Heroes in Uniform: Soldiers, SEALs, Spies, Rangers and Cops: Sexy Hot Contemporary Alpha Heroes From NY Times and USA Today Bestselling Authors

by Sharon Hamilton

  No, not a hospital. An office maybe? Or a lab? Yes, a lab.

  I escaped from one of the cells in the lab the night before, she realized as she skirted the edge of a stand of scraggly pines, their fragrant needles soft beneath her feet.

  A step later, Caterina stubbed her toe on an exposed root.

  Fearful of discovery, she contained her cry of pain and examined her foot. Like everything around her, the colors were off.

  Bright yellow-green blood at the tip of her stubbed toe glowed against the darker browns of dirt and leaves along the rest of her foot.

  Caterina forced herself to focus on that appendage, gathering her thoughts. Reality momentarily returned, restoring with it the peachy hues of her healthy human skin, although something else was odd.

  The nasty stub at the end of her toe was already healing.

  The only thing that remained from the injury was a bit of phosphorescent yellow-green on the ragged wood of the root where she had stubbed her toe.

  Yellow-green blood?

  Impossibly wrong. Her toe should still hurt. And her blood should be red.

  Try as she might to connect her thoughts to understand, what was happening to her – within her – made no sense.

  A sudden loud thumping noise came at her, like the insistent beat of a tympani drum. At first it beat at a regular pace but soon became a rapid roll as the sound came closer.

  Wump, wump, wump, quickly and persistently. Over and over as the sound approached, battering the air viciously. The noise strong enough to become a physical pulse against her body.

  I have to avoid the noise.

  Caterina hunkered down beneath the lower branches of one of the more thickly needled evergreens in the Pine Barrens.

  The sound intensified as did the wind which whirled fallen leaves and needles around and around the base of the tree. The helicopter making the din paused overhead and the branches of the pine whipped wildly against her naked body, but Caterina remained immobile, hugging the trunk of the tree. Digging her fingers into the wood to hold on.

  The tree trunk gave easily beneath her fingers, surprising her, but providing her with a firm grasp as she tried to blend in beneath the branches of the evergreen.

  Danger was near.

  Danger from the helicopter kicking up the air and foliage around her.

  Closing her eyes and letting out a soft mewl of fear, she burrowed deeper against the thick trunk of the pine, hoping she wouldn't be seen.

  She couldn’t go back to the lab.

  After long minutes, the helicopter moved on with a loud screaming whir, but Caterina remained in her protective squat, waiting. Fingers dug as deep as her knuckles into the tree trunk until she extracted them, sticky with sap.

  It'll be night again soon, she thought as she looked around.

  She glanced at the fingers she had sunk deep into the trunk of the tree. Tacky fingers with an odd cast to the skin. She tried to make sense of her actions and the strange color, but couldn’t.

  Immediately after came the vision of those fingers rapidly shifting against strings. Pressing against smoothly shaped wood, producing sensually rich sound.

  Producing music.

  Her music.

  She grabbed a hold of those ideas, hoping the fragmented ideas would finally come together to make sense.

  She didn't know how long she remained there, rooted to the spot, trying to collect her thoughts, but the strain in her legs grew steadily until her muscles screamed in agony.

  Caterina finally gave into the call of her body, rose, and stepped away from the protective embrace of the evergreen. But even as she did so, the deep green of the pine needles remained wrapped around her skin as she walked out into the open.

  She studied her hands and feet. Her skin had assumed the color of the verdant woods around her.

  I’m human, but my skin isn’t, she thought as the full impact of her condition hit her.

  Shaking her head to clear the illogical vision, she then noticed something familiar despite the odd colors which had returned to her vision, creating almost a kaleidoscope blur. Locking her gaze on one spot in the distance, the images sharpened.

  Lights.

  Those were lights up ahead.

  The lights meant something good. Something better than the woods around her.

  That recollection triggered a string of other ideas which finally coalesced into a more complex understanding about herself.

  She had been at the lab because she was sick, but had escaped to be safe.

  With that realization immediately came another.

  She was naked.

  Or at least she thought she was, gazing down at herself.

  Her skin had that odd color. When she touched her stomach, the sap sticky pads of her fingers met the softer skin of her midsection. The deep green of the pine tree covered most of her body, but near her ankles the tone of her skin blended to the color of the earth at her feet.

  Impossibly wrong, she thought.

  As wrong as the now fully healed stub of her toe and the way she had been able to shove her fingers into the trunk of the evergreen.

  She had to hide until she could make sense of what was happening, but she couldn't walk around naked.

  She should have grabbed some clothes when she had made her escape only . . .

  Visions battered her brain, driving her to her knees.

  So much blood.

  On the floor and walls.

  All over her hands.

  All over Dr. Wells.

  There hadn't been time to take any clothes.

  She wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back and forth for a moment as she forced away the disturbing memories and marshaled her thoughts.

  She would have to find some clothes once she went . . .

  Where am I going? she asked herself, standing and examining the bloodstains on her body.

  The realization rushed through her, surprising her with its clarity and bringing immense joy.

  I'm going home.

  Sins of the Flesh: Chapter Three

  The whole thing smelled rotten and not even the possibility of becoming a rich man could make the odor go away.

  Mick refused to think about why he still had not cashed the check tucked into his wallet. A job was a job, he told himself, and this assignment was paying way better than most. The money was why he had opted for this way of life years earlier, needing to help his family. A fire had nearly destroyed the restaurant which had been their livelihood since arriving from Mexico over twenty years ago. The money the insurance company had provided as a settlement had not been enough to repair the damage and without his assistance, it would have been impossible to re-open the restaurant and for his siblings to finish their schooling.

  But they don’t need your help anymore, the voice in his head challenged, urging him that there were other jobs he could do. Jobs that were not as risky and where he could use his skills to help and not hurt.

  The way he might have to hurt Caterina Shaw if he couldn’t control her.

  Images of the destruction wrought on Edwards’ dead partner came to mind, warning him about what Caterina had supposedly done. But apprehension filled his gut as he stared at the nervous young woman seated across from him, Caterina’s best friend.

  “I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me, Ms. Rogers,” he said in an attempt to alleviate the woman’s obvious distress.

  “At the door you said you were hired by – ”

  “Wardwell Biotech,” he said, providing her the name of Edwards’ and Wells’ company much as he had when she had been shutting the door in his face. It had been his warning about her friend being hurt and his big booted foot in the door which had gained him access to the tony Rittenhouse Square townhouse.

  She nodded, but continued to wring her hands over and over as she said, “I was so worried when Cat told me about the treatment only . . .”

  “She would have died without it.”

  After a
precise nod of her head, Ms. Rogers finally stilled the motion of her hands, splaying her fingers against her tailored navy blue slacks. “Cat knew she might die even with the treatment, but she had to have her music back.”

  Mick recalled the video he had watched earlier that day which had been taken months before Caterina had signed onto Dr. Edwards' little science experiment. Anyone viewing the performance would be hard pressed to realize that the vibrant young woman creating such wondrous music was terminally ill.

  Caterina’s legs had been wrapped around the cello as she fingered the strings and her bow stroked the profoundly rich tones from the instrument. Every movement seduced yet more from the musical piece, imbuing each note with emotion and passion.

  The music had clearly been her life.

  With a curt nod, Mick reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and removed a small pad and pen. Flipping through his notes, he continued with his questioning.

  “I’ve spoken to a number of Caterina’s acquaintances. Everyone says she was pleasant and caring. Dedicated to friends, family, and career. Would you say it was in that order?”

  A confused look danced across Elizabeth Rogers’ flawless features. “Meaning?”

  “Which was more important to Caterina? Her career or her family or – ”

  “Cat didn’t have any family. She lost her mother when she was six, although there were some distant cousins in Mexico. She and her father were estranged. He never really approved of her chosen profession. He died when Cat was in college.”

  “So her father never knew about her success?”

  “No, not that it mattered to Cat. She wasn’t about being a celebrity.”

  Caterina had come across as humble, even possibly shy in the interviews Mick had seen. But he wondered how it must feel to be one of the world's premiere cellists and perform for kings, presidents, and other dignitaries and have no one with whom to share that success.

  “What about men?” he said. Caterina had been elegant. Refined. Passionate. Physically beautiful.

  Elizabeth shook her head and her blonde ponytail swished back and forth from the force of the movement. “Cat was too involved with her friends and career. In that order,” she clarified. “There was an occasional man every now and then, but nothing significant. Especially not in the last several years thanks to the cancer.”

  He nodded, imagining that the illness might have made relationships difficult.

  Had that made her resentful? Had the loss of her parents angered her? he wondered as he flipped the pages in his notepad.

  It would take a lot of rage to cold-bloodedly rip a man apart and pith him the way one might a mouse before vivisection.

  “Did that bother her? Was she upset?”

  Elizabeth’s rough laugh stopped him. “Upset? On the contrary. Cat never let it get to her. With each setback, she found a way to continue. When she went blind, she learned to play the pieces by ear.”

  He sensed something behind her words. Disapproval? “You were Caterina’s best friend.”

  “I am Cat’s best friend,” she immediately clarified.

  He leaned back in the delicate wing chair and it creaked with the weight of his body. Considering the other woman as she nervously fingered the thick gold chain at her neck, he said, “You’re angry. Jealous, maybe? She was first chair and yet she relied on you.”

  Elizabeth’s voice escalated with each word. “You mean because I helped her prepare her pieces after she went blind? While playing second fiddle, literally.”

  He shrugged, prompting her to rise elegantly from the sofa, her hands clasped tightly before her. “Cat and I are best friends. I’d do anything for her and she would do anything for me.”

  He rose from the chair as well, understanding that she was done with his questioning, but he pressed on. “Including giving her a place to hide?”

  “I don’t believe what they said about Cat on the news,” she answered, reaching for the thick gold chain again with a trembling hand.

  “Your friend is the main suspect, Elizabeth. These treatments – ”

  “Wouldn’t change Cat. This is all a lie,” she said and walked out of the parlor and down the short hall to the door of her townhouse, clearly intending him to follow.

  At the door, he paused and handed her his business card. She wouldn’t take it and so he leaned over and left it on a carved mahogany table near the entrance. “In case you have something else to tell me,” he said and walked out.

  The door slammed shut behind him, the sound like a gunshot in the quiet of the night.

  A block away lay Rittenhouse Square. It would be nearly empty at this time of night. A good place to think.

  Mick shoved his hands in his pockets and walked down 18th Street to Walnut, crossed over and at the corner, strolled down the diagonal path to the center of the square. He stopped to listen to the sounds of the fountain, assembling his thoughts, and then sauntered to a bench located close to a street light.

  He sat and contemplated what he had learned about Caterina Shaw. He was worried that he had let all that he had discovered about Caterina’s background influence him, something he rarely did. Usually all that information just amounted to raw data used to track his target. Determine its strengths and weaknesses. Prepare for the capture or kill.

  During the course of his brief investigations, it had become difficult to be so clinical about Caterina Shaw.

  He could kid himself and say that he didn’t know why, but it would be a lie. He knew why without a doubt.

  His search had revealed Caterina’s painful past as well as her tragic present. Neither had kept her from what she had wanted to do.

  He admired courage and perseverance. They were traits he had relied on more than once to keep himself safe. To keep safe the men in the Army Ranger unit he had once commanded.

  Although he didn’t know Caterina in the real sense of the word, Mick had gotten to know more about her than was good for him to complete his assignment. He forced himself to remember that the most important thing he had to recognize was what she was now – a dangerous murderer.

  Or at least that's what Edwards wanted him to believe.

  He was having trouble buying into that, but then the last entry on her medical history played through his brain for what had to be the hundredth time since his meeting with Edwards earlier that morning.

  Patient has recently developed uncontrollable seizures leading to episodes of rage combined with full expression of the implanted gene sequence.

  Mick’s early life hadn't allowed for extensive schooling, but he had more than made up for that during his time as an Army Ranger. He had devoured whatever manuals the Army had tossed at him in addition to finally obtaining not only his college degree, but becoming certified as an EMT.

  The medical information in Caterina's file was therefore clear. Coupled with the information he had gathered on the good doctors Edwards and Wells, he once again tried to imagine the real life results which would occur from the last statement in her medical history.

  Patient . . . uncontrollable seizures . . . episodes of rage . . . full expression . . ., he repeated to himself before turning to the notes he had made from her medical history and his own research.

  Apparently, Edwards and Wells had been able to identify beneficial gene sequences in nearly half a dozen creatures. Using modern cloning techniques, they had isolated those sequences and replicated them in sufficient quantities to be able to combine them with viral carriers.

  Although the idea of intentionally letting a live virus loose in someone's body made him nervous, apparently it was a common practice. Once those altered viruses were injected into the subject, the natural viral process took over, replicating and insinuating the DNA into the subject's genes.

  As Mick reviewed his scribbling by the light of the street lamp, he realized that Edwards and Wells also appeared to have found a way to not only target where the recombination occurred, but to control the replication process and expr
ession of the implanted gene sequence.

  Or at least they thought they had learned to control the replication and expression.

  The seizures from which Caterina had supposedly been suffering together with the weird activity caused by the gene clearly meant their control wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

  If that entry in her medical history was even true. The entry could be the start of the groundwork for framing Caterina for Wells’ murder.

  He put aside his pad and leaned back against the stone balustrade which surrounded the center of the square and formed a back rest of sorts for the nearby cement bench. He laced his fingers behind his head while he imagined what kinds of behavior the foreign genes might cause as well as how desperate someone might need to be to try such a risky procedure.

  Once again it occurred to him that he would have chosen to blow out his brains, but . . .

  He surged forward and pulled out Caterina's photo from his jacket pocket. Ran the pads of his fingers across the glossy surface, intrigued not only by her beauty, but also by her tenacity.

  Such strength.

  Passion.

  Intelligence.

  Hard traits to resist, he thought until he remembered the check he had folded and slipped into his wallet.

  Quite a lot of money.

  Enough to make him set for a couple of years and help out his family. Maybe even enough allow him to leave this nasty life for another one. Possibly even an honorable one with simpler demands and easier decisions to make.

  He risked another glimpse at Caterina’s photo. It was a damn shame that the sole decision he would have to make about her was whether to take her in dead or alive.

  * * *

  With the light of a full moon guiding her, Caterina moved from the safety of the Pine Barrens and slipped through an unlocked door into one of the buildings along the edges of Camden.

  Inside she kept close to the outside wall, plastering herself to its rough cinder block. When she heard a sound, she paused and held her breath.

  Someone was coming her way. The footsteps were soft, regular as a metronome as the person approached.