Well, he wouldn’t get far. Rathe ducked his head and accelerated, glad that he’d traded the janitor’s standard sneakers for his own custom-made boots, which were tough enough to protect him from desert sands and soft enough to render him nearly silent. Doors sped past, and he skidded a little when he turned the corner and stopped dead.
The loading dock. Damn. The door swung shut on a slice of the outdoors, leaving the dimly lit area empty. “Bloody hell,” he said aloud and reached for the door.
The attack hit him from behind. A man grabbed him and shoved him into the wall. Hard.
Rathe reacted instantly, jabbing an elbow back and twining his foot around the other man’s ankle, but his assailant was taller and light on his feet. The bigger man spun away. His elbow cracked against Rathe’s jaw. Rathe’s head whipped to the side, and he swung out blindly, felt a spurt of satisfaction when he connected and heard a grunt of pain.
He yanked off his ball cap for better visibility and sent his fist into the gaunt, gray face of his attacker. Dimly he recognized Cadaver Man from Nia’s description, and the realization that the bastard could have hurt her lent fury to his blows.
He wound up for the knockout when the cell phone hidden inside his coveralls rang. The noise distracted him for only an instant, but it was long enough for the gray, corpselike man to slip inside his guard and punch him in the gut. Rathe doubled over, then dropped to the floor, rolling away in case there was a follow-up kick. But there wasn’t. The tall man stared down at him for a heartbeat, a disconcerting lack of expression on his face.
After five rings, the cell phone fell silent.
“Go away, Dr. McKay,” Cadaver Man said in an unexpectedly soft voice laced with the cadences of northern Maine, “and call off Nia French. Or else.”
And he shouldered his way through the door and out into the bustling streets of Chinatown.
Rathe lurched to his feet, thinking to give chase even though he knew it was no use. Then the cell phone rang again, and a name leaped to lightning-sharp focus in his mind. Nia!
The bastard knew their names and their purpose. What if he’d already gotten to her?
He slapped the phone open. “Nia? Are you okay?”
“McKay. What the hell are you doing?” The booming voice on the other end of the line was familiar, though it certainly wasn’t Nia.
“Jack,” Rathe held the phone to his ear and jogged back the way he’d come. “I’m glad it’s you. We have a problem.”
The elevator was slow in coming and he waited impatiently, telling himself she was fine. She was in her office. Safe. This was Boston, not Tehru, damn it.
Wainwright’s voice was sharp. “You’re damn right we have a problem. Nia French says you told her to quit.”
Rathe stepped into the elevator and stabbed a button. Forced himself to breathe evenly. She was fine. He was overreacting. He wasn’t going to let this happen again. “Yes, I did. There’s something going on in this hospital. Something bad. I want her out of here before she gets herself hurt.”
“You’re ditching the assignment?”
Rathe scowled into the phone. “Of course not. You know better than that, Jack. I’m staying, but I want Nia out of danger.” The service elevator let him off in the lobby, and he transferred to one of the brushed-steel lifts that would carry him up to the Transplant Department.
Wainwright’s grumble vibrated on the airwaves. “It’s her job to be in danger, McKay. Remember?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Rathe retorted. “She quit.”
“No. She didn’t quit. She phoned me and threatened to sue both our asses for sexual discrimination.”
“She did what?” Rathe ignored the curious stares of the two white-coated researchers sharing the car with him. He supposed the image was incongruous—a rumpled janitor shouting into a phone boasting technology that hadn’t yet transitioned from the military to the public.
“You heard me.” Wainwright’s voice dropped to a threatening hiss. “Fix this, McKay. I don’t care how you do it, but fix this. She’s one of the best young M.D.s I’ve got. I will not lose her, do you understand?”
The doors slid open and Rathe stepped out of the car. He glanced around to make sure he was alone, then lowered his voice and grated, “She’ll be lost for good if you don’t pull her off this case, get it? I just tangled with one of our suspects and he called me by name. Worse, he knew her name, too.”
There was a beat of silence. Then Jack sighed. “Proceed with caution, McKay. That’s all we can ever do in these situations.” He paused. “You’re in contact with the local police?”
Rathe gripped the phone so tightly his knuckles cracked. “Damn it! Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? Nia is in danger, and I want her off the case. Now.”
“This isn’t your call, McKay. I don’t want a harassment suit on my hands, and more important, I want Nia French in Investigations. She’s a brilliant doctor and she has no fear. I want you to train her, Rathe, not protect her.” There was a heavy silence. “If you can’t handle it, then I’ll pull you off the case and give her to someone who can. Jacobsen is free right now, or maybe Roscoe.”
Rathe cursed in Russian, his favorite language for profanity. “Jacobsen is practically a rookie himself, and Roscoe is—” too jaded, too handsome, too slick with the ladies and just a little bit careless “—not right for this case.” He lowered his voice further as a group of med students filed by in the wake of Director Talbot, who frowned as though wondering why his undercover operative was skulking near the elevator. “Please, Jack. Take her off this case. I’ll train her on another job, I swear it. Just not this one. I’ve got a bad feeling.”
Wainwright’s voice gentled, as though he knew something about the things Rathe preferred to keep hidden. “She’ll be fine. She’s smart and she’s tough. Just watch her back. That’s all partners can ever ask of each other.” And the line went dead.
“Damn it!” Rathe jammed the phone back inside his coveralls and strode to Nia’s borrowed office. “You’d better be at your desk, Nia French,” he muttered. “You’d better be okay, because if you’re not…”
Just watch her back, Jack had said. Well, Rathe hadn’t been watching just now. Not well enough.
He slammed through her door, which hung slightly ajar, and froze. Tension boiled like bile in his stomach.
She wasn’t there. And the office was a wreck.
Chapter Four
Emergency!
The call crackled over the intercom, and the hallway was suddenly filled with the noise of running feet as nurses and doctors rushed to answer the call.
In a supply closet nearby, Nia heard the commotion and felt her eyelid twitch. She shoved a box of syringes back onto its shelf, jammed the inventory list into her pocket and slipped into the corridor, hoping her tic was wrong.
She wanted a break in the case, yes, but not at the expense of a patient.
“Marissa! I told you to call me if she deteriorated!” Logan Hart shouldered Nia aside without apology and pushed his way through a knot of scrub-clad nurses into the patient’s room.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Hart. It happened so quickly, I didn’t—” The dark-haired nurse trailed off when she realized the handsome young doctor wasn’t listening. She made a face and turned away, then frowned when she saw Nia had witnessed the break in protocol. Her eyes flickered to Nia’s badge and she winced. “I’m sorry, Dr. French. That was unprofessional of me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Nia answered automatically, though her attention was on the crowded doorway.