Release
Jo Leigh

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Barbara Joel and Barbara Ankrum for being there just when I needed them.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

1

SETH TURNER REACHED FOR HIS blanket with a hand that wasn’t there. He’d been half-asleep, but now he was awake and filled with a red heat that burned behind his eyes, in his gut. Every day he had to relearn the raw truth: his left hand was gone, ripped apart by a bullet, tossed aside by the doctor upstairs. Without his consent.

He hated her for it. Hated her touching him even to give him an exam. Hated her voice when she tried to convince him she’d done the right thing—saved his life. Did it ever occur to her that he didn’t want this life?

He pulled the blanket up with his right hand and settled back on the pillow. It was a different kind of torture, knowing she was sleeping upstairs. That he would have to live here, with her, for months yet to come while he learned to use the prosthesis.

It had already been three months since she’d performed the surgery. It had taken this long for the wound to heal, for his skin to form a useless lump three inches up from what used to be his wrist. He’d been in bar fights, he’d been in wars, he’d even survived Delta Force training, but nothing had been harder.

He understood now why men, good men, turned to drugs and alcohol after they’d been mutilated. The pain was the least of it. The part he couldn’t stand, that made him want to die, was the loss of everything that was important about him. Which was the part Dr. Harper Douglas didn’t get.

To make things worse, to add the goddamned cherry on top, there were his dreams. They came every night now. At first he’d shaken them off, but there was no use pretending they were going to stop. He woke in the middle of the night sweating and hard, his erection throbbing as images of her, of goddamn Harper, made him ache until, with his one good hand, he took care of business. Even that didn’t end his torment. Once he’d come, thoughts of her haunted him long into the pale mornings. With luck he’d fall asleep again, but mostly his luck had run out. By the time she came downstairs he hated her again. He tried to be civil, but it didn’t come easy.

Harper, with her no-nonsense attitude and her sharp blue eyes, looked at him as if he were a piece of meat, a patient, not a man. Her in her white robe, tight at the waist and crossing at her breasts. She wore no bra when she came from her bedroom, and though her breasts weren’t large, they moved when she did, swaying just enough to sear a picture in his head.

His hand moved down to his erection, and he thought again that he should feel grateful that he’d lost his left hand. He wrote with his right, threw with his right, beat off with it. But his left, that was his rudder, his stabilizer. Without it, how would he use the sniper rifle? Reload? How could he defend himself, let alone kill a man? Shit, he couldn’t even tie his shoes.

He heated again as he remembered finding the slip-on loafers that had appeared by his bed. Harper had put his boots in a cupboard and replaced them with granddad shoes, something a crip like him could handle.

Shifting again in the hospital bed, he wished for the hundredth time that the bullet had hit him right between the eyes. Not that he’d want to abandon Nate and the others, but Jesus. What was he supposed to do now?

He hadn’t even realized that he’d only ever seen himself as a warrior. Not even that—as a weapon. He’d been good for exactly that and nothing else. And now he was broken, a piece of junk to be thrown in the scrap pile.

He closed his eyes and prayed for sleep. What he got instead was a wave of need and the cursed images of Harper torturing his soul.

THE WALLS OF THEhouse were mostly gone, but the bathroom was still private. Four walls, a ceiling and a door complete with lock. Harper stared at the sink, at the faucet that dripped brown rust instead of water, and all she could think was that she couldn’t treat the child with her hands so filthy. The chance of infection was too great. But the water…the water had stopped. The electricity was off. Everything in the tiny village in the north of Serbia was in shambles.

There was no hospital, no other doctors, and she only had the small bag, barely more than a first-aid kit. The child…he was four, maybe five. He spoke no English, and her Serbian was terrible, so she couldn’t ask him where his mother or father was. Maybe they were out there, with the others in the square. But no. She couldn’t think about that right now. She couldn’t save them, but the child, the boy…Perhaps…

She looked up from the useless sink to see her own image in the cracked mirror. What was she doing here? She could have taken that job at the USC medical center. She could have gone to Africa or Asia, worked with one of the relief agencies or the Red Cross. But she’d gone to the UN. She’d volunteered to go to Kosovo because the war was over, at least officially. She’d never bargained for this. She closed her eyes and breathed as deeply as she could, trying to think of anything but the carnage in the square. There had been so many.

She’d come with Jelka, who’d lived in this village her whole life. Anya, who’d been an excellent aide and a friend. Jelka had come when her mother hadn’t answered her phone. Neither had her aunt, her cousins. They’d driven into the square, and the bodies had been everywhere. Harper had known within minutes what had killed them. A nerve agent. Something bad, worse than anything she’d heard of in medical school or the special training she’d received from the peacekeeping force. The men, women and children had died horribly.

She looked at the boy. It didn’t matter that her hands were dirty. He was dead. Everything once alive in this town was dead. What she didn’t understand was why. No government would sanction this kind of genocide. No independent army she knew of had the technical capabilities. Who had murdered Jelka’s family? Who had brought this nightmare into the world?

Harper woke with a gasp, and for a moment she was back there, in her tiny apartment with its uncomfortable bed, cracked basin and inconsistent heat. But a few deep breaths and a sharp focus on the familiar comforter brought her home to her own bed in her little corner of East Los Angeles. The shaking would take a little longer.

The nightmares had started months ago and were as much a part of her life as being a doctor at the free clinic. She hated them, hated that she woke up sweating and trembling. There’d been a time, as hard as it was to believe, when she’d gotten sweaty from a hot man in her bed. Now the only man in her life was a wounded soldier living in her basement, cursing her with every other breath. That is, when he wasn’t trying to hide his hard-on for her.

Nate, Seth—they all told her the nightmares would end, that she’d have her life back once again, but she didn’t believe it. It was all FUBAR—fucked up beyond all reason. Every part of it. Especially the man living in her basement. Seth was a decent guy and she liked him well enough, she just had no desire to be his den mother.

Okay, so he’d gotten a bum break, but he was alive, wasn’t he? She knew he resented her doing the amputation, but that wasn’t unusual. No matter the circumstances, traumas as severe as amputation required long periods of adjustment. He’d grow accustomed to his limitations and his prosthesis. The sooner, the better, because as he was now he was pretty damn useless.

She’d already decided that gainful employment for Seth was just the ticket. They could always use the money, but more than that, he needed to see that he was still productive. Maybe he couldn’t be soldier of the year, but there was no way he was going back to that life anyway.

Even if by some miracle they could prove their innocence, how would Seth or Nate or any of them believe in the Army ever again? She knew her country wasn’t evil, that it was a small faction of men who believed they were above the law that had caused all the havoc, but her whole world view had been altered irrevocably. That Senator Jackson Raines could publicly call these men, these heroes, traitors to their country…

She shut off that line of thought as she climbed out of bed. There was no use thinking about the mess of a situation. They—Nate, Seth, Boone and Cade, all Delta Force soldiers, along with herself and Kate, the UN accountant who had discovered the dark secret that a Black Ops group from the U.S. had developed a chemical weapon so deadly there was no antidote. They’d escaped with their lives but little else. Bottom line—she couldn’t do anything about it, and it was useless to try.

She was a doctor, not a soldier. If she could have completely disassociated herself from the whole matter, she would have. All she wanted was to do her job. To keep the clinic going and lose herself in work. She didn’t want to babysit Seth, she didn’t want to have to hide, she didn’t want to live in this house or have a trauma room in her basement.

Nothing had been right since that one day. Since she’d stood witness to the slaughter of an entire town. Of course she dreamed of it night after night. That day, she’d walked into hell.

Her bathroom floor was cold on her bare feet, but one of the great things about this old house was the water pressure. She turned on the shower, hung her robe and nightshirt on the hook on the back of the door and eased herself under the spray. She thought of nothing but the heat and comfort for several long minutes, then got down to the business of washing.

The more she thought about bringing Seth to work in the clinic, the more she liked the idea. It would get him out of the house, give him a practical way to get used to his prosthetic. And it would be a safe place. The kind of people who came to the clinic weren’t likely to connect Seth, especially the way he looked now, to the Wanted posters. She’d encouraged him to do more than grow his hair, but he couldn’t stand the mustache or beard. Maybe they could dye his hair, although it would be a shame to change those coppery highlights. Harper smiled, thinking of Seth’s reaction if she should dare say such a thing. He wasn’t exactly open to his feminine side, was he?

She finished washing her hair, then spread some shave gel on her right leg. She was pasty white, which she’d never been, even as a kid, but she didn’t spend much time outdoors anymore. The hiking she loved was a thing of the past, work keeping her a virtual prisoner. It was probably foolish to ignore other aspects of her life, and if it wasn’t quite so chilly out, she’d drive herself up to Angeles National Forest and get lost in the trees. Unfortunately this January was exceptionally cold and wet, and she wanted to hike for pleasure, not punishment.

After finishing her left leg, she rinsed off all the soap, shampoo and gel, wishing she didn’t have to go down to the basement at all. Wishing she didn’t know that Seth was still so angry. Wishing…

Wishing she had a man in her home who wanted her. Wanted to be there. She was lonely. Not because she had no real friends. That was nothing new. She didn’t trust a lot of people, not in that intimate way she saw all around her. That had never been her style. But she wasn’t one to deny herself when it came to men. She liked them, had always liked them. Not for keeps, of course, but for a month or two. If the chemistry was there, why not?

The chemistry hadn’t even been alive in her since that day in Serbia. She didn’t even want to think about how long she’d been without. She’d considered Seth, naturally, but he was so…so pissed. At her. Some women might get off on that whole macho anger thing, but not her. Not yet. But if something didn’t change, she wasn’t guaranteeing a thing.

She grabbed the towel off the rack, and fifteen minutes later she was in jeans and a sweater, her sneakers tied, her hair as neat as it ever got. No makeup, not for work.

Downstairs, the coffeepot had done its job, and she filled two mugs. Black for Seth and light for her. Then she headed down to the basement of doom.

Seth was up and dressed, which he always was, and he was on the floor doing one-armed push-ups. Admirable in any other patient, but Seth took it too far. He wouldn’t stop until he reached one hundred. And then he’d collapse, sometimes on his stump, and he would be shaky and weak for too long. All her talk of moderation went in one ear and out the other. Stubborn ass.

She put his coffee down and waited, watching the muscles in his back, the way his butt clenched. From this angle, he was perfect. You had to know him to see that he was one push-up away from a nervous breakdown.

He did the whole collapse thing and, of course, got up too soon. She ignored his red face and rapid breathing completely as she peeled the sock off his stump.

Seth stared over her shoulder, as always. He never complained about how she touched him, but he didn’t participate either. It was as if she were working on someone else’s body, and that had to stop. Now.

“So how would you like a job?”

He turned sharply. “What?”

“A job. Work. The end of you moping all day.”

“What kind of a job?”

“Don’t get excited. You don’t get to kill anyone. We could use another aide at the clinic.”

“Aide?”

She used her hands to feel his stump. The blood flow was good, the scar was healing beautifully. But there was no callous from his prosthetic, which meant he wasn’t wearing it enough. “Yeah, stocking the exam rooms, cleaning up, filing. That kind of thing.”

He didn’t say anything, but the vein in his jaw spoke volumes.

“It’s not glamorous, but it’ll be good for you. You’ll get better at using the hand. It won’t replace physical therapy, but it’ll accelerate your progress.”

“So I can do what?”

“I don’t know. Get a life maybe?”

He snorted, which was something she’d grown disturbingly used to. She held his arm to the side so she could examine a bruise that was starting to yellow. “Is this still bothering you?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“I’ll call Noah.”

“For that?”

“Making sure the prosthetic fits perfectly is his job. You won’t wear it if it’s uncomfortable.”

“It’s always uncomfortable.”

“You’ll get used to it if you wear it enough. It’s not easy, but you’ve faced harder things, I’m sure. Don’t you want to be able to pick things up? To hold a cup of coffee? Your dick?”

The look he gave her was priceless. She’d only said it to shock him. For a grown man, a man who’d been to war, he sure shocked easily. She probably shouldn’t take so much pleasure in making him blush. But he looked good that way, and…oh, God, she needed to get out more. “Let me see you put it on,” she said, dropping his arm and replacing it with her coffee, which she picked up easily with her left hand, just to be obnoxious.

He noticed, but he didn’t say anything. He just went about putting on the sock, which he did with his right hand and his teeth, then he got the prosthetic out of the top drawer of the small dresser in the corner of the room.

She wondered if it was uncomfortable for him to sleep here every night. It wasn’t so much a cozy basement as a trauma room, complete with portable X-ray, surgical tools, every kind of medicine she could think might be needed and a handy defibrillator. She’d tried to plan for every kind of emergency—and good thing she had or Seth could have died from that gunshot wound.

When Nate had proposed the idea of setting her up like this, she’d been shocked, knowing it would be outrageously expensive. But he’d come up with the money and she’d stocked the basement to the gills. She hadn’t had to use it until three months ago. Now it had become Seth’s home. She’d offered him the spare bedroom, but he’d turned her down. All he did upstairs was shower and make himself ham-and-cheese sandwiches. She’d never met a more stubborn man. She just wished he’d use that trait to get acclimated to his new life.

He grunted as he struggled with the hand. It wasn’t a difficult task, but it was terribly awkward. His left shoulder kept moving, an unconscious response he wouldn’t lose for a long time, if ever. There were a million and one things the nondominant hand is used for, and the brain didn’t take to this kind of change easily. Finally he was set up, and while the manufacturers tried damn hard to make the fake hands look real, they didn’t. They were substitutes, ungainly ones, but in time Seth would find his way.

He looked at her with a surprising lack of satisfaction. “Okay, it’s on.”

“Open and close,” she said, leaning against the long cabinet.

He went through his paces inelegantly, which was to be expected.

“How many hours did you wear it yesterday?”

Seth shrugged. “About five.”

“I want you to wear it for a minimum of eight. Which works out well, since that’s the minimum you’ll be at work.”

“I’m not going to be an aide, Harper, so forget it.”

“No? What, are you planning to sell your body to earn your keep?”

“If I’m that much of a bother, I’ll leave.”

“And go where?”

“I can hook up with Nate.”

“No, you can’t. You’ll just be in his way. He doesn’t have time to babysit you.”

He flushed again, this time with pure anger, but she didn’t care. The man needed a reality check. He had to get on with it, just as they all had to get on with it, whether he liked it or not.

“Fine. When do we leave?”

She checked her watch. “Be ready in forty minutes. I’m making breakfast. If you come up in ten, there’ll be food for you.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Tough. You’re going to need your strength. Deal with it.”

As she headed for the stairs, she heard him curse her under his breath. She didn’t say anything, though. Maybe she was a cold bitch. Hard times called for hard measures.

2

THE FREE CLINIC WAS in a run-down part of Boyle Heights, a sad suburb of Los Angeles where the median income was right at the poverty level, and the people who showed up on the doorstep were a damn sad bunch. They were mostly meth addicts, but there were still the unwanted pregnancies, the search for birth control pills, the folks with the flu and the cough and the red itch “down there.” No one came to the clinic if they had somewhere else, anyone else.

All Seth could think about when he walked in the doors was that he’d seen it before. Maybe not this color and maybe there were different posters on the walls, but the poor people all over the world always ended up in rooms like these. With overworked doctors and nurses with sore feet.

If he had to get a job in the outside world, then he supposed this was the safest place to do it. What were the odds that someone here would recognize him? He looked nothing like the man they’d flashed on television or the Wanted picture in the post office. His hair was the longest it had ever been, and the posters didn’t mention the missing hand, but that wasn’t even it. Since Kosovo, he’d changed. He had lines in his face, around his eyes. He looked tired all the time, and his skin was sallow and pasty. He felt like an old man despite his daily workout.

Now that he was dressed in hospital scrubs, with an old Dodgers baseball cap on his head, no one would pick him out as a soldier or a traitor. He looked at himself in the clinic’s bathroom mirror and pulled his cap down a little farther.

He finally understood what Kate had meant when she’d said she’d been invisible as the room-service lackey at the downtown L.A. hotel.

She’d been a forensic accountant for the UN in Kosovo and she’d been the one who’d gotten the Delta Force team involved. She and Nate had been an item, and when Kate had discovered that something fishy was going on, she’d talked it over with him. She hadn’t known it at the time, but she’d found the first proof that a faction of the CIA, calling themselves Omicron, had created a mighty nasty chemical agent and they were planning to sell it to the highest bidders, who would then use it to kill whomever they chose—mostly civilians. To add to Omicron’s crimes, they’d recruited a Delta Force team, his team—one of the best in the world—to do the dirty work of wiping the evidence off the earth. Their original mission was to go to a secret laboratory in Serbia, collect all the files, kill the scientists working there and destroy the lab. What they hadn’t mentioned was that the scientists in that particular lab weren’t working on the nerve gas—they were developing the antidote.

Some of the team had escaped—Nate, Boone, Cade and himself. They’d convinced Kate and Harper to come along because they clearly knew too much. The one scientist to make it out alive had been Tamara. She’d come back to the States, and Nate had found her a safe place to do her research. She’d had to distill all the notes from her colleagues to try and recover their progress and then she had to make sure the antidote not only worked but could be dispersed to save whole villages.

Last Seth had heard, Nate was trying to get some money together for more of her tests. He did security work, real high-tech stuff, state-of-the-art, for which he charged a pretty penny. No one complained, as his customers were as shady as they come. A lot of bookies, some conspiracy nuts, an arms dealer or two. But ever since his picture had shown up on Wanted posters across the country, Nate couldn’t afford to be picky.

The work had been easier when there’d been two of them. When Seth had been there to cover Nate’s back.

Pounding on the bathroom door made him reach for a weapon he wasn’t carrying. He closed his eyes and tried to chill, but it wasn’t easy.

“You gonna stay in there all day?” It was Harper, of course. “Other people need to use that john.”

He gave himself another look in the mirror, then his gaze moved down to the plastic masquerading as his hand. He had to focus to open and close the thing. None of it felt natural or intuitive. But he couldn’t hide forever.

He opened the door in time to catch Harper walk into the cubbyhole she called her office. After he grabbed his regular clothes, he followed her, the scent of cleaning fluid and rubbing alcohol as bright and intrusive as the overhead fluorescent lights.

Her head was bent over an open file as she sat on the edge of a very messy desk. One foot was up on the seat of a plastic chair, and in addition to the stethoscope around her neck, she had a pencil stuck behind her right ear. The pencil looked as if it’d been used as a teething ring.

He wondered again what it was that made him want her. She took every opportunity to bust his balls, and now this. He’d done his fair share of KP, but dammit, a janitor?

She looked up at him for a moment, giving him a quick smile, which surprised him, then she went back to flipping pages with her long, slim fingers. But the smile lingered in his mind’s eye. She didn’t do it often, at least not when she was with him. But when she did, it made an impact. Maybe it was that one crooked tooth. Everything else about her seemed so perfect, her startling blue eyes, her pale skin and, dammit, even that stupid hair of hers that was not quite blond, too short and always a mess. It all came together to make him want to—

“Seth?”

She was looking at him again. Shit. “Yeah.”

“I talked to Noah. He’s going to be here in about twenty minutes, so why don’t you just lay low until he comes. When he’s done, you won’t have to worry about being recognized.”

“Why not?”

“He’s not your ordinary prosthetist. He used to be with the CIA, disguising agents in the field.”

Seth felt all his muscles tighten. “You do realize that Omicron is CIA.”

“I do. But you don’t have to worry about Noah. There’s a reason he’s not with them anymore.”

“So you want me to wear a disguise to work here?”

She nodded. “It’s going to be subtle, so don’t sweat it.”

“Don’t sweat it,” he said, not understanding her cavalier attitude. “It’s not a costume party, Harper. It’s my life on the line.”

She looked at him with her best doctor-in-charge expression. “I get that. It’s my life, too. So stop worrying about it. I’m trying to keep you safe.”

He believed she was, but he also believed that she had no idea who she was up against. Omicron would kill every person in her precious clinic if that’s what it took.

“Besides,” she said, “no one expects you to have only one hand.”

He swore under his breath, knowing she was trying to bait him.

She closed her file and stood. As she passed him she touched his shoulder, making him flinch. He didn’t think she saw.

“You can do something good here, Seth. You can be useful and get friendly with your new body. Don’t screw it up.”

He started to tell her exactly what she could screw, but what good would it do? Harper was Harper. “Fine. I’m assuming someone will tell me what my actual job is at some point?”

“Get through your session with Noah, then find me. I’ll point you in the right direction.”

He nodded, but she was already out the door, heading down the hall, her sneakers squeaking every third step on the stained linoleum.

He thought about waiting for Noah right there, but Harper might come back. So he headed out, looking for another safe place to hide. He hated being without a weapon. Without his left hand. The vulnerability never left these days, and he wondered if it ever would.

The blue hallway led past four different exam rooms, three of which were occupied, the doors closed. The fourth was empty and Seth walked in. There was one poster about STDs and another about HIV, both with stern warnings about always using a condom. Seth’s hand went automatically to his back pocket where he kept his handy Trojans, two at the ready no matter what. The moment of optimism fizzled as he moved his left arm, the weight of the prosthetic reminding him again that his days as a chick magnet were over. Not that he’d actually been one, but the uniform, when he’d worn one, had helped. Being with Nate helped even more. There were always women around Nate who needed comfort after being passed over.

He looked at the plastic again—five fingers, fingernails, little hairs on the knuckles, veins. No matter how masterfully the plastic was molded, it was still fake. Like a mannequin’s hand, like a G.I. Joe. He fought the urge to smash the damn thing into the wall.

“What can I help you with today?”

Seth spun at the feminine voice to find a doctor standing in the doorway. She was reading an open file and chewing on the end of a pencil. She looked young, as if she’d just gotten out of medical school and her long, curly brown hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. When she looked up at him, he looked down, giving her a good view of his baseball cap but not his face.

“I’m not a patient,” he said, darting a quick glance. She was pretty. Especially her eyes.

Her gaze went right to his fake arm. “No?”

He flushed hotly. “I’m new here. I’m an aide.”

“That’s great,” she said. She put the file back in a pocket on the inside of the door. “I’m Karen. Dr. Eckhardt. I was the new kid, until you.”

“Nice to meet you.”

She moved over to the exam table and leaned against it, trim in her blue scrubs, looking him over from bottom to top.

He needed to get the hell out of here, but he couldn’t just run. Instead he turned his side to her as he feigned interest in the supplies on the shelf. Tongue depressors, cotton balls…Yeah, this was a clever ploy. He should have just stayed in Harper’s office. What the hell was wrong with him?

“I didn’t know we’d found someone new. What brings you to the clinic?”

“I’m just here to lend a hand.”

“No pun intended?”

He wasn’t at all sure how to take that. Another quick glance found her smiling. He didn’t think she was making fun of him, so he smiled as he stepped toward the door. “Right.”

“Well, I think it’s great. We can use all the help we can get.”

Two women in scrubs were heading down the hall, so he stopped. “What about you?”

“Me? I switch-hit—I get paid for working at Kaiser Permanente, at the Sunset Hospital, but I spend a lot of time volunteering here.”

“Why here?”

“Someone needs to do it.”

“That’s it, huh?”

“Well, to be honest, my attending physician looks kindly on those who give back to the community.”

“I see.”

“So what am I supposed to call you?”

“Seth’ll do.”

“Okay, Seth’ll Do. Glad to have you on board.”

The hall was clear, so he headed out, glancing back just as he reached the hallway. Her gaze had moved down to his ass. It surprised him. Maybe he wasn’t a total turnoff. Then again, she did like charity work.

One of the exam room doors opened, so he slipped around the corner. An older Hispanic man and a middle-aged black woman sat behind a Plexiglas barrier in a large room overrun with files. Four phones, all of which were either ringing or blinking, were within arm’s reach, as were two old computers.

Outside that office was the waiting room. There were over a dozen people, three of whom were little kids, sitting in the ugly plastic chairs. He frowned seeing how many of the adults looked strung out and dangerous. Harper had warned him about the patient load here, but for some reason he hadn’t expected kids. Mostly that’s why the poor went to the doctor.

He leaned against the wall to watch. Surveillance. At least he could still do a visual. Of course, if something went wrong—say, someone should happen to recognize him—he couldn’t do a thing about it except perhaps throw his fake hand at them. It might freak them out long enough for him to run like hell.

His gaze went down again, to the weight at the end of his arm. He’d never get used to it. He’d had to carry heavy crap for years, sixty-pound packs through unrelenting heat and treacherous terrain. Nothing had ever felt this unwieldy.

And, of course, there was that incredibly annoying phantom pain. He’d heard about that, read about it even, but it was one of those things that had to be experienced. Kind of like being shot at. If it hadn’t happened to you, you didn’t know shit.

If the fake hand were more useful, he might have accepted the whole thing more readily. But all it did was squeeze and open. That’s it. And even though it was electric, he still had to move his shoulder to get it to do that.

When he saw Noah, he was gonna ask him for a hook. It had to be better than this. He might be able to do something with a hook. Hurt someone. Protect himself. And, besides, it would look a hell of a lot cooler than the mannequin hand.

A kid started crying in the waiting room, but the mother didn’t seem to notice. Seth didn’t know what she was on, but it was probably heroin, not meth, given her lethargy. Besides, she didn’t look like a meth addict. She still had reasonably nice skin and hair, although she could have used a bath.

The kid, who must have been about two, had dropped something underneath the table and he couldn’t reach it. The more he tried, the louder he screamed. Finally a little girl, older than the screamer but not by much, came to the rescue. Not one of the adults had even batted an eye.

It was a tough world all over. For kids, for addicts, for soldiers. And so what? None of it meant anything. Not a damn thing. He turned around. The coast was clear, so he headed back to his appointment, feeling as drained and tired as if he’d actually done something.

HARPER WALKED INTO her office as quietly as she could. She wanted to watch as Noah applied the facial prosthetics, but she didn’t want to make Seth more self-conscious than he already was.

Noah stood, while Seth sat in her chair with the desk lamp pointed at his face. A large toolbox was open, and inside she saw pieces of flesh-colored silicone and latex, paintbrushes and small bottles. Of more interest was Seth. He sat perfectly still, back tall, head straight, like the soldier he was. Noah was smoothing his chin with a paintbrush. When he stepped away, Harper could see the difference in Seth’s face. It was, indeed, subtle. But would she be able to swear it was the man on the poster? Maybe. But then, Noah wasn’t finished.

She continued to watch as the painstaking process went on. And on. Every time she thought he had to be finished with the chin, he did something else with it. Shading, painting, until she would swear it was all Seth. Finally Noah gave an approving nod.

“Take a break,” he said, his voice quiet and deep. “The nose will take longer.”

Seth’s head bowed for a long moment. Before looking up, he said, “You gonna stand there the rest of the day?”

“I might,” she said. “It is my office.”

Noah turned. “How are you, Dr. Douglas?”

“Harper,” she said, holding out her hand as she walked into the room. “I’m fine. Man, you do great work.”

He smiled as softly as he spoke. But that was all that was soft about him. She’d learned about his past in bits and pieces, mostly from other doctors. How agents in the field would refuse dangerous assignments unless Noah was the man in charge of their disguise. How he’d been offered everything and the moon to work in Kuwait. And, finally, how he’d given it all up to work with people who’d been broken either by disease, accident or at birth. He built faces that had been destroyed by fire. He brought humanity back to those who needed it the most.

“I do my best,” he said. “But right now I need to go wash out my brushes.”

When he left, Seth stood up and walked over to the small mirror on her left wall. He examined his face, skimming the fake part of his chin. “Shit.”

“I told you. You’ll be just different enough.”

“We could have used him in Delta Force.”

“I think he’s had enough of fighting and wars.”

“He told me he works only on medical cases now.”

“Yep. That’s how I met him. He came here to help a little girl who’d been burned in an apartment fire.”

Seth cursed, then turned to face her. She found herself looking at his eyes. This had been a good idea, this whole work thing. He looked more alive than he had in ages.

“I have to get going,” she said. “I just wanted to check up on you. Make sure everything was okay.”

He nodded. “I’ve asked him to take the hand back. I’ve decided to go with a hook.”

She waggled her eyebrows. “Ooh, neat. Gonna get a peg leg, too?”

“Very amusing.”

“No, I think a hook’s a good idea. You’ll get a lot of use out of that.”

“Still won’t be able to hold my dick with it, though.”

She smiled. “You say that now, but just wait. Where there’s a will…”

“Go to work, Harper.”

She nodded. “Introduce yourself to me when you’re done. I’m not sure I’ll recognize you.”

“I’ll be the guy with one hand.”

She went to the door. “Hey, I know—you can clap for me, and then we’ll finally know the answer.”

His curse followed her down the hall. Yep, this had been a damn good idea.

NATE PRATCHETT STOOD at the door of the abandoned apartment building, huddled in his jacket as he waited for Kate. It was her first time at that place, and he wanted to make sure she became familiar with the area. She was checking the back of the building, making sure they were alone. He’d already given the front a once-over. The only people he’d ever seen here were the homeless seeking shelter, but this place wasn’t a top pick even for them. Most of the walls were destroyed or rotted to the point of crumbling. Inside, it was drafty and the stench of mold overpowered.

He heard a crack, a stick broken by a footfall, and he pulled out his weapon even though he knew it had to be Kate.

It was. He was glad to see she had her weapon pointed at him. Better safe than sorry.

He nodded at her and they entered the building together. The stink hit hard, but it didn’t stop them from walking through the wreckage in the middle of the worst of East Los Angeles, until they hit what was once someone’s bedroom. Nate put down the bag he’d brought from home, opened the closet door. He glanced at Kate, who’d naturally expected to see a closet, not a dresser. He pushed the furniture back with ease, since it was just an empty shell. It hit the wall of the closet only to reveal a large hole in the floor. Propped against the rim was a ladder which would lead them down to a very large room below.

The place used to be the home of a particularly violent Colombian gang whose members had been deported or killed two years ago. He’d found out about this place from an old friend who dealt in weapons, one who’d already sold off everything of value by the time he hooked up with Nate. But Nate’s concern wasn’t weapons, it was the concealed nature of the place itself. And the size. There was water, heat, even a shower below, and no one the wiser above.

He sent Kate down first. He saw her shudder as she began the descent and he didn’t blame her. But then he thought about what was down there and he knew these precautions were necessary. He only hoped they were enough.

It was his turn to get the bag and climb down, pulling the cord on the back of the door to close it behind them. Then it was the kind of dark that stole a man’s senses. The only reality the ladder in his grip, the rungs underfoot.

Kate’s gasp told him she’d found the bottom. He hurried, and when he’d reached her side she whispered, “Tell me again why we can’t use the flashlight?”

“It’ll be light soon enough. Close your eyes or the light will blind you.”

“Blind me?”

“Temporarily.” He heeded his own advice, but the light when he swung the door open hurt even through his closed lids. He waited until the pain was gone, then he opened his eyes. His gaze turned immediately to Kate.

Her eyes grew wide, but not from the lighting. She gawked at the size of the room, at the equipment lining the walls. It was a laboratory, as well stocked as any major drug-company lab. But there was only one drug being studied here—an antidote to the most horrible death he could imagine.

“Well, it’s about time you got here.”

Nate spun at the voice behind him. “Tam,” he whispered as the sight of her knocked the wind straight out of his lungs. Dammit, it got worse every visit. She just kept getting more beautiful.

3

ONE WEEK FROM THE day Seth started working at the clinic, Harper realized it had been a really bad idea. Although each morning he dutifully put on his face mask, as he liked to call the three pieces of painted silicone that changed his features just enough, by the time he got to work, he was in such a foul mood that no one dared get close enough to recognize him. Yes, she understood that it was difficult for him. And, yes, he should have been out saving the world instead of cleaning up puke. But still. He was scaring the patients. And the doctors. All except Karen.

Every time Harper saw the two of them together, at least one of them was smiling. Mostly Karen, but sometimes Seth, so what the hell was that about? The last time he’d smiled in the house was…well, not recently.

They drove home together, and while it only lasted about ten minutes, it could be pretty tense. Then Seth would hit the shower, change into clean jeans and a T-shirt no matter that it was usually freezing because she didn’t want to heat an empty house, then head down to the basement. She’d pretty much given up on asking him if he wanted to join her for dinner.

Sometimes, just for spite, she hid the cheese so he couldn’t make his damn sandwiches. He just ate peanut butter and jelly. Some meal for a man trying to heal.

But the truly weird thing was the looks he gave her. No, it wasn’t looks, it was just the one.

She refocused on the chart in front of her. The patient was twenty-two years old, a young woman who was bright, confident and had the whole world at her feet. And she was HIV-positive. Her ex-boyfriend didn’t like condoms. Of course, the girl hadn’t known then that he was a cheating bastard. Instead she’d thought he was just like the great-looking guys in the movies, in the magazines. How could a hunk like him catch a disease? That didn’t happen, right?

Harper wrote the scrips for the appropriate drug cocktail, hoping this girl would be one of the lucky ones.

Then came the next chart and the next, and when she finally looked around her office, it was almost seven. She usually left around six, so how come Seth hadn’t come by to see where she was?

She stood and stretched her neck and back, wishing she could justify the expense of a massage, but her wages here were laughable. Which was okay, she supposed, because a doctor in this town couldn’t get more low-profile. The good part about working at the clinic was her hours with patients. The bad part was writing all the grants and the fund-raising to keep the place going. Combining the two kept her busy. Kept her from thinking about the mess she was in. For the most part, at least.

She put her stethoscope in her top drawer, then headed for the doctors’ lounge, which was more like a big closet with chairs and a coffeemaker than a lounge one would find at a private clinic. But Seth wasn’t there. After a quick chat with one of the volunteer doctors, she checked out the reception desk, the offices, the supply room. He was nowhere to be found and no one had seen him.

Karen had probably taken him home. Harper couldn’t imagine Seth being so stupid as to take her to their house, so it had to be Karen’s. But he was wearing the latex on his face, which would surely come off when they got down to it.

Goddamn him. What kind of a bonehead would let sex endanger his very life? The lives of all of them? Yeah, it had been a while, but so what? She wasn’t getting any either, and he didn’t see her lifting her skirt for the first decent pair of trousers to walk by. Karen wasn’t even that great a physician. So she’d smiled at him, big deal. Who wouldn’t? He was a really great-looking man. Especially now, with his hair down around his collar. A woman would have to be blind not to notice his muscles. Every time he mopped the floors, Harper caught some woman staring at his back. Or his butt.

On the other hand, maybe getting laid was just what he needed. Let him get his aggressions out on Karen. Then maybe he’d stop being such a pain.

She headed back to her office, her thoughts stubbornly staying on Seth and his muscles, despite three attempts to stop it. He was like a bad song in her head, playing over and over. No, he was more of a sore tooth. Yeah, Seth the toothache.

The thought made her grin, but that froze on her face the second she stepped into her office. Seth hadn’t gone home with Karen after all. He was standing by her filing cabinet, glaring her way.

“Where’ve you been?”

“Me?” she asked. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“I had to take the trash out back. I thought…”

“That I’d gone home without you? Don’t be silly.”

He tugged his baseball cap lower down his forehead. “Fine. I’ll wait in the car.”

“Don’t bother, I’m ready. I just need my purse.” She hurried by him, pissed that he was pissed. Embarrassed that she’d gone straight to the gutter. Besides, he wouldn’t sleep with Karen. He liked being miserable too much.

She got her keys out as she walked by him again, and her shoulder brushed his. Brushed, not hit, but he stepped back, his mouth open, his eyes big. It hadn’t even been his left arm. “Come on,” she said. “I couldn’t have hurt you.”

His face turned crimson and he practically ran out of the office. She stood there for a moment, trying to figure out what had happened. She must have done something to set him off, but hell if she knew what. It was worse than dealing with a teenager. And, frankly, she had too many real concerns to worry about Seth’s weirdness.

CORKY BAKER HAD A problem, and from what he could see, it wasn’t going away anytime soon. Sitting in the traffic jam known as the 405 gave him too much time to think. To worry. Ever since he’d listened to Vince Yarrow and Nate Pratchett, he’d been hip-deep in lies, some so outrageous that only the government itself had the balls to go there.

He wondered for the hundredth time what the hell he was doing. He loved his job at the L.A. Times. He loved being an investigative journalist. He just wasn’t crazy about being a walking target. The more he found out about Omicron, the clearer it became that there was, in fact, a conspiracy. Could he prove it? Not yet. But he would. If, that is, he lived long enough.

He’d become almost as paranoid as Vince and his friends. His notes were coded, with copies in his safe-deposit box. He kept his associates and his editors pretty much in the dark. He’d sent his wife and son out of the state, although he was beginning to think that wasn’t far enough.

A smart man would leave it alone. Hell, he’d done more than he should have by exposing the cache of nerve gas in the paper and on national television. It sure hadn’t taken Omicron long to turn that around. Senator Raines had stepped right up to the plate and named the Delta Force men as the people responsible. The official story had holes all over it, but he couldn’t get a soul to go on the record. Nobody wanted to touch this, not in the military, not in Washington. They all ducked when they saw him coming. Not that he wasn’t used to that, but these people, all of them connected in some way to Omicron and the CIA, had let him know in not-so-subtle ways that if he continued to poke around there would be consequences.

Well, screw them. Corky Baker might not believe in much, but he did believe in a free press.

He advanced another few feet on the freeway, then stopped again. Reaching over to the passenger seat, he grabbed the small tape recorder he kept there. Without looking, he hit Record. “Tell Eli to come to the house in the morning to talk about the interview with George Page.” He clicked the machine off, then on again as he thought of one more thing. “Ask N about the lead chemist in Kosovo.”

This time he put the tape recorder back on the seat. He inched his way along the freeway as his thoughts turned to Pulitzer prizes and big damn paychecks. All he had to do was stay alive. Shouldn’t be all that hard. He was a public figure. People would ask too many questions. He’d live, and those Omicron bastards would go down in flames. In fact, he’d be the one to light the first match.

SETH WAITED UNTIL Harper was done in the kitchen before he made his ham-and-cheese sandwich. Not only did he not want her to see how much trouble he had with the knife, with the mayonnaise, with every goddamn thing in the kitchen, but being anywhere near her was getting more and more difficult.

It wasn’t just his dreams anymore. The woman haunted him in the daytime now, too. Even when she was in the next room, in the same room, his thoughts went places they had no business going.

He’d tried to talk himself out of it. He had a million reasons not to want her, but his body wouldn’t listen. He didn’t even have the excuse that she was the only woman around. Not anymore. It was even conceivable that the other doctor, Karen, was interested in him. Probably for the novelty of sleeping with a cripple. But what did he care? He should go for it. Ask her out. It wasn’t natural for a man to go this long without sex. No wonder he was going insane.

He got two pieces of whole-wheat out of the bag, then did up the twist tie with his teeth. The mayo jar went under his left arm to hold it steady while he unscrewed the cap. Then he had to put the cap down, take the jar in his right hand and put that down. Get the knife, shove the bread up next to the plate so it would stay steady, then spread each side slowly and carefully. Once that was done, he went through the whole under-the-arm procedure again just to close the damn thing.

It all took too long and felt too awkward, and he didn’t see how he could go through the rest of his life like this.

To add injury to insult, his hand hurt like hell. The left one. He knew it wasn’t there, but still, it hurt. A lot. All he wanted to do was rub it, right in the center of his palm. If he could do that, it would be fine—the cramp, if that’s what it was, would be gone and he would stop thinking about it—but there was no hand to rub. It was just a pain that followed him around like a shadow. Oh, sometimes it itched in addition to the ache, and that was even worse. Harper said it would get better as time went on. Which was fine except every single day felt like it went on forever, so when, exactly, were things going to improve?

It probably would have been okay if it was the only pain he couldn’t assuage. But there was this other thing, this hormonal thing that was probably a result of the amputation, although no one talked about it. It had to be some kind of chemical misfire that made him want her like this. As if he couldn’t breathe until he was inside her. As if she was the magic that would take his pain away.

He opened the pack of honey-baked ham with his teeth, then slipped out a few slices. Good thing he had teeth or he’d have been up the creek. Now if he could only figure out a convenient way to unzip his fly….

“I’m having some ice cream. Oh, you’re not done.”

He spun around, and the plastic bag of ham went flying out of his mouth. It hit the floor and slid, half the ham spilling on the linoleum as it went. Instantly he was so angry he could barely see, his eyes blurred behind a veil of red mist.

The only thing that penetrated was her laughter.

His fist curled into a ball so tight he could feel his short fingernails cut into his palm. His heart beat fast, pounding against his ribs. And Harper thought it was hilarious.

He wanted to hurt her. To grab her by her shoulders and shake her. She had no right. No business. She was a doctor, for God’s sake. She should know. But she didn’t. She didn’t understand, and that wasn’t fair because it was all her fault. She’d stolen his hand, taken it from him when he was too weak to stop her. Bitch. She’d ripped him apart, and her laughter sounded like a Klaxon in the quiet old house, bouncing off the high ceiling and the big plate-glass windows. Christ, he was so angry he couldn’t see. And he was getting hard at her laughter. What the hell was happening to him?

“Oh, God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh. But, really, it was perfect.”

He needed to get out, to go down to his basement, but she was standing in the way. He didn’t dare touch her. He wasn’t sure what he would do—hurt her or kiss her or…

“Come on, Seth. Where’s your sense of humor? Even you have to see that was funny.”

He saw no such thing. Not when she was in her robe. The material tight against her breasts, curved into her waist. The hollow at the base of her neck pale and delicate. He could imagine the smell of her, the clean womanly scent that made him ache every time she came close.

She walked toward him and he stiffened, panic constricting his throat. He had to get out, to leave before it got even worse, but he couldn’t pass her. So he turned away, forced himself to walk to the front door. Then he was outside and the cold wind slapped him in the face.

He went down the six stairs to the crumbling walkway and the torn sidewalk. He went left, no reason. He walked on unsteady legs and kept walking until he got his feet under him and then he walked until the thickness in his pants went away. But the ache, the wound where he wanted her like air, wouldn’t leave him. Not for blocks or miles.

HARPER GAVE UP WAITING for him an hour after he’d stormed out. She’d been a moron, which wasn’t like her. Of course he’d been humiliated by the whole thing. He hated it when she walked in on him making his sandwich. Hated her to see him struggle. And she’d laughed.

It wouldn’t surprise her in the least if he didn’t come back at all. He’d probably rather sleep in a cardboard box than face her again.

She left the front window and headed to the kitchen, where she put her old kettle on the stove. What she really wanted was a good stiff drink, but she’d settle for tea. If she didn’t have to work tomorrow…But she did. And so did Seth, so wherever he was, he needed to get his act together before seven.

This was not working out the way she’d hoped. She had to smile at the understatement. When she thought about how he’d looked at her…she wasn’t sure if he’d wanted to kill her or take her to bed.

It was that look of his, the one that had confused her for months, only about a hundred times stronger.

What was it with him? She got out her tea collection and went for the chamomile. That and the nice clover honey would at least cut the chill from her bones.

He hadn’t even grabbed his coat. So he was out there without his prosthetic, wearing nothing more than a T-shirt and jeans. If he had the brains God gave a post, he’d at least find himself a nice, warm bar.

She waited until the kettle sang, then poured herself a mug, which she took over to the kitchen table. Curling her leg underneath her, she sipped the hot tea, then pulled the phone close. It took her a minute to remember the number, but it was there, memorized out of necessity. She dialed, and after five rings Kate answered.

“Hi,” Harper said, wishing there was another way. “Do you think you could take Seth for a while?”

NATE WATCHED TAMARA as she peered over her half-glasses, reading test results from her latest run on the antidote. He supposed he could have brought Kate with him again on this supply run, but selfishly he wanted to spend time with Tam alone.

She was close, damn close. She’d managed to take most of the notes from the lab in Serbia when they’d escaped and use them to recreate the serum, but what she hadn’t gotten was a method of dispensing the antidote that would work effectively. Right now the only way to be safe was to have the serum injected, but that wouldn’t work if the gas were let loose in the center of a big factory or over an entire village. So she continued to work, alone, in the underground lab that was too cold and too impersonal to be anything but a prison.

“Come out to dinner with me,” he said.

She took off her glasses and stared at him in disbelief. God, her eyes were great. Slightly Asian, they were full of intelligence and innocence at the same time. “Have you been sniffing the vials again?”

He jumped down from the counter and walked closer to her, close enough to see the little tendrils of dark hair that had come loose from her tight ponytail. She was in jeans, T-shirt and lab coat, but even the coat and the glasses wouldn’t convince a stranger that she was a brilliant chemist.

He’d be the first to admit that he hadn’t been around many scientists in his life. His line of work lent itself more toward dictators and mercenaries. But he knew that Tam was not someone he’d have picked to be the brains of the operation. Like most sexist-pig men, he’d have pegged her as the saucy secretary or the babe on the payroll because she’d slept with the boss.

She’d disabused him of that notion the day they’d met.

“I’m not sniffing anything. You’ve been cooped up down here for too long. You need to get out. Have a beer. Laugh a little.”

“I’m too close, Nate. I’m not going to take any chances now.”

“I’m not asking you if you want to fly to Paris, Tam. Dinner. Even you have to eat.”

“I eat just fine.”

“MREs. Frozen dinners. That’s no way to live.”

“I’ll live when I have the disbursement system ready to go.”

He wanted to argue, but it was useless. She was an incredibly stubborn woman, and since he’d known her, she’d gotten her way in every single dispute. Except for that first one. She’d wanted to stay, convinced the government would be crazy to destroy the only hopes of an antidote to the nerve gas. In truth, it hadn’t been him who’d persuaded her. The first bomb had done that.

“How come Kate didn’t come with you?”

“She’s working on the ledgers from Kosovo. It’s coming along, but slowly. She can only work on it at night. She’s got that waitress gig at the IHOP.”

Tam put down her clipboard and leaned against a large cabinet full of test results. “She likes this cop Vince, huh?”

“He’s a good guy. He’s been a real help since Seth was shot.”

“How is Seth?”

Nate rubbed his chin, feeling the stubble of another ten-hour workday. “Physically he’s improving, but he’s still in a major depression.”

“That’s only to be expected.”

“It’s still tough. The guy’s been in the service since he got out of college. And he was in the ROTC before that. All he knows is fighting.”

“They’re doing amazing things with prosthetics now. In a few years, he’ll be able to do almost anything he could with his real hand. He just needs to be patient.”

“Patient? Seth? Not gonna happen.”

“He has no choice, though, does he?”

“You’re right about that. I just feel bad for the guy.”

“I feel bad for all of us.” Her head went down and she sighed loudly. “I’m so tired. I just want my life back, you know? I want to go to a movie. I want to sleep late and go on dates and shop for shoes. But every time I try to slack off, this major wave of guilt hits me. What if they use the weapon today? What if a village is massacred while I’m watching TV?”

“You can only do what you can do. One step at a time. But it’s important for you to take some breaks. This pace is going to kill you.”

“I exercise on the treadmill. I take vitamins. I’m fine.”

“You’re pale as a ghost. You need to get outside more.”

“It’s almost ten o’clock.”

“I wasn’t just talking about tonight.”

“Soon. I promise.” She sighed.

“Do you need anything else?”

“A team of graduate students would be nice.”

“Anything I can get you?”

“No,” she said, smiling just a bit.

“That’s a good look on you.”

She frowned, looking down at her lab coat. “This?”

“The smile.”

“Sweet but unnecessary. I’m fine. I’m not going completely nuts yet. And, as I’ve mentioned, I’m close.”

He nodded, getting the hint. “Fine. I’m out of here. But don’t be surprised to see me Friday.”

“I’ll have to remember to look at a calendar.”

“Do that.” He touched her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “It’s not all going to go to hell if you have a nice dinner.”

“Sweet man, it’s already gone to hell.”

He couldn’t argue with that.

4

HARPER HUNG UP THE phone, but she didn’t move. It was late, she should go to sleep. Tomorrow was a long day and she had to meet with the accountant, which made it even worse. But she hadn’t heard Seth come back yet, and that worried her.

There was no question that he needed counseling. But he was such an incredibly stubborn fool that he wouldn’t hear of it. Stupid, stupid. Now that Kate had turned her down, what was she supposed to do? Throw him out on the street? The man was wanted, and if those pricks from Omicron found him, they wouldn’t kill him fast.

She leaned back in her chair, cursing yet again the day she’d gotten involved in this mess. The dreams about Serbia were a nightly affair now. It didn’t matter how late she went to bed, what she ate or drank, how exhausted she was. She kept finding herself back among the dead.

What would it take to purge herself of these memories? Of the smells that filled her nostrils from thousands of miles and years away? Her head told her she wouldn’t be free until Omicron was exposed, but her gut told her it was worse than that. She’d broken her cardinal rule: don’t get involved.

Shit. She should have walked away and never looked back. Kept her eyes on her work and nothing more.

Where the hell was he? She couldn’t even call the police to report him missing, now, could she? It ticked her off that she was even thinking about Seth. He was gone? Good. Let him stay gone. He was nothing but trouble.

Harper got up and headed toward her bedroom. It felt good to have her home as her own once more, even though it really wasn’t her home. Nate had found this place and he’d wanted it because of the basement. Having a trauma room at the ready was fine for the rest of them, but for her it was a sword of Damocles. For the first six months she’d awakened at every noise, at every creak, certain she would end up watching over someone’s death just before the place was raided and she was killed.

Great way to live.

The only thing that had gotten her through it was her work at the clinic. Nate had objected, of course, but she’d told him just where he could go. The job had become her world. She’d kept a nice distance from the staff, but she’d put her all into each patient. That she had to do administrative tasks was bearable as long as she got in her treatment hours.

That’s when it all made sense. When she was helping people. Healing. Everything else in her life might have gone down the toilet, but at the clinic she gave hope, care, medicine, guidance. Nothing was better than that. She had a reason. A purpose.

She got ready for bed, taking her time in the bathroom as she gave her face a good cleansing and a minty mask. In the bedroom, she fluffed her pillows and pulled up her comforter. The room itself was spare—she hadn’t spent much on decorating. Now, as she looked around the place, she wished she’d at least picked up some vases, put some fresh flowers on the counters or by her bed.

By the time she’d gotten the chill out of her feet and read a few chapters in a book she might never have time to finish, it was past midnight. Still Seth hadn’t returned. She wondered if he’d been arrested. Or shot.

She turned out the light, determined to fall asleep immediately, curious if Seth’s absence would give her a dreamless night. She hoped so.

SETH STOOD BY THE pay phone in front of the twenty-four-hour supermarket. It was late as hell, and he was so cold he could barely feel his fingers, but he didn’t want to go back, not yet.

It wasn’t that he didn’t have the number or the correct change. It was that he had no idea what he was going to say.

His parents had thought he was dead. They’d had a funeral for their only son, and he knew that they had died a little themselves to have watched his casket lowered into the ground.

Now they knew he was alive. Not by hearing the words from their son’s mouth but from watching a U.S. senator denounce him as a traitor to his country. Seth couldn’t even imagine the pain his folks had gone through and the questions they must have.

It killed him to know he couldn’t just take off for Seattle and talk to them, explain that he wasn’t a criminal and that he hadn’t disgraced them.

He thought about his little sisters. They weren’t so little anymore, but he’d always see them as the two brats who followed him everywhere, who cried each time he had to leave for assignments that were shrouded in mystery.

His family, who’d stood behind him no matter what, had gone through hell the last couple of years. What was he going to say on this goddamn public phone that would make things better? Even more of a concern was that Omicron might have his parent’s phone bugged.

He thought about what had happened to Christie. She’d thought—they’d all thought—that Nate was dead. She was Nate’s only sister, and his death had been hard on her. Of course, she’d never suspected anything like Omicron when someone began stalking her. She’d just gotten frantic as the stalker had gotten closer and closer, and then Boone had gone to help. Together, they’d discovered that it wasn’t just a stalker. It was Omicron, convinced that Nate was alive, sure that if they made Christie desperate enough, she’d reveal Nate’s whereabouts.

They’d caught the guy directly responsible for stalking her and a few other hit men, but Christie couldn’t go back to her old life. Like him, like all of them, she was on the run—and would be until Omicron was exposed. The only bright spot had been that she and Boone had become a couple. At least Boone had someone who wouldn’t laugh at him.

Which wasn’t the point. His first concern had to be his family’s welfare. There was no choice, so he turned away from the phone, not willing to take the risk. He’d thought about writing to them, but he wasn’t sure who was watching them. He’d put nothing past Omicron.

He should go back to the house. Harper would be in bed by now, so he wouldn’t have to face her. He wasn’t nearly as embarrassed about the ham as he was about running out like a five-year-old.

He shook his head as he headed back down the long street filled with cramped shops. Boyle Heights was an old Los Angeles neighborhood that had gone through a number of transitions. Mary Lee at the clinic had told him that in the forties and fifties it was a haven for Jewish immigrants. Signs of their tenure were still around: an old synagogue converted into an apartment building with the Hebrew letters still outlined on the brick, a secondhand resale shop with a kosher chicken on the window. But now Boyle Heights, like most inner-city neighborhoods, was ruled by the gangs. There was graffiti and tags on every available surface. Bloods, Crips, gangs he’d never heard of—they were all visible in brilliant spray-paint hues.

No one had bothered him on his walk. He’d passed plenty of guys wearing colors, but they’d caught sight of his stump and steered clear. Guess it was good for something.

Of course, they might have been avoiding him because it was thirty degrees out here and he was wearing a T-shirt, jeans and no coat.

His gaze moved to the few feet in front of him as he neared the old house on St. Louis Street. Most of the people who lived in the area knew she was one of the doctors at the free clinic and therefore she was okay. He rode in on her ticket, which probably protected him more than his long hair or his disguise.

When he got to Harper’s, he thought again about not going in. He hated having to come here, having to do the crap work at the clinic. He hated everything about his life now, not the least of which was being a fugitive. The worst of it was feeling so helpless.

He wondered what Nate was doing tonight. Whatever it was, he was furthering their cause. Probably with Kate or Vince at his side, watching his back.

There was nothing for him to do but go on inside. To crawl into the basement and dream of days when he’d been whole. When he hadn’t given Harper a second thought.

He reached across his body to his left pocket and took out his key. The front light was on, so it wasn’t a problem, but the house was wired with some of the most sophisticated alarms in the world. Luckily he’d been the one who’d installed them when they’d bought the house, so he knew exactly how to get in quietly.

The moment he stepped inside, he knew Harper was asleep. Yeah, she could have just been in bed, but there was a different energy in the house when she was awake. He’d never say those words out loud, knowing how crazy he sounded. Shit, his unit would have laughed him out of Delta. Even so, he knew what he knew, and Harper was sleeping.

Another thing he knew how to do was be quiet. He’d had a lot of training in that department. He’d been on a hell of a lot of missions where to fail was to die. So he didn’t make much noise. Not even when he went down the long hallway to Harper’s bedroom, not when he stood in front of her door wondering what in hell he expected to find. He wasn’t about to knock. And he might be a lot of things, but he wasn’t about to go in uninvited. Not that she ever would. Not him. Not ever.

He turned before he did something stupid, but instead of heading to bed, he went to the bathroom. The chill had gone deep and he needed a good long, hot shower.

Once there, he stripped, turned on the water and avoided looking at himself in the mirror. With the room steamed sufficiently, he got under the flow, wincing at the heat. But he toughed it out until his whole body felt warm and relaxed. He hadn’t realized just how exhausted he was. The thought of going down to that cold, sterile basement, with the oversized OR lights and hulking machines all around his bed, was enough to make him wish he hadn’t come back at all.

Like the good soldier he used to be, he grabbed his washcloth off the rod, then picked up the soap with it. That’s how he washed these days. With the soap wrapped in terry. The only thing he hadn’t figured out was how to scrub his right shoulder. A back scrubber helped, but there were just some parts he couldn’t get to.

Even more disconcerting to him was washing his hair with one hand. He had no problem cleaning his hair, but it felt wrong. Weird how some things felt worse than others. Like those slip-on shoes. He hated those with a vengeance.

Finally he was as clean as he could get and warm all the way through, so he turned off the shower. He dried as much as possible and picked up his jeans. But he couldn’t put them back on. Instead he wrapped the towel around his waist, using the side of the sink as a hand substitute.

He shoved his clothes under his arm and headed out into the chilly hallway—and right into Harper.

She gasped. He dropped his clothes, and the knot of his towel loosened. He caught it about a second too late.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” she said. She didn’t have on her robe. Just a sleep shirt that draped over her breasts, molding her nipples.

“What the hell are you doing?”

She stepped back abruptly. “Well, excuse me for worrying.”

“What, you think now that I’m a cripple, I can’t take care of myself?”

“No, I don’t—”

Without picking up his clothes, he walked past her, bumping her shoulder, cutting her off. He couldn’t look at her and he couldn’t stand for her to see him like this. It didn’t matter that she’d seen his stump a thousand times, that she’d given him the goddamn thing. He had to get out of there.

Halfway down to the basement his eyes started to burn, which made him want to break down the door, destroy everything in his path. Instead he just went to the side of his bed, dropped his towel on the floor and put his hand on his swelling erection.

VINCE HAD A BAD feeling about this. He should have heard from Corky Baker this morning. When he’d called the reporter, there had been no answer. Not on the home phone, the cell phone. And no one at the Times had any information.

Ever since Vince had gotten involved in this Omicron mess, he’d learned to be extraordinarily cautious. Although he hadn’t been in Kosovo, couldn’t have found the place on a map, he was in this fight to the end. Because of Kate. Because if anything happened to her, he wasn’t at all sure what he would do. She was the first—and last—woman he would ever love. And when it was over, when Omicron was exposed and Kate had her identity back, he planned on having one hell of a good life with her. Yeah. Just the two of them. So he’d be careful. Damn careful.

He’d had to wait until nightfall to come. Nate was pretty sure that Baker’s house was under surveillance, so they had to be in full stealth mode.

Kate had wanted to come, but he’d made up some bullshit about needing Nate to break in when the truth was he just wanted to keep her out of danger. It wasn’t possible, of course. Just knowing what she knew was enough to get her killed. But he didn’t have to watch it happen.

He would never have believed meeting Kate would have led him here. To quit his job as an LAPD homicide detective, to become part of this team of fugitives. Almost more unbelievable is that he’d had to go to Corky Baker and ask the reporter for help. He and Baker had a long, unhappy history of bumping into each other at murder scenes. Vince trying to solve them, Baker trying to earn Brownie points from his editor by snooping everywhere he didn’t belong. That very trait made him the right man to get on Omicron’s case.

Of course Vince had realized he was putting Baker in harm’s way. But this was the big time, the real deal, and if Baker ever wanted a chance for a Pulitzer, this was it.

Which was why Vince was worried as hell that Baker hadn’t checked in. He and Nate were dressed in black, like movie burglars, and they each had black ski masks to cover their pale white faces.

He felt stupid, as if this was all blown way out of proportion, even as the logical part of him knew the precautions weren’t nearly enough.

Without a word, they got out of the truck and headed toward the house, but they went via backyards and, briefly, across an alley. It was a little tricky to pick out the right house, as Vince had only come through the front door before.

Once they’d scaled the fence, Vince knew he’d found the right place. What bothered him was that he couldn’t remember if Baker had a dog. He remembered the kid, about eleven, cute, which meant he must have taken after his mom.

Nate pulled out a penlight, small but strong, and led them past the swimming pool. It was covered over for the winter, and leaves from the nearby trees had settled on the plastic.

Before they even attempted to get in, Nate did his thing with the alarm system. Vince waited by the back door, trying to come up with a reason Baker wouldn’t have called, but none of the excuses held water.

Vince would have told him to forget it if they hadn’t needed him so badly. Truth be told, Baker was turning out to be damn good at his job. Go figure.

“The alarm’s not on,” Nate said quietly. “And it’s not broken.”

“Shit.” Those bad feelings had been right on the money. Dammit. “Let’s do this.”

Despite what he’d told Kate, it was Vince himself who broke in. He had a nifty lock-pick set he’d gotten from a lifer he’d sent up three years ago. It took all of about ten seconds before the lock clicked and they were inside the dark, quiet house.

Once they’d closed the door, Nate got out a special little gadget that Vince had heard about but never seen. It was a monitor, the size of an iPod, that searched out video and audio signals. The little gizmo would alert them if there was a camera or a mike anywhere in the house. He watched intently as Nate pressed some buttons. It didn’t take long for Nate to give the go-ahead.

Vince got his own flashlight out and led Nate past the big grand piano and the long glass coffee table until they were just outside Baker’s office.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.