Under the Microscope Read Online Free PDF Page B

didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Damn it. Why’d you send her over here?”
    William didn’t call him on the rudeness. “I figured that given your history with her, you’d want to know she was in trouble.”
    Max didn’t bother asking how or what William knew about him and Raine. William had known pretty much everything that had gone on at Boston General. “Why, so I’d help her, or so I could gloat?”
    “Whichever lets you get on with things,” William answered pragmatically. “There’s more to life than living alone in a five-room unfurnished apartment in the city.”
    “I like being alone. So sue me.” Alone wasn’t the same as lonely, Max told himself. And it was sure as hell better than being used. “And just be cause I don’t date as often as you do—” make that ever “—doesn’t mean it has anything to do with what did or didn’t happen between me and Raine Montgomery back at BoGen.”
    “Then it was no big deal seeing her, you don’t care that I gave her your address, and you’re takingthe case, right? This could be the break we’ve been looking for, you know.”
    “Only if we find something the FDA doesn’t,” Max cautioned. “And no, I haven’t taken the case yet. I wanted to talk to you about it first, since I’ll want you to be point man.”
    “No can do. I’m tied up through next week at the earliest with that malpractice thing, and I took on a new pro bono this morning. You’re on your own.”
    Max gritted his teeth. “Don’t try to fix my life for me, Caine.”
    “Wouldn’t dream of it. You’re doing such a good job on your own.” William’s voice dropped a notch and the flippancy vanished. “Look—we both know you’ve been marking time ever since Charlotte left. Maybe it’s because of this woman, maybe it’s something else, I don’t know. Whatever it is, you can do better. You can be better.”
    Max winced because he’d heard nearly the same words from his father a few days earlier, during their bimonthly phone call. According to his father, Max was closing in on forty fast. He should have a wife by now, a family. Sons. Daughters. Little ones to come home to and play with, and watch grow into not-so-little ones, like his nieces in the old neighborhood had done.
    And maybe his pop had a point. But between college and grad school, the wife hadn’t happened.The children hadn’t happened. Over the past couple of years, he’d been wrapped up in starting and then growing the new company. Then there’d been Charlotte. For a while he’d thought he was all set. Then he’d been less sure. Then she’d been gone. And now…
    What was his excuse now?
    “Maybe you’re right,” he said slowly. “Maybe I do have something to work out where Raine is concerned.” Maybe that was why he’d opened the door the second time, knowing even then that he would take the case.
    Not to be near her, but to exorcize her.
    Which led to another realization. He’d already decided to take the case. For the company. For himself.
    “Fine. I’ll do it.”
    He hung up the phone, then glanced around the bare apartment, which seemed so much emptier than it had an hour before. He picked up the folder Raine had left, which was prominently marked with her address, the Rainey Days office address and several phone numbers.
    Logically, he knew he should review the data and make a few calls from the apartment, or maybe wait until the next day and work out of the Caine and Vasek office downtown. Instead, he cursed and headed for the bedroom, where there was amattress on the floor, a few boxes full of clothes and a duffel he kept packed for emergencies.
    Fifteen minutes later, he was on his way to the scene of the crime.
    On his way to see her.
     
    RAINE SPENT THE TWO-HOUR DRIVE from New York City to New Bridge, Connecticut, trying to convince herself that everything was going to be okay.
    She failed.
    She was too aware of the vehicles in her rearview mirror, too aware of being jumbled up