Undercover M.D.

by Marie Ferrarella

  “No,” Terrance lied, “I haven’t. She wears a lab coat most of the time.”

  The leer came into full bloom. “I saw her at a fund-raiser for the hospital last year. She was wearing this clingy, off-the-shoulder number that made your mouth water and your knees weak.” He shrugged carelessly, as if to show he was relatively unaffected. “Personally, I think the woman gets off being a tease.”

  Making his prime suspect eat his own teeth before a bust went down was definitely not in his job description, but Terrance was beginning to give serious thought to penciling it in. He knew enough computer hackers to make the line a reality if he really set his mind to it.

  But jeopardizing the operation was definitely not part of his agenda, so he swallowed the flippant retort that begged to come out. Terrance deliberately changed the subject before he separated Harris’s head from the rest of him. “What do Blair physicians do for fun around here after hours?”

  Harris rubbed his hands together. “Get together with Blair nurses.” He flashed an engaging grin.

  Terrance could see how some women might find the other man attractive. He was tall, with dirty-blond hair and an almost pretty face. None of which had helped with his heavy debts to casino bosses.

  “But if you’re really asking, there’s a club just a mile up the road. Gallagher’s. That’s where the in crowd goes to knock off steam.” Terrance assumed that the “in crowd” meant anyone who chose to emulate Harris. “Tell you what,” Harris was saying, “I’m off at four. What are you doing tonight?”

  Getting close to my primary suspect. A reliable informant had given Harris’s name as the unwitting front man in the drug trafficking that was going on. The fact that the informant had turned up dead three days later only served to underscore the reliability of his information.

  “Nothing I know of,” Terrance answered.

  “Great. I’ll meet you at the lockers—”

  Harris’s attention was momentarily diverted by a particularly supple-looking woman who hurried down the corridor to the hospital’s gift shop. Harris gave Terrance the impression that he would have followed the woman had he been alone.

  Harris glanced at him pointedly. “Unless something comes up, of course.”

  “Understood.”

  Just as Harris was about to say something else, his pager went off. Harris looked at it, annoyed at the intrusion. “Damn it, they think they own you. Looks like I’d better play the dutiful doctor.” He laughed dryly. “See you at four.”

  It was only as Harris went off in search of the nearest phone that Terrance became aware that he was being watched. Alix was at the other end of the corridor. He could see her disapproving look all the way from across the floor.

  Was that aimed at him or Harris? Or both?

  Terrance lost no time in closing the distance between them. He was beside her before she had a chance to walk away. “Something wrong?”

  She’d been there long enough to observe what appeared to be budding camaraderie between two men who in her opinion couldn’t have been more different. “Just thinking about how little I really know you.”

  Had she somehow stumbled onto what he was actually doing here? He doubted it because the agency had been thorough, but Alix was a woman of many talents and gifts. He felt like a man tiptoeing across a tightrope strung over the Grand Canyon.

  “And this would be in reference to…?”

  She’d already wasted too much time watching him. Alix began walking back to the E.R.

  And to think she was beginning to believe that her father might have had a point. “I didn’t think you were the type, that’s all.”

  He didn’t particularly like talking to a moving target. Reaching out, he put his hand on Alix’s shoulder to stop her. “The type to what?”

  She glared at him. Why was he sucking up to Harris? Was he trying to get in with the man’s father in order to further his career? Who was this man she had once loved so fiercely? “The type to try to cull favor with William Harris.”

  Terrance didn’t like the look on her face when she said that. It made him feel as if he should be heading for the showers. “And what makes you think I was trying to cull favor?”

  She’d thought that rather obvious. “William left looking smug, a little like the devil when he’s gotten a new soul.”

  This was ridiculous, arguing over a man obviously neither one of them could abide. He decided to probe a little. “You don’t sound as if you like him.”

  “I don’t care for his manner,” she replied carefully. She was no longer sure she could trust Terrance with anything.

  He shook his head. “The feeling’s not returned, you know. He sounded as if he had designs on you.”

  She searched his face, trying to see if that fact bothered him the least little bit. But she couldn’t see any indication that it did.

  How many ways are you going to set yourself up for a fall, Alix?

  She shrugged away the comment. “That’s only because he can’t believe that any woman wouldn’t find him irresistible.”

  “But you don’t.” He realized he was pushing the envelope, but he wanted to hear her tell him that neither Harris’s looks nor his position in the hospital hierarchy held any attraction for her.

  She laughed quietly. “Not if he were the last man on earth.”

  Terrance couldn’t help smiling at the declaration. “Well, that’s a relief.”

  She stopped walking again to look at him. “Why?”

  The smile turned into a grin. “I thought that honor belonged to me.”

  “For you the boundaries are stretched.” She could see that he wasn’t following her. “Not even if you were the last man in the universe.”

  “Ouch.” Terrance pretended to wince. “So much for my ego.”

  “You never used to have one.” That was one of the things she had liked about him.

  “I still don’t.” He winked. “It was just a figure of speech.”

  She nodded, her mouth curving involuntarily. “I see.”

  He recalled how much he loved seeing her smile slip into her eyes. “So do I.”

  Pausing, Alix cocked her head, not following him. “What?”

  “You’re smiling,” he told her. “And hell hasn’t frozen over, and I haven’t been drawn and quartered.”

  She laughed. For a single moment it was like old times. “The day is still young.”

  He looked at her for a long moment. Remembering. “Alix—”

  She couldn’t quite read his tone. “Yes?”

  He lowered his voice as an orderly passed by, pushing a patient on a hospital gurney. He knew she wouldn’t appreciate anyone else overhearing what he had to say. “I’ve missed you.”

  Alix sobered a little. “I wasn’t the one who left.”

  “No, you weren’t.” He should have handled it differently, but there was no redoing the past. “What’ll it take for you to forgive me, Alix?”

  Somehow, never had taken on far too large proportions. She shrugged, “Give me time. I’ll come up with something.”

  “Anything,” he said to her seriously, then allowed a slight smile to curve his mouth. “Except jumping into a vat full of snakes.”

  “Still afraid of snakes?”

  “I prefer to think of it as maintaining a healthy respect for their territory.”

  He could still make her laugh, she realized. “I’ll keep that in mind.” She saw the new orderly, Riley Sanchez, pushing one of the portable X-ray machines out of the E.R. area. It brought her back to reality. “Right now, Doctor, I believe that there are patients in the E.R. in need of your gentle, healing touch.”

  He smiled to himself, thinking that maybe he’d reached a turning point with her. At least he didn’t feel as if he had to dig himself out of ten feet of ice.

  He ignored the knowing look that Riley flashed at him just before the latter turned the corner.

  Chapter 7

  Gallagher’s was a warm, friendly bar, the kind that
would have been called a pub had it been located across the ocean. Open to everyone, a large part of the clientele who frequented the establishment each evening came from Blair Memorial. Staff went there to talk over a warm beer and nuts that were overly salted, or to just wind down.

  For the most part everyone got along, and it was like being part of a club. But every club had its unpopular members and Gallagher’s had Harris.

  It didn’t take someone who attended MENSA to figure out why Harris was disliked. Several minutes into the evening, Terrance could pick up on the vibrations Harris both gave off and attracted. He was inclined to share the general consensus of the swelled-headed physician.

  Dr. William Edward Harris was, in Terrance’s opinion, a poor excuse for a human being, one of those people who roamed the earth and caused others to scratch their heads and wonder what God had been thinking at the moment of the man’s creation.

  Terrance shook his head as the bartender approached him, scotch bottle in hand, ready to refill his drink. He was still nursing the one he had.

  Coming with Harris to Gallagher’s had been the first step in laying the initial foundation for the tentative friendship that was necessary in order to get close to the man. Harris seemed almost pathetically eager to show off for him.

  Harris’s dossier, which resided within Terrance’s laptop at the hotel, said that the doctor had no real friends, just various people who for one reason or another tolerated his presence because of his family. Harris was intelligent enough to know this and to use it to his advantage whenever possible. That meant securing favors, easy women, recreational drugs and, in general, getting people to look the other way whenever he transgressed. Which was often.

  But in the past year, it had gone beyond that. Harris, according to their late informant, had gone from the minor leagues of the spoiled to the big leagues. He played hardball with the upper echelon of drug lords, both within the U.S. and outside of it, most notably Colombia.

  Not that Harris moved within those circles as a player, but rather as a dupe, a scapegoat who was used just as he used others. The trap designed by the bosses at the casino he favored had been snapped around Harris quickly and efficiently. All because of the man’s inability to know when to quit and to push himself away from the gaming tables.

  Raising his glass to his lips, Terrance studied Harris. He was sitting on the bar stool beside him as he appeared to drink in his every word. It wasn’t easy hiding his contempt for someone who dirtied his own house the way Harris was doing, but that was what they were paying Terrance for.

  In over his head, Harris was not only putting his own mediocre reputation on the line, but jeopardizing the hospital’s, as well, not to mention running the risk of dragging down his family with him. Obviously, he was oblivious to all of it.

  Terrance had no use for people like that.

  He looked down at his glass, wishing he had three shots in him rather than less than half of one. He’d been sitting here for the better part of four hours, listening to Harris call out to various people as they entered, all of whom returned his greeting with little enthusiasm.

  Terrance was reminded of the line he’d read somewhere about suffering fools in silence—and in his own case, with patience. He had a feeling that someone had suffered a great deal because of this fool beside him.

  He nodded at something Harris said to him, pretending to agree, his mind busily creating plans that had nothing to do with what his quarry was talking about. He needed to get Harris to trust him, to think of him as someone he could confide in. Blessed with the kind of face and manner people spilled their secrets to, Terrance felt it was his job to uncover just how deeply entangled Harris was in this drug operation and exactly what part the hospital played in everything. He also needed to know who else at Blair, if anyone, was involved.

  His superiors had asked him to “try to keep the hospital’s name out of it.” Blair Memorial held a venerated spot in the heart of the community.

  So now he was not only a DEA agent, but a magician, as well, Terrance mused. And a man who had quite unexpectedly come face-to-face with his past.

  Not one of his best assignments, Terrance had to admit, taking another sip of his drink.

  Leaning over the bar as if to get a better look at his face, Harris frowned at him disdainfully. “No offense, McCall, but you drink like a wuss.”

  Terrance smiled amiably. “I have to drive home. I hear the Bedford police frown on people driving on the wrong side of the road around here.”

  Harris snorted as he signaled for the bartender to fill his glass. “Don’t worry, I’ve got pull. I can have your license restored just like that.” After one failed attempt, he managed to snap his fingers. The sound was lost in the noise around them.

  Terrance gave a philosophical shrug of his shoulder. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Riley working a section of the bar. He wondered if the amount of information his partner was gathering exceeded the number of phone numbers he collected. Knowing Riley, it was probably dead even.

  “Better not to lose it in the first place.”

  “A homily.” Harris threw back his whiskey, closing his eyes as if savoring the hot burn as it went down. His speech was beginning to sound a little slurred. “How drolly provincial of you, McCall.”

  “One of us should stay sober,” Terrance pointed out. Harris had been drinking steadily since they’d sat down at the bar.

  Harris leered broadly, eminently satisfied with himself. “If you’re volunteering to drive me home, don’t bother. I’ve already got a chauffeur for tonight.” Swaying a little, he wrapped his arm around the redhead sitting on the stool beside him. “Veronica’s taking me to her place.” He turned to plant a solid kiss on her mouth. “Aren’t you Veronica?”

  The woman laughed, as if she’d just heard something amusing.

  They’d be lucky to make it out of the parking lot without killing someone, Terrance estimated. And he couldn’t allow Harris to throw his life away—they might not be able to get to the bottom of what promised to be a huge scandal if anything happened to the man. Months of work in the field would be lost.

  Terrance smiled easily. “Maybe I’d better drive you both.”

  Veronica bobbed her head forward to get a better look at him. “What about my car? I don’t want to let anything happen to it.”

  Then you’d better leave it here. “You can call a cab in the morning.”

  The answer Terrance gave her seemed to satisfy the redhead.

  Harris shifted, ready to launch into the second half of his evening. He never moved his arm away from Veronica. “Very sporting of you, McCall.” He looked around the room. The motion seemed to make him dizzy. He blinked, focusing. “Why don’t you grab a willing blonde or brunette and come along? We can make it a foursome.” Harris grinned wickedly. “The more the merrier.”

  Even if he hadn’t read his dossier, Terrance had a gut feeling that he had no interest in the type of things that made William Harris merry. Since joining the DEA, he’d scratched the underbelly of life more than once, but he’d never been comfortable about it. Now, with the reemergence of Alix in his life, unintended through it was, old boundaries he’d once entertained seemed to come into place for him.

  He didn’t even want to go through the motions of pretending to be interested in another woman. Besides, he had a feeling that a man like Harris wouldn’t stand for competition. He was the type who wanted to be the cock of the walk.

  Terrance glanced at his watch and shook his head. “Maybe next time. I’ve got a 6:00 a.m. call in the E.R.”

  Harris waved away the excuse. “Don’t worry about it, I’ve got Dr. Alix under my thumb.” Harris leaned into him and came close to sliding off the stool, righting himself at the last moment. “I’ll tell her to cut you some slack. She’ll have no choice but to listen to me. What do you say?”

  The redhead, Terrance noticed, had a friend. A blonde who was giving him a very thorough once-over. “Better not. Beauchamp
is still monitoring me.”

  “The old coot.” Harris finished his drink. “He’s two breaths away from retirement.” The bottom of his glass hit the bar with a resounding whack, underscoring his point. “I’m going to be running that place someday.” He turned to his new companion. “Did you know that, Victoria?”

  “Veronica,” she corrected.

  “Yeah, whatever.” He continued without missing a beat. “Someday I’ll get to roam around that hospital, making speeches and getting a slice of the bigger pie, just like my old man and his old man before him. Noblesse oblige—or something like that,” the man mumbled under his breath, completely misinterpreting the term as he lifted up his glass. “Barkeep, hit me,” he called.

  All things being equal, Terrance had a feeling that there’d be more than one taker for that order.

  After one more drink, the bartender cut him off. Harris declared he wouldn’t be returning, a threat everyone knew would be forgotten by the end of the next day. As agreed, Terrance drove both Harris and his newfound playmate to her home, a garden complex less than half a mile away from city hall and the police department. Given the circumstances, Terrance found the location rather ironic.

  “You know, they really shouldn’t make these stairs so steep,” Harris complained, holding on to the railing as he made his way up to the second floor and Veronica’s apartment. He was buffered by a tipsy Veronica in front of him and Terrance bringing up the rear. “What are you, part mountain goat?”

  Veronica giggled again, reaching the landing. She began the hunt for her house keys.

  “Here, maybe I can help,” Harris mumbled, leaning over. His cell phone came tumbling out of his pocket.

  Terrance made a grab for it. “You should be careful with these things,” he warned him, flipping the phone open as if to check it. “They break easy.”

  “So?” Harris laughed majestically. “I’ll get a new one. It’s only money.”

  “So it is,” Terrance agreed, handing the phone back to him. It now contained a microscopic electronic device that keep track of all of Harris’s calls, both incoming and out. Terrance prided himself on his sleight of hand.