Love Is in the Air (4 page)

Okay, maybe she had a second motivation. A part of her felt that the thing to reignite her and Richard’s love life was to try something daring, such as the Latvian Splits that Maria kept carrying on about.

Jerking open the door to the basement level, Sal stopped. A thick black greeted her. Even the battery-powered emergency lights had given out. And if they were down, what about the blood bank’s power supply? Maybe that’s what delayed Maria.

Getting out her trusty penlight, Sal swept the hall with the thin beam. The action had started casually, then a snake of fear slithered up her back, hearkening her mind back to the emergency room. The flash of light. The glint of steel. Even though she couldn’t remember what had actually happened, the fragmented images brought a chill to the otherwise humid air.

The basement’s damp, dark ambience almost made her head upstairs to obtain a bigger flashlight and an even bigger security guard. Then Sal laughed. When did she become such a scaredy-cat? Her father, rest his soul, would be ashamed to have his daughter act so timid. She came from hardier stock than that.

Striding with much more confidence, Sal made a fast left. One last corridor, and she’d be at the blood bank. No big deal. Then her penlight gave out. Startled, she dropped it, then jumped when it shattered across the floor. Reaching a hand out, she found the wall and steadied herself. As her breath wheezed loudly, Sal chastised herself.

What could have thrown her off her game so badly? She normally liked the dark. It was soothing. Calm. Safe. Now, though, it held nothing but foreboding. Up ahead, Sal could see the faint pool of light coming from the blood bank’s doorway. Just get down there, already!

Hand against the wall, as if it could offer some emotional support, Sal made her way down the hall. Suddenly, a man burst out of the blood bank.

Not any man, but
the
man.

Taller than even Richard, wide shoulders, and an impossibly square jawline.

How could she forget those flint-blue eyes?

Here, her “trick of the light” stood in the flesh.

A knife in hand.

CHAPTER 8

“Maria!” Sal yelled, remembering it all. How could she have forgotten that this man had nearly killed her friend?

“Leave,” he growled.

Despite her body wanting to do exactly the opposite, Sal found her feet turning back toward the stairwell. While she tried to rationalize that it was her desire to get to security, Sal knew that it was his word, his commanding tone, that forced her feet to move. Nothing else mattered but following his edict.

In obeying, Sal’s path brought her past the blood bank’s door. She caught the sight of red. Her feet stopped.

“No!”

Before her lay a bloodbath. Literally. Two inches of the sticky fluid covered the floor. The blood bags had been ripped to shreds, their contents spilled. And a single body lay in the middle, slashed open, like a wild animal kill. White innards spilled across the crimson sea.

Sal stood stunned, then caught sight of a blonde streak. Blonde bangs against blue-black shorn hair.

Maria!

Her best friend’s eyes were open, glazed over with death. A wrenching nausea threatened to topple Sal, and then his hand was on her shoulder.

His
hand. The man who had done this. The man who’d killed Maria.

Her feet took over, reeling her backwards, propelling her away. She had seen a phone. It was halfway to the stairs. Running, Sal found the phone and jerked it from its hook. “Security!”

But it was dead. Not even a dial tone. She dropped the hand piece and went to run for the stairwell, but a strong hand caught her jacket.

Sal tried to scream, but his hand grabbed her throat, choking her, picking her up off her feet and slamming her back against the wall.

He brought his face so near that stubble raked her cheek. “Hold.”

As much as Sal wanted to squirm from his grasp, she could not. The man lowered her to the ground, and then ever so slightly released the pressure against her trachea. She took in a harsh breath, then coughed.

His grip cut off her windpipe again. “You draw him!”

From under his coat, he drew his knife, the same blade she had seen earlier. The thin steel glistened at its impossibly sharp tip. Sal flailed as the light from the blood bank suddenly extinguished, leaving only inky black.

This was it. She was going to die like Maria.

Here, alone in the dark.

CHAPTER 9

Was it lack of oxygen, or was there really a red glow emanating from the blood bank? Had the emergency lighting kicked in? Was there hope?

Then a low growl rumbled from the room. Deep. Bestial.

It echoed in her bone marrow. The only time she had ever heard such a terrifying sound had been when her family had gone to see feeding day at the zoo. Except the big cats’ meals had been delayed, and over a dozen angry lions rattled the bars until they shook dust from their moorings.

Sal hadn’t been back to the zoo since.

A snarl made every hair on her body stand on end, responding to a prehistoric cue. The same panic filled her chest that had filled a Neanderthal’s heart thirty-five thousand years ago. Adrenaline demanded that she fight, or give flight. Death was on the prowl.

“Are you afraid?” he whispered as he showed her his knife.

The red light pulsed steadily, like a heartbeat, and the sound from the beast’s maw filled the narrow hallway.

Sal squeaked, “Terrified.”

“May I?” The man reached out.

The world no longer made sense. Had this man really killed Maria?

And if he had, why not just kill her as well?

If he wanted Sal dead, she would be dead, a dozen different ways.

While she had no idea who this hulking man was, the fear she felt for him paled in comparison to that throaty growl emanating from around the corner. There was an evil that could have torn her friend to pieces. Now his sharp knife no longer seemed all that scary, instead Sal viewed it as an asset. It was the only weapon that stood between them, and… well, whatever was coming around the corner.

The only thing she knew—their attacker wasn’t human.

If she had to choose between it and him…

Risking to trust him in this small way, Sal placed her hand in his, but he betrayed it. In a blinding flash, the man used his knife to slice her wrist.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed.

A guff came from deep within the red glow. Paws padding through Maria’s blood made a sickening sucking sound. Sensing a meal in the making, it came. Her blood drew it.

Panicked, she looked at the man. Why had he done such a thing? Did he, in fact, mean her harm? Was he going to throw her to that creature? But the man concentrated on dripping her blood upon his blade.

To her amazement, with each drop, the steel glowed more brightly. When the length of the metal glistened white, the man raised it in defiance.

“Smell her fear, beast. Know that my blade is rich with it,” he growled, almost as feral as the creature. “Come—if you dare!”

A roar burst forth, shaking the walls as it exploded into a full charge.

The man shoved her behind him. “Run!”

She didn’t need his urging as she took flight down the hallway. Red permeated the air. An inhuman scream echoed off the walls as she heard the clash of steel, but still she ran, turning the corner of the hallway, sprinting for the stairwell door—only to find it locked.

“No!” Sal pounded on the door as the fierce battle inched closer.

The dark landing soon glowed an angry red. The man stumbled into view, his once-pristine coat slashed and bloodied in the fight. How could he fight so valiantly to protect her, but still cut her so? When she looked down at her wrist, the cut had already healed. A thin, pink mark was all that was left of the gash.

Ever since the hallway had turned burgundy, nothing made sense. How could this stranger in leather be defending her from some creature?

In a sweeping motion, the man raised the knife high above his head.

The steel that had turned pure white was now tainted black with dark blood.

Arcing it downward at the creature, he yelled, “Enough!”

As the blade met its mark, an explosion rang out.

Thrown backward, Sal’s head slammed against the door.

The world turned red, and then black.

CHAPTER 10

Confused, Sal squinted under the bright lights. A maelstrom of activity swirled. The loud clang of instrument trays and shouts of vital signs buzzed in her ears. Sal would know those sounds anywhere. She was in Trauma One. Only this time, she wasn’t the doctor. She was the patient.

“She’s coming around!”

As Sal awoke, the panic did as well. A growling rumbled at the base of her skull as Sal struggled to rise. She had to run away, and run fast.

“Babe, hold still, they’re trying to get your blood pressure.”

She swung around to face the man holding her, but it was only Richard. Who else did she think it could be? Despite her mind knowing that she sat on a gurney in Trauma One, her heart pounded as if it were still in that lethal hallway.

“You’re safe, honey,” her fiancé reassured her.

Then why didn’t she feel it? Dread filled her heart, and her muscles ached to be used, but there was nowhere to run.

“How did I get here?” she asked.

Paul tightened the blood pressure cuff as he answered. “I went down to check on the blood…”

Sal tried to meet his gaze, but the light was too harsh for eyes grown accustomed to pitch-black. When had they gotten the lights back on? How long had she been out?

“Dr. Calon, did you see anyone down there?” a female voice asked.

“Detective, can’t this wait?” Richard demanded.

“It’s best when it’s fresh in her mind,” she said.

At first, Sal’s throat wouldn’t respond. After clearing her throat, she found she still couldn’t speak. Not because of any ailment, but because she couldn’t remember what happened. No matter how hard she tried, the memories eluded her—settling in her mind only as fragments.

“There was a red light. A growling…”

Although everyone else seemed skeptical, Paul nodded in agreement.

“Maintenance was down there getting the old steam generator online. In the dark, that probably sounded pretty damn scary.”

That couldn’t be it, could it? The harder Sal thought, the less she knew. Could all the terror she felt have just been maintenance workers?

“Richard, you’ve got to keep her arm out,” Stacy demanded as she flicked a penlight in Sal’s eyes.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, but Manning still fussed.

Paul expertly nudged Stacy out of the way, then gave Sal a reassuring smile, only the expression was tainted by sadness. Why was Paul sad?

“Maria!” she shouted. “Oh God, she’s—”

Richard gripped her against his chest. “We know, Sal. We know. There was nothing you could do.”

But there had to have been something she could have done. Someone else had been there. Hadn’t he? If she closed her eyes, Sal could smell his musk, or was that her own fear?

Richard cradled her face in his hands. “Do you remember something?”

Her fingers found the skin on her neck. It was still sore, but not bruised.

She could feel her lungs struggle to breathe, but her trachea had been pinched off. How could that have happened?

The detective couldn’t hide her impatience. “Maybe you can walk me through what happened. We know you made it to the blood bank, since you had blood on the bottom of your sneakers. Why don’t you start there?”

Sal doubled over, nearly heaving. The blood that the detective referred to was Maria’s. She’d stepped in her best friend’s blood.

Richard kept his arm around her, but stood to his full height. “That will be enough. You don’t actually suspect her of this crime?”

The detective had to shake her head.

“Clearly, then,” her fiancé explained, “if she remembered anything of value regarding her best friend’s murder, she would tell you.” He raised his voice another octave to quiet the detective. “The harder you force her to relive the traumatic events, the deeper you will drive her away from the very memories you need.”

“She’s a material witness. I can hold her until—”

Sal stiffened. She didn’t want to stay here. Didn’t want to be questioned anymore. She just wanted to crawl in a hole and sleep until this could all become just a vague nightmare.

Richard flipped his cell phone open and hit a speed dial number. He waited patiently while it rang.

The detective’s frown was back. “Who are you calling?”

“Your Chief of D’s,” he said casually. “I’ve been treating his daughter for PTSD. You might have read about it in the papers.”

“Who hasn’t?” Paul snorted, freeing Sal from the blood pressure cuff.

The girl they referred to had been assaulted in Golden Gate Park, and even though she wasn’t that physically injured, the college student had descended into a near-catatonic state. After three other psychiatrists had failed, Richard coaxed her back into true consciousness. Then, to prove his reputation had been earned, he helped the girl remember and identify her attackers. After they had been convicted, her father had given Richard a commendation from the department.

“Fine,” the detective admitted. “But I need her down at the station first thing tomorrow morning to make a statement.”

Richard snapped his phone closed. “I’ll drive her there myself.”

As the detective left, Manning tried to maneuver her fiancé out of the way. “You might have spoken too soon, Richard. I’m not sure if I’ll be releasing her any time tonight.”

“I’m taking her home,” Richard stated. “
Now
.”

“But I’m still waiting on blood work and…” Stacy stammered.

“We both know her CT was clean. So just call me with the lab results, and I’ll monitor her mental status at home.”

“But—”

“Get the paperwork ready, Stacy,” he said with a finality that shut even Manning up.

Without a stethoscope constantly around his neck, it was easy to forget that not only had Richard gone to medical school, but he was a senior clinician, outranking everyone in the room.