LITMIR.BIZ

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glittered in a ray of sunlight.

      Running feet thundered. A woman screamed.

      And the knife descended in a killing arc.

      Chapter Three

      Time seemed to slow, picking out Nia’s last few moments in exquisite detail. She saw the distended, bulging veins in her attacker’s forearm, saw an onlooker’s mouth form a perfect O of horror. She smelled sour, unwashed man and the sharp taint of her own fear. She felt the weight of him, like that of a lover, pressing her into the hard floor, shifting atop her as the blade descended.

      And she wished, with a burning intensity that was close to pain, that she had been a better daughter.

      Then the knife completed its arc and the world sped up again. Navy blue flashed before Nia’s eyes. Her attacker jolted and fell to the side. The switchblade hit the polished marble, chimed like a bell and skipped harmlessly away.

      Free! She was free!

      Not stopping to question it, she scrambled to a crouch, ready to escape if possible, fight if necessary. But she didn’t need to do either. Her attacker’s attention had shifted to the old, stoop-shouldered maintenance man who’d come to her rescue.

      Only it wasn’t an old janitor.

      Navy ball cap missing, and a broken-off mop handle in his hands, Rathe faced the bear-size junkie, who swayed on his feet and shook his head as though to clear it. But the rheumy eyes were disconcertingly sharp as they focused with deadly intent.

      “You got money? I need a fix, man. Just gimme a fix and I’ll go away. I don’t want to hurt you, man.” The drug-crazed giant belied this by taking a swipe at Rathe, who darted out of reach.

      “McKay, look out!” Nia cried, then belatedly remembered their cover. She wasn’t supposed to know him.

      His eyes flicked to her, and the junkie charged with a roar, nearly catching the “janitor” by surprise.

      Rathe stepped back and spun the mop handle in a neat one-two-three tattoo that caught the man on the ribs, throat and just behind the ear. Seemingly undeterred, the attacker lurched forward, hamlike arms reaching. But his drug-induced invincibility propelled him straight into a whistling arc of wood as Rathe teed off on his attacker’s temple. And this time, he put some muscle into it. The mop handle met flesh with a thud and a crack as the beleaguered wood broke under pressure. The enormous man dropped like a rock.

      And stayed down.

      Nobody moved for a beat, then scattered applause broke out in the atrium. Voices murmured. Gentle, helping hands tugged at Nia, pulling her to her feet and checking her for injury. But the voices seemed muted, the touches faraway. Her whole attention was centered on the man who stood above his fallen enemy, making the navy janitor’s garb look like a warrior’s armor.

      “Rathe,” she whispered, and though he was twenty feet away, his head snapped up. His eyes found hers, and the energy surged between them as it had once before, hot and wanting, sharp and ready. Then, like a suddenly stilled heart, the connection was broken as he looked away. His shoulders sagged. He seemed to shrink. His eyes dulled to those of a bored laborer whose mind was on other things. He bent and retrieved his ball cap, looking more washed out than he’d been seven years earlier, near dead with fever.

      He’d been holed up in an airport hotel, having landed near collapse and been unable to make it further. Twenty-one-year-old Nadia, halfway through her accelerated M.D., had gotten the message before her father. This was it, she’d thought. This was her way of proving to her father that she was cut out for HFH. Her way of proving to Rathe that she was worthy of—

      “Ma’am? Excuse me, ma’am? The officers are here. Ma’am? Are you okay?” The gentle hands shook her out of the past and back to a present that included a mess of hospital security guards, an unconscious junkie and a switchblade lying, seemingly harmless, on the floor.

      Eyes fixed on the knife, Nia began to shake.

      Over the roaring in her ears, she heard someone say, “Hey, grab her, she’s going to faint!” just as another voice, farther away, asked, “Where’d that janitor go? He was here a minute ago.”

      Rathe. The name steadied her, reminded her she was alive, thanks to him. Reminded her that she had a job to do. The reputation of her sex to uphold. She could imagine him scoffing at her. This is why women shouldn’t be in dangerous field situations. They fall apart.

      Well, damn it. Not her. Not today.

      “I’m fine.” She batted away the helping hands and turned toward the knot of security guards, who gave way to a pair of men in street clothes.

      The younger of the two, handsome in a neat brown suit and crisp white shirt, held out his hand. “Detective Peters, ma’am.” He indicated his partner with his other hand, and a wedding band glinted gold in the light. For some reason Nia found the symbol comforting. “And my partner, Detective Sturgeon. We were in the neighborhood.”

      The older detective, long-jowled and smelling faintly of peppermints, nodded gravely. “Ma’am. What can you tell us about the incident?”

      “He said he wanted my money,” she answered, scrambling to put the kaleidoscopic memories of the last few minutes into some sort of order. “He had needle marks on his arms and his eyes…” She trailed off, realizing something for the first time.

      His eyes had been normal. Calculating. And murderous.

      HALF AN HOUR LATER, Nia fumbled to unlock her office door with shaking hands. She’d answered the detectives’ questions and arranged for them to meet with Talbot and Hart. She’d watched the pockmarked man wake up cursing, and had seen him stagger off between a pair of uniformed officers, still cursing. She’d assured the onlookers she was fine, and professed ignorance at what had become of the janitor.

      All in all, she thought she’d held it together well. But now she was in her office, alone. It was okay to fall apart.

      She closed the door behind her and didn’t turn on the lights as she slumped against the wall and felt the switch poke into her spine. She pressed the back of her hand to her lips and willed the tears to come.

      But there were no tears. In their place was a nagging sense of guilt that she’d realized something important in those last few moments, and it had been just as quickly forgotten. Overlapping that was an edgy energy that seemed to curl red and blue behind her closed eyelids.

      After a few moments the shakes subsided, and Nia realized that whatever stubborn streak had forced her to defy her father’s wishes and go off into the unknown…that part of her wouldn’t let the tears come now.

      “Damn it.” She pushed away from the door, slapped on the light and froze when she saw the man sitting in the chair behind her borrowed desk.

      “My sentiments exactly,” Rathe concurred. His eyes gleamed with an indefinable emotion that sent skitters of heat racing through her body. His cap lay on the desk. The dark blue coveralls were open several buttons at the throat and rolled up at the sleeve to expose the corded muscles beneath the tanned skin of his forearms. His shoulders were square and powerful, and with a start, Nia realized he could turn the uniform from a disguise to a fashion statement with a simple change in posture and expression.

      He stood, uncoiling slowly from the chair as though afraid she might bolt. But bolting was the last thing on her mind as she identified the heady, racing sensation that had pounded through her during the fight and set her hands to shaking afterward. Excitement. This was it. This was the adventure she craved, the thrill she’d been seeking.

      This was it.

      She wasn’t sure why it had been lacking in her previous assignments, or why she’d found it in an urban hospital rather than in the midst of a deep, dark forest, but there it was. The adrenaline poured through her body, throbbed at her nerve endings and clamored in her head. She wanted to run. She wanted to dance, to sing, to tip her head back and scream.

      Wanting

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