Body Search
Fire! Dale thought in a quick moment of sleep-dulled panic
Tansy.
The half-formed thought dissolved in a fit of coughing as Dale lunged for the floor, instincts taking over. Tansy was down the hall. In danger. He yelled over the serpent’s hiss of smoke and the lion’s roar of fire beneath.
“Tansy, get back from the door, I’m coming in!” Dale shouted, hoping she could hear him. Hoping he wasn’t too late. There was no response over the rush of dry, burning wood and the voice of the fire. He ducked below the waist-high smoke and gulped in a breath before testing the knob. Blazing air surrounded him, and he yanked open the door and bolted inside.
Through watering eyes and the eerie red radiance that bathed the entire house, he saw that the bed was empty, and his heart stuttered. Then he saw Tansy….
She was lying on the floor. Out cold…
Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! And we have six breathtaking books this month that will make the season even brighter….
THE LANDRY BROTHERS are back! We can’t think of a better way to kick off our December lineup than with this long-anticipated new installment in Kelsey Roberts’s popular series about seven rascally brothers, born and bred in Montana. In
Bedside Manner,
chaos rips through the town of Jasper when Dr. Chance Landry finds himself framed for murder…and targeted for love! Check back this April for the next title,
Chasing Secrets
. Also this month, watch for
Protector S.O.S
. by Susan Kearney. This HEROES INC. story spotlights an elite operative and his ex-lover who maneuver stormy waters—and a smoldering attraction—as they race to neutralize a dangerous hostage situation.
The adrenaline keeps on pumping with
Agent-in-Charge
by Leigh Riker, a fast-paced mystery. You’ll be bewitched by this month’s ECLIPSE selection—
Eden’s Shadow
by veteran author Jenna Ryan. This tantalizing gothic unravels a shadowy mystery and casts a magical spell over an enamored duo. And the excitement doesn’t stop there! Jessica Andersen returns to the lineup with her riveting new medical thriller,
Body Search,
about two hot-blooded doctors who are stranded together in a windswept coastal town and work around the clock to combat a deadly outbreak.
Finally this month, watch for
Secret Defender
by Debbi Rawlins—a provocative woman-in-jeopardy tale featuring an iron-willed hero who will stop at nothing to protect a headstrong heiress…even kidnap her for her own good.
Best wishes for a joyous holiday season from all of us at Harlequin Intrigue.
Sincerely,
Denise O’Sullivan
Senior Editor, Harlequin Intrigue
BODY SEARCH
J
ESSICA
A
NDERSEN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Though she’s tried out professions ranging from cleaning sea lion cages to cloning glaucoma genes, from patent law to training horses, Jessica is happiest when she’s combining all these interests with her first love: writing romances. These days she’s delighted to be writing full-time on a farm in rural Connecticut that she shares with a small menagerie and a hero named Brian. She hopes you’ll visit her at www.JessicaAndersen.com for info on upcoming books, contests and to say “hi”!
Books by Jessica Andersen
HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE
734—DR. BODYGUARD
762—SECRET WITNESS
793—INTENSIVE CARE
817—BODY SEARCH
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Dr. Tansy Whitmore
— After this latest assignment, she plans to request a transfer away from the pain of working side by side with her ex-lover. If she lives that long.
Dr. Dale Metcalf
— The outbreak specialist is a brooding loner. Will an assignment on the island of his birth break through his carefully tended walls before a deadly past catches up with him…and threatens the one woman he cares about?
Walter Churchill
— Dale’s father figure helped him escape the poor island and become a doctor after Dale’s parents died at sea. He made Dale promise never to return. What will happen when that promise is broken?
Dr. Hazel Bronte
— The island’s dedicated doctor is overwhelmed by the deadly outbreak, which isn’t playing by the rules.
Mickey Lowe
— Dale’s distant cousin and boyhood friend is the only one with the power to call him back to the island.
Nathaniel Roberts
— The real-estate developer says he wants to help the islanders, but he may have a more deadly agenda.
Trask Metcalf
— Dale’s uncle drove him away fifteen years earlier. Is he looking to get rid of Dale again, this time permanently?
To Marley Gibson, for seeing this book through from beginning to end. Thanks, friend.
Contents
Chapter One
People were dying on Lobster Island. Again.
Dale Metcalf read the brief message for the hundredth time and told himself he should walk away. Let the islanders save themselves—they certainly hadn’t saved him fifteen years ago. They hadn’t saved his parents. His aunt.
“Can I get you something else?” The heavily made-up waitress leaned over Dale, giving him a look down her shirt and a whiff of cheap perfume. She brushed her breast against his arm when she stood, leaving no doubt as to what
something else
could entail. Though the strippers were off duty, the Slippery Pole still reeked of sex and anonymity.
He lifted the nearly empty bottle. “Another beer, please.”
Her pink-caked lips pursed and her tired eyes flashed,
stuck-up doctor thinks he’s too good for the likes of me. Bastard.
She flounced off with a twitch of her too-generous hips, and Dale leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He folded the paper and
tucked it into his pocket without looking, but the words pounded in his brain. Lobster Island. Death.
“Dr. Metcalf.”
Dale jolted at the voice, then cursed when his boss, Zachary Cage, slid into the dark booth. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Ripley said you were looking for me.”
Hospitals were incestuously small by nature. Boston General had become even more so when Cage married Dr. Ripley Davis, who was best friends with Dale’s ex. Awkward didn’t even begin to cover it.
Dale frowned. He’d wanted to have this conversation at the hospital, wanted it official. “Yeah, I need to talk to you. But I didn’t expect you to track me down in an off-hours titty bar.”
“And I didn’t expect to find
you
in one, knocking back cheap beer,” Cage countered. “So what’s the problem?”
Dale tilted the bottle to buy a moment. He wasn’t much of a drinker, but the memories crowding his head deserved to be toasted with beer. The cheaper the better. He set the bottle down. “I need time off.”
“No problem.” Cage waved at the waitress and ordered an import. “Between Boston General and HFH, you’ve done the work of two average doctors. You deserve a vacation. Maybe it’ll help you clear your head of…things.”
Dale was tempted to let his boss think he needed distance from the breakup. But Cage was the local administrator for HFH— Hospitals for Humanity—
a group that sent doctors into unstable situations. War. Natural disasters. Outbreaks. He needed to know where Dale was going, and why.
At least some of the
why.
Nobody at Boston General needed to know all of it.
“I’ll need HFH field equipment.” Dale touched his pocket, where Mickey’s message rested near his heart. Distant cousins, the boys had grown up together. Mick was the only one Dale had kept in touch with. The only one who had the power to call him back to that godforsaken place. “There’s an outbreak of shellfish poisoning on a chunk of rock called Lobster Island. The Maine fisheries people shut the area down, but I’d like to investigate.”
Cage’s eyebrows lifted. “Why HFH?”
The subtext read,
why bother?
The group focused on major disasters and massive outbreaks. Not a few people sick with paralytic shellfish poisoning— PSP—and not when the locals already had the necessary quarantines in place.
But this was different. Resisting the urge to tug at his imported cotton shirt, Dale muttered, “I was born on the island.”
Oddly enough, he wasn’t struck by lightning. He glanced at his beer. It was his third. Maybe fourth. And it was the only way he’d been able to make himself say the words.
Cage raised his eyebrows. “Well, hell. I always thought—”
“Yeah, I know,” Dale interrupted. That’s what
everyone at Boston General thought, because that’s what he’d wanted them to think. “I need a week, some field kits and lab support back at BoGen.” He paused. “Please.”