(Moon 1) - Killing Moon

by Rebecca York

  The tight, warning expression on his face only spurred her on. She'd never been an impulsive woman. And her childhood had made her wary of men who took control of situations like a storm front blowing away all thought of opposition. Despite all logic, she found herself moving forward quickly, before she could change her mind. She saw his eyes darken, saw him glance behind himself and find that he was blocked from escape by the edge of the table.

  Opening her arms, she reached for him, clasped her hands behind his back. For an instant he went rigid. Then she felt as well as heard the breath hiss out of his lungs. Her own breath was frozen inside her as she absorbed the impact of her body pressed to his. The contact was as potent as she'd known it would be. No, far more potent.

  Stunned, she clung to him, knowing full well that he was strong enough to break her hold, wrench himself from her grasp. Instead she felt his arms rise, circle her shoulders, tighten, wedge her body more firmly to the length of his.

  "Ross."

  Earlier this morning she'd been badly off balance—torn between doubting her encounter with the wolf and doubting her own sanity. In his arms, she felt centered, secure. Eyes squeezed shut, she laid her cheek against his broad chest, drawing strength from him even as she felt him leaning into her.

  She breathed in the fresh-washed scent of his skin and, below that, his unique scent, something like the tang of rain on the wind. Greedy for more, she moved her hands over the hard muscles of his back, pressed her face more tightly to his chest, feeling the deep steady thrumming of his heart beneath her cheek. He might be holding himself still, but she knew she was affecting him as powerfully as he was affecting her.

  She had tried to deny the deep sense of connection to this man, but that had suddenly become impossible. Her heart leaped as she felt his hands move over her. He pulled her closer, aligning her body more perfectly with his, and she felt a tide of heat sweep across her skin, sink into her flesh, burn its way to the marrow of her bones. It felt good, right. It felt like something she had secretly craved for a long time, yet the need hadn't been there until she'd met him.

  "Ross." She said his name again, lifted her face, and saw his eyes burning hot and bright. Time had stopped. The world had contracted to the circle of his arms clasping her to him. For a charged moment, she stared up at him, as though the two of them were shipwreck survivors who had miraculously washed up on the same beach after fearing each other lost. Her mouth opened slightly, anticipating the feel of his lips coming down on hers. Anticipating the jolt of heat.

  But it didn't happen.

  Gently but firmly he cupped his hands on her shoulders, moved her body back and away from his.

  She felt abashed. Light-headed. Confused.

  And the look on his face told her he was experiencing all those things, too.

  "Are you feeling sorry for me?" he asked, his voice gritty.

  "No."

  "Then what?"

  She struggled for honesty. "I… I like you."

  "Didn't you listen to anything I told you?" he asked, his voice thick.

  "I listened to everything."

  "Then you know the consequences of getting mixed up with me."

  "Is hugging a man getting mixed up with him?" she asked quickly.

  "You can't argue it both ways." "I—"

  "If you're smart, you'll back off before…"

  "Before what?"

  He didn't answer. But the image she'd had that first evening—the image of the two of them naked on a bed, hot and wanting—came back to her. The bed down the hall.

  In her mind she understood that he was little more than a stranger. A man with secrets and sorrows. Yet the feelings building inside her defied logic. As she stood there staring at him, she knew that she longed to feel connected to him. Physically, emotionally.

  Before she could tell him what was in her heart, he turned away and rested his elbows on the counter, and she knew he was calling on more strength than she possessed at the moment. She saw it in the rigid set of his shoulders, heard it in the rasp of his breath.

  He uttered a fierce oath, then said, "You'd better go."

  Torn, she stood beside him for seconds that felt like an eternity. Every female impulse inside her urged her to reach out and touch him. If she did, he would turn. He would take her in his arms again. It was what they both wanted. But she understood that this was the wrong time. Because he had asked her to do it, she backed away. Perhaps that was the only thing she could do for him now.

  Later was another matter.

  But she didn't allow herself to think about later.

  Turning, she grabbed up the kit with the blood sample and her purse and fled the house.

  She was in the car when she saw him stride outside.

  Feeling a reckless surge of hope, she rolled down the window as he came toward her, anxious to hear what he had to say.

  It was, "Where's my gun?"

  She struggled to keep hurt and disappointment out of her eyes. "In the chest near the front door."

  He nodded and turned, and she watched the door close behind him with a sense of defeat.

  In the car, driving home, she had ample time to reflect on the pain and confusion she was feeling.

  She had always been cautious with the opposite sex. It took a long time before she let herself risk getting close. And she'd always picked men who weren't like her father—men who weren't harsh, dominating, aggressive, strong. In the two days she'd known Ross Marshall, he'd been all those things. And yet she'd put her arms around him and held him close as though he were precious to her.

  A shiver rippled across her skin. She was attracted to him on some deep level where no man had ever moved her before. Yet at the same time she was afraid of him. A little while ago she had blocked the latter out. Now she didn't know what to do about it—or the attraction.

  Always before, relationships with men had been on her terms. And they went no further than she wanted them to go. She had been to bed with a few of the men she'd dated and enjoyed the experience on a superficial level. But she knew that with Ross Marshall making love would be different. More powerful. More meaningful.

  She blinked, brought herself up short. She was still thinking about making love with the man. And he had done everything possible to put distance between them—until this morning when she'd forced him to confront the powerful emotions building between them.

  Even then he had been compelled to fight the attraction. Earlier she'd wondered if his genetic problem was the reason he was putting up barriers between them. After what he'd told her this morning, she was sure it was the case. That and his tragic family background. He hadn't spelled out that last part. But it didn't take much imagination to picture the grief his mother had gone through—losing so many daughters at birth, then half her sons.

  God, what a sad life. Why was she even thinking about getting mixed up with a man who had told her his heritage was grief and suffering?

  By the time she reached her house, she had made what she considered a smart decision. She would turn the blood sample over to Hank and let him proceed with the tests.

  By the time she'd discarded her sweat clothes and put on a crisp skirt and blouse, she had changed her mind. As she put on lipstick and a bit of blusher, she told herself she wasn't going to take the coward's route. She would do the tests herself, report back to Ross on what she found, and see where things went from there.

  WHEN she arrived at the lab, however, she abruptly abandoned all work plans. Betty was sitting at the reception desk, looking distraught. And Walter, his face pinched and his skin gray, was talking to a couple of uniformed police officers who had apparently been there for a while. Barlow and Sandier, their name tags said.

  Completely disoriented, she stared at the unaccustomed scene. For a terrible moment, her mind leaped to the conclusion that this had to do with Ross—with the lost phone. The killer had found it, come after him. And now the police were at the lab to tell them that their client was in the hospita
l—or worse.

  "What happened?" she wheezed, reaching out a hand to steady herself against the wall.

  "A burglary," Betty said.

  It took another moment for the words to sink in. "A break-in? Where?"

  It was Walter who stepped away from the cops to answer. "Here. Somebody forced the lock on the door early this morning. Betty found the door open when she came to work. She was afraid to go inside so she left a note on the door and went to call the police. We all stayed outside for over an hour, waiting for the police to come," he said, an accusing note in his voice as he glanced toward the two detectives.

  Megan took in the overview, then zeroed in on the personal ramifications. "My project," she gasped, and dashed into the lab area. Quickly she inspected her laminar flow hoods, her virus cultures. Her genetic material.

  The officer named Sandier followed her. "You're Dr. Sheridan?"

  "Yes."

  "Was your work disturbed?"

  She did a more careful inspection, then breathed out a small sigh. "Not as far as I can see."

  He wrote that down in a notebook. When the microphone clipped to his collar sputtered, he pressed a button and conferred with some unseen dispatcher. After completing the call, Sandier turned back to Megan. "Would you take a look at your desk area?"

  She retraced her steps and walked into the office she shared with Hank, who had evidently gotten the assignment to check the file drawers.

  He glanced up when she entered and rolled his eyes. "Welcome back. Your timing is impeccable."

  "Right." She sank into her desk chair, opened drawers, shuffled through the contents. Nothing seemed to be disturbed. Then she booted up her computer and brought up her main directory, scanning the entries.

  There was no problem accessing her directories. And when she opened some of her files at random, the information was intact.

  "I'm not finding anything missing," she reported.

  Sandier asked, "Can you tell me where you were this morning?"

  She might have taken offense, but she realized he probably had asked everyone the same question.

  "Getting a blood sample from a client of the lab," she answered. "You can check with him if you like."

  "His name?"

  "Ross Marshall," she answered, then fumbled in her purse for the slip of paper with his address, which she read off to the detective.

  Sandier copied it down before returning to the hall, where Walter was still standing, giving his report to Barlow. When her boss finally wound down, the officer handed him a business card.

  "If you have anything else to report, give me a call," he said.

  When they had departed, she joined a scowling Dr. Galveston in the hall. "Yeah, and if we do think of something, good luck in getting you to call back," he muttered.

  "Did anything turn up missing?" Megan asked.

  "It looks like the alarm scared them off. But the officers took some fingerprints from the door."

  "It's strange that someone went to the trouble of breaking in, then took off," she mused.

  Walter's expression turned darker.

  "What?" she asked.

  "Nothing."

  "Something's bothering you."

  His mouth tightened. "Maybe there's a pattern here."

  "A pattern of what? Did you tell that to the police?" When he didn't reply, she prompted, "Walter?"

  He glanced toward the office, where Hank was still thumbing through files, then lowered his voice before saying, "Let's go where we can talk."

  Wondering what he wanted to keep so close to his vest, she followed him to his office, a room that was twice the size of the area where she and Hank worked. He pulled the door shut, then rounded his oversized rosewood desk and lowered himself into the executive leather chair.

  Uneasily she took one of the comfortable guest chairs, waiting for him to speak.

  When he finally did, his voice was pitched low. "Six months ago, there was an incident."

  "What kind of incident?"

  "A couple came in for genetic testing. It turned out that the test results were erroneous."

  The word hung between them.

  As the implications sank in, a wave of cold swept over her skin. "A test I did? Is that why you called me in here?"

  "I think it was one of Hank's."

  "You don't know for sure?"

  "The records have disappeared."

  She stared at him. "Disappeared? How?"

  He shrugged.

  "You've spoken to Hank?"

  "No. And I don't want you to, either. Anyone can make a mistake." He looked down at his desk blotter, then up again. "Or maybe what I'm trying to say is that it was really my fault. I'd piled too much work on him, and he was rushed."

  "You're piling too much work on both of us," she answered, then wondered why she couldn't simply keep her mouth shut. But this time he was the one who'd brought it up. Maybe he was feeling guilty.

  She saw him swallow hard and glance toward the closed door. "I got an angry call from the client threatening me. That was several weeks ago and nothing happened, so I figured the guy was just blowing off steam. Then there was the incident Monday on the way to work."

  She was thrown completely off track. So much had happened since Monday morning that it took several moments for her to recall what he was talking about. When she remembered the way he'd come in all upset, her eyes widened.

  "You said somebody ran you off the road."

  "Yes. And I thought I recognized the guy."

  "You didn't mention that!"

  "I was hoping I was wrong. Then this morning, after I discovered the break-in, I checked my case files. Some of them are gone."

  "Did you tell that to the police?"

  "No."

  "You have to."

  "And have an article impugning the reputation of the lab in the Washington Post tomorrow? No thank you. I don't need news like that spread across the headlines. Not when I'm expecting a big contract to come through."

  "What contract?"

  "That's confidential information."

  "But, Walter, you're already giving me confidential information," she argued.

  He glared at her, then made an effort to relax his features. "Let's wait and see what happens. Waiting a few days isn't going to hurt anything."

  "You're not thinking this through logically."

  "I want to handle it in my own way."

  "Walter—"

  "I'm trusting you to let me deal with the problem. And to keep this conversation between the two of us. Do I have your word on that?"

  "I guess so," she answered reluctantly.

  "I need to know you won't blab to Hank or Betty."

  "All right."

  "Thank you."

  "Why are you telling me?"

  "I just want you to know the background, in case something happens to me."

  "And then what?"

  "Then you can tell the police. Until then, I expect you to keep your mouth shut."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  « ^ »

  SINCE THERE DIDN'T seem to be anything more to say, Megan got up and started down the hall to her own office. But she stopped short before she reached the door. Hank was probably there, and she couldn't face him after Walter's accusation, so she switched directions and stepped into the ladies' room. Locking herself in one of the stalls she sat down on the closed toilet seat and pressed her palms against her forehead, trying to dispel the sudden throbbing in her temples.

  God, what a mess. Walter was telling her the lab was under attack from a crazed client. And that it was Hank's fault. Or was that really true?

  She pressed harder as the pain in her head reached Anvil Chorus proportions.

  Could Walter have done something he wasn't prepared to talk about? And was now blaming it on Hank?

  She and Hank had a good, solid working relationship. She wanted to ask him if he remembered the test. But she'd promised Walter she'd keep the information confidential.

&n
bsp; Damn him. He'd boxed her into a corner. The way Ross Marshall had boxed her into a corner.

  Two different men, with two completely different styles, and they both had her flummoxed.

  A year ago, when her parents had died, she'd made the mistake of mentioning her inheritance to Walter, and he'd urged her to invest in the lab. It was a topic he brought up every few months—but so far the money she hadn't used for a down payment on her house was still in the bank.

  Now she was grateful that she hadn't leaped to invest in Bio Gen. Because it looked like the business was falling apart in front of her eyes.

  The idea of bailing out was becoming more appealing by the minute. But if she found another job, would she be able to take her research with her? Or would her boss claim it was the property of the lab?

  She sat there for a long time, wondering what the hell she was going to do.

  Since she couldn't come up with a long-term answer, she decided to start the test on Ross Marshall's cells.

  ROSS sat with three pillows propped behind his back, his notes on Donald Arnott spread across his lap and on the bed. His eyes were fixed on a line of type. But his mind was far away. Megan had said she wanted samples of genetic material from his parents. And he pictured himself standing in the house where he'd grown up, broaching the subject to his mother.

  Only he wasn't seeing himself as the Ross Marshall of today. He was an eighteen-year-old kid, home from his freshman year of college, leaning against the cracked and stained kitchen counter.

  He'd been telling Mom he could replace the work surface for her. Replace the cabinets.

  Apparently his dad had been standing in the dining room listening, for he'd come charging into the kitchen, his eyes blazing.

  "So you think you're better than me, because you've got a big-deal scholarship to the University of Maryland and you've got some money saved from your pissing little construction jobs."

  "No," he answered automatically as his mother slipped out of the room.

  "Don't lie to me, sonny. You blame me for the tragedy of your mother's life. 'Cause I picked her for my mate. And now you're gonna make everything nice for her."