Danger Calls (15 page)

M
elissa read on, aware that she was almost at the end of the journal. If she could finish in the next hour or so, she could fill the others in on what she had learned once she was back at the apartment.

She was shocked as her father described not only drugging Ryder once more, but deciding that the missing element might be in Ryder's bite. With Ryder still in vamp mode after sucking down the tainted blood, her father had milked his fangs like a snake keeper might his pet cobra. Armed now with samples of both Ryder's blood and the excretion from his fangs, her father had continued his experiments.

Experiments that had, within a few short weeks, yielded results. Normal rats inoculated with a combination of Ryder's blood and the fang serum exhibited increased strength and healing. Rats riddled with cancer underwent almost instantaneous remissions.

More importantly, none of the treated rats exhibited any signs of other vampiric tendencies.

That seemed to puzzle her father.

Fascinated, Melissa read on. Although it wasn't stated outright in the journal that her father had infected her mother with Ryder's cells, she had no doubt that was what her father had done.

But there was something else. Something that didn't make sense. Beyond a short mention of her mother's improvement at the end of the journal, there was nothing else about the experiment.

Not like her very precise father, who, in the papers she had already perused, meticulously detailed everything that went on with both Ryder and her mother, and occasionally even Melissa.

Those few entries about her had been jarring. They had revealed a side of her father she hadn't known existed. He'd clearly been proud of her. Respected all that she had accomplished and, dare she say it, some of the entries were even affectionate.

She went back to the beginning of the journal and the first entry. It was undated like all the others, and if not for Melissa's knowledge of the situation, cryptic when it referred to Ryder. She flipped through a few more pages and ran across an entry making reference to a short trip her father had taken to a conference.

She recalled that trip, about five months before his death.

Continuing onward, Melissa kept looking for clues that would date the entries. Occasionally she pinpointed an event or other occasion. Finally, toward the last few pages of the journal, something jarred her memory.

As she had the first time, she battled back tears. So many maybes that would never come to fruition. And a family? With her life the way it was now?
Impossible.

She drove that negative thought away. With Sebastian in her life, she'd actually started to believe that normal could happen. Maybe it could. Maybe her parents' wish for her—for a family and love—could come to pass.

Keeping that close to her heart, she flipped to the final pages and finally realized this couldn't be her father's last journal.

She'd been offered the position at the hospital nearly three months before the hospital gala. The gala had been a month before her parents' deaths.

Four missing months. Four months during which her mother had seemingly been cured of the illness that had stolen so much of her life. Four months that had hopefully given her mother the same joy and optimism apparent in her father's last entry.

His last entry.
Her father would not have gone four long months without writing in the journal. Especially not when he thought he'd discovered something that had cured her mother. Something that might possibly be used to heal others.

Her father's last journal must be missing, and after reading the information that Sebastian had downloaded from the NSA, Melissa had no doubt that it was Edward Sloan who had it and Edward Sloan who had probably killed her parents.

Now it was time to decide what to do about it.

 

After one last round to check on all her patients, Melissa returned to her office to pack up her things. She was just taking the journal from her lab jacket pocket and stuffing it into her knapsack when there was a knock on the door.

Quickly zipping the bag, she called out, “Come in.”

She was pleasantly surprised to see Sebastian. He was in his customary uniform: jeans and T-shirt, a
Simpsons
one this time. Over his clothes, he wore the long black leather duster he had worn that morning in deference to the winter chill.

“What are you doing here?” She slipped one strap of the knapsack over her shoulder and dropped a kiss on his cheek where the cold still lingered.

He grinned at her and took hold of her hand. “Came to walk my girl home.” Apparently unsatisfied with her quick peck, he eased his arm around her waist, drew her close and gave her a slow lingering kiss.

Wrapping her arms around him, she answered the pull of his kiss, opening her mouth to his, meeting his tongue with hers. It went on and on until she wanted more and told him, butting her hips against his, moaning at the hardness of his erection. She broke away from him, slightly breathless. She leaned her forehead against his chest and asked, “It's six in the morning. What are you doing up?”

In answer, he shifted his hips against hers, but said, “Figured I'd get all the scanning finished last night so that when you came home, we could get some sleep.” He shifted his head down, found the sensitive spot between her neck and shoulder and bit gently before he kissed it better.

“Seems to me sleep is not what you had in mind.” Despite her teasing words, she shifted her hips back and forth against his. She was definitely in a similar frame of mind.

He pulled away from her, his dark eyes glittering with humor and a sexy glint. “Not to start with, but after. The deep exhausted sleep of the immensely satisfied. Are you game?”

“Definitely.”

They walked out of her office with their arms wrapped around each other. They strolled past the nurses' station where Sara was just finishing up. As she saw them, she smiled and called out, “Have a good day.”

Smiling, Melissa said, “I think we will.”

Sara chuckled, clearly aware of what was up with her friend. Surprisingly Melissa felt no shame. Or doubt. Something new. With her parents, doubt about their feelings for her had been the buzzword. With Sebastian…

She glanced at him occasionally as they walked to her apartment. He cared for her, but with that thought came the realization that she couldn't be sure if those emotions would last. If they got through the current problem, there'd be another. Melissa was certain of that. Everyday life with Ryder demanded certain things and his involvement with Diana had seemed to make those things even more complicated.

Even if Ryder wasn't in the picture, there was her life as a doctor. Especially at a hospital like hers. Edward had been right when he said that in addition to the clinical work she was doing, they'd eventually require more research from her. In and of itself, being a doctor at this particular hospital was a difficult life, sometimes with long and erratic hours.

She wondered if Sebastian could handle it. Granted, his nontraditional life gave him a lot of freedom. Freedom to do what he wanted when he wanted, which was the total antithesis of her strictly disciplined life.

Would he grow tired of the restraints on his freedom? Was his free spirit unsuited to any long-term relationship? She hated that doubt had suddenly arisen.

Sebastian sensed a change in her from the stiffening of her body. “You okay?”

She shrugged. “Sure. Why?”

Sebastian stopped and turned to look at her more closely. “You just seem distant all of a sudden.”

“I'm fine.” She gave another shrug and started walking again, almost as if running from him.

Sebastian was tempted to walk away. He suspected that was what she wanted him to do and he could guess at the reasons for it. Primary reason number one—she was suddenly unsure of him. Still uncertain he was capable of the long haul. But he wasn't about to give her ammunition to bolster that doubt. So he fell into step beside her, but said nothing, sensing she needed the space.

Silence reigned as they reached her building. When they entered her apartment, they both stopped short. Diana was sitting in the living room. It shouldn't have surprised him. She'd dropped by Ryder's the night before when she'd come in after her meeting with Daly. They'd spoken briefly. Too briefly. He'd gotten the sense that Diana suspected something was up with him. She hadn't pressed, however, wrongly believing that it was something personal rather than criminal.

He should have realized she'd spend the night with Ryder. That's what two people who were involved with one another did, wasn't it? It was what he'd wanted to do with Melissa until she'd suddenly gone all Ice Queen on him.

“
Buenos dias, hermanita.
” He gave her a hug.

“
Hermanito
. You're up early, or should I say, up late?” As she looked from him to Melissa, she arched an eyebrow in question, something tipping her off to a possible problem.

“Late. I finished scanning her father's journals early this morning and decided to meet Melissa.” In what was getting to be habit, he slipped his hand into Melissa's. He was pleasantly surprised when she gripped back.

Diana didn't fail to miss the action and was about to say something when Ryder descended the stairs. “Hail, hail the gang's all here. Did you say you had finished scanning?”

“I did.”

“And I completed my father's last journal, only it isn't,” Melissa chimed in.

Ryder strode over until he stood behind Diana. “It isn't what?”

“His last journal,” Melissa explained. “It ends just about four months before his death. Up until then, there were meticulous entries about everything. About the experiments.”

Diana quickly said, “Tell us about the experiments.”

Tension immediately erupted in Melissa's body. Sebastian could tell from the way her hand tightened on his, as if she needed an anchor. “Maybe we should sit. It's a long story.”

A long painful story, especially since at the end of Melissa's account, they'd have to add the information they'd obtained on Sloan. Diana would know then what he'd done.

He offered Melissa what comfort he could as she recounted the details of her father's betrayal. It might have been easier had Ryder responded with anger, as he had the last time. Instead he remained quiet, but his face grew harder as each incident was revealed. When Melissa finished, he rose, his back turned to them. It was obvious, from the tight set of his body to the long rough breath he exhaled, what he was feeling.

Sebastian met his sister's gaze and knew she shared her lover's pain. She laid a hand on Ryder's back, soothing him although not a word passed between them. After what seemed like hours, Ryder finally faced Melissa once more, his anguish apparent. “I know Frederick did it for a good cause. I can understand wanting to protect the one you love.”

Diana slipped her hand into Ryder's and the vampire dropped a kiss on her forehead as she leaned into him. The simplicity of the action, the freedom with which it came, bespoke of their love for one another. Sebastian hoped it would one day be that way with him and Melissa.

When Melissa's gaze met his, it was guarded, as if she got the direction of his thoughts, but couldn't reciprocate. She pulled her hand from his grasp and gripped her thighs as she continued.

“He meant well, but what he did…I'm sorry, Ryder.”

Ryder shook his head vehemently. “You have nothing to apologize for. And no matter what your father intended, he clearly must have been careless enough to let someone else become aware of what he was doing.”

“Edward Sloan knew. The NSA let him go over concerns about his mental stability,” Sebastian said, girding himself for his sister's reaction.