That was when Mandy burst into tears, because if Radcliff was being nice to her, it had to be real.
PARKER PACED outside Exam One while an officer took Mandy’s statement and clothes, and took pictures of the injection sites on her arm.
He cursed himself with every breath, knowing it was his fault she’d been there to be attacked. He should’ve left her at the hospital that morning, or better yet back at his place. Hell, he should’ve put her on a plane to L.A. and call for her father to meet her at the airport. The esteemed Dr. Sparks, surgeon to half of Hollywood and head of more medical boards than he could count, might not think much of his daughter dating an old hack E.R. doc who’d never aspired beyond BoGen, but he’d damn well have stepped in if he’d known she was in danger.
Now it was too late; the countdown had begun. They had three days to figure out what the bastard was using and how to counteract it.
“How is she?” Stankowski said, coming up beside him and leaning against a nearby wall.
“She’s miserable,” Parker snapped. “How would you be if you’d just been injected with a ticking time bomb?” Then he cursed and stopped pacing. “Sorry. I’m angry.”
“I am, too,” the detective said quietly. “And I’m going to get this bastard, Parker. I swear it.”
But he didn’t promise he could do it in seventy-two hours.
Footsteps clicked in the hallway, and Parker looked up to find one of his most trusted radiologists approaching fast.
She nodded before he could even ask the question. “You were right. There’s a small anomaly at the base of her skull.”
Parker cursed, but couldn’t quell the flare of triumph. “Get it out ASAP and give it to the detective here.” He turned to Stankowski. “I think they’re tracking devices—GPS maybe, or something even more sophisticated. Can your people backtrack the signal?”
“We’ll do our best.” Stankowski grabbed the wall phone, dialed for an outside line and rapped out an order for one of his team members to pick up the other small metal pellet from Dr. Robicheau. When he hung up, he nodded. “They’re on it. As soon as the other one is out of Mandy, I’ll take it to them myself.”
“Did they get anything off that disk Mandy found?”
The detective shook his head. “They’re still working on it, but it’s in tough shape. It is—or was—a recordable audio disk for one of those miniature playback machines, but all they’re getting off it so far is garbage. They’ll be better off focusing on these transmitters—if that’s what they are. At least we’re positive they’re part of the case. For all we know, the disk is just trash someone threw out in one of those Dumpsters.” Stankowski paused for a minute, and then glanced at the doorway to Exam One. “I assume you’re going to admit her for the duration?”
“No,” Parker said without hesitation. “She’s coming with me. I guarantee that she’ll want to remain part of the investigation.”
Stank frowned. “Wouldn’t she be safer here?”
“Maybe,” Parker said. “Probably, but it’s not fair. If you potentially had three days left and you were going to feel okay for at least two of them, would you want to spend that time in the hospital?”
“No, but you could start her on some prophylactic drugs, couldn’t you?”
“What drugs do you suggest?” Parker spread his hands. “We don’t have a clue what killed Julian George and Irene Dulbecco, and presumably killed Missy Prieta. I can treat the symptoms, sure, but don’t you get it? I can’t do a damned thing to stop this until we figure out what the hell it is!” Parker was shouting by the time he finished, and when he fell silent, he was aware that several nearby staffers were staring at him.
He could only imagine what the rumor mill would have to say about him losing his cool. He wasn’t sure he cared, though. He had far more important things to worry about.
The door to Exam One swung open and the female officer stepped out, carrying a large bag that no doubt contained Mandy’s clothes and whatever other evidence had been collected. The officer nodded to Parker and Stankowski. “You can go in now. I’ll get this stuff over to forensics.”
“You go,” Parker told the detective. “She gave me the combo to her locker in the staff lounge. I’m going to get her spare clothes.”
It was an escape and he damn well knew it, but he just couldn’t bring himself to see Mandy as a patient. That was why he’d elected not to pull rank and see to her care himself, and why he lingered in the staff lounge long after he’d grabbed the small overnight bag from her locker.
She wasn’t a patient, damn it. She was—
Parker couldn’t complete the train of thought, because he didn’t know what she was to him anymore. He did know one thing, though. She wasn’t anyone’s victim.
He wouldn’t let her be.
MANDY WINCED against the tug when Dr. Gina Stuart, the E.R.’s head attending, pulled the last of the stitches tight behind her ear.
“There you go. Good as new,” Gina announced, but her eyes remained dark and worried.
“Radcliff told you what happened, didn’t he?” Mandy asked.
Gina hesitated, then nodded. “He told a few of us, only the ones he needed to get the samples rushed, and so we could put our heads together on some sort of supportive therapy for you.”
Mandy held still as the other woman pressed a bandage over the small incision she’d made to remove the metal pellet from her head. And how creepy was that? She had to suppress another shudder at the thought of carrying around an implant, like she’d been the victim of an alien abduction or something.
Somehow it was easier to think about that than about the toxins flooding her bloodstream. The implant could be—and had been—removed and given to Stankowski for analysis.
The toxins were still an open question. Maybe the analysis of her blood samples would reveal something useful. Then again, maybe not, which left her with a ticking clock in her body, and no great faith that the mystery could be solved in time.
At the thought, tears filmed her vision.
“Take this,” Gina said briskly, pressing an unmarked case into her hands. The white plastic container was approximately the size and shape of a lunch box, with a handle and clasps at the top. It was the sort of thing they used to transport samples or drugs short distances from building to building, when they didn’t want to attract too much attention on the street.
“What’s in it?”
“A little bit of everything.” Gina popped the top and showed her a wide range of single-dose syringes and foil packets. She indicated a folded sheet of paper. “There’s a list of what in here, and what doses. Dr. Radcliff picked out most of it.”
It took Mandy a minute to catch on. Then she straightened on the exam room bed and pulled the too-short robe down to cover the tops of her thighs. “He’s not putting me under observation?”
“Yes and no,” his voice said unexpectedly from the doorway. He pushed through, carrying her overnight bag, which he tossed on the bed beside her. “You’ll be under my observation for the duration.” He paused. “Unless of course you’d rather spend the next three days in here. If so, I’ll get you a private room and—”
“No,” she interrupted quickly, dipping into the bag for her jeans, which she pulled on beneath the robe without regard for modesty. “Let’s go.”
Sudden adrenaline buzzed through her veins, clearing some of the fog that had surrounded her since they’d arrived at the hospital and she’d found her role shifting from her normal guise of doctor to the uncomfortable position of being a patient in her own hospital. As the fog burned away, she felt a new determination take root, a new focus.
She had three days to solve the case and save her own life.
ONCE THEY WERE in a cab, headed away from Boston General, Parker gave the driver Mandy’s home address.
At her questioning look, he shrugged. “I figured you’d want to get a few things. I cleared it with Stankowski. He says the drive-bys still haven’t indicated any
activity at your place, and the apartment manager got the locks changed.”
“Then I can stay there if I want?” she asked, glancing over at him.
He tried to interpret her expression, but failed. It seemed as though she’d developed a cool facade of her own, one he couldn’t read, and though he’d once wished she could be more detached and less emotional about her patients and her life, now he found himself discomfited by the change.
“I suppose you could,” he said slowly. “But I’d really prefer that you come home with me.”
He halfway expected her to ask him why. The Mandy he’d known before—younger, untried and idealistic and prone to wearing her heart on her sleeve—would’ve taken the opportunity to make him declare himself one way or the other. Did he want her at his place because he wanted her around and wanted to comfort her, or was it merely a case of safety and expedience?
The hell of it was that he wasn’t sure of the answer anymore. The discipline he depended on to keep him on track had blurred to something else over the past few hours—or maybe the past few days—and he wasn’t sure where his boundaries fell anymore.
She didn’t ask why, though. She simply nodded and looked out the window of the cab as the driver pulled up in front of her apartment building. “Okay.”
Her acquiescence surprised him. Even more surprising, he found he was faintly disappointed, as though a part of him had wanted the question, and the argument it was sure to bring.
The realization stirred him up and had him brooding as he followed her up the steps to her building, where she buzzed the apartment manager and got a set of keys to the new locks. It wasn’t until they reached the hallway outside her fourth-floor apartment that he touched her arm to stop her, and turn her so they were face-to-face.
He looked down at her, seeing the stress and fear behind the calm mask she was wearing like a shield.
“Hey,” he said, brushing a finger across her cheek where a faint bruise touched her fair skin. “I’m here for you, okay? I promise I’m not going anywhere until—” He broke off because he’d been about to say until this is over, but that sounded far too final, too dismal. Instead he said, “Don’t be afraid to lean on me. I’m here for the duration.”
She smiled crookedly, but the expression didn’t seem to reach her eyes. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Then she turned away, leaving him feeling as though he’d wanted more just then…but he’d be damned if he knew what that might be. He should be satisfied with where they were at, he knew. He’d done the right thing in getting her out of the hospital, he’d called in all the favors he could think of and put a team of Boston General’s top researchers and doctors on a think tank dedicated to testing the samples they’d collected from the mugging victims, and he was going to drive himself the next seventy-two hours straight if that was what it took to figure out how to save her. It was all that anyone could ask,
Oddly enough, though, as he followed her through the door into her apartment, he wasn’t sure that was enough for him.
Then Mandy stopped dead.
“What is it?” Every muscle in Parker’s body tensed for battle and he moved quickly in front of her.
On the floor just inside the door lay a plain sheet of paper, folded in half.
“We shouldn’t touch it,” Mandy said. “It could be important.”
“Or it could be a menu for a new restaurant around the block,” Parker said, but didn’t argue her point. “You have any gloves around here?” When she shook her head, he improvised, removing a pen from his inner pocket and crouching down to flip the sheet over and tease it open without putting his fingerprints on it.
It turned out that the piece of paper wasn’t folded, after all; it had been ripped in half. There was a single line of text in handwritten in bold, slashing pen strokes: THE ANTIDOTE FOR THE DISK. MEET MEAT—
The rest was gone, torn away.
“Where’s the other half?” Mandy demanded. She looked around, but there was no sign of the other piece having been stuck under her door. “Where is it?” Her voice rose, growing shrill.
“I don’t know.” Parker rose to his feet and caught her hands, feeling the first beat of optimism. “But, Mandy, think about it. This means there is an antidote.”
The only thing for them to do now was find it, and the note told them exactly where to start.
With the disk.
Chapter Eight
The next two hours were filled with another round of police questions and crime scene analysis, and even though Stankowski did his best to minimize the invasion, Mandy’s head was pounding by the time she and Parker were cleared to leave.
Her heart hurt, too. Logically she knew the worst part had been the attack at the M.E. building, but there was something profoundly disturbing about watching the cops rummage around in her apartment. Stankowski had insisted on the search even though she’d protested that the note had been slipped under the door.
Given that his techs had positively identified the metal pellet extracted from her neck as a small but highly powerful transmitter, and were working on determining exactly what information it was designed to transmit, she hadn’t argued against the search, but it had bothered her nonetheless.
Having the cops in there had made her apartment seem even more Spartan somehow, and the unpacked boxes had loomed large in her vision. Even her herbs had looked wilted and unloved, giving her pinches of guilt.
Over it all had hovered the specter of the countdown and the million-dollar question: What was the antidote mentioned in the note, and where could they get their hands on it?
Mandy knew she should be raring to launch into the search, but found herself fading fast. By the time the police left, she was just about done in. She grabbed a bunch of clothes at random and stuffed them in the leather duffel she used as a suitcase. Exhaustion dragged at her arms and legs, making her feel as though she were moving in slow motion, dragging herself through sludge instead of air.
When she joined Parker—and yes, in the midst of everything that was going on, he’d gone from “Radcliff” to “Parker” in her head, whether either of them liked it or not—in the main room, she tried to keep the quiver out of her voice when she said, “I don’t feel well. I’m tired and nauseous, and it’s like I’m constantly on the verge of tears. I think it’s starting already.”
“No, you’re on the brink of exhaustion and you haven’t eaten since last night,” he said bluntly. “Let’s get out of here. We’ll grab some takeout and head home. You can sleep while I follow up on the tests and make some calls.”
“We should both be working on the case,” she argued, irritation flaring despite—or perhaps because of—her fatigue. “God knows I’ve got some serious personal motivation now. As in, I’m not going to see next week if we don’t figure out what’s inside me and how to counteract it.”
Even as she said the words, she realized they were a plea for sympathy, a demand that he acknowledge what she was going through, maybe even tell her he was sorry, that he’d miss her.
Damn it, she thought. She’d fallen right back onto old patterns, asking him for attention, for emotions she knew he couldn’t give.
Sure enough, he said simply, “You can’t help me when you’re this tired. Eat something, turn it off for a few hours and then you’ll be useful.”
Oddly, though, instead of hurting her or ticking her off, his words steadied her. She found herself nodding agreement. “Gotcha.”
She locked the door to her apartment and tried not to think that it could be the last time she saw the place. She followed Parker out to street level, and was surprised to see that dusk was falling. Where had the day gone? A quick check of her watch showed that she was down to sixty-seven hours, give or take.
She told herself Parker was crazy if he thought she was going to waste five or six of those hours sleeping. She was still thinking that once they were in a cab, headed for the Chinese restaurant where he’d phoned in an order.
> Before they’d gone two blocks, she’d fallen asleep, leaning against his shoulder.
PARKER WORKED through the night, refusing to feel the fatigue that tried to drag him down, or the frustration that threatened to distract him from his main objective: figuring out what the hell had been in that syringe, where it had come from, and who had the antidote. Problem was, there were too many angles to come at the questions, and it was impossible to tell which one would be the most valuable.
By 2:00 a.m., he was sitting on the wide sofa in the main room with his laptop on the coffee table, eating cold lo-mein straight from the carton and drinking mug after mug of tea, because the coffee had started burning a hole in his gut. He didn’t give any credit to the quick suspicion that the pain had come from another source entirely, one who looked like a beach bunny and thought that herbs could replace real medicine, but had lodged herself somewhere inside him and threatened to take over his better sense.
Instead of thinking about such things, he bent to his work, determined to heal her. Never mind that he rarely brought anything but administrative work home, and his famed “leave each patient at the door to the exam room” motto had clearly taken a flying leap…he was a doctor, damn it; this was his job.
Emotion didn’t have anything to do with it.
He went over all his notes for what felt like the thousandth time, unable to escape the feeling that the answer was right in front of him.
Logically the symptoms didn’t add up. The sudden onset and degree of pain and its widespread nature suggested a few conditions. Sepsis was one option; a generalized infection could inflame neurons throughout the body, making the skin acutely sensitive to pressure. That didn’t work as a diagnosis, though, because neither Irene Dulbecco nor Julian George had shown the elevated white blood cell count indicative of an infection.
Yet they’d both died in terrible pain, just as Mandy might if he didn’t come up with the medical equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of a hat, and Stankowski and his people didn’t manage to come up with some theories to go with the scant evidence they’d managed to collect so far.
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