Covert M.D. by Jessica Andersen Read Free Book Online

you. After what just happened, I’m sure he’ll agree it’s for the best. You’re simply not tough enough for Investigations.”
    She lifted her chin. “You have no idea how tough I am, McKay. Don’t think you know me because you knew my father.”
    “I know enough,” he said flatly, still not meeting her eyes.
    “Fine,” she snapped. “But don’t bother calling Wainwright. I’ll do it.” She turned her back, lifted the phoneand waited pointedly for him to leave. When she heard the door close behind him, she lowered the handset and pressed both hands flat to the desk as the fight drained out of her.
    This assignment wasn’t anything like she’d imagined it would be.
    She’d had it all planned out, how she’d impress the senior investigator with her quick wits and—if necessary—her guts. How they would solve the case in record time and shock Wainwright.
    And if news of her success reached Rathe McKay in some far-off land, she’d imagined he might be happy for her. A little proud. And maybe, just maybe, he would think of her and regret dismissing her twice—once when he’d pushed her from his bed and again later when he’d brusquely refused to see Tony that last time.
    But nothing about this job had turned out right. Nothing.
    Nia sighed and picked up the phone. She stabbed Wainwright’s number and waited while his secretary put her through.
    He sounded concerned. She’d never called him during an assignment before. “Nia? What’s wrong? Do you have a problem?”
    She tightened her fingers on the receiver and wished there was another way. “No, Jack. You have a problem.”
     
    IN A SERVICE ELEVATOR headed down to the depths of Boston General, Rathe rubbed his chest where the skin felt tight and tender. An odd sensation flooded throughhim. It was shame, perhaps, and disappointment that Nia had agreed to be reassigned. It surprised him that she’d given in so easily.
    Don’t think you know me, she’d said, but he knew enough. He knew that she had grown into a beautiful woman—a beautiful younger woman, though the ten years between them didn’t seem as important now as they had before. And he knew that the kiss they’d shared upstairs would haunt him once she was gone, just as the memory of her touch had stayed with him long after he’d hopped on an airplane to wherever, with the imprint of Tony’s fist tattooed on his jaw.
    The elevator doors opened and Rathe stepped out, remembering that day and the pain. The subbasement echoed with a noisy quiet, filled with hisses of steam and the hum of machinery nearly below the level of his hearing. Above the background he heard a whisper of sound. A cough or perhaps a footstep.
    He tensed. The skin on the back of his neck tightened, though there was no logical reason for it. Any number of hospital personnel could be in the subbasement for legitimate reasons.
    But his instincts told him otherwise.
    With a flash of gratitude that Nia was safe upstairs and soon to be assigned to another HFH division, he eased closer to the puke-green cinder block wall and crept toward the corner up ahead, where a second corridor branched off the main hallway. The noise came again, and this time there was no mistaking it. Running footsteps.
    “Damn!” Discarding stealth for speed, Rathe sprintedaround the corner. Ahead, a tall, navy-clad figure disappeared around the next bend.
    Flight doesn’t always equal guilt, the HFH manuals warned. Maybe that was true elsewhere in the world, but not at Boston General. He’d bet his medical degree that this guy was running for a reason.
    Well, he wouldn’t get far. Rathe ducked his head and accelerated, glad that he’d traded the janitor’s standard sneakers for his own custom-made boots, which were tough enough to protect him from desert sands and soft enough to render him nearly silent. Doors sped past, and he skidded a little when he turned the corner and stopped dead.
    The loading dock. Damn. The door swung shut on a slice