Crossing the Line Read online

  “Morning Dr. D.,” Hailey greeted him as he walked through the door. “Wasn’t Pete Russell’s party awesome?”

  Before he could answer her, the hospital intercom went off.

  “Code Silver, E.D. Code Silver, E.D. Code Silver, E.D.”

  Code Silver?

  Code Silver meant there was a hostage situation in the emergency department.

  Elle!

  Pivoting on his heel, he turned and rushed back the way he’d come, his temples pounding, pulse racing. Seconds later, he rounded the hospital corridor leading to the E.D.

  The hallway was completely empty, no one in sight. Everyone had taken cover or got their patients outside to safety as part of the Code Silver protocol.

  In the distance, he heard the wail of sirens. The cops were on the way.

  The scene was eerily reminiscent of his first day on the job, but that situation had been a disaster drill. This was real.

  Without a thought for his own safety, Dante strode through the double doors and into the work lane. Papers were strewn across the room, equipment knocked over, glass lay shattered on the floor.

  Several of the E.D. nurses and Maxine Woodbury stood huddled in the corner by the front desk. A cold splash of reality followed by the bracing slap of adrenaline, doused him like ice water in the face. The air in his lungs turned turgid and his blood drummed heavily though his ears.

  There was Elle, her neck caught in the crook of a young man’s elbow. His eyes were wild, pupils dilated; his mused hair stood straight up on his head. In his other hand, he held a gleaming scalpel against Elle’s carotid artery.

  True terror seized Dante. Even without meaning to, the drug-crazed kid could kill her. One slip of the knife and she was dead.

  Dante thought about the gun hidden in the ankle holster beneath his silk suit, but he knew he wouldn’t have a chance to go for it.

  “Stay away,” the young man threatened, his gaze flashing from the huddled nurses to Dante. “Or I’ll slice her throat wide open.”

  Anger gripped Dante, replacing his terror. Rage furrowed his brow, tightening the corners of his mouth and narrowing his eyes. He was ensnared in the grip of his old but dangerous friend once more. Fury, pure and clean and trustworthy.

  He fisted his hands, cocked his knees, ready to spring. And then his eyes met Elle’s.

  No, she mouthed silently and her serene energy seemed to snap through the work lane and enter his body.

  Holding her steady gaze, a strange sense of calm pushed aside his anger. Dante remembered what she’d told him the very day they’d met, right here, in this very spot, during her mock disaster drill.

  He knew what he had to do.

  “What’s your name?” Dante asked.

  “None of your damn business,” the young man replied.

  “It’s Greg,” whispered nurse Jenny Lucas. “Greg Browning.”

  “It’s okay, Greg.” He raised both hands, and swung his attention from Elle to the crazed young man. Everything in Dante wanted just to spring at the kid and disarm him the way he’d disarmed the orderly Ricky on his first day, but he could not risk it. Not with Elle’s life at stake. He had to control his anger and put himself in Greg Browning’s shoes and show the kid a little empathy.

  “No one’s going to hurt you,” Dante said in the most soothing voice he could muster.

  “She was.” The kid tightened his grip on Elle’s neck. “She was gonna take away my high.”

  “Desocan,” said one of the nurses huddled in the corner between Dante and the disturbed patient. “She was trying to give him Desocan.”

  “I just wanna make love,” the kid said, lightly stroking Elle’s throat with the tip of the scalpel. “And she wanted to stop me.”

  “No one’s going to give you anything you don’t want.” Dante said. “Please, put the knife down. You don’t want to hurt anyone. I can tell you’re a good person.”

  Outside the hospital, the sirens screeched to a halt.

  “The cops!” The kid’s glassy-eyed stare shot wildly toward the door. “They’re going to take me to jail.”

  “Not if you put down the knife,” Dante said evenly. “We’ll tell them it was all a misunderstanding. That we were having a disaster drill and role-playing a hostage situation and someone misunderstood.”

  “You’d do that?” The kid looked as though he desperately wanted to trust someone.

  Dante dared to inch a step closer and the kid tolerated it. He had to defuse the situation before the cops came through that door, or the kid could very easily slit Elle’s throat out of panic and fear. Dante didn’t have much time.

  “Listen to me, Greg. We know that you got hold of some bad designer drug—it’s happening to a lot of people. We know you didn’t mean to cause any trouble. Please don’t do anything to make things worse for yourself.”

  Dante took another step forward.

  Greg darted his gaze back and forth from Dante to the door, desperate for a way out.

  “Let her go,” Dante prompted softly.

  “I…I…”

  “Your thinking is a little cloudy. Everything feels distorted. You’re floating. Not sure if what you’re feeling is real or not.”

  The kid nodded.

  “I understand.” Another step, and then another. Dante was almost there, but he couldn’t rush it and yet he couldn’t wait too long.

  “I was where you were once—young, confused, mixed up with the wrong crowd—but look at me. I turned away from that path and now I’m a doctor. This can all go away. You can have a fresh start. Please, just put down the knife.”

  The kid’s hand trembled and he relaxed his grip on Elle’s throat.

  That was all Dante needed.

  One long-legged stride and he was at the young man’s side, wrapping the fingers of his left hand around the hostage taker’s wrist in a viselike grip. “Drop the scalpel,” he murmured, just as the SWAT team burst through the door into the E.D.

  Startled, the kid jumped back and ended up slicing the scalpel across the middle of Dante’s right palm.

  Blood bloomed across Dante’s white lab coat but he didn’t even see it—his eyes were focused on Elle.

  “Run,” he yelled as Browning spun after her.

  The SWAT team tackled the kid.

  Dante’s knees swayed.

  The next thing he knew he was lying on the floor looking up into the dearest face he had ever seen.

  Elle.

  She hadn’t run away.

  “YOU WERE EXTREMELY BRAVE,” Elle said. She was perched on a rolling stool beside the gurney in exam room one, where Dante sat having his palm stitched up by Dr. Butler. He refused to lie back against the pillow; he felt stupid enough getting shocked from having his hand sliced opened. “You saved my life.”

  She looked proud and worried and so beautiful that his belly burned from wanting her.

  “You should have run when I told you to,” he said.

  “You’re not the boss of me, Dante Nash.” She squeezed his left hand and her touch felt so damned good he had to clench his jaw to keep from thinking ridiculous thoughts. Like how nice it would be to always have her hand to hold on to.

  “Why did you stay?”

  “You needed me.”

  “What I needed was for you to get away.”

  “The kid didn’t mean me any real harm and I knew it. He was just scared. If SWAT hadn’t interrupted when they did, you would have talked him into surrendering his knife.”

  “They had no way of knowing what the situation was.” Dante felt compelled to take up for the SWAT team.

  “They were too gung-ho.” Elle frowned.

  “All’s well that ends well,” Butler said. “The young man has been admitted into the rehab center and he’s getting the help he needs. No one lost their life. That’s the important thing.”

  “Dante got sliced up,” Elle said.

  “The wound’s deep,” Butler agreed, “but it didn’t nick any tendons. You might hav
e trouble zipping up your pants for several weeks and you won’t be doing surgery anytime soon, but you’ll make a full recovery.”

  Butler tied off the last stitch and snipped the thread. “I’ll write you a prescription for pain pills and have the pharmacy fill it.” Butler stood and headed for the door. He stopped in the entryway, turned back and said, “I want you to go home.”

  Dante had no intention of going home. He had only one thing on his mind—getting that damned Rapture off the streets and putting Mark and Gambezi behind bars. They were the two who were really responsible for what had happened to Greg Browning.

  Dante had his game plan mapped out. He’d outfitted himself with a wire, and he’d been in the process of hunting down Mark when the Code Silver had interrupted. He’d been planning to saunter into Mark’s office, tell him how much he liked Rapture and that he wanted in on the action. The wire was still taped to his chest. All he’d have to do was flick the button to the recording device in his pants to record when he was ready. It was past time to make a move.

  Once Butler had left the room, Elle smiled at him and touched his forearm. “I’m so proud of you.”

  It was all because of you, he thought, but didn’t say it.

  “When I saw he had you by the neck…” Dante let his words trail off, unable to voice his fears.

  “I’ll get someone to cover for me here,” Elle said, “and I’ll drive you home.”

  “No,” he said sharply.

  She looked crestfallen and he realized he’d hurt her feelings. “Okay. I’ll find someone else to drive you home.”

  “I’m not going home.”

  “You can’t work with that injury.” She indicated his hand. It bore a deep cut from the outer edge of his index finger through the fatty part of his palm to his wrist. It throbbed like three shades of hell, but Dante didn’t care. He would suck up the pain and do his job.

  “I can do dictation,” he said for her benefit. “Make rounds.”

  “All right,” she said. “Do what you have to do.”

  Dante left the E.D. and went back across the courtyard. Mark was pulling into his parking space just as Dante reached the office. He stuck his hand in his pocket to switch on the tiny recorder connected to the hidden microphone.

  “Dante,” Mark called out, stopping him before he went into the building.

  “Mark.”

  Lawson dropped his gaze to Dante’s bandaged hand. “What happened, man?”

  He told him what had transpired in the E.D.

  “No kidding?”

  “They admitted Browning to drug rehab.”

  “Heavy duty.”

  “Yeah, heavy duty,” Dante echoed.

  Mark shifted his weight, linked his arms over his chest. Dante watched him closely, but tried to keep his face neutral. “So how was Friday night?” Mark asked.

  “It was,” Dante said cautiously, “an education.”

  A sly smile crossed Mark’s face. “Anything interesting pop up?”

  “As a matter of fact, I wanted to discuss that very thing with you. The evening turned quite interesting indeed.”

  Mark glanced over his shoulder, scanned the parking lot. “Why don’t we go someplace a little more private?”

  Dante’s heart rate kicked up, sending a fresh rush of blood to his aching palm, but he ignored the pain. “Inside?”

  “I was thinking you might like to see my lab.”

  “Where you compound the Rapture?”

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s here? At Confidential Rejuvenations?”

  Mark nodded. “Come with me.”

  He started out across the path that led into the woods where Dante had followed Elle on his first day at the hospital.

  “It’s out here?”

  “The old sanctuary,” Mark said.

  An ominous feeling spread over Dante as his ex-roommate motioned for Dante to go ahead of him. “Straight down that path to where it diverges.”

  His gut was telling him to get the hell out of there. Why was Mark behind him? Did he suspect something? The thought racked his nerves.

  “So how was your Rapture ride?” Mark asked.

  “Impressive.” Every muscle in Dante’s body was coiled tightly.

  They arrived at the fork in the path. Dante stopped, looked over his shoulder at Mark, whose face was cloaked in shadows. He couldn’t shake the ominous feeling that things were about to go very bad.

  “Take a left.” Mark indicated the path that sank deeper into the forest with a nod.

  Dante went left. The trees were thicker here, entirely blotting out the sun. The air was cooler, as well, the drop in temperature menacing.

  “Did you hook up with anyone special?” Mark asked, sounding strangely gleeful.

  Dante made an appreciative noise for Mark’s benefit. “Oh, yeah.”

  “Who was it?”

  Dante ducked beneath a low-hanging oak tree branch and slanted another look back. Mark had his right hand jammed in his pocket and it looked as if he was clutching something in his fist.

  The lump in Dante’s throat tightened. Was it a gun?

  A gun seemed like a bold, unnecessary move on Mark’s part. Unless he was feeling threatened. Unless he’d guessed the truth and he was prepared to kill to protect his stash of Rapture.

  “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” Dante said lightly, walking deeper into the forest. Up ahead, he spied a round, domed building with darkly tinted windows. There was the acrid smell of chemicals in the air. Dante’s nose twitched.

  “Was it Elle?”

  Mark’s words turned his blood icy and his injured palm, which seconds before had been throbbing with pain, went suddenly numb. “Elle?”

  “I know you’re attracted to her. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you look at her.”

  “Why would you think it was Elle?” Dante asked. “Surely you know she’s not the kind of woman who would act so rashly.”

  A smirk crossed Mark’s face. “Because I put a tab of Rapture in Elle’s drink the night of the party. She was feeling just as horny as you were. So what did you think?”

  Anger drained the color from his face and formed a hard knot in the pit of his stomach. Instinct had him clenching his fist, but the tight stitches in his palm stopped the motion. At that moment, more than anything else, he wanted to knock Mark in the dirt.

  But he couldn’t do that. He had to act as if he approved. He was within inches of being shown the laboratory where Mark concocted his dangerous drug. Soon now, very soon, he’d have his revenge against Gambezi, as long as he didn’t jump the gun and arrest Mark prematurely. The Feds needed hard evidence to make the case against Gambezi stick. If Dante arrested Mark now, even if Mark gave up Gambezi, it would just be Mark’s word against the gangster’s. What Dante needed was clear physical evidence that Gambezi was in on it with Mark.

  This was the end of the line. He was going to have to lie and he was going to have to make it sound convincing. The taste of it was bitter on his tongue, but he had no choice. It had to be done.

  “She was one fine horny piece of ass,” Dante forced the crude, ugly words from his mouth even though it twisted him up inside to have to say them about her. “How come you gave up tapping that?”

  Mark slapped him on the shoulder and chortled. “Apparently she’s much better under the influence of Rapture. I didn’t have the pleasure of using it on her when we were married. I just got the formula down pat over the past six months. Come on, let me show it to you.”

  12

  IN THE AFTERMATH of the hostage-taking situation, Elle couldn’t concentrate. She stood at her office window, looking out at the rolling grounds and trying to sort out her feelings for Dante, when she spied him and Mark walking into the forest together.

  What were they up to?

  Curiosity and a heavy trepidation she couldn’t identify had her telling Maxine she was taking a break. She slipped outside, heading in the direction Mark and Dante had
gone.

  She walked carefully, making sure not to break any twigs on the stone path and give away her presence. Her pulse was pounding so loudly it seemed to fill up her ears. She took a deep breath of the spring air heavy with pollen and the scent of honeysuckle.

  When she came to the fork in the path, she could hear muffled voices to the left, although she could not make out what they were saying. It appeared as if Dante and Mark were headed toward the old sanctuary.

  What was this all about?

  She went after them, moving as quietly as she could, guiltily admitting to herself that she was hoping to overhear their conversation without them discovering that she was sneaking up behind them.

  With the thick undergrowth springing out across the neglected path, it was easy to stay hidden. She eased behind oak trees, cloaked herself in the long, slender branches of weeping willows.

  The men were almost to the sanctuary when the wind changed and she could finally hear their conversations. Elle cocked her head, straining to listen. What came out of her ex-husband’s mouth chilled her through to the core of her soul.

  “Because I put a tab of Rapture in Elle’s drink the night of the party. She was feeling just as horny as you were. So what did you think?”

  It all made sense now. The bitter-tasting cosmopolitan, the way she had felt all sensuous and uncontrollably aroused, how she’d lost her head and succumbed to sex with Dante on the pool table. Her stomach roiled and she placed a hand to her mouth, fought back nausea.

  And then Dante said something that hurt a thousand times more than anything Mark said.

  “She was one fine horny piece of ass.”

  Lies. It had all been lies. Her marriage to Mark. Her feelings for Dante. She felt as if she’d been drugged her entire life and was just now having her eyes open to the cruel ways of the world.

  Everything inside Elle fractured. Utterly broken, she sucked in her breath and clutched a hand to her belly.

  She heard the creak of a hinge as the outer door to the sanctuary opened then swung closed again as Mark and Dante stepped inside.