"h.e.l.lo," she began. "I'm-"

"What areyou doing here?" Eyes narrowed, he advanced on her. "Using your feminine charms to get what you want?"

He lunged forward with the speed of a striking snake, and grabbed a fist full of her shirt. The fabric tore, and two b.u.t.tons bounced loudly on the hardwood floor. She jerked out of his grasp and backed away, keeping a careful watch on him. The man was crazed. She wasn't letting him close enough to touch her again, but she didn't want sudden movements to provoke him. "Rebecca, Philippe, I see you've met." Desmond's voice came from behind her, and she spun to face him, antic.i.p.ating another attack. "I was about to go down and see you."

"I thought you'd have come to your senses by now," Philippe said. "Didn't you listen to anything I said?"

"Did you listen to me?"

"I heard you say you'd do anything. I didn't think you were that desperate."

Desmond glanced her way. His eyes narrowed as she gathered the fabric of her gaping shirt together.

No other gesture or expression betrayed his feelings, but the emerald fury blazing in his eyes was so fierce, Rebecca took an instinctive step back.

He turned from her and locked his attention on Philippe, his voice soft with unspoken menace. "Is that your opinion of me? After all these years?"

"You were upset." Philippe spread his hands. His lips twitched in a nervous smile as he backed toward the door. Desmond glided forward, each precisely placed step moving him relentlessly closer to Philippe.

The madman was backing away now, but if Desmond cornered him, he might put up a fight. She sensed that neither man would pull his punches, if they ever came to blows, and she didn't want to be an innocent bystander caught in their crossfire. For once, a sense of self preservation overrode her curiosity, and she started edging toward her room.

"Last night I was upset. But now?" Desmond's hand curled into a fist. "You thought I broke my vow."

"No. Of course not." Philippe's lips quivered, shaking his smile. "She's a reporter."

"And thus without morals or rights to be used as I see fit, without regard to her consent?"

Rebecca froze, chilled by Desmond's words. They were too close to her own fears for her to leave without hearing the rest of this argument.

"A woman's body is a useful tool, one she might be willing to use to learn your secrets." Philippe scowled at her, his gaze pure venom. She'd just made a very powerful enemy.

"You overstep your bounds, brother."

Brother! As the two men glared at each other, Rebecca tried to spot a familial resemblance between them. They were the same height and basic build, although Desmond's frame was solidly muscled, while Philippe was too thin. Instead of Desmond's striking combination of black hair and pale skin, Philippe's brown hair and darker skin made him appear muddy. But Philippe's brown eyes shone just as vividly as Desmond's green ones, and they both projected the same air of controlled force. In Philippe's case, however, the control had definitely slipped.

The tension between the two silent, staring men was so intense, Rebecca's stomach clenched in sympathetic anxiety. A child's cry broke the tableau.

"Daddy!"

Desmond jerked like a sleepwalker coming awake.

"Philippe, you're no longer welcome here. Get out."

"Daddy!"

Desmond hurried to his daughter, leaving Rebecca alone with Philippe. She edged toward the nominal safety of her room. Philippe glared at her, his lips curling back in a snarl.

"This is all your fault."

"What? I'm not-" Wait. Weren't you supposed to agree with crazy people? It might at least keep him quiet until she reached her room. "Yes. It's entirely my fault. I'm sorry."

"Sorry? No, you're not. Not yet. But you will be," he threatened. Black hatred coiled in the depths of his eyes, trying to draw her into his madness.

She turned and ran the last few feet to her room. Once inside, she slammed the door shut, and shoved the chair under the door k.n.o.b. Hunched in the far corner of the bed, she clutched a pillow to her chest and watched the door.

Oh, G.o.d, she wanted out of this nut house. Yesterday. She wouldn't say a word about any of it to anyone.

The front door slammed, and she slumped down. Then her muscles started to shake. First hypnotized.

Then electrocuted. Now attacked by a madman. What next? In the living room, Desmond soothed his daughter. Although Rebecca couldn't hear his words, the rea.s.suring timbre of his voice carried clearly. She relaxed and let the calming tone carry away her fears, hungry for the same rea.s.surance. He would protect her and keep her safe. No one would hurt her while he was here. She had nothing to fear.

She put on a new shirt, unblocked her door, and went out looking for answers.

Desmond sat on the couch, cradling his daughter on his lap. Her head rested on his shoulder, her midnight black curls mingling with his. The noise must have woken her from her nap, as she was dressed in a red and yellow play suit and bunny slippers. One small fist rubbed at her eyes, and she yawned and snuggled closer to her father. Her bunny-clad feet kicked at nothing, and she sighed back into sleep.

Rebecca studied the girl. Gillian. The reason she'd been imprisoned. Even the softness of sleep couldn't hide the faint blue shadowing under the child's eyes, or conceal the pinched look of her face.

Rebecca didn't know much about children, but she knew they weren't supposed to fall asleep so easily in the middle of the morning.

Desmond looked up and met Rebecca's gaze. A wistful half-smile played upon his lips.

"She's already forgotten she was frightened." He stroked his daughter's hair, careful not to wake her.

"Life's a lot easier to deal with when you're only three."

Rebecca didn't want to intrude on the private scene, but she had to know. "What's going on here?"

"I apologize. Philippe didn't expect to find you here, and jumped to the wrong conclusion."

"He thought you...and I...?" She looked away, feeling the heat flush her face. She'd pictured the same thing herself, last night, when Desmond's warm hands woke her from a sensual dream. But she'd dismissed the thought as the product of too little sleep and unusual circ.u.mstances.

She gathered her wits.

"That still doesn't explain why he tried to tear my shirt off. Or why he threatened me."

"He threatened you?" Desmond's emerald eyes riveted her gaze. She could lose herself in their depths.

"He blamed me. For what, I don't know, but I didn't want to provoke him, so I just agreed and said I was sorry. He said I wasn't sorry yet, but I would be." She frowned and shook her head, unable to express the scene still so vivid in her memory. "It wasn't his words, so much as his expression. He looked like he wanted to kill me."

"Don't worry. Philippe's harmless. He would never hurt you. He just needs some time to cool off."

"Oh." Despite her doubts, Desmond's words rea.s.sured her. She smiled. He'd spoken in the same soft tone he'd used to comfort Gillian, and it obviously worked just as well on her. She wouldn't mind curling up against his other shoulder. Of the two brothers, Desmond was clearly the more dangerous. But not to her. Never to her.

"Dr. Chen is expecting you around noon. Would you like coffee or breakfast before you go?"

"I was hoping I could stay up here." How else would she get a chance to search Desmond's room?

And she really didn't want to return to the lab. She tried to look pathetic and play on his sympathies. "I don't want to go back underground."

"You won't be alone. Either Evan or Dr. Chen will be keeping you company the whole time. And the labs are very well lit. Besides, the tests will be done much more quickly with your help."

The threat was subtle, but Philippe's actions had sensitized her. Desmond might not let her go if she didn't cooperate. She didn't have a choice.

"All right, I'll go. But I'd better have some coffee, first, or I'll be less than useless to him."

Desmond put Gillian back in bed, and fetched Rebecca an earthenware mug of coffee from the kitchen. It was black and barely warm, but she drank it greedily. She'd just finished when someone knocked on the front door.

Desmond unlocked the door, his keycard provoking a buzz-click from the scanner. She hated that noise. It grated on her nerves like the constant chiming of an elevator that stopped on every floor when she was riding all the way to the top, reminding her that other people walked freely in and out while she was trapped.

The s.h.a.ggy-browed brute she suspected of tampering with her car stood outside.

"Evan, escort Ms. Morgan to Dr. Chen's lab. He's expecting her," Desmond said, his voice returningto the cold formality of last night. It was almost as if he didn't want the guard to know he'd been nice to her.

"Yes, sir."

Desmond prodded her out the door, leaving her stranded in the hall with Evan.

"Let's go," Evan said.

"Yeah. Sure." She glared back at the door. Every time she'd just about decided that Desmond might not be so bad after all, he started ordering her around. He could have asked politely. He didn't have to threaten her, then hurry to get rid of her before she changed her mind.

She didn't move fast enough for Evan. He grabbed her arm and pulled her after him.

"Hey, let go! I'm coming."

He looked at her, then dropped her arm.

"Come on, then."

He set off down the stairs and into the warren of corridors they'd traversed last night, leaving her to follow. If she didn't match his pace, he'd probably drag her.

Evan stopped before one of the featureless white doors.

"This is Dr. Chen's lab. I'll come back for you this evening." He slid his keycard through the scanner.

The scanner buzzed and the door clicked open. She stepped into a different lab from the one she'd been in yesterday.

"You came! I was afraid you'd changed your mind." Dr. Chen rushed over to greet her, his voice raised over the constant hum of fans.

He was the first person in this madhouse who seemed happy to see her, and she warmed to him despite her resentment. It wasn't his fault his boss was an autocratic jerk.

"I'm here. But what can I do?"

"I need a lab a.s.sistant to do all the tests as fast as Mr. Lacroix wants them, but all the a.s.sistants are already a.s.signed to projects. I could preempt one, but then I'd have to explain why my research was more important. In detail."

He shook his head, obviously distressed at the thought of disclosing enough information for other researchers to capitalize on his work. It made sense that he got along well with Desmond. They were both paranoid about secrecy.

Dr. Chen held out a package from a vending machine, interrupting her thoughts. "Twinkie?"

"Uh, no thanks." His trash basket overflowed with empty Twinkie wrappers that fluttered in the constant breeze of the fans. No wonder he was so jumpy. He must be on a perpetual sugar high.

"Take one. Keep your blood sugar up. You'll need the energy."

She sighed. "Can't you use the blood samples you took yesterday?"

"No, no. They're busy replicating, okay?" He gestured at rows of petri dishes sitting inside a Plexiglas box, filled with yellow goo that gleamed beneath a heat lamp. "It'll be another day before there's enough to test. No, I need your help here."

She looked at the Plexiglas enclosed desk top he pointed at. A series of test tubes, their insides coated with a clear substance, stood beside a brightly colored machine reminiscent of a carnival thrill ride.

"What goes in those?"

"I need another blood sample, okay? I have something else I need to test. As long as you're here." He pulled on a pair of surgical gloves.

"But I don't want to-"

"Just a little. You'll hardly feel it. Okay?"

He advanced on her with a needle.

She swallowed and nodded. Needles weren't so bad. And if she didn't do it, she wouldn't get out.

He sat her in a chair and drew a vial of blood from her arm. It stung a bit, but didn't hurt. She pressed the cotton pad he gave her to her arm, and watched with interest as he carried the vial to the sealed area, opened an access hatch, and popped the vial inside the sterile area.

Peeling off his gloves, he sat down. He pushed his hands through a pair of gloves attached to openings in the Plexiglas, and poured the contents of the vial into one of the pretreated test tubes. Rebecca stoodup and came over, observing over his shoulder. The process intrigued her.

He added a clear liquid to the tube and capped it, then dropped it into the machine. He switched the machine on, and it twisted and whirled the hapless vial. Just looking at it spinning about made her queasy.

Dr. Chen grinned.

"Okay! It's going good now!"

"What are you doing?"

"Breaking up the blood." He turned off the machine and peered at the vial, adjusted something and turned it on again. It spun faster. "I'm only interested in the white blood cells. The T-cells, leukocytes and neukocytes."

Rebecca watched Dr. Chen, glad of something to help her avoid looking at the whirling blood.

Keeping her gaze fixed on him, she said, "T-cells are part of the immune system. I remember that from a story I did on AIDS. And leukocytes are involved in Leukemia, although I forget if it's too many or not enough of them. But what are neukocytes?"

Dr. Chen stiffened, then turned away so that she couldn't see his face.

"If you're going to help me, you need to put on some gloves. There's extras in the top drawer."

Chapter 5.