Racing Against the Clock

How had he slipped? Usually, he maintained an impassive countenance. The stone wall he had erected over the years served him quite well. He lived his life on the surface, never delving too deeply into anything or anyone. Hadn’t he prided himself on masking his feelings, on how well he kept out of his patients’ personal lives? No cozy bedside manner for Tyler Fresno. He was all business. His colleagues admired his objectivity, his self-reliance. What would they say if they knew about the tender emotions Jane Doe had stirred in him?

He’d better watch himself. If Danny had picked up on his mind-set, others would too.

“You’re full of romantic blarney, Danny O’Brien,” Tyler said gruffly.

“Yes.” Danny’s eyes twinkled. “But without a little romantic drama where would a man be?”

Where indeed?

Then Tyler realized with alarming consternation the door he had slammed and locked shut six years ago had fallen off its hinges, revealing a gaping hole just aching to be filled.

Time was running out.

Dr. Hannah Zachary couldn’t afford the luxury of a hospital stay. She had to find Marcus. It was imperative.

He was the only one who could help her now. The only one who could understand the gravity of the situation.

Lionel Daycon and his nefarious cronies would stop at nothing. She had learned that tragic lesson all too well and now she was paying a very high price for her naiveté.

Hannah bit down hard on her bottom lip, fighting back the swell of tears. She had no time for self-pity. Too much was at stake. Too many lives hung in the balance. It was up to her to stop Daycon before he unleashed Virusall on an unsuspecting world.

Virusall. The elixir that was supposed to have been a miracle cure that obliterated all viruses. A unique and stunning medication that anticipated a virus’s ability to mutate and destroyed it completely.

Virusall. The drug she had invented. The drug that had once promised to revolutionize medicine.

Until three days ago when the results of the initial clinical trials had started coming in and her world had collapsed.

Hannah shuddered against the memory. The side effects were horrific. Everyone with type O blood who used Virusall experienced violent psychotic episodes three to four weeks after they’d ingested the drug. One test subject had committed suicide, another had beaten his family, yet another had randomly attacked a group of schoolchildren.

And she was the one responsible.

Hannah shuddered again.

Immediately after receiving the first disturbing report, she’d gone to see her boss Lionel Daycon. She’d never liked the unctuous man, but he’d had deep pockets and an amazing laboratory. He’d left her alone to work as she pleased, and Hannah had convinced herself that carrying out her deceased parents’ ground-breaking experiments with the Ebola virus was far more important than trusting her boss. The virus had killed her parents. There was no better way to honor their deaths.

How she’d deluded herself!

On Monday afternoon, she’d walked into Daycon’s office, but he wasn’t there. Restless, agitated, she’d begun to pace and that’s when the fax had come through. When the faxed paper floated to the floor, she’d picked it up. She hadn’t meant to violate Daycon’s privacy, but the word Virusall had caught her eye and compelled, she’d read on.

By the end of the letter, she was trembling with fear and fury.

What she learned from the fax was that Daycon had known for days about Virusall’s deadly side effects. Not only had he known about it, but he was capitalizing on it. He’d been corresponding with overseas terrorists, promising them tailor-made assassins for exorbitant sums of money. All they had to do was administer Virusall to anyone with type O blood, wait a few weeks and then put a weapon in their hands. Absolutely, carnage would result.

Most alarming of all, however, was that the fax had originated from inside the CIA. Someone high up in the government was not only sanctioning Daycon’s exploits, but had actually instigated the contacts for him.

Armed with this knowledge, she knew she couldn’t risk going to the authorities. Desperate to keep the drug out of the wrong hands, Hannah had taken an irrevocable step by obliterating every scrap of written data related to the drug. Except for an e-mail message she’d sent to Marcus that included an encrypted formula for Virusall.

She’d also had the presence of mind to reserve ten vials of the elixir in hopes that she and Marcus might create an antidote together in order to administer it to those unfortunate test subjects. She’d packed the vials carefully and secured them in a metal lockbox. After that, she’d set fire to the lab and fled without even retrieving her purse from the bottom drawer of her desk.

And then one cold, dreary November evening two desperate days later somewhere outside of Houston, on a stretch of rain-soaked highway, Daycon’s henchmen had run her off the road. Only the presence of concerned motorists pulling over to help had saved her.

She recalled the sickening crunch of metal as her little Fiat had hydroplaned after being struck repeatedly by the henchmen’s car. It had hit the median and rolled end over end. She cringed as she heard again the sound of her own screams, as the impact had wrenched open the lockbox sending the glass vials flying around the car. She’d felt the hot splash of Virusall burn her skin in numerous places and she remembered saying a prayer of thanks that she had type AB negative blood just before she’d lost consciousness.

Somewhere, Daycon’s goons still lurked, waiting for the opportunity to finish the job they’d left undone.

She had to get out of here.

Now.

Five minutes after Dr. Be-Still-My-Beating-Heart Fresno had left her alone, Hannah sat up on the gurney, flung back the stiff green sheet that smelled of antiseptic and peered down at her right leg. Hadn’t he claimed her femur was fractured?

Tentatively, she ran a hand along her thigh. Her leg seemed fine. Puzzled, Hannah looked around the room at the medical equipment stored on the shelves. A defibrillator and crash cart stood beside a suction machine and a heart monitor. She heard the steady blip, and saw that her heart rhythm was normal. Leaning over, Hannah flicked the Off button, silencing the machine.

The overhead lights beamed down hot and bright. She wore a flimsy hospital gown and nothing else. Not even her underwear. Where were her clothes?

Plucking the oxygen tubing from her nose and peeling the sticky monitor pads from her chest, she then carefully swung her legs over the edge of the gurney. Her head swam and she was forced to grip the railing for support. Once she had regained her equilibrium, Hannah eased her bare feet onto the tile floor and hissed in a breath against the shocking coldness.

She had to get out of here. Before Daycon’s goons came back. Before the police showed up. Before Dr. Handsome returned and started demanding answers. She knew he hadn’t believed her when she’d lied about not knowing her own name. She had seen the suspicion in his dark eyes, had heard the doubt echo in the richly resonant tones that matched his cautious demeanor. She lied to protect him, to keep him from getting any more involved with her than he already was.

And any minute he would be back, wanting to take her to surgery. Hannah couldn’t allow that to happen. If she succumbed to anesthesia she would be too vulnerable.

What a predicament.

She had no money, no identification and no clothes. Plus, she had a movie-star handsome doctor who made her pulse race and wanted to slice her open. To top it all off, she was starving.

As if to illustrate the point, her stomach growled.

“Forget food. Get moving, Hannah,” she whispered.

First things first. She had to focus, had to find where the hospital staff had stashed her clothes. She took a hesitant step toward the cabinet below the shiny stainless-steel sink in the corner. Her leg seemed to be working fine. Fractured indeed. Dr. Handsome had better learn how to read X rays. Thankfully for her, his diagnosis left a lot to be desired.

Reassured that everything was in proper working order, she stalked over to the sink and rummaged beneath it. Betadine wash. Antiseptic hand soap. Scrub brushes. Nothing that looked like her beige car coat, navy-blue jumper, black penny loafers and white-lace cotton blouse.

Hurry, you’ve got to get out of here before that studly doctor comes back.

She shut the cabinet door and closing the back of her immodest hospital gown with two fingers, moved across the floor to investigate the other side of the room.

There was a brown paper sack on the floor wedged behind a chair, beneath a heavy metal supply rack.

Aha. This looked promising.

Hannah bent over and touched the sack with her fingertips, but her arms were too short to reach it. The sack slid farther against the wall.

Shoot.

She settled herself onto her knees in the chair and leaned over the back, allowing the tail of her gown to flap as she strained to extend her arm. She was concentrating so hard on reaching her coveted prize that she didn’t hear the door whisper open, but the next sound drew her attention.

A throat being cleared.