an unpleasant shock as she looked up into Daniel Crompton’s dark, cool eyes. She realized that those eyes were traveling up her long, bare legs with far too much leisurely interest. And that the feel of his eyes on her skin burned almost as much as the green slime had.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded, wishing her voice didn’t sound slightly husky.

  “They said you were unconscious.”

  “I’m not.”

  “No, more’s the pity. Are you always this pleasant?”

  “About the same as you,” she replied tartly.

  He ignored her taunt, moving across the room so silently it took her a moment to realize his feet were bare. The sight of his long, narrow feet was so startling that she didn’t realize he’d picked up her hand in his and was busy taking her pulse. He began tapping her wrist.

  She tried to yank away, but his fingers tightened. “I just want to test your reflexes,” he said in an irritated voice.

  “‘Trust me, I’m a doctor’?” she murmured. “My reflexes have been checked plenty, and they’re just fine, thank you. How are yours?”

  “Fast.”

  “Jolly.”

  “Too fast,” he said enigmatically, still holding her hand. She only wished she didn’t find an odd sort of comfort in it. “How do you feel?”

  “Like a wall fell on me.”

  “That was me.”

  She felt a moment’s compunction. “I didn’t thank you for saving my life.”

  He shrugged. “I’m not sure I did. Have you had any visitors?”

  Suzanna thought of Uncle Vinnie and was glad she never blushed when she lied. “No. Were you expecting anyone?”

  “If a man named Osborn tries to talk to you, refuse to see him. The same goes for Armstead, and just about anyone else.”

  Curiouser and curiouser, Suzanna thought, staring up at the man. “Isn’t Osborn your boss? The president of Beebe?”

  “He wants to know what you were doing in my lab at the time of the explosion. He doesn’t trust you, Ms. Molloy. He thinks you might have rigged the explosion.”

  “And what do you think, Dr. Crompton?”

  He reached out and put his hand along the side of her neck, his fingers long and cool and deft against her heated skin. “I think your pulse is racing, Ms. Molloy. I think you need a good long rest, with no visitors.”

  It was no wonder her pulse was racing, she thought irritably. Daniel Crompton was a vastly irritating man—he was enough to stir anybody’s blood.

  “What about you?” she asked abruptly.

  “I’m getting out of here. But if I were you, Molloy, I’d stay put. At least here you’re relatively safe.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be safe?”

  He shrugged, an abrupt, oddly appealing gesture. “I don’t know. But it might be wiser not to ask anyone.”

  A moment later he was gone, and she was alone once more in her hospital room, using the very curses Uncle Vinnie had as she stared at the closed door in frustration.

  Chapter Three

  Daniel wondered why his feet weren’t cold. He tended to be oblivious to physical discomfort, but right now he was intensely aware of every minuscule reaction his body was going through, and walking barefoot down a sidewalk at half past five o’clock on a late spring morning in northern California should have been downright chilly. Particularly since he was wearing nothing but the loose green scrub suit he’d stolen from a locker at the hospital.

  It wasn’t particularly warm outside—he knew that. His instincts told him it was hovering around fifty, and yet he felt entirely comfortable, almost hot. His skin no longer burned, but it tingled, pleasantly enough, and he felt an odd tickle between his eyes.

  His arms were hanging loosely by his sides as he moved along, and he contented himself with twitching his nose a couple of times as he stared absently at an old VW bug parked on
a side street.

  The VW burst into flames.

  The fireball of heat threw him back against a building, and he stayed there, dazed, uncomprehending. It usually took a great deal to surprise him, but the explosion left him in a state of shock, and it took him a moment or two to steady himself, glance around to see whether someone had lobbed a grenade, or a mortar, or whatever it was people used to blow up things.

  The streets were deserted. Lights were coming on in the buildings surrounding him, but there was no sign of anyone around. In the distance he could hear the faint wail of a fire alarm, and decided it was time to make himself scarce.

  He ducked down a back alleyway, disappearing into the night. He wasn’t in the mood to listen to questions, particularly when he hadn’t the faintest idea what the answers were. While he’d never been one to let the stresses of ordinary living get to him, the last twenty-four hours had been enough to rattle the most phlegmatic of men. He’d had his lab invaded, he’d been sabotaged, poked, prodded, and now it seemed as if someone had set off a bomb just as he was walking by, and he could hardly count that a coincidence. To top it all off, he felt strange, restless, edgy and in a towering bad mood.

  He moved through the early-morning light swiftly, away from the devastation of the burning automobile, trying to shake the sense of uneasiness that was plaguing him. He lived as anonymously as possible, in a box of a condominium in a box of a building, and by the time he neared his neighborhood he was running, at the comfortable loping jog he’d perfected. It was getting lighter by the minute, it was now close to 6:00 a.m., and he wondered whether the hospital or Beebe had anyone out looking for him.

  The enclave of bland, architecturally atrocious buildings came equipped with a security guard and gate, something he’d never thought much about in the past. In his current position, he wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone, answer questions or even have to put up with someone looking at him strangely. All he wanted was to get back to his apartment, lock the door behind him, lie down on his futon and clear his mind. Until he could come up with a reason why someone would want to kill him.

  He decided to wait until six, hoping against hope that the guard’s shift might end, and he could slip through when he wasn’t looking. He still had his watch, a fact which surprised him, and he stared at it, willing it to move to six.

  When it did, he almost wished it hadn’t. The prickling sensation that had been nagging at him suddenly washed over his body full force, and a blinding pain shot through his head, so fierce he thought of the VW and wondered whether his own brain was going to explode. His stomach cramped, and he sank to his knees on the pavement, no longer caring that the guard was going to see him. The man would probably call the police, or at least an ambulance, and Crompton would be back where he started, his escape for nothing.

  Slowly, slowly, the pain began to abate. The rush that spread over his body settled into an edgy kind of heat, and he managed to lift his head, expecting to meet the security guard’s curious gaze. Or perhaps even his gun.

  The security guard was standing in his little box, guarding the gate. He was smoking a cigarette, glancing idly in the direction of Daniel’s hunched-over figure with all the interest of a toad.

  Daniel staggered to his feet, both relieved and incensed. Not that he wanted the man to pay attention to him, but he might at least have shown some concern for the security of the building. Not to mention the welfare of one of its tenants.

  He advanced on the man, angry enough to brazen it out, only to come up short. The security guard had his name, which was Doyle, emblazoned across his pocket. And Doyle was looking straight through him as if he wasn’t even there.

  The hell with him, Crompton thought, circling the security gate and striding past the oblivious guard, fully determined to ignore any belated questions or calls to stop.

  There was no abrupt shout or even a tentative question as Daniel reached the door of his anonymous building. The guard didn’t seem to realize he existed.

  It wasn’t until that moment that Daniel realized his keys were somewhere back at the hospital, along with his slime-splattered clothes, his wallet and his shoes. “Hell and damnation,” he muttered, wheeling around, prepared to go to the oblivious Doyle and demand that he open the door for him.

  Doyle was no longer oblivious. He looked like a bloodhound who’d scented a juicy pheasant on the wind. Alert, head cocked, listening, he stared just over Daniel’s head.

  Was the man blind, or drunk, or just abysmally stupid? Daniel neither knew nor cared, he simply wanted to get up to his apartment, get out of his stolen scrub suit and take a shower, to wash the hot, prickling feeling from his skin.

  The door opened, and an early-morning jogger stepped out into the cool air. Daniel grabbed the door before it could swing shut again, muttered a terse thanks and disappeared into the building.

  His fourth-floor apartment was an easier matter, since he was smart enough to leave a key under a loose section of the carpeting in the hallway. Within moments he was safe inside, the door locked behind him.

  He was oddly breathless, shaken, and his brain was awash with a thousand anomalies, too many things that made no sense, particularly to his own orderly mind. The way that car had burst into flames. The guard’s oblivion. The brief flash of shock on the jogger’s face when Daniel had brushed past him.

  Not to mention the odd, fuzzy look of his hand as he’d opened his front door.

  He stared down at his body and knew something had to be wrong with his vision. He looked foggy and slightly out of focus but when he raised his head, the apartment was clear and precise. It was only his body that seemed blurred.

  He rubbed a hand across his eyes, but it didn’t help. The morning light was filling the ascetic confines of his apartment, but he didn’t bother closing the curtains. They might be looking for him, and his home was the logical place to try to find him. Since Doyle and the jogger had been too sleepy or hung over to notice his return, he might be able to remain in hiding for at least the few hours he needed for a shower and a nap.

  The hot water spat like tiny needles onto his skin, but he was inured to the discomfort. He stood in the shower for what seemed like hours, trying to wash away that odd, heated sensitivity that covered him, but it was useless. Turning off the water, he stepped out into his steamed-up bathroom, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his damp body. Maybe a shave would wake him up.

  His bathroom mirror was completely fogged. He reached out and rubbed the condensation from its surface. And then he rubbed again.

  There was no reflection whatsoever in the mirror, not even the towel that was wrapped around his torso.

  There’d been a phrase he’d read long ago, in some melodramatic novel. Something about one’s blood running cold. Suddenly he knew exactly what that phrase meant.

  He slammed open the bathroom door, heading for the bedroom and the mirror over his dresser.

  Nothing. He could see the plain, white-covered bed behind him, the unadorned white walls, the pile of books on the nightstand. But he couldn’t see his own, slightly out of focus, shower-damp body at all.

  “Oh, no,” he murmured, utterly fascinated. “I’m invisible.”

  SUZANNA CONSIDERED following him. Daniel Crompton had simply disappeared from her hospital room like a wraith, and if she’d had just the slightest bit more energy, not to mention a slightly more modest outfit, she would have climbed out of that hospital bed and gone after him.

  As it was, her feet barely touched the floor before she sank back, groaning. Her head throbbed, her skin tingled, and her temper was not the sweetest.

  Nor was it improved by the sound of voices breaking the early-morning hush of the hospital corridors.

  “I’m afraid I must insist, nurse,” the man said. “There’s been a serious breach of security at Beebe, and a question of sabotage. If you won’t let me question Ms. Molloy then I’m afraid I’m going to have to take action.”

  “You can question her
all you want,” came the tart reply, “during visiting hours, and if her doctor gives permission and she’s willing. Until then, Mr. Osborn, you’d better leave.”

  There was a moment of silence. And the unmistakable sound of crinkling paper that was undoubtedly green. “Five minutes,” the nurse said, her shoes squeaking as she made her retreat.

  By the time the door opened, Suzanna was lying in perfect stillness, her eyes shut, her breathing shallow, not a flicker betraying her awareness. She would have liked to steal just a tiny glance at this Mr. Osborn who was so determined to get his own way. He was one of the people Crompton had warned her about. An odd thought, an SOB like Crompton looking out for her. It could almost make her smile.

  “Are you awake, Ms. Molloy?”

  Suzanna didn’t move.

  “They told me you’d regained consciousness several hours ago, and no one mentioned giving you any additional drugs to help you sleep. Open your eyes, Ms. Molloy. I have no intention of leaving until I talk with you.”

  Suzanna managed a faint, very believable snore.

  To her dismay she heard Osborn seat himself in the plastic chair beside her hospital bed. “If you prefer, we’ll play it that way,” he said. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Henry Osborn, CEO of Beebe Control Systems. I imagine a clever girl like you already knew that. What you might not know is that I can be a very dangerous man to cross, or a very helpful man, if I’m feeling generous. You’ve been a boil on our behind for the last six months with your incessant questions, but we’ve been forbearing, believing in the right of a free press.”

  Osborn was the kind of man who believed in total control of the press, but Suzanna managed to keep from voicing that opinion.

  “I want to know what you saw in Dr. Crompton’s lab before the unfortunate accident. Your help in this matter could be invaluable, and we’re known to reward those who help us.”

  It was no accident, Suzanna thought, and you know it. She let out another gentle little snore, wondering whether she was overdoing it.