to get up and shuddered as she leaned over him - her hands on each of his shoulders, pressing him back
into the mattress - and her face swam into focus above him.
"Don't worry, my Celtic warrior," she said, her lips easing into a mocking smile, "We're going to take
very good care of you."
Two*
Rhianna's plane touched down at a quarter to two in the afternoon and taxied roughly over the tarmac.
It had been a harrowing commuter hop from Chicago with a hellish thunderstorm buffeting the plane. She
was thankful to be on the ground, relieved the lightning zapping all around them had not decided to spear
the propjet like a shish-ka-bob.
Beside her, Boucharde was gripping the armrests of his seat as though he, and he alone, had been able
to hold the aircraft together during the storm.
"We're on the ground, Mr. Fibber Man."
"Eat shit and die, Marek."
"Why, Franc," she teased, "a big, bad Bureau agent like you wasn't afraid of a little rain, was he?"
"I hate thunderstorms." He released his taut grip on the armrest as the plane rolled to a stop at the
jetway. "I fucking
hate
thunderstorms."
"And such language from one of Mr. Hoover's best?" She clucked her tongue. "Shame on you!"
He snorted and hurriedly unsnapped his seat belt. "And I don't like being confined during a
thunderstorm!"
"Where did you think you could have gone up there, Boucharde?" She laughed. "Out for a stroll on the
wing?"
"Knock it off."
She understood his phobia; hers was elevators. She patted his hand and when he turned to her with a
scathing look, she smiled to let him know she'd only been kidding.
"You want me to drop you off at the station?" he asked, somewhat mollified.
"My car's there," she answered, "but I'd kind of like to go by the clinic and - "
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know why I don't just use what little authority I have and get you in to see
the man."
Her eyes lit up. "Would you?"
Franc Boucharde looked at her. For one moment he entertained the idea of telling her how he felt, but
cast it aside. She wasn't interested; her beaming face told him as much.
"Sure," he said, standing up to retrieve their raincoats from the overhead compartment. "Why the hell
not?"
****
Erica Bochner recognized Rhianna Marek walking down the corridor toward Nolan's room. She
slipped into the room from which she'd been exiting. Cursing beneath her breath, Erica waited just inside
a dying patient's room, ignoring the man's low call for comfort.
She heard the guard outside Nolan's door speaking to Marek, heard the door open and close, then let
out a long and annoyed breath. This had not been expected. Marek should not be there.
"Nurse, please," Dennis Clark beseeched her. "I need something for the pain."
Erica turned around and glared at the young man who was rapidly succumbing to the HIV virus that
ravaged him. "All right," she promised, feeling just a little sorry for him. After all, he'd be dying that
evening. Erica looked forward to putting him out of his misery.
Opening the door, she stuck her head out, making sure the corridor was clear, before hurrying out and
away. As she walked - feeling eyes on her back as her rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the tile - she put
a little extra wiggle in her walk for the Federal Marshal to appreciate. Risking being recognized by Marek
should the woman come out of Nolan's room unexpectedly, she turned and smiled promisingly at the man
guarding Nolan's door. He grinned back and Erica Bochner, alias Felicity Rogers, blew him a saucy kiss.
****
The Vistaril had made him groggy, but it had done little to impede his attempt to get off the bed and
away from the woman who had brought this hell down on him in the first place. He had pulled the IV
from his hand, the oxygen tube from his nose, and had managed to swing his legs over the side of the bed
before the door opened and he heard a soft, agitated gasp.
"What are you
doing?
"
He looked around, stunned by the sound of that voice, and opened his mouth to speak before his legs
shot out from beneath him and he went down, hitting the floor hard on his tailbone, his teeth clicking
together.
"Marshal!
"
Rhianna was over him, on her knees beside him, before he could try to rise. Someone hefted him
beneath his armpits and he felt Rhianna's hands on his legs as he was lifted back onto the bed.
"What is going on here?" It was the stern, uncompromising voice of the first nurse who had spoken to
him earlier.
"He was trying to get out of bed when I came in," he heard Rhianna explaining.
"You pulled the IV out of your arm. Shame on you, Mr. Nolan!" the nurse accused. She was pressing
down on the top of his hand with the thumb of one hand while she repeatedly clicked the call button with
the other.
"Rhianna," he croaked and his throat felt on fire with pain. "She's here."
"What?" Rhianna said, having trouble hearing him over the nurse's clipped orders to whoever was on
the desk.
"She's here," he repeated.
"You'll have to wait out in the hall," the nurse snapped at Rhianna, taking a firm hold on her shoulders
and turning her toward the door.
"No," he whispered, seeing squiggly black lines forming along the periphery of his vision. He was
passing out and he couldn't allow himself to do that. "Rhee…"
"I knew this was a bad idea," the head nurse hissed. She pushed Rhianna out into the hall, shoved the
Federal Marshal out behind her and stormed back to the bed. "Be quiet, young man!" she ordered.
"She's here," he said, feeling himself slipping away. "Tell Rhee, she's here."
"Yes, and I can assure you Detective Marek will
not
be coming back in here anytime soon!"
As the night folded over him and closed him off from the light, he tried to make the woman hovering
above him - the woman piercing his flesh with her needle and tube - understand that his life was in
danger. He tried unsuccessfully to tell her.
"You're safe," he heard her saying from a long way off.
No, he thought with growing terror.
He was not.
****
Caitlin Greiner was livid as she stormed down the hallway into the squad room and threw open the
door to Captain Darlington's office before anyone could stop her. "_How dare you?_" everyone heard
her shout. "I am going to sue you, Rhianna Marek, and the entire city of New Gregory for every last
penny you possess!"
Joey Cortesio leaned back in his chair and, like the others listening with rapt attention to the shrieking
harridan in Darlington's office, grinned.
"Who's the broad?" Corbettson snorted as he came out of the break room.
"Irish's sister," Fullick informed him.
"Figures," Corbettson grunted. "What's she bitching about?"
"That FBI guy? Boucharde? He got Rhianna in to see Irish and Rhee found him trying to get out of
bed. There was some big commotion and they threw Marek out of the clinic."
Corbettson rolled his eyes. "She just can't keep away from that prick, can she?" He stared over his
cup of coffee at the woman screaming out her invectives to the captain. "I take it that broad doesn't like
Marek much, huh?"
"I guess not," Fullick commented.
"My brother is an ass, Captain Darlington, but he is still family. He is incapable of knowing what is best
for him so I will have to make the decisions for him. I will not have that woman near him. Do you
understand me?" Caitlin Greiner's voice was shrill and challenging as she punctuated her words with
sharp raps of her fist on Darlington's desk.
C.C. Corbettson's eyes filled with speculation as he continued to watch and listen to the angry woman
bombarding Darlington with threats and warnings. When he saw her preparing to leave, he set his cup
down and stood up.
Cortesio shook his head with disgust as Caitlin Nolan Greiner exploded out of the captain's office and,
shoving Trip out of her way rampaged her way back down the hallway and out of sight. "Bitch," he
labeled her and picked up the phone, jabbed in a number. "Special Agent Boucharde, please. Detective
Cortesio calling." When Boucharde came on the line, he told him what had just happened.
"She's probably on her way over here," the Fibber said dryly. "Thanks for the warning."
"Do you know where Rhianna is?" Joey asked.
"I think she went home to shower and change. Why?"
"There's a guy called about half an hour ago and he said he needed to talk to her. He's on his way
down here from the airport."
"Airport?" Boucharde questioned. "Did he give you a name?"
"Yeah. Cullen. Jamie Cullen."
****
"Ma'am?" Corbettson called out, jogging to catch up with the woman stalking across the parking lot.
Caitlin turned, hissed like a wet cat, then spun back around, ignoring Corbettson.
"Miss Nolan! Wait just a minute!"
She had reached her car and was yanking the door open when he finally caught up with her. "What the
fuck do you want?" she demanded, facing him.
Corbettson's lips pulled back in an appreciative grin, "I'd like to help you," he said.
Caitlin raked him with a disgusted glance, "I don't need help from a cocksucker who can't even take
the time to make sure his fucking socks match!"
Brought up short by her remark, C.C.'s attention dipped swiftly to his feet, then his head came up with
a snap, "They match," he said.
"One is black," she sneered at him as though he were the village idiot, "and the other is navy blue."
He whistled. "You can tell from one look?"
"Get the hell away from me, you motherfucker!" she grated, put a hand in the center of his chest and
pushed.
Corbettson's hand snaked out and caught hers. His fingers closed tightly - grinding the fragile bones
together. He bent her arm to the side, watching her eyes widened in pain.
"Nobody
calls me a motherfucker, cunt!" he rasped, jerking her up to his chest, then backing her into
the side panel of her car. "You got that?" He pressed against her.
Caitlin made a snarling sound and she tried to bring her knee up into his groin, but he was faster. His
knee went between her legs and jerked upward, lifting her from the payment as his barrel-like chest
smashed cruelly into her breasts. "Be still!" he ordered through clenched teeth.
"You… are… hurting… me," she grunted, trying to rake the nails of her free hand down his arm. He
grabbed that hand, too, and crucified it against the hot metal of the car roof before she could jerk away.
"Be still!" he repeated and his knee lifted her higher.
Caitlin's head was thrown back over the top of the car and she glared down her nose at him. "Let go,"
she demanded.
Something in the way she looked at him, the way she spoke, told Corbettson she wasn't disliking his
manhandling of her. If anything, the excitement in her flashing eyes gave him permission to continue. He
knew his own kind when he saw one.
"You married?" he asked, grinding against her.
"What if I am?" Caitlin spat. She liked the fevered glow in his eyes; liked the painful strength in his
hands as his cruel grip tightened and wondered what it would feel like to have him hit her, to feel that
rough palm along her cheek.
"It wouldn't matter," he said. He leaned into her, pressing her breasts flat, hurting her, and grinning at
the little growl of pleasure that came from her throat.
"Who are you?" Caitlin asked, licking her lips.
"Your savior, baby," he answered.
****
Rain lashed at the windows and pelted the roof; the onslaught sounded like pebbles bouncing against
an overstuffed pillow. The sky beyond the panes was a dark gunmetal gray, shooting tracers of lightning,
and the wind shrieked.
Trip watched Rhianna pacing in front of the double living room windows and wondered if he should try
to calm her. If the woman didn't wear out the carpet beneath her bare feet, she'd soon wear herself out,
so he just relaxed in the recliner and allowed her to take out her frustrations on the squeaking floor.
"Where was he going?" she asked again. "What was he trying to do? He was trying to leave the clinic."
Knowing there was no acceptable way to answer the rhetorical question, Marek's partner kept silent.
"He looked scared, Triplett."
"He'd just woke up in a strange place with strange people around him," Trip commented. "After
everything he's been through, it's understandable that he might be a bit confused."
"He was scared. Not confused. He knew who I was."
"Yes, but he didn't know who they were."
"I didn't even get a chance to talk to him."
"No, but you got a chance to see that he was all right."
"He was scared."
Trip sighed. It wouldn't do any good to argue with Marek when she was like this. It was her
hardheaded German-Dutch ancestry from her father's people and the West of Ireland stubbornness and
Cherokee Indian single-mindedness of her mother's that made her so obstinate. The combination was
lethal. It was also maddening.
"What was he scared of?"
"Maybe he heard you were coming to visit and was trying to get away," Trip mumbled.
Rhianna stopped pacing and turned to glare at him. "Very funny."
"The man is in protective custody. Can't nobody get to him. I know that's what's got you so spooked.