Red Alert (6 page)

“You want a boost?”

He bit back the automatic retort. “I’ve got it.” He poked the cane up with more force than necessary, sending the panel clattering out of the way. Then he wedged the rubber-tipped end on the metal handrail that looped around the elevator car, used the cane as leverage, jumped as high as he could manage, and grabbed the edge of the escape hatch with his free hand. Cursing with the effort, he dragged his upper
body through the opening one-handed, then pulled the cane up after him.

It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was all he had left.

Exertion sang through his bloodstream, sending his pulse into his ears. A quick glance showed him a lighted rectangle some twenty feet above, stark contrast to the darkness of the elevator shaft, which was lined with metal, cement and thick cables.

A human figure stood silhouetted in the doorway. Another clung to the side of the shaft, maybe fifteen feet away.

Erik stayed silent, though there was little hope of avoiding detection. With one muscle-popping surge of effort, he scrambled to his feet until he was standing atop the ruined elevator car with his cane in his fist, a weak defense against the dark shadow that dropped down the final feet separating them, landed heavily atop the elevator car, and clasped his shoulder.

“You’re okay. Thank God.”

Relief laced through Erik. It was Zach Cage. Rescue, not attack.

“What happened?” the hospital administrator asked, then cursed. “Never mind. Dumb question. Is Meg hurt?”

“She’s rattled,” Erik said as a coil of rope snaked down from above and the crackle of radio traffic announced the arrival of official personnel. “And frankly, so am I. You know what this means, don’t you?”

Cage nodded grimly. “The hospital isn’t the
target. These so-called accidents are focused on one of you guys. Question is, which one?”

“I don’t know,” Erik admitted, “but I’m damn well going to find out.”

THE NEXT HALF HOUR passed in a blur of firefighters and paramedics that seemed all too familiar to Meg.

Two near-death experiences in two days. How was she supposed to deal with that?

She didn’t know, but as she sat alone at a conference table in a bare, faintly cool room deep within the Chinatown police station, she gave herself a stern talking-to. “You’ve bungee jumped off a bridge. You’ve skydived. You’ve pedaled bikes off the sides of cliffs. Hell, you even base-jumped off a skyscraper once. You used to get a rush out of stuff like this.”

So why were her hands shaking? Why was her stomach knotted and why were her knees doing a fair impression of Jell-O?

Because those rushes were years in the past. And because she’d chosen the dangers. Over the past forty-eight hours, danger had come looking for her, and all she wanted to do was to run home and hide. She hadn’t signed up for this. She was a researcher, damn it, not a contestant on some freaky reality show where people volunteered to be buried in cement or dropped down elevator shafts in an effort to win a million dollars.

Even as she gritted her teeth on the thought, the door opened, admitting Erik Falco and the two detectives who’d earlier introduced themselves as
Peters and Sturgeon. They were easy to tell apart— Peters was the handsome, athletic one. Sturgeon had that Mr. Limpet thing going on. And Falco…

Hell, she didn’t know what to think about him. Most of the time, he leaned on that two-toned cane as though he was utterly dependent on its support, scowling to let the world know he hated every minute of it. He didn’t want sympathy, but he also didn’t seem comfortable in his own skin, regardless of the expensive clothes and tasteful haircut. But once or twice she’d seen flashes of something else, like when he’d rescued her from the cement or shielded her body with his during the crash. Then, he’d seemed to grow bigger. Taller. Meaner.

In those moments, he’d made her feel safe.

But now…now he stumped into the room and dropped heavily into a chair opposite her at the round conference table. His handsome face hardened into a glare, as though everything was somehow her fault.

Meg found herself bristling. “Don’t give me that look. If you hadn’t insisted on pursuing a deal I have no intention of making, none of this would have happened.”

Detective Peters paused in the act of setting up his PDA to record the conversation and glanced at them. “What deal?”

“Falco here wants to buy my patents, and can’t get it through his thick skull that NPT isn’t for sale,” Meg said. “Not to him, anyway.”

Maybe she shouldn’t snipe at a man who’d let her
use his body as a landing pad when their elevator crashed. But business was business.

Falco smiled at her with an expression that showed lots of teeth and very little warmth. “Like I said before, call me Erik. We’re going to be working closely together this week, so there’s no need to stand on formality.” He glanced at the detectives. “Unfortunately for Meg, she doesn’t hold veto power over the hospital’s decision. Unless she’s able to come up with a licensor willing to accept her terms—highly unlikely—the deal will go through one week from today.”

His use of her first name struck a chord she wasn’t entirely comfortable with, and had her hissing out a breath. A week. He was going to be dogging her tracks for the next seven days, probably ambushing her attempts to gather investors.

She didn’t know much about Erik Falco, but she had a pretty good idea he wouldn’t give up easily. Hell, he’d been working to get the deal done for months, and it hadn’t been until the last few days that Cage had begun yielding to the hospital’s growing financial pressures.

Come to think of it… “None of this started until Cage agreed in principle to FalcoTechno’s offer,” Meg said slowly. “What if someone’s trying to sabotage the deal?”

“If that’s the case, I expect you’ll track them down and offer to help.” Erik’s grimace suggested he was being sarcastic, but he continued. “It is possible, though. Several other companies are in the running for the NPT technology.”

“Nobody’s in the running,” Meg snapped. Her eyes itched, her brain felt as if it were stuffed with cotton batting and she was perilously close to tears. She bit her lip until the urge receded. “But I think it’s a valid hypothesis. If—and this is only hypothetical—if we agree that Erik and I were the target of these attacks, then our attacker could be someone trying to tank the deal.”

Detective Sturgeon flattened an index card on the table in front of him, apparently eschewing his partner’s technology. “Names?”

Erik flicked his fingers to dismiss the question. “I’ll work that end of things.”

Meg expected the detectives to rip a layer off him for the I’ve-got-money-I’m-above-your-rules attitude.

Instead Peters said, “We’d appreciate it—on an unofficial basis, of course. But I’ll still need a list of everyone who might have reason to want you or Dr. Corning dead.”

The last word sent a chilly spear through her midsection and she fought a shiver.

“I’ve got a few names,” Erik said, not sounding particularly upset by the fact. “How about you, Doc?”

“There’s nobody,” she said, pressing her fingers to her temples, where stress and nerves pounded in an increasing rhythm. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt me.”

“When the NPT technology is released, there’s going to be a big shift in the open market,” Erik
pointed out. “Jobs’ll be lost. Cash equity is going to move around. Money is a powerful motive.”

Meg scowled, hearing the sentiment echo in her father’s voice.
For some people, money is the best motive.

Even as a young girl, she’d known he meant her mother. Though many years and a few awkward meetings with the woman who had birthed her had given Meg some perspective, the fact remained. Her mother had cared less for her family than she had for things that couldn’t be bought on an academic’s salary.

The door opened and a dark-haired cop stuck his head into the room, interrupting. “Detectives? I think you’ll want to see this.”

Sturgeon rose and followed the man out. Peters shut down his PDA and said, “Wait here, I’ll see what’s up.”

But before he cleared the room, Sturgeon was back. The older detective spoke quietly in his partner’s ear. Peters stiffened and cursed before turning to Meg and Erik. “We’ll have to continue this later. We’ll be in touch.”

Erik rose. “A break?”

“Yes, but not in your case,” Sturgeon answered on his way out the door.

Peters paused and leveled a finger at Erik. “Don’t go Lone Ranger. You’re not on the job anymore. Find out what you can from the sidelines and leave the heavy lifting to us.”

“I don’t have much of a choice,” Erik said, leaning on the two-toned cane.

But Peters’s eyes darkened speculatively before he let the door swing shut in his wake, leaving Meg to think he’d noticed, too, how Falco’s reliance on the cane seemed to change with his mood.

Or maybe that was her imagination, brought on by too much stress and her unwilling awareness of the man.

She gathered her things and rose. “I guess I’ll head back to the lab.”

Surprise flashed in his dark eyes. “You’re not going home? Surely, you can take the rest of the day off after the morning you’ve had.”

“Sorry, no. I have work to do.”

The truth was that she didn’t want to go home.

It had been hard enough the night before, when she’d checked the doors and windows twice and still hadn’t felt completely safe. Now, knowing that the accident with the cement hadn’t been an accident at all, she didn’t imagine the wooden storm door with the single-barrel bolt would feel any safer. She was better off in the lab, which had levels of security between her and the outside world.

“I’ll walk you over.”

Though part of her wanted to tell him to leave her the hell alone and go back to his own life, she sucked it up and nodded. “Fine.” Then she slanted him a look. “The question is, am I safer with or without you?”

Though the question could have too many layers, he grimaced and took it at face value. “I wish I knew. If I’m the target, then you’re safer without me. If
you’re the target, then you’re safer—at least marginally—with me. If we’re both being targeted…hell, who knows? We’re watching each other’s backs or we’re making it easier on them by leaving a single target. Hard to tell.”

His answer was anything but reassuring, but Meg appreciated the honesty. She jerked her head toward the door. “Okay. Let’s go.”

They were both tense as they left the Chinatown police station and turned toward Washington Street. It would take longer for them to find a cab and fight the lunchtime traffic than it would to walk the four short blocks back to Boston General. But walking left them out in the open.

Unprotected.

Meg wasn’t sure whether the creeping feeling that descended the back of her neck and set up residence in her stomach was the power of suggestion or not. As they waited to cross Washington Street, she glanced over her shoulder, looking for…damn, she didn’t know what she was looking for.

“Relax,” Erik said quietly from beside her. “I’ve got your back.”

The light turned then and the pedestrian sign went the white of “walk.” As they started across, she glanced at his stern, set profile. “Who’s got yours?”

“I don’t need anyone to get my back. I’m a tough guy.” His lips twisted in a self-deprecating smile as he walked with a heavy hitch in his step. “Or not.”

But Meg was starting to see the holes in his act. She remembered the detectives’ attitudes toward
him—part caution, part camaraderie. “You were a cop, weren’t you?”

His step faltered, then resumed as they reached the other curb and turned up the final block to the hospital. “A long time ago.” His cynical smile twisted tighter. “Why? Does that make you feel safer? It shouldn’t. I’ve been a civilian for the past eight years.”

“What happened?”

“It’s not important,” he said flatly. “It has nothing to do with the attacks.”

They reached the hospital and crossed the main atrium in a tense silence that told her there would be no more small talk.

She paused at the stairs, where the door was propped open and the foot traffic was unusually heavy. She glanced over at the elevator lobby and her stomach tightened at the sight of crime scene tape and cops.

“Let’s take the—” She broke off and shook her head. “Never mind. Sorry. We can take the other set of elevators.”

“I can climb stairs,” he said sharply. “It’s a cane, not a wheelchair. You don’t need to make a big deal about it.”

“Why not? You do,” Meg snapped, irritated with him, with the whole rotten situation. Then she blew out a breath. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He turned away and headed for the stairs, back straight and stiff, walking almost normally.

She hurried to catch up and reached to grab his shoulder. “Wait.”

The heat of him radiated through the material of his shirt, and his muscles were tense and bunched beneath her touch. He stopped and turned, forcing her to drop her hand. His dark brows were drawn low over his piercing eyes, and his expression held something dark and forbidding. “What?”

She forced herself to stand up to him when she wanted to fall back a step. “Look, I said I was sorry. It’s just…this is weird for me. I don’t like it.”

His lips twisted. “I’m not a big fan of attempted murder, either, especially when I’m the target.”

She blew out a breath. “It’s not just that. It’s this whole situation. You’re not actually planning on shadowing me for the next six and a half days, are you? I mean, I don’t spend that much time with
anyone.
You hardly know me.”

“I know enough,” he said. “Meg Corning, daughter of Felicity and Robert Corning, divorced. Your mother is married to the president of TCR Pharmaceuticals. Your father, who raised you from the age of five when your mother left, won a Nobel Prize a few years ago for his early work on gene therapy.

“In an act of teenage rebellion you left home at eighteen and hitched your way around the globe, working your way from one extreme sport to the next.” His eyes were unreadable as he continued. “You had at least two serious relationships during that time—one with a skydiver, one with a scientist, neither lasting more than six months. You resurfaced
in grad school at twenty-five and swore you’d prove that fetal cells circulate in the maternal bloodstream. It sounded like another extreme sport, only extreme science this time around. But to everyone’s surprise, you actually succeeded, and hit the cover of
Science
magazine with your first major paper on Noninvasive Prenatal Testing. Since then, you’ve settled down and focused on perfecting the technique.”