Undercover Avenger
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Rita Herron
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Chapter One
Three Months Later
“Did you find my birth parents?” Melissa Fagan asked.
Larry Dormer, a local Atlanta private investigator she’d hired, hesitated before answering. “I hit a lot of dead ends.”
He was stalling. Melissa steadied her voice to hide the disappointment. She wanted a name, just a name. At least for starters. “So, why did you call me in, Mr. Dormer?”
“You told me to let you know if I found anything. I have a lead.” Anxiety emanated from him in the uneven breaths that rasped through the air, along with the scent of his perspiration. He’d cracked his knuckles more than once, as well, reaching for cigarettes, then fighting the urge, a definite sign of nerves.
Instead, he drummed a pencil on his desk. How bad could it be? Had he located her parents and been told they didn’t want to be found? Were they shady people?
“You know most records are sealed—”
“Just tell me,” she said, growing impatient. She could feel his pity, hear the disapproval in his voice, sense he was holding back. He didn’t think she should search for people who might not want to be found. She should respect their privacy. She’d heard it all before. But she had to know the truth. “Look, I understand how difficult it is to hack into confidential files. Believe me, I’ve tried several sources. But I want to know everything you learned.”
“You’re sure? You registered in the national database for adopted children, so if your parents were looking for you, they’d be able to contact you.”
“Maybe they’re not certain I’d welcome them.”
He still hesitated. “All right. But you may not like what you discover.”
“I’m well aware of that.” All those years of foster care, she’d prayed she’d be adopted. Or that her mother or father would suddenly appear and rescue her from a life of being shuffled from one place to another. That hadn’t happened.
Now at twenty-six, she had no such illusions that her life would be so idyllic.
Her mother had left her on the doorstep of a church with no note, nothing except a tiny handmade crocheted bonnet with a pink ribbon. She had no idea why she’d been deserted. If she did, maybe she could overcome this dreadful sense of abandonment.
Besides, it would be nice to feel connected to someone else in the world. Not to feel so alone. To at least know the truth about the woman who’d given birth to her.
He still hesitated, studying her over square glasses, giving her time to contemplate her options.
What if her mother or father had searched for her but had encountered the same brick walls she had? Or what if her parents had given her away because they couldn’t handle parenting an imperfect child?
She massaged her temple, fighting an agitation-induced headache. The one that indicated the onslaught of a seizure. Her medication helped immensely, but occasionally she still experienced the episodes. They were mild, not epileptic in nature, and her symptoms mimicked a bad migraine—she became disoriented, slipped into a trancelike state for a few minutes—but they still embarrassed her and made her feel flawed. Besides, the attacks always left her physically exhausted and slightly depressed.
Other questions assailed her. What if her mother had never told her father about her existence? What if one of her parents could accept her and be proud that she’d become an independent young woman? A physical therapist, when so many people hadn’t believed she’d succeed.
What if your parents are happily married to other people and have families of their own? What if they’re ashamed of you, the bastard child?
What if you weren’t born out of a night of passion?
Are you prepared for an ugly truth like that?
How could she go on not knowing, though? She’d lived in darkness all her life, her past an empty vacuum—at least this was one door she could open, look through, then close it if need be.
She braced herself for the worst. “Tell me what you discovered.”
He sighed and reached for a cigarette, this time relenting and lighting up. The stench of smoke filled the air, his shaky rasp of contentment following. “Your mother’s name was Candace Latone.”
Candace? She savored the name for a moment. “Was Latone her maiden name or married name?”
“She wasn’t married.”
“What else can you tell me?”
“She was young. Gave birth to you in Savannah, Georgia.” He hesitated, his reluctancy to answer her palpable.
“What?” Anger tightened her throat. “I’m paying you for the truth, not to sugarcoat it.”
“All right.” He wheezed, his cheap suit coat rattling as he swiped at the perspiration on his face. “She spent some time in a hospital down there.”
“You mean she worked at one? Was she a nurse, an aide, a doctor? What?”
“She was a patient, Miss Fagan. She attended college in Savannah and got involved in some kind of research experiment at the hospital where she volunteered.”
“What kind of experiment?”
“I haven’t been able to find that out. Records are sealed. No one is talking.”
“And my father?”
“Nothing so far.”
Her mind veered off on a tangent—could the research experiment have caused her seizure disorder? The doctors hadn’t been able to explain the exact cause, but suggested it was genetic. And though not life threatening, the disorder deterred people from adopting her. Worse, she was afraid she might pass it on to a child. Maybe if she discovered the cause, the doctors could prevent her offspring from inheriting the condition.
“If I were you, I’d forget the search.” He stood, inhaling smoke and shuffling papers, his demeanor indicating an end to their meeting.
“Can you keep looking?” Melissa asked.
“I told you everything, Miss Fagan. Now, I’d let sleeping dogs lie.”
Melissa shivered and gripped the chair edge. She didn’t believe him. He was hiding something.
Still, learning her mother’s name should have been enough. Melissa had been born in Savannah; she had a place to start. But the fact that Candace had been involved in a research project, and that Melissa suffered from seizures no one could explain, triggered more questions. “All right, thank you for your help.”
He snapped the file closed as if glad to be finished with it. “Goodbye, Miss Fagan.”
Melissa headed to the door, still contemplating his odd behavior. The elevator dinged, and she waited for the people to exit, then stepped inside, fighting off the stench of body odors, stifling perfumes and smoke lingering inside.
Frustration clawed at her as the doors closed, claustrophobia choking her. She pulled at her collar and inhaled, wrestling with bitter memories of being locked in a small room by her foster parents. They’d claimed they wanted to prevent her from wandering around at night, had been afraid she’d stumble into something. Instead, they’d confined her like a prisoner.
The elevator whirled to a stop, the doors buzzed open, and she stepped outside, breathing in the fresh air. A warm spring breeze brushed her neck, the scents of freshly baked bread and Italian cuisine floating from the neighborhood restaurant. The hum of Atlanta traffic whizzed around her—a horn blowing, a siren wailing, pedestrians passing. A homeless man in ratty clothes reeking of booze and filth hugged a bottle of wine to his chest, his glassy eyes staring up at her, glazed and disoriented. Compassion filled her. She understood how it felt to be homeless, unwanted.
She slipped inside a neighboring bagel shop, bought a bagful of bagels and a cup of hot coffee, then hurried out and handed them to him. Then she hailed a cab. At least she had more information than she’d had the day before.
Tomorrow, she would check out the research park in Savannah and get a job there. Once she located her parents, she could put the past to rest.
ERIC STILL COULDN’T believe he was alive.
Although the pain he had endured for the past few months had been excruciating, the doctors had claimed his strong will had brought him through.
Eric knew differently. He had survived so he could get revenge.
So he could find the person responsible for killing his witness and make him pay. And when he’d learned that the killer had also tried to murder his brother, an innocent woman and baby, he’d decided to do whatever was necessary to catch him.
Even work with the FBI.
“You can’t go undercover, Eric. For God’s sake, you’re in a wheelchair. You’re too vulnerable.”
Eric rubbed a hand along his jaw, ignoring the distress on Cain’s face. “I don’t want your damn pity, Cain. And I won’t be in this chair long.”
Still uncomfortable with the chair and his new image, Eric gripped the metal arms. But his new face beat the hideous one he’d awakened to three months before. And he would walk again, no matter how much physical therapy he had to endure.
“Hell, Cain, I thought you’d be glad I finally hooked up with the Feds.”
“But working undercover at the Coastal Island Research Park is too risky,” Cain argued. “What if someone realizes who you are?”
Eric pointed to the hospital mirror. “Look at me, bro. You didn’t even recognize me. How will anyone at CIRP, when they’ve never seen me?” He wheeled the chair toward the door. “I’m the last person they’d expect to show up as a patient.”
“I don’t like that, either,” Cain said. “Damn. If it weren’t for Alanna and Simon, I’d take the job.”
“No, they need you,” Eric said. “Besides, the people at CIRP would recognize you.”
His brother couldn’t argue with that point. “If Hughes has resurfaced, and they discover you’re with the Feds, there’s no telling what they’ll do to you. Do you have any idea the lengths some of those scientists have resorted to in order to cover themselves?”
His brother was right. The Feds had already briefed him on earlier questionable events at the center.
Eric’s mind ticked back to what he knew so far. Arnold Hughes had co-founded the research park, but years ago, he’d tried to sell research to a foreign source, then committed murder to cover his actions. When the police tried to arrest him, he’d escaped. His boat had exploded, but his body had never been found. Recent rumors suggested he’d resurfaced. That he’d not only supported a memory transplant experiment in which a former Savannah cop, Clayton Fox, had had his memory erased and been made to believe he was a man named Cole Turner, but he’d spearheaded an experiment to explore creating the perfect child. The child had been Simon—the baby his brother’s wife had protected by kidnapping him from the center.
Hughes was Simon’s father, only he didn’t know it.
And now a manhunt was on for Hughes.
The fact that the Feds suspected Hughes had resurfaced with a new identity had sparked the idea for Eric to capitalize on his own new face and work undercover. Ironic, but cunning—he’d use their own game to trap them. He’d even adopted a fake last name, Collier, to cover himself.
“The doctors are going to patch up my body,” Eric said with a wry grin. “It’s the least they can do after destroying it.”
“That’s just it, you’re not physically strong enough to defend yourself right now.”
Cain’s comment cut to the bone. “Another reason I’m having therapy. Besides, I need time to heal before the doctors can perform more skin grafts. I might as well be useful in the meantime.” The rehab arrangement at CIRP offered private bungalows on-site for recovery, which would allow him mobility and a beach view, a helluva lot better setup than another god-awful hospital, or having to arrange transportation from his own cabin to a rehab facility on a daily basis. He refused to be dependent on his brother.
Cain caught his arm just as Eric reached for the doorknob. Déjà vu flooded him. Another time when his brother had tried to stop him. If he’d listened to him then, the witness might still be alive.
But one look at the wheelchair, and he had to follow through. After all, it was spring. Cain had a new wife and a baby. A life to live.
Eric’s future was bleak. No spring roses or kids or lovers in his future. He had nothing but a battered, scarred body. And a dark soul, to boot.
One no woman would want.
All he had to live for was his revenge.
A WEEK LATER, MELISSA had landed a job at the Coastal Island Research Park Hospital, and moved into one of the small cottages on Skidaway Island CIRP had built for employees. But she’d hit a brick wall in Savannah when she tried to locate Candace Latone. Apparently, there weren’t any Latones living in the area, either that or they weren’t listed in the phone book. It was possible her mother had come to Savannah as a student from another city. Although Melissa’s funds were limited, her investigative skills were even more so. She would have to hire another P.I. to search for Candace.
Unless she discovered information at the school or hospital that would lead her to her mother.
People were funny about keeping secrets, even ones over twenty years old. She had to pursue her search slowly, so as not to upset the tide should someone object to her jimmying the closed doors of their lives. Last year, she’d read an article about an adopted child who’d been murdered because she’d unearthed the truth about her parentage. Her father had been a well-known politician who’d wanted to cover his mistakes.
Mistake—was that what she had been?
Shaking off the troubling reminder that she’d been unwanted, she considered the possibilities. But she doubted she’d discover anything quite so newsworthy or dramatic in her past. Still, Dormer’s warning had unnerved her, as had the stories she’d heard about the research park since she’d arrived—unethical research experiments, the death of the former director, the disappearance of another, Arnold Hughes, the murder attempt on a scientist and his wife when they had defied the institute. All too scary.
Deciding to lie low the first few days, make friends, acquaint herself with the patient load and staff, she focused on meeting the nurses, doctors and other therapists. She had just finished with her first patient, a child who’d suffered two broken legs in a car accident, when Nancy, one of the college-age girls who volunteered at the center, nudged her. Melissa’s gaze veered toward the door, where a broad-shouldered man with dark brown hair rolled toward them in a wheelchair. Masculinity and sex appeal oozed from him, along with the anguish evident in his tightly set jaw and black expression. He hated the wheelchair, that was obvious. Hated his weakness, that was obvious, too.
She didn’t blame him. She hated her own weaknesses.
“Not bad for an old guy,” Nancy murmured.
Melissa winced. He was only thirty-four. His name, Eric Collier. His chart revealed he was over six feet tall, weighed two hundred pounds. He didn’t have to stand up for her to see that his body was muscular. His face was nice looking, too, a broad jaw, angular with a firm nose and deep-set dark eyes.
“What’s his story?” Nancy asked.
Melissa explained his injuries. “He also suffered burns over twenty-five percent of his body, he’s had some skin grafts, waiting for more.”
Nancy shivered. “What happened?”
“Some kind of car accident. Apparently there was a gas leak and his car exploded.”
Nancy backed away, stricken. “Poor man. He was probably even better-looking before.”
He’s gorgeous anyway, Melissa wanted to say, but she didn’t. She had to remain professional. She never got involved with patients. And she wouldn’t make an exception here.
But the injuries and scars didn’t faze her as they did the young girl beside her. The courage the patients possessed did—everyone she worked with had a story. Dreams lost, shattered bodies and bruised self-esteem. Some gave in to pity, others fought hard not to succumb to the depression. To regain those dreams and their lives. With every failure and setback, she felt their frustration. With every success, their joy. And for those who tried to give up, she rallied harder to encourage them to fight back.
This one looked like a fighter.
The wheelchair rolled to a stop, the man’s hard gaze pinning her as he looked up into her eyes. His were a muddy brown, almost black. Angry. Full of pride. Challenge. Pain.
“Eric Cal… Collier,” he said. “I’m here for my session.”
She extended her hand, ignoring the fact that he was as handsome as sin. Anger radiated from his every pore in palpable waves, an attitude of aloofness surrounding him that would have been off-putting had she not seen it before. This man was not only scarred on the outside but on the inside, as well. Old wounds hadn’t healed, had festered instead, maybe all the way to his soul. She understood about those kinds of wounds too. She’d lived with them all her life. “Melissa Fagan.”
His mouth twitched as if he was trying for a smile but couldn’t force his lips to form one. She smiled for him instead. She’d seen tough men before and understood their difficulty in accepting help, as well as their own imperfections.
Especially when they had to depend on a woman.
Male pride and all that. This guy possessed it in spades.
“We’ll start over here, Mr. Collier.” She directed him to a desk in the corner for their first consultation. As soon as she sat, he relaxed slightly, although for a fleeting second his gaze skittered over her in an almost appreciative way, as if he’d noticed her as a man notices a woman. Good, some part of him wasn’t dead.
She’d wondered at first.
As a therapist, in the past, a few patients had been attracted to her. At first. But once they started the sessions, they usually wound up hating her. Hating her for pushing them. For punishing their bodies. For reminding them she could walk without help and they couldn’t.
She didn’t let their attitudes affect her, either. In the end, when they stood and walked out on their own two feet, free of their crutches, tolerating their temper outbursts was worth it.
Thankfully, putting herself more on his level helped dissipate some of his tension. She’d seen that reaction before, too. Men despised women towering over them. Control issues.
“Well,” she said, inflecting a cheerfulness in her voice she used with her patients. “It looks like we have our work cut out for us, Mr. Collier.” She reviewed his injuries and described the strategy for getting him back in shape, outlining basic exercise routines to be performed at the center and at home. “Remember, it takes time to regain your strength. You have to be patient.”
His curt nod warned her not to count on it.
She gestured toward the workout area. “Are you ready to get out of that chair, Eric?”
He seemed momentarily startled she’d used his first name, but he dismissed it quickly, then nodded, somber but determined.
“Good, but remember, you’ll have to take it one step at a time, one day at a time.” She smiled, hoping to temper her comment. “If you overdo, you can damage yourself further and cause a setback, so remember when I tell you to stop, it’s for a reason.”
“Right.” His sarcastic reply wasn’t lost on her. She’d have to stay on top of him or he’d ignore caution.
She pointed to the locker room and watched him wheel toward it, his broad shoulders stiff, his head held high. She hoped he would maintain the attitude.
He would need it to survive the long grueling sessions ahead of him.
ERIC STEELED HIMSELF against the instant attraction he felt for Melissa Fagan while he changed into workout shorts and a T-shirt. He should have worn them to the session, but pride had made him stall in revealing his scars. Especially when he’d heard his therapist was going to be female.
Disgust filled him for even momentarily noticing her beauty. This woman had read his chart. She knew the extent of his injuries. She would have to help him stand, help him learn to walk again.
She would have to touch his ugly marred flesh.
He could not think of her as a woman.
Still, he sucked in a sharp breath at the thought of exposing himself to her, though after all he’d endured in the hospital the last three months, he should be accustomed to it. The baths, the skin grafts, the constant poking and prodding. But somehow revealing his wounds to Melissa made him feel even more naked and raw.
Focus on the job. On catching Hughes.
His resolve set, he wheeled through the doors to the locker room, but the young blond candy striper winced as her gaze landed on his scarred thigh. He gritted his teeth and rolled past her, stopping directly in front of Melissa Fagan, daring her to do the same. She didn’t. She simply offered him a smile and gestured for him to follow as if his injuries didn’t faze her.
He gave her credit for not flinching, when he had almost gagged the first time the doctor had removed the bandages and he’d seen the mounds of discolored, purplish-red mangled flesh that had once been his solid, slick muscular thighs and arms and chest.
Of course, she was simply doing a job. Maybe she’d become immune to reacting to patients the way he’d forced himself to be impersonal when he dealt with victims. God knows, he’d seen some horrors in the past few years.
He remembered the courage the brutalized women he’d helped had shown as he gritted his teeth and endured the painful stretching and warm-up exercises she instructed him to do. He wouldn’t complain. Wouldn’t growl at her or curse even though he desperately needed to vent.
He would suffer through torture if it would make him whole again.
Damn it, his thigh completely cramped. The shooting pain radiated all the way from his upper leg down through his calf. Nausea gripped his stomach from the impact of the muscle spasm, but he sucked in air to control it.
“That’s right, breathe in, out.” Melissa gently kneaded the muscle, slowly stretching his leg and fitting his foot against her thigh. He focused on the deep-breathing exercises to stifle the rage of temper that attacked him at his helplessness.
Her silky hair swayed around her shoulders as she leaned forward to press her fingers into his leg, rubbing and massaging with long nimble strokes that felt like heaven.
He stared at her hands. He’d never quite appreciated the power of the pleasure they could offer a man. At least, not when the act wasn’t sexual. Her fingers pressed harder as she leaned forward to continue her ministrations, and he glimpsed the perfect pale skin of her neck. But he didn’t dwell on it or allow himself to enjoy the sweet fragrance of her soap and shampoo or the way her lips were the color of sun-ripened raspberries. And when images of her long dark hair cascading across his stomach intervened, he banished them, as well.
“That’s the reason we start with those basic warm-up and stretching exercises,” she said softly. “Although cramps are inevitable, especially in the early stages of therapy.” She angled her face toward him and smiled. The light softened her already pale green eyes. “Feeling better?”
He nodded, reminding himself that her smile and the soft words she murmured in that thick, sultry voice were intended to encourage him to work harder. They were also filled with compassion that he didn’t want to need or feel.
Because feeling only meant more pain. And he had reached his limit.
THE SIGHT OF ERIC’S proud stubborn chin thrust high as he wheeled toward the locker room stirred Melissa’s admiration even more, but the sensations she’d felt when she’d massaged the cramps in his legs had her heart pounding. When she’d helped him into the whirlpool, she had watched the bubbling water ooze over his flesh and had ached to soothe the tension from his strained face, the strain caused by working so hard to camouflage his agony.
She had never reacted this way to a patient before.
Touching and massaging body parts had become rote, impersonal. Yet, her stomach had fluttered when she’d placed Eric’s foot against her leg and touched his thigh. He had struggled to contain his reaction, although she’d glimpsed the fine sheen of perspiration that had beaded his lip when her fingers had pressed against his sensitive skin.
Hating herself for allowing personal feelings to intervene during work, she justified her reaction as a product of loneliness. She’d moved to a new place. She felt isolated and wanted to connect with someone.
She had been lonely and isolated her entire life.
Dismissing the melancholy thought, she wiped the back of her neck with a gym towel and hurried toward the break room for coffee. She could not start lusting after her patients. Good grief, she would lose her job. Not that she planned to stay here long. No, as soon as she discovered her parents’ identity and location, she’d hightail it to wherever they lived.
Eric Collier’s tortured dark eyes rose to taunt her.
The sooner she left town, the better.
Deciding to forgo the coffee, she went to search for the old records. They would either be kept on microfiche or stored in the basement of the main facility, not in the rehab building, so she detoured through the breezeway that connected the rehab building to the main hospital. Confidential or not, she had to see if the hospital still had records on Candace Latone.
She checked over her shoulder as she hurried down the hallway to the restricted area, determined to keep a low profile so as not to arouse suspicion.
EVERY MUSCLE AND JOINT in Eric’s body throbbed with pain. Even his teeth hurt.
It still hadn’t kept him from noticing Melissa Fagan though, or reacting as a man would to a woman’s touch.
Damn. He tossed the towel into the dirty-clothes bin and wheeled toward the exit. Forget the shower. He’d take one when he returned to his room. Where he had privacy and strangers didn’t have to watch him drag his butt from the chair to another one to wash his battered body.
He hesitated, chastising himself for indulging in a pity party. He had noticed others suffering while they worked through their own therapy. A young boy, about twelve. What was his story? An elderly woman—did she have family? A tiny toddler with leg braces—God.
Seeing them had affected him. At least enough to jolt him out of his own depression and finish the reps Melissa had assigned him. She’d warned him not to overdo.
Hell, he’d barely been able to manage the exercises she’d asked of him.
He hated the weakness. Hated immobility. Hated that a beautiful woman like Melissa had to see his ugliness.
He’d told Cain he could do his job, but what if he couldn’t?
Fighting the uncertainty over his recovery, he thrust himself forward, pushing down the hall. Maybe he’d take a scenic tour of the hospital on the way out and study the layout. At least then he could say he’d started investigating. If anyone stopped him, he could always claim he’d gotten lost.
Play up the invalid bit.
Just as he rounded the corner near the bottom floor, he spotted Melissa. He wheeled to an abrupt stop, watching her from a distance. Breathing in her beauty and telling himself not to.
But a frown pulled at his mouth. She was checking over her shoulder as if she thought someone might be following her. He edged into the corner of the doorway behind the open doors so she wouldn’t see him. She bit down on her lip as her gaze scanned the hall. Apparently deciding it was clear, she ducked into the doors and disappeared.
He inched the chair from behind the doorway and wheeled closer. The sign on the door said Restricted.
From the nervous look on her face, she wasn’t supposed to be entering the area. So what exactly was she up to?
