Read Her Last Defense for Free Online

have made it through Advanced Pathology if it hadn’t been for the pint of Jack Daniels I kept under my bed. It was the only way I could sleep after…after class.”
    Full of surprises, the lady doctor was.
    She pulled her lips between her teeth then exhaled slowly. “I haven’t been able to drink whiskey since I graduated.” Her smile trembled then fell. “It tastes like death to me.”
    Clint felt the meltdown coming a long second before it happened. The sight of tears clumped in her thick lashes twisted through him like a blade. It took all the grit he could muster to keep his own expression impassive.
    A moment later, the tide of grief overwhelmed her.Tears tumbled out, rained to the ground. “I killed David,” she cried. “It’s my fault.”
    He shoved his hands, gloves and all, into his pockets to keep them from reaching for her. “You didn’t cause the plane to crash.”
    “I caused him to be on it. He was supposed to come home on the commercial flight, with me, the day before. But I broke off the engagement. I gave him his ring back. He decided to ride back on the charter so he wouldn’t have to be around me.”
    Clint had once served a warrant on a drug house that had turned out to be booby-trapped. The doors were wired with explosives, the windows, the cupboards, even the floorboards were rigged, all in an attempt to kill a few cops. Walking through that house hadn’t been nearly as frightening as stumbling through this conversation. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t good at making people feel better.
    “By definition, accidents are random events,” he said, treading carefully and watching her face for some sign of whether he was helping or making matters worse. “You couldn’t have known the plane would go down. Or it could have just as easily been the commercial jet that crashed, and you could have saved his life.”
    “At least then it would have just been a plane crash. We wouldn’t be worrying about an ARFIS epidemic.”
    “Maybe. Or maybe the plane would have crashed into a school, killed a kid who would have otherwise been president some day. You can’t tear yourself up wondering ‘what if.’ No one knows what the results of their actions will be ahead of time. No one.”
    If they could—if he could—he sure wouldn’t have stepped out of his truck in that parking garage six weeks ago and walked right into two gunmen coming off the elevator. He wouldn’t have taken the .38-caliber round in the shoulder that was soon going to change his life forever.
    Maybe he wouldn’t have stepped up to the front of the crowd when the CDC team had shown up at the crash site, gotten a close-up look at the wild mane of hair, the warm complexion.
    Maybe.
    Dr. Attois angled her head to the side, a frown tipping her full lips downward as she studied him curiously. Her eyes were the color of chicory coffee, dark and rich. And they were looking at him as if she was seeing a different man than she’d seen the moment before.
    Or as if she’d seen more of him than before. The shield he wore over his emotions was slipping. He stood before it came crashing down.
    She blinked as if his movement had woken her. The color came back to her cheeks. “I have to find him.”
    He watched as she stood and pulled on her helmet. “What? Now?”
    “I can’t leave him out there.”
    “There’s nothing you can do for him.”
    “I can bring him home! Give him a decent burial, while there’s still enough to bury. Before the scavengers…” Her face twisted.
    “What about the monkey?”
    “Most likely he was killed in the crash. My team is searching the wreckage again for his remains.”
    “The virus?”
    She held out her arms. “I’m protected, remember?”
    “That suit’ll be shredded about thirty seconds after you leave this clearing. You ever heard of saw briar? Mesquite thorns? Spear grass? These woods are full of them.”
    She dropped her arms to her sides, took a deep rasping breath through her