by Rebecca York
He conveyed an impression of healthy, lean strength—but for the oozing bandage on his right thigh. The skin at the edge of the bloodstained gauze was an angry red. She was sure that if she removed the bandage, she would find an infected wound.
Megan felt her heartbeat quicken. She was a physician, but a physician who hadn't treated a sick patient in over three years.
Still, old lessons and the old sense of involvement came flooding back. She felt for the pulse at his neck, counted the beats. It was fast and rapid. Did he have a thermometer in the bathroom?
God, what did it matter? She could tell he had a raging fever just by touching his skin.
She started to stand, intent on looking for medical supplies, when he made a low moaning sound.
One moment he was motionless. In the next, he had lifted his head, pushed himself up on one elbow. As she watched, mesmerized, sooty black lashes fluttered against his cheeks. Then his lids snapped fully open, and his midnight gaze zeroed in on her. No, not on her. She was pretty certain he wasn't seeing Megan Sheridan, that his gaze had pierced through present reality to some other scene.
"Mr. Marshall. What happened to you?"
A harsh, guttural word welled in his throat. "Namhaid."
She had no idea what it meant or even what language he spoke.
Before she could ask what the strange-sounding word meant, the hand that was hidden under the sofa emerged. Holding a gun. Pointed in the general direction of her stomach.
Her gasp of fear was followed by a quick plea. "Don't shoot me!"
His eyes were bloodshot, haunted as they bored into her—or was it through her?
"Crawford." He spat out the word as if it were a curse.
"No." Violently she shook her head.
Marshall ignored the protest. "Did you come back to even the score?" he demanded, struggling to push himself up farther and flopping down again with what must have been a painful thunk. But the weapon was still in his hand, the muzzle only a foot from her body.
God, if his finger twitched on the trigger, she was a dead woman.
She wanted to back away. Run. But instinct told her that was exactly the wrong thing to do. "Put the gun down before it goes off," she ordered, amazed that her voice held steady.
The weapon wavered, then came back with unerring accuracy to the center of her stomach.
"Crawford," he said again, then dragged a labored breath into his lungs.
"No. My name is Megan Sheridan," she answered in a kind of daze, wishing she'd had the sense to get off his property before she looked in the window. "Please, don't shoot," she begged. "You don't even know me."
He stared at her with narrowed, red-rimmed eyes that struggled to focus on her face. "Namhaid," he said again, though this time he sounded less certain. "Enemy."
"I'm Megan Sheridan," she repeated desperately, wondering if he could hear her through his delirium. Apparently he had no idea who was in the room with him. Which would make no difference when he blew a hole in her abdomen.
He made a kind of growling noise in his throat that stirred the hairs on the back of her neck.
Then his body went slack, and the hand with the gun fell to the floor, the weapon clanking against the bare wood, as though holding it up had simply become too much effort.
Without giving herself time to think about the danger, she sprang forward, grabbed his wrist, and pushed the gun barrel away from both of them as she struggled to pry his fingers off the weapon.
He tried to hold on to the gun, to wrest his hand from her grip, but he was too weak to fight her. She got control of the pistol, scrambled to her feet, and backed away, setting the weapon on a low chest at the other side of the room.
God, now what?
Fear urged her to keep on going out the door, to get as far from this man as humanly possible. She made it to her car in a blur of motion, her lungs burning from lack of oxygen. She had to get out of here before she ended up dead. Or worse.
She couldn't say where that last thought had come from. She had no idea what worse might be. Just a sense of foreboding that was impossible to shake.
Locking the car doors on the chance that he'd come staggering naked from the house, she scrabbled in her purse for her keys.
But even as she reached toward the ignition, an invisible force seemed to stay her hand.
She might be frightened. He might be dangerous. But she couldn't leave an injured man who was burning up with fever. Couldn't leave this man.
Call 911. Get out of here while the getting's good.
Intelligent advice. She closed her eyes and pressed her fingers against her temples, suddenly aware that the pain she'd been trying to fight off all day had mushroomed into a full-blown headache.
Not just from the personal confrontation with Marshall, although that had been bad enough. The encounter with him had brought long-suppressed turmoil bubbling to the surface of her mind. Treating patients on a daily basis had been too emotionally draining for her to endure. Yet quitting the medical profession would have been an admission of failure—an admission that her father had won in the end. That he'd been right about her all along. So she'd made a compromise and found a more detached way to practice medicine.
Within the space of seconds, detachment had vaporized like early morning fog burning off in bright sunlight.
If she'd ever known anything in her life, she knew that Ross Marshall needed her. She couldn't simply walk away from him. Not and live with herself. Not now.
Maybe when she got him stabilized. But certainly not when his life might depend on what she did in the next few minutes.
Still, her heart threatened to pound its way through the wall of her chest as she marched back into the house.
CHAPTER FOUR
« ^ »
MARSHALL LAY WHERE she'd abandoned him, but he'd pushed himself onto his back.
He was a large man. Over six feet. Long limbed. With impressive male equipment.
Chagrined that she was staring at his genitals, she dragged her eyes upward to his face. The features were very masculine. A classic nose, a strong jaw. But purple smudges almost like bruises marred the skin below his closed eyes, and a sheen of moisture coated his broad brow. "Mr. Marshall? Ross?"
His mouth tightened when she called his name, but he made no other response. And she was painfully aware of his stillness, aside from the labored sound of his breathing. As she watched him struggle to fill his lungs, she felt a thick pain in her own chest.
The sensation was more than physical. The man, the wound, the strange circumstances made her feel as if she'd suddenly stepped into another world where the laws of the universe were different from her own. Where anything she could imagine might come to pass.
The notion caught her, held her the way the fantasy and science-fiction stories she'd read as a teenager had transported her away from her oppressive Boston existence. Only now it wasn't a story. It was real life. And she couldn't step away from the scary part by closing a book.
She shivered, then with an effort of will shook off the fanciful notion. She was in the home of a man who desperately needed her help, and she was wasting time. Lips compressed, she started making a mental list of what she needed to do.
There was a well-worn quilt draped over the back of the sofa. Unfolding it, she laid it over him. When she spotted the gun still lying on the chest, she grimaced. It was sitting out in full view. What in the world was wrong with her?
After shoving the weapon into a drawer, she returned to the unconscious man. Gingerly she knelt beside him—ready to spring back at the first sign of another attack. "Mr. Marshall? Ross?"
One moment, his face was immobile as granite. Then his eyes blinked open, fixing her with the intensity of a laser beam. She cringed as she remembered his delirium. But this time was different. This time she was sure he saw her—Megan Sheridan—not some phantom enemy springing up from his subconscious to trigger his aggressive instincts.
His dark gaze pinned her, mak
ing escape impossible. The breath stilled in her lungs as she felt the two of them make a sort of wordless contact—communication on some deep level that she only dimly understood.
For long seconds, she was incapable of speech, incapable of movement.
His voice broke through the spell. It was raspy now, the richness eroded by the ravages of pain he must be suffering. "Who are you? What are you doing here?"
"I'm Megan Sheridan. From Bio Gen Labs. You called us to make an appointment."
He closed his eyes, then opened them again.
"You called Bio Gen Labs," she repeated.
His head gave an almost imperceptible nod of understanding.
"What happened to you?"
He made a sound halfway between a laugh and a groan. "I was dumb enough to get shot."
"Shot? You have a bullet in your leg?"
"I dug it out. It was a flesh wound."
Lord, what kind of man could dig a bullet out of his own leg? When she tried to imagine inflicting that kind of torture on herself, a shudder went through her. "You should be in the hospital. I'll call an ambulance."
His fingers closed around her wrist, and his dark eyes focused on hers with a sudden fierceness that made her throat constrict. "Please… no hospital… no doctor."
"Why not?"
He heaved a deep sigh, seemed to gather his strength. "They'd have to… report it. Can't talk about what happened… with them. Have to talk to… Thornton."
"Who's Thornton?"
"The police."
"I don't understand."
He sucked in air, his gaze holding her again, and she decided his eyes were the most compelling she had ever seen. Dark and bottomless, full of depth that drew her toward him as no other man had ever drawn her. "I'm a private detective…" he wheezed, then paused to take in more air. "Investigating… murders. Of… women. But… can't prove anything… yet. Can't risk a bunch of questions."
The short speech exhausted him, and he went limp against the rug.
"You'd risk your life for an investigation?"
The eyes hardened. "To put Crawford away." He stopped, blinked, began again. "To put Arnott away… yes."
"You won't put him away if you're dead."
He grimaced. "I won't be. I just need… antibiotics."
She opened her mouth to say he needed around the clock nursing care.
Before she could deliver the advice, he started speaking again, his words tumbling forth as if he were afraid that his stamina would give out before he delivered the message. "Keflex. In… kitchen cabinet nearest the door…"
The drug was probably the right choice. Where had he gotten it?
"Please."
The plea tore at her, partly because she sensed that he wasn't a man who needed to beg for anything under normal circumstances. He was a man who took charge of situations. Even wounded and half out of his head, he'd instinctively defended himself. He'd probably dragged himself out of bed to get the medicine. His iron will had carried him this far, but now he was at the end of his strength.
"Just get me… Keflex. Then you can go."
His lids drifted closed, and he lay very still, probably at the end of his strength.
She stared at his unmoving form, thinking that the biggest favor she could do him was call an ambulance and get him to the hospital. It was the logical thing to do. The right thing. Medically.
Emotionally, it felt more like betrayal. Because he'd trusted her to keep his gunshot wound between the two of them.
Hardly understanding her own motivation, she realized she'd made a decision. Standing, she looked around. The kitchen was on her immediate right.
To the left of the sink she found a mostly empty cabinet that held the plastic container of blue caplets. The prescription was eight months old. There were only six caplets, apparently left over from some other illness. She knew from her training that taking leftover antibiotics was a bad idea, but the medication hadn't reached its expiration date, and the supply in the bottle would be enough to get him started.
After filling a glass with water, she retraced her steps.
Marshall was lying where she'd left him. She thought he'd drifted into a fevered sleep, but his lids flicked open when he heard her footsteps approaching across the wood floor. She froze when she encountered the same dangerous glint in his eye that she'd seen just before he pulled the gun from beneath the edge of the couch.
God, was she a fool, spending another minute with a man who'd proven that he was dangerous?
"I'm Megan Sheridan from Bio Gen Labs." She repeated what she'd told him earlier, her fingers tightening on the glass of water, ready to throw it at him if she had to. "Do you remember? I'm here to help you."
He considered the question, the cloudy look in his eyes fading as he studied her. "Are you a doctor?"
"Yes."
"But you won't report you're treating a patient who's been shot?" he asked, his voice tense.
She gave a small laugh. "I'm treating you without a license. I think we're even."
He took that for agreement, and she set the water on the floor so she could open the medicine bottle. "Can you sit up?"
He tried, giving the project considerable attention, the strong muscles of his arms and chest straining with effort. When he couldn't raise himself enough to drink the water, she came down beside him and helped him up, propping his back against the base of the sofa. Then she handed him the caplet and the glass.
He managed to get the blue pill into his mouth, then grimaced as the bitter medication hit his tongue. With a jerky motion, he lifted the glass to his lips and gulped water, some of it spilling down his chest.
Before he could drench himself, she took the glass from his hand and eased him back against the rug.
"The bandage you wrapped around your leg probably needs changing."
"Yeah," he wheezed. "First-aid stuff… bathroom. Antiseptic. More bandages."
She might have told him to wait right there, but she knew he wasn't going anywhere.
UNTIL he'd found that big dog pawing at Charlotte's grave, Donald Arnott had thought he was safe.
The moment of discovery had sent terror shooting through him like the shaft of an arrow.
But his confidence hadn't been punctured for long. He had been scooping up women and doing what he wanted with them for the past eight years. And he was damned if some snoop with a dog was going to fuck him up.
Since he'd shot at the dog, he'd been too busy to worry. He had dug up Charlotte's body, and the rest of them, then taken the evidence to the mountains, where nobody would connect the dead women with him.
When the bodies were out of the way, he'd used a rototiller on the fresh earth and visited a garden center, buying twenty shrubs to landscape the newly plowed areas. Spring was supposed to be a good time to plant bushes. And he'd made it look like he was into a massive home improvement effort. That took care of the burial ground on his property.
The underground room wasn't a problem. He'd built it like a bunker, with a steel door hidden under what appeared to be the ruins of an old barn. Nobody was going to find it.
The morning after the break-in, he'd driven down to the road, checking out the area that was closest to his fence. There had been fresh tire tracks in the dirt beside the shoulder. From a pickup truck or an SUV, he judged, noting the size of the tires and the space between the wheels. Unfortunately, the information did him little good.
But he was absolutely safe for the moment, he told himself firmly. He'd shot the dog, scared the man away, and let him know that Donald Arnott was a formidable enemy.
Everything he'd picked up beside the fence was in a plastic storage box he'd bought at Kmart. Opening the door to his workshop, he lifted the box off a shelf and set it in the middle of the table.
In the merciless glow from the fluorescent light, he examined the contents once more, looking for something he had missed when he'd first inspected the haul.
Again he picked up the wire cutters
. The adjustable wrench, the set of Craftsman screwdrivers. The flashlight that looked like it had come from Sunny Surplus. And a pair of Bausch & Lomb binoculars that must have cost the earth.
He turned them over in his hand. They were lightweight but powerful—with 200mm lenses. Setting them down, he picked up a running shoe, examined the treads, then fingered the soft fabric of the shirt.
Who the hell was this guy? Not a cop. The cops didn't have a clue about him. He'd been too careful for that. Still, he'd been going over and over it in his mind, and he couldn't come up with a scenario to explain why some guy would be sneaking around in the woods less than half dressed.
Unless he was some kind of pervert.
That brought a bark of laugher to his lips. A pervert stalking a pervert. Nice.
At least that was how the world would think of him. He preferred to style himself as a man whose level of existence was so far above the petty lives of normal human beings that he functioned like a god. A god with the privileges and obligations of ruling over ordinary mortals.
At least the women. They were all sluts. Like his mother. And that gave him the right to decide which of them would live, which would die, and which would gratify his sexual desires.
But he hadn't anticipated some guy interfering in his chosen pursuits. A man with a dog. A man who had cut his fence and then sent his dog searching for evidence. Because that was the only scenario that fit.
A sudden surge of anger flared inside him like hot lava shooting from a volcano. Picking up the wrench, he slammed it against the workbench, the thunk of metal against wood sending a Shockwave up his arm.
The pain sobered him, set his mind working again. Because the worst thing he could do now was let this throw him off his stride.
He had to find the guy. Maybe the way to do it was through the dog. It had been injured. Shot high up in the right leg. Christ, the bullet should have slowed the beast down. But he'd kept running with a strength and speed that Donald would have admired—if the two of them hadn't been mortal enemies.