Lydia began to protest, then rethought Christian’s words. He was probably right. They did have a lot of things in common and seemed to think the same way on a lot of subjects. “Something like that, I guess.” She paused for a second as the floors blinked by. “Where do you know her from?”
Christian slanted a look in her direction. “Who says I know her?”
“Give me a little credit, Christian. I notice things for a living.”
The similarity in their phrasing struck him. “Funny, she said she tracks down things for a living.”
Good, he admitted meeting Cate. Next question. “When did she say that?”
He couldn’t help wondering why Lydia seemed so interested. Was there something about Cate he should know? He remembered that when his brother had met Lydia, she was assigned to a terrorist task force. After they’d gotten married, her concession to him was switching departments. Lydia’s mother told Lukas that he had immediately earned her undying gratitude.
“She was here the other week, visiting one of my patients.”
The elevator doors opened and he placed his hand to the small of her back, ushering her out.
“That’s odd. I wasn’t aware she knew anyone here. She just transferred in from San Francisco.” Because she thought it might make Cate a little more accessible to Christian, a little more human, she added a more personal note. “Her mother died recently and she thought she needed a change.”
“Her mother?” he echoed. For a moment, he’d forgotten, but then recalled that Cate had told him that herself the one time they’d talked.
“Yes, you know, like what Juanita is to you.”
Turning a corner, they approached his office. He noticed that Lydia was looking up and down the hallway, as if she was afraid of running into someone.
Lukas?
It didn’t seem plausible, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being incredibly secretive and that it had something to do with his brother.
Rather than take the first door that led to his office, he used the second one, the one that admitted him in the back. He saw his nurse, Lisa, looking his way, to see what was going on.
Christian nodded at her and put his finger to his lips. “I’m not here,” he whispered, then explained, “I’m still on call at the E.R.”
“Someone go into labor?” Lisa guessed.
Rather than get into the circumstances right now, Christian felt it was easier just to nod and agree. He’d fill his nurse in on the details later.
“Tell my patients if they want to reschedule, they’re welcome to do that. Right now, I’m not sure how long I’ll be.”
Already opening the scheduling book, Lisa nodded. She glanced once last time toward the rear of the office. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. Graywolf,” she mouthed.
Lydia forced a smile to her lips. “Same here.”
She only wished it was under better circumstances, Lydia thought as she followed Christian into the last examination room.
Christian closed the door behind her. “That didn’t look very genuine.”
Suddenly very nervous, she fingered the paper sheet covering the examination table. This was it. She was going to get her answer. “What didn’t?”
“Your smile.” And her voice had a slight tremor in it, now that he noticed. Christian crossed his arms before him. “Okay, what’s up?”
She didn’t blurt it out, although it was hot on her tongue. Instead, her FBI training kicking in, she gave him a little background information first. “My doctor recently retired. Dr. Alicia Price,” she added.
“I know. The hospital was sorry to lose her.”
Lydia ran her hands along her arms. The room temperature was low, but definitely not chilly enough to warrant her actions, Christian observed.
She moved around the room, a hummingbird trying to find a place to perch if not land. “I’m not too comfortable with who she recommended take her place.”
“Okay.” He waited, watching her struggle, the silence stretching out until he finally broke it. “Lydia, is something wrong?”
Yes, something’s wrong. I’m supposed to be happy, but I can’t be. Not yet.
Lydia searched for inner strength. Turning to face him again, she said, “I think I’m pregnant.”
Abandoning his role as doctor, Christian threw his arms around his sister-in-law and hugged her. “Lydia, that’s wonderful.” He thought he felt a little resistance on her part, as if she just couldn’t relax. Stepping back, he studied her face.
Lydia didn’t look the way he thought she would under the circumstances. He’d always thought that she wanted children. He knew his brother did. “It is wonderful, isn’t it?”
Lydia dragged her hand through her hair. It fell about her face, straight and long. “Yes, and no.”
He leaned against the examination table. “Tell me about the no part,” he said gently.
He’s probably going to think I’m horrible, Lydia thought. “If I’m pregnant, they’re going to put me behind a desk.”
“As they should.” And then a light began to dawn on him. Lydia had never been the type to sit back and let others do the work. She was a hands-on type of person.
“Yes.” Under normal circumstances, she thought, although it would make her antsy. But these weren’t normal circumstances. Not to her. “But I’m right in the middle of this case.”
He was trying to put the pieces together. “The case have anything to do with the girl in X-ray?”
Lydia nodded. “It has everything to do with the girl in X-ray.”
She didn’t ordinarily talk about cases. You never knew who was listening. But it was only Christian in the room. She trusted him. That was why she’d come to him in the first place. And she needed him on her side.
“We found her unconscious and chained to a toilet, for God’s sake. We think she’s part of a juvenile-prostitution ring. We’re working on something big, Christian, I can feel it. And I have to be out there, at least until we find out who’s pulling the strings. This isn’t just an isolated incident. Sitting this one out, working behind a desk, doesn’t do it for me.”
He could sympathize with her, but as a doctor and as her brother-in-law, his concerns took him elsewhere. “You have to think of the baby.”
Restless, she prowled around the small space, forming semicircles around the examination table. “I know, I know, and I am, but I’m also thinking of Susan.”
“Susan?” The name was unfamiliar to him. One of her friends?
“My cousin.” Funny, bright, beautiful Susan had been born late to her parents. A generation and a half separated them. “She would have been thirty this year.” After all this time, she could still feel a tightening in her throat when she talked about her cousin and what had happened to her. “It’s the usual story. Susan got to a certain age and suddenly she and her mother didn’t get along. She got fed up and ran away one summer when she was about that girl’s age. Her parents were frantic. They put up flyers, offered money, hired a private detective. Nothing.”
She sighed, looking beyond Christian. Into the past.
“I saw her about three years later. I wasn’t even sure it was her at first, she looked so different. So old and worn out. She’d gotten mixed up in prostitution and took drugs so she could tolerate living inside her own skin. I gave her money and helped her escape—yes,” she said when she saw the look on Christian’s face, “escape. The guy pimping her would have killed her rather than let her go. When she finally could talk about it, she told me that she’d been kidnapped, made a virtual prisoner forced to do things for this guy who ‘kept’ her. God, the horror in her eyes when she talked—” Lydia felt tears forming and blinked them back. “Susan finally killed herself because she couldn’t live with what she’d done, what she’d gone through. Someone took advantage of her, of her teenage rebellion. And someone’s taking advantage of these girls. I’ve got to stop him.”
He understood how she felt, but Lydia was talking as if she w
as the only one who felt this way. “You’re not alone in this.”
Lydia pressed her lips together. He was making sense. But she was talking from her heart, not her intellect. “I know, I know, there are lots of people to take my place. I’m sure that Cate’s more than good for it. But don’t you see, this is something I have to do, something I feel that I owe Susan?”
Christian got to the heart of the matter. “Does Lukas know? About the baby?”
“No.” She took a breath, fortifying herself. She knew she was asking a great deal of Christian. “And you can’t tell him.” She fell back on a technicality. “You’re my doctor.”
But Christian shook his head. “Lydia, I don’t think I should be the one to examine you. I don’t think either one of us would be comfortable with that.”
“But you can give me a test.”
He looked at her incredulously. “You haven’t taken any?” He would have thought that would be the first thing she would have done.
Lydia held up her hand, fingers spread. “Five,” she told him. “But I’ve never trusted anything that comes out of a box.”
He saw through her. “You’re hoping the test I do will tell you otherwise.”
“That’s the hope.”
He sighed, taking a plastic cup from the rack and handing it to her. “Bathroom’s that way. You know the drill.”
She nodded, leaving the room.
Ten minutes felt like forever.
“Well?” She fairly pounced on Christian when he walked back into the room.
He gave her the answer with mixed feelings. Ordinarily, he would have been delighted to say this to her. “You’re pregnant, Lydia. As for a doctor, Dr. Sheila Pollack is excellent.” The woman was head of the obstetrics department and was well known for her skill and her bedside manner. “I suggest you see her as soon as possible. I also suggest you tell my brother as soon as possible.”
Lydia nodded, but first she needed to buy herself some time. With any luck, she could push the investigation into high gear. There had to be someone who knew something but wasn’t saying. More cages had to be rattled. More informants had to be questioned. Sullivan was letting her handle this on her own. She had to get results.
“I promise, Christian, and this is a good thing, it really is. I want to have lots of babies.”
“Just at a more convenient time,” he said, filling in the unspoken part.
She smiled at her brother-in-law, grateful he understood. “Something like that. You won’t tell Lukas?”
He sighed. “It’s against my better judgment, but it’s your call. I won’t break your confidence even if I’m not comfortable with this.”
She kissed his cheek, relieved that she’d made the right call. “You’re the best.”
“Be that as it may, just make sure you tell him as soon as possible.”
“I will,” she promised.
He wanted to believe her.
Chapter 16
“Any word yet?” Lydia called out to Cate as she and Christian approached.
Cate stopped in midpace and shook her head in response. Rather than a few minutes, Lydia had been gone for almost half an hour. She couldn’t help wondering what was going on. Lydia looked a little more somber than when she’d left. As for the good-looking doctor, he was a shade away from scowling. Was something going on between them?
It didn’t seem possible. When Lydia and Lukas had been over to help her move in, they’d seemed as if they were still very much in love. They’d hit that enviable rhythm that sometimes occurs between a husband and wife—the lucky ones. Lydia didn’t seem to be the type to jeopardize that for a little extramarital thrill.
And though she knew nothing about him, she didn’t get those vibes from Christian Graywolf, either. There was just something so upstanding about him. He was the kind of man to make flags stand up and salute as he walked by.
None of her business, Cate told herself.
The doctor stood behind her partner, giving no indication that he was taking his leave. Was he going to stick around until the girl they had found was brought back?
She was surprised to realize that she wanted him to stay. The next minute, she was shrugging the thought away. If she wanted him to remain, it wasn’t because of any physical reaction to him, but because Christian Graywolf was the only doctor she knew in the area and it always helped to have an in. Besides, since he was Lydia’s brother-in-law, that made the whole thing more personal and easier for all of them. Graywolf was their way of being able to find out what was going on without having to bring in a doctor from the bureau.
Generally speaking, except for Doc Ed, doctors were far too closemouthed for her liking.
Doctors weren’t the only ones, she thought. These days everyone had some kind of little clique, a small group they owed allegiance to. Doctors, FBI agents, everyone thought their territory was primary.
And what of her? Cate silently asked. What kind of a group did she ultimately belong to? None that she could think of.
Granted, she was a special agent, but this was a new team she was on, and although Lydia and the others had done what they could to make her feel welcome, the others had history together.
She had… What?
No history with anyone anymore, Cate realized. Again she felt that she needed roots. Someplace to have sprung up from, a point of origin. And again, she thought of Joan Cunningham. Thoughts of Joan brought her back full circle to Christian Graywolf.
She raised her eyes to his, more than vaguely aware of the fact that with his chiseled features and his dark, dark hair, the man was too damn attractive for his own good.
And maybe yours? a small voice inside her head whispered.
She blocked the voice out. Yes, he was handsome, but he was also Lydia’s brother-in-law, which somehow also put him off limits. His life had to be full of women. Women were known to develop crushes on their doctors. There was no doubt in her mind that Christian Graywolf probably had three times his share. Maybe four.
Cate forced herself to focus. Lydia had asked her a question when she’d approached. Something about the girl. And then it came back to her.
“They haven’t come back from the X-ray facility,” she told her partner. “I sent McClure up there with them, just in case someone was watching the warehouse and realized their mistake.”
It had been totally her call. The other agent had been about to go back to the field office when she’d asked him to play bodyguard. He didn’t look as if he liked taking orders from the task force newbie, but all things taken into account, she had more time on her sheet than he had on his. And she was also speaking for Lydia in the woman’s absence.
Cate caught herself watching in silent fascination as two perfect, midnight black brows drew together over the bridge of his nose.
“Mistake?” Christian asked.
She was going to have to learn to eat on a regular basis. Her blood sugar had to be much too low, she upbraided herself. Her head spun just enough to make her feel unstable.
“That they left her alive instead of dead.” Had they not arrived when they did, Cate was sure that the girl would have died.
Christian paused, scrutinizing his sister-in-law’s partner. The two were obviously cut from the same cloth, even the same bolt, he thought. They even talked alike. Had he not been looking at her when she spoke, he would have been hard-pressed to say which one of them had just answered him.
A memory came to him out of nowhere, burrowing in. When Lukas had first brought Lydia around, he’d had what he later recognized to be a minor crush on her. Not that he would have ever done anything about it despite the very difficult patch that he and Alma were going through at the time. Lukas was his older brother and loyalty meant more to him than anything.
But he could still envy Lukas because Lydia was everything any man would have ever wanted in a woman. Not only did she have intelligence, wit and a charm about her, but she was damn beautiful to boot.
And Lydia’s new p
artner reminded him a great deal of her.
They were both blond, both intelligent, independent and self-assured. And both were apparently very dedicated to their work.
Not only that, but Cate was just as beautiful as Lydia was. He blinked. It had been a long time since anyone’s physical appearance had even registered with him. He supposed, if his life had been different, if there had been no wife to rip out his heart, he might have been somewhat interested in this woman. Maybe even more than just somewhat, he amended silently.
But there had been a wife. And Alma had left a permanent mark on him. He’d read once that you never got over a loved one’s suicide, never really made peace with it. The best you could hope for was a co-existence that wasn’t too markedly painful.
Alma’s suicide would dictate his behavior for the rest of his life.
Otherwise…
He shook himself free of a sweet fragrance that somehow seemed to separate itself from the clean, antiseptic scent of the hospital. The scent whispered softly through him like a long-forgotten melody.
Perfume? Shampoo? Soap? It didn’t belong to Lydia because he’d only just now become aware of it.
Cate?
“I’ll go check on her for you,” Christian abruptly told Lydia.
As he started to go toward the service elevators that were used to take inpatients to the various labs and X-ray facilities, he realized that her perfume followed him.
Cate had fallen into step beside him.
“Mind if I tag along?” Cate glanced over her shoulder and called “I’ll be right back” to Lydia.
Christian looked quizzically over the woman’s head toward Lydia for an explanation. But his sister-in-law merely spread her hands, indicating that she had no more of a clue than he did why her partner was asking to accompany him.
“They won’t tell you anything,” he informed her shortly.
“I know that. That’s what I have you for.” She smiled broadly at him and he caught himself thinking that his sister-in-law’s partner had one of those unexpected smiles that seemed to light up the entire area. In a single moment it transformed her face from serious to charming, bordering on ethereal.
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