Undercover M.D. Page 15

  Another lie. What was going on here? “You left your clothes downstairs,” she pointed out. “The pager would have had to have been amplified to the level of a siren for you to hear it beeping from up here.”

  Why was it that he could stare anyone else in the eye and lie to them without so much as twitching an eyelash, and yet he couldn’t come up with a simple cover story for himself when it came to Alix? How was it that she managed to press all of his buttons, short-circuit all his lines this way?

  “Who were you calling?” She placed herself in front of him, wanting to see his eyes.

  Cornered, he gave her the first name that popped into his head. “All right, if you have to know, I was talking to Harris.”

  She stared at him incredulously, all the stories that she’d recently heard about the doctor coming back. “Why? What earthly reason would you have for sneaking out of my bed, a bed where we’d made love, to talk to that man?”

  “I told him I’d call him to make arrangements for tonight.” He looked at her significantly. “I like keeping my word.”

  None of this was making any sense to her. “Giving your word to a snake doesn’t count. Besides, I thought you said you didn’t like him.”

  He couldn’t lie and say that he did. She would see right through that one. “I don’t.” He could see her protest coming. “But it’s complicated.”

  “All right, then uncomplicate it.”

  “I can’t just yet.” He slipped off the jeans he’d tugged on earlier to make the call. He wasn’t wearing any underwear.

  She tried not to allow the state of his body to distract her, but even worried, it wasn’t easy to ignore the finest specimen of manhood she had ever seen. “Terrance, are you in debt to William or something?”

  “What makes you ask that?”

  “Because there’s a rumor that he’s into something dirty. That he owes some casino bosses a lot of money. His father doesn’t know, or is turning a deaf ear to the talk, but what the Harrises do is their concern. What you do is mine.” She placed an imploring hand on his arm. “Terrance, I don’t want you getting mixed up in any of this. Who knows the kind of people he’s connected with. You could get hurt.”

  He wanted to tell her, to at least partially erase the lines of worry from her forehead. He suddenly hated the restrictions of his job. They’d never bothered him before, but now they were disrupting his life.

  He cupped her cheek. “You don’t have to worry,” he assured her. Taking her hand, he laced his fingers through it and began drawing her farther into the room. “Now come back to bed. We both don’t have to be in for another hour.”

  She glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “I need to shower and get dressed. That doesn’t leave much time,” she pointed out.

  His grin only became more wicked. “Let me show you what I can do under pressure.”

  She didn’t want to be distracted, but she couldn’t help it. “You could probably sell needles to cacti.”

  “I’m not interested in cacti. I’m interested in something far less prickly than spiny plants.” He brushed a kiss to her lips. “Now come to bed, you just wasted fifteen seconds.”

  “I’ll shower faster,” she promised.

  Alix slipped into bed and into his arms.

  Chapter 14

  Her hair still damp from the shower she’d just taken, Alix opened the refrigerator. “You can have eggs and toast or eggs and toast,” she offered.

  He glanced at his watch, estimating his time margin. “I’ll take just toast—to go.”

  Taking out the loaf of bread, she was about to ask Terrance what the hurry was when the phone rang. She picked up the receiver and cradled it against her neck and shoulder as she deposited four slices of bread into the toaster.

  “Hello?”

  “Alix? It’s Stephanie. I did a little more research into this Terrance McCall of yours.”

  Alix raised her eyes to look at Terrance, who was helping himself to a quick cup of coffee. “And?”

  “He’s in our database all right.”

  Alix breathed an audible sigh of relief. He hadn’t lied. Guilt pricked her. She was just being overly cautious, that’s all.

  “Impressive list of credentials, too,” Stephanie was saying. “Not to mention that he looks like a really honey. But the funny thing is, when I asked around in pediatrics, nobody seems to remember dealing with him.”

  Alix’s fingers tightened around the telephone. Damn it, there was something wrong after all.

  “I don’t know what to make of it, Alix, but there it is.”

  The lead weight was back on her chest. Somehow she mustered a semicheery response. “Thanks, Stephanie. I owe you.”

  “If this McCall turns out to be legit, you can hook me up with his brother if he has one.”

  Alix murmured something to Stephanie in response, though what it was she couldn’t remember even as she hung up the phone. The toast popped up behind her, but her mind was no longer on breakfast. She turned around to look at the man in her kitchen. The man she’d just made love with again.

  The man she didn’t know.

  He didn’t like the expression on her face. It was as if she was looking straight into his soul. Terrance placed his empty cup on the counter.

  “What’s the matter?” He tried to second-guess what she was thinking. “Another patient?”

  “No, a doctor.” For a moment something went dead inside her. And then anger began to bubble. “That was my friend who works at Boston General.” She watched him. He was cool, she thought. He never even missed a beat. A man less given to lying for a living would have looked at least a little uncomfortable.

  She hated him for hurting her all over again.

  “They want me back?” he kidded.

  “They might,” she replied, her voice low, “if they knew who you were.”

  Damn it. She knew. Somehow she knew. But he was bound to continue playing the game. “What are you talking about?” His face was the soul of innocence. “I was there for four years—”

  Alix could have scratched his eyes out. “Why don’t you stop lying and tell me the truth, Terrance? Who the hell are you?” she demanded angrily. “Why are you here?”

  His eyes fixed on hers. “I’m who I always was, Alix. And I’m here because I need to be.” He took a step toward her, his hand outstretched. “Because you’re here.”

  Alix knocked it away. “No twitches, no nose growing.” There was nothing but contempt in her voice. “You’ve really mastered this lying thing, haven’t you?”

  “Alix—” For the life of him, he didn’t know what to say, how to make it right.

  “This has something to do with Harris, doesn’t it? I don’t know how, but it does. I can feel it.” A sense of panic began to set in, spreading in her soul like a tipped-over bottle of black ink on a snow-white sheet of paper. “Whatever it is, back away, Terrance. Please back away before it’s too late. Before Harris drags you down with him.”

  He tried to reach for her again, to calm her, but she moved back. She was looking at him as if she didn’t know him. Terrance felt torn between duty and something greater.

  “Nobody’s dragging anyone down, Alix. You’re just going to have to trust me for a little while longer.”

  She knew it. “Then there is something going on.”

  Terrance shook his head, helpless. “Alix, I can’t—”

  There it was, she thought. In a nutshell. Why was she even trying?

  “No, you can’t, can you?” She struggled to resign herself to the inevitable. Nothing had changed. “Can’t let me in now any more than you could before. I was deluding myself, hoping that I could just take this on a day-by-day basis.” Fool, she upbraided herself. “But secretly I was praying you had come finally around. That this time it was permanent—” She bit her lip to keep the tears back.

  He saw them shimmering in her eyes. It tore him up to see her this way. He didn’t know what to say.

  “But it’s not
, is it?” she demanded, suddenly angry that he was sacrificing something wonderful for who knew what reason. Angry that she didn’t matter enough for him to turn his back on whatever was going on and just trust her. Just be with her. “You’re shutting me out just the way you did before. And you’ll be leaving, just like you did before.” She fisted her hands at her sides. “Go ahead, deny it.”

  His eyes held hers. “Would you believe me if I did?”

  “No.” For a moment the silence was deafening. And then his pager went off. She saw him look down at the number, then reach into his pocket for the cell phone he hardly even seemed to be without. Her eyes widened incredulously. How could he stop in the middle like this? “Don’t answer that,” she warned. “I know it’s not the hospital, don’t answer that.”

  It was Riley. He knew why his partner was paging him. The answer was positive. The shipment was coming. He had to get down there. Crossing to the doorway, he shook his head. “I have to.”

  Stunned, all she could do was stare at him. “Don’t you dare leave. We’re in the middle of an argument. If you leave, it’s over, do you hear me? It’s over!”

  “We’ll talk later, I promise.” He crossed back, grabbed hold of her and kissed her, hard and quick. And then he was gone.

  “There isn’t going to be a later,” Alix cried after him.

  She heard the front door close.

  Frustrated, Alix grabbed the first thing she could reach, a dish, and threw it against the wall. The tears that had been stinging her eyes began to fall.

  It was going down.

  He knew it. The call to Riley on his cell phone as he drove to the hospital was merely to confirm what he already knew. The laundry trucks were arriving, possibly even now, and inside information via the wiretap had tipped them off that this shipment had more than starched uniforms and freshly disinfected sheets in it. This particular shipment had six kilos of cocaine buried in the bottoms of the large laundry baskets used to transport the linens from the trucks into the hospital’s basement.

  The overall plan was simple. Drugs came into the country and had to be hidden until distribution was accounted for and in place. No one, the key figures contended, would expect to find them in the basement of a hospital as reputable as Blair Memorial. When the time came, the drugs were moved out the same way they had come in, ready to hit the streets.

  It was perfect.

  Until someone had talked, trading the information for a get-out-of-jail-free card.

  Terrance pulled up to the parking lot on the far side of the hospital, out of the way of the general population in the area where the delivery trucks made their stops.

  He saw the laundry trucks.

  Saw, too, that his people had converged and were getting ready.

  He spotted Riley, still dressed in his orderly uniform, behind a cable truck that had supposedly been called in to fix a reception problem. He recognized it as one of theirs.

  Terrance was quick to make his way over.

  There were twelve of them, counting Riley and himself. Twelve DEA people to surround several baskets, Juarez, the security guard they now knew was in on it and several Brite Day Laundry transport workers who probably weren’t. Terrance had no doubt that the people running the operation weren’t going to take minimum-wage workers into their confidence. As a precaution everyone ordinarily involved in the Brite Day Laundry’s run had been checked out for priors and history. Other than a few traffic violations sustained before they came to work for the company, the records were all clean.

  But a person could never be sure.

  Terrance joined Riley behind a cable truck positioned near the basement entrance. Riley smirked at his partner as he strapped a bullet-proof vest on.

  “Glad you could tear yourself away from your love life and make it.” Riley slid his tunic over the vest. The blue material strained at the excess bulk.

  Terrance spared him a glance before looking back at the entrance. One of the baskets was being unloaded. “You look fat. When did the trucks get here?”

  “I look muscular,” Riley contradicted. “The trucks came minutes ago. We just saw the first one go by the surveillance camera inside the far corridor.” Thanks to Monroe splicing the pickup, they could see everything that ordinary surveillance picked up in the basement. “Our sticky-fingered security guard opened the back doors for the laundry boys. Big surprise.”

  Terrance just wanted this part of it to be over. He craned his neck to look around the side of the cable truck again. “Harris there?”

  Riley checked the weapon strapped to his ankle. He tucked the pants leg down again. “It’s his neck if something goes wrong. What do you think?”

  Terrance made sure his own gun was readily accessible, then rose. “I think I’d better get myself down into the basement. They want an eyewitness for this, right? I figure I’m elected.”

  Riley stood up beside him. “I can play hero, too.”

  Terrance knew it was his partner’s way of looking out for him. “I’ve got the face for it. You can play the faithful sidekick.”

  “Hey, if you think I’m going to settle for being typecast at my tender age, think again.” Riley grew serious. “You’ll need backup closer than half a parking lot away. Harris doesn’t strike me as playing with a full deck.”

  Terrance nodded. Riley was right. They stood a better chance of coming out alive if there were two of them going in together.

  “Not even close,” he agreed. Terrance shook his head as one of the men offered him a vest. The scrubs he had on were a size too small. Ironically, they had shrunken in the wash. A vest would make him too bulky and tip Juarez off. “Dead giveaway, no pun intended.” He started to lead the way out, then stopped. He looked at Riley. “Look, if anything goes wrong—”

  It was bad luck to talk about death just before a mission went down. Riley cut him off. “It won’t.”

  But Terrance wanted to get this out. “Tell Alix I’m sorry.”

  “Okay.” Riley nodded, going with the scenario. “Then she’ll throw herself into my arms, sobbing. We’ll comfort each other, fall in love and have six kids. The second one we’ll name after you.”

  Laughing, Terrance hit him with the flat of his hand, urging him out. “The hell you will.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s roll.”

  It was a bright, sunny day. It didn’t seem like the kind of day anything dark could happen. But failure and oblivion, Terrance knew as they walked out into the open, were only a bullet away.

  Alix didn’t know why she cared. He obviously didn’t. But Terrance was setting himself up for disaster, and she couldn’t bear to see anything happen to him. Someone had to intervene.

  The idiot had no one to stand up for him. If something bad happened, if whatever this was that involved Harris should come back to bite them, Harris had his father to turn to. Money could always be counted on to buy people out of dire situations.

  But there would be no one for Terrance, no one to buy him out. Harris was the type to turn on anyone to save himself. She didn’t know what was going on, but she’d heard rumors about gambling debts, rumors about drugs and underworld types. If Harris had somehow managed to drag Terrance into this…

  She had to stick by him, at least until she could talk some sense into him. Or, she thought suddenly, as she pulled onto the hospital grounds, if not him, then maybe she could prevail on Harris.

  Alix turned left toward the parking lot that was set aside strictly for the use of physicians. Harris’s red Ferrari was parked in its prime spot.

  That was odd. As far as she knew, he wasn’t supposed to be here until later.

  Good. If he was here, she could talk to him, try to appeal to his kinder side—provided it hadn’t been surgically removed yet.

  Getting out, she pressed the security button on her keychain. Her vehicle softly squawked in response. She didn’t relish having any interaction with the man. Since their last date, Harris had gone out of his way to be nasty to her whenever the
y crossed paths. He was a petulant, spoiled child, and she would rather have steered clear of him.

  But this wasn’t about her, it was about Terrance, damn his pigheadedness.

  Alix glanced at her watch. She was early. Her rotation in the E.R. didn’t begin yet. For once, none of the patients on the pediatric floor were hers. Since Harris was somewhere on the premises, that meant she could try to get this over with and talk to him.

  She punched his pager number out on her cell phone. Knowing him, Harris’d probably think she was using this to come on to him. The man’s ego was insufferable.

  “You owe me, Terrance,” she murmured under her breath, walking in through the hospital’s electronic doors.

  Harris jerked around nervously. His pager had just gone off, and he thought he heard footsteps coming down the basement corridor.

  The heavyset man beside him laughed mockingly. The sound echoed around them.

  “Be cool, man,” Juarez hissed. “Nobody suspects nothin’. You’re acting like some virgin at a stag party.” The contempt on his face was obvious. He waved the next basket down the entrance and toward him. “Relax. Answer your pager later.”

  And then he heard it, too. Someone was coming.

  Moving in front of Harris, Juarez walked up to the two men who had just turned down the hall. He recognized the taller of the two.

  “I think you took a wrong turn, Doctor.” Juarez deliberately ignored the orderly beside the physician, regarding him as someone beneath his own position. “This is laundry day. There’s nothing down here on this side but the laundry.” Juarez pointed down the corridor from which Terrance had come. “The cafeteria’s in the opposite direction.”

  Terrance glanced over his shoulder. “Guess I kind of got turned around. But this is lucky.” He gestured at the basket that had just been brought in. “Because as it happens, I need some dry clothes.” Terrance began to move around Juarez.

  The latter deliberately put his body in between Terrance and the basket. Dark, threatening eyes swept over him. “You look pretty dry to me, Doc.”