Authors: Vicki Hinze
Foster let his gaze drop to his knees. “And you feel responsible because you’re an expert on PTSD, and yet you still can’t seem to help her.”
How typical of him to lay out her feelings like bare bones and then peck at them. Bristling, Sara snapped. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, I would.”
Surprised by that admission, Sara pursed her lips and opted to be a little more civil, though she had to work at it. She didn’t like Foster any more than he liked her. The only thing that made their interactions possible was that they both knew it and were never hypocritical enough to deny it. “Thanks for holding off on the platitudes and absolutions.” She meant it sincerely.
“You’re welcome.” His smile returned. “Does that mean all is forgiven?”
“Not by a long shot.” She tugged at her lab coat cuff and slid him a glare. “I make it a practice never to forgive men I don’t trust.”
“Unfortunate.” He feigned a sigh that held a breath of truth.
Tired of this mousing around, Sara cut to the chase. “Why are you here?”
Foster’s demeanor changed dramatically, turned somber and serious, deepening the creases to grooves across his forehead. “I’ve got a problem, Sara. A significant one.”
Worry seeped into her. In five years, Jack Foster never once had used her first name, nor had he admitted a weakness. Both unnerved her. She tried her best to bury her reaction under the sarcasm common between them. “Welcome to the human race. We’ve all got problems. That’s why we’ve got shrinks, and we shrinks have shingles on our doors.”
“We don’t all have problems like this one.” He again scanned the row of dog-eared books, clearly avoiding her eyes. “I need your help.”
Surprise rippled through her. Men like Foster didn’t need help, they created a need for help in others. God knew he’d given her more than her fair share of trouble—and nightmares. And his type never asked for favors. Intrigued, she paused to let her tone steady, and then quizzed him. “What? The Air Force doesn’t have its own shrinks anymore?”
“This is different.” He shifted uneasily on his chair. “It’s
. . .
delicate.”
Delicate? More likely, the matter was classified, and he wanted it buried far from other military eyes. “Is this problem personal, or professional?”
“Professional.” He sighed. This time, it was genuine and tinged with discomfort and impatience. “I don’t need military assistance. I need yours.”
“This, I know. Therapy would work wonders for your disposition. But I can’t treat you, Foster. A doctor should want to cure her patients, not to murder them.” She rolled the end of a pencil over her lower lip, then nipped down on it. “The licensing board discourages murdering patients—though in your case, it might be willing to make an except—”
“Stop it.” Foster stiffened. “We both know you’re about as apt to kill someone as the tooth fairy.” His gaze turned piercing, stone-cold. “This is serious, and only you can help me.”
“Me?
Help
you?
After all the times you’ve refused to help me?” Her temper reared, and she guffawed. “Forget it.”
“I can’t do that.” His terse tone proved he’d like nothing better.
She slid forward in her chair, laced her hands atop her desk blotter. “Look, I don’t like the military, and I don’t work for it, aside from cleaning up the messes you guys make of some people’s minds. I work with five patients at a time—no more, and no less—in a private practice. I work only with PTSD patients and/or their families, and I damn sure don’t help arrogant military bastards who needlessly let others suffer—especially when those suffering others are members of my family.”
“I’m well aware of what you do and do not do. I’m also aware that many of your professional peers consider your methods extremely unorthodox.”
“There’s a good reason for that.” She lifted a hand. “By traditional standards, my methods
are
extremely unorthodox.”
“Some consider you out in left field.”
“And some think I’m a brick short of a full load. So what? I don’t need their approval, or care if I have it. Intensive one-on-one therapy—treating the mind, body, and spirit—works.”
Foster lifted his chin, annoyingly calm and typically arrogant. “Frankly, the professional acceptance of your methods means nothing to me. You have an eighty-percent success rate on the PTSD patients you treat—far higher than the standard—and that means everything.”
“Success is hard to dispute.”
“Yes, it is.” He stood up. His knees cracked, and he walked across the office to the bookshelf and then let his fingertip drift across the spines of the books, obviously mulling over what to tell her and what to withhold. “I can’t disclose certain things without physician/patient privilege. You don’t have security clearance.” He stopped and looked back over his shoulder at her. “You understand?”
David. This was about David.
Her heart thudded deep in her chest. Low and hard. A little breathless, she nodded. She didn’t trust Foster—after five years, she had hundreds of valid reasons not to trust him—but could she afford to brush off a potential opportunity? They were
so
rare. “Okay.” She conceded with as much grace as she could muster. “I’ll make an exception—short-term.”
Foster turned toward her. Bars of light slashed through the vertical blinds at the window, streaked across his pale-blue uniform shirt, and glinted on the metal eagle rank pinned to his collar. “So, you’re my doctor now?”
“Give me twenty dollars.”
He fished a bill from his wallet. She took it. “I’m your doctor.” After scribbling out a receipt, she thrust it at him. “Now, what do you know about David?”
Foster leaned a shoulder against the bookshelf and crossed his chest with his arms. “I know if you do what I ask, you’ll find your answers about what happened to him.”
Sara’s skin crawled. Foster’s tone and the look in his eyes swore she’d find more. Far more. “Exactly what answers will I find?”
“The ones to all the unanswered questions that made you become an expert on PTSD so you could help others like David, Brenda, and Lisa.” Foster rubbed at his chin, spoke slowly. Distinctly. “You and the Quades’ daughter are very close.”
He’d been monitoring them. All of them. Sara, Brenda, and Lisa.
An uneasy shiver slithered up Sara’s spine, and her gaze slid to a photo of the three of them on the corner of her desk. For some reason, Foster must feel threatened. “Of course we’re close. Lisa is my only niece. But what does that have to do with this?”
“It’s irrelevant,” Foster said. “What is relevant is that I won’t tell you anything more about David’s situation because I’d have to breach national security to do it. But I will put you in a position where you’ll have the opportunity to discover your answers for yourself.” Pacing a short path before her desk, Foster stopped and fisted a hand at his side. “I know you don’t forgive and you never forget, but let me be clear about something, Sara. Playing games with me is not honorable, nor is it in your best interests.”
“Now why does that remark strike me as a threat?” Tight-lipped, she glared at him. “You know, in five years, I have never—not once—given you a reason to question my honor.” She cocked her head. “Can you say the same to me?”
“Our topic isn’t my honor, it’s your family’s best interests.”
Chilling her tone even more, Sara looked up at him from under her lashes. “Obviously, you don’t know me as well as you think, or you’d know warning me against game-playing isn’t necessary. Not when it comes to my family.”
“Oh, I know you, Sara.” Foster leaned forward and bracketed her desk blotter with his hands. The muscles in his forearms twitched. “I know you’re weak when it comes to defending yourself, but tougher than nails at defending others. And you’d like to be even tougher on me.”
She would. She didn’t like this conversation, or him. Yet Foster’s palms were glistening with sweat and he looked as if he wanted to heave. He clearly needed something from her—why else would he be here? But whatever it was, he didn’t feel certain of getting it, which meant he had failed to stack the odds in his favor. The master manipulator felt vulnerable, and that worried her.
“I also know you avoid relationships because you feel guilty,” he went on. “It wouldn’t be right for you to have all your sister has lost, would it? You have to fix things for her and Lisa first—and for your brother, Steve. It really got you that his wife had him committed for psychiatric evaluation, didn’t it? Isn’t that incident what drove you to become a psychiatrist?”
Sara stiffened. Foster had been thorough, and he’d investigated Steve, too. “Considering my brother is one of the most well-balanced human beings walking the earth, and his wife pulled that stunt and had him committed for thirty days because they’d had a disagreement about moving out of the state of Mississippi, yes. You’re damn right, it got to me. That there are laws on the books allowing that type of injustice should get to you, too.”
“We all deal with injustice in our own way.” He let his gaze drift to the door. “You’ve taken blanket responsibility for every injustice to everyone and everything in your sphere of influence since the cradle.”
He grunted. “If I had to guess, I’d say you’re a victim of your genes. Maternal genes, or influence.”
He’d be right. Sara’s throat went dry. Foster made her feel invaded, as if she had no privacy, not even in her thoughts. She fought the sensation, determined not to let him get the upper hand. Once he did, she was screwed, and they both knew it. “Goodness. Amazing that I warrant all of this attention from you merely because I’m a responsible adult. I suppose I should be flattered.” She rubbed at her temple with a long fingertip. “Instead, I’m asking myself why you fascinate so easily.”
A tight smile threatened the corner of his lip, and he narrowed his eyes. “Actually, I bore easily. But you are your work, Sara. And that intrigues me.”
Amused him, more likely, and that grated at her.
“You’ve pushed me hard, from all sides—as thorough as a crack operative with a dozen years’ experience under your belt. At times, you’ve been persuasive, tenacious, and charming enough to have the devil caving in to you.”
No way was she falling for this. Foster used praise just as he used people. “So the devil would cave, but you were immune. Now, what am I to make of that?”
“Perhaps the devil enjoys luxuries I can’t afford.” He stared at her. “Perhaps the same is true for you.”
He knew her as well as she knew herself. The realization spilled over her, burned and branded into her mind. She hated it, too. And she hated even more that he was right about her work and her personal relationships. She’d never verbalized it, or dared to focus her thoughts on it, but she did want a family of her own and someone to share her life with, yet she couldn’t have everything Brenda had lost. She just . . . couldn’t.
Gruesome thought, but maybe Foster knew Sara better than she knew herself.
Fighting not to wince, she shifted topics, heading for safer ground. “So what’s your problem?” Did she dare to hope, a guilty conscience? “Why do you need my services?”
“First, some ground rules.” He straightened and stepped back from her desk. “Everything I tell you falls under patient/ physician privilege. I have not, and will not, grant you authorization to release any information I share with you. None whatsoever, under any circumstances, at any time, to anyone.”
“I gathered that.” Sara met his gaze and saw the tension of an emotion she’d never expected to see in Jack Foster’s face. Fear. It tugged hard at the healer in her. “So what’s the problem?”
“I’ve got an officer with scrambled brains, and I have no idea why or who scrambled him.” Foster stiffened, as if relieved and uneasy with revealing that. “He was on a mission—classified, of course—and went missing. Seven days later, he showed up at a secluded facility, and we have no idea how he got there.”
“Could you clarify his condition? Scrambled, how? Is he a vegetable, psychotic, or what?”
“He’s been diagnosed PTSD.” Foster grimaced. “I need to know what happened to him, why, who did it, how, and if he’s salvageable.”
If he’s salvageable?
Flabbergasted, Sara leaned back in her chair. “And you want me to make this determination?”
“Yes, I do. Quickly.” Foster didn’t miss a beat. “This man has been on a lot of high-risk missions. He has Top Secret security clearance, and he’s having moments of lucidity. Frankly put, he’s a critical security risk.”
Foster’s voice turned gritty, as if forced to speak, and the words burned his throat. “You have the highest success rate in the business, Sara. I need success. Until we determine the specifics I mentioned, every AID mission and operative working worldwide is vulnerable. I can’t afford to lose this operative without discovering the facts of his case.”
“The patient is an AID operative?”
Foster hesitated. “He is, but don’t bother checking on him. You won’t find any more on him than you found on me.”
Not surprised that Foster knew she’d checked him out, Sara didn’t flinch. “Why is that?”
“Because he’s one of my men.”