by Mallory Kane
Rachel took several steps backward, looking around. She didn’t see the stick the orderly had tossed aside, but she did see a piece of metal rod several feet to her left. She eased toward it.
Eric was up, too, thank God.
He was balanced on the balls of his feet, waiting for a move from one or both of the orderlies. Rachel didn’t know a lot about fighting, but she knew Eric was at a distinct disadvantage.
Not only was he trapped between the orderlies and the wall, but the blow from the wooden block was bleeding into his right eye. He kicked out at Bob, who dodged his foot, then he used the momentum of the kick to whirl and land a punch in the other orderly’s face.
Rachel’s whole body shook with shock and fear. She glanced at the metal rod, still too far away, then over her shoulder toward the door. She wouldn’t have a chance in a fight. Even the smaller orderly had a good eighty pounds on her.
She’d do better running. She gauged her chances of making it to the door before one of the orderlies saw her. She slipped the cell phone out of her pocket, almost dropping it, her hands were shaking so badly.
Bob lunged at Eric, knocking him off his feet.
Eric yelled as he went down, and shoved at Bob, who howled. Eric must have connected with something.
Rachel looked at the keypad of the phone. It was still in text mode. She gritted her teeth. She could barely see. She forced her trembling fingers to key in what she hoped spelled SOS.
“Get her,” Bob huffed.
The smaller orderly started toward her.
The low battery tone beeped, again and again.
Rachel took another step backward and pressed the Send key, praying there was enough battery to send the message to Mitch. Then she turned and ran for the door.
As her fingers closed around the rusty doorknob, a hand grabbed the neck of her T-shirt and jerked her backward. She lost her balance, but a strong forearm wrapped around her throat, holding her up. He squeezed.
She gasped and clawed at the arm, but it didn’t let up. Choking, straining for breath, she used the last of her conscious will to toss the cell phone away from her.
Then everything went black.
BRIGHT LIGHT shone in her eyes, and something was holding her down. She coughed, and winced in pain. The last thing she remembered was the orderly’s arm around her throat.
The lights hurt her eyes. Squeezing them shut didn’t help. She saw big blue circles—the burned-in afterimages of the lights.
Suddenly, with alarming clarity, she knew where she was. She was on the operating table in Metzger’s lab. She tried to sit up, and felt the straps binding her wrists and torso. She heard the unmistakable sound of the Velcro straps straining.
A shadow blocked some of the painful brightness and she recognized the silhouette of Gerhardt Metzger’s broad face and mutton-chop sideburns.
“Dr. Metzger,” she said, her voice nothing more than a croak. “What are you doing?”
“Hello, Rachel. I’d like to explain it all to you, but we don’t have much time. Turn your head to the right.” He grabbed her jaw and twisted her head.
Rachel blinked, still half blinded by the bright operating-room lights. She saw red and white.
She blinked again. The red was blood.
Eric. “Oh, my God. Eric!”
He stood with his head bowed. Two orderlies held him, each twisting an arm behind him. Thomas stood nearby.
Eric’s face and neck were coated with blood. He stirred when she cried his name, and lifted his head.
She saw the damage that had already been done. It must have taken both of the orderlies to restrain him. His right eye was swollen and blood dripped from a cut over his brow. His lip was bleeding and a red mark marred his left cheek.
But his dark eyes held hers with a determined intensity that she knew.
Don’t tell them anything. She heard his voice in her ear.
Metzger squeezed her jaw and turned her face back to him. “Now I’m going to give you an injection of midazolam, and you’re going to answer some questions. If you get the answers wrong, then Baldwyn will suffer. Do you understand?”
His fingers squeezed her jaw. She tried to nod.
“Very good.” He let go of her and held up a glass vial, pushing the needle of a syringe into it and taking up clear liquid.
“I’m sure you know what midazolam is. Not only will you feel hazy and be willing to talk about anything I ask you, you’ll probably forget what you said later, because of its amnesiac effects.”
Rachel knew the drug. It was used in surgical procedures. It had all the properties of the perfect truth serum.
She cut her eyes over to Eric. His head was down but she felt his eyes on her, she heard his voice.
Don’t mention the FBI. Be brave, partner.
“I will,” she whispered as she felt the prick of a needle in the crook of her left arm. The fluid burned as it entered her vein.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.” Instantly she felt the fast-acting drug swirling through her blood. She fought it, squeezing her fists so hard her fingernails dug into her palms. She concentrated on the pain.
“Now, Rachel, let’s do a practice question.”
She gritted her teeth and ignored the urge to close her suddenly heavy eyelids. She strained against the Velcro straps around her arms and wrists, and turned her head toward Eric.
Metzger grabbed her jaw. “Look at me when I’m talking to you. What is your name?”
“Rachel Harper.” Her lips felt swollen and numb. She bit her lower lip. Pain helped her focus.
“Good. Who is that standing with my orderlies?”
Eric. No. They didn’t know about Eric. She squeezed her eyes shut against the fuzzy confusion in her brain. Who? Not Eric. “It’s Caleb Baldwyn,” she said carefully.
Metzger scratched his sideburns and smiled at her. “I’m sorry, Rachel. That’s incorrect. You may need more medication. We already know that Caleb has a twin brother. It was obvious to me from the moment you returned that there was something very different about my favorite patient.” He looked up. “Thomas, we have a wrong answer.”
“No,” Rachel begged. She turned her head, dreading what she was about to see.
Thomas turned and buried his fist in Eric’s midsection. Eric grunted and doubled over, kept from falling only by the two orderlies holding his arms.
Pain ripped through Rachel, momentarily clearing the haze from her brain. “No, stop,” she cried. “I’ll tell you. Caleb’s brother. His name is Eric.”
She heard a strangled cough from Eric and saw him painfully push himself back to his feet, straining weakly against the orderlies’ hold.
“Eric. Caleb’s brother. Very good, dear.”
Caleb is dead. Eric’s voice echoed in her ear. Caleb is dead.
“Now, since Eric is here, where is Caleb?”
Tears overflowed Rachel’s eyes. The hold she had on her consciousness was so tenuous that she knew she was losing long seconds of time.
“Caleb is—” She stopped, her breath caught on a sob. “Caleb is dead.”
Metzger’s face swam in front of her eyes. He made a deep, frightening sound, like a growl. “Not a good answer, Rachel. I’m afraid that’s incorrect.” He nodded at Thomas.
“No!” she shouted. “No! Can’t help it. It’s true.” She couldn’t stop herself from crying. If they hurt Eric again, she couldn’t stand it.
She strained with all her might against the restraints. A ripping sound filled her ears. She put all her strength behind her effort to free herself.
“He’s dead. Dead.” She repeated it over and over in her mind. Dead. Dead. It was all she had to hold on to, that and the knowledge that if she lost control they would kill Eric.
Metzger held up a hand. “Now, Rachel, it’s obvious that your involvement with Eric goes far beyond the professional, but I really need answers. It’s highly probable that Caleb is dead, but somehow, I just don’t feel like taki
ng your word for it. Thomas, let’s see if Eric will be better at answering questions. It’s possible he might be more willing to talk if Rachel were the one to suffer.”
Eric heard Metzger’s words and a terror beyond anything he’d ever known took hold of him. He couldn’t let them hurt Rachel.
It was bad enough watching her strain against the straps on the table. Through the red haze in his eyes he could already see dark bruises forming on her delicate skin.
“How much longer you gonna fool with these two?” Thomas asked. “We need to get out of here.”
Eric lifted his head enough to watch Metzger’s face.
“I must find out if they managed to give anybody the formula. If the U.S. government gets its hands on it, I’ll lose credibility here. And if that happens, I’ll never get the recognition I deserve.”
Rachel whispered something. Eric wished he could hear her, but in the fight with the orderlies, he’d lost his com unit. He couldn’t communicate with her.
“What, Rachel?” Metzger said. “I didn’t hear you.”
Eric saw Rachel’s eyelids drift closed. She was about to succumb to the drug.
Don’t tell them, Eric pleaded silently. Don’t tell them the truth. He wanted to promise he would save her, but he wasn’t sure he could keep that promise. Still, he would die trying.
Hold on, Rachel, a little longer. Distract them.
He was badly injured, he knew, from the repeated blows. And his blood loss was weakening him. He only had one chance, and he had to carefully choose his time.
“Formula is…in my pocket,” Rachel said thickly. “Didn’t get a chance…”
Good girl, Eric thought. She’d already transmitted the formula to Mitch. Hopefully they wouldn’t find the cell phone.
Thomas reached over and pawed at her jeans.
“Don’t touch her,” Eric mumbled through the blood that gathered in his mouth.
Thomas grinned at him, then went back to digging in Rachel’s pockets, touching her deliberately and inappropriately with his big hands.
“Which pocket, Doc?” He leered down at her.
Her arms corded with slender muscles as she strained. “Right front, you pig.”
Eric’s heart swelled with pride. You are so brave. Dear God, I love you.
“Pig, eh?” Thomas slapped her.
Eric felt the blow as a flash of heat in the center of his forehead. Fury gave him the strength that he hadn’t been sure he could muster.
Shoving his elbows out to either side, he connected with the orderlies’ ribs. He didn’t damage them, but he did gain the element of surprise, and he used it to his advantage.
In the split second they took to absorb the fact that their quarry had hit them, Eric slipped out of their grasp, whirled with his hands up and cracked their heads together.
Roaring with rage, Thomas dove for him.
Eric neatly sidestepped him, tripped him and brought his foot down on the nurse’s head.
He knew he had just a couple of seconds before the men recovered. His instinct told him Metzger was no fighter, so he used those seconds to dive onto the OR table and rip the Velcro strap from one of Rachel’s arms.
“Get to the lights,” he whispered to her, hoping she had enough control over her faculties to rip off the rest of the straps and make it to the door.
Rolling off the table, he grabbed the crash cart and sent it rolling toward Thomas, who was rising to his feet. Then he turned, hoping to grab Metzger, but the doctor had retreated to the drug storage cabinet, too far away for Eric to reach him.
Rachel was off the OR table. Eric braced against Thomas’s onslaught. He shoved the OR table at the other two orderlies, who were climbing to their feet.
“Get her!” Thomas shouted at them as he lunged for Eric.
Rachel killed the lights as Eric threw himself to the right and hit the floor.
He rolled to his feet, light-headed and disoriented by the pitch-dark. Which way was he facing?
The sink was straight ahead. He should get the syringe gun that sat on the shelf above.
Without stopping to question how he knew which way he was facing or where a syringe gun was, he moved straight ahead.
He heard Thomas heading his way.
“Somebody turn on the lights!” Metzger cried.
Eric felt the brush of air that signaled Thomas’s presence and ducked sideways.
He should veer to the right. Now.
He reached up. His knuckles brushed the front edge of the shelf. He stretched out his fingers and wrapped his hand around the pistol-shaped device.
Rachel shrieked. One of the damn orderlies had grabbed her.
The lights came on, blindingly bright after the total darkness.
Eric assessed his position, and his attackers. His pulse hammered in his ears. He adjusted the syringe gun in his hand, wondering what it contained.
Metzger was to his right, Thomas headed straight for him.
As Thomas barreled into him and crushed his lower back against the edge of the sink, Eric pushed the barrel of the syringe gun into Thomas’s gut and pulled the trigger.
Thomas crumpled right in front of him.
He turned toward the orderlies who had grabbed Rachel.
Rachel’s face was sickly pale, her blue eyes huge and round as she stared past him.
“Metzger! Gun!”
Eric turned as Metzger lifted his hand. He held a semi-automatic pistol.
“Metzger,” Eric said, dropping the syringe gun and holding up his hands. “I’m FBI. If you stop right now, we’ll offer you a deal.”
Metzger shook his head. “It’s all ruined. I worked my whole life to cure schizophrenia. Now I have nothing. Nothing.”
Eric watched his face. He was going to shoot. Eric knew it, and if he missed Eric, then Rachel was directly behind him.
There was only one thing Eric could do.
He dove straight for the gun.
A roar filled his ears.
Rachel screamed.
Chapter Fourteen
Rachel pushed at the hands restraining her. “No, no! Let me go.” She curved her fingers and tried to scratch. She had to get away. She had to get to Eric.
“Hey, hey, hey.” A gravelly voice that should have been rough but wasn’t rumbled through her. “Hold still, sugar. Leave me a little skin. Eric’s fine.” The voice reassured her, but the hands still held her like a vise.
“And stop kicking. You’re making mincemeat out of my shins. Give him a minute to get cleaned up.”
Finally the words sank in. “He’s fine?” she asked groggily.
The man who held her carried her over to a chair and set her in it, then crouched in front of her, rubbing her hands between his.
“You need to open your eyes, sugar. You’re about to go into shock. Question is, are you okay?”
It was hard to focus. Rachel blinked several times and moistened her dry lips. She had to force her eyes open, and when she did, she met a gaze that was darker than any she’d ever seen. The face was too beautiful for a man, but at the same time it was decidedly masculine. Perfect cheekbones and midnight-black hair told her he was of Native American descent.
“Hi. I’m Storm. I’m with the FBI.”
She looked past him. “Where’s Eric? Metzger shot him.” She tried to pull her hands away, but Storm held fast.
“No, sugar. Metzger shot himself. Eric’s a little banged up, but he’s going to be okay. I’ll take you to him in just a minute.”
“Where are the orderlies?” Rachel realized the metal room was full of people, but none of them was dressed in white.
“My men are taking care of them. Good job, sending that SOS to Decker.”
Rachel took a shaky breath. “Are you sure Eric’s all right?”
“Just like a woman. One-track mind.” The man sighed and stood, towering over her and wrapping her hand in his. “Come on.”
As soon as she stood, she saw Eric. He was sitting on the OR table, wit
h two people working on him.
His eyes were closed, his head bowed as a nurse closed the cut with a row of Steri-Strip bandages.
The bruise on his left cheekbone was purple, the corner of his mouth was swollen and there were dark circles under his eyes. They’d removed his bloody T-shirt. His belly was red and there were bruises forming. His knuckles looked raw and streaks of blood ran down his jaw and neck. He was the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen.
As if he felt her looking at him, he lifted his head and opened his eyes. They were soft and filled with pain, but they lit up when they met her gaze.
Tears welled, blurring her vision.
“Ah, don’t cry,” he said, his voice raspy and strained.
She shook her head.
His gaze moved to the man beside her. “Storm, nice of you to drop by.”
Storm reached over and touched Eric’s knee. “I guess I’m going to have to quit calling you a desk jockey, Baldwyn.”
A ghost of a smile crinkled Eric’s eyes. “I guess so.”
“Well, I’d better—” Storm made a vague gesture and looked at Rachel. “If you’re okay.”
She nodded at him without taking her eyes off Eric.
“Oh, by the way, Baldwyn.” Storm held out a tiny cylinder. “Here’s your com unit. One of the men picked it up in the corridor. I guess it got dislodged while you were chatting with those goons that messed up your face.”
Eric reached out and took the tiny microcommunicator.
Rachel stared at the little cylinder, trying to figure out why it seemed so odd to her that Storm was handing it to Eric. Hadn’t Eric had it the whole time?
Storm said something she didn’t catch and the two people ministering to Eric’s injuries disappeared.
“You have a bruise where that bastard slapped you.” Eric frowned. He reached out toward her face.
“It doesn’t hurt.” She took a step forward and grabbed the edge of the table. “Sorry, I’m still a little groggy.”
“Rachel, I’m so sorry. I should have been stronger. I should have protected you better.”
