“You here to visit?” The guard eyed him. “Or are you a patient checking in for treatment?”
Dante wore high-end sunglasses and a dove-gray silk Armani suit. His cologne was exotic, his hair fashionably clipped and his fingernails manicured to a high sheen. A purple orchid boutonniere nestled in the buttonhole of his outrageously priced suit.
Nothing about the slick exterior represented the real Dante. His inner soul was much darker, much grittier, much more tortured than the glitzy image he projected. He was playing the part of an upscale young plastic surgeon with an ego bigger than God. It was his duty to embody the role. Insecurities and vulnerabilities had no place in this plan. Nor was there any room for mistakes.
“I’m the new physician, Dr. Dante Nash,” he said with an air of aloof entitlement, and presented the man his driver’s license.
The security guard checked Dante’s credentials against a list on his clipboard. “Ah, yes, here you are. Welcome to Confidential Rejuvenations, Dr. Nash.”
“Thank you.” Dante glanced at the man’s name badge.
He might have to play the arrogant, rich doctor, but he could still be civil. “Freddie.”
“Have a nice day, sir.”
“You do so as well.”
The guard pressed a button that opened the wroughtiron gate onto a red cobblestone driveway. Dante followed the road around more privacy hedges and white rock retaining walls. The breeze was cooler up here in the hills than it was in Austin. He kept the window rolled down and flipped off the air conditioner. The fresh smell of spring floated into the car.
Leeza had died in the spring and he hated the season for it. Dante clenched his teeth.
Three years had gone by since her death, but he was still having trouble letting go of his anger. Still haunted by the fact he’d been unable to save her.
Don’t think about Leeza. Not now.
A quaint, hand-carved wooden sign directed him to the physicians’ parking area. He parked the Porsche, rolled up the windows and got out. A punch of a button on the keypad locked the doors and activated the alarm.
Another sign along the sidewalk pointed to the private entrance to the emergency department open exclusively to Confidential Rejuvenation’s elite clientele. It was closer than walking around to the front entrance so he went in that way. Stepping through the pneumatic doors, he walked into the plushiest emergency waiting room he’d ever seen.
The place was spotless. The couches and chairs were made of sage-colored leather and looked brand-new. The televisions mounted on the walls were all forty-two-inch plasma screens and came equipped with TiVo. They were turned on and playing to an empty room.
The potted ficus tree was real and the complimentary coffee was gourmet. Polished metal on the fleet of well maintained wheelchairs stowed along the far wall gleamed brightly underneath the recessed lighting.
Even more impressive was what was missing.
No gory blood stains. No suffering moans. No acrid smell of gunshot residue. No distraught family members sobbing their hearts out.
No question why it was so damned clean. Clearly emergency medicine wasn’t a specialty of Confidential Rejuvenations.
He paused to take it all in.
There had to be a reception desk around here somewhere. The thick double doors before him were locked. A sign instructed visitors to ring the bell for service. Dante glanced up and spied the small, discreet surveillance cameras mounted at all four corners of the entryway.
He was being watched.
Dante pressed the button. A pleasant disembodied voice greeted him. He identified himself. A buzzer sounded and the doors swung open.
More signs.
Lab and Radiology and Surgery to the right. Admin and the cafeteria lay straight ahead. The actual emergency exam rooms themselves were to the left.
And not a single soul in sight.
Weird.
He was beginning to regret not walking around to the front entrance. This whole place was spooky as hell. Where did they keep the woman who’d buzzed him in?
Maybe it wasn’t a real woman at all, he thought, but a robotic recording.
Suddenly, feeling as if he’d wandered onto a movie set of Stepford Hospital, he had a compelling urge to find a living human being. Pushed along by his anxiety, Dante turned left, rounded the corner andwalked into a nightmare.
The reception area he’d been searching for was in utter chaos. Papers were strewn across the room, equipment knocked over, glass broken. Three sobbing nurses sat huddled on the floor behind the desk. Two people in street clothes lay bleeding profusely on the white tile floor. One of them was an elderly woman.
Like a splash of cold water doused in his face, shock was the first thing that hit Dante. It was quickly followed by a jolt of adrenaline. The air around him seemed to turn stale, heavy. His blood pounded sluggishly in his ears.
Another nurse, this one with a calm, brave expression on her face, was talking softly to a wild-eyed young man wearing a patient gown and pajama bottoms spattered with blood. Torn cotton restraints dangled from his wrists like extra appendages.
The man stood between the soft-spoken nurse and the huddled women. In his hand, he clutched a bloody bowie knife.
Even in the midst of the crisis, there was something about the nurse that commanded Dante’s attention. She looked so…earnest—in a job that quickly made cynics of most—like a new graduate clinging to her ideal that healing the sick was the highest of callings.
Dante envied her.
And simultaneously lusted after her.
The lust surprised him. The feeling was so completely out of context and it had been such a very long time since he’d felt anything akin to this sudden need.
What the hell was wrong with him?
“Please, put the knife down.We canwork this out. I know you really don’t want to hurt anyone,” the nurse cajoled.
“Stay back or I’ll kill them all,” the deranged patient threatened, his voice high and reedy.
Anger seized Dante then. Furrowed his brow, tightened the corners of his mouth and narrowed his eyes. He had been caught in the grip of this feeling many times. It was an old but dangerous friend.
Like the trained FBI agent he was, he sprang into action without hesitation. In two long-legged strides he was across the room, slapping one hand around the man’s wrist and spinning him backward.
The red-haired nurse was screaming at him, but he was so intent on the task at hand that he couldn’t process what she was saying.
Blow his cover or not, he would not allow this scumbag to harm another soul.
Determination, fear, anger, excitement slid thickly through his veins, rolling, crashing, thundering. Dante hooked the crook of his elbow around the assailant’s neck and squeezed tight.
Surrender the knife, you bastard, or die.
ONE MINUTE ELLE KINGSTON, RN, and her emergency room nursing staff were role-playing a hostage standoff scenario, and the next minute, this sharp-dressed, broadshouldered stranger had her orderly—who was portraying the hostage-taker—gripped in a deadly chokehold.
The orderly made a strangling noise. His face was red, his eyes bulging. His fingers loosened and he dropped the rubber bowie knife smeared with a theatrical solution simulating blood. The knife bounced harmlessly against the tile.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Elle demanded of the stranger, her body shot full of fear. “Let go