She hadn't been gone that long. He must have been into speed interviews. But then, if everyone was innocent, it would stand to reason that the interviews would be over quickly, she judged.

"Impressive. I underestimated your zeal. Did you find out anything?" she asked, trying to sound as casual as she could, considering that she had a vested interest in finding this maniac.

"No." And it didn't take a psychiatrist to see that the lack of results really got under his skin. "They all seem upset at the thought that it might be one of their own doing the killing, but at the same time, they're eager to help bring an end to this."

Amen to that, she thought. "I told you. They're good people."

He nodded dismissively. "On the surface."

She could have expected nothing different from him. "And you're digging, right?"

"As fast as I can," he answered. Even though it wasn't fast enough to suit him, he added silently. "I'm having Calvin run all their social security numbers through every databank we have access to. Something's got to come up." He seemed to have no doubts about that.

Logic dictated that he was right. But she didn't deal in logic alone.

"Calvin?" she asked. She would have remembered if he'd mentioned that name before. It sounded like something from the last century.

"The precinct's resident computer whiz kid. Turns out he's the captain's nephew." He'd stumbled across that little piece of information by accident. It wasn't something that either Calvin or his uncle advertised. "For once, nepotism is actually working out. Cal can practically make a computer dance on its hind legs."

"A computer doesn't have hind legs," she pointed out tactfully.

"That's why the trick is so impressive," he deadpanned.

The man had a sense of humor. There was hope for the universe yet. Whether that meant hope for them or not was another story, one she didn't have time to explore right now, Nika told herself. Right now, she was a doctor. Later she'd be the woman whose kneecaps melted every time Cole Baker came within breathing distance.

"Has this Calvin person found anything of interest?" she asked.

That was where his testy mood was coming from. "Other than one of the nurses' arrest for shoplifting years ago, nothing so far."

"Shoplifting?" Nika echoed, stunned. She couldn't envision any of the nurses she'd been working with taking anything that didn't belong to them beyond perhaps a Post-it note. "Who?"

But Cole shook his head. "Sorry, those records are sealed."

The h.e.l.l they were. "But this Calvin obviously hacked into them and he told you."

"He did," Cole agreed. "But this is on a need-to-know basis."

"And I need to know," she shot back. She needed to know about the people she worked next to. Needed to know their weaknesses and their strengths-and whether or not they had ever run afoul of authority.

Cole saw no reason for her to have the information. "The woman shoplifted some makeup from a department store counter, she didn't electrocute the undercover floor walker. And it was years ago, when she was a kid."

"You're not going to tell me." It wasn't a question on her part, it was an annoyed conclusion. And, as it turned out, the right one.

"Nope."

And he wouldn't, no matter how hard she tried to get it out of him. She knew that without being told. He was protecting the rights of a tarnished soul. n.o.ble.

Who would have thought?

Nika sighed. "You are one hard man to figure out." She laughed shortly. "Of course, they say that once the mystery's gone, the relationship is doomed." He looked at her sharply the moment she uttered the word "relationship."

"Not that we have one," she quickly added. She didn't want him to feel as if she was hemming him in or even attempting to label what was happening between them.

"We don't."

It was actually a question, but at the last minute, he stopped himself from using an inflection in his tone that would turn it into one. It was obvious by her denial that she didn't want a relationship, he thought. He didn't need to be hit over the head to realize that.

He knew he should be happy. Or, at the very least, since "happy" was a stretch for him, he should feel relieved. She wasn't asking for anything, certainly not a commitment. Most women after they'd slept with someone more than twice wanted the future spelled out, clarified and plotted out to infinity.

Yet she didn't.

Why?

Didn't what they had going on between them matter to her?

That had to be it. Again, he waited for the relief to come. It didn't.

Nika pressed her lips together. She couldn't figure out if he'd just asked her a question, or made a statement that was ultimately agreeing with what she'd arbitrarily thrown out into the conversation, mainly to see his reaction.

It's the latter, you idiot.

She'd known from the beginning that Cole didn't want to have a lasting relationship. That whatever was going on between them was going to defy labels and remain in the realm of the unknown, to be taken one moment at a time and nothing more. It had no past and no future. It just was. Until the day came that it wasn't.

It was as simple and as complex as that.

At a loss as to how to respond to this awkward estrangement that had come in from nowhere and instantly taken hold, Nika was rescued by Sally, one of the day-shift nurses.

Tall, willowy and blond, Sally Nelson cheerfully thrust a coffee container covered in light blue contact paper between them. The container was filled with dollar bills and change. She shook it slightly for emphasis.

"I'm taking up a collection," she needlessly announced.

"For?" Nika asked when nothing more enlightening followed the declaration.

"It's for a going-away gift for Gerald-the orderly," Sally added as if to distinguish him from all the other Geralds, except that there weren't any.

The announcement had immediately snagged Cole's attention. "He's leaving?"

The nurse bobbed her head up and down. "He has to," Sally answered, her sunny expression giving way to one that was borderline serious. "His mother's not doing well and he told us that he's going to have to go on an indefinite leave of absence because he wants to take care of her full-time."

"What does he plan to do for money?" Cole asked. Taking care of an infirm senior citizen required a great deal of capital.

Sally laughed and waved her hand at the question, dismissing it. "Oh, Gerald doesn't need to worry about that. He says his father left his mother really well-off. The old man had this huge insurance policy when he died. His mother was going to use the money to move into one of those a.s.sisted living homes, but Gerald told her he wouldn't hear of it. What kind of a son would he be, he said, letting strangers take care of her when he was actually trained to do that kind of thing himself?"

"Very n.o.ble of him," Cole commented in a flat voice.

Nika took out her wallet and tossed in a ten, which brought Sally's smile back, increasing its wattage by a third. Turning away from the nurse, Nika lowered her voice and said to Cole, "You're being sarcastic."

"Was I?" he asked. "I thought that was my regular speaking voice."

"It was," she acknowledged, the corners of her mouth curving, "but it was still sarcastic. You think Gerald's volunteering to take care of his mother to keep her from spending the proceeds from the life insurance policy, don't you?"

"Greed does make the world go around," he told her simply, then added, "But I don't believe anything until I check it out." Even as he said it, he was taking out his cell phone.

The way Cole said the last part made her feel uneasy. Suspicious. She put her hand on his wrist to keep him from making the call he was obviously anxious to place.

"Does that apply to everyone?" she asked. "Do you always check everything and everyone out?" Before he could answer, she demanded, "Did you check me out?"

She had no idea why that upset her as much as it did, but it did. She supposed that it made her feel as if he regarded her the same way he regarded everyone else. While she subconsciously knew that it was probably true, that she was no different from anyone else to him, she didn't want to be forced to face the evidence, at least, not yet. Not until she'd psyched herself up a little more.

"Yes, I did," he told her after a beat. He didn't see why this would upset her, especially considering his timing. "That was when your hospital administrator was ready to lay you on the sacrificial altar as the prime suspect in these less-than-natural deaths that keep occurring in your unit. I'm the one who cleared you, remember? That required checking you out. I couldn't just look into your eyes and p.r.o.nounce you innocent."

Although, he had to admit, albeit only to himself, something in her eyes had made him believe in her innocence to begin with. Knowing that he'd find proof to substantiate it just helped.

"I know," she said, but he picked up on the fact that she seemed far from pleased about his honesty.

d.a.m.n, but women were just too complicated a species to get caught up with, Cole thought. Served him right for letting his guard down and allowing himself to stumble away from his very well-defined path. He was a loner and loners didn't get caught up in eyes the color of the sky, or lips that tasted of vanilla or killer legs that went on forever. Loners remained alone. It was a self-explanatory definition.

Nika drew her shoulders back, a soldier braced to do her duty.

"I'd better go back downstairs and see if your grandmother's ready to be moved back up to her room," she told him.

What she didn't add was that she wanted to put a little distance between them until she could come to grips with this glaring reminder she'd just been given. A reminder that whatever she was secretly hoping they had going on between them, while not dead on arrival, was certainly not expected to have any kind of healthy, lengthy lifespan.

Cole nodded in response. Wanting to go downstairs with Nika to see his grandmother, he knew he needed to follow up on this new piece of information. When he'd initially interviewed the friendly orderly, the man had made no mention that he was thinking of leaving the hospital any time in the near future.

He supposed that Gerald might not have thought it was relevant, but in his experience, it was always the seemingly irrelevant pieces of information that usually broke a case.

Cole hoped like h.e.l.l that lightning would strike again.

Going to his grandmother's room, he crossed to the window-the area he'd accidentally discovered had the best reception for his cell phone-and made his call.

Dialing the number to the precinct, he didn't bother listening to the recorded voice that was prompting him to pay attention to the menu "as it has changed." Instead, he tapped out the extension he needed.

The phone on the other end rang three times before the receiver was picked up. Cole didn't wait for the computer tech to announce himself. Instead, he dived right into the call.

"Cal, Baker," he made the introduction quickly. "Did you have a chance to look into more of Gerald Mayfield's background yet?" Taking a worn notepad out of his back pocket, he flipped it open, then found what he was looking for. For good measure, Cole rattled off the social security number he'd jotted down next to the orderly's name. "You did?" Cole warned himself not to expect too much. He was probably just on a wild-goose chase. More than likely, the orderly was clean. "Okay, what did you find out?"

The rather high voice on the other end began to review his recent findings. "Mayfield's worked for several nursing homes since he graduated from a two-year college fifteen years ago. They all raved about how good he was with patients. There's a bunch of glowing references in his HR file."

d.a.m.n. But then, Cole reminded himself, references could be forged. "Check those out for me, see if they're legitimate. And what about the stats at these places? Did any of these nursing homes experience a higher than usual mortality rate when compared to other, similar facilities?"

"Nothing that stands out at first glance," Calvin told him. "But I could dig a little deeper if you want."

"I want," Cole told him firmly. "And while you're at it, see if you can find out how big his father's insurance policy was."

There was a momentary pause on the other end. "What insurance policy?"

At this point, Cole had no idea what insurance company had issued the policy. "The one he had in force when he died. I'm a.s.suming that wasn't all that long ago."

"There wasn't any," Cal a.s.sured him. "And I don't know what you mean by 'all that long ago,' but the old man's ticker gave out ten years ago. According to what the doctor wrote in his chart, Gerald Mayfield's father died of a broken heart because he couldn't live without his wife."

Cole's head snapped up. "Mayfield's mother is dead?"

"Yup. Has been for ten years. Died less than six months before her husband. Why?"

"Because Mayfield said he was leaving the hospital to devote himself to taking care of his mother." Bingo! "I think we just found our guy." He cautioned himself not to get overconfident just yet. There could still be some sort of an explanation, although he didn't see how. "Get back to me with that information," he instructed. With that, he terminated his call.

Hurrying back to the nurses' station, he saw that Sally, the nurse with the paper-wrapped tin can, was the only one there. Cole pressed his card into her hand. "Call me the second Gerald Mayfield turns up. And don't let him go into a patient's room unsupervised."

Sally rose in her chair, confused. "Why?"

He didn't have time to explain. "Just do it," he told her, running toward the stairwell.

Before entering, he called Nika on her cell. He wanted to warn her to stay clear of the orderly.

Nika wasn't picking up.

Chapter 15.

When Nika didn't pick up the third time he tried calling her, Cole told himself that there was no reason to let his imagination get the better of him. Her cell phone was probably still in her locker, where she'd put it when she'd changed into scrubs for his grandmother's surgery.

That was what he told himself, but that wasn't what he actually believed.

His mind told him one thing, casting its vote on the side of logic. His gut went a whole different route. It told him she was in trouble.

There was no doubt that what he'd just discovered about the departing orderly colored his judgment, but Cole definitely had a bad feeling about this. A bad feeling that had him heading for the stairwell and the Recovery Room on the first floor.

Nika stared at the Recovery Room nurse, stunned. A very uneasy feeling was spreading out all through her. "What do you mean Gerald came and got Mrs. Baker?"

"He came and got her," the woman repeated. It was clear that she didn't see what the problem was.

Granted, this wasn't the ideal time to carry on a conversation, at least as far as the nurse was probably concerned. At the moment, Judy pretty much had her hands full, so to speak. One of the post-op patients had suddenly woken up ahead of schedule, obviously urged on by the churning sensation in her stomach.

At present, the groggy, moaning woman was throwing up into the pink plastic container that Judy was holding up to her mouth. The intense, nauseating smell that emerged was enough to drive anyone from the room. But Cole's grandmother was missing and Nika needed this cleared up-as in fifteen minutes ago.

"By whose authority?" she demanded. Orderlies didn't just come waltzing into the Recovery Room and whisk post-op patients away at whim.

The beleaguered nurse looked at Nika as if she'd suddenly raffled away her mind. "Yours," she answered tersely.

Nika blinked. That wasn't possible. She hadn't authorized anything. "Excuse me?"