The 14th... And Forever

by Merline Lovelace

  “Well, now, sir,” the senator said mildly, “I freely admit to having a political agenda. That’s why I occupy this sacred office. But I’m willing to leave the data interpretation to you...for now.”

  With the last two words, the swords were drawn. Swiftly. Cleanly. Her shoulders tensing, Angela waited for the first clash of steel on steel. She should have remembered that her boss was far too skilled a politician to launch a direct frontal attack.

  “Why don’t you tell me how these audits of yours work?” he suggested.

  Merritt eyed him for a long moment, then reached for his briefcase and pulled out a neat stack of charts.

  “Basically, I employ a version of the statistical process control methodology developed by Demming and the total-quality management gurus.”

  The senator smiled. “You think you might put that in terms this ol’ coon dawg might understand?”

  The glint in Jack’s eyes told Angela he wasn’t fooled by his seeming ignorance.

  “I’ve designed a simple computerized program that establishes a statistical norm for certain tasks, then tracks variations from the norm. It’s similar to the program the Congressional Budget Office uses to track items such as receipt of honoraria and the use of free mailing privileges by legislators.”

  “I do believe I’m familiar with that particular program, son.”

  “I thought you might be.”

  The senator acknowledged the hit with a dry chuckle. “So what kind of tasks do you measure with your audits?”

  “Anything and everything that might affect our daily operation or the quality of care we provide. As these charts indicate, we’re looking at everything from the continuing medical education credits accrued by our consulting physicians to how long it takes maintenance to repair a broken floor tile or change a light bulb.”

  “Is that so? Just how long does it take to change a light bulb at Children’s?”

  Evincing a genuine interest, Senator Claiborne talked through the stack of charts with his visitor. Jack Merritt’s astonishing grasp of every detail of the hospital’s operation added to Angela’s sneaking admiration. He was clearly a hands-on manager, and sensitive to the needs of his clients. Unlike a number of his profession she’d had to deal with on her brother’s behalf, she admitted grudgingly.

  When the last chart lay facedown on the table, the senator stroked his mustache with a liver-spotted hand. From the way his lids drooped under his bushy brows, a casual observer might have supposed he was about to indulge in a midafternoon nap...as he frequently did.

  Angela was no casual observer, however. She recognized that slow, caressing stroke. Suddenly her throat went dry. The next few moments would determine whether their sacrificial goat went to the altar willingly or bleating in protest.

  “This is all very interestin’, son. Very interestin’. I’m impressed, especially by the corrective actions you list for those tasks that show variances outside the norm. But surely your audits have discovered some practices that aren’t just outside the norm, they’re outside the pale.”

  “We’ve found a few,” Jack admitted, gathering up the charts.

  “Like the prescriptions written for Gromorphin?”

  His eyes narrowing, Jack met the senator’s bland gaze across the expanse of polished table. For long moments, the only sound in the huge office was the loud ticktock of the old-fashioned hunter’s clock on the credenza behind the senator’s desk.

  Angela held her breath. This was the man who had snared her wrist at the airport. Cold. Contained. Distant.

  “May I ask what interest you have in a growth hormone, Senator?”

  Leaning forward, Marc Green preempted his boss. “Gromorphin is not a growth hormone. It’s the growth hormone. The only one on the market.”

  “The only synthetic one.”

  The staffer’s mouth thinned at the clipped correction. Marc was rarely corrected, Angela knew. By anyone.

  “The only synthetic hormone on the market,” he conceded. “It’s produced by Miles and distributed exclusively by—”

  “Children’s is one of the premier centers for the treatment of juvenile growth hormone deficiency,” their visitor snapped. “I know who distributes Gromorphin.”

  He damn well ought to know, Jack thought grimly.

  The drug was distributed by HealthMark, the same vast conglomerate that had invited him to conferences in Aruba and Switzerland. The same corporation whose senior sales rep had huddled with a whiskey-voiced blonde in a bar in Tampa. The same company that the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations had targeted for a secret probe as a result of Jack’s audit findings.

  He knew who distributed the hormone, all right.

  What he didn’t know was Senator Claiborne’s connection with the pharmaceutical company.

  His mind raced with the possibilities that he and the team of special agents working the HealthMark investigation had discussed when the senator’s call first came in. The most obvious, of course, was that the potentially explosive audit findings had somehow leaked and Claiborne wanted to use them in his campaign for more government control of drug distribution and sales.

  Less obvious was the possibility that the legislator was working a more personal agenda. Like all huge health-related industries, HealthMark had a vital stake in medical reform legislation. Had they contributed under the table to the senator’s campaign chest, in the hopes of buying his influence? Had they sponsored his attendance at conferences in exotic locations? Were they now calling in their chits, asking Claiborne to exert his influence to discover and perhaps discredit the audit findings?

  Since the senator’s summons, the investigators had been scrambling to uncover the link, if there was one. So far, they had far more questions than answers.

  Jack was still sorting through the possibilities when Angela entered the conversation for the first time. She leaned forward, her dark eyes intent.

  “Gromorphin isn’t used just to treat growth hormone deficiency in juveniles,” she said, gripping her hands together. “The FDA classifies it as a metabolic steroid. It can also be used to reverse acquired GH deficiency in adults, particularly those who have sustained significant damage to their body composition or physical performance.”

  “Like your brother,” Jack said slowly.

  “Like my brother.”

  His reaction was pure instinct, shooting into his gut before his logical mind could break it down and analyze it. He hoped she wasn’t part of it. Whatever linked Henry Claiborne to the company now secretly being probed by a team of highly specialized agents, he hoped to hell Angela wasn’t part of it.

  “Well, now, son,” the senator said with unruffled geniality. “We understand one of your audits targeted this particular drug. We would surely like to hear the results of that audit.”

  “I don’t have that information with me,” Jack replied slowly. “And even if I did, I’d want to know exactly why you want the information before I shared it.”

  “Well, sir, you may be familiar with this little bill I’ve drafted. It’s in committee right now, has been for some time. But I’m determined to shake it loose. It contains specific provisions for government oversight into this business of—”

  A distinctive pulsing buzz cut the senator off. He glanced over his shoulder at his phone, then heaved himself out of his armchair.

  “Excuse me, Angela, gentlemen. I do believe that’s the White House callin’. No, no. Keep your seats. I’ll let you know if it’s a matter that requires privacy.”

  Turning his back on the other occupants in the room, he contemplated the spectacular view of the Mall outside his windows as he took the call. While Claiborne murmured into the phone, Jack’s breath left him in a long, hard rush.

  Damn! He felt as though he’d been run over by a careening ambulance. Correction—by a midnight-blue Chrysler driven by a long-haired, heavy-footed female. How in blue blazes had he let himself be blindsided like this? If he’d been t
hinking clearly, instead of allowing himself to be distracted by little things like a drive-by shooting and a blob of whipped cream on Angela Paretti’s left earlobe, he might have made the connection sooner between her brother’s injuries and the growth hormone at the center of the investigation that had consumed Jack’s days and nights for the past four months.

  He knew now that he was bound to Angela by more than just a few moments of violence and intimacy on the Fourteenth Street Bridge. She was part of what had brought him to Washington. The question he wanted answered was how much a part.

  He was still trying to sort through the tangled strands that joined him to the woman drumming her fingertips on the conference table when the senator rejoined them, chuckling gleefully.

  “Well, well. I do believe we must be gettin’ close to an election year. The president wants to hash over a possible compromise on the welfare reform bill with me and the speaker...if we’d be so kind as to join him in his office.”

  “It’s about time he came off his hard line,” Marc Green said with a small, tight smile. “I’ll get the discussion papers I put together for you that detail the points we’re willing to concede.”

  As the staffer hurried out, the senator turned to Jack. “About this data on this Gromorphin audit, son. I’d surely like you to put it together while I’m gone. We’ll talk abut it when I get back. Maybe over dinner and—”

  “You can’t tonight,” Angela murmured.

  At her boss’s blank look, she sighed and lifted a foot. The red hearts on her sneakers glittered merrily.

  “It’s Valentine’s Day, remember? You have another... appointment this evening.”

  The senator’s blue eyes widened. His mustache twitched for a second or two like a squirrel’s tail. “That’s right! It is!”

  Abandoning his air of bluff heartiness, he altered his plans with brisk efficiency. “I’ll drive to the White Houser with the speaker. I can go on to my next appointment when I finish there. Angela, you take care of Jack here.”

  “Me?”

  “Take him to his hotel, then to dinner on my account. Talk to him about why we want to see the data he’s collected on Gromorphin.”

  She gave Jack a doubtful glance. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Senator. Besides, I can’t. I promised Gus I’d help him out tonight.”

  “Now, now, missy. Gus will understand.”

  “But—”

  “You’re more familiar with this issue than anyone else on my staff, even Marc. If anyone can convince Dr. Merritt to cooperate, you can. If not—” his blue eyes telegraphed a clear signal that he was playing hardball now “—I’ll exercise the full power of a congressional subpoena at the hearings.”

  With a tip of his head to Jack, he hurried out.

  His driver watched him leave, a look of mingled exasperation and resignation on her face. Then she folded her arms and turned to survey her assigned project for the evening. A sneakered foot beat impatiently against the carpet.

  “Can I? Convince you to cooperate?”

  “You can try. You can certainly try.”

  Chapter 5

  “Who’s Gus?”

  Jack’s question broke the silence that had stretched between him and his reluctant dinner companion since the elevator’s descent to the underground parking space.

  “My cousin Teresa’s husband,” Angela replied, twisting the key in the Chrysler’s ignition.

  “How were you supposed to help him out tonight?”

  She waited until she’d negotiated the steep exit ramp and had the car pointed into the stream of traffic to respond.

  “Gus is chief dispatcher for Top Hat Limousine Service. He got me a job there a couple of years ago, moonlighting as a driver whenever the senator didn’t need me. I don’t pull as many gigs as I used to, but I try to help him out on special occasions.”

  “Special occasions like Valentine’s Day?”

  “Especially Valentine’s Day. This is one of the busiest nights of the year in the limo business.” She speared a hand through her hair. “He’ll just have to juggle the schedule and double up the other drivers.”

  With a small frown, Jack recalled Detective Winters’s comment about Angela working two jobs to help with her brother’s bills.

  “I didn’t know about your prior commitments when I agreed to the senator’s suggestions for tonight. We can skip dinner and meet after you get through work.”

  She shook her head. “No good. I told Gus I’d take back-to-back gigs. I wouldn’t be through until late, well after midnight.”

  “I’ll be awake,” Jack drawled.

  He sure as hell wasn’t going to sleep until he got some answers, and the most pressing question in his mind right now was how much Angela Paretti really knew about HealthMark and Gromorphin.

  He wanted to believe that her interest stemmed from her brother’s experience and from her own obvious involvement in the senator’s reform legislation. He needed to believe it. He still owed her for dragging him out of the line of fire. And, he reminded himself, he had every intention of wangling another kiss. This time with her eyes closed.

  “There’s another option,” she said slowly, almost reluctantly. We could have dinner—and our talk—while my clients are having theirs.”

  “Won’t your customers object to an added passenger?”

  “They might, if I took along another passenger.” She skimmed him with a quick look. “Your dark suit is close enough to a uniform. We’ll scrounge up a hat and make you, um, a driver-in-training.”

  “A driver-in-training?”

  Jack rolled the possibility around in his mind. He didn’t like the idea of sharing Angela’s time or attention with her customers. Not with what was at stake.

  All right, he admitted silently, he didn’t like the idea of sharing her time or attention at all. He wanted her focused on him. Totally. Exclusively.

  Angela wasn’t surprised when Jack hesitated. She’d suspected before she made the offer that he wouldn’t take her up on it, even though it wasn’t as off-the-wall as it probably sounded to him.

  Most of the limo drivers she worked with bent the rules on occasion to accommodate personal situations. Just last week, one desperate father had tucked his sleeping child into a car seat until his wife finished work. A number of drivers arranged for their girlfriends to meet them and help pass the idle hours of waiting while clients lingered over dinner or sat in a darkened theater.

  Usually, Angela took advantage of the downtime to hit the books. She was only eight credit hours away from finally finishing her interrupted master’s program. Knowing that the senator would be occupied for the evening, she’d accepted back-to-back gigs tonight with the intent of pulling in some needed cash and using the idle time to cram for an upcoming exam.

  She might still get in her study time. A quick glance at her passenger told her that he had some doubts about his proposed change in status.

  “What kind of hat would I have to wear?” he asked cautiously.

  “A top hat. It’s not just the name of the service,” she said primly, “it’s part of our professional image.”

  She fully expected him to back out now. She wouldn’t blame him. Every one of the drivers at Top Hat hated the ridiculous headgear. Angela couldn’t see a vice president and chief financial officer agreeing to wear one while he tooled around D.C. as a driver-in-training.

  She bit back a sigh. She hated to disappoint Gus. He needed her help tonight.

  On the other hand, she acknowledged silently, an evening spent in Jack Merritt’s exclusive company wouldn’t exactly constitute a fate worse than death. As reluctant as she was to admit it, there was more between them at this point than politics.

  Maybe they had invested something in each other during those few moments on the Fourteenth Street Bridge. Maybe it was time to explore the heightened, prickly awareness that gripped her every time she and Jack Merritt occupied the same airspace.

  She felt it now. A curious sort of crow
ding of her senses, as though she couldn’t draw a breath without taking in his scent, or shift in her seat without touching him. She had a crazy, disturbing urge to do just that... breathe him. Touch him. Take him up on his offer to try another kiss, this time with her eyes closed.

  His deep voice broke into her swirling thoughts. “If they have a hat that will fit me, I’ll try to live up to your professional image.”

  Angela curled her fingers around the wheel. A small pleasure darted down her spine at his willingness to accommodate himself to her schedule.

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure we can find one to fit.”

  She knew for a fact that they had a whole locker full of the silly things at central dispatch.

  “What time’s your first gig?”

  She darted a quick look at the digital clock above the instrument panel. “At 6:30. We just have time to swing by your hotel and get you checked in. We’ll have to make tracks from there, though.”

  “My reservation’s confirmed with a credit card. We don’t need to go by the hotel.”

  “Hold on, then.”

  Flicking a look in the rear and side mirrors, Angela veered across the lanes of traffic. A black-shod foot beside hers thumped the floor mat reflexively. This time, she didn’t bother to hide her smile.

  “Here’s your first lesson, trainee. A good driver always knows what’s behind, beside and ahead. He can thread his car through an opening the size of a lug nut, if necessary, and not scrape the paint.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t become necessary tonight,” Jack drawled.

  The ready laughter that was as much a part of Angela’s nature as her occasionally volatile temper bubbled in her throat. She took her gaze from the road for a moment and caught an answering glimmer in his eyes. As it had before, his amusement pulled at something inside her.

  Suddenly, her awareness of the man beside her changed gears, shifting out of prickly and slipping into shivery with the smooth precision of a short-block engine. Angela felt its powerful thrust to the tips of her sneakered toes. Taking a firm grip on her emotions and the wheel, she weaved through the rush-hour-clogged streets.