The Drafter (15 page)

“Why are you in such a hurry?” Allen said, and she forced her pace to ease.

“Sorry,” she said, and the large man in a lab coat riffling through his paperwork glanced up at them and away. The guy was tall without an ounce of fat on him, his tie loosened as if at the end of a hard day, but his face was clean-shaven—only hours ago. He'd be good at subduing unruly patients. Maybe that was why he worked nights.

Stop it, Peri
. She was seeing assassins in the shadows, but all she had to go on at the moment was intuition, and it was in overdrive. “I can't believe anyone is here,” she said when they turned the corner and the man was out of earshot. “It's two in the morning.”

“You don't think Frank called ahead?” he asked. The teal line made a sharp left to a glass door and window wall. Beyond it was a tiny waiting room with an efficient-looking woman in purple scrubs behind the reception counter. She'd be in a suit during normal work hours, but things relaxed on the night shift as she'd have to do everything from file the paperwork to draw blood. It was Ruth, and Peri didn't have to fake a smile as she and Allen went in.

“Peri,” Ruth said as she stood, her relief obvious. She vanished behind a wall, and in half a second she was coming through the heavy
wooden door that separated her from the waiting room. “I just heard,” she said, giving Peri a hug that was so honest Peri's eyes shut as she basked in the other woman's warmth. “I'm so sorry. You okay?”

Peri nodded when Ruth held her at arm's length and searched her expression. “I'm okay. Really,” she added when the nurse looked doubtfully at Allen.

“Hi, Allen,” she said as she let go of Peri, and paranoia pinged at Ruth's guarded tone.

“She hit her head, but it's the proximity drafts I'm worried about,” Allen said, his tone just as telling. He didn't like Ruth, either. “I'd like to get moving on this. Is Bill here?”

Ruth frowned, her pique obvious at his implication that she was slowing things up. “No,” she said, pushing open the heavy door and leading them back. “We'll have you out of here in an hour, though. Get your synaptic baseline and send you home. No need to check you in.”

“Thank God,” Peri said softly, feeling the late hour all the way to her bones.

“Bill is only a few minutes out,” Ruth was saying as she led them down the hall past dark offices and diagnostic rooms. “He must have been putting in a late night.”

Peri's gut tightened, but if it was because of Bill or the diagnostic room Ruth was ushering them into, she couldn't tell. Allen filed in behind her to stand just inside the door.

“Jewelry off,” Ruth said brightly, moving about with quick efficiency, her short black hair swinging as she turned a soft, indulgent chair for Peri. “And your jacket. Here's a bin for you. I'll be right back to get your drip started. Bill wants to watch the diagnostics, so as soon as he gets here, we can get going.”

Peri took off her coat and gingerly sat in the big chair, her shoulders easing as she sank into the soft cushions. The low-ceilinged room had a flat brown carpet and drapes on the walls as if there were windows. There was no examination table, but there was a little desk with an outdated computer plug-in beside the etherball, and a trash can for hazardous waste. A second door probably led to an adjacent room. There
was a mirror on the same wall—clearly a one-way for observation. It was desperately trying to be a comfortable room, but the diagnostic tools were ruining it.

“I don't want to leave,” Allen said, looking helpless beside the door, and Ruth seemed to soften as she pulled the shade on the one-way mirror.

“You can stay.” She smiled at Peri, halfway out the door. “I'll be back with your IV.”

Needles
, Peri thought glumly as the door shut, and Allen sat in the chair beside the door. It was placed carefully—set on the outskirts and not very comfortable—to imply that he was allowed to be here but would have no power. He was here on sufferance.

Neither of them said anything as she took off her pen necklace, setting it beside her purse in the plastic bin with a picture of a mountain pasted to the bottom. A watch was next, and then her magnetic-backed earrings that wouldn't rip out in a fight. Reluctantly she set her knife beside them. Peri eased into the chair, the watch especially catching her eye. She wondered how long she'd had it. She never wore watches, especially one with so many gadgets. This one looked brand-new. Significant.

“I'm sorry this happened,” Allen said, his voice low as if someone might be listening.

Peri handed him her coat and he draped it on the back of his chair. “Shit happens.”

He shifted his feet, hunched over his knees. “I'm sure we can bring something back.”

Three years?
The silence of the building soaked into her along with his obvious doubt. Her head was scrambled like Sunday morning eggs. You couldn't bring back three years, and she didn't know if she even wanted to try.
What could have happened that I'd lose three years?

Allen straightened at a rattle in the hall. Peri tried to smile but only managed not to frown as the door opened and that same man from the hallway came in with a bag of saline drip on a stand. A tablet was tucked under his arm, in startling contrast to his buff physique. His tie
had been straightened, and the familiar packaging of a sterile IV kit showed from his lab coat's pocket. Peri's pulse hammered, and she took a steadying breath, quelling her paranoia.

“Hello, Ms. Reed,” the man said, his voice professionally bland as he ignored Allen apart from a cursory, somewhat peeved look. “I'm Silas. Ruth asked me to get your IV started while she prints up some paperwork she forgot.”

“Sure.” Peri nervously tucked her hair behind an ear before she began to roll up her sleeve. Her scraped knuckles caught her eye, and a flash of scratched parquet flitted through her thoughts.
I will not MEP. I will not MEP
.

“And you are?” Silas said to Allen as he set his tablet on the desk.

Allen shifted in his seat. “I'm, ah, Allen. Her anchor.”

“If you're staying, you need to be quiet. I don't want you screwing up the results.”

Allen leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed resolutely over his chest. “I know how to be quiet.”

Satisfied, Silas sat in the rolling chair as if it were a throne, cracking his knuckles as his tablet connected. She wondered if his nose had been broken once or twice, which wouldn't surprise her, with his brooding manner and the iron-pumping arms stuffed into his lab coat. Even so, it only added to his rugged good looks. He
had
just shaved, and the spicy pine of his aftershave was . . . different but good.

Exhaling, he typed into his tablet with surprising facility. She leaned to peek, and he turned it so she couldn't. Her memory loss–induced paranoia fluttered.
He's wearing dress shoes
.

Eyebrows high, he ripped the IV package open and swabbed her inner elbow. “Rough night?” he said sarcastically.

“That's what they tell me,” she said, then added a dry “Ow?” as the needle went in.

“Sorry.” Smile insincere, he taped the needle into place. “You have nice veins. They're popping right up there.”

“That's because I don't poke them all the time,” she said, and at the door, Allen shifted his feet. Peri glanced up, having almost forgotten he was there.

Silas used too much tape, and she watched him set up 2cc of something from his pocket into the drip port. Immediately her aches retreated. Shit, it was good stuff.

Peri watched the drip, enjoying the lassitude plinking into her in time with the drops.

“Does it wear off fast?” Allen asked, his wary tone sparking dully through her. She'd tell him to shut up so she could enjoy her high, but it seemed like too much trouble.

Silas put a pulse clip on her finger. “Yes.” Her arm was slack as he stuck another electrode to her, made her knee jump, and shined a light into her eyes. “No concussion. Good.”

He's wearing jeans under his lab coat?
“How long have you been in Opti?” Peri asked, lips slow from the drug.

Silas didn't look up as he plugged both the pulse meter and the electrode into the tablet. “A while. I work nights most of the time because the light hurts my eyes.”

But you have dark eyes. And a surfer tan
, Peri thought, wanting to run her fingers over its delicious smoothness. Then she smiled at the loss of inhibition that came with the muscle relaxant.
The things I could do with you, lovely muscleman. . . .

The loudspeaker crackled in the hallway, and they all listened as “Allen Swift to the reception desk, please. You have a phone call” came over it.

Allen wrangled his phone out, frowning at it. Grunting, Silas turned back to his tablet. “There's no service this deep in the building,” he said as Allen stood. “It's a bitch, isn't it?”

“It might be Bill,” Allen said as he looked toward the front of the building. “Will you be okay for a minute?”

Peri's pulse increased as her body metabolized the drug and the haze she was in eased. “I'm not a baby,” she said, sitting up when she realized she'd been slouching.

“No, you're not.” Allen touched her shoulder and leaned close. His curls brushed her cheek, and she breathed in the scent of his shampoo, thinking it smelled all wrong but not sure why. “I'll be right back.”

Peri touched his fingers as they slid from her shoulder. “I'm not going anywhere,” she
said, feeling centered for the first time in a long while. She didn't care if it was the drugs finding her baseline. She was calm and relaxed, hearing everything, seeing everything, and right now she was glad to be rid of Allen. He was distracting her from something important. If he left, she could probably figure it out.

Allen eased into the hall, leaving the door open a crack. Chuckling, the tech rolled over and closed it with his foot. He stood as it clicked shut, taking a card from his breast pocket and running it through the door panel to make the green light shift red. “I thought he'd never leave,” he said softly.

“You're kind of snarky, you know that?” Peri said. He'd locked the door. She should be upset, but she just . . . couldn't find it in herself . . . to care.

Still standing, Silas ran his finger across his screen to follow a line of text. “What else am I, Ms. Reed?”

She watched him increase the drip. “Too old to be doing intern work,” she said. “Your shoes aren't right and jeans are a no-no, even after normal hours. Who are you?”

Turning from the IV, the man evaluated her. “And they wanted to send in a team,” he whispered, leaning over her with his palms on the arms of her chair, his face uncomfortably close as he stared at her. “I didn't know about the no-jeans rule. Thanks.”

Peri blinked, her lethargy reasserting itself. “You're not Opti. If you've hurt Ruth, I'm going to kick you in the balls.”

Surprised, he straightened, shifting out of her easy reach. “She's fine,” he muttered.

“Who do you work for?” she asked. Everything was hitting her with a peaceful crystal clarity that felt too good to risk breaking with movement.

Silas sat back down. Something on his screen pleased him, and he smiled. “The alliance for clean timelines. Mind if I ask a question?”

She wanted to pull the electrode off, but what would be the point? “Seeing as I'm drugged out of my mind, I do. What did you give me?”

He looked at his watch, inadvertently relaying to Peri that he was in a hurry. “Nothing you haven't
had before. Relaxant, mostly. Peri, are you aware of any illegal Opti activity, recent or otherwise?”

At that, she blinked. “You mean like dirty operatives? Just rumors. You look too smart to be alliance. Who are you really?”

Frowning, he looked at the screen. Peri leaned in, catching sight of a graph before he turned it away. “Are you aware of who is giving the orders?” he asked.

“Orders for what? The illegal activity?” Peri glanced at the drip running into her arm. “I told you. I've only heard rumors.” It was the usual stuff, but he'd given her too much.

“Who is giving the orders?” he demanded more forcefully. “How far up does it go?”

She wanted to stop talking, but “I don't know” came out of her mouth.
Shut up, Peri
.

Silas glanced at the drip, then the readout on his screen. “What do you remember from Charlotte? Did you kill Jack tonight because he found out you were taking jobs on the side? Or was it the other way around?”

Peri's eyebrows rose. She'd been in Charlotte? Then she blinked.
Taking jobs on the side?
“Who's Jack?”

That set the tech-who-wasn't-a-tech back, and he pushed away from his tablet. “Just how much did you lose tonight?”

“Three years,” she said, distracted as she tried to process what he had said. She knew she'd been on a task yesterday, thanks to that day-old black eye. But was he implying she was corrupt, or just fishing for answers? Even with her memory missing, she'd know if she was a dirty agent.
Wouldn't I?

“Three years!” he echoed, looking disgusted. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

“You can . . . put it in a pipe and smoke it,” Peri said, staring at the ceiling as the wonderful lassitude took over.

Silas stood, his motions fast and angry as he unplugged his tablet from both the wall and Peri. The electrodes were still stuck on her, and she suddenly felt violated. “I could almost be sorry for you,” he said. “So
worried about not looking stupid that you walk out of a bar with a man you don't even know simply because people assume you will. Intuition can only take you down a path you already know, and right now you know nothing.”