Under the Microscope
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He shrugged, expression shuttered. “If we take the case, William and I will keep track of our hours and expenses, and you can pay us when it’s over.” Now his eyes focused on her. “Can I trust that you won’t run away from the debt?”
She wasn’t sure if the faint mockery in his tone was directed at her or himself, but she knew she wasn’t going to find a better deal elsewhere. If Thriller went back on the market, it would take months—maybe longer—for sales to rebound, but they would rebound. Then she’d be solvent and able to pay. If Thriller wound up banned from the market…
Hell, she’d probably have to sell off the rest of the Rainey Days drug portfolio to settle her debts. She’d find the money one way or the other, except that one way, she’d be a success.
The other, a failure.
She swallowed hard, told herself this was what she’d come to New York to achieve, and nodded. “It’s a deal.”
He dug his fork into the carton and turned his back on her. “Then I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
His message was clear. He would consider working with her for both their benefits, but that didn’t mean she was forgiven.
WHEN THE TAP OF HER HEELS receded in the hallway outside his apartment, Max dropped the carton of fried rice onto the counter and scrubbed both hands across his face.
Well. Raine Montgomery.
Damn it, he hadn’t expected ever to see her again. Hadn’t expected to want her if he did. He knew better. But that didn’t change the fact that his head was jammed with the sight and scent of her, that her husky voice sounded in his ears the way it had before, tempting him, challenging him.
She’s no different than Charlotte, he reminded himself. A professional damsel in distress.
Lucky for him, he knew better. He’d been vaccinated against DIDS.
Twice.
He grabbed the phone and punched in William’s number, trying to believe his friend had a reason for giving out his home info.
The two men had known each other at Boston General, where the ex-FBI agent had worked for Hospitals for Humanity, a part-humanitarian, part-undercover investigative group with branches at hospitals across the U.S. When the men had found themselves needing a change at about the same time, they’d gone into business and Vasek and Caine Investigations was born.
It might die tonight, Max thought as the phone rang. When William answered, Max didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Damn it. Why’d you send her over here?”
William didn’t call him on the rudeness. “I figured that given your history with her, you’d want to know she was in trouble.”
Max didn’t bother asking how or what William knew about him and Raine. William had known pretty much everything that had gone on at Boston General. “Why, so I’d help her, or so I could gloat?”
“Whichever lets you get on with things,” William answered pragmatically. “There’s more to life than living alone in a five-room unfurnished apartment in the city.”
“I like being alone. So sue me.” Alone wasn’t the same as lonely, Max told himself. And it was sure as hell better than being used. “And just be cause I don’t date as often as you do—” make that ever “—doesn’t mean it has anything to do with what did or didn’t happen between me and Raine Montgomery back at BoGen.”
“Then it was no big deal seeing her, you don’t care that I gave her your address, and you’re taking the case, right? This could be the break we’ve been looking for, you know.”
“Only if we find something the FDA doesn’t,” Max cautioned. “And no, I haven’t taken the case yet. I wanted to talk to you about it first, since I’ll want you to be point man.”
“No can do. I’m tied up through next week at the earliest with that malpractice thing, and I took on a new pro bono this morning. You’re on your own.”
Max gritted his teeth. “Don’t try to fix my life for me, Caine.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. You’re doing such a good job on your own.” William’s voice dropped a notch and the flippancy vanished. “Look—we both know you’ve been marking time ever since Charlotte left. Maybe it’s because of this woman, maybe it’s something else, I don’t know. Whatever it is, you can do better. You can be better.”
Max winced because he’d heard nearly the same words from his father a few days earlier, during their bimonthly phone call. According to his father, Max was closing in on forty fast. He should have a wife by now, a family. Sons. Daughters. Little ones to come home to and play with, and watch grow into not-so-little ones, like his nieces in the old neighborhood had done.
And maybe his pop had a point. But between college and grad school, the wife hadn’t happened. The children hadn’t happened. Over the past couple of years, he’d been wrapped up in starting and then growing the new company. Then there’d been Charlotte. For a while he’d thought he was all set. Then he’d been less sure. Then she’d been gone. And now…
What was his excuse now?
“Maybe you’re right,” he said slowly. “Maybe I do have something to work out where Raine is concerned.” Maybe that was why he’d opened the door the second time, knowing even then that he would take the case.
Not to be near her, but to exorcize her.
Which led to another realization. He’d already decided to take the case. For the company. For himself.
“Fine. I’ll do it.”
He hung up the phone, then glanced around the bare apartment, which seemed so much emptier than it had an hour before. He picked up the folder Raine had left, which was prominently marked with her address, the Rainey Days office address and several phone numbers.
Logically, he knew he should review the data and make a few calls from the apartment, or maybe wait until the next day and work out of the Caine and Vasek office downtown. Instead, he cursed and headed for the bedroom, where there was a mattress on the floor, a few boxes full of clothes and a duffel he kept packed for emergencies.
Fifteen minutes later, he was on his way to the scene of the crime.
On his way to see her.
RAINE SPENT THE TWO-HOUR DRIVE from New York City to New Bridge, Connecticut, trying to convince herself that everything was going to be okay.
She failed.
She was too aware of the vehicles in her rearview mirror, too aware of being jumbled up at the idea of working with Max, being near Max.
“This is business,” she said aloud as she passed the line into North New Bridge, the suburb where she’d rented a small house. “Strictly business. Nothing personal.”
Then again, it had been business when Max had watched over her in Boston General. She’d been hospitalized partly because of the pregnancy and its complications, partly because a killer had stalked Max’s boss at the lab. Max had appointed himself her de facto bodyguard for a time. It had been business, not personal, but she’d developed feelings for him just the same.
“I was pregnant. It was hormones. I even convinced myself I was in love with Erik for a while there.” When the words echoed back at her, she turned up the radio to drown them out, to drown out the knowledge that while she’d quickly talked herself out of the infatuation with her boss at FalcoTechno, she hadn’t been able to dismiss Max Vasek’s memory so easily.
Now it was the man himself, not the memory, who haunted her thoughts as she pulled into the driveway beside her small white house.
The lights were off when she let herself in, prompting her to grumble about needing to reset the automatic timer. She was a few steps inside the door when she noticed that the burglar alarm was solid green rather than blinking red.
“What the—”
A dark blur swung through her peripheral vision and a savage blow caught her behind the ear, driving her against the wall. Panic spurted alongside pain as the darkness grew arms and legs, and a man’s weight pinned her.
“Help!” she screamed. “Help me!”
Then blackness.
Chapter Three
It was close to midnight by the time Max turned down Raine’s street in North New Bridge, Connecticut. It was too late to knock on her door, stupid even to be in her neighborhood, but he’d decided to do a drive-by. Familiarize himself with the area.
It was a nice enough neighborhood, middle-class residential with good sidewalks and signage. Max glanced from side to side as he rolled through a stop sign, looking for trouble, maybe, or insight into the woman who’d knocked on his door. She looked like Raine Montgomery, but she was different. She seemed harder than he remembered. Sharper.
Flashing lights appeared in his rearview mirror, wig-wagging blue and white.
“Oh, hell,” Max muttered under his breath and shook his head. A ticket for a rolling stop was just about the last thing he needed right now.
He cursed and pulled over. Instead of stopping, the cop flipped on his siren and sped past, sending a jolt of adrenaline through Max’s system.
Raine!
Gut tight, hoping it was a coincidence, Max hit the gas and peeled back onto the road. He gunned his truck around the next corner and slammed on the brakes when he saw two cruisers parked half on the snow-covered lawn of a small white two-story home. The house numbers matched the ones written on Raine’s file folder.
And the windows glowed orange with fire.
Max didn’t waste time cursing or asking questions. He slapped the transmission into park, leaped out of his truck and bolted across the snow-slicked lawn. As he hurdled a burlap-covered shrub, he heard the cops shout something behind him, but he ignored them.
Heat radiated from the walls of the burning house, warming the skin of his hands and face as he charged up the steps. The iron railing of the banister was flesh-hot to the touch. Smoke tainted the air, irritating his lungs with the promise of worse to come.
Max twisted the doorknob, barely registering the singe of hot metal. Unlocked.
He barreled through the door and skidded into a smoke-filled kitchen.
Heart thundering, he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, “Raine? Where are you? Raine!”
He thought he heard an answer over the rush of fire, which was eating its orange, greedy way from the kitchen table to the counter, where a roll of paper towels blazed.
He shouted again, “Raine?”
There was no answer. Maybe there never had been.
The ceiling bowed down with unnatural fluidity, as though the walls themselves were breathing. A door on the other side of the main room listed sideways in a surreal yawn of heat and smoke. Or was he the one swaying?
Gasping for breath, sweating inside his lined leather jacket, Max crouched low and looped the edge of his flannel shirt over his nose and mouth while he squinted against the smoke and tried to get his bearings.
There was a short hallway ahead of him, opening onto what looked like an open living room with stairs at the far end, presumably leading to an upstairs bedroom.
He crossed the living room, barely registering the soft furniture, visible in the strange orange light that radiated from the walls, from the floor, from all around him. He was surrounded by the awful, animal rushing roar of fire. The structure of the house had been smoldering when he’d arrived.
Now it was fully involved.
Blood racing with urgency even as his brain faded from lack of oxygen, Max stumbled past the couch.
His foot struck something soft and yielding. A body. Raine! He dropped to his knees, needing air, needing to believe she was okay. He said her name, but the words were ripped away as the fire spread into the living room and ate at the couch, counting down the seconds before it would be too late for them to get out safely.
“Raine?” He coughed against the burning claw of smoke in his lungs and pressed two fingers beneath her jaw. “Raine, damn it!”
He felt a pulse, but had no time for relief. A splintering crackle surrounded them. The floor beneath him heaved. The ceiling gave way near the stairwell and the whole structure tilted to one side. This time he was pretty sure it was the house moving, not him.
He got one arm around Raine’s neck and the other behind her knees and lifted. She curled limply against his chest, feeling too light, as though the life had already been burned out of her. Her arms and legs dangled, and her eyes remained shut. Was she breathing? He couldn’t tell.
“Come on, baby, breathe.” The words were raspy with smoke, broken by coughs. He stood and staggered, then righted himself and headed for the door with one thought pounding in his brain.
He had to get them out of there.
Fire nipped at his heels, at his clothes, at his skin as he crossed the living room and kitchen, aiming for a door that seemed too far away. His feet burned and stuck as the rubber of his boots melted, and he felt the rivets of his jeans brand his skin.
Something crashed behind him, too close, and he broke into a coughing, shambling run as he cleared the door.
He made it down two of the steps before he slammed into a firefighter.
Time sped up, gained chaos, became sound and a burning chill as a flurry of suited men rushed him off the steps and out into the night air, which was refreshingly, painfully cold in his scorched lungs.
A firefighter grabbed his arm. “Is anyone else in the house?”
Max shook his head, “I don’t think so.” He had to shout over the crackle of flames, which was now joined by the hiss of water from a manned hose, and the sirens of an incoming fire truck.
“No husband? Kids?”
“No,” Max repeated. Her career was her baby. Her family.
“This way, sir. Bring her over here.” A pair of paramedics hustled him out to the street, where three ambulances were parked, part of an emergency response that seemed too large and fast for the situation.
Max paused, considering. The flames had been barely visible when he’d arrived on the cop’s heels. “Who called in the alarm?” he asked, voice raspy with smoke.
The nearest paramedic, a tall woman with short, frizzy hair, shrugged. “Don’t know. Ask the cops—they were the first response units. You’re lucky it was so quick, though. Another few minutes…” She gestured to an unfolded gurney. “Anyway. You can put her down here.”
But Max barely heard the order because he knew the paramedic was right. If the alarm hadn’t been sounded…if he’d been a few minutes later…
He tightened his arms around Raine and felt a stir in response. He looked down just as her eyes opened and locked on him. There was no change in her expression, no flicker of recognition or surprise or fear or any emotion beyond simple acceptance. She slipped her arms around his torso, reached up, pressed her cheek to his and said, “You came for me. Thank you.”
He froze, peripherally aware of the firefighters’ shouts and curses as they gained control of the blaze, along with the growing crowd of gawkers and the hiss of the angry fire. He noticed all those things, plus the sting of burns and the catch of smoke in his lungs and throat, but the sensory inputs seemed so much farther away than the woman in his arms, who filled up a space that had been empty for longer than he cared to admit, longer than his apartment had been bare.
He shifted, intending to push her away, but she moved and their bodies realigned until her lips were a breath away and her eyes were locked on his. He saw her lips shape his name, and before he knew he would do it, before he could stop himself, he closed the gap between them.
And then, almost exactly three years and three months after the day she’d walked out on him, he kissed her for the first time.
FLAMES. FIRE. SEARING HEAT. Raine could have blamed it all on the burning building, but that would have been a lie. The heat wasn’t coming from an external source; it was coming from inside her. From Max.
From the spark they kindled together.
Finally, she thought on a whisper of memory, as his mouth slanted across hers and his tongue demanded entry. She parted her lips and accepted him, tasted him and wanted more.
She remembered wishing for him as her attacker had knocked her unconscious. Then she’d come to and known whose arms held her. Whose heart beat beneath her ear. Who had come to her rescue.
Again.
Max. She fisted her hands in his flannel shirt and held on as a maelstrom built inside her, around her, swirls of heat and smoke and sensation roaring alongside the pounding beat of her heart. She felt his pulse drum beneath her fingertips, or maybe that was the race of her own heart; she wasn’t sure anymore; she only knew that he was there with her, beside her, pressed against her. He had come for her when she’d needed him.
He’d come. He’d rescued her, and—
And she was doing it again, Raine realized on a sudden shock of cold reality. She was putting herself in the middle of a rescue fantasy and grabbing onto the first man to step into the role.
She broke the kiss and stared at Max, whose eyes were very close to hers and dark with passion. She said, “Put me down.”
He lowered her to her feet and kept a hand on each arm until he was sure she was steady. Then they stood for a second, staring at each other, breathing heavily from the escape, from the kiss.
She saw the flames in his normally shielded expression, felt the answering surge in her blood and nearly reached for him.
But she didn’t. She couldn’t.
What the hell was she thinking? She’d been attacked. Thriller hung in the balance. She had to be the boss here, not the victim.
Not a woman.
She drew a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
A moment later, between one heartbeat and the next, his expression blanked. He muttered something unintelligible and gave her a long, measured look. Then gestured to the gurney and the waiting paramedics. “Let them check you out and get you to the hospital. You’ll need to be treated for smoke inhalation, at the very least.”
She batted his hand away and stood on her own two feet, doing her best not to wobble. “Don’t boss me around, Vasek. I’m fine.” She lifted her hand to the back of her head and winced when she found a large, tender bump. “Okay, a few bruises and a sore throat, but nothing I’m going to the hospital for. Where are the police? I saw the guy who grabbed me. I can give them a description of the bastard.”
She fanned the flames of outward anger, but the realizations bounded through her head in a terrifying litany. She’d been attacked. In her own home. Her place had been torched with her in it. She should be dead.
She would have been, if it hadn’t been for Max.
She didn’t know what he’d done to get her out, but she knew she owed him a hell of a debt, so she touched his arm. “A man was waiting for me when I got home tonight. He knocked me out, then set the place on fire several hours later. Don’t you see? This could be related to what’s going on at Rainey Days. It could have something to do with the Thriller deaths.”
His brows lowered and he seemed to grow bigger and more menacing, though she knew he hadn’t moved a muscle. “Exactly,” he said, voice low. “Which is why you should leave it to me.”
She froze. “You’re taking the case.”
Maybe that should have been obvious. Otherwise, why would he be in Connecticut? But she needed to hear him say it, needed to know she had someone on her side.
“I’m taking the case.” He held out a hand and she shook almost numbly, two businesspeople sealing a deal in the strangest of settings, standing in the darkness as firefighters slowly gained control of the inferno that had once been her house.
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