Intensive Care

by Jessica Andersen

  Her mouth worked. Her eyes glittered. For a split second, he thought she was going to cry. If she did that, he would feel terrible, because part of him knew she was as bothered by the deaths as he was.

  Her lips trembled. Then she kicked him in the shin.

  “Ow! Goddammit!” He hopped back a step and she helped him along with a two-handed shove. She advanced toward him with both fists clenched.

  “Don’t you loom over me, Zachary Cage. And don’t yell at me either. I get enough of that from my father.” She scowled and poked him in the chest with a finger. “You want to know about Ida Mae? I’ll tell you. I have no idea why she died. And it bothers the hell out of me. I spent all last night going over her records, trying to find something I missed. And do you know what? I didn’t find a damn thing.”

  “But you knew there was something unusual about her death and you didn’t say anything,” Cage growled, hating that he inhaled her scent with every breath, but unable to back away. “Covering your ass, doctor?”

  “I was being logical,” she returned. “Most unexpected deaths have reasonable explanations that we find during autopsy. Sometimes sick people die, Cage.” Her words made sense, but he saw the shadows in the back of her eyes and pounced.

  “Then why investigate Ida Mae? You know something, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know a thing.” She sounded suddenly tired. “But nothing I say is going to convince you. I pulled her records because I care about my patients and I take it personally when they die.” She glanced down at the slides spread across the desk. “Very personally. I’ll call up these files now and look them over. Maybe there’s a problem with one of our protocols. God, I hope not. I don’t know what else it could be, though.”

  Five dead patients. A doctor who had started to investigate on her own. Two near-fatal incidents in two days. The constellation gelled in Cage’s mind to a single, horrible suspicion. “What if someone didn’t want you looking at Ida Mae’s records?” he asked, feeling gut-punched. “What would happen to your investigation if you were injured?” Or dead.

  She shuddered and wrapped both arms around herself. “You’d work on it.”

  He slid an arm around her and rubbed a hand across her back, hoping to warm her. Hoping to soothe himself. The walls seemed to press closer. The rows of cabinets seemed to lean in to listen. “Yeah, but I’m the new guy. The wild card. If someone’s been killing your patients, then they couldn’t have expected that Dixon would find the radioactive stash, or that Gabney would fire him to keep the gossip from impacting the awards. They couldn’t have expected that I’d actually do my job and figure out Ida Mae’s body was hot.”

  She drew away from him, shaking her head. “No. I can’t believe it. I won’t. Someone has been killing my patients? Nuking them? It makes no sense.”

  But it did, in a horribly simple way, and they both knew it. Cage asked, “Would you prefer to believe that your own treatments killed five women and left their bodies radioactive?”

  She shook her head, tucked her chin against her chest and murmured, “No. I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

  He nodded, though part of him knew it would be easier, safer to think her at fault. But that part was smaller now, and the greater part of him held out his arms to the pale, shaky woman who had captivated him from the first moment their eyes had locked. “Then we’ll figure it out together. Come here.”

  “I can’t.” She backed away a pace. “I can’t be…”

  “Weak,” he finished for her, remembering that she’d said that before, right after he’d pulled her out of the closet, thinking her dead. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.” Though he wondered who had taught her that lesson.

  The father she’d mentioned? Or someone else?

  The flash of jealousy brought a quick memory of his wife’s blond hair and her pale blue eyes. And then Ripley was in his arms, her compact body smaller and curvier than Heather’s had been. And alive. So alive.

  Then their lips touched almost without conscious decision, and for the first time in five long years, Cage felt something other than anger. Guilt. Numbness.

  Suddenly, he could feel it all again. Heat. Electricity. Passion. In the first instant, he thought that he’d find none of his wife’s sweetness in Ripley Davis. And in the next instant he couldn’t think at all.

  He dove into her mouth, into the wild, wanton vortex of energy that suddenly crackled around them, born partly from fear, partly from need. She tasted of dark, forbidden pleasures and wild passion. He felt the power rise in him, a power he’d only ever felt before when the crowds screamed his name and his fingers found the baseball’s familiar seams.

  Crushing her closer, he explored the dark reaches of her mouth with his tongue, wanting to be closer to that exotic, seductive power. Wanting to be closer to her. Wanting to turn the clock back to the time when he was that cocky young pitcher with a wife at home and his whole life ahead of him.

  When Ripley pushed away and took two big steps back, it was as if she’d yanked all of it away from him again. He felt the pressure in his chest and reached for her.

  “Cage, this isn’t a good—” The pager at her belt sounded, and Cage dimly realized it wasn’t the first of the annoying beeps. She tried again. “I didn’t mean—” She checked the display and her lips flattened to a thin line. “I have to go.”

  The taste of her still rocketed through his system, setting off every Warning! buzzer he possessed. He should stay far away from Ripley. She was dangerous to his equilibrium. His purpose. But he shook his head, knowing he had to stay close to her. Had to protect her. “We’ll go. I’m not letting you out of my sight unless I’m sure you’re safe.”

  Her eyes searched his for a moment, then she nodded. “Okay.” She glanced around the room and her eyes locked on the contaminated slides. She touched a finger to her lower lip, which was swollen from his kisses. Then she glanced down at the beeper display, which Cage saw read simply Milo.

  He thought of the fragile child and his stomach clenched at the realization that the boy, like the rest of her patients, could be in danger.

  They stared at each other for a long moment before she turned for the door, called to the side of a small, sick boy. Her words were muffled, reluctant. Afraid. “If I’m in danger, then so are you, Cage. You’re involved in this investigation just as much as I am. You need to watch your back.”

  He draped an arm across her shoulders, noticing again how much smaller she was than Heather had been. Fragile, said his mind again. Vulnerable.

  “We’ll watch each other’s backs,” he said quietly when they reached the elevators. “Partners, okay?”

  She stared at him a beat before finally nodding. “Okay.” She stuck out a hand and they shook on it. “Partners.”

  Neither of them commented on the electricity that arced at the contact. Or on the eyes they felt watching from the shadows as they climbed into the elevator. But like the chemistry between them, the feeling of being watched was present.

  And powerful.

  Chapter Six

  When they entered the Oncology patient area, Cage stood aside as Ripley slipped into Milo’s room. His heartbeat leveled to see the child propped up in bed, weak but alive. The page hadn’t been another R-ONC death.

  Five patients dead of heart failure, he thought. Radioactively contaminated. Hospital killer. Serial killer. The words rippled from half-forgotten headlines, taunting him when he acknowledged that he and Ripley still had no hard evidence.

  As Gabney had pointed out, the threats to Ripley’s life could be unrelated, accidental. The bodies could have been contaminated during a faulty treatment.

  They had no evidence of a killer, though Cage believed in his gut that they were dealing with one. He just hoped to God they could gather enough evidence to stop it before the person struck again.

  Before another patient died. Or a doctor.

  “Belle. Why are you still here? What’s Milo’s status and where’s Dr. Campbell?” Ripley
fired questions at a tiny woman in a volunteer’s uniform. Cage vaguely remembered having seen her pushing the boy’s wheelchair earlier that day.

  “I’m here because he needed me, Dr. Davis. The good Lord knows his parents don’t make much time for the little tyke.” Belle’s lips thinned to a line. “He’s having a bad night. One of the nurses mentioned seeing you in the elevator, so I took it upon myself to see if you have a minute to sit with him.”

  Ripley nodded as though it was perfectly reasonable to be paged to a child’s bedside at midnight on a Friday. But he saw her shoulders relax. She blew out a breath. “Of course.” She glanced at Cage. “I’ll be fine, there are plenty of people around, even this late at night. Why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”

  He stood in the doorway of the little boy’s room, not quite ready to leave, but unable to step through the door.

  Belle touched his sleeve. “You can go in if you want.”

  Cage shook his head. “I’ll stay out here.” The chemical smells surrounded him with memory, and in Ripley’s eyes he saw a gentle compassion he didn’t associate with doctors. The little boy’s lips moved and she nodded in response. Cage stepped back. “What about his parents?” he asked through a throat that had suddenly grown tight.

  Belle tightened her lips. “They think it’s enough that their insurance pays for the treatments, but it’s not. Lord knows, it’s the time spent that counts. He needs their help. Their love.”

  Cage took another step away, but the details of the little room wouldn’t leave. The cheerful red, white and blue of the Boston pennants stuck above Milo’s bed were a stark contrast to the child’s thin, pale face. Cage saw a baseball bat lying beside the boy’s stick-thin arm, and his stomach clenched at the dreams so obviously displayed. So clearly unrealistic.

  His imagination tried to superimpose the image of a long, lithe blond woman, but failed. He’d never visited Heather in the hospital.

  He’d been on the road.

  “He likes baseball?” Cage closed his eyes against the guilt that slammed through him, fresher now than the numb feelings he’d been chasing for the five years since her death. He tasted Ripley on his lips and thought of his wife.

  “Loves it,” Belle answered simply. “He wants to be a pitcher when he grows up.”

  Neither of them voiced the obvious, that the child would be lucky to grow up. Cage shook his head and turned for the outer door. He had to get away from the hospital for a while, away from the sights and the smells. Ripley was right, she’d be safe in the well-lit, well-populated patients’ wing. And he needed some air. “Tell Dr. Davis I’ll meet her back here in an hour.”

  In his office, Cage scanned his clothing for trace radioactivity, as he always did before leaving the job, just in case he’d come in contact with slight contamination at one of the nuke-using labs. He frowned at a small hot spot on his sleeve, then stripped the shirt off and tossed it in the “wait a bit” basket where they stored their contaminated clothing until the counts faded. He pulled on a spare shirt as he strode down the deserted corridor and pushed through the revolving doors into the deep Chinatown night.

  His wife’s ghost seemed to keep pace with him as he drove to the penthouse they’d once shared. The memory didn’t nag or berate him. Not Heather. It wasn’t her way.

  No, the blond wisp seemed to touch his cheek and whisper, It’s okay. I understand. And that was somehow worse. Her memory forgave him for kissing another woman now just as readily as she’d forgiven him for being away so often when she’d been alive.

  But Cage would never forgive himself. He’d been lousy as a husband and worse as a man. His work at Boston General was just the beginning. He had no family, no ties. He could keep moving indefinitely from hospital to hospital, seeking out doctors who cared more for profit and career than for their patients.

  He could bring them down and protect other women. Other wives. Because, damn it, doctors were all the same.

  Except Ripley, whispered his mind. She cares for her patients. She’s not like the others.

  But part of him still wasn’t sure about that. Even after their kiss, he still doubted. What if she was playing him? He couldn’t trust that she was everything she seemed.

  Because if she was real, she was a woman he thought he could care about. It would be better for him, and for her, if that never happened.

  “Good evening, Mr. Cage.” The doorman tipped his hat as Cage entered the building he’d bought with his signing bonus. The rental income together with his former seven-figure salary had made him a rich man.

  But not rich enough to save his wife. Or to avenge her death.

  Cage nodded. “Charlie.”

  The elevator ride to the top floor seemed to take longer than ever, as though home was farther away each time he tried to get there.

  In the foyer, the double doors of the big closet loomed large and Cage hesitated a moment before opening them for the first time in so many years. It was all there. The boxes the ball club had shipped back after he quit. The things he’d packed away the day he’d stripped Heather’s room back to the walls, hoping to ease the pain.

  And the canvas bag he’d tossed aside when he came into the condo the last night she’d been alive.

  He rubbed a hand across his heart, sat on the floor, and reached for the bag. There was something he needed to do, then he would head back to Boston General to sit with Ripley.

  To protect her. To watch her, though he wasn’t sure anymore exactly what he was watching for.

  THE BUSTLE OF THE changing nurses’ shift woke Ripley near 6:00 a.m., and she groaned at the familiar aches and pains that came with sleeping at a patient’s bedside. Milo stirred, and the tug at the back of her throat reminded Ripley of her dream. Hissing chemicals. The stink of chlorine gas. Fear.

  Then she remembered the rest. She muffled a groan and rested her head near the little boy’s leg.

  Ida Mae. Four other patients dead and contaminated. Mr. Harris and the closet. Danger. And Cage, who was another sort of danger. She touched a finger to her lips, where the imprint of their kiss still lingered. He had tasted of dark need and grief, an unexpected flare of power mixed with sweetness. His taste, and his kiss, had been complicated. Like Cage himself. Like the situation.

  Ripley shivered and she touched Milo’s hand where it wrapped around his beloved baseball bat. She had to keep her patients safe. Had to. If anything happened to Milo, or to the others, she would never forgive herself. Thinking of the others, she stood and slowly crossed the room to look in on the woman across the hall in the adult oncology unit.

  Janice Cooper slept peacefully, with a soft half smile on her face. Her treatments were going well, Ripley knew. With luck, the new grandmother would be released in a few days. Perhaps even before she finished crocheting the baby sweater she worked on a little each day.

  “Dr. Davis? Everything okay in here?” The quick jolt of fear at the unexpected voice was short-lived, fading when Ripley realized it was only Belle.

  “What are you still doing here?”

  The volunteer smiled gently. “I went home several hours ago and caught a few winks. Now I’m back, ready for the new day. At my age, you don’t need much sleep, you know?”

  Not for the first time, Ripley wondered exactly how old Belle was. She could be anywhere from forty to sixty. She always wore conservative, high-necked dresses and flat-soled shoes that made almost no noise when she walked. It added to her air of serenity.

  Serenity. Peace. That was something Ripley sorely needed right now. She glanced back at Milo and was relieved to see some color in his face. Maybe he’d make it through this round of treatments, after all.

  She stood and touched Belle’s sleeve in passing. “If you see Mr. Cage, let him know I’ve gone to the chapel, okay?”

  She was surprised he wasn’t dozing in the reception area, waiting for her. And a little disappointed, which wasn’t fair. She’d told him to go home. Told him she’d be safe in Oncology. But a
small, scared, un-Davislike part of her would have liked him at her side as she headed for the doctors’ lounge near her office. Feeling every one of her thirty-two years in the creak of her joints and the soreness in her throat and neck, Ripley showered and changed into a fresh shirt and yesterday’s jeans, looking over her shoulder all the while. Her mind raced and she found herself jumping at the shadows behind the locker doors, at the billow of a hospital-issue shower curtain.

  At the echoing quiet of the lounge.

  She quickly dried her hair and escaped back into the hallway, trying to laugh her nerves away and failing. With her mind on finding someplace peaceful, someplace safe, she headed for the hospital chapel, one floor down from R-ONC.

  In the hallway outside the chapel, Ripley was startled to see one of the Radiation Safety techs coming toward her. He nodded in greeting, “Dr. Davis.”

  “Whistler. What are you doing here? Has Cage instituted weekend shifts?” She couldn’t help the quick flash of nerves, though the young man had never worried her before.

  He grinned. “No, ma’am. A few of us met here last night to go out dancing and my girlfriend left her jacket in the office. I’m just earning points by getting it for her.” He lifted the faded denim coat and Ripley nodded, relaxing. He was just at the hospital to pick up a coat. Nothing sinister.

  Still, she was suddenly anxious to escape into the small chapel. It represented sanctuary. Safety. After all, who would violate a church?

  Her smile felt forced. “Well then, I won’t hold you up. Have a nice weekend.” She sketched a wave and slipped inside the chapel.

  Instantly, she was surrounded by peace and the smell of fresh flowers. The chapel was dark, but she didn’t bother to flick on the lights near the door. The fat candle near the altar illuminated the space well enough, and she welcomed the privacy darkness provided. She slid onto a bench and let her mind settle as the warm shadows embraced her. Safe. She was safe here.

  Though she’d not been raised in any particular faith, Ripley visited the dark, scented room when she was worried about a patient, or about herself. The silence helped her clear her mind for a few minutes, and the elegantly carved crucifix at the front of the narrow room let her believe someone was actually listening to her prayers.