Silent Surrender

“Sarah? Promise me. You don’t want the center to get shut down, do you?”

“No, of course not.” Sarah wrapped her arms around her middle. She owed her life to Sol. His whole life revolved around the center.

She’d never do anything to hurt him or CIRP.

FROM WHERE HE STOOD at the reception desk, Adam heard the two doctors in the back arguing. Miss Johnson’s nervous gaze flitted to the door. “Dr. Tucker said he’s not available right now.”

The voices came again. “This is a damn nightmare!”

“Don’t you think I know it? Sarah Cutter’s a nut-case!”

Adam arched a brow and said, “Is Dr. Bradford available?”

The receptionist shook her head and reached behind her to shut the door between her cubicle and the main hallway.

The voices cut through the wood. “What the hell was Sarah Cutter thinking? For God’s sake, we give her back her hearing and then she spreads some cock-amamy story like that to the papers to discredit our center?”

“I’ve called a press conference for some damage control.”

Adam flattened his hands on the desk. “Look, Miss Johnson, I’m not going away until I speak with one of the doctors who worked with my sister.”

“I’ve explained to you that’s just not possible.” She gestured toward a red button on the side of her desk. “Now if you don’t leave, Detective, I’ll have to call Security.”

“Listen here, miss, if you don’t let me talk to Dr. Bradford, I’ll haul your skinny little butt in for interfering with an official police investigation.” He intentionally leered at her perfectly manicured nails. “And I don’t think you’d like some of the women in lockup.”

Fear danced in her eyes but she closed her smart mouth, jumped up and ran to the back, her heels clicking on the linoleum floor. He tapped his boot while he waited, deciding to give the doctor three minutes before he jumped over the security line and tore into him.

Two minutes, twenty-five seconds later, Bradford appeared and ushered him into his office. While Bradford cleared stacks of research material from a chair for Adam to sit in, Adam studied the man. He was Caucasian, short, gray-haired and portly. He wore a lab coat and gray slacks and had narrow, gray eyes with dark circles marring his leathery skin. “Miss Johnson said you were insistent on seeing me.”

Adam took the chair while Bradford seated himself behind his desk. “Yes, I want to know where my sister is.”

“Your sister?”

“Dr. Denise Harley.”

Bradford swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Your sister’s on leave—”

“That’s bull.” He stood, moving quickly, and jerked Bradford by the collar. “Denise always lets me know where she’s going. She wouldn’t leave her place without having someone take care of things, and I saw the papers piled on her porch yesterday.”

“Maybe she needed time away from her bully brother.”

Adam tightened his fingers around the doctor’s collar, grinning when the man yelped. “I don’t think so.” His eyes shot to the tabloid paper lying on the desk, looking oddly out of sorts with the research papers and medical journals.

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” Bradford chuckled without humor. “You’re questioning me because of some slimy tabloid reporter’s lies? You know those stories are fabrications, pure sensationalistic garbage.”

“Except this one may have a seed of truth.”

“You talked to that Cutter woman, didn’t you? You don’t actually believe her?”

Adam’s jaw snapped. “I’m checking out her story.”

“This is unreal! We help the poor woman restore her hearing and she invents some wild story to slander us!”

Adam watched a muscle jump in the man’s jaw. “She doesn’t seem the vindictive type.”

“She’s confused, Detective. She just had surgery. Did she tell you the possible problems with the implant?” He described the lack of clarity of sounds, the static breaks, the trouble her brain might have processing the information she heard. “In short, she could have misinterpreted something she’d heard and confused it with dreams. And frankly, I’m not sure she’s stable. Just look at her past.”

Adam gritted his teeth at the implication. “I want to see Denise’s office.”

Bradford shook his head. “I can’t let you in there. All research is confidential.”

“The hell with confidential! Don’t you get it? My sister’s missing!”

“That’s what you say. I believe she’s on vacation as she told me. Therefore, I have no reason to even consider authorizing your request.”

“Because you’re hiding something.”

“No.” Bradford pulled Adam’s hand away, then straightened his lab coat. “Because you’re chasing something that isn’t there, and I’m protecting valuable research.”

Adam realized they’d reached a standstill. He’d have to get a warrant and come back. But he wouldn’t give up until he found some answers. He carried enough guilt over Pamela’s death.

He had to do everything he could to find Denise. And to protect Sarah.

A FEW MINUTES LATER, Adam stared in shock at his sister’s apartment. The place had been ransacked.

Just yesterday it had been neat as a pin, but today magazines and clothes and papers littered the floor as if a tornado had swept through, overturning furniture and creating havoc.

What had the intruder been looking for?

He catalogued the details himself before dialing for a crime team, grimacing at the way the intruder had smeared ketchup and food all over the kitchen. Whoever had done it had wanted them to believe they were vandals.

But Denise’s desk had been torn apart, the computer discs were out of place—petty thieves and kids could care less about office files. Although the intruder pilfered her jewelry box, they hadn’t stolen the stereo and TV, so the motive hadn’t been robbery. Of course, someone could have driven by and scared off the culprit before he’d stolen everything he wanted. Or he might have used robbery as a cover-up for something else.

Denise’s estranged husband, Russell, a marine biologist at the center, had been bitter when she’d filed for divorce. Would he do such a thing for revenge? Did she have a boyfriend? No, Denise wouldn’t date before her divorce was final. Besides, she was a workaholic, and a social life was the last on her list of priorities.

Women were such targets—anyone could have developed a fixation on her and kidnapped her for their own devious means. Sarah Cutter’s porcelain face flashed in his mind; she was so vulnerable.

But Denise was the one in trouble. And her co-workers weren’t talking. He had to force them into giving him some answers. A knot of anxiety tightened his chest as Sarah’s face flashed in his mind again. If she was the link to finding Denise, and whoever had Denise knew she’d been helping him, they might go after Sarah.