Chapter Thirteen

4:22 p.m.

Carmen watched John out of the corner of her eye and snorted. “When would I have had time?” She shook her head. “I was years younger than all my fellow students. They weren’t interested in me, and the one or two who were, well, I had a well-developed sense of who was a creep and who was safe.” John Dozer hadn’t rung a single warning bell. Her gut had said he was safe, but he hadn’t been.

He stared at her now like she’d grown an extra arm.

“You were my first in all respects.”

His silence was becoming uncomfortable. Finally, he said, “That explains a few things.”

“Oh, which things?”

He shifted in his seat, like he was a small child trying to pass along a handwritten note. “Your hesitation.” His gaze heated. “I almost had to coax you into that first kiss.”

He was reliving the moment in his head. So was she. Despite the danger and dirt they’d been in, he’d damn near lit her on fire. “I wanted to kiss you, John. I just didn’t know how.”

He glanced at her hair, and the heat in his eyes died. “Why me?” His question came out hoarse and strained.

She blinked. “I thought we were going to die, and…I wanted…you.”

He swore and rubbed his face with both hands. “You should have told me.”

He could not have just said that. “When, exactly, should I have done that? While we were running from whoever was trying to kill us, or when we were hiding in that bombed-out building unable to speak for fear of discovery?”

He leaned in so close she could feel his lips move next to her cheek. “I made love to you in that building.”

“Yeah,” she said in a drawl. “It was so romantic.”

He reared back. “You didn’t want—”

“Oh, I wanted, all right, but you”—she poked his chest with one index finger—“left out some personal information of your own.”

He frowned. “I did?”

Seriously?

“Your marital status, asshole.” The words sounded like grit between her teeth.

He paused, his focus inward, and then his expression cleared. “Holy shit, that was right before the divorce papers went through.” His gaze sharpened on her face. “How did you know about that?”

“Martin.” The man’s name came out of her mouth like it tasted bad.

“That sneaky, sick, son of a bitch,” John said.

“No, Martin is an honest, sneaky, sick, son of a bitch. You…you weren’t honest.” She let the implication that he and Martin shared the rest of those attributes build a wall between John and her. “You should have told me you were married.”

“My marriage was over. The only place it existed was on paper.”

“Which is more of a promise than I ever had from you,” she said, going nose to nose with him.

He bared his teeth at her. “I made lots of promises to you. Promises I wanted to keep, except you took off without any warning. I never had the chance to tell you about my failed marriage or anything else.”

“You should have told me before we had sex.” The words came out of her mouth in an angry hiss.

“Things were chaotic. I was terrified we were both going to die, and in the moment…I just wanted to make it good for you.” He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against his seat. “That was a shit day none of us planned for.” He ran a hand down his face. “And I sure as hell wasn’t prepared for what you do to me.”

“So…it’s my fault?”

“No, I had no intention of…” He floundered for a word but couldn’t seem to find it.

“You flirted with me.” She made it a statement.

“It wasn’t serious. You were nervous around me and the rest of the regular soldiers. I was trying to establish a rapport so you wouldn’t freeze if I had to shout an order at you.”

“So you were just doing your job? Really?”

“That’s not what I—fuck.” He punched the seat in front of him. It attracted the attention of several people around them.

He glared at them until they looked at something else, then leaned as close as his seatbelt would allow. “Yeah,” he said, his voice low and lethal. “I wanted you from the moment I first saw you. It was like the fucking sun walked into the room, so beautiful and radiant I knew I should stay away from you. You deserved a decent man, not someone with the amount of blood I had on my hands.”

He lifted them up and looked at them briefly. “Still have on my hands.” He lowered them and kept talking. “Then, that bottom-feeder Martin went after you, and I couldn’t stay away. Every moment I spent with you just made me more and more hungry for you. When that IED went off, I didn’t know if we were going to make it. I hoped and prayed that I could keep you safe, but there was an equal chance we’d get shot.”

He paused to suck in a breath, as if he’d run a long-distance race. “I had every intention of telling you about my miserable marriage when we got to safety, but we were separated as soon as we made it back to base, and then you were gone.”

She considered his arguments. She didn’t like them, but she couldn’t pretend they didn’t make sense. She hadn’t told him her chronological age until now, either.

“I need to know something,” he said.

“What?”

“Did Martin bother you?” He looked her over. “Did he touch you?”

“I told you—I kicked him in the balls.” That wasn’t the only thing she’d done. “I also told him that if he tried another stunt with me, I would show him what an autopsy was like from the perspective of the corpse.”

The smile that slid over John’s face was both delighted and naughty.

She cleared her throat. “He left me alone after that. Everyone did.” She hesitated, then asked, “Why didn’t you try to get in touch with me? Afterward, I mean.”

“I couldn’t. As soon as I was medically cleared, I was given a long-term assignment working with a Special Forces unit and an Afghan warlord. I was in-country for four months. By the time I got back, you were back in the States. I did try to reach you through the CDC, but I was told that due to the trauma you suffered in Afghanistan, you wanted no contact with anyone who’d survived the mission.”

“What?”

He gazed at her. “You didn’t know about that?”

“No.” She recalled talking to her then-supervisor about how emotionally taxing the assignment had been. How losing so many of the people on her team to an IED had left her emotionally compromised. “But I could see my supervisor at the time, Dr. Francine Setterer, issuing that kind of response to anyone trying to find me.” She looked away. “I was in rough shape for a while there, emotionally.”

“Fuck.” John said it softly, but she still heard it. He looked off into space for several seconds before speaking again. “What are the chances…?” He looked at her with wide, hopeful eyes. “We could start over? I’d like to find out where this thing between us could go. For real. No secrets, no lies, just…us.”

That was a tall order. “When I found out you were married, I was angry and embarrassed and hurt. I can’t just pretend it never happened. Can you pretend it never happened?”

4:41 p.m.

He thought about the years between when he first met her and when he’d found her again. He’d done some horrible things in the name of freedom and justice and been places he didn’t want to ever think about again. Places full of pain and death. He wasn’t the same man he’d been nine years ago. Back then, he wanted to take on the world; now…he wanted a home, a partner in life, a lover who understood him and wanted him just as badly as he wanted her.

The pain on Carmen’s face told him her wounds hadn’t closed. Wounds he’d ripped wide open. Maybe his explanations put a bandage on them, but they sure as hell needed more time to heal.

So what the fuck could he do?

Something thick clogged his throat, and he had to clear it before he could talk. “No, and worse, I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen.” She pressed her lips together so tightly the skin around her mouth turned white. “Look, let’s just figure out this assignment. After that, we can talk again and decide what we want… Set some…boundaries.” Don’t give up on us.

She didn’t look happy but finally said, “Okay.”

“I’m your bodyguard, but I’d also like to be your friend. I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I will make suggestions. I may ask you to stop working to do basic things like eat and sleep, but I won’t interrupt or interfere with your work unless it’s necessary. Use me as a sounding board and safe place to vent, but don’t shut me out.” He stopped, hoping for a positive sign—a smile or nod.

She frowned at him. “Why do I feel like I just kicked a puppy?”

That surprised a laugh out of him. He felt like a kicked puppy.

“Fine,” she said, as if coming to a decision. “We’ll take things as you suggest.”

Good. That was good.

He held out his hand, and after a moment she took it. They shook once.

“I’m going to sleep while I can,” she said, then put her head back against her seat and closed her eyes.

Dozer had to force his gaze away from her face. He wanted to keep her talking, but he had to give her some space. Rationally, he knew that was what he had to do, but he really wanted to throw rational thought out the fucking window, pull her onto his lap, and hold her for a couple of hours…days…weeks.

Not going to happen any time soon.

Fuck.

Someone jostled his shoulder. The drill sergeant.

The veteran smiled, showing off his teeth. “Get your shit figured out?”

Great. Half the people on the plane had probably witnessed their argument.

DS leaned a bit closer and said, “BTW, no one could hear what you two were saying, but your body language told everyone plain as day that you were having a fight.”

“Nosy Nellies,” Dozer growled.

“You made for great in-flight entertainment.”

“Wonderful.”

DS laughed and walked back to his seat.

The rest of the flight was uneventful, and they landed in Orlando at 5:40 p.m.

As soon as they touched down, Carmen roused, checked her phone, and began texting rapidly.

“Any news?” Dozer asked.

“The death toll from the bombing is still at twenty-three. The number of injured stands at forty-two with one person missing—one of our people—nurse Derek Anders.” She looked ready to strangle someone. “All of our people at Orlando General Hospital are either injured or…”

“Dead,” he finished the sentence for her.

She nodded, her eyes narrow and tight with anger.

The plane came to a stop.

While they were being met at the gate by two uniformed airport security guards, something on the tarmac caught the guards’ attention. Both men sucked in a breath, then froze.

Dozer glanced out the airport’s floor-to-ceiling windows. What the flying fuck?

A small car was driving erratically toward their plane, dodging a taxiing aircraft and a luggage train. Behind it, two security vehicles with lights flashing tried to catch up.

They weren’t going to make it.

The constant background ache of his ribs and the invisible weight of too few hours of sleep disappeared beneath a swelling wave of adrenaline. Smaller details came into sharper focus.

The area was full of people making their way to and from gates or waiting for their flights to be called. Faced away from the window, Carmen had no idea a threat was seconds away.

The two security guards were locked in shocked surprise, their eyes wide and mouths slack. No help there.

The car was three, maybe four seconds from impact, its target either the plane’s left side, which sprouted the baggage and passenger ramps, or the terminal building itself. Either way, if that car was full of explosives, people were going to die.

“Take cover,” someone shouted. It was only after the words were out he realized he was the one who shouted them, because he was already moving.

Carmen’s body weighed nothing as he snatched her up in an unyielding grip and pushed her onto the floor behind a row of chairs. Dozer covered her with his body just as an explosion punched the side of the building. Glass shattered, screams lacerated the air, and the smell of fuel on fire clogged his lungs.

Carmen choked and coughed, too, and tried to get up, but he wasn’t moving until he was certain the danger was over.

His head hurt with a throbbing ache that dulled and darkened the edges of his vision, but passing out wasn’t an option. Not with Carmen wiggling beneath him and yelling his name.

When he didn’t respond fast enough, she elbowed him as well as shouting at him. The jab broke through the dark fog, bringing him back to full consciousness.

He slid off her with a groan, wishing all the noise, alarms, and people shouting would fucking shut up.

Carmen got to her knees and put her hands on him, searching for injuries.

He glanced at himself but didn’t see any fresh blood on his clothes. He touched his head with careful fingers, but no blood stained his skin.

Yippee.

She got in his face, his name on her lips.

“I’m okay,” he told her as he slowly sat up. “You?” His voice sounded funny—blurred, blunted, and blanketed. Great. Now his hearing was fucked up.

She sucked in a breath, paused, then nodded. Three of the floor-to-ceiling panes of glass closest to the blast were completely gone from the windows. All of it blown inward in chunks.

Thank God for safety glass.

There were a few scattered flames flickering, but they appeared to be going out. The plane they’d just arrived in had a huge hole blown into one side, and their equipment was strewn all over the place.

All that was left of the car was the chassis with some crumpled metal on top of it. There was no sign of the driver. Obliterated?

A suicide bomber.

Anger and adrenaline fused, then ignited in his gut. Someone had to have shared their travel details with the wrong fucking people. And since this trip had only been hours in the making, that someone had to have access to sensitive information within the CDC or one of its partners, Homeland Security, or the FBI.

There was absolutely no doubt now. There was a traitor among them. A traitor who was now an accomplice to murder.

Sound began to clarify, the blanket slowly sliding away from his ears, until the world sounded normal again. Or as normal as it could be.

“Shit,” Carmen said, all but spitting the word. “All of our equipment has been damaged or destroyed.”

That was her biggest worry?

“We were almost damaged or destroyed.” The traitor could be any number of people, including someone with them right now. “It’s not safe here,” he told her in a low voice that wouldn’t carry. “You need to get on the next plane back to Atlanta.”

Her frown almost made her look ferocious. Almost.

“No. I won’t.”

“Your safety—”

“Can’t be guaranteed anywhere,” she interrupted. “I won’t let some assholes stop me from doing my job.” She leaned into him, close enough that their bodies touched, and she said in a suspiciously reasonable tone, “I won’t let you do it, either.”

Goddamned stubborn woman.

He could see it on her face—she wasn’t going to listen, wasn’t going to back down, was, in fact, going to do exactly what she set out to do. No one—no organization, no terrorist, not even a suicide bomber—was going to prevent her from getting to the bottom of this outbreak.

The urge to grab her and hide her somewhere inaccessible was an itch under his skin. Her refusal to leave left him powerless to claw or rip it out. “This is reckless.”

“This is my job. Whether it’s in Sierra Leone responding to an Ebola outbreak or tracking down the source of an E. coli outbreak across several states. This is what I do.”

“But we’re dealing with more than just microscopic threats.”

“That’s why you’re here. To deal with the macroscopic ones.”

Great, he had implied permission to take care of her, but without all of the tools. He fought down frustration and fury, locking them in a small, insulated, steel-jacketed box. Later, he’d explain how irresponsible and rash her behavior was. Later.

Breathing deep for several breaths, he looked around and noted some good news. Most members of their team were up and moving. “We need to do a head count.” He glanced outside again and winced. “Casualties among airport personnel is guaranteed.”

“Yes, this assassination attempt very nearly worked,” she said with a cold tone promising pain to the would-be assassins.

“On you and/or me?” Dozer asked. He didn’t see the difference, but she might, and her perspective was important.

“All and any of us they could reach.” She snorted. “Although, if they wanted to kill specific targets, they’d have used bullets instead of a bomb.”

He had to admit, she’d grown some serious mental armor over the years. She kept her rational brain in charge and wasn’t letting her emotions take over.

It made him hard.

God, he was a dick.

“They knew we were coming,” Dozer said.

“Our travel plans were leaked,” she said slowly, nodding while the gears in her head ran faster and faster. “And the FAFO was ready to take this opportunity to destroy and demoralize us and our work.”

He looked at her, tilting his head to one side. “That’s going to backfire on their asses.”

She smiled, her teeth on display. “Yes, it is.”

Rawley hurried over, and Carmen told him she was going to check in with all of her people and figure out the state of their equipment. She asked him to secure the area and do whatever he needed to do all before he could say a word.

For a second, surprise opened up his features, but it disappeared in favor of a businesslike nod containing grudging respect.

Had he thought she would be stressed and showing it?

When his fellow agent looked at Dozer, questions in his gaze, John said, “I’m sticking with her. If I see anything that might help with your investigation, I’ll let you know.”

A moment of surprise passed before Rawley said, “The area should be evacuated, in case there are other undetonated explosives.”

Carmen agreed, and Rawley stepped away, already talking on his phone with someone.

DS reported a couple of people hurt by the blast. Dozer took a good look at the old man but didn’t see any injuries beyond a couple of small cuts on his hands.

Good. Dozer still didn’t know what the retired drill sergeant’s actual job title was at the CDC, but he seemed to have his finger on the pulse of everyone’s mental and physical health. He often ran interference between Carmen and anyone who might be in her way or become a distraction. He’d also done some hospital babysitting of himself and Dr. Gunner when the other man had been shot. Dozer would have given him a fancy nickname like man Friday or pool boy, but DS’s comeback would have been equally, or more, embarrassing, so Dozer kept the monikers to himself.

Carmen urged everyone to move away from the blast zone so she could do a head count and injury assessment.

Three people had been cut up badly enough to need stitches. One person had a concussion, thanks to hitting their head on the floor, and one person had a broken wrist.

She excused all five so they could get treatment, then ordered them to return to Atlanta once they were released.

“How easy will it be to get our equipment replaced?” DS asked after the wounded were taken to the nearest ER.

“Easier than the people. It will have to be trucked to the site.” She glanced around. Alarms were still going off. “I don’t think the airport is going to be open to flights for a while. The biggest issue,” she said with a frown, “is the loss of our hazmat suits. Until we get more, we’ll have to use particle masks, gloves, and safety glasses.”

“Is that good enough?”

“It’ll have to be. Waiting is not an option.” Her phone rang, and she answered it, stepping away from everyone to speak. Dozer followed, keeping his attention on their surroundings.

From her tone, he could tell she was talking to someone senior to her, probably the CDC director, but he didn’t let himself get distracted by her words. This was a dangerous time, right after a bombing. People were stressed, confused, and injured. That meant they weren’t watching their environment as closely as they should while first responders arrived to help.

A great time for a second strike to happen.

He scanned the area, looking for anyone out of place. Anyone calm or focused or showing a lack of reaction.

But no threat appeared.

Carmen touched his arm. “I’ve been ordered to get our team to the hospital. Military transport is coming to pick us up.”

Military? Someone had pulled some strings. “Equipment?” he asked.

“On its way. Until it gets here, the National Guard is going to provide some of what we lost. Tents, cots, generators, basic medical supplies. The rest, we’ll have to wait for.”

“Rawley?”

She hummed under her breath. “You’re right. I need to talk to him before he thinks I’ve left him out.”

“He is kind of needy,” Dozer said with what he hoped wasn’t too much sarcasm.

Carmen’s quick smile told him he got it right, and it hit him in the solar plexus with the power of a blow.

Kissing her now would be a bad idea, but that didn’t stop the images of her in his arms from crowding his head.

They found Rawley talking to a group of law enforcement and airport security people.

Carmen was too short to be seen over taller heads, so Dozer waved him over.

She explained what she wanted to do, and, predictably, he didn’t look happy about it.

“You have two options,” she told him before he could speak. “You can stay here and participate in this investigation, in which case I’ll request another agent as liaison. Or you can pass this on to someone else and come with us.”

His mouth twisted with distaste, but he didn’t say anything.

Dozer could understand his hesitation. The airport investigation might yield new evidence in the FAFO case, and that would go a long way to making an agent’s career.

“We’re leaving in five minutes,” she said. “You have that long to decide.”

“I need to report in before I can come with you,” he said as if it hurt to say the words. “Don’t leave without me.” It was an order.

Dozer winced, anticipating Carmen’s response.

“You’re here, with the CDC, at my discretion, Agent Rawley, not the other way around,” she said, her tone cold. “This has been explained to you, and yet you continue to behave as if you are in a position of power and authority over my people and myself. You are either being deliberately obstructionist, your memory has been degraded by injury or fatigue, or you simply don’t understand the situation at all. None of those possibilities puts you in a good light. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to deal with your stupidity. Either you’re ready to leave with us in five minutes and you stay on my team, or you’re not and you’re gone. Choose.” She turned on her heel and marched away, her people closing in around her.

Dozer gave Rawley one last questioning look—Are you going to pull your head out of your ass or not?—then followed her.

Rawley showed up on time.

8:05 p.m.

The military bus pulled out of the airport as more fire trucks and police headed toward it.

Carmen was on her phone, probably with CDC Atlanta HQ, talking to someone about supplies.

“Any injuries?” Rawley asked as he took a seat next to Dozer.

“Anyone with anything more serious than cuts has been removed from the team and sent for medical care.”

“I meant you,” Rawley said in a droll tone.

“No. I saw the car coming in hot a couple of seconds before it plowed into the plane and got behind some cover.”

Rawley perked up at that. “Did you get a look at the driver? See anything about the vehicle that could assist the investigation?”

Dozer picked through his memory. “The car was dark in color. Small, older model. The driver had short hair, male…” Well, shit. “Young.”

“FAFO,” Rawley said under his breath.

“It fits their MO. They like using young idiots as bomb-delivery people.” Dozer gave Rawley a sidelong look and asked, “How did they find out about our flight so fast?”

Rawley’s expression went flat. “Inside information.”

“Yup.”

Rawley studied Dozer with genuine interest. “You still intent on guarding her and yourself?”

“Yup.”

“Good. Two less things I need to worry about.”

“Yup.”

“Just keep me in the loop, okay?”

“Dude, I’ve been nothing but straight with you since the moment we met. You’re part of the loop.”

“Okay, okay.” Rawley’s mouth pinched. “You don’t need to sing me a love song.”

Dozer laughed. “I think you owe me some fucking chocolate, though.”

Rawley stood. “Don’t hold your breath.” He made his way farther inside the bus to talk to DS.

The veteran was handing out masks, safety glasses, and handfuls of gloves to everyone, and he handed Rawley a pile of safety gear before the agent could ask. He seemed to respect DS more than anyone else at the CDC; Dozer wondered if the Army veteran should ride herd on the agent. No, Carmen needed the older man for other tasks. Like ensuring there was no communication breakdown between her people and everyone else.

After Carmen got off the phone, Rawley came back and said, “We’re going to be split into two locations. This doubles the risk of another attack. Is splitting up completely necessary?”

“The team going to Kissimmee will be focused on disease containment, identification, and patient care. The team going to Orlando General will have the resulting chaos of the bomb to deal with. I need to assess the situation in Orlando, then move all possible infected patients to Kissimmee. Hopefully, that will simplify things. If everything goes according to plan, our resources will only be split for twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

Rawley considered it. “Transferring patients from one hospital to the other will give the FAFO multiple targets and opportunities to attack us. I can’t protect everyone adequately.”

So much for the fucking chocolate.

“You have a team of people to assist you, Agent Rawley,” Carmen said to him, her voice cutting. “We can’t just abandon Orlando General.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rawley said with enough derision to melt a hole through a steel plate.

“In all our conversations, Agent Rawley”—Carmen’s tone was too calm—“you have a tendency to speak in the singular. And while I applaud your willingness to take appropriate responsibility for decisions and actions, the CDC Outbreak Task Force almost never operates that way. Our people are required to think and act as part of a team. You are now part of that team.”

Dozer cleared his throat. “I discovered that if I consulted Dr. Rodrigues and her people before making any decisions that might affect them, I was far more likely to get their full cooperation.” He shrugged. “It’s kind of a nice change from dealing with competing law enforcement agencies.”

Rawley’s gaze moved from Carmen’s to his, then back again. “Thank you for that observation,” he finally said, his tone so carefully polite it couldn’t be believed. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

Only if he put earplugs in.

Carmen addressed the entire bus and told everyone they were going to Kissimmee first. The team there would assist with the work already going on and prepare to receive patients from Orlando General.

Several questions came up, including the possible need for additional trauma-care staff. She responded that the CDC was prepared to send people to bolster the staff. She would assess the situation and make recommendations to the CDC director.

The bus arrived in Kissimmee with little fanfare, and the Kissimmee team disembarked and followed hospital staff to an area where a couple of large tents were going up. Though both sides of the street were lined with cars, there were few people in sight.

After all the sirens and noise at the airport, this calm was quiet. Too quiet.

It made Dozer’s gut twist.

9:36 p.m.

As the bus made its way to Orlando General Hospital, flashing blue, red, and yellow lights of a myriad of emergency vehicles pulled everyone’s attention. There were a lot of lights. And a lot of noise.

Whispers floated up from the back of the bus.

Oh my God.

How many ambulances?

How big was the explosion?

“How did the Army get here so fast?” Rawley asked, staring at a spot away from the emergency vehicles. A group of men and women in Army uniforms were getting off another military bus, some of them carrying weapons, others dressed in heavy body armor. Two of them had K-9s with them. All of them wore gas masks.

That was going to keep things calm…not.

Carmen was scrolling through messages on her phone. “It looks like the Orlando sheriff requested a bomb squad.”

“The Army was closest?” Rawley asked.

“Or the police teams are already out on calls,” Dozer said. “They might have been the only team available.”

A man in uniform approached their bus and waited a few feet outside the door.

Carmen, Rawley, and Dozer got off the bus.

“Dr. Rodrigues?” the man in uniform asked, his voice muffled by the gas mask he wore. “I’m Sergeant Travis. My unit specializes in bomb detection and removal. We were asked by the sheriff’s office to come in to ensure there are no other explosive devices in the area. All other bomb squads in the region are already engaged.”

“I’m glad you’re here, Sergeant.” She introduced them all.

“Good to meet you,” the sergeant said. “We were told there was also an active biological hazard here. Is that correct?”

“Yes. Do all of your people have their vaccinations up to date? We’re assuming our presumptive identification of measles is correct. No one with out-of-date vaccinations should be here. The masks should protect you, but you’ll also have to be careful to wear disposable gloves. Measles is transmitted via airborne droplets. Any of your people coming into the area will need a minimum of surgical masks, gloves, and eye protection. We can provide you with them as required. Wash thoroughly before leaving the area.”

“What about our K-9 units?”

“Measles is a human disease, Sergeant. Your dogs don’t need any special equipment, but they will need to be thoroughly bathed, too.”

Travis didn’t look happy at that, but he didn’t complain, just said, “Yes, ma’am.” Then he trotted back to his unit to give them the fun news.

A knot of people in medical and law enforcement clothing approached them. One of them was Jean.

Her hair was matted, and the left side of her head, face, and neck was streaked with blood. She was pale under all the red, and Dozer could see the early signs of bruising on her face.

“Dr. Rodrigues,” she said almost hesitantly.

“Jean.” Carmen moved to her, giving her a critical once-over. “Where is your mask?”

She put her hand up to her mouth and seemed surprised and confused not to find it there. “I…uh, don’t know.”

Carmen grasped Jean’s forearm and looked into her face. She pulled out a pen light and flashed it back and forth across her eyes. She then took hold of her wrist with her fingers over Jean’s pulse point.

“Ma’am?” one of the law-enforcement types who’d arrived with Jean said as he put out a hand toward Carmen.

Dozer intercepted him. “Give her a minute.”