With the M.D....at the Altar?

by Jessica Andersen

  It did. And it didn’t.

  By lunchtime, May’s EEG had stabilized back to the pattern it’d held when she’d first gotten sick. All the tests they ran came up with the same answer: the bad enzyme was all but gone, and her hormones were coming back to normal. By midafternoon, her blood work and other tests were within acceptable limits. As far as the lab tests showed, she should be awake.

  But she wasn’t.

  Bug’s eyes were hollow as he stood over her bed. “It’s like she’s been, I don’t know, mentally frozen or something. Like it’s voodoo.”

  “Enough with the haunted house crap,” Luke snapped, having heard too much of it lately—from the cops and from his teammates. Heck, even inside his own head. “It’s science, pure and simple. We got one enzyme, and that improved things but didn’t cure her entirely. That means we missed another physiological response to the toxin.” He looked down at May, and almost managed to see her as a medical puzzle rather than a friend. Grasping at that necessary detachment, he said, “There must be another protein—or something—that’s out of whack, something other than the enzyme Bug’s inhibitor targeted.”

  He hated saying it, hated knowing it, because of what it meant.

  Rox said it for him. “Which means we’re back to square one—looking in the patients’ blood for something that’s off-kilter beyond the hormones, which we’ve already accounted for.”

  But it had taken them days to get as far as they had with the enzyme and anti-CP 12.21. May didn’t have time for them to start over. None of the patients did.

  “Wait,” Rox said urgently, “we don’t have to go that far back.” When the others looked at her, she explained, “May and the second wave of patients were dosed with the enzyme—May in the nondairy creamer, and the others with the toxin sprayed on the produce. They didn’t eat mutated fish that were producing the enzyme, so the poisoner had to isolate the enzyme himself and administer it to his victims. We’re figuring there’s another factor—let’s call it ‘factor X’—involved in the disease because Bug’s inhibitor targets the enzyme, and hasn’t been fully effective. But if that’s the case, then whoever dosed the nondairy creamer and the produce must’ve added more than just the enzyme.”

  Bug’s eyes lit. “It must’ve been a mixture of the enzyme and factor X.”

  “Exactly.”

  Luke could’ve kissed her for the mental leap. But beside the kick of excitement at being able to skip several analytic steps was a growing burn of anger, and the realization that they had another avenue to pursue.

  So he said, “Thom and Bug, I want you guys to dose the other patients with Bug’s inhibitor. Then get started isolating factor X from the tainted foods.”

  Thom raised an eyebrow, apparently sensing the undercurrent. “Where will you two be?”

  Luke took Rox’s arm and started steering her toward the door. “We’re going to take a drive. I have an idea.”

  Chapter Nine

  Luke didn’t say a word until they were in his SUV, heading down the winding monastery driveway. Rox fidgeted in the passenger seat, vaguely uncomfortable with the silence. Or maybe it was being alone with him, too aware of him.

  Sleeping in the same room the night before shouldn’t have changed anything between them, but it had—for her, at least. Waking up and breathing in his scent, seeing his ruthlessly organized duffel sitting beside the blown-up mess of her suitcase, and pausing over the indentation on his pillow—those were familiar things.

  The small details had reminded her of the happy, satisfying times she and Luke had shared—many of them in the bedroom, granted, but a large number in the field, as well. They’d been good together, she remembered, and she felt as if she’d taken some of that back just now by helping Bug and Thom short-cut their isolation of factor X.

  She might not be in the field anymore, but she still had the knack.

  “Where to?” Luke asked, and she realized he’d stopped at the end of the long driveway.

  “It depends on where we’re going.” She looked at him. “Why, exactly, are we out here while Bug and Thom are doing the lab work?”

  His jaw went tight. “Because they don’t need me breathing over their shoulders, and there’s an avenue we haven’t explored sufficiently. One I think you can help me with.”

  “Which is?”

  “Tracking the contamination to its source.”

  “Oh.” Rox sat back in her seat, not sure where the sudden clutch of nerves had come from, but certain she didn’t know if this was such a good idea. “Shouldn’t we leave that to Captain Swanson?” she said faintly.

  Luke shot her a startled look. “You don’t want to know who’s poisoning your town?”

  “I just think we should leave it to the experts.” Panic gathered and grew, and she was tempted to jump out of the SUV and head back to the monastery.

  “I’m not asking you to be some sort of Mata Hari. Just come into town with me, show me around, tell me all the local gossip. Tell me about this curse.”

  “That’s really not a good idea.” She shook her head in an effort to convince both of them. “Whoever has control of this toxin, he’s already come after us. Going on the offensive is just going to provoke him.”

  “You’re afraid?” He turned to face her fully. “Since when do you put your own safety in front of your patients’? I remember a couple of times you scared years off my life running into firefights and pulling wounded people to safety, or exposing yourself to infectious agents to get to one last patient, save one last life.”

  She didn’t want to remember those times, or that woman. Not now, not when he was so close to her. She wanted to tell him she wasn’t that person anymore, hadn’t been for a long time. But instead she found herself saying softly, “Seems to me you were right there beside me.”

  “Someone had to watch your back,” he said, meeting her eyes. They stared at each other for a moment in silence before he said, “I think what’s really going on is that you don’t want to think it could be someone you know.”

  She stiffened, hating that what he’d said struck a chord. “Don’t psychoanalyze me.”

  “Then don’t avoid the issue.”

  “Maybe I just don’t want to be alone with you,” she said, the words leaving her mouth before she could think them through, or call them back.

  “I don’t think that’s it,” he said. “Or if it is, it’s because you want it too much, and that’s a problem.” He held up a hand when she would’ve protested. “I’m in the same boat, Rox. Last night was…It was familiar. Comfortable. And not as in a boring, old sweatshirt sort of comfortable, but as in the sort of comfort I’ve missed way more than I realized.” He paused, grimacing. “We fit together. It feels right, even though I know it isn’t.”

  “Wow.” Rox sat back, surprised by his blunt honesty. But instead of clearing the air between them, it made it worse, because now she knew he was feeling the same way. Warmth sparkled in the air, a physical awareness that went way beyond the physical.

  “I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make it even weirder.” He tapped the steering wheel. “What I’m saying is that I need you on my team for this one, Rox. I want to help your town, but I can’t do it alone.”

  It was a big admission for a man who prided himself on being the man, the go-to guy in any crisis. But still, it wasn’t enough. “You broke my heart,” she said softly, not looking for sympathy, but needing to say it, needing him to know.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again, and she believed he truly was—but he still didn’t defend himself, still didn’t explain why he’d left the way he had.

  She was probably going to have to be content with that, she realized. As before, he’d given her as much as he could…and it wasn’t enough for her. Still, they had a job to do, and he was right about one thing—despite the heat that flared between them and the temptation to go back where they’d been before, they’d been good together as teammates.

  If they banded together now,
and set themselves to figuring out who was behind the contamination and the sabotage, she had a feeling they’d succeed. Captain Swanson was hampered by local politics and the preconceptions of a lifelong resident, along with other worries, not the least of which was the high school prom that night, which would happen as scheduled, with the curfew pushed back a few hours.

  In contrast, Rox and Luke could focus entirely on the case, and they brought contrasting viewpoints—she loved Raven’s Cliff despite, or maybe because of, the eccentricities and superstitions of its residents, while Luke found the town small and creepy, and thought everyone he met had a hidden agenda. Between the two of them, they might be able to figure out who was behind the fish contamination and the DLD, and who was trying to keep them from solving the mystery and healing the town.

  “Take a right,” she told him, gesturing away from downtown Raven’s Cliff. “There’s an old mansion out there that was recently bought up by a reclusive millionaire sort. More than a few people are pointing out that the town’s troubles didn’t kick into high gear until he showed up.”

  Luke just looked at her for a moment, as though trying to figure out where his head was at, or maybe hers. Then he nodded. “Reclusive millionaire it is.” But once they were rolling, he added, “Thank you, Roxie.”

  She forced herself to focus on the practicalities rather than the tug of longing brought by his deep voice. “Don’t thank me until after the tour. I have a feeling we’re going to have more suspects than we know what to do with, and not a single shred of evidence in any direction.”

  THE SEASIDE STRANGLER picked his way along the cliff face beneath the Beacon Lighthouse, his steps sure on the familiar pathway.

  There were several entrances to the cave system that only a few knew of, and not even he had mapped all of the Byzantine twists and turns taken by the network of passageways beneath the lighthouse and manor. Today, he chose an entrance he hardly ever used, leading to a series of caves that showed signs of long-ago use in scribblings and firepit remains.

  He thought he would do things differently today, varying his usual routine, in the hopes that the sea gods would hear his prayers this time.

  The town was dying. Even lovely Roxanne and her friends from the CDC had proven unable to stop the spread of the deadly disease. They were doing their best, but they needed help. His sort of help.

  Upon entering the first, larger cave, he lifted the light source he’d carried with him—not a modern flashlight, but an oil lantern he thought might appease the ghost of Captain Earl Raven, master of the curse that haunted Raven’s Cliff.

  Lighting the wick with a box of matches he’d carried in his pocket, he moved deeper into the caves, drawn by something he couldn’t name. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for—a proper place to pray to the sea gods, or a hint of how he could save the town, perhaps.

  But when he came to the last cave, where this arm of the system dead-ended, he realized that the sea gods had already answered his prayers.

  A tawny-haired woman lay asleep beneath a light blue blanket, chained in place, waiting for him.

  “You’re here,” he said reverently, only then realizing that she was what had drawn him to this cave system.

  Gently, with the respect due to a woman like her, he unfastened her chains and lifted her from the cot. Slinging her over his shoulder, he gave thanks to the ghost of Captain Raven, lifted the oil lantern and carried her from the place where he’d found her.

  He had a different cave in mind for her preparation, one that would be far more fitting for a Sea Bride…and her sacrifice.

  ROX’S GRAND TOUR of Raven’s Cliff ended, as she figured was only fitting, at the Beacon Lighthouse. Equally fitting, it was dusk, and the evening fog had rolled in to cloak the scene in eerie blue mist washed with a blush of red sunset.

  She directed Luke to park the SUV by the manor house. The manor was a tall, brick-faced monster done in the Federal style popular during the late 1700s when it was built. Set high on a rocky promontory of land, Beacon Manor had been the beginning of Raven’s Cliff—the town had grown up around it, generously funded by the wealthy sea captain, Earl Raven.

  But it wasn’t the manor that drew Rox now, it was the lighthouse beyond, a glorious forty-foot beacon that overlooked pristine, wave-pounded beaches that were closed to swimmers because of the deadly riptides.

  As she led Luke along the pathway to the sea, he said, “It’s a pretty town and all, Rox, but I just don’t get the attraction. Don’t you miss being out in the field?”

  She’d known it was coming, had seen the dismissal in his face as she’d guided him around town, sketching out each of the major players for him and answering his questions as fully as she could, while at the same time trying to get him to see the beauty she found in the way simplicity existed alongside complexity in the seaside community.

  “I love it here,” she said. “I know who I am here, and I feel like I’m home.” But even as she said the words, she realized they jarred faintly, that her usual conviction wasn’t there.

  The more time she spent with Luke, the more she was remembering the old adventures, the old excitement.

  “Come on,” she said, leading him around the side of the lighthouse. “We can sit here.”

  On the seaward side of Beacon Lighthouse, there was a small indentation in the earth where many people had sat over the years. Somehow the cliff side and the shape of the lighthouse combined to create a sheltered spot just there, where the sea breeze and fog didn’t go, and the air was a few degrees warmer than elsewhere.

  She sat and leaned back against the whitewashed masonry wall of the lighthouse, and patted the earth beside her, inviting him to sit, as well.

  He hesitated. “We should probably be getting back.”

  But they’d just called in when the cell signal allowed, and Bug had reported no major changes. His enzyme inhibitor had stabilized all of the nonviolent patients, though none showed signs of waking. Worse, their analysis of the creamer and tainted fruits and vegetables suggested that the poisoner hadn’t isolated one or two proteins from the DLD fish—he’d done a wholesale protein isolation, effectively spraying the contaminated foods with atomized fish soup. Thom had sent the results off to the main lab, to see if they could do a subtraction and identify a second active ingredient, but it didn’t look hopeful.

  Until they got the results back, the lab investigation was pretty much at a standstill, which meant that Luke’s theory of “find the bad guy, find the toxin” might be their last chance. Rox thought their best bet was looking at the Curse, and the players who might be affected by it. That was the reason she’d brought them to Beacon Lighthouse, where the Sea Captain’s Curse had begun.

  Luke had originally agreed to the plan. Now, though, he looked ready to bolt, just as she had been that morning…and she thought she knew why. “Now who’s afraid?” she said. “You don’t want to understand this town and its inhabitants because you don’t want to care about what happens next.”

  He bristled. “I care.”

  “You want to beat the disease. There’s a difference.” She patted the ground again. “Sit. This won’t take long.”

  It was a foolish plan, she supposed, but she’d wanted to bring him to her favorite place in town, wanted him to see the wild beauty of the ocean. And yes, maybe she’d wanted him to look out on the waves crashing against the rocks guarding the harbor, and see the romance in the story.

  He sat grudgingly, leaving a gap between them. “You said you were going to tell me about this curse, the one the people we met with today kept blaming for everything from the mayor’s daughter dying on her wedding day, to the lack of tourists, to the outbreak, to…heck, everything.”

  Rox bristled at his attitude, but said, “Just sit for a minute. Listen.”

  He shrugged and did as she asked. As the quiet settled around them, they could hear the wash of the waves on the beaches below, the breakers crashing on the rocky promontory beyond the point w
here the lighthouse was built. The sky grew incrementally darker, and the clanging bells of harbor buoys set up a lonely-sounding ring.

  After a few minutes, Luke shifted and sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m being a jerk because I don’t want you to like it here. I want you to come back to D.C. with me.”

  Rox stiffened in surprise, not that he’d thought it, but that he’d said it aloud. “I’m—I’m flattered.”

  “That’s not a ‘yes.’” He paused. “But it’s not a ‘no,’ either.”

  “We’ve done this before, Luke,” she said softly. “It didn’t work then and it won’t work now—you said it yourself. Neither of us has changed.”

  “I’m based stateside now,” he countered. “I even bought a condo.”

  Part of her wanted to be overjoyed at that bit of news, at the sign that he had evolved, after all. But he hadn’t purchased a home because of her, because he was trying to compromise. It’d simply been the logical choice given his work.

  She shook her head. “We’re in a heck of a situation, being thrown together like this. Let’s not make the residual attraction into more than it really is, okay?”

  He was silent so long she thought he was going to argue, and part of her wished he would, wished he’d fight for her—fight for them—the way he hadn’t before.

  Instead, he finally nodded. “Okay. How about you tell me about this curse of yours?”

  Reminding herself not to be hurt because he was doing what she’d asked, she swallowed hard, and began, “In the late seventeen hundreds, an English sea captain who’d amassed quite a fortune in a variety of not-very-nice ways knew the magistrates—and some of his victims—were closing in on him and his family. He bought a chunk of land in America and loaded up his wife and two small children, and they crossed the sea, headed for their new home. They almost made it, but got caught in a storm and wrecked right here.”

  As if punctuating her story, a huge wave broke over the rocky promontory with a terrible crash.