Chapter 13
After Christian left Tiffany’s office, he went to his own and took a seat on a couch, feeling emotionally drained. Patients were waiting, but he needed a moment to collect himself after that amazing episode between him and Tiffany.
The breakthrough he’d been hoping and praying for with Tiffany had finally happened! They’d stopped bickering long enough to stare into each other’s hearts and not see an enemy there.
“Well that was nothing short of a miracle,” he mused aloud. Especially considering the way she’d stormed him in her office chomping at the bit to throw down with him. She hadn’t said yes to a future with him, but she’d stopped saying no. This was huge progress and the notion made him smile. He looked at the ceiling and sent up a thank you, then headed back toward the exam rooms.
He rounded a corner and almost ran into Asa, who stepped aside just in time to avoid being plowed into. Christian skidded to a halt and faced his friend.
“Whoa. Where’s the fire?”
Christian grinned. He had been in a hurry, but he was stepping a little lighter too. “I just left it. Or rather her.”
Asa let out a knowing laugh. “Wow. That good, huh? Lucky bastard. What did the two of you just do or do I want to know? Never mind. Yeah, I wanna know.”
Christian laughed with him. Asa knew he’d been going through hell with Tiffany for days. Everyone knew. Since he’d began channeling her emotions, he’d been depressed, irritable and snappy to just about everyone but his patients. At the moment, he felt a thousand pounds lifted off his shoulders. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe it.”
“Try me.”
Christian wasn’t going to dish on that amazing experience with Tiffany. Some things were meant to stay between life mates. “Well, let’s just say I think she’s about to take off the hit she placed on me.”
“I get it. You finally kissed and made up.” Asa patted him on the shoulder. “Good for you. After watching you this last week, the single life was sounding better and better.”
Until today Christian had parallel thoughts. “I will admit she didn’t come here with intentions to kiss and make up. Just the opposite. Someone in her family told her we were life mates.”
Asa’s brows furrowed. “She didn’t know? You mean you never told her?”
He hunched his shoulders. “When have I had time? She nearly died. You know the hell I was dealing with once she woke up. Plus, from the beginning she made it clear she never wanted to be vampire or get involved with me. Until today.”
“That’s great. Keep in mind the girl hasn’t been turned a full week. She still has human thinking going on in her brain so you might wanna wait to send out wedding invitations. On the other hand she obviously wanted some involvement with you or she would have never let you fang her in the first place.” He flashed a wistful grin. “Lucky bastard. Bell bottoms were in fashion the last time I fed from a human I thought might be a potential life mate. Since she wasn’t you can imagine how that went. Flat and disappointing.”
Indeed, he did. Nearly every unmated vampire experienced that at least a few times in their lives.
“What was it like when you discovered she was the one?”
His partner’s expression was a mixture of embarrassment, curiosity and a bit of sadness. He paused to choose his words carefully. “Shocking. Joyful. Frustrating. All you could expect when your life mate finally drops into your life. It will happen for you, buddy, and I’m sure it won’t be as complicated of a mess as the one I’ve been facing.”
He nodded. “I’m glad for you. Very glad. Stay patient, Chris. You may have petted the tiger, but my guess is she isn’t tame yet.”
Christian laughed at that. Oh yeah, Tiffany would always have bite left in her, but she was one pussy cat he couldn’t wait to have bite him.
“Hey, have you talked with Noah yet this morning?”
Christian shook his head. “He’s in delivery. Still no word from the VCDC as far as I know.”
“What about Tiffany’s step father? Have you spoken to him?”
“No, but I know when Nathan discovers something definitive, he’ll call. If I don’t hear from him today, I plan to talk to him tonight when I give Tiffany her transfusion.”
“I’m assuming her blood work is still negative?”
Christian nodded and crossed his arms. “Yeah. You know I’d still have her here if it wasn’t. It’s odd the hemolysis cleared up so fast with her, yet our other patients have had little better than marginal improvement. I don’t know what to make of it.”
Asa tapped a finger on his chin. “Neither do I. It could be we’re treating these patients all wrong. Tiffany’s turning killed off all of her infected human blood cells, right?”
“Every cell in her body period because she’s now vampire as you well know. What’s your point?”
“What if we were to give our patients vampire blood? Their life mates of course. I’m not sure it would work, but it couldn’t hurt. I think the three of us need to meet and discuss this and other additional treatment options.”
“Good idea. Let’s do it tonight as soon as the clinic closes.”
“Fine by me.”
“Wait a minute. We might have to do it a bit earlier. We have a meeting today at four thirty with Tiffany’s sister Chelsie Peebles.”
Asa smiled. “Oh yeah, the new little doctor. I look forward to meeting her. What’s she like?”
“Shy, but brilliant. A Harvard graduate. She’s loyal and sweet. I think she’ll do great here.”
“Why in the world would a human girl want to work for a V clinic?”
Christian hunched a shoulder. “I guess we’ll find out this afternoon. Pays better.” He grinned.
“Dr. La Mond! Help! Debra’s fainted.”
Christian’s gaze shot to the right. Greg Thomson, the life mate of his last appointment ran down the hall toward them. He gave Asa a ‘this cannot be happening again’ look then bolted past Greg for the exam room where he’d left his patient with follow up instructions for the nursing staff.
The six-month pregnant woman lay on the exam table, her arms dangling off the sides. She wasn’t breathing. Christian dropped the back on the table to get her flat and immediately began CPR.
He heard Asa enter and bite off a curse. The husband was in the hallway behind him firing questions between pleas for them to save her. Seconds later Katie and Blake rushed in, asking what they could do to help.
“Out. Everyone out, please,” Christian yelled. He and Asa could handle this. He needed the nurses to handle Greg right now more than he needed their help with Debra.
“Katie, Blake see to Mr. Thompson, please,” Asa instructed them as he stepped into the hall.
“Please, Dr. Bradley, what’s happening? Will she be okay?”
“I don’t know. Just stay out of the way and let us do our job so we can help her. Okay?”
“Okay. Okay. Do whatever you have to do.” He shook his head briskly.
Christian watched Asa rush off. Seconds later he was back with a crash cart. He shut the door and they got to work like the well-oiled team they were. Sadly, they’d done this many times over the eighty some years they’d practiced together, often with disparaging results. This time proved to be one of them.
They worked on the patient for over twenty minutes. Finally, Asa said, “We need to call it.”
Christian shot him a furious look and stepped back from the table. He didn’t want to give up, but he knew they’d done all they could. Debra was gone.
He smacked a palm on top of the crash cart and spun around, wanting to pound something, but grabbed the sides of his head instead. “Fuck! How the hell could this have happened?” The question was rhetorical. They both knew she was a victim of whatever was going on here. The woman was a fledgling vampire, only twenty-one years old. She hadn’t been a vampire a full year. But she was young and healthy. The ultrasound he’d given her showed the baby doing well. Granted she’d complained about extreme fatigue, but Christian had chocked it up as normal because she was so close to her due date. Apparently, he’d been very wrong there. Had he taken the symptom more seriously, asked more questions he may have saved her life. Spared her from whatever had entered her body since she’d walked through the doors of the clinic. Damn it! Who the hell was doing this?
Christian was determined to nail the bastard responsible today. He had drastic measures in mind. He intended to enchant every human who’d had contact with her and maybe every employee in the building, an act he would have never considered if their patients and unborn babies weren’t dropping like flies.
“Ten twelve,” Asa said as he came around the table to his side. He gave Debra a remorseful look then folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t know why this is happening or how, but I intend to get some answers pronto. Who followed up with her after you left?”
“Katie.”
Asa grunted. “Did you order any meds? Did she eat or drink anything here? A snack from staff or the cafeteria?”
“Just the standard transfusion and vitamin booster and I don’t know if she ate or drank, but I intend to find out immediately from Greg.” He scowled at the door and swiped a hand across his mouth and jaw. “I don’t care what it takes, but this ends today.”
Noah, thorough as usual, along with Asa tested every food and drink source which would have been in the building the day Tiffany fell ill since she’d been the last victim until now. Nothing came of it which led Christian and his partners to the conclusion someone was lacing food, blood, meds or all with the cocktail.
“I agree,” Asa muttered, looking as soul sick as Christian felt. “Katie?”
Christian stared at him knowing what he meant by the way he asked her name. “Impossible. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. She’s no angel of death, if that’s what you’re implying.”
Asa nodded and stared at the door. “Someone is though. And they’ll be praying for some angelic help before I get through with them.”
“Nursing staff seems the most logical to accuse, but it could just as easily be someone from housekeeping, the lab, dietary services, who knows. We have to keep an open mind, but we have to act quickly.” Christian glanced at the dead woman sick for her life mate who most likely would not survive this loss. The couple had no living children. Usually the only reason a widowed vampire pressed on with the business of life was for his or her children.
“What did you have in mind?”
“No human staff member leaves this building today until you, Noah or I enchant them.”
Asa cocked his head to the side then looked at Debra. “Yeah. Absolutely. That’s exactly what we do. I’ll call human resources and have them announce a staff meeting. Mandatory attendance for every soul. Noah should be the one to enchant. He’s proficient at crowds. Then you and I take them one by one and ask them straight up if they know anything about these deaths.”
“That’s perfect. If someone on payroll is responsible we’ll know by day’s end.” Christian left the room with a heavy heart because he was about to deliver news which would break Greg’s.
***
Tiffany floated on fluffy high clouds after Christian left her office. She was in love with Christian and although not willing to admit it to him quite yet, the admission gave her some relief. She was still scared though. Not so much that Christian would hurt her, but that she might hurt him if she found in time a forever thing too scary. She had to try because if she was truly Christian’s life mate destiny wouldn’t allow her to thwart the inevitable. Neither would Christian. She stayed a few minutes longer to check on the status of a few things she’d left loose-ended that day she’d gone home sick. Since she hadn’t been here in nearly a week, she returned a few phone calls and checked in house emails, which were merely `welcome aboard’ letters from department heads.
She was happy to see the wifi had been installed as promised. She itched to return to work full force. Maybe next week. She just left her office and locked the door when she heard a big commotion somewhere down the maze of hallways. She followed the sound to the patient exam rooms wing and saw Asa dragging a crash cart down the hall like a bat out of hell. He yanked open an exam room door and pushed the thing inside.
Katie and Blake stood outside talking with a male vampire who appeared horribly traumatized. He was crying, wailing really. Katie laid a hand on the man’s arm and said something to him in a hushed tone.
“Oh no. Not again.” The logical conclusion to what she’d witnessed was another patient had been poisoned.
She didn’t know what to do, but she knew she needed to stay out of the way. Still she couldn’t bring herself to leave. Her intense sense of smell told her Christian was in that room with Asa or very close by. She wandered into the nurses’ station, closed her eyes and began to silently pray for the woman’s life.
A few minutes later she heard footsteps and glanced up. It was Blake. “What’s going on?”
He walked inside the small area, gave her a grim look and swiped his hand across his military-style buzz cut. “A patient coded. I don’t know the details, nor would it be appropriate for me to share them anyway.”
“I understand. Is Christian with Asa?”
He nodded, then pulled out a swivel chair and sat down. “This is so crazy.”
“I’ll say.” And terrifying. A few days ago, Tiffany had been exactly where that woman was now.
“I was out of town over the weekend, but I heard what happened to you. Your chart said food poisoning, but.…”
“But what?” Did he know the truth about the poisons that led her to death’s door?
He shook his head. “Nothing. I’m really sorry for everything that happened, Tiffany, but I’m glad you’re all right.”
“Thanks.”
He glanced over her with a speculative expression, which annoyed her, but told her what was on his mind. “Yeah, I’m a vampire. Not happy about it, but I’m breathing.” She held out her arms in case he wanted to stare a little harder.
A strained silence ensued for over a minute. Blake finally broke it.
“I had no idea your mother is Mia Davenport. None of us did.”
“Yeah, well I try to keep that fact on the QT because I have no desire to be a part of the media circus which is my mom and Nathan’s life.” Very few people knew she was a member of the Davenport family and she liked keeping it that way. Her mother and Nathan took extreme measures to keep the press from discovering her and Chelsie’s whereabouts. How Nathan managed it, Tiffany didn’t know. Didn’t care. She was just glad for it.
He grinned. “I would have never guessed that in a million years, despite the fact you’re almost a physical carbon copy of her. I had no idea she or her husband were vampire. Their eyes look as human as ours—mine.”
She hunched a shoulder. “Contacts.” Her family was none of his business. As a nurse for vampires, he should know their people lived a life of secrecy and respect that fact by not asking personal questions. Apparently, he couldn’t help himself. He just wouldn’t quit.
“You look good, though.”
“Thanks.”
“How do you feel?” He glanced over her, his expression curious and a little too scrutinizing for her liking.
She knew what he really picked at. What did it feel like to be a vampire? “You want a pint of my blood? Then you can find out for yourself how it feels.”
“Sorry. I’m being nosy.”
“Yeah, your kind of good at that, but don’t sweat it. I realize I’m the village freak at the moment. It’s cool.”
At some point, she would have to face these questions with co-workers. Might as well get some of it out of the way. “I still feel like me. My hearing is on steroids and a bit annoying at times, but I’m beginning to get used to it. Other than my senses, it’s really not any different.” Not true, but she didn’t want to tell him the ugly truth. She didn’t even want to admit it to herself. At times, especially late at night, she wanted to taste blood so badly the need literally shivered through her while simultaneously turning her stomach. Transfusions didn’t totally obliterate blood lust.
He flashed a sympathetic smile. “I sat in on report Monday morning when you were still here. The strain of food poisoning listed in your chart is often deadly. You don’t know how lucky you are to be alive.”
“I have no doubt that’s true.” She blinked at him, trying to get a pulse on his last comment because something felt off about the way he’d said it. Maybe she was just being overly suspicious, but babies had died and now another person’s life and that of her child might be hanging in the balance this very moment. Who wouldn’t be suspicious? But Blake was clean of suspicion. Christian had enchanted him. Could he have thwarted Christian’s enchantment somehow?
Blake glanced at the floor and shook his head. “Something strange is going on around here. Multiple still births. You getting food poisoning. Now a young, healthy pregnant vampire coding? It doesn’t add up.”
“What do you mean?”
His lips thinned into a tense line before he spoke. “Until recently I’ve only witnessed three vampire stillbirths in my life. I’ve worked for V clinics and V hospitals for nearly ten years. Their kind rarely have problems during pregnancy. Problems conceiving yes, but once they do, unlike humans their complications are few. Keep in mind that hasn’t always been true, but vampire modern medicine and their good health in general keeps stillbirths to a minimum.”
“I didn’t know that.”
He nodded. “The staff is beginning to think these incidents are connected.”
“Really? I don’t see how. What happened to me couldn’t be related.” It was but she wanted to keep him talking. See where he might go with this.
He gave her an arched look. “Hopefully you’re right, but if you’re wrong…” He broke off and sighed. “…any one of us could be next. Katie’s considering tendering her resignation and about half the CNA’s. I know the clinic is in the midst of a crisis, and none of us want to bail, but people are terrified for their own wellbeing.”
Tiffany understood and agreed. No one here was safe. Humans or vampires. The likelihood of another attempt on her life or anyone else’s for that matter was a very real and present danger.
Obviously with what happened down the hall, Christian and his partners were getting no closer to answers. Maybe it was time to have a talk with her stepfather and find out if he and Dominic had discovered something. Everyone in the Davenport house was talking about some competitor of Nathan’s possibly being the creep behind all of this. “When you see Christian, ask him to give me a call when he has time, please.”
“Sure thing.” He gave her a warm smile and a wave as she hightailed it out of the nurses’ station, her destination Nathan.
Tiffany found him in his home office flipping through something on his holotop, exactly where she expected him to be. Dominic was seated on the other side of the desk studying the screen of his own holotop. Both men looked up as she walked through the open doorway into the room.
“Tiffany. Is everything okay?” Nathan asked, glancing over her with concern.
She wasn’t at all and probably exuded sick worry from her very pores. She took a seat next to Dominic across the desk from Nathan. “I’m fine, but Christian isn’t. Another incident occurred at his clinic this morning. I don’t know details, but I know something happened to one of his patients and I think it was bad. I know the two of you are trying to help him figure out who’s behind this. Any luck?”
Nathan pushed his chair away from his desk and released a ragged breath. “So far it’s been a series of dead ends in this investigation.”
“Who the hell is this guy?”
Nathan leaned into his chair and crossed his arms. “Probably no one you’d know. His name is Damien Alexander.”
Tiffany rolled her eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me? That name makes him sound like a cross between Satan’s spawn and marauding Roman dictator.”
Both men laughed. Nathan said, “Pretty close.”
“So, what’s his beef with you?” She crossed her arms and leaned into the chair.
“About a year ago I outbid him on a very desirable commercial property.”
Dominic added, “It was a little more complicated than that. Actually, the seller screwed him by accepting a sizable deposit from Damien and refused to return it when Nathan paid the seller above full asking price.”
She snorted. “Then he ought to be pissed at that guy, not you.”
“He’s embroiled in serious litigation with the seller, but that’s beside the point. I’ve been a thorn in his side for years. That wasn’t the first property I yanked out from underneath him. He’s been investigating my personal life and he knows I’m vampire.”
Tiffany leaned back into the chair and rolled her eyes again. Drama was Nathan’s middle name. If vampires could develop ulcers he ought to have one the size of Cleveland. “Do I even want to know how he figured that out?”
“You do not,” he replied with an arched look.
From that comment, she knew at some point he’d been caught feeding from a human because Nathan didn’t transfuse. What astounded her most was the fact her mother put up with Nathan’s late night blood sucking rendezvouses. As a Christian woman, she’d sooner die than drink human blood. So Tiffany didn’t get why her mother tolerated Nathan’s activities, but then her mom adored Nathan and he her. Really, that’s all that mattered.
“Okay, whatever. So, what’s your gut telling you? Do you think this guy is behind this mess at the clinic or what?”
Nathan shook his head. “I really don’t think so, but I’m not ruling it out yet.”
Dominic turned in his chair and faced her. “We’ve done all we can to try to connect him and we’ve come up empty. Most likely what happened to you and what’s occurring within Christian’s clinic is something entirely unrelated to Damien.”
“Well, that’s just great. This puts everything back to a no progress mode, because if Christian or his partners had a mere inkling of who was behind this, they’d have stopped this psychopath by now.”
Nathan gave her a sympathetic smile. “It’s not a bust yet, Tiffany. I think we might have discovered a way to help Christian. Dominic and I have been discussing some ideas to catch the person or persons responsible assuming they’re operating within the four walls of clinic.”
“Well, it’s obvious they are.”
Dominic laid a hand on her forearm. “Possibly, and it’s as important to us as it is to Christian that the person responsible for these crimes is caught and dealt with, Tiffany. We nearly lost you. This asshole will pay. I promise.”
She knew he meant that because protecting those within the family fold was everything to these two guys. “Thanks. So, what do you have in mind?”
“We want to install an audio/video surveillance system at the clinic. Christian may have something in place, but the system I have in mind would be far more sensitive and—”
“Undetectable?” she interjected. Knowing Dominic, he’d been online purchasing state of the art, CIA-type stuff that would track a person’s every sound and movement at any point in the building. Good for him. Anything that could help the clinic and save lives was worth any lack of privacy. “I wonder what Christian will think of that?”
Dominic gave her an edgy look, leaned into his seat and crossed his arms. “Of course, the devices are intrusive, but such measures are necessary when people’s lives are at stake.”
She waved a hand at him. “You will get no argument from me there.”
Nathan picked up his cell phone and tapped the screen to display holotime. “I’d planned to talk to Christian tonight to discuss details after his visit with you. Now that he’s had another incident, I’m not going to wait.”
Tiffany didn’t say anything while he made the call. She glanced toward the ceiling and sent up a little prayer that the patient he’d been with when she’d left, was still a living, breathing one.
Fortunately, Christian picked up.
“Tiffany is here with me. She just came from your clinic and told me there was a problem this morning with a patient.”
With holotime, she could hear and see Christian, but the hologram image faced Nathan so he couldn’t see her.
He made a sound that was part sigh, part groan, which made her insides cease.
“Yes. We lost a patient.”
“Oh, God no.” She leaned forward and dropped her face in her hands for a few seconds.
Nathan cleared his throat and gave Dominic a fierce look. “You have my sincere sympathies. Dominic and I have been working on some ideas. We may be able to help stop this…person, if you could call a baby murderer a person.”
Nathan told him their plans, then they discussed a meeting with his partners to figure out a time this system could be installed. They scheduled it for five thirty. At one point Dominic took the phone and added some details about the how the surveillance equipment worked, but Tiffany had tuned out by that point. Crazy maybe, but she swore she could feel Christian’s pain as if it were her own along with deep sorrow for that poor, innocent pregnant lady whose life had been stolen by some maniac.
The unfairness and evil of it all began to make her boil inside.
“Tiffany?”
She glanced up at Nathan. “Yeah, I’m sorry. What?”
He held out his cell. “Christian would like to speak to you.”
She blinked at him, then reached across the desk and took the phone. “Hey. You okay?”
“Not really. You?”
“Don’t worry about me.” Man, what she wouldn’t give to be with him now, to say or do something that might shave away even a fraction of his pain because she could feel his agony, see it in his eyes and it literally pummeled her soul.
“Right now, I’m just so angry I want to tear up something, rather someone.”
Tiffany knew anger was just one ingredient in his nasty casserole of emotions. She didn’t know what to say. Instinct told her she just needed to employ her ears more than her mouth, which caused a gap in the conversation.
Christian bridged it. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Talk to me.”
“We’re good. Right?”
She huffed. “Of course, Christian.” She wanted to say more, but they had an audience.
He let out a soft, sad sort of laugh. “Good. Just checking. I feel so shitty at the moment, I wasn’t sure I might have dreamed our visit earlier.”
She sucked her lower lip between her teeth wishing back those amazing moments and feelings.
“No dream. Do you have any idea what time you’ll get off?”
“It’s going to be a very full and complicated day. And as always it’s up to the babies. I have two mothers in labor presently, a host of appointments and meetings. It may be nine or ten before I get there tonight.”
“Do what you need to do. If you need anything, even an ear, call.”
“I will. Thanks, Tiffany.”
“I’ll talk to you later.” She ended the call then handed Nathan the phone.
He sat it on his desk and stared at her with a troubled look. “I’m so deeply sorrowful for all that’s happen to Christian and to you, but Honey you have my word I won’t rest until whoever is behind this is stopped.”
She tried for a grateful smile. “You rock, Nathan. You too, Dominic. Thanks guys. And when ya’ll nail this asshole, do me a favor and make him suffer in ways that would shock and awe the employees of the Spanish Inquisition torture chambers.”
Nathan chuckled then grinned at Dominic.
Dominic stared at the hologram and swiped. “Googling methods of torture and the Spanish Inquisition.” He glanced at her with a wicked little gleam in his green eyes.
Tiffany rolled hers. So did Nathan.