Crossing the Line

Mark shook his head. “Don’t ask.”

She’s available.

It was the wrong thought to think. He should have been wondering what had caused their breakup, but it was too soon to ask probing personal questions of Mark. Tread lightly and trust no one. It was, after all, his lifelong motto.

He had to forget the redhead. The fact that she’d rattled his concentration bothered him almost as much as the rattling itself. He was not a man easily swayed from his objective.

It was the memory of his sister and the filthy alley where her body had been found that had him steeling his mind, clenching his fists. She’d overdosed on heroin, but the medical examiner had found that her death was not accidental. Ligature marks on her wrists had told the tale. She’d been tied up and forcibly injected. She’d been murdered and Dante had never forgiven himself for not protecting her.

As part of his penance, Dante would do whatever it took to bring the bastard responsible for putting Rapture in the underground drug pipeline to justice, and if Mark was that bastard, then so be it.

“Here we are.” Mark pushed through the frosted-glass double doors marked Doctors Only.

Behind the doors was a collection of well-heeled doctors mingling in an atmosphere of opulence. This room, with its designer draperies, Persian rug, a marble waterfall and chic modern furniture, was a far cry from the sparse, functional doctors’ lounge at the county hospital in Dallas where Dante had done his internship.

“Here he is,” Mark called out to the gathered contingency. “Our newest plastic surgeon and my old college roommate, Dante Nash.”

There was a polite smattering of applause. Someone gave Dante a new scalpel and told him to cut the cake that read in neon-blue buttercream icing, Welcome to Confidential Rejuvenations, Dr. Nash.

He felt like rolling his eyes at the pomp, but in the spirit of cozying up to his new colleagues, he forced a grin. Unsheathing the blade, he then made a precision slice right through the middle of the N in his last name.

Someone else handed him a flute of champagne. He felt awkward as hell standing there with a glass of Dom Perignon at nine o’clock in the morning, but he had to act as if he expected such treatment. He forced himself to take a sip.

Mark took him around the room, introducing him to the people gathered.

Dr. Jarrod Butler was the chief of staff. He had a lanky build and a leisurely way of speaking that reminded Dante of Gregory Peck’s classic role of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. Dante guessed Butler was in his early sixties; he was the most senior person in the room.

The chief of surgery, Wilson Covey, was a few years younger than Butler. He had the square, muscular build of a boxer and wore his salt-and-pepper hair slicked back off his forehead. He had a broad smile and a booming voice that seemed more suited to coaching basketball than practicing medicine.

Together Butler, Covey and Mark co-owned Confidential Rejuvenations. Dante had already met Butler and Covey during his initial interview. Both doctors hailed from a long line of money, and they looked the part. Dignified, impeccably dressed, well-mannered and reserved. They wielded a subtle but undeniable power. What Dante hadn’t been able to figure out was how Mark had managed to swing a partnership with these guys.

Beyond those three, there were thirteen other doctors in the lounge, five women, eight men. They held a variety of specialties, particular to a private facility like Confidential Rejuvenations, ranging from psychiatry to substance abuse to antiaging. They were dressed like celebrities in their high-end fashions and designer suits. Clothing targeted at impressing their discerning clientele. The most memorable of the group was a fellow surgeon, a young Latina woman named Vanessa Rodriquez.

Vanessa possessed a firm handshake, cautious eyes and a penetrating way of looking at him as if she knew exactly who he was and what he was trying to hide. Her stare was unnerving because he could not peg her. Her nails were perfectly manicured, her makeup as flawless as a runway model’s. The woman was a beauty with her raven hair and sultry black eyes, but Dante had a thing for redheads. In spite of the care this woman took with her appearance, there was something about the defensive tilt to her shoulders that told him she wasn’t entirely comfortable in this group.

Did she have a past she was trying too hard to deny? What was her background? Why was she, at her age, working at a cushy place like Confidential Rejuvenations when she would get so much more experience at a county hospital? The questions intrigued him. He was going to keep a very close eye on Dr. Rodriquez.

She held out a slender hand. He noticed she wasn’t having any champagne. “It’s nice to have you here, Dr. Nash. And it’s encouraging that we’re attracting such distinguished talent, especially after what’s been happening.”

“Excuse me?” Dante raised an eyebrow. “What’s been happening?”

She looked surprised. “Mark didn’t tell you?”

“About what?” He’d been there less than an hour and already he felt the energy of a dozen hidden secrets.

Vanessa shot a glance at Mark who was deep in conversation withWilson Covey. “That was unfair of him not to tell you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’ve been some…” She paused a moment before finishing with, “unusual occurrences around here lately.”

“Unusual occurrences?”

She shrugged and gave him an enigmatic smile.

“Are you always this cryptic?” he asked. “What’s the big mystery?”

She ducked her head, lowered her eyes. “I work at Confidential Rejuvenations. As our motto goes, ‘You do it, we keep it strictly confidential.’”

“That’s the motto?”

Dr. Rodriquez shrugged. “If you have questions, you should talk to Mark. Anyway, welcome aboard. It was nice meeting you, but I’ve got surgery in thirty minutes.” With a wave of her fingertips, she was gone.

Twenty minutes later the welcome reception began breaking up as the doctors wandered off to make morning rounds.

“Come on,” Mark inclined his head toward the back exit. “I’ll show you to your office.”

Dante set down his champagne glass and followed Mark out into the corridor. He was ready to get to work.

They left the hospital proper and took the flagstone path to the physicians’ offices at the back of the property. Inside the clean, glossy building Mark introduced him to the perky young receptionist named Hailey. She looked barely out of high school, had a subtle tattoo of a blue butterfly on the inside of her wrist and she blushed when Dante shook her hand.

“Here we are.” Mark stopped outside the fifth office on the left and handed Dante a key. He clamped a hand on his shoulder. “I can’t tell you how good it is to have you at Confidential Rejuvenations. Feels like old times.”

“It’s great to be here,” Dante said. It wasn’t a lie. It was great to be so close to catching the low-life scum who was poisoning people with dangerous designer street drugs.

“I’ll let you get settled in,” Mark said. “If you need anything, just ask Hailey. I’ve got rounds, but I’ll be back at noon and we can grab some lunch and do a little reminiscing about our football glory days at UT.”

He nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

Mark closed the door after him, leaving Dante alone in the office that was three times the size of his office in Quantico. He ran a hand along the polished mahogany desk, spun the leather swivel chair, thickly padded and handstitched. His feet sank into the opulent Karastan carpet patterned in a burgundy, black and beige paisley. He walked over to flip the special-order wood blinds covering a wide picture window behind the desk, and his gaze traveled to the built-in floor-to-ceiling bookcases, chock-full of medical tomes, lining two of the four walls.

The place was too cushy, too plush. A doctor could get very soft here. Dante curled his lip in distaste. Was that what had happened to his ex-roommate? Had he gotten so accustomed to living the good life that greed had driven him to start producing Rapture?

You don’t know for sure that Mark is involved. It could be anyone. Covey, Butler, Dr. Rodriquez, the orderly named Ricky, even Elle.

Dante fisted his hands. He didn’t know the answer for sure, but he was going to find out. He remembered Mark’s hunger for the finer things in life. They’d both grownup with similar backgrounds—absent mother, abusive father, oldest sibling. And they were both high achievers, striving to escape the dire circumstances they’d been born into. But where Mark placed high values on material possessions and grandiose titles, Dante valued ideals like honor and integrity.

And revenge.

It was true. Revenge was a stronger motivator than either honor or integrity. If he wasn’t so determined to put Furio Gambezi behind bars for Leeza’s death, he wouldn’t be undercover, lying about who he was. Spying on people who assumed he was their friend.

The two sides of Dante’s personality warred.

The humanitarian part of him was disgusted at how low he’d stooped. But another part of him, the bloodthirsty side, realized the end did indeed justify the means. When Gambezi and the scum who was supplying the gangster with Rapture were off the streets, countless lives would be spared. For that goal, the cost of Dante’s integrity was a small price to pay. He couldn’t lose sight of it.

Still, he found betraying his own ideals hard to live with. He crossed to the window and opened the blinds, hoping that a glimpse at nature would soothe the battle going on in his head.

Hands jammed into his pockets, he stared out the window to where the verdant field trailed off into a copse of oak and pecan trees. The sky had become overcast since he’d been inside; he remembered the weather report had called for an afternoon drizzle. It had rolled in early from the Colorado River, bringing a gray but compelling dampness.