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faint quiver in her voice, and she looked as though a finger tap could knock her over.
    “I’ll have one of my people take you down to Admissions and start the paperwork. We’ll need you to stay here for a day or so. After that, we can do the treatments on an outpatient basis.”
    Raine nodded slowly. “Fine. Of course.”
    Though the other woman had lied to her, and worked for the enemy, Meg’s heart ached in sympathy.
    God, she hated this part of the job.
    She rose, detoured around the desk and leaned down to touch Raine’s arm. “We’ll take good care of you. I promise.”
    Swallowing what sounded like a sob, Raine nodded. “Thank you.”
    Meg led her out to the lab reception area. Jemma was away from her desk, but she saw Max’s silhouette just inside the lab. She touched Raine’s arm. “Wait here.”
    She pushed through the lab doors. “Max, I need you to do me a favor.”
    The big, dark-haired man set his lab notebook aside. “Sure, boss. What’s up?”
    “Remember those clotting factor and Factor V Leiden mutations you found the other day?” She jerked her head in the direction of the door. “She’s out in the lobby, and pretty freaked out—with good reason. She didn’t want me to call anyone, so can you take her down to Admissions and help expedite wherever you can? I think she could use somebody on her side right now.”
    Max nodded. “Of course.” He rose, shucked off his lab coat to reveal jeans and a heavy flannel shirt, and headed for the lobby.
    When he was gone, Jemma’s voice spoke from behind Meg. “Bad idea, boss.”
    Meg turned, startled. “What?”
    “Sending Max off with her. You’re going to trigger his DIDS.”
    “His what? ”
    “Damsel In Distress Syndrome. That’s what we call it behind his back, anyway.” Jemma shrugged, but her eyes were clouded with faint worry. “Max is big and tough and mean-looking, but he’s a sucker for a pretty woman with a sad story. Classic knight-on-a-white-horse mentality. If she doesn’t watch out, he’ll try to rescue her.”
    “I didn’t know.” Meg stared out into the now empty lobby. “Should I call him back?”
    “Too late now. And besides, who knows? Maybeit’ll work out for him this time. She looks like she could use someone to lean on right now.”
    “True enough.” Figuring what was done was done, and the important thing was getting Raine started on the life-saving therapy, Meg headed back to her office. But as she packed to leave for the day and tasted cement dust at the back of her throat, she was plagued by a faint sense of resentment that nobody ever volunteered to rescue her.
    Or rather, someone had, but he was no white knight.
    More like a sapphire-eyed devil intent on taking over her life’s work.
     
    MEG SLEPT POORLY that night, haunted by dreams of suffocation. Near 2:00 a.m., she gave up, snapped on her bedside lamp and read until dawn.
    She was at the lab early, wearing the high-cut burnt-orange suit she only hauled out when she needed to remind herself that she was smart enough and tough enough to deal with whatever was going wrong.
    Jemma met her at the door. “Cage wants you in his office, ASAP.”
    Meg cursed. She wasn’t ready to meet with the head administrator before she’d even had her second hit of coffee. But with her work in a state of legal flux, she couldn’t afford to ignore the summons. She took the elevator up from the fifth floor to the tenth and pushed through the door to Cage’s office without knocking. “Sorry I’m late. I was discussing some extremely promising results with—”
    She broke off and her stomach dipped to her toes.
    She’d expected to see Zach Cage, the darkly handsome ex-major league pitcher who had taken over the reins of a troubled Boston General some three years earlier. She hadn’t expected to see Erik Falco, wearing another dark gray suit and lighter gray shirt, this time with a vivid blue tie that picked up the cobalt in his eyes.
    Worse, before the door