cases, I need an info tech to do the computer stuff.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t need a baby-sitter.”
“Maybe I do.” The energy between them shifted, gaining an unexpected edge.
“Oh.” Heat flared, pooling hot and hard in her midsection as he leaned toward her, eyes intent. “I-”
“Sorry to interrupt, but I think you should see something,” Ike’s voice said from the doorway. Max and Raine froze, then stepped apart as Ike held up a computer disk in a jewel-toned case and raised an eyebrow in Raine’s direction. “Care to explain this?”
The label read
Chapter Seven
“Where did you find that?” Raine demanded, with an edge in her tone that set off all of Max’s warning buzzers.
“In the pocket of your blazer. You have anything else on you that we should know about?” Ike’s voice carried a similar edge.
Instincts humming on a faint twist of betrayal, Max crossed the room, took the disk from Ike and scowled at Raine. “This is the disk the computer tech handed you when we walked into your office. Why would he give you the access software?”
Raine shook her head. “I don’t know. He told me it was a backup copy of the clinical trial database. I didn’t look to make sure. Maybe he just reused the case?”
“There’s one way to find out.” Ike plucked the disk from Max’s fingers and retreated to the other room, where she clucked over her computer, talking to it like a trusted friend.
Max moved to follow. As he passed Raine, she snapped, “I’m not lying, damn it. What do I have to do to make you take me at my word?”
He stopped and looked down at her, noticing the purplish smudges beneath her eyes and damning himself for caring that she was exhausted and nearly at the end of her reserves. “To be honest, I’m not sure. But I know it’s going to take more than you telling the easy truth a few times.”
“Well, this is one of those times,” Ike said from the other room. “She’s right. It’s the clinical trial database.” Moments later, her voice climbed a notch. “Wait a minute. It’s time-stamped this morning.”
Max was at Ike’s side in an instant, leaning over her shoulder so he could see the laptop screen. “As in, after the data ghosts were uploaded last night, but before the explosion kiboshed the entire system?”
“If we’re going on the theory that Ms. Montgomery’s home invader inputted the files, then yes.” Ike nodded without looking at him. “And before you ask, yes, I might be able to find the ghosts and backtrack them to their source. Maybe.” She frowned and tapped a few keys before glancing up at him. “What’re my priorities?”
Max muttered under his breath, knowing he only had Ike’s undivided attention for forty-eight hours. She’d gotten the time off from Boston General easily enough-the head administrator, Zachary Cage, had benefited from her information enough times that he was pretty lenient with her schedule. But she was booked for the weekend, starting Friday. Max would’ve used someone else, but she was the best.
And, he acknowledged, Ike was the antithesis of Raine. That might have had something to do with how hard he’d leaned on his old friend to drive down from Boston on short notice. He’d needed someone he trusted to buy him some space and remind him not to be an idiot.
Ike had been the originator of the term DIDS. If anyone could keep him from falling prey to a damsel with an agenda, it would be her.
“Hey.” Ike elbowed him. “Sometime today would be nice.”
“Sorry. Get me the info on the next of kin first, then see what you can dig up on Jeff Wells and the three drug companies Raine mentioned. Leave the database stuff for last, because it could be a hell of a lot of work.”
She nodded. “Will do, sexy pants.”
Max snorted at the reminder of a particularly embarrassing lab incident, and shook his head. “I’ll see you two first thing in the morning.”
He headed through the connecting door, then stopped and turned back to Raine. “Promise me that you’ll stay here with Ike until tomorrow.”
Raine narrowed her eyes. “Where are you going?”
One of the things he’d liked most about her in Boston was the combination of quiet reserve and a razor-sharp mind. Now that the quiet reserve was all but gone, the quick wit was almost irritating. Or so Max tried to tell himself.
“You’re not invited,” he said. “Stay with Ike. I want your word.”
Raine lifted her chin as though leading for a punch. Her brown eyes were worried and defiant at the same time as she nodded. “I’ll stay here. I promise. But only if you tell me where you’re going.”
“To meet an informant. Don’t wait up.”
WHEN THE DOOR CLOSED BEHIND Max, the two women traded stares. Raine broke first, turning away and grabbing her shopping bag from that morning. “I’m going to take a shower and change.”
“Do I need to check the rest of your pockets?”
“No,” Raine said between gritted teeth. “What you see is what you get.”
Ike gave her another long look, and sniffed, making it clear she didn’t think much of what she was seeing.
Raine’s temper spiked. “Look, if you’ve got a problem with me, just come out and say it, will you?” When that earned her nothing more than a raised eyebrow, she said, “Fine. I’ll be in the shower.”
But just as she was about to shut the bathroom door harder than necessary, Ike said, “I don’t like what you did to Max.”
Raine turned back, confused. “Just now?”
“No. Back in Boston.” The other woman kept her attention on the computer screen, her fingers kept tapping on the keyboard, but her voice held the weight of condemnation when she said, “He’s a good man. He deserved better. He
Raine winced inwardly, but tried not to let the sting show. “What happened is between Max and me. It doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
“You mess with my friends, you mess with me.” Ike glanced at Raine, the light from the laptop monitor glinting off the three stones in her ear. “And whether you meant to or not, you messed with him when you left. He did some stupid things afterward.”
“Like what?”
“Like taking up with Charlotte. She was pretty and needy, just like you. Only unlike you, she stuck around long enough to nearly bleed him dry before she took off with a moving van full of his stuff.”
Raine thought of the empty apartment in Manhattan. This time, she couldn’t hide the wince. “Oh, hell.”
Ike sneered. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
But Raine shook her head. “No, I don’t. What I can do is tell you that I’m not interested in him that way anymore.” Or rather, she was determined not to be. “I don’t want a man who puts women on pedestals and wants to keep them there.”
That got Ike’s full attention. “He told you about his DIDS?”
“His what?”
“Damsel In Distress Syndrome. That’s what we called it back at Boston General. Max has a near pathological need to save women, and isn’t attracted to normal, healthy females who don’t need saving.” Ike shrugged. “He was losing interest in Charlotte even before she took off. Once she didn’t need him anymore, she just wasn’t that much fun for him anymore. He needs to be needed.”
Though Ike’s words confirmed Raine’s instincts, they stung her a little with the knowledge that she couldn’t win. If Max was attracted to her, that meant he still saw her as a victim. If she were able to prove her strength to him, he’d lose interest. She was better off staying far away.
Too bad she couldn’t convince her libido of that. Her dreams. Hell, even her waking fantasies had begun to star Max Vasek in lurid hi-def color.
