She lay between the two orderlies, her hair in disarray, several strands caught between her lips. Her eyelashes were dark spikes across the paleness of her cheek, and she lay with her legs drawn up and her fists clenched in front of her, as if she’d simply quit in the middle of a fierce battle.
Even after the ordeal she’d been through, she looked beautiful and defenseless. Vulnerable. Ryan’s heart tightened.
Bloom stepped in front, blocking his view. “Leave it alone, Ryan.”
“I can’t leave it alone,” Ryan said, incredulous that his former mentor would even consider asking him to do such a thing. “Any way you look at this, it’s wrong.”
“Not according to the authorities,” Bloom said. “You tried to help her, and now her father is taking over.”
Ryan stepped closer. “Something’s wrong with that guy, Sid. Don’t let him take her. Let me at least call a few friends, check things out. I’m getting really bad vibes here.”
Bloom waved a hand dismissively. “You’re too emotionally involved with this woman to see things clearly.” He climbed into the back of the limo. “Perhaps your behavior today explains what happened in Boston. I advise you to get your act together before you find yourself looking for another job.”
The door slammed and the limo shot down the driveway. A few seconds later, it roared off.
“So not only have you gotten yourself beat up, you’ve alienated your boss. Not bad for a single day’s work,” Cole remarked.
Ryan stared after the limo. “You’re not much of a lawman, Cole, if you’d stand by and let a bunch of thugs man-handle a woman like that.”
Cole climbed into his car. “Still trying to push buttons, huh, Doc?”
“I thought you wanted Tess down at the station for questioning.”
“Oh, I know where to find her if I need to talk to her.” He tipped his hat back on his head. “Now don’t you be thinking about following that limo, Doc. I’ll be trailing behind it to the airport and if I see that fancy little sports car of yours anywhere near it I’ll be running your ass in.” He started his car’s engine and leaned an arm out the window. “We understand each other?”
“I understand the sad fact that they’ve bought you off.”
“Man’s gotta make a living, Doc. But you didn’t hear that from me.” He put his car in Reverse and backed slowly down the driveway. He waved as he took off in the same direction as the limo.
Ryan glanced down at himself. He was covered with grass and dirt. He swiped a hand across his mouth, coming away with blood.
He needed to clean up and get out to the center. If he couldn’t follow Tess, he could at least start making calls, finding out where her father was taking her. He still had a few contacts that would help him out.
Tracking Tess down wasn’t going to be easy, but Ryan had no intention of leaving her in the hands of the man who treated her so brutally.
AFTER SHOWERING and dressing, Ryan ran to his car and slid into the front seat. He slipped his cell phone into its carrier and backed out of the driveway. As he jammed the shift into Drive, he dialed the center.
He paused at the end of the driveway, punched in the extension for the hematology lab and waited.
He heard the click of the transfer and a few seconds later an impatient voice snapped, “If you people don’t quit bothering me, I won’t get anything done down here.”
Relief washed over Ryan. His friend, Craig Freedman, the head of the hematology lab was exactly who he wanted to talk to. “You sound a little stressed, Craig.” He forced a touch of humor into his voice.
“Donovan,” Freedman growled, his tone warming a millimeter. “Damn clerk called in sick again, and they didn’t send me a sub. I’ll be stuck answering the phone all day, and to add to the indignity, people keep sending me stupid lab requests on inadequate drops of blood. What the hell do you want?”
“The results on a stupid lab request, of course.”
Freedman grunted. “What’s the name?”
“Doe. Tess Doe.”
“Hang on and I’ll see if it’s done.” Ryan could hear the man’s fingers fly over the keys of his computer as he searched the file. “Got it. A BCC, Tox screen and drug panel, right?”
“That’s the one. Anything of interest show up?”
“Actually, yes. Your little lost lamb had a snootful of what you shrinks used to call a
“Thorazine?”
“Yep. In addition to Nembutal, Seconal, Phenergan and Veronal.”
Ryan whistled through his teeth. “I didn’t think anyone was using that particular combination anymore. Not since the sixties anyway.”
“Well, either you’ve got a Rip Van Winkle doc treating this patient or someone who didn’t attend the lecture in med school that talked about the unethical use of certain drug concoctions.”
“Did you find anything else?”
“That’s not enough for you?”
“Come on, Craig. What else did you find?”
Craig sniffed. “Good thing your patient holds a certain fascination for me. I ran a couple of other tests to see what I’d find and, lo and behold, I actually found something.”
“What?”
“You’ve got me.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what I said. I have no idea what I found. She’s got some kind of new chemical compound swimming around in her bloodstream. An unknown. It’s got some similarities to Thorazine, but it’s a total hybrid. In other words, a new drug.”
Ryan gripped the wheel tighter. “You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” Craig snapped.
“Send me up a copy of the findings, all right?”
“They’re on their way to your office as we speak. You’ll find them on your desk as soon as you get your hide in here.”
He wrapped the conversation up a few minutes later and replaced the phone in its cradle. He sat back, a sense of unease niggling at the back of his neck.
An unknown compound. A new drug.
Something was definitely going on and he wanted to know what.
THE ROOM WAS STERILE WHITE. A combination of glaring white walls and steel, a dazzling white-tiled floor and stark, whitewashed furniture with shiny steel knobs and hinges.
General Flynn clasped his hands behind his back and settled into a comfortable parade rest. Staring through the stretch of glass that separated the control room from the examination room, he considered the form stretched out on the stainless-steel table in the middle of the room.
Tess lay on her back, her arms and legs secured to the table with leather fleece-lined cuffs. She was dressed in a pair of thin green hospital pants and a white tank top.
A strap across her forehead kept her head from moving from side to side. Not that it was necessary at the moment as she was unconscious and totally limp. A pair of high-tech headphones were clamped over her ears, sealing out all noise from the room.
Flynn knew that a preprogrammed tape was being filtered through the headphones-a tape with his voice on it. He knew the prerecorded message was telling Tess what he expected of her. A job to be carried out in less than a week.
So little time. So much to accomplish.
A technician, dressed in a white lab coat, stood near the head of the table and Flynn watched as the woman efficiently injected the end of a needle into a small glass vial and drew up a liquid. When she withdrew the needle, she used one bright-red-tipped finger to flick the barrel of the syringe, eliminating any air bubbles.
Turning, she swabbed an alcohol pad over the rubber stopper on the IV tubing connected to Tess’s arm. She removed the cap on the syringe and then stuck the needle into the rubber diaphragm of the IV tubing, pushing in
