Page 41 of Intersect

The second our eyes meet, I know. I know who she is and why she’s here. I can grab her, or I can get the line out of Quinn’s arm. I don’t even need to debate it—I lunge for the IV. The woman is long gone by the time it’s out. I hit the alarm and the code team rushes in with security on their heels. But despite all the noise, all the chaos, Quinn lies there, unmoving, completely still.

20

QUINN

The doctor conducting the sonogram sees something. I can tell by the way his brows go up, and my heart starts to race.

“Is there something wrong?” I whisper.

He glances back at Nick, who is staring at the image like it’s about to step off the screen and offer him the secrets of the universe. “Do you want to tell or shall I?” he asks Nick.

Nick swallows and points to one tiny dot of flickering light on the screen. “There’s one heartbeat,” he says, sounding awestruck. He points to a second light. “And there’s a second one.”

Twins. We are having twins, when we hadn’t even planned on one baby just yet.

The doctor laughs at the look on my face. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to the idea.” I nod, grinding my teeth to hide my panic. He has no idea what this means, and Nick doesn’t either. But I do.

It means the predictions are coming true.

It means we have to hide this, or she’s going to take it all away again.

* * *

My eyes blink open. It takes a moment for the bright lights and the beep of the alarm to sink into my brain.

Hospital. I can’t remember why.

Nick sits beside me with circles under his eyes and a day’s worth of stubble, the only man alive who could make exhaustion look this good. “Hey,” I whisper.

He startles. “Oh thank God,” he says with a choked inhale. His lips press to the back of my hand.

I frown, trying to figure out why I’m here again. I remember Ryan’s memorial service and waking up here. My stomach takes a nosedive as I recall Nick’s news about the MRI. But everything after that is a blank. “What happened?” I ask. “I remember being here, but…”

And then I remember her face, her long blond braid, her pretense of care. I gasp, struggling to sit up. “It was her. The woman who—”

He places a gentle hand on my arm. “I know. She was here when I walked into the room.”

“You caught her?”

His face falls. “No. I’m sorry. She changed out your saline with something, so I grabbed that first, and by the time I turned around she was gone. Security has her on camera and they found her scrubs in the closet around the corner.”

I deflate immediately. “So we have nothing.”

“No,” he says. “This time we might have something.”

* * *

Nick had the foresight to go through the pockets of the scrubs she left behind before security got to them, and in one of those pockets he found a receipt. It has no name on it, but there was a note: Deliver by October 11. And if there’s going to be a delivery, it means that somewhere at Green Thumb Plants, just up the road from the hospital, there’s an address for this woman. All we can do now is wait, impatiently, for the manager to return Nick’s call.

I’m chomping at the bit to get out of the hospital and see what we can find out, while Nick is infuriatingly adamant that I stay right where I am. It’s been nearly an hour and I’m completely fine—well, mostly fine—but he won’t listen to a word I say. “You were just drugged with something we can’t even identify,” he says. “Until it’s out of your system, you’re not going anywhere.”

I groan and throw my head against my pillow like a child. “But we need to investigate.”

“They’re closed by now,” he says, “and we aren’t going to be investigating anything. She just attacked you. I want you as far from this as possible.”

I sigh. I’ll deal with that little objection later, but first I just need to get out of this damn bed. “Fine, but I don’t need to stay here. I feel great now. And I don’t know if anyone’s told you this, but my boyfriend happens to be a doctor.”

He gives me a lopsided grin. “A doctor, huh? He must be brilliant.”