Extreme Danger

by Shannon McKenna

  Mathes beat a hasty retreat, so he wouldn’t have to look at Helen’s thunderous face. God, a man got no peace in his own home.

  All this family drama sweetened his mood nicely for when he slid into the driver’s seat of the car. Diana was sitting up again, to his extreme irritation. He seized a handful of her hair and yanked it down. Her face whacked the plastic cupholder on the fold-down center console. That was going to leave a bruise, he thought. The next thought came quickly, resolute and cold.

  It doesn’t matter now.

  He grimly wrapped his mind around the idea as he put some distance between them and his own neighborhood. If Diana was so far gone that she would accost him at his own home, she had become dangerously unpredictable. A security liability. He suppressed a pang of melancholy, let anger well up to replace it. This was going to be embarrassing and reflect very badly upon him with Zhoglo. And her whimpering was driving him crazy.

  “Shut up,” he said.

  She did, touching her face with the tips of her fingers. “Can I sit up now?”

  “Yes.”

  He saw a crimson flash of blood out of the corner of his eye, and slanted a look. He’d given her a split lip. Her face was distorted by the silent weeping.

  “I am interested to know exactly what you think could justify a crazy stunt like this,” he said. “Last night’s spectacle was bad enough.”

  She put her hand over her mouth and made a visible effort to compose herself.

  “Did you get the samples?” he demanded.

  “I delivered them directly to the lab,” she quavered. “I got there around three in the morning and left them with Jankins. And I specified that the older girl’s samples were a rush job.”

  “Good. Then why are you falling apart?”

  Her shoulders convulsed. He realized with a grinding sense of dismay that she was starting to cry again.

  “Richie, it was horrible,” she forced out. “They looked just terrible, for one thing—all of them are so thin and starved-looking, and they have so many bruises. Somebody should fire those horrible people who are watching them. And the little ones screamed and cried, and the oldest girl—oh, God, Richie, she kept trying and trying to talk to me, and then she…she attacked me!”

  He waited, a measured pause. “It doesn’t seem as if she injured you too badly. We discussed this, Diana. At length. You told me you could handle it. That you were good at compartmentalizing feelings.”

  “After all these years with you? Of course I’m good at it,” she said, with a sudden flare of heat. “But I wasn’t expecting…I didn’t think they would be so—”

  “Those children are refuse from the worst orphanages in the world,” he lectured. “They were abandoned and raised in institutions that drastically inhibited their cognitive development. What they have lost can never be regained and they are irreparably damaged. They will never lead normal lives. Never have fulfilling relationships. Never be contributing members of society.”

  “But Richie—”

  “And we have been through this! It’s a difficult ethical decision, but we made it together! The time for philosophical debate is past!”

  He abandoned his harangue. She was sobbing too hard to hear it.

  He wondered why he bothered. Habit, maybe. He should have realized at the banquet that she was breaking down, but the time crunch had stressed him, Helen had been chewing his ass all evening, and he hadn’t been able to think of an alternative plan on the spot. Besides, he shouldn’t stop scolding too soon. Diana may be going to rack and ruin, but she was an intelligent ruin. When she cared to be.

  “That girl…her eyes…” Diana faltered. “She looked so desperate. She tried to speak to me, Richie. She asked for help.”

  “And then she attacked you, remember?” He thought of Henry Metgers, who had already paid fifteen million dollars for his sixteen-year-old daughter’s new heart, and decided it was time to try a new tack.

  “The Metgers girl is an artistic genius,” he said. “A budding concert pianist. With her rare blood type, it could be months before a match became available through normal channels. She doesn’t have months, Diana. She will die in a matter of days without that heart.”

  “I know, I know,” Diana whispered.

  “And you would deny her that?” He pounded away at her, ruthlessly. “Edeline Metgers barely has the strength to speak. She’s a lovely, gifted child. She deserves to live. Doesn’t she?”

  “Of course she does, but Richie, I—”

  “Life is like that, Diana. I’m sorry, but it is. Either this brilliant child lives and shares her incredible talent with all humanity, or she goes out like a candle. And for what? For the continued existence of a stunted, mentally deficient girl, destined to huddle in a locked room for her entire meaningless existence?”

  “Richie, it was her eyes,” Diana wailed. “You don’t understand!”

  He cut off his tirade, which was wasted on her anyway, and pulled up to the curb, a block away from Diana’s bungalow.

  “Try not to think about it,” he suggested, forcing a gentleness into his voice that he did not feel. “Go on home.” He reached into the back seat for his briefcase, rummaged through the contents until he found the right bottle, and shook four pills out into his hand.

  There was a small bottle of mineral water in the seat. He held them out to her. “Take these,” he urged. “By the time you get to bed, you’ll already be feeling calmer. You’re exhausted. Get some rest.”

  She hesitated for a moment, but he held them out again, and she tossed them into her mouth and gulped them down. He began to relax.

  She took a deep breath, let out a shuddering sigh. “Richie, there’s something else.”

  He felt his skull throb again, from the teeth-gritting. “And that is?”

  “I think someone was watching me last night,” she whispered, after a nervous pause. “I think I was followed.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Diana,” he snapped. “That’s ridiculous. Of all times to start having paranoid delusions—”

  “Really! When I got back to the hotel, my key card didn’t work. When I went down to get another, they told me I’d been there five minutes before to get a key redone! Someone who looked like me pretended to be me, and searched my room. I know it sounds crazy.”

  Mathes stared into her wide, wet, mascara-ringed eyes, wondering if this went deeper than a simple nervous breakdown. Perhaps Diana was having bona fide hallucinations.

  It hardly mattered. The outcome for her was the same.

  “Richie, I’m so sorry about all this,” she said brokenly.

  He found the pack of tissues in the center console, pulled one out with slow, deliberate care and forced himself to wipe away the blood drying on her chin. He tried to pat down that wayward crest of hair.

  “Don’t cry,” he said. “You’re more tenderhearted than you knew. But you’re misplacing your compassion. Save it for those who deserve it. Those who can benefit from it. Otherwise, what’s it worth? Who benefits?” He stroked her sticky cheek.

  “Come up with me,” she pleaded, her long red nails digging into his forearm. “I need you. Please, Richie.”

  Her bleating whine grated on his raw nerves. He clamped down on the urge to shake her off. Apart from the fact that she could never arouse him in this condition, he also thought it unwise to let himself be seen by her neighbors entering her house. Much less filling any of her orifices with his genetic material. Considering.

  He touched her face with manufactured gentleness. “I can’t. I’m overbooked already. Helen and the girls are furious with me. And besides, you never get any rest when I’m with you. You need your rest.”

  She blinked, and then her eyes narrowed as if she were squinting into bright sunshine. “Why are you being so nice?”

  He was alarmed by the question. “Good God, Diana.”

  “It just seemed strange, that’s all,” she said softly. “You don’t have a nice bone in your body.”

&
nbsp; He tried to smile. “I’m not comfortable with it, either. So hurry and get back in top form, so I can be my nasty familiar self again.”

  She tried to smile with her swollen mouth. The results were painful. She got out of the car, teetering her unsteady way up the street.

  Hurry, hurry, he urged her mentally. He didn’t want anyone to notice how she looked or ask her if she’d been mugged. If she needed help. Or God forbid, the police.

  She went up her porch steps, and entered the house without encountering anyone. He pulled out into the street and dialed a number on the dedicated cell phone he had been given at the island.

  Zhoglo answered. “Dr. Mathes? Is there a problem?”

  He suppressed the unfamiliar nervousness the man’s baritone voice provoked in him. It was unacceptable that this man should actually intimidate him. He was beyond all that.

  “Ah, unfortunately yes,” he admitted. “Diana Evans, the anesthesiologist who I had chosen for my team. She, ah…she—”

  “Has proven to be less than worthy?” Zhoglo finished smoothly.

  “She’s become erratic and unpredictable,” Mathes said, reluctantly. “I think that she’s close to a total breakdown.”

  “Ah. I see. Sad. She is pretty. I saw pictures. I could have told you not to go into partnership with a woman that you are fucking, Doctor.”

  Mathes swallowed down his angry response before he realized that he had done it, and was left with nothing left to say. Jaw flapping.

  Maybe it was the scene at the island that intimidated him. A man could hardly be blamed for being a tad unnerved by throat-slashed, bullet-ridden corpses strewn left and right. Even Dr. Richard Mathes.

  “You will be able to manage without her, I presume?” Zhoglo asked. “The team I assembled for you is adequate, no?”

  “Yes,” he admitted. He had not yet met the members of the secret surgical teams, all of whom were from Eastern Europe, but he had studied their CV’s. All of them were superbly qualified. It made one wonder how Zhoglo had managed to hire so many fine doctors.

  He had a sudden flash of the two Parisian girls, tied to the bed, throats gaping red. Nigel Dobbs, smiling cordially in the foreground.

  Perhaps it was not such a mystery. All those doctors had families.

  “I’ve given her sedatives,” he said. “She should sleep for several hours today.”

  “Meaning that you want me to hurry up and clean up your mess for you, Doctor? By rights, you should put her down yourself.”

  Mathes was utterly taken aback. “I—”

  “Yes, I know.” Zhoglo sounded bored. “You are not competent. Such things require a specialist. I will send someone to take care of it. Is there anything more?”

  Diana’s mysterious double flashed through Mathes’s mind, and just as quickly he dismissed it. His situation was bad enough as it was. “No.”

  Zhoglo waited another moment and grunted. “Very well. I am not impressed, Doctor. Your Diana is not the security risk. You are.”

  Mathes hurried to excuse himself, flustered. “I am sorry—”

  “Do better, from now on,” Zhoglo said. “I do not tolerate failure. The effect of further failure upon your family would be…unfortunate.”

  The connection broke. Mathes let the phone drop from a hand that was numb with an emotion he barely remembered. Fear.

  He’d awakened a beast by poking a stick through the bars of its cage, just for fun—only to discover that the cage door hung wide open.

  Becca woke up with an odd feeling of well-being. Her body felt boneless and warm, limp. She wiggled, felt the deep ache in her groin that was beginning to feel almost normal. The feeling she always had after a mad marathon of hot, crazy sex with Nick. Wow.

  Not that the sensation was unpleasant. In fact, she squeezed, flexed, stretched, savored it. Her muff hurt quite a bit less than it had the previous mornings. It would seem that she was getting in shape, sex-wise. For the first time in her life.

  She reached out across the bed, found it empty. Her eyes popped open, searching for him.

  There he was. And how. He sat cross-legged on the rumpled sheets of the other bed, from which he’d stripped the covers. Not a stitch of clothing. He contemplated a large screen laptop. The screen illuminated his somber face with an eerie glow. The room was dim, lit only by the sunlight that glowed around the borders of the blackout curtains.

  In the gloom, Nick looked like a naked space-age monk deep in meditation, with that supernatural focus in his eyes. His concentration was laser sharp, slicing through whatever he saw. Including herself.

  His pose was outwardly relaxed, but the profound stillness of his body gave her the sense that he could explode into movement in a fraction of an instant. Explosive, volcanic emotions, hidden behind his steely façade, under constant, relentless pressure.

  He was so beautiful. It was outrageous. Every detail, those smoldering dark eyes beneath the thick, straight black brows that winged straight back, the hard, sealed mouth, the sharp cliff of his cheekbones. The bumpy terrain of his nose. And his body, all that hard, slabbed, ripped complexity of his heavy musculature. He was so lean, every muscle, every tendon visible, ready and willing to do its job. Not a speck of pinchable fat on him. Which was hardly surprising, since he forgot to eat for days at a time.

  Speaking of which. She was startled to realize that she’d done the same thing. Her last chance to eat had been lunchtime the day before, and she’d sacrificed that opportunity to go to the mall and buy slut lingerie. Not that she regretted it, but still. She was ravenous.

  And not just for food, either. She’d developed a host of other appetites. She wanted to grab and stroke and caress every inch of that man’s succulent, sinewy body. But she’d probably have to tie him down with rope to get the chance, he was so sexually aggressive.

  Tying him. Hmm. The idea had merit. She started to grin. Ten to one, he wouldn’t go for it, control freak that he was, but the resulting argument would be, well, stimulating. And the final outcome would be a lot of fun. She squirmed, just imagining it.

  Nick sensed the intensity of her gaze and glanced over, giving her a slow smile that made a string of inner firecrackers detonate inside her. Heat, sparks, colors. Excitement, confusion, fear.

  And joy. Of all things to find, in the midst of this mess. Blooming out of the wreckage of her life, like a perfect tulip in a trash heap.

  “Hi,” she whispered, blushing. Remembering just how many times he’d wakened her in the night, to start again. And again.

  He just nodded, studying her intently. She became suddenly aware of how she must look, with wild bed head, puffy morning face, smeared makeup. A Picasso woman, with nose and mouth and eyes all scrambled up. And even so, he had that look in his eyes about which there could be no mistake. She looked away, flustered, and her eyes fell on the digital clock on the bedstand. 12:24 P.M.

  Panic jangled through her, and hard on its heels, disorientation. She sought to anchor herself in this new world.

  Cool it. No reason to sweat. She’d been canned. No job to be late for, no responsibilities she was neglecting, no place to go, no one who was waiting for her angrily, tapping a foot, looking at a watch.

  It made her feel so lost. Adrift in nowhere. She had Carrie and Josh, of course, but she was desperately hoping to keep them at arm’s length until she managed to resolve this situation. God alone knew how.

  Every other point of reference in her life was gone. Except for Nick. He was a big one. Right now, he was her only one.

  A dangerous state of affairs, for both of them. She must not glom onto this guy, make him her reason to exist. The danger was there. As sexy and charismatic as he was, as scared and vulnerable as she felt.

  As madly in love with him as she was.

  She thought of that bad moment last night, when she’d practically blurted it out. And stopped herself, with the grace and subtlety of a stampeding elephant. It was just that she was so terrified of destroying this thing before it e
ven unfolded, before she was even sure what it was. The way she’d somehow managed to destroy all her other relationships.

  Nick was so much more important than any of the others. All the more reason not to trash it by opening her big mouth too soon. Scaring him off with inappropriate demands, inconvenient emotions.

  She stared at his sexy dimples. “It’s late,” she offered.

  “You were tired,” he said. “Me too. I slept more than I have in the last two months combined. Hours on end.” He sounded faintly amazed as he tapped a few keys, snapped the laptop shut and slid off the bed.

  Stood there before her, showing off. Inviting her to gape at his gorgeous bod. “I’m glad you’re awake,” he said. “I missed you.”

  She smothered a giggle. “Don’t even look at me that way until I’ve had a shower.”

  “I don’t care,” he said. His penis lengthened before her eyes.

  “I do,” she said, scrambling out of the far side of the bed. She backed up towards the bathroom, shimmying out of the garter belt. “Plus, I’m ravenous. Don’t even think about it. You sex freak.”

  He stared at her body, looking wistful. “Get your shower,” he said. “We’ve got to get moving if we want time to grab something to eat.”

  She teetered on one leg to peel a stocking off. “What? What’s our hurry? Where are we going?”

  He looked embarrassed, and uncomfortable. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “I don’t believe it myself.”

  “Just tell me,” she snapped.

  He lifted his hands helplessly. “We’re going to a wedding.”

  She was so startled, she thudded against the wall and almost slid down onto her butt. “You have got to be kidding.”

  “I wish I was,” he said. “It’s one of the guys I told you about, the guys who’re helping me track down the big Z. They keep inviting me to their weddings and barbecues and christenings, and Christ knows what all, and it seems ruder than shit to blow them off, since I’m mooching favors right and left. Big, expensive favors. So fuck it. We’re going.”

  “Uh-uh. Not me,” she said. “I’m not going to any weddings.”