In Close Quarters

Chapter 3

Karin stepped out of her car, smoothed the skirt to her Navy whites and snagged her briefcase off the leather seat before slamming the door. TJ would be furious if he knew where she was and what she was about to do.

Too bad. It was her career, not his.

So what if she’d agreed to let him nose around?

Yes, as a DEA agent, he could backdoor the hospital’s records. Yes, he could check with the distributors and see if the pharmacy had been ordering an unusually high number of narcotics. He could even discover which types. If the right numbers had gone up, they’d know there was truth to the note she’d received. That it wasn’t a joke or another nasty link in Doug’s chain of petty revenge.

But it was a joke.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized it had to be. In fact, she’d lay odds Doug was rubbing his grimy paws together in anticipation right now. He’d probably slipped the note into her paperwork, hoping she’d run to Dr. Manning the moment she read it, screaming the sky was falling. Doug knew better than anyone that when they combed his pharmacy records and found nothing amiss, she’d come off worse than Chicken Little—more like a big fat sitting duck. And that’s when he’d take aim and blow her career right out of the water.

Well, she sure wasn’t handing him the gun.

Not when she could do something about it.

And she could do something.

She shifted her briefcase into her left hand and shoved the hospital door marked Staff Entrance open before marching down the corridor. Besides, TJ wasn’t being totally honest with her either. She was sure of it. She might not have concrete proof he’d held something back on her last night, but she didn’t have to. Her instincts were pretty darn good.

They were right about him.

Tijuana Jones.

God, she hated that nickname, almost as much as she hated the man’s reputation. She wasn’t stupid. She hadn’t missed the not-so-subtle allusion to Indiana Jones.

What a crock.

It wasn’t the man’s sultry looks, either. It was his personality. TJ Vásquez was no self-effacing Harrison Ford. But then, it wasn’t his personality his fellow agents had been attempting to immortalize when they’d baptized him with the moniker, now was it? And while she didn’t doubt that a number of his DEA exploits had taken on the legendary feel of an action hero’s, she had a feeling the topic those two agents she’d overheard betting on her was closer to the real reason behind the name.

Yes, the man was irresistible.

Unfortunately he also knew it—and he abused it.

She reached the end of the corridor and took the left that led to her office. Tijuana Jones her tush. His buddies should have nicknamed him Don Juan. He probably had women lined up outside his apartment, waiting their turn.

Well, she wasn’t standing in it.

Karin stopped in front of the door to her new office and grabbed the knob, but as she twisted, something made her jerk her hand back and blink. She grabbed the knob again and turned it again, opening the door a crack so she could peer inside.

She couldn’t see anything, but there it was again.

That noise.

Someone was scraping open the drawers of the desk across the room. Her desk. But all she could make out as she craned her neck around the door were broad shoulders encased in Navy whites and the back of a blond, barely regulation haircut. It was enough.

Doug.

She slammed the door open and stormed in. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

An equally loud string of curses blasted back at her when, closing the top drawer of her desk, he smashed his fingers. Then he turned. She stared up into a pair of deep-green eyes. Not blue.

And not Doug’s.

The lieutenant quirked a sheepish brow. “Looking for a pen?”

She closed her eyes, certain her humiliation had seared off the tips of her ears. But mercifully, the man was smiling sheepishly as she reopened them.

He stuck out a hand. “Dr. Hunter—Eric. And you must be Dr. Scott, my new office mate.”

She returned his easy grip. “Karin. Look, I’m sorry. I had no right to startle you like that.”

Eric shook his head as she withdrew her hand. “No apology necessary. And I swear, I don’t make a habit of going through people’s desks. I just needed a—”

“Pen—I know. And really, I am sorry. Look, I had a rough night. It’s not an excuse, I know. But I’m sorry.”

He grinned as she dumped her briefcase on the desk. A friendly open grin that didn’t churn her stomach into a mass of quivering nerves.

Thank God.

She opened the briefcase and pulled out her basic office supplies, including the ghastly silver nameplate her mother had just engraved for her.

Eric nodded. “That’s right, you just got back from the Persian Gulf, didn’t you? Having trouble sleeping without a ship rocking beneath you, eh?”

She smiled. “Among other things.”

“So what are you doing here, anyway? I thought the new class didn’t start for another two weeks.”

“We don’t. You know how it is—just wanted to get in, catch up on a few medical journals, maybe nail down a detailed layout of the hospital while I’m at it.” She pulled a pen from the inner pocket of her briefcase and held it out.

Eric took it, slipping it into the breast pocket of his whites. “Thanks—I owe you. Hey, how ’bout joining me in the cafeteria for lunch? I’d take you someplace nicer, but I’m on call today—obstetrics. I’ll give you the grand tour afterward.” He was smiling again, a charming smile, in a safe friendly kind of way.

Not like TJ’s.

God, why did she have to compare every man to him?

She was about to accept, out of spite if nothing else, when the door opened.

“Perdóneme. I will come back.”

She stiffened. “TJ?”

It couldn’t be.

She spun around.

Stunned, she stared at the uniformed janitor standing in the doorway. It was TJ, all right. She wasn’t fooled by the way he’d pulled his hair into a low ponytail and capped it with that worn blue baseball hat. Nor was she fooled by the matching blue coveralls or the cart of cleaning supplies in the hall beyond.

Then it hit her. TJ was undercover.

And she’d blown it.

Or would have if he hadn’t covered quickly. He shook his head smoothly as he strolled forward. Her mouth was still gaping open as he reached for her hand. He tugged it toward him, his dark hooded gaze smoldering into hers as he bowed over her hand and grazed her flesh with his lips. “Believe me when I say, señorita, this TJ is a lucky man to know such beauty as you. But alas, I am not he, for I would remember meeting you. José Rodríguez at your service.” His breath feathered over her hand as he kissed it again.

A shiver of warmth stole up her arm and into her stomach, sparking a fire that threatened to consume her on the spot. She couldn’t move, couldn’t talk. Hell, she couldn’t breathe. All she could do was stare into those dark bottomless eyes. Into that dark seductive soul.

TJ hadn’t dared to loose the full brunt of his charm on her since the afternoon of Jade’s wedding. It was a damn good thing, too. Because just like that, he snared her heart. Snared it, softened it and shaped it—sculpting it into something she didn’t want. Let alone want to have for him.

A cough, and suddenly the spell broke. The remaining pieces shattered as someone cleared his throat again.

Eric.

Oh, Lord, how could she have forgotten he was here?

Easy. TJ.

Dammit, he’d done it to her again, and she hated him for it. She clawed through her mind until she found the face from long ago. Her father’s face. She slapped it over TJ’s confident one. Amazing how the two could look so much alike. One might be dark and the other light. But they both used the same smooth overpowering charm to get what they wanted.

And they’d both used her.

She ripped her hand back, stabbing TJ with a glare as she shrugged. “Sorry. My mistake.” Still humiliated, she faced Eric.

Thankfully, he laughed. “Guess you weren’t kidding about not being able to sleep. You’re seeing things—or, rather, people.”

She was saved from a response when his beeper went off.

Eric tugged it off his belt and stared at the readout. “Damn. Sorry, Karin, it looks like we’ll have to take a rain check on that lunch date. My patient just shifted into hard labor, apparently without any relief from her epidural.”

“Yikes, you’d better go rethread her anesthesia line before the woman unthreads your esophagus.”

Eric chuckled. “You know it.” He nodded to TJ as he reached the door. “Hey, José, if you find any pens, leave ’em on my desk—and don’t touch the paperweight. The last guy broke my old one.”

TJ hunched his shoulders slightly as he tipped the bill of his cap. “Sí, señor.”

The second the door closed, he straightened.

“What the hell do you think—”

An iron hand clapped over her mouth, cutting off the rest of her tirade. She waited none too patiently as TJ quickly reopened the door and hauled the cleaning cart inside. He snapped the door shut and shoved the cart up against it, then flipped on the radio at the edge of Eric’s desk.

Soft rock filled the office.

She glared at his coveralls. “Nice cover, José.”

He folded his arms and shrugged.

She did her damnedest not to let her gaze linger at the rolled sleeves hugging his dusky biceps as she continued to scowl. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me what you’re doing in that outfit—and what you’re doing here?”

“Why am I here? Perhaps we should start at the beginning, no? Why are you here?”

“I work here, remember?”

“A good try, Cariño. But you yourself told me you did not start for two weeks. You came to confront him, no?”

“Doug? Of course not.”

A single dark brow rose.

She ignored it. “Look, all I did was stop by to drop off some stuff and check out a few medical journals. I’m way behind in my reading. I was out of the country for six months, you know.”

“This, I know. I also remember seeing a stack of journals on your kitchen counter last night.”

Damn. Busted again.

She shrugged. “So I’m missing a few. I like to read them in order.”

He shook his head, actually chuckling as he stared at her ears. “Cariño, if you intend on persisting with these lies, you may want to consider growing your curls again.”

Oooh, she really did not like this man.

So why did her heart have to start thumping erratically as he leaned back against Eric’s desk? And why did she have to notice the way the muscles of his chest strained against those blasted coveralls as he leaned over to pick up the crystal paperweight?

Undercover—ha! Suiting TJ Vásquez up like a janitor was tantamount to slapping a collar on a panther and passing it off as a newborn kitten. His arms flexed as he tossed the crystal globe in the air. He caught it neatly, then stared into it.

“This man, you know him?”

“Who? Eric?”

“Sí. Eric.”

“I met him two minutes before you walked in.”

He glanced up. She could have sworn he was startled. “And yet you date him?”

What the…? “No, I’m not dating him. I told you, I just met the man.”

“But you agreed to have lunch with him, no?”

“He asked, I accepted. Then he canceled. Are you finished with the third degree?”

“Why?”

She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“Why did you accept?”

What the devil was he getting at? And why was he staring into that stupid crystal again as if it could divine the future of the world? “Because he offered.”

“I have…offered.”

That was what this was about?

Perversely, she smiled. “His was interesting.”

Liar.

TJ flipped the crystal into the air again, waiting until the last possible moment before catching it. His gaze narrowed as he studied the clear depths. “This lieutenant, have you considered he may be involved?”

“Because he asked me out? Thanks. That says a lot about your own invitation if you’re so sure he had to have an ulterior motive.” But she remembered Eric’s hands—in her desk. “Besides, I want to help. I need to. Not only that, someone obviously thought I could. If the note’s even real. Maybe if I get to know Eric and some of the other residents, something will click.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. Something.”

TJ tossed the paperweight a final time before setting it back down on the desk. He folded his arms across his chest, his gaze dark and brooding as it met hers. “Cariño, I must ask you to stay away from the hospital for a few days. Take your vacation, visit your mother.”

She frowned. “My mother lives an hour away in La Jolla.”

“Visit her, anyway. You have been gone awhile. Or go to the beach, read your journals. Just stay away from here.”

“Why?”

“Just do it. Please.”

“No.”

He sighed.

“I mean it, TJ. If you want to get rid of me, you’ll have to do better than that. Tell me what you’re holding back—and don’t tell me you’re not keeping something from me. What is it you said about the note last night? Oh, yes, ‘Most likely this means naught, but I will look into it.”’

At least he didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “It was necessary.”

She stared at his coveralls. “Necessary to poke your nose in this deep or necessary to lie to me about it?”

“I did not lie.”

“Oh, no?” She jerked her chin toward the cleaning cart. “I suppose that’s your idea of looking into something discreetly?”

“The situation has changed.”

“That much is obvious or you wouldn’t be so damned anxious to get rid of me. What I want to know is how? Exactly how has the situation changed and what was it like to begin with?”

He glanced over his shoulder at the door, then turned back. “Not here. Meet me later. We will speak then.”

Dammit, she knew he’d been holding out on her. And from the look in those deep-brown eyes, whatever he was holding on to was something big. It figured. Another he-man who just had to take care of the little lady—for her. Well she wasn’t bowing to it.

Not with him.

She shook her head firmly. “You’ll tell me now, or I’ll do what I should have done yesterday. I’ll— Oh, God. You told Dr. Manning, didn’t you?” She slumped onto the edge of her desk and closed her eyes, as she watched her short career flash before them. The coveralls, the cleaning cart. Suddenly it all made sense. “That’s why you’re here. Manning knows I found the note.”

“No.”

She opened her eyes.

TJ shook his head.

“But he does know you’re here, right?”

Again he shook his head.

“You mean to tell me, you came in here undercover and you didn’t even clear it with the head of anesthesiology? What did you find out about Doug?”

TJ tugged off his ball cap, staring at the bill as he curled it.

“Just tell me.”

Dread slid down her spine as he continued to study the cap. He finally sighed and looked up. “I do not know if this Señor Callahan is involved or not. Three days ago—well before you got your note—my office received a call from San Diego General. Two teenagers were brought into the emergency room just after midnight. They were dead when they arrived. Drug overdose.”

Oh, God.

Class twos are walking.

The dread reversed its track, snapping back up her spine and slamming into the base of her skull. She rubbed the resulting knot. “It was morphine, wasn’t it?”

“Fentanyl.”

“Fentanyl? But that’s…” She couldn’t even finish.

He nodded. “Much deadlier.”

“But…teenagers?”

Another nod.

She wrapped her arms about her chest, desperately trying to ward off the sudden chill swamping her. “You think it’s related to the note, don’t you? You think the fentanyl came from this hospital.”

“Perhaps. I do know it was surgical quality, definitely not street, because they still had the glass ampules on them, but the stock numbers were etched off. When you showed me the note, I had hoped to check around a bit more before I came in undercover. To be sure the ampules were from this hospital.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

But she knew.

His frown deepened, confirming her suspicions. “There was another overdose last night. 2:00 a.m. She was sixteen, perhaps seventeen. I cannot be certain because I have not yet been able to identify her.”

Karin bypassed her desk and slumped straight into her chair with a thud. “So young.”

“Sí.”

Sixteen years old.

A sophomore in high school.

She should be going on her first date, learning to drive a car, looking forward to college. She certainly shouldn’t be out at 2:00 a.m. on a school night, shooting up a drug that was seventy-five times more potent than morphine. The girl had to have suffocated within minutes. Where the hell had she gotten it?

“Doug.”

TJ hunkered down in front of her, reaching for her hands as she locked her fingers together and stared at them.

In a way, this was her fault. She should have nailed Doug Callahan’s ass to the wall last summer when she’d had the chance. But no, she’d kept her mouth shut. She’d been so damn worried about making waves for fear she’d lose her slot that she hadn’t even tried to turn him in—not to mention the fact that her stepfather would find out—that all she’d done was deny the charges. Without proof, it was Doug’s word against hers. When hers finally won out, no doubt aided by her stepfather’s reputation, Doug had even had the gall to call her up and warn her that someday he’d get even.

Well, it looked like someday was here.

She really should have gelded him when she’d had the chance. She glanced up as TJ squeezed her fingers. “If Doug is behind this, I want his head on a pike. You just tell me what I have to do to get it there.”

“Dine with me.”

“Excuse me?” Of all the requests she’d expected, that was not one of them. At the very least, she was sure he’d be telling her to leave town again.

“Sí, dinner. I want you to sit down with me tonight, go over the list of names I have. Doctors, residents, interns, nurses. As the USS Baddager’s doctor these past two years, you had to have consulted with some of them, no? I must learn as much as I can about each one. Information that will not be in their files, information you may have.”

She nodded. “Anything you want.”

“Good. Then after dinner, I would like you to pack your suitcase. I want you to visit your mother, Cariño, and leave the remainder of this case to me.”

She’d do anything, all right.

Anything but that.

He was late.

Karin kicked off her heels and stalked across the kitchen tiles in her stockings, stopping just short of the cordless phone on the wall. She glared at the chunk of silent plastic before wrenching her gaze back to the clock on the stove. No, TJ was worse than late.

He was dead—or he’d better be.

He’d stood her up.

Why she was even surprised, she didn’t know. But she was. Correction, at six-thirty, when he was still just half an hour overdue, she was surprised. Perhaps even a little worried. But now? At ten o’clock? She was beyond worried.

She was livid.

Karin ripped the refrigerator door open and stared inside. The bottle of wine she’d left to chill in the middle of the empty shelves taunted her. She slammed the door and turned back to the stove. Back to the clock. Back to that damned silent phone. Not only had the rat stood her up, he hadn’t even had the decency to call and let her know. As if he would.

They never did.

Not the smooth ones.

Oh, no. They just cruised in, hours late, flowers in hand with a new lie dripping from their lips. No doubt his would be a doozy. Probably twenty-five with long brown hair and legs even longer. Not that he’d phrase it quite like that. Lord knew TJ was experienced enough to couch it better. He’d have been running late, there’d been an accident, he’d stopped to help. Or maybe he’d been called out on a case. Hell, given his past, he probably had a hundred prime excuses stocked inside some corner of that philandering brain, each just waiting its turn.

Well, it didn’t matter.

By the time she was five years old, she’d heard them all.

She spun around and jerked the refrigerator door open again, this time reaching for the bottle of wine. But as she thunked it onto the counter and opened the drawer to grab the corkscrew, she froze as the enormity of her actions slammed into her.

What the hell was she doing?

She swung her gaze back to the bottle. To the goblet she hadn’t even realized she’d placed beside it. How many times had she seen her mother with a goblet and a bottle just like this one, on a kitchen counter just like this one? And how many times had she sworn that no man would make her do the same?

Disgusted, she slapped the corkscrew back into the nest of utensils and slammed the drawer home. She turned back to the oven and yanked the door open. Removing the still-warm containers of Luigi’s legendary take-out linguini, she dumped them into the trash compactor. Finally she added the unopened bottle of wine to the top. She was not recycling that bottle—because it was exactly where it belonged, along with any chance of ever dining with TJ Vásquez again.

In the garbage.

Then she turned on her heel and went to bed.

She was going to be angry.

TJ stood at Karin’s door, his motorcycle helmet resting gingerly in the crook of his left arm, the knuckles of his right hand poised, inches from knocking, as he acknowledged the truth. No matter how much he had tried to deny it on the ride over, he knew Karin was going to be angry.

And that was if she let him past the door.

He pulled his hand back. Perhaps this was not a good idea. Dios mío. He knew it was not. Unfortunately he needed to see her. Tonight. For several reasons. The least of which was the message she had failed to get.

Then there was the other.

He knocked.

As ten raps became twenty, he increased his force—and his worry. Where was she? Had she not left the hospital as he had asked this morning? Had she confronted Doug Callahan, instead, even though she had promised she would not?