the patient out of there. Plus, if she missed
her interview, questions would start rolling.
Trying to get a grip, Jane closed herself in the bathroom, the lock of which had been removed,
natch. After using the facilities, she washed her face and grabbed a towel that was hanging off
the back of the door. As she put her nose into the folds, she caught an amazing scent that stopped
her dead. It was the smell of the patient. He must have used this, probably before he went out
and took that bullet in the chest.
She closed her eyes and breathed in deep. Sex was the first and only thing that came to her mind.
God, if they could bottle this, these boys could feed their gambling and drug habits by going
legit.
Disgust with herself, she dropped the towel like it was trash and caught a flash behind the toilet.
Bending down to the marble tile, she found a straight-edged razor, the old-fashioned kind that
made her think of Western movies. As she picked it up, she stared at the shiny blade.
Now, this was a fine weapon, she thought. A damn fine weapon.
She slipped it in her white coat just as she heard the bedroom door open.
Leaving the bathroom, she kept her hand in her pocket and her eyes sharp. Red Sox was back,
and he had a pair of duffels with him. The load didn't seem substantial, at least not for someone
as big as him, but he struggled under it.
«This should be a good enough start,» he said in a raspy, tired voice, the word start pronounced
staht in classic Bostonian fashion.
«Start what?»
«Treating him.»
«Excuse me?»
Red Sox bent down and opened one of the bags. Inside were boxes of bandages and gauze wraps.
Latex gloves. Plastic mauve bedpans. Bottles of pills.
«He told us what you'd need.»
«Did he.» Damn it. She had no interest in playing doc. It was a big enough job being Kidnap
Victim, thank you very much.
The guy straightened carefully, like he was lightheaded. «You're going to take care of him.»
«Am I?»
«Yeah. And before you ask, yes, you're going to make it out of here alive.»
«Assuming I do the medical thing, right?»
«Pretty much. But I'm not worried. You'd do it anyway, wouldn't you.»
Jane stared at the guy. Not much showed of his face underneath the baseball cap, but his jaw had
a curve to it she recognized. And there was that Boston accent.
«Do I know you?» she asked.
«Not anymore.»
In the silence she ran a clinical eye over him. His skin was gray and pasty, his cheeks hollow, his
hands shaking. He looked like he'd been on a two-week bender, weaving on his feet, his
breathing off. And what was that smell? God, he reminded her of her grandmother: all denatured
perfume and facial powder. Or… maybe it was something else, something that took her back to
medical school… Yeah, that was more like it. He reeked of formaldehyde from Gross Human
Anatomy.
He certainly had the pallor of a corpse. And ill as he was, she wondered if she might be able to
take him down.
Feeling the razor in her pocket, she measured the distance between them and decided to hang
tight. Even though he was weak, the door was shut and relocked. If she attacked him, she'd just
risk getting hurt or killed and wouldn't be any closer to getting out. Her best bet was to wait next
to the jamb until one of them came in. She was going to need the element of surprise, because
sure as hell they would overpower her otherwise.
Except what did she do once she was on the other side? Was she in a big house? A little one?
She had a feeling that the Fort Knox routine on the windows was standard-issue everywhere else.
«I want out,» she said.
Red Sox exhaled like he was exhausted. «In a couple of days you'll go back to your life without
remembering any of this.»
«Yeah, right. Being kidnapped has a way of sticking with a person.»
«You'll see. Or not, as the case will be.» As Red Sox went to the bedside, he used the bureau,
then the wall to steady himself. «He looks better.»
She wanted to shout at him to get away from her patient.
«V?» Red Sox sat down carefully on the bed. «V?»
The patient's eyes opened after a moment, and the corner of his mouth twitched. «Cop.»
The two men reached for each other's hands at exactly the same moment, and as she watched
them, she decided the two of them had to be brothers-except their coloring was so different.
Maybe they were just tight friends? Or lovers?
The patient's eyes slid over to her and ran
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