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“We took care of all that, even the appointment in Manhattan. We found the train tickets and the interview itinerary. They no longer expect you.”

Rage made her lose her voice for a moment. “How dare you.”

“They were quite content to reschedule when they heard you were sick.” As if this was supposed to make it right.

Jane opened her mouth, ready to have at him, when it dawned on her that she was wholly at their mercy. So antagonizing her captors was probably not a smart move.

With a curse, she looked at the patient. “When are you going to let me go?”

“As soon as I’m on my feet.”

She studied his face, from the goatee to the diamond eyes to the tats at his temple. On instinct she said, “Give me your word. Swear on the life I gave back to you. You will let me go unharmed.”

He didn’t hesitate. Not even to take a breath. “On my honor and the blood in my veins, you’ll be free as soon as I’m well.”

Berating herself and them, she took her hand from her pocket, bent down, and grabbed a vial of Demerol out of the bigger duffel. “There aren’t any syringes.”

“I’ve got some.” Red Sox came over and held a sterile pack out. When she tried to take it from him, he kept a grip on the thing. “I know you’ll use this wisely.”

“Wisely?” She snapped the syringe out of his hand. “No, I’m going to poke him in the eye with it. Because that’s what they trained me to do in medical school.”

Bending down again, she fished around in the duffel and found a pair of latex gloves, an alcohol towelette packet, and some gauze and packing to change the chest dressing.

Although she’d given the patient prophylactic antibiotics through his IV before surgery, so his risk of infection was low, she asked, “Can you get antibiotics as well?”

“Anything you need.”

Yeah, they were definitely hooked up with a hospital. “I might want some ciprofloxacin or maybe some amoxicillin. Depends on what’s going on under that surgical packing.”

She put the needle and the vial and the other supplies on the bedside table, snapped on the gloves, and tore open the foiled square.

“Hold up for a second, Doc,” Red Sox said.

“Excuse me?”

Red Sox’s eyes fixed on her like a pair of gun sights. “With all due respect, I need to stress that if you harm him intentionally, I will kill you with my bare hands. In spite of the fact that you’re a woman.”

As a shot of terror stiffened her spine, a growling sound filled the bedroom, the kind a mastiff made before it attacked.

They both looked down at the patient in shock.

His upper lip was peeled back and those sharp front teeth were twice the size they’d been before. “No one touches her. I don’t care what she does or to whom.”

Red Sox frowned as if his buddy had lost his marbles. “You know our agreement, roommate. I keep you safe until you can do it yourself. You don’t like it? Get your ass healed up and then you can worry about her.”

“No one.”

There was a moment of silence; then Red Sox looked back and forth between Jane and the patient like he was recalibrating a law of physics—and having trouble with the math.

Jane jumped in, feeling the need to calm them down to a rolling boil. “Okay, okay. Let’s cut the macho-shithead posturing, shall we?” The two of them looked at her in surprise and seemed even more astounded as she elbowed Red Sox out of the way. “If you’re going to be here, unplug the aggression. You’re not helping him.” She glared at the patient. “And you—you just relax.”

After a moment of dead-fish silence, Red Sox cleared his throat, and the patient pulled on his glove and shut his eyes.

“Thank you,” she muttered. “Now, you boys mind if I do my job so I can get out of here?”

She gave the patient a shot of Demerol, and within moments his tight eyebrows eased up like someone had loosened the screws on them. As the tension left his body, she stripped off the bandage on his chest and lifted the gauze and packing off.

“Dear…God,” she breathed.

Red Sox looked over her shoulder. “What’s wrong? It’s healed up perfect.”

She gently prodded the row of metal staples and the pink seam beneath them.