Covert M.D. Read Online Free PDF Page B

pharmaceuticals down to the loading dock and out of the hospital. That would assume at least one thief had access to the locked supplies. Short Whiny Guy and Cadaver Man were her first guesses. Surely she and Rathe could find the pair.
    Rathe. No, she refused to think about him. They had agreed to leave the past where it belonged. He hadn’t wanted the family that had loved him as a son, and he hadn’t wanted the woman who had loved him as a man. In the seven years since she’d last seen him, she had outgrown both her love and her desire to follow in his footsteps across the globe and back.
    She’d decided to blaze her own trail instead.
    “Focus,” she told herself sternly, glad she was alone in the descending elevator. “This isn’t about you or Rathe. It’s about the patients and the hospital.”
    But none of this added up. How did the missing supplies account for the increase in transplant deaths? Were the two even related?
    The doors slid open, and Nia stepped out into the big, open atrium at the center of the hospital, where all the wings intersected. A flash of navy blue caught her eye and she glanced over, half expecting to see Rathe waiting for her, ready to tell her where she could go, who she could see and what she could do.
    But it was someone else, a stoop-shouldered old man in a janitor’s dark-blue uniform, listlessly swabbing at a puddle of something she didn’t care to know about.
    Ignoring the single twitch of that restless muscle at the corner of her eye, Nia hurried to the café and bought a muffin to make up for the breakfast she’d been too keyed up to eat. She reversed direction and headed back to the elevators, biting into the muffin as her stomach growled.
    A heavy blow from behind drove her to her knees.
    “Gonna getcha, bitch!” The high-pitched, almost giggling voice near her ear lodged quick panic in her throat.
    She hit the floor, the muffin bounced away, and her left eye nearly locked itself shut. Her attacker followed her down and lay crosswise atop her.
    Nia squirmed desperately and tried to scream, but the huge, smothering weight drove the breath from her lungs. Faintly she heard cries of alarm. Running feet.
    Her heart hammered in her ears, and terror sweated from her palms. Every self-defense move she’d learned was useless. She had no leverage. She pushed against the floor, but to no avail.
    “Where’s your money? Where is it?” Rough hands groped at her pockets, at her body. She fought back, jabbing with her feet and elbows whenever her attacker’s weight shifted enough to allow it. But her blows sank into heavy, hot blubber and she still couldn’t breathe.
    “Where is it?” The man flipped her over, looming large in her oxygen-starved vision. His face was pocked with scars, some from acne, some from injuries. His hair was greasy and limp, his face covered with rank sweat. “Where is your money?”
    She didn’t need to see the needle tracks on his upraised arm to know he was beyond reason. He raised his arm higher, and a switchblade glittered in a ray of sunlight.
    Running feet thundered. A woman screamed.
    And the knife descended in a killing arc.
     
     

 
    Chapter Three
     
    Time seemed to slow, picking out Nia’s last few moments in exquisite detail. She saw the distended, bulging veins in her attacker’s forearm, saw an onlooker’s mouth form a perfect O of horror. She smelled sour, unwashed man and the sharp taint of her own fear. She felt the weight of him, like that of a lover, pressing her into the hard floor, shifting atop her as the blade descended.
    And she wished, with a burning intensity that was close to pain, that she had been a better daughter.
    Then the knife completed its arc and the world sped up again. Navy blue flashed before Nia’s eyes. Her attacker jolted and fell to the side. The switchblade hit the polished marble, chimed like a bell and skipped harmlessly away.
    Free! She was free!
    Not stopping to question it, she scrambled to a