Lydia looked out the huge multipaned window. Here the dust had been left undisturbed, acting as a natural curtain to the activities that had to have gone on inside. Was this where it all had begun? The meetings, the hate that was encouraged and urged to feed on itself? It looked not unlike any other loft in any other industrial area. But it wasn’t.
Absently she realized that Elliot had asked her a question and was waiting for some kind of an answer. “My cell was off.”
“The lab bo—techs’ll be here in half an hour, barring any traffic jams,” he told her. “You weren’t at your place, either,” he added casually.
Lydia raised an eyebrow as she looked at Elliot, the questions finally registering. “Checking up on me, Elliot?”
He spread his hands wide, an overly innocent expression on his rounded face. “No, just glad you’re getting a life, that’s all.”
Janice had been talking to him again, Lydia thought with an inward sigh. Why did married people always think you weren’t happy unless you were spoken for, too? “I have a life, Elliot. With the FBI, investigating crazies who get carried away with incendiary devices.”
He ignored the warning note in her voice. “Can’t keep you warm at night.”
Very carefully, she placed the detonator cap into a fresh plastic bag she had in her pocket. “That’s why God invented electric blankets, Elliot.”
He watched her seal the bag. Just as she wanted to seal her life. With a quick, firm, final motion. “Look, I’m not prying…”
The hell he wasn’t. “Good,” she said dismissively.
Elliot debated withdrawing, but he liked Lydia too much to perpetually respect her privacy at the expense of telling her what she needed to hear for her own good.
Moving around so that he was in front of her as she began to head out of the loft, he said, “But just for the record, I think maybe you should admit to yourself that your dad wasn’t perfect.”
Lydia stopped dead. The look she gave him made him do the same. She did not want to listen to anyone, not even Elliot, analyze her behavior for any reason. “Where’s this coming from, Elliot?”
“From the heart,” he told her with only a hint of hesitation. Lydia exploding was a fearsome thing to witness and she exploded when people pried into her private life. But this had to be said. For her own good. “I’ve been your partner since the beginning. I know all about your dad, the medals, the decorations for bravery. You thought he was perfect.”
She didn’t like being placed in a position where she had to defend her father, but if it came down to that, she could. “He damn near was.”
“To a fourteen-year-old girl,” Elliot stressed. That was how old she’d been when her father was killed. Elliot was losing her and he knew it. He sped up. “My point is that maybe thinking that way is stopping you from finding someone of your own. Your mother found someone.” If the widow could, so could the daughter, he was sure of it. “Your stepfather’s a great guy.”
They’d all gotten together for the last Fourth of July barbecue. Her mother and Arthur, Elliot, his wife and kids. And her. Was that where this was coming from? Because she’d come alone to the barbecue? Well, she’d rather be alone than tied for eternity to someone she didn’t want to be tied to, simply to avoid being lonely, which she was not.
She also couldn’t picture spending the rest of her life with someone like Arthur, kind though he was. Arthur could put fireflies to sleep.
But because her mother had lived on the edge for all those years, worried that the next time the phone would ring it would be someone to tell her bad news about her husband, Lydia could readily understand why Louise had married Arthur.
“Yes, he is,” she readily agreed. “He’s just not my father.”
She’d be the last to admit it, but Elliot knew there was hero worship involved in the way Lydia felt about her father. The man had died too soon for her to discover the flaws he had, the ones everyone had that made them human.
“No man will live up to your father, Lyd, until you take him off that pedestal.”
Elliot was her best friend as well as her partner, but she could feel her patience wearing thin. “Can we talk about something else now? Like about what they’re paying us to do?”
He nodded, knowing that it was time to retreat. “I’ve said my piece.”
She pinned him with a look, warning him that he’d better stick to his word. “Good.”
Because he was her friend, Elliot couldn’t help adding a coda. “For now.”
Lydia groaned as she preceded him out of the deserted loft.
Lydia got off the crowded elevator on the fifth floor at Blair Memorial and automatically scanned both sides of the corridor. She wasn’t just looking around for anyone suspicious, she was also keeping an eye out for Lukas.
She wasn’t at all sure just how she would react the next time she encountered the good doctor after what had happened between them last night, but she knew that an encounter was inevitable. With Elliot going to the office to run down some information regarding the detonator cap she’d discovered, Lydia had elected to return to the hospital to check on Conroy. With the frustration of a near fruitless morning behind her, she wanted something positive to happen. More than anything, she wanted Conroy awake for questioning.
She walked into the glass-partitioned room, nodding at Rodriguez, and found that there was no change in Conroy’s status. He was still unconscious, still in the coma he had been medically eased into for his own well-being.
She studied the man’s face. He looked dead to the world. Her patience felt as if it was on a short lease. Turning away, she looked at the special agent she’d left watching over the prisoner. “Dr. Graywolf show up this morning?”
Rodriguez tucked away the magazine he’d been perusing. She noted that the cover boldly announced the current football season. “Early.”
“And?”
The wide shoulders that had once belonged to a promising college fullback rose and fell. “And then he left.”
She blew out an angry breath. “Did he say anything?”
Looking properly intimidated, Rodriguez shook his head. “Not to me.”
“Great. Where is he now?” Ethan opened his mouth to reply, but she anticipated his negative answer. “Never mind, I’ll have him paged. Just continue doing what you were doing.”
Pushing the door open, she left the room.
Nerves were adding to her agitation. Nerves that were dancing like beads of water dropped on a sizzling-hot pan. Why, damn it?
Was it because they’d slept together?
Her mouth curved despite her mood. It was an entire misnomer. Very little sleeping had gone on last night. But even so, it wasn’t like her to have any qualms about interacting with someone she’d slept with. It hadn’t happened often, but it had happened, and she hadn’t been uncomfortable with the situation.
This time, though, it was different. This time she wasn’t remotely comfortable with the situation. She would like to blame this state of unrest on Elliot and his pep talk, but she was too good an investigator for that. The nerves had been there before Elliot had ever opened his mouth in the loft. They had sprung up early this morning, the moment she’d opened her eyes and intensified when she’d discovered she couldn’t make good her silent escape.
She didn’t like feeling nervous, wasn’t used to it. It was like watching the sky, seeing the storm clouds gathering, and waiting for that first loud clap of thunder to shake the earth.
Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to smother the feeling and make it go away.
But this was her problem, no one else’s, and somehow she was going to have to deal with it.
Coming to the nurses’ station, she had a nurse page Lukas, then stood back and waited to confront the source of her unrest about her prisoner. It didn’t put her in the best of moods.
Lukas’s office was in the medical complex directly across the street from Blair Memorial and, since it was just a little past noon, he d
ecided to forgo making a call and to respond in person to the page.
He came fearing the worst. That the call was about his uncle. He’d had Henry checked into the hospital and, not wanting to rely on whatever Doc Brown’s office might eventually fax over, Lukas had left orders for a battery of tests to be done to determine, as accurately as possible, the exact state of his uncle’s heart. He had also left strict instructions to page him at the first sign that his uncle was in any immediate danger.
Hurrying out of the elevator, his face an impassive mask to hide the turmoil going on within, Lukas quickly arrived at the nurses’ station.
“What’s the emergency?” he demanded of the woman behind the counter.
“I am.”
Turning, he saw Lydia coming out of the alcove where that floor’s coffee machine was housed. There was a paper cup in her hand.
The tension of the morning interfered with what might have been, under any other circumstances, a nice moment. If Lydia had been the one to have him summoned, the problem wasn’t about his uncle. Relief hid behind annoyance at being made to rush over.
“What is it?” he asked crisply.
She didn’t like his tone. It sounded edgy, bordering on anger. Did he think she’d had him paged for personal reasons? Now that their night of passion was behind them—maybe even a notch on his belt—was he afraid that there might be repercussions? That she’d want something from him, maybe even have some kind of designs on him?
The pompous jerk.
Your own fault. Lydia felt her shoulders stiffen as she cursed the lack of control she’d displayed last night.
“Conroy’s still unconscious.” Her tone deliberately matched his.
“I know. I checked on him this morning.”
Now that he was here, Lukas decided, he would stop by his uncle’s room down the hall to see if any of the test results had come back. He’d had his uncle admitted to the CCU for obvious reasons: the battery of monitors necessary to watch his condition were all here.
“Well, just how long is this going to go on?” He was being maddeningly blasé about this.
“As long as it needs to.” The fine skeins of his patience unraveled. He walked to the alcove, indicating that she should follow him. He waited until she joined him. When she did, he gave it to her with both guns. “Look, Special Agent Wakefield, I have other patients to tend to. I’ve done all I can for Conroy. The rest is up to him. I can’t come running over here like some lackey every time you want to know ‘are we there yet?’ like some kid on a cross-country drive. We’ll be there when we’re there. Do I make myself clear?”
For two cents she’d haul off and hit him. Had she been twenty years younger, she would have. But she wasn’t. And she had a position to maintain, so she kept silent.
“Perfectly,” she stormed, turning on her heel and walking away.
Angry with her for triggering his outburst, with himself for his uncalled for reaction, and with the anxiety that was gnawing away at his insides, the fear that his uncle’s problem might be too serious for him to handle, Lukas silently heaped curses on his own hot head.
He started to go after her, to somehow make amends and apologize for snapping, but his pager went off again. This time it was his office.
Torn, he decided that he was in no condition to say anything to Lydia that she would remotely consider redeeming. By the look in her eyes when she turned away, she was too angry. She’d probably cut off his head if he tried to apologize right now—and with good reason.
He hurried off to answer his page.
She was bored, and her eyes had begun to droop. But the instant she heard the door open, Lydia stiffened, her body alert.
Stiffening was the last thing she needed to do. Her whole body felt as if rigor mortis was setting in. Taking over for Peterson after his shift was over, she’d been sitting beside Conroy for the past two hours in the darkening room, waiting for him to come to. Willing him to open his eyes again.
Trying not to think about what Elliot had said to her earlier about her father.
Trying not to admit that maybe there was a germ of truth in it.
Her hand on the hilt of her service weapon, she stared as she saw what looked to be a white cloth poking through the opening between the door and the frame. What the hell was going on?
Slowly the door opened and then Lukas walked in. He crumpled the cloth in his hand, tossing it aside. “They told me you were here.”
“I am,” she replied crisply. Angry about the dressing down he’d delivered in the corridor this afternoon, she wasn’t about to give him an opening to repeat his performance. Her tone kept him several leagues away.
Well, this is awkward, he thought.
He’d had the rest of the afternoon to chastise himself for his behavior and to try to explain it to himself. The obvious reasons were only partially responsible. There were other, deeper reasons and he didn’t know how to go about exploring them without undermining himself. So for now, he left it alone.
But he couldn’t leave what he’d done alone. He’d always believed in owning up to his mistakes and in trying to make amends, no matter what it cost him. And this time, it was going to cost him a lot, he thought. Because absolution wasn’t going to come easy.
She rose. “If you want to examine him, I’ll get out of your way.”
He’d never seen a look so stony, which, considering the things he’d done as a youth, was saying a lot, he thought.
Lukas caught her arm as she passed him and realized it was the injured one when she winced. He released his hold immediately. “Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” she muttered, flexing her arm. Wanting nothing more than to leave the room. Calling herself a coward for the very desire.
She was going to leave anyway. Lukas placed himself in her path. “No, I mean I’m sorry. Sorry for this morning.”
Lydia lifted her chin, defiant, her eyes almost blazing. “So am I, I should have been gone before you woke up.”
She still didn’t get it, he realized. “I’m talking about this morning in the hospital.” This wasn’t easy, but it had to be said. “I had no right to talk to you that way.”
“Well, we seem to be in agreement there.” She paused. “Look, you had a lot on your mind, it’s all right.”
He thought of his uncle. The tests had all indicated that Doc Brown knew what he was talking about. His uncle needed bypass surgery. The sooner the better. Not wanting to wait, he’d scheduled it for eleven the next day, giving his uncle enough time to prepare mentally. Lukas would have rather done the surgery immediately, but it wasn’t an all-out emergency and he hadn’t wanted to alarm the old man. A calm state of mind could only help Henry.
He squelched a sudden desire to touch her face. It had all but blind-sided him.
“You’re right. I did have a lot on my mind, but it’s no excuse to take it out on you.”
“Fine, you made your apology,” she said coolly. “Now examine your patient and then leave so I can go on doing what I’m here to do. My job,” she emphasized.
He saw beneath the cool tone. Saw because she employed the same defenses he did. He’d hurt her, he realized. And it was going to take more than a crisp apology to make amends.
“I’m not here to examine the patient. I’m here to apologize and you’re not making it easy.”
Her eyes scrutinized his, looking for the truth. “I don’t make anything easy.”
“So I’m learning.” He glanced at the overhead clock on the wall. “When do you go off duty?”
She’d brought a copy of the notes on the case with her to read tonight. “I wasn’t planning to tonight.”
He saw the thick file on the table. Probably her reading material. “Then take a break. I’d like to talk to you in private. Get someone to cover for you.” He nodded at the unconscious patient. “This is a baby-sitting detail anyway.”
She frowned, looking at him for a long moment. “All right, I’ll give you twenty minutes.”
Chapter 11
She peered into the open area outside Conroy’s room and called to Rodriguez. The special agent was busy talking to a young, fresh-faced nurse and making nice progress from the looks of it, Lydia observed.
Rodriguez was at her side instantly, eager to be pressed into service.
She knew she was going to disappoint him. “Stay with the prisoner for a few minutes for me, will you?”
“You got it, Special Agent Wakefield.”
She had to keep from smiling. The man made “special agent” sound as though it were a noble title, second only to “queen.” “Thanks.” Lydia walked outside, through the double doors to the inner corridor that separated the CCU area from the rest of the hospital.
Once there, she had second thoughts about going anywhere with Lukas. He could say what needed to be said here in the corridor. She turned abruptly toward him. “Look, there’s no need to apologize, privately or otherwise.”
Her voice was distant, detached, but he saw the fire in her eyes. Fire that pulled at him, hypnotically pulling him closer.
“I think there is,” he told her quietly. “At least I’d like to explain why I jumped all over you like that earlier.”
She felt her back going up. If he was trying to salve his conscience, he wasn’t about to get away with it with a few well-chosen words. “You don’t have to, I know why.”
“You know?”
Just how extensive was her intelligence monitoring? Were the examining rooms bugged now? He knew that was technically against the law because of doctor-patient privilege, but he wasn’t naive. There were ways to get around almost anything, openly or covertly.
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