LITMIR.BIZ

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voice was cold, brittle. Bailey felt like someone who had just walked out onto the plank and now tottered on the edge of the wood. But if she backed off, Munro would have nothing but contempt for her. More contempt for her, she amended.

      “What are you afraid of?” she repeated. “That you might be wrong?”

      His eyes narrowed into slits. “I’m never wrong.”

      Okay, maybe she should have been more specific. “About me, Dr. Munro. Wrong about me. You think I can’t cut it.”

      “I know you can’t cut it,” he informed her mildly. “I’m not letting you cut anything.”

      She lifted her chin pugnaciously. “What are you going to tell Dr. Bennett?”

      Rangy shoulders rose and fell. “That I tried but it didn’t work out.”

      She pushed back his lab coat from the hand she was covering and looked at his wrist. “After only ten minutes?”

      He inclined his head. “We both lasted longer than I estimated.”

      She drew herself up to her full five-foot-five height. “I’m not going anywhere, Dr. Munro.”

      He nodded, as if she’d finally caught on. “My words exactly.”

      Too late, Bailey realized her error. “Away,” she corrected. “I’m not going away.” As she spoke, her voice increased in strength and depth, even as she struggled to keep it low. She didn’t want to be accused of screaming or creating a scene. “I’ve come a long way to be standing right here in this hallway, arguing with you, and if you think that your reputation as the devil incarnate is going to scare me off, it won’t. I’ve seen the devil, Dr. Munro, and it’s not you.”

      He stood there for a long moment, then drew his hand from beneath hers. Turning away from her, he pushed open the door to the operating room and walked through.

      “Scrub in.”

      CHAPTER 7

      Ivan was vaguely aware of the indistinct squeal behind him and then the sound of eager footsteps growing fainter.

      He assumed it was the little-resident-that-could’s way of showing her enthusiasm as well as her joy before she ran off to change into her scrubs and prepare for the operating room. Crossing the perimeter of the operating room, as much to show his presence as to get to the area where the sinks were, Ivan carefully took in every square inch.

      Casting an aura of disquiet as he went.

      As it should be. Complacent people were lax. Lax led to mistakes.

      He wondered if he’d just made a mistake, being too soft. Telling DelMonico to scrub in.

      It wasn’t as if he would allow her to touch one of the instruments. His only intention was to let her just breathe the same air as his surgical staff. He and only he would tackle Mark Spader’s brain tumor.

      Brain tumor.

      Alone by the sinks, Ivan took in a long breath and then released it. Like a magnet set on a table with metal fillings, the surgery before him drew away all thoughts of the resident and how he hated being harnessed with petty responsibilities that took away from the focus of his purpose here at Blair.

      To mend as many patients as he could. To try, in some small, futile measure, to make it up to Scott for what he’d done. As if that were possible.

      A dry, humorless laugh echoed within the small area as he shed his lab coat. He was already dressed in his surgical livery. Prepared, always prepared.

      Except for that one night.

      Against his will, thoughts came back to him. Scott Kiplinger was the reason he was here. Scott was the reason for everything, most of all why he had become a neurosurgeon. Because if there had been a neurosurgeon on duty that night, if one had been called to the ER in time instead of hours later, Scott might still be among the living. Walking, talking and being the best friend he’d ever had.

      The best friend he’d killed as surely as if he had aimed that gun and pulled the trigger himself.

      But he hadn’t physically pulled the trigger. Scott’s despair had pulled it that awful, beautiful afternoon in the meadow. That fateful afternoon when he had finally persuaded Scott to leave the confines of his house, where all the curtains were always drawn, shutting out life. Shutting in the darkness.

      Scott had lived that way, never leaving his house, for almost two years. Ever since the accident.

      The accident, Ivan thought darkly, remembering every vivid detail, that had been all his fault. If he hadn’t been speeding, if he hadn’t taken that curve so fast, if there hadn’t been ice on the ground, if Scott hadn’t been in the car.

      If, if, if, IF.

      Ivan sighed, scrubbing his damp hand over his face. Wiping it dry as he uttered a curse through clenched teeth, he then washed his hands a second time.

      If.

      Battling with the word didn’t change anything. Didn’t make him stay home instead of going out for a ride. Didn’t make him sober instead of buzzed on three beers.

      Neither did it change how very naive he’d been, thinking he’d scored a coup, getting Scott to leave his house. At the outset, it had seemed like the perfect plan, driving Scott to the meadow where he had loved to hike and run. Scott, the all-around athlete, getting in touch with his past. It had seemed so right at the time.

      He’d thought, believed, that the sight of something familiar, something once so beloved, would finally, magically, bring Scott around. Would suddenly rally him to grasp on to the fragments of life that he still had and make him want to build on them.

      Make him want to be among the living again instead of among the wheelchair-bound wounded.

      Stupid, stupid, stupid, Ivan upbraided himself for the thousandth time.

      He’d had no idea that the pouch Scott had brought with him, the one attached to his wheelchair arm, didn’t contain the water bottle he’d said it did but the weapon he’d used to finally terminate all his pain.

      Ivan closed his eyes as the hot water dissolved the heavy film of soap from his hands.

      He could see it all so clearly. His sitting on the grass, to the left of Scott’s wheelchair, foolishly talking about what strides physical therapy had taken in the last couple of years and how he would do anything, anything, to help Scott start living again. He’d talked about Scott’s mother, about how he had to get on with his life, if only for her.

      It was a topic he’d all but worn a hole in, but this time, this time, because Scott didn’t argue with him, he had thought he was getting through to Scott. This time, he’d been hopeful that he could begin making amends.

      And then all hope vanished forever.

      Because while he went on talking, making plans, gluing together a future, Scott had quietly taken the gun out of the pouch, placed it to his temple and ended the discussion.

      Permanently.

      The sound of the gun being discharged was deafening. The horror of having his best friend’s blood rain down on him never left him.

      The feeling of hopeless futility imprinted its indelible mark on him that afternoon and changed him. The young, wild, carefree youth he’d been died along with Scott that day. The numbed man who eventually rose out of those ashes dedicated himself exclusively to becoming a neurosurgeon. It was the only thing that made sense to him. Becoming a neurosurgeon so that Scott’s death wasn’t entirely meaningless, that he hadn’t died without changing anything.

      And now, twenty-five years later, all that mattered was the same thing that mattered twenty-five years ago: saving lives. Reconstructing broken shells so that they could continue in Scott’s name, even though none of them were ever aware of it.

      Because no one else knew

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