In his experience, doctors gave little value to family.
TANSY WAS LATE for their midmorning coffee break, so Ripley sat alone at the rear of the hospital café with her back to the room and hoped everyone got the hint. She was in no mood for company.
She scowled at her muffin and wished the new Radiation Safety Officer to the devil. It was his fault she felt out of synch today. She was tired because she’d dreamed about him and she was behind schedule because he’d insisted on testing each of the treatment machines separately, though there hadn’t been an accelerator-related death in four or five years.
And she was worried because she couldn’t help feeling Zachary Cage had seen more than she wanted him to, both in the lab and in her. If he and the Head Administrator ganged up against R-ONC, she’d be out in a minute. Her patients would be farmed out and forgotten, and she’d wind up doing a hundred Pap smears a day in her father’s practice.
Ripley bowed her head as tears threatened and the bruises left by Ida Mae’s husband throbbed.
“There you are!” The dark, rough voice spoke close at her shoulder for the second time that day, but she didn’t give Cage the satisfaction of seeing her flinch. Somehow, she’d known he was there. A hint of electricity in the air, a shadow of heat had warned her of his presence.
“Go away,” she muttered as he slid onto the wall bench opposite her, “I’m waiting for someone.”
She could meet rude with rude any day.
“I saw Dr. Whitmore in the hall. She asked me to tell you she was on the way to an autopsy and she’d see you at lunch.” He grinned, but the motion of his face didn’t lighten the darkness of his eyes one bit. He knew very well she didn’t want him there. “So I’ll keep you company instead.”
His legs were so long his knees bumped hers beneath the tiny table, sending a buzz of warmth through her thighs. Her chair was bolted to the floor. She couldn’t slide away, and Cage didn’t seem in any hurry to move.
“Why should I want your company?” She remembered the look in his eyes when Livvy’s favorite wig fell off. Scowling, she tried to scoot away from the warm pressure of the knees bracketing hers.
Cage took a hit of his coffee and grimaced as though it didn’t go down quite right. “We both know I won’t find anything when I look over those logs.”
She slanted him a look as wariness sizzled through her. He was fishing. “Meaning?”
“Meaning that your records are clean and your protocols are up to snuff, yet I think you’re hiding something. Care to let me in on it? You can start by telling me about those papers on your desk.”
Ripley wrapped her hands around her coffee cup and wished it were his neck. She decided to meet rude with angry. Anger was better than the guilt of knowing she couldn’t explain Ida Mae’s death. She snapped, “I don’t like your tone, Mr. Cage, and I don’t like your implication. I—” Her cell phone rang. “Excuse me.” She flipped open the slim phone. “Dr. Davis.”
“Ripley! You’ve got to get down to autopsy right now.” Tansy’s voice was tight with tension and Ripley fought the quick panic as she remembered where her friend had gone.
To oversee Ida Mae’s autopsy.
Ripley kept her voice steady, professional, all too aware of the RSO sitting across from her. Aware of the pressure of his knees against hers, the accusation that hung in the air as she said, “I’ll be right there. Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“It’s Ida Mae.” Tansy paused and in the live silence Ripley heard Cage’s beeper sound. He looked at the display, cursed and stood just as Tansy said, “The body’s radioactive, Rip. She’s so hot she’s practically glowing.”
Chapter Three
“I hope this is Whistler’s idea of a joke,” Cage muttered as the elevator descended. His beeper read 911C-B110, which translated to “emergency—contamination in room B110.” Nukes in the basement? That didn’t make any sense.
Aware of two nurses and a civilian sharing the car, he didn’t ask about Ripley’s phone call, but she was headed down to the basement on the double. The thought that they were bound for the same place bothered him, though he couldn’t have said why.
“Coming?” Ripley held the door with obvious impatience. He stepped out into the long, damp hallway, aware of the faint hum beneath his skin, a tingle left over from the intimate press of her knees beneath the café table. He frowned.
This was neither the time nor the place for desire. And it certainly wasn’t the right woman.
Still, he moved closer to her side as they strode down the hall. Harris had said something about a phone call, and her file was missing from his desk. His instincts, which he’d learned to heed, gave him a sharp poke, a hint of suspicion. What if Ripley Davis wasn’t a sloppy doctor after all?
What if she was in trouble?
His mind rejected the idea, but his heart wasn’t so sure. And he’d be damned if he let another woman be hurt while he concentrated on other things.
“Rip!” Tansy Whitmore was waiting in the hall, and Cage thought she looked even worse than she had that morning, when he’d noticed the dark shadows beneath her eyes and the deep grooves beside her mouth. Pretty and blond was one thing. Pretty, blond and haunted was another. It made him wonder just what Dr. Whitmore might be hiding. What she knew. “Ida Mae’s body is—”
“Tansy!” Ripley interrupted with a quick look back at Cage. A line had just been drawn with him on one side, the women on the other. Inclining his head in acknowledgement, he opened the door to B110 and gestured them into the autopsy room. He grimaced when the smell hit.
Death, with a pathetic overtone of air freshener.
“Hey, boss.” Whistler leaned over a body bag with no apparent regard for the funk in the room or the smear of…something on his shirt. Cage had thought before that his nominal second-in-command was a tad strange. Now he was sure of it.
“What’ve we got?” He hadn’t meant to bark the question, but it echoed in the fetid room and battled with the cheerful hip-hop blatting from a radio sitting high above the metal slabs.
Whistler straightened unhurriedly. “We started the radiation sweeps you ordered down here in the basement. You know, work the hospital from bottom to top?”
Cage noticed that the pathologist and the women were huddled at the end of the room. “You paged me for contamination. Where is it?”
And why the hell was there radiation in the morgue?
Whistler jerked his chin at the body, which had been only partially unzipped from its bag. “Right here. Ida Mae Harris is hotter than a Las Vegas showgirl.”
What the—? “Then stand back,” Cage snapped. “You’re not wearing a protective suit, you idiot.” No wonder the others were plastered against the far wall. When Whistler obligingly ambled out of range, Cage said, “Where’s she contaminated?”
“Not ‘where,’ boss.” The tech shook his head and shrugged to indicate that he didn’t understand it. “She’s hot everywhere, and I don’t think it’s surface contamination.” He picked up a portable Geiger counter, cranked it on and waved the wand toward the body bag.
The machine’s howl drowned out both the music and Ripley’s gasp. Cage looked over at her and their eyes met and held. He saw surprised horror. Confusion. And…guilt? Then she glanced over at her friend, and Cage saw the curtain drop over her emotions.
He’d get no more from Ripley Davis. Her priorities were clear. Herself first, the members of her department second and the hospital third. Then maybe the patients fourth or fifth.
Just like every other