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doctors used to look inside ears. He brought it to his eyes and inspected the room. “Following me all the way in here to keep watch.”
    “Not funny. Put down that, uh, thing. You’re going to get us in trouble.” Great one, Jill. Like a serial killer would be concerned about censure over playing with the hospital equipment.
    Wait. She stiffened. Were there scalpels in here? She glanced through the window to check, and yes a nurse stayed parked at the observation station. Not that Mason actually fit the profiler’s pysch report, something she would be reviewing again the minute she got back into her office.
    “It’s an otoscope.”
    “Thanks, Dr. Randolph.”
    “I’m most definitely not a doctor.” His jaw tight, he set the otoscope back on the tray, picked up a tongue depressor, and flicked it into the trash can in a perfect two-point shot. “I bet you didn’t chew gum in school when you were a kid.”
    “And I bet you stuck it under the desk.”
    “Guilty as charged.” He punched the light controls, adjusting the levels from dim to bright again and again. “You don’t have to worry about me running away.” He plucked at the hospital gown. “The breeze on my backside is a serious deterrent.”
    “I’ll have to remember that next time I’m trying to detain someone.” She grabbed her blanket and pondered the best way to pump him for information about the flight.
    He abandoned the buttons, leaving the lights on dim as he limped toward her. “You should have listened to me when I told you there was no reason to worry about me being there. We could have left right after you found me. Then we might not have ended up here.”
    “Remind me again what you were doing?”
    His face blanked for a flash before he turned his back on her to tinker with the blood pressure machine. “I told you already. My flight went bad, and I had to parachute out. I can’t say more than that until the incident investigation is complete. You should know that, Nancy Drew, from your snooping around during my conversation with my boss.”
    All right then. He wouldn’t be talking. She would simply have to use the time to study him and hope to get a read off him from more subtle clues that would be valuable later. If he wasn’t involved in anything, maybe he’d seen something on his way down. “Sit, before you hurt yourself worse.”
    He leaned on the edge of her gurney. “Why don’t you like me?”
    “Who says I don’t like you?” She forced herself not to inch away and most definitely not to look overlong at the cowlick along his forehead. He definitely wouldn’t have given her a second glance in high school, back before she’d found her mentor and her mission in training to be a cop. “I don’t even know you well enough to form any kind of opinion one way or another.”
    “Come on. It’s obvious you’ve got something against me.”
    She sat upright again. “The prospect of spontaneously combusting into flesh-scarring blisters makes me a tad cranky.”
    “At least it’s not boring in here.”
    “Speak for yourself.”
    “Fair enough.” He punched her pillow back to fluffy status. “Having you here keeps this from being a snooze fest for me. But I’ll leave you alone so you can get your beauty sleep. Not that you need it.”
    “Save your charm for the nursing staff. I’m not tired.” She pointed up to the small TV screen mounted on the wall. “Maybe we should just watch television.”
    “Talking to you is more fun.” He hitched up onto her gurney. “So you’re actually a camo dude. Or would that be dudette?”
    “I thought you were going to let me sleep? I’m a security cop”—who just happened to be tasked with the special duty of protecting the highly sensitive boundaries of Area 51—“and you have absolutely no respect for personal boundaries.”
    “Sorry. You said you weren’t sleepy.” He stood again. “Back to my question. You’re a security cop who happens to work