by Jenna Ryan
Blood Orchid
To the staff and residents at Rest Haven Lodge. You’re part of our family now.
CHAPTER ONE
The huge, stone manor house looked haunted, Kate Marshall mused, particularly at night under a hazy quarter moon. Sitting alone on a rise of land with a dense patch of equally haunted forest fanning out from its storied walls, it could have been plucked from a dark fairy tale. Or a horror film, she supposed. For now, it stood as an eerie life-and-death testament to the hospital it had become a century and a half after its birth.
Many wings had been added over the years, and, of course, the interior had been gutted and brought completely up to code. It was a state-of-the-art, eighty-five-bed private facility, and yet for all that, on the surface at least, it remained a relic from a bygone era.
People from all over the Bay Area came to St. Mark’s to live. Sometimes to die, but mostly to hope they wouldn’t die. That was the ideal at any rate. Unless they worked there, as Kate had for the past three years. Unless the ideal was shattered by grim reality.
“Don’t do this,” she murmured into the thickening fog. “It doesn’t help.”
Rocking her head from side to side, she regarded the murky outline of the old house one last time then pushed off from the back of her car.
She did this occasionally after a bad shift: pulled over on the steep road that wound down to the bay, climbed out and stared at what was. Thought back to what had been. Questioned what might have been.
Damn it. Thoughts and conjectures didn’t help either. As a child, the manor had given her chills. Apparently, she reflected, it still could.
Filmy fingers of fog drifted through her line of vision. Only a few streetlights burned on the road, making it the perfect spot for anyone requiring a moment of solitude to stop. Unless, of course, a bad driver happened to be squealing down the hill at twice the legal limit.
She spotted the headlights first, weaving wildly from side to side. Okay, that was a bad sign. Drunk at the wheel, she assumed, and she pulled the keys to her Prius from her coat pocket.
“Do not be deceived by what is unreal, Kate Marshall. Fear only what is.”
A woman’s voice, whisper-thin yet strangely clear, came from behind her. Startled, Kate whirled to face the shadows.
A tiny female figure stood on the slippery outer edge of the road. She wore a dark coat and a veil that covered her head and face. Her hands were folded one over the other. On the back of her left hand Kate spied a tattoo that might have been a flower.
She started to speak, but the woman cut her off with an urgent, “Move now!”
Kate snapped her head around as the weaving car shot out of the fog. The headlights were blinding, but even through her momentary shock, she knew the vehicle was coming straight for her.
She jumped back instinctively, as fast and as far as she could. Unfortunately, the shoulder was rough and her heel caught in a crack. As the headlights bore down, she stumbled and fell.
The car, a behemoth from her current perspective, screeched to a halt less than six inches from her feet. It sat there, as if panting, for several seconds. Then the driver slammed into Reverse and peeled away to brake on the opposite shoulder.
Well, hell, Kate thought. She closed her eyes briefly while her heart hammered and her body trembled. What was going on out here? Who’d be crazy enough to fly down a San Francisco hill in the fog at night with no—
Wait, the woman! But when she scrambled to her knees, no one stood on the edge of the road.
“Okay, going crazy,” she said aloud. “Seeing people. Hearing voices.” With her fingers pressed hard to her temples, she looked again. And still no one stood there.
The growl of a powerful engine brought her back. She swung her gaze to the vehicle and felt annoyance war with fear.
Climbing to her feet, she brushed dirt and pebbles from her trench coat. Whatever had just happened, she didn’t need it after tonight’s double shift from hell.
The Cadillac on the shoulder seemed to float in a sea of gauzy white. The weird effect sustained until the driver’s door burst open and a woman wearing a blood-red coat and stiletto boots clattered out.
Her heels clicked unevenly on the damp pavement.
Definitely drunk, Kate reflected, and unfortunately recognizable. Taking a last uncertain look behind her, she braced for the face-to-face she’d known would come at some point but had actively hoped to postpone until tomorrow.
By high beams and swirling mist, the approaching woman’s sharp features shifted from drunken sorrow to glittering fury. Fingers curled, she all but lunged at Kate. “You let my son die, you incompetent bitch! You killed him!”
Kate didn’t defend herself. Wrong time and place. Instead she offered the standard physician’s apology. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Perradine—”
“Sorry?” Anna Perradine’s shrill voice echoed through the night. “You’re sorry? You don’t know what the word means, Dr. Marshall.” Wobbling closer, she hissed, “But I promise you, you will.”
As a fully licensed trauma surgeon, Kate was accustomed to dealing with emotional outbursts. Shock and disbelief were the usual first reactions to the death of a loved one, and anger certainly wasn’t uncommon. But she couldn’t recall ever encountering the kind of poisonous rage that was now being directed at her by this woman—which had already been directed at her over the phone. Maybe it was time for straighter talk.
“Ms. Perradine,” she said again. “Your son lost a great deal of blood at the scene. He took three bullets to the chest. We did everything possible to stabilize him, but truthfully, he was gone before he reached the hospital. The paramedics—”
The woman made a dangerous sound. “Paramedics aren’t doctors, Doctor. I wouldn’t expect them to save the life of anyone in Frankie’s condition. It was your job to do that, and you failed. Miserably.”
“Anna.” A man materialized out of the fog to touch the woman’s arm. “Don’t you think—”
“I don’t have to think!” She took two staggering steps, swatting his hand as she might a pesky mosquito. “I know. And what I know is this. You were a fill-in surgeon, Dr. Marshall. A third-rate replacement for the bastard who should have operated on my son. I’ve spoken to the chief of surgery. Dr. Nolan was scheduled to be on duty tonight.”
“Yes, he was. But he had—”
“Shut up,” Anna shouted. “My son’s dead, and it’s Jason Nolan’s fault just as surely as it is yours. You’re both of you murderers!”
When guilt pricked, Kate pushed it away. She’d done nothing wrong. This was merely a woman who’d suffered a tragic loss lashing out. “Dr. Nolan is an excellent surgeon,” she said. “But I promise you, there’s nothing he or anyone could have done to save Frankie.”
The woman struck Kate with a single stinging blow across her cheek.
Teeth set, Kate balled her fingers. “And still there’s nothing anyone could have done. Nothing at all.”
This time, Anna’s companion grasped both of her arms. The restraint didn’t prevent her from scalding Kate with a look. “You’ll pay for this, do you hear me?”
Kate had a feeling half of San Francisco could hear her.
“You killed my son—you and the son of a bitch who should have performed the surgery. Did last night’s storm keep you awake, Dr. Marshall? It kept me awake. Thunder that violent comes with lightning, millions of volts of untamed electricity. A single strike can cause instant death, just like that.” She snapped—or attempted to snap—scarlet-tipped fingers in Kate’s face. “That’s how it’s going to be for you and Nolan. Death.” A pair of missed snaps. “Just like that.”
Kate said nothing. She simply absorbed the woman’s virulent stare.
Snatching free, Anna shrugged the shoulder of her jacket into place and jerked her chin up. “If you don’t know my family’s name, I suggest you look it up on Google, Doctor. You and your brilliant counterpart have made yourselves one hell of a powerful enemy tonight. Powerful an
d deadly.”
CHAPTER TWO
Ten o’clock had come and gone by the time Kate exchanged the scrubs she’d been too tired to remove at the hospital for a pair of faded jeans and boots, a billed cap, a black leather coat that hit her low on the calf and a rapidly growing anger that demanded an outlet. Calling him every unflattering name she could think of, she went in search of Jason Nolan.
It didn’t require much brainpower to figure out where he’d be. When someone from St. Mark’s wanted to get drunk and wallow, that person headed straight for the last remaining stretch of derelict waterfront in the city and did the Barbary Coast thing until he or she either passed out or wound up in jail.
Either scenario worked for Kate, but only after she’d slashed Nolan into a thousand bloody pieces.
She started with Shanghai Lily’s for the simple reason that it was the most disreputable of the three bars in the area. The low, ugly building squatted under a pier that was as badly in need of demolition as the business it sheltered. If memory served, both bar and pier had been condemned twice in the past two years, however, being private property, no one could touch either structure without the approval of the corporation that held the title. So here they sat: a rat hole that smelled like perfumed bilge water and a dock with all the charm of a rotting corpse.
Thick fog shrouded the walls and blacked-out windows as Kate pushed her way inside. She’d been here twice before, and she didn’t like it any better on her third visit.
Her uncle called the place the devil’s earthly abode, but he was a stuffy old sot who believed that Big Bird was a symbol for foreign takeover. Her grandfather, on the other hand, claimed Lily’s was the final resting place for every opium addict who’d ever passed through its nineteenth-century doors. Good old Grandpa. At ninety-three, what did he care if believing in ghosts wasn’t tolerated in the Marshall family? Intolerance didn’t make a thing impossible.
Kate pictured her grandfather’s face and grinned. Then her eyes adjusted to the weird bluish haze, and she zeroed in on the only back booth with a single occupant.
It was Nolan, all right. Long, dark hair, dark shirt and jacket. Even if she hadn’t recognized his outline, Kate could have identified him by the pair of slinky women in tight, silk dresses who were eyeing his booth like felines in heat.
Ignoring them, she strode across the floor, avoiding the flaccid hand that drifted toward her from a low sofa, and halted, planting her palms on the pitted wood table.
“You, Jason Nolan, are an A-number-one, head-of-the-list, top-of-the-heap bastard. You need to know that, and I need to tell you since we’re apparently both slated to wind up on slabs in the morgue next to Frankie Perradine. I’m sure you recognize the name, but on the off chance you don’t, Frankie is—or was—the eldest nephew of Alistair Perradine, a man who, unless you’ve been living on Mars, needs no introduction to anyone in the Bay Area.”
Raising his head, Nolan shot her a bleary-eyed warning. “Go away, Kate.”
“That’s it?” Shoving back, she frowned briefly at her sticky palms. “That’s all you have to say? Are you so drunk you missed the part of my tirade that put Frankie Perradine in our creepy below-grade morgue? Because that’s where he is and where he’ll stay until the autopsy’s complete.”
“I don’t care about Frankie Perradine.”
She blinked. “What?”
“You heard me. Now take off.”
“I’m not—Nolan, you’re a surgeon. You’re supposed to care about all people.”
The warning light in Nolan’s eyes took on a dangerous edge. “I’ve never made that claim, Kate. Now piss off and leave me alone.”
“Fine.” She waved at a wisp of illegal smoke. “If that’s your attitude, I’ll stop at telling you off. You don’t deserve anything more.”
“Glad you agree. Go.”
She could punch him, she supposed, and make him listen. Or she could turn, walk and let the chips fall. But Anna’s threats had been very real, and death was too severe a punishment for a man who’d saved so many lives.
A pronounced creak had her casting an uncertain glance into the rafters. The dusty overhead lights popped off and on. They fluttered for a few seconds but thankfully held. Another puff of smoke wafted past as she returned her gaze to Nolan’s brooding face.
“I lost him.” She tried not to visualize the moment every surgeon dreaded. “I just—I couldn’t get him back.”
Slightly bloodshot eyes narrowed on hers, but all Nolan did was lift his glass and shrug. “It happens, Marshall. To the best of us.”
Heat edged with temper flooded in. “You being the best, I presume.”
“Was once.” He drank deeply. “Not anymore.”
“You’re just full of profound statements tonight, aren’t you?” She swept an arm around the room. “What are you doing in this dive? You’re not a junkie or a nineteenth-century ghost or—”
“I’m not a what?”
“Family reference. It’s not important. Nolan, you’re sitting in a booth that has red velvet seats, or did until they wore out. The point is, people get spirited away from places like this.” She regarded her palms again. “What’s on the table?”
“Bars around here have rats. Lily’s has a rodent swatter.”
“That’s gross.” Kate grabbed a napkin from under an empty beer mug and scrubbed the stickiness from her palms.
“Would be if it were true,” he agreed. “Now, take a hint and let me get hammered in peace. I’m sorry you lost your patient. It wasn’t your fault. You can’t save the world. Pick your cliché, and get one of the waiters to bring me a pitcher of Bud on your way out the door.”
Punch him or pour what remained of his beer over his head? Resolved, Kate set her knuckles on the table. “Okay, here it is. I’m only going to say this once, Nolan, and unless you’re the biggest jackass on the planet, you want to pay attention. Medics brought Frankie Perradine in to our Emergency at 7:39 p.m. St. Mark’s was his mother’s specific request. He had three bullets lodged in his chest. He went into cardiac arrest twice while I was attempting to extract bullet number two. Word is he was shot by an intruder in his girlfriend’s apartment. His mother thinks the shooting part’s irrelevant. She blames me for the fact that he’s dead.”
“So—crappy night all around.”
“She also blames you.”
“Making this the perfect end to a total pisser of a day. Why me?”
“Because I was there and you weren’t.”
“Yeah?” A crooked grin appeared. “Sounds like a half-assed compliment to me.”
Grabbing a handful of his hair, Kate yanked his head up. “What it sounds like, Nolan, is a threat. As in death. Or so promises the infamous Anna Perradine.”
“Back off,” he warned, and with a low growl she released him.
He sat back in the shadows of the shabby velvet booth to study her. Although she couldn’t see his face, Kate was ridiculously tempted to fold her arms across her chest. She didn’t, but still.
“Don’t let the black-haired bitch scare you,” he said at length. “She likes to exercise her temper. Her brother-in-law will rein her in.”
Exasperation widened Kate’s eyes. “How the hell would you…?” She stopped, lowering her lashes in suspicion. “Actually, how do you know that? Have you met her?”
She heard the wry humor in his voice. “Anna Perradine likes men, Kate. The younger the better.”
“Does that mean…? Are you saying you ‘know her’ know her?”
“She’s come on to me once or twice.”
Stepping back, Kate spread her fingers. “Okay, that’s weird.”
“There’s my ego deflated.”
“What, you don’t think it’s weird that a woman who obviously wanted to have sex with you now suddenly wants you dead? Come on, Nolan, Anna’s got to be in her late fifties.”
“She’s sixty-eight.”
“Taking it from weird to sick. Sixty-eight puts her thirty-three years up on you
. She’s almost twice your age. Even my Uncle Phil’s not that bad.” Curious, Kate cocked her head. “Did you have sex with her?”
“No. Now be a good little sawbones and go home. I’ll pick the cliché for you. Frankie Perradine’s death wasn’t your fault, and Anna’s big and powerful brother-in-law is savvy enough to realize that. Threat eliminated. Take a hike.”
She moved her lips into a smile. “Happy to. I’ll order you a triple boilermaker before I go. My treat.” She flicked a hand at his glass. “As long as you’re drinking, you might as well end the night with a slow slide under Lily’s table. Assuming you aren’t actually shanghaied, a brilliant trauma surgeon like you should be up and cutting by Monday, no problem. And you can eighty-six the nasty look. I don’t wither.”
“You don’t take a hint worth a damn either. I want to be alone.”
“Wallowing’s bad for the psyche, Dr. N. Hasn’t anyone told you that?”
“Yeah.” He raised his glass and drained it. “My mother did once, twenty years ago, right before she traded her husband and kids in for a fat mortician. He talked like Alfred Hitchcock and spent most of his off-hours in the mad scientist’s laboratory he built next to his Notorious-style wine cellar.”
Kate caught the underlying bitterness in his remark and truly wished she hadn’t gone there. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t heard the rumors. “Look, Nolan,” she began. “I’m sorry. Really. I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t.” He cut her off with a frosty glare. “Just don’t. She was diagnosed with lung cancer yesterday. She won’t make Christmas.”
Bad idea coming here, Kate realized with a sigh. And even worse timing if the other rumors about him were true.
Hospital buzz suggested that his father had hanged himself two years ago, six months after Nolan’s much younger brother Zack was killed by a roadside bomber on his first tour of duty in the Middle East. Somewhere along the line, this conversation had taken a disastrous turn.
