Red Alert. Jessica Andersen
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Meg snapped, “Don’t tell me what to do. In fact, leave me the hell alone. I want to see Raine ASAP, but I don’t want to see you. Not ever again.”
His expression shifted to neutral. “That could be difficult.”
She sneered at him. “The way I’ve heard it, you thrive on a challenge, Mr. Falco. Consider this one.”
She turned and pushed through the crowd to the hospital, ignoring the TV reporters’ microphones and shouted questions. She left the cops enough information to find her later, after she’d cleaned up. After she’d broken down.
It wasn’t until she was halfway across Kneeland Street that she realized her feet were burning. She looked down and stared stupidly at her gray-smeared toes, which were barely covered by torn panty hose.
She’d lost her tall brown boots. They’d been sucked off by the cement, left behind when Erik Falco had risked his own life to drag her out of the muck.
That small detail brought home the danger before she was ready for it. Her stomach knotted on a surge of nausea and her throat closed down until only a trickle of oxygen seeped through.
She was suffocating.
The gray waves closed in on her, surrounding her, compressing her. Killing her.
Not here, Meg told herself. Not now. Not yet. Not where she would cause a scene on hospital property. Her father was right. Her science was controversial enough without her personal exploits adding fuel to the flame. The thought of her dependable, rock-steady sire helped hold off the shakes and she forced her trembling legs to carry her the rest of the way across the street, barefoot.
She thought she heard her name called in deep, masculine tones, but she didn’t turn back. If it was one of the officers, he could phone the lab. If it was Falco, he could go to hell.
She had no intention of prostituting her work to some megacompany that cared only for profit.
And if he tried to force the issue with her bosses, she’d fight him tooth and nail.
“DAMN STUBBORN WOMAN.” Erik cursed under his breath as she disappeared through the main hospital doors. Then again, why did that surprise him? She’d already managed to block his representatives at every turn, fighting to keep her discovery in the public arena by administering it through the university rather than a private company.
He respected the effort. Too bad it was doomed, because he had no intention of failing. Her fetal cell isolation process would be his, with or without her cooperation. His whole pharma staff was on it.
At the thought of his staff, he grabbed for his cell phone and speed dialed the office. “Get me Raine.” When she answered the transfer, he said, “Sorry for the quick turnaround, but I need you back at the hospital right now.”
“Another stint as Mrs. Phillips?” Raine asked, her voice carrying an unfamiliar lilt that put him on edge.
Six years earlier, her résumé had overridden his reluctance to work with a pretty, single woman his age, and he’d hired her into the then-startup FalcoTechno. They had grown together, Raine and the company, and she’d proven herself to be an exception to his rules. She was a beautiful woman who kept her mind strictly on business. One he could trust to get his back.
They’d stayed out of each other’s personal lives. Hell, he hadn’t even realized she’d been married until six weeks earlier, when he’d found her in the men’s bathroom, crying, disoriented and puking.
She’d confessed to being pregnant with her husband’s baby…a year after the divorce was final.
The experience had forged an uncomfortable intimacy between Erik and Raine, one he’d tried like hell to ignore until he got word that Dr. Meg Corning had once again blocked his offer to buy the rights to her Noninvasive Prenatal Testing technology.
When his request for a meeting had been denied—not just once, but three different times—he’d gone with Plan B and asked Raine to pose as a prospective test subject to get inside information. It had been her idea that they pretend to be a married couple so he could get a firsthand look. He’d agreed, but couldn’t help worrying that she’d gotten the wrong idea.
Or that she was playing him.
God knew, he’d fallen for it before.
Now, his fingers tightened on the phone. “No more Mr. and Mrs. Phillips. She pegged me as a ringer.” Which was almost a relief.
“Then why do you need me?” Raine asked.
Not wanting to worry her unnecessarily, he said, “Just meet me in the Boston General lobby as soon as you can, okay? And bring the garment bag from my office closet. I need a change of clothes.”
He cut the connection before she could ask why. He started to head back to the hospital, but a hail brought him up short.
“Mr. Falco? Lieutenant?”
Erik turned at the once-familiar title. “Falco, please. Or Erik. I haven’t been a cop for nearly eight years.”
The two plainclothes detectives wore badges clipped to their belts and standard-issue shoulder holsters beneath their jackets. The younger of the two—who looked close to Erik’s age of thirty-eight—wore a brown suit that complemented his brown hair and clean-cut good looks, while his partner, who was closer to sixty, with a droopy, almost fishlike face, wore washed-out blue.
Both suits were decent quality but off-the-rack, just as Erik’s had been back when he was on the job, back before a woman and his own stupidity had killed a good man and cost Erik the use of his leg and the life he’d known.
The brown-haired cop said, “I’m Detective Reid Peters.” He gestured to his older partner. “This is Sturgeon. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Erik blocked a spear of resentful nostalgia for the cop-speak and leaned on his cane. “Fire away.”
Peters pulled out a PDA. It was a few generations older and much lower quality than Erik’s top-of-the-line pocket computer, but it was still a far cry from the spiral-bound notebooks of years past. The younger detective used a stylus to tap open a new file, then set the record function before he asked, “How well do you know the victim?”
“She’s not a victim—it was an accident.” Erik narrowed his eyes. “Wasn’t it?”
The detectives didn’t answer, letting their original question hang.
Erik’s temper spiked a notch. “Don’t give me the silent routine. I was on the job—you know that or you wouldn’t have called me ‘lieutenant.’ So I’ll make a deal…you tell me what you know and I tell you what I know. Otherwise, you can talk to my lawyers. I have an entire department full, and they’ll enjoy running you around for weeks if I tell them to.”
Peters shared a look with Sturgeon, the sort of nonverbal communication partners developed over many years of teamwork.
The sort of look that reminded Erik of his old partner, James Hadley. Jimmy.
After a moment the older detective shrugged. “It might not have been an accident. There’s supposed to be a metal railing separating the construction site from the sidewalk. The contractor swears it was put in last week, but it’s gone.”
“Contractors lie,” Erik said, having been stung on a few projects over the years. “Subcontractors cut corners. That doesn’t say ‘intentional’ to me.”
But his instincts jangled. The sluiceway had opened at precisely the wrong moment. When he’d looked at the cement truck cab moments later, the driver had been gone, the door hanging open.
Peters stared at him for a long moment as though assessing him. Finally he nodded. “Have a look at this.” He led them back through the police line, to the place where Meg had fallen through.
Erik took one look at the wooden railing and cursed bitterly. The panel had been neatly