Intensive Care

by Jessica Andersen

  Leo smiled, victorious. “I don’t care about anything but the Gabney Wing, Dr. Davis. You help me win that award, and I’ll not only call in the cops, I’ll let you keep R-ONC.” His gaze hardened, flashing with a not-quite-sane light. “But if you screw me on this one, you’re finished. Got it?”

  Cage nodded and pushed Ripley toward the door. “Got it.”

  As they walked down the hall toward the elevators, he heard Ripley murmur, “And if I have anything to say about it, he’s going to get it in the end.”

  Cage’s lips curved. “My thoughts exactly.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Is he awake?” Ripley lingered in the doorway, feeling unusually awkward about walking into a patient’s room. Then again, the patient was Howard Davis, and he wouldn’t be lying in that bed, hooked to a host of intrusive machines if it hadn’t been for her.

  “Come in.” Eleanor waved Ripley and Cage into the room, beaming at her daughter as though Ripley was a savior rather than a horrible, ungrateful child. “He’s in and out, but that nice Dr. Garcia says it’s normal.”

  “I’m far more ‘in’ than ‘out,’ and Garcia is barely out of med school,” a voice growled from the bed, and for the first time in years, the sound didn’t put Ripley immediately on the defensive.

  “Hello, Father.” She stopped at the foot of his bed. “I’m glad you’re awake.” Then she found a smile, and maybe a shred of forgiveness. Perhaps they both should have tried harder over the years. “And you know very well that Dr. Garcia is one of the best cardiac specialists in the country.”

  “Of course. That’s why I hired him ten years ago. Wooed him away from County General, too.” The bushy eyebrows drew together. “You’re being nice to me, Caroline. Does that mean I’m dying? Or are you gearing up to yell at me again?”

  To Ripley’s surprise, her mother laughed. “God, I’d forgotten how alike the two of you are.” She stood and patted Ripley’s clenched fist. “I’m going to take a little walk while you and your father chat.” And she was gone. Again.

  Ripley might have fled the room as well, but Cage’s presence stopped her, as did the faintly ashamed expression on her father’s face. Not to mention the fleet of machines he was hooked to, courtesy of her scene in the café. She took a deep breath, “Father, I’m not coming to work for you. Not now, not ever. I wish you’d understand that.” It wasn’t what she’d come to tell him, but the words burst from her without volition.

  “I know, Caroline.” Howard looked away, watching his heartbeat for a moment. “I think I’ve known for a while, but I didn’t want to admit it.”

  “I’m sorry.” She suddenly felt very small and very young, as though she had all of her life’s choices ahead of her again.

  “So am I.” Her father shifted in the lavish private bed he’d installed in the Davis Suite, which had been built with his generous donations. “I just wanted to protect you from all of this. I wanted to keep you near me, the way I hadn’t kept Eleanor.”

  The simple truth of it cut deep and left Ripley bleeding. She sagged back and felt Cage’s arm around her waist, holding her up. Letting her lean. “Then why wouldn’t you believe that I was in danger, Father? Why haven’t you helped me?”

  “I was helping you, damn it!” Howard’s bellow lacked its usual vigor and one of the monitors bleeped warningly. “I was trying to get you the hell away from Boston General. Then I was going to go back in and fix what needed fixing. But I wanted you out of it first. Don’t you understand? Nothing is more important to me than you.” He fell back, breathing hard and staring fixedly at the wall. “Not Boston General. Not anything.”

  Of all the times through her childhood that Ripley had imagined her father finally telling her she mattered, that he loved her, she had never pictured herself wanting to murder him. But that thought was at the forefront of her mind. She shrugged Cage off and stepped toward the bed. “I’m important? I’m important? Well this is a hell of a time to decide that I’m important, Father, when my patients are being murdered in their beds. What about them, Father? What about my patients?”

  “Ripley,” Cage murmured from behind her, and she took a deep breath and stepped back, remembering it was just this sort of a temper that had sparked his heart attack in the first place.

  But Howard didn’t look feeble right now, and he didn’t look close to death. He reached out and found the bed control, pushing the button until he was half sitting. Until he was capable of looking down his nose at her. “You’re right, Caroline, and I was wrong. I can only say that I was trying to protect my only child.”

  “Well, stop protecting me and start protecting the patients who depend on us, Father.”

  He nodded. “What can I do to help?”

  Cage sat on one side of the bed and Ripley on the other. And they made a plan.

  OUT IN FRONT of the main entrance, the noise level climbed another notch and Cage winced as the babble irritated the dull headache he’d been fighting all day. Too much stress, he’d decided, and not enough sleep. Too much worry and fear. Fear that he wouldn’t be quick enough to save Ripley one of these times. Fear that the killer would get her before Howard Davis was able to organize an emergency board meeting, eject Leo Gabney from his position and launch an official investigation.

  Fear that once they had, his job would be done and it would be time for him to leave Boston General. Leave Ripley.

  He glanced over to where she was herding the excited children onto the Tammy Fund vans, thinking that once this was over, he’d like to take her someplace warm and spend a week in bed. Sleep optional.

  “Mr. Cage! You’re coming with us!” The purple hair clued him in, though Livvy’s wig was slightly askew beneath the Boston baseball cap. “Milo wasn’t sure, but I said you’d come! You’ll sit with us, right?” Every word was delivered at top volume, at odds with the silence from the wheelchair Livvy was pushing.

  Cage leaned down. “Hey, Milo. How’s it going?”

  The boy smiled and touched the pitcher’s mitt Cage had given him. “I’m going to catch a foul ball today,” he whispered. “My dad told me they bring good luck.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Cage replied, thinking the kid could use some good luck. He looked wan, and if possible smaller than before. Cage walked over to Ripley while he tried to figure out who on the Boston team he knew well enough to ask a favor. “Is Milo okay to do this?” he asked once he reached her. “He doesn’t look so good.”

  “The therapy will do that. He’ll be okay for today.” She touched his hand. “The glove was a sweet thing to do, by the way.”

  Cage shrugged. “I don’t need it anymore.” He glanced around making sure none of the hospital staff was in ear-shot. “Will your father come through for us?”

  “I think so.” Ripley said quietly, also scanning the crowd. Cage wondered if she felt it, too, the sense that eyes were watching them from all around. That ears were listening.

  They were struggling against two enemies now—the person who was killing R-ONC patients, and Leo Gabney. Cage wasn’t sure which one frightened him more.

  “Father has people in the administration still loyal to him,” she said. “Mostly they just tell him when I do something wrong, but I think they’ll do what we need. If we keep Leo busy at the ballgame, Father’s flunkies will have a chance to pull the records we’ve asked for and collect the hot samples. By the time the game is over, they’ll be ready for an emergency board meeting.”

  “And goodbye, Gabney,” Cage murmured. “Hello, new administration and an official investigation of all the murders.”

  A soft voice spoke at Ripley’s side. “Dr. Davis.”

  Cage jolted, having not noticed the woman’s approach through the crowd of wheelchairs, attendants and hospi tal personnel jostling for position in one of the three Tammy Fund vans. He relaxed slightly when he saw who it was. “Belle. How are you today? Are you coming to the game?”

  “Fine, thank you, Mr. Cage. And yes, I’ll be helping w
ith the children today.” Belle smiled at Ripley. “I’ll see you there, I’m sure.”

  The final van began boarding, and the surge of the crowd carried Belle away while Ripley and Cage made sure nobody got left behind and nobody boarded a van without permission. With Ripley away and R-ONC deserted, it seemed unlikely that the killer would strike. They hoped. Because if they could get through today, Ripley’s father would call in the authorities and the investigation would be out of Cage and Ripley’s hands.

  Until then, they played a waiting game. A worrying one.

  As the vans pulled away from Boston General, Cage leaned into her and asked, “You feel it, don’t you? Like we’re waiting for something to happen. Like someone’s watching us.”

  Ripley lowered her voice, reminding him that any of the doctors, nurses or volunteers around them could be loyal to Gabney. “What did you do with Whistler while we’re not there to watch him?”

  “I don’t think he’s the one, Ripley.” He raised a hand to forestall her automatic protest. “But I put Security on him. He’ll be doing paperwork all day and the head guard, Mike, knows to call me if anything happens.” He glanced down at her, hating the tension in her eyes. “We’re doing the best we can. If we can just hang on until this evening, it’ll be over.” The word over echoed between them. Cage studied her as she stared out the window at the passing cityscape. “Ripley, about what I said back in your father’s room…”

  She didn’t turn, and he wished he knew what she was thinking. Was she sad he’d turned down the job Howard had offered him just before they left her father’s room? Was she relieved? He couldn’t tell when she said, “It’s okay, Cage. I understand.”

  “He took me by surprise. I wasn’t expecting him to offer me Gabney’s job. And besides, I’m not an administrator.” He wanted to touch her cheek, but their surroundings stopped him, as did the tense set of her shoulders. He was confused by the brief, strong temptation to take Gabney’s job, to stay at Boston General. But what would Ripley think of that? Were they together or apart? He wasn’t sure anymore, but he knew for a fact he wasn’t ready to say goodbye yet. Not now. Maybe not ever.

  “I said I understand. Once you’ve got Boston General cleaned up, you’ll hand it off to another RSO and move on to the next hospital. Heather’s death gave you a purpose, Cage. A motivation. My father didn’t know that when he asked you to stay at BoGen. I’m sorry he put you in an awkward position.”

  Ironically, her acceptance ticked him off. “So that’s it? Once your father takes over and the feds are in charge of the investigation, it’s over between us? No regrets, no messy goodbyes, just ‘have a nice life, Cage’?”

  “Hush,” she warned him when the last part came out as a muted roar. “It’s not even close to over yet, so let’s postpone the goodbyes, okay? We have to get through this ballgame and hope my father does his part.”

  She never looked away from the window, and they passed the rest of the journey in a strained silence. He wanted to reach for her, to touch her and make her tell him what she was thinking. But he didn’t dare. He was too afraid he wouldn’t like the answer.

  The vans bumped their way into the lower loading area closest to the Tammy Fund box seats, Cage felt a swift twist in his gut. It might have come from the sure feeling that not everything would go as smoothly as planned. It might have come from the smell of the ballpark, from the ghosts of dreams that had died five years earlier.

  Or it might have come from the sneaking suspicion that Ripley had said her goodbyes the night before in his bed.

  He told himself to let it go and deal with it later, but when she stepped off the van and avoided his eyes, something inside Cage snapped tight. He grabbed her arm and hustled her into a nearby alcove formed by two massive steel girders.

  “Cage! What’s the matter?” She tried to peek over his shoulder.

  “I wanted to remind you of something,” he growled, aware of their colleagues milling a few feet away.

  Her eyes snapped to his, and she must have read some of his mood. She licked her lips. “What something?”

  She was braced for a quick, hard kiss that would defuse some of the simmering tension between them. He could see it in her eyes, and in the quick lift of her chest. But when he bent his head and feathered a soft touch across her lips, he could tell from her murmur of surprise and the hands that came up to push him away that she hadn’t been prepared for sweetness.

  He brushed her cheek with the back of his hand and deepened the kiss, feeling her fingers curl in his shirt almost unwillingly. He wrapped his arms around her, binding the two of them together as his tongue told her, If we were alone, I would do this to you, and then maybe this.

  She moaned into his mouth and gave in, reaching up to twine her arms around his neck and offer him what he sought—the feel of them together, the taste of the thing that bound them to each other, undiscussed and perhaps unwanted. But unavoidable.

  “Zack,” she whispered, and she touched her forehead to his while their ribs heaved as though they’d run a mile. “This isn’t smart.”

  He stared into the eyes that were so close to his own. “You could come with me when I leave. Any hospital would kill to have a good R-ONC.”

  She smiled faintly, though the surprise showed in her eyes. “I thought there was no such thing as a good R-ONC in your book unless it was a dead R-ONC.”

  His fingers tightened. “Don’t even joke about that.”

  Pulling away, she rubbed her arms where his hands had gripped. She shook her head. “I was kidding, Cage, though it was ill-timed. Come on, we should catch up with the others. I’m sure Leo is looking for us.”

  “Ripley.”

  She turned back to him, but didn’t answer.

  “This isn’t over. We’ll talk about it later.”

  When she walked away, Cage cursed. They both knew she hadn’t answered his question.

  And she hadn’t asked him to stay.

  RIPLEY HAD ALWAYS enjoyed baseball in a distant sort of way, but this game was different. She was split in too many directions, and the tension hounded her, making her nervous and snappy.

  Part of her wanted to watch the pitchers warming up and imagine Cage on the mound. Every time she thought she knew him, another facet emerged. Like the ragged, unshaven man who lived in a penthouse that would have stretched her father’s budget, the confident, chummy ex-ballplayer working the crowd of men around Leo Gabney was a surprise.

  Almost as surprising as his question had been. Leave with him? She couldn’t and he knew it. She’d built her department from the ground up, and had hundreds of success stories to show for it. That was why she was fighting so adamantly to keep R-ONC open. She saved lives. She couldn’t turn her back on her patients, and Cage knew that. Therefore, he’d asked her because he figured she’d never say yes. Once her father and the board voted to remove Leo, once the feds were brought in to deal with the deaths and R-ONC’s future was assured, Cage could leave with a clear conscience. Damn him.

  “Dr. Rip, is this the best spot?”

  She glanced down at the pale, eager face and nodded. “Yes, Milo. This is the absolute best spot for catching foul balls. See how close you are to the field?” She helped Belle push Milo a step closer to the padded rail, damning herself for the compulsion that made her sneak a quick glance at Cage.

  Leo had his arm draped across the RSO’s shoulders—he was almost standing on tiptoe to reach—and he was expounding to the Hospital of the Year committee members about something. Cage looked pained, and Ripley was on her way to rescue him when the phone in her pocket chirped.

  “Hello?”

  “Caroline, where are you?”

  Ripley gritted her teeth, reminding herself to be grateful that he sounded so strong, as though the heart attack had been nothing more than an annoyance now that he had something to fix. “Father. I’m at the ballpark. What do you need?”

  “I thought you’d want to know that the board is meeting at five o’clock
in my room.” He chuckled. “I always knew I built this private suite for a reason.”

  Ripley relaxed slightly, thinking they might pull this off, after all. She was looking forward to giving the case to the police and taking some time off until the murderer was caught. Maybe she and Cage could take the time together. Her heart constricted. Or maybe that would make saying goodbye even harder. She frowned and dutifully repeated, “Board meeting at five o’clock. I’ll be there, and Cage, too.” Which would leave the kids at the ballgame short two chaperones, but it couldn’t be helped.

  There was a pause, then Howard’s voice. “Well, I guess I’ll see you then, Caroline.”

  “Wait. How are you feeling, Father?”

  There was another pause, this one surprised. “I’m feeling fine. Your mother has been in and out, but I sent her home to get some rest.” There was another chuckle. “It took some persuading, but she left eventually.”

  The softness in his voice was uncharacteristic, and it gave Ripley a fluttery feeling in her chest. It had been years since she’d wished for her parents to reunite. The thought had seemed so impossible.

  She cleared her throat. “You have everything you need?”

  “Yes, of course.” He paused. “Keep yourself safe, okay? I’ll see you at five.”

  Ripley whispered goodbye and disconnected, hoping the glare of the sun and the brim of her ball cap hid the wetness in her eyes. Keep yourself safe.

  It wasn’t unconditional love. But it was a start.

  This time, when she glanced over at Cage, he caught her eye. Their gazes locked and the energy pulsed between them, a living reminder of the night before. Of their kiss downstairs.

  She had expected the passion from him all along. He had practically radiated it from the first moment she’d seen him. But she hadn’t expected the tenderness. The kindness.

  She hadn’t expected that the idea of his leaving would fill her with so much pain. But she couldn’t go with him, and she knew he wouldn’t stay. He’d said as much to her father back at the hospital, but she couldn’t, wouldn’t focus on that now. They had to keep Leo occupied and give her father’s people time to do their work at the hospital, while hoping to hell the killer didn’t strike again.