Red Alert (5 page)

As far as Annette was concerned, the position should be hers.

Gritting her teeth as Annette sat primly beside Falco, Meg turned to Zach Cage, who sat behind his large, efficiently cluttered desk. “I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,” Falco said. His lips twitched briefly, and she had to give him points for knowing his
Monty Python
.

But all humor fled when Cage gestured her to the remaining empty chair. “Sit. We need to talk about what happened yesterday, and what we’re going to do about it. Annette is here because she’s the head of the hospital ethics committee. Mr. Falco is here to represent his interests.”

Meg winced. Oh, hell. Somehow they’d figured
out that Max had used Raine’s DNA for an unauthorized test. She sat, but stayed forward in her chair as she said, “If we hadn’t done that genetic screen, the patient wouldn’t have been identified as having—”

Cage held up a hand. “I’m not talking about your patients, Dr. Corning. I’m talking about what happened yesterday at the construction site.”

Meg frowned and played it cool, as though she hadn’t dreamed of the fact that she’d almost died. “It was an accident. I’m fine.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” Cage said quietly. He tapped a file folder on his desk. “The permanent railing was removed and somebody sawed through the temporary wood railing. The police have ruled it sabotage. They want to talk to you as soon as we’re done here.”

“But I—” Meg’s breath whooshed out as his words caught up with her brain. “
Sabotage?
Impossible!”

But she flashed back on the jostling crowd. She’d pushed through the pedestrians near the construction site, called Erik’s name, reached for him—

And she’d been bumped from behind. Hard.

“We think the hospital may have been targeted by someone who doesn’t approve of the new wing. This is the latest in a string of problems with the new construction,” Cage said. “When I took over, it seemed reasonable to continue building the Gabney Wing, though of course, under a new name.”

Meg nodded, brain spinning with too much information, too many questions. “Of course.” She knew that the previous head administrator, Leo Gabney,
had put the project into motion before being fired. Though the construction was a major undertaking, so much of the preliminary work had already been done—and paid for—that it had made fiscal sense for the hospital to break ground.

That had been eighteen months ago, and broken ground was almost all they had to show for it now. Broken ground and some cement forms.

Cage shifted in his chair, face creasing with regret. “This added delay—on top of cost overruns—puts me in a tough position. Gabney left us with debts, and the plans weren’t nearly as complete as they appeared at first. We probably shouldn’t have gone ahead with the project, but now that we’ve started building—and made promises to the clinicians and researchers who are lined up to use the space—we can’t turn back.”

Meg’s heart picked up a beat as she realized where this was going. “We’ve already nixed the idea of selling off the NPT technology to cover the construction costs. We agreed that the long-term licensing income outweighed the short term gain from a sale.”

“That was before someone tried to kill you,” Erik said bluntly.

“That’s ridiculous!” She shot to her feet. “You heard what Cage said—the construction project was the target. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Detectives Peters and Sturgeon aren’t so sure,” Falco countered. “Are you willing to bet your life that they’re wrong?”

She glared at him. “You set this up, didn’t you? Cage turned down your repeated offers to buy my patents, so you came up with this…this
farce
to sway him. Well, do you know what? It won’t fly. I wouldn’t sell my work to FalcoTechno if it were—”

“Sit down, Dr. Corning.” Cage’s voice cracked whip-sharp. When she’d taken her seat, his tone softened with regret. “I know you oppose the sale and I know why. I even agree with you to an extent. But I can’t let that dictate hospital policy. With all the cost overruns, we need the money. FalcoTechno has made a more than generous offer, far exceeding what the other companies have—”

Annette broke in. “Excuse me for interrupting, but I’m confused as to why you asked me here. I thought you wanted my opinion on a matter of ethics.”

“Not quite.” Cage nodded to Falco, who leaned down and lifted a briefcase off the floor. He popped the top and withdrew a fat stack of papers as the head administrator said, “I need a committee head to witness any deal over fifty million dollars. Your schedule was open.”

Annette stood. “Next time, ask before you decide my schedule is open. I was in the middle of an important experiment. Get someone else to do your paperwork.”

She stalked out, tension humming in her wake.

Meg expected the head administrator to call her back with a reprimand. Instead he rubbed the back
of his neck. “God, she’s a pain. And she wonders why she keeps getting passed over for promotion.”

Seeing a slim opening, Meg stood and placed herself square in front of the administrator’s desk. “If you can’t do the paperwork right now, give me a chance. I’ll license out the NPT technology to a smaller company, but make sure that Boston General keeps managing interest. Surely you can see the value in that?” She had to protect her work, protect the patients who would benefit from the noninvasive prenatal testing. She lowered her voice so only Cage could hear. “We’ve talked about this. I have to make sure the technology is used correctly.”

There was too much potential for disaster.

Cage looked at her for a long, considering moment before he said, “The sabotage could have been aimed at you, not the hospital. We’re talking about a ton of money here. If someone’s trying to kill the deal by eliminating the driving force behind the technology, then putting the sale through sooner than later will keep you safe.”

“Nobody asked you to protect me,” she said. “I’m tougher than you think. Don’t let Falco talk you into believing something that suits his purposes. I’m not the target. If anything, someone’s finally decided to sabotage Leo Gabney’s white elephant of a construction project. Shut it down and be done with it, but don’t shut me down. I can make the licensing work for both of us. I swear it.”

The head administrator stared at her for so long,
his expression so closed, that she expected him to say no. When he nodded reluctantly, she nearly wept with relief. “Okay,” he said. “You’ve got a month to pull together a profitable licensing proposal that’s ready for my signature, with a company that’s willing to pay for the technology but let us retain veto rights on development.”

“My offer will be revoked once I walk out that door,” Falco said smoothly. “And you know damn well it’s better than you’re going to get anywhere else.”

Meg turned on him. “You want the NPT technology? Then license it.”

He shook his head. “No thanks, I don’t share control. I’ll buy your work, but now, not a month from now.”

Cage snorted. “Don’t try to outnegotiate a negotiator, Falco. If you want the deal badly enough, you’ll wait. Give us one week.”

“One week,” Erik said, his expression suggesting that was what he’d wanted all along. “I can wait that long to own my new technology.”

Meg’s smile held an edge. “You’ll be waiting longer than that.” She headed for the door. “Excuse me, I have calls to make.”

As she strode down the hall toward the elevator, she was already running through the options in her head. A week was better than nothing, but she was going to have trouble licensing out a technology that hadn’t even passed full beta testing yet.

No, that wasn’t true, she acknowledged inwardly.
There were a half dozen companies—Falco’s included—slavering to get their hands on the NPT technology. But it would be more difficult to find one willing to sign the agreement she had in mind, which would restrict the scope of the license to prenatal testing alone.

She and Cage had planned to patent the other aspects of the work and sit on them.

The world wasn’t ready for every facet of the NPT process. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

A door opened and closed behind her, and Falco’s voice called, “Dr. Corning. Meg, wait!”

She stabbed the elevator call button, hoping to escape before he reached her. But his hitching stride ate up the distance between them, and the glowing elevator light stalled on the eighth floor.

He stopped beside her, loomed over her. “Not so fast. You and I are going to be spending some quality time together.”

She glared. “I don’t think so. You heard Cage. I have seven days.”

The elevator doors finally whooshed open, too late to do her any good. She set her teeth as they stepped into the empty car together. Falco hit the button for the ground-floor lobby before he said, “Yeah, and I’m going to stick very close to you for those seven days. Let’s just say I’ve learned my lesson when it comes to trusting women.”

Fuming, Meg turned on him. “How dare you insinuate that I would ever—”

The elevator jolted, throwing her against him. She gasped in alarm and reached up to push away from
him, winding up with both palms flat against his hard, masculine chest. She felt his heartbeat, quick like hers.

Something changed in his expression. “Look, I—”

A grating, popping noise drowned out his next words. A metallic pinging reverberated through the elevator car. The lights died.

And the floor dropped out from underneath them.

Chapter Four

Erik shouted and grabbed Meg. He tried to shield her with his body, but it was impossible. The danger was all around them.

The elevator floor barely pressed against his feet as they fell, giving a sense of weightlessness even as nausea jammed at the back of his throat.

He twisted, still holding Meg against his chest, and slapped the red Emergency Stop button beneath the main panel.

Nothing happened.

He punched the red button harder. “Engage, damn it!”

The brakes locked. Metal screamed and sparks leaped up through the carpeted floor, which jolted and slowed its descent.

Unbalanced by the sudden change in inertia, Erik crashed to the floor. Meg landed atop him, driving the breath from his lungs.

“We’re still moving!” she shouted in his ear, panic cranking her voice to a shriek.

“Hang on!” Erik tightened his arms around her and tucked her face beside his as the grating squeal of metal-on-metal intensified. The howling sound reverberated in his skull until—

Crash!

The impact slammed him flat. His head bounced off the carpeted floor and rebounded into Meg’s shoulder. He cut his lip between his teeth and her collarbone, and tasted blood. Her body dug into his and then sprawled away as a final crashing noise ripped through the small space.

Then the cacophony died, leaving a strange, heavy silence broken only by the strident ring of alarms. A small, battery-powered emergency light provided wan illumination.

They’d hit bottom. They’d survived.

Erik let the knowledge work its way through him, partway expecting relief. He found anger instead. Red, bloody anger.

That was no accident.

It wasn’t until he heard the words echo in the noisy silence that he realized he’d said it out loud.

Beside him, sprawled half over him, Meg moaned and stirred. Her elbow jabbed him in the ribs, and when she rolled off him, she shoved her knee against his bad leg, sending shooting sparks of pain to join the dizzy ache of impact.

Erik buried the wince and turned to look at her. “You okay?”

She levered herself to a seated position, then slumped back against the wall. Her orangey suit and
tall black boots still looked as professional as they had when she’d first stepped into Cage’s office. But her red-gold hair had fallen from its slick knot, making her look less unapproachable. More vulnerable.

She shifted experimentally before she said, “Everything works, if that’s what you’re asking. But no, I’m not okay. We were just…we just…” Her full lower lip trembled until she bit it and mastered the half-formed tears. “Sorry. I’m fine. How about you?”

The sirens cut out then, leaving a chilly silence that was soon broken by thumps overhead.

Far overhead.

“No broken bones, and I’ll settle for that under the circumstances.” Erik grabbed his cane and used it to push himself up off the floor, which was tilted beneath them. He put a steadying hand on the wall and reached up to bang on the ceiling of the elevator car, where a body-size panel hung slightly askew. “Looks like this’ll be our way out. You want me to boost you up, or would you rather wait for an official rescue?”

The thumping noises increased overhead as Meg’s eyes met his. “What if that’s not the official rescue?” she asked quietly.

Then we’re sitting ducks, he thought. With the elevator lying at the bottom of the shaft, there was no way they were getting the main doors open. It was out the top or nothing.

But the question remained… What if whoever had engineered the fall was up there waiting?

He saw understanding in her eyes, a grim sort of fatalism that clashed with his impression of the woman. It made him wonder if there was more to her than the academic exterior she projected. His investigators had mentioned she’d been a bit of a hellion in her younger years, and concluded she’d outgrown the risk-taking behavior. Her quiet calm made him wonder whether she’d retained more of her skydiving, bungee-jumping past than she let on.

Or,
his suspicious side prompted,
maybe she’s like Celia. Maybe this is all part of a plan.

“Boost me up,” she ordered.

He stared for a moment, as her image merged in his mind with that of another woman, lighter in coloring except for the red slash of her painted lips.

Then he shook his head to banish the image. Celia was gone for twenty-to-life and had no place in his head. Meg Corning was nothing like her.

Nothing at all.

“I’ll go first,” he said finally. He motioned her to the corner as the banging continued overhead. “Watch yourself.”