Critical Condition. Sandra Orchard

She tilted her head as if questioning whether they’d met before. “Tara Peterson.”

      He blinked, then swallowed to clear the roar from his ears and the image of his dead wife standing two feet away, arm outstretched in greeting.

      Not his wife. The mouth was wider, the reddish-brown hair wavier and longer. She looked a few inches taller, too. But, those eyes...

      Zach blinked again, and chalked up the leap of his heart to the woman’s uncanny resemblance to his wife.

      Forcing a smile, he extended his hand. Then her name clicked in his brain and turned his “pleased to meet you” to paste in his mouth.

      This was the nurse who’d reported the murders.

      Tara glanced at the ID badge hanging from his neck, and then to Barb’s. “I guess you two are the IT specialists we were warned about.”

      “Warned?” Zach repeated, scrambling to regain his equilibrium.

      Tara chuckled. “Sure, we finally got the hang of the last system, and now you’re going to change it on us again.”

      “I thought your present system was over five years old?” He looked to Barb for confirmation.

      Barb rolled her eyes and mouthed, “Stone age.”

      “I heard that.” Tara’s grin belied her offended tone. “You computer gurus just like to torture us. But if there’s anything I can do to help, don’t hesitate to ask.”

      Zach nodded his thanks. He liked the woman’s playful sense of humor. She didn’t seem like the type to cry wolf. Maybe his reluctance to take the case had made his negative assessment of its merits too hasty.

      Zach shadowed Barb for most of the day to acquaint himself with the job. Then he forced himself to return to the cancer ward, where the alleged murders had occurred. Implementing a new software system gave him a perfect excuse to question staff, not to mention peek at their online activities.

      As he passed the staff lounge, a commotion erupted.

      “You have to let this go,” a female voice soothed.

      “I won’t let it go. Someone murdered those people.” Zach recognized Tara’s voice and the flint of pain behind her words.

      “The coroner disagrees,” the other woman responded.

      “For all we know the murderer paid him off.”

      Zach tensed. The last thing he needed were rumors of a killing spree spreading through the hospital.

      “You’re talking crazy,” a different woman spoke up.

      “Am I? Someone shoved me into the bed. Clearly, he didn’t want to be seen.”

      “Are you sure you didn’t just trip? You hit your head pretty hard.”

      “No!” The slap of a hand against a table punctuated the denial. “How many times do I have to tell you? Someone murdered Mrs. Parker. Her husband begged me to stop the killer.”

      Zach rushed to the door. Tara might as well have painted a bull’s-eye on her forehead. He needed to get her out of there before she made the situation any worse.

      Two nurses and a doctor were in the room with her. Tara reached for a lunch container in the fridge and deposited it into a cloth bag on her arm. Absorbed in the discussion, no one acknowledged his arrival.

      “I was there and I didn’t hear Mr. Parker say anything,” the older nurse said. “How about you, Dr. McCrae?”

      The young resident standing at the counter with his coffee shook his head. “Afraid not.” He took a sip from his mug and shot Tara a sympathetic look.

      “Well, I know what I heard.” Tara’s voice sharpened. “And if the police won’t—”

      “Miss Peterson...” Zach tapped on the door. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need your help.”

      Looking a little stunned, Tara lifted her gaze to his. “My help?”

      “With the computer setup for your nurse’s station.” When she hesitated, it was all he could do not to grab her by the wrist and yank her out of the room. Something he should’ve done the instant he’d heard the word murderer come out of her mouth. “Please.”

      “Yes, of course.” She followed him to the door, and he motioned her to go ahead of him.

      Dr. Whittaker passed them with a cursory glance. “What was all that yelling about?” he asked, stepping into the staff lounge.

      “Tara was ranting about the murderer again,” one of the nurses said.

      Zach couldn’t make out Whittaker’s riled response—something about bad press—but Tara must’ve heard, because she clenched her fingers into a fist.

      “I can’t believe the police aren’t doing anything,” she muttered.

      Zach steered her to the privacy of the empty nurse’s station. “About what?” he asked, since she had no idea why he was really here. He couldn’t believe that she’d all but thrown down the gauntlet for a murderer to come after her.

      Maybe he should have taken Rick up on the option to let her in on the operation.

      Clearly heartened by his interest, Tara seemed to forget about his computer questions and explained in detail what happened the night of Mr. and Mrs. Parker’s alleged murders.

      He nodded as if it were all news to him. “I can see how important finding this person is to you, but you might not want to broadcast your intentions.”

      Her face blanched. “You think he’d come after me?”

      “It sounds like you’re the only witness.”

      “But I didn’t see who shoved me,” she insisted.

      “He—or she—wouldn’t know that. Chances are that he didn’t even know whom he’d shoved out of his way until...”

      Tara’s bottom lip trembled. “Until I opened my mouth.”

      Offering an empathetic smile, Zach nudged her toward a desk chair. “You weren’t exactly keeping your voice down.”

      Her teeth dug into her lip, stilling the tremble, and the vulnerability in her eyes—those enormous eyes he couldn’t tear his gaze from—completely undid him.

      She sank into the chair. “What am I going to do?”

      “I’d suggest stop talking about what you saw.”

      “I can’t. You don’t understand.... There have been other suspicious deaths.”

      The anguish in her voice had him debating whether he’d be better off letting her in on his undercover operation. If she kept up these tirades, she’d not only give the supposed murderer a reason to silence her, she’d make Zach’s job a whole lot tougher. “Suspicious how?” he asked, pulling a chair next to hers. He scrolled through a couple of computer screens so they’d appear to be looking over the new software.

      “Sudden, inexplicable fevers. Besides Mr. and Mrs. Parker’s death last week, we had an incident a couple of months ago, and another, Ellen Clark, the night before last. But the police still won’t believe me. If only I’d done more to convince them...” Her voice hitched. “I might have saved her.”

      Rick had told Zach about Miss Clark. The woman had been presented in the E.R. with the same symptoms as Debra Parker.

      “The doctors and nurse who tried to resuscitate Mrs. Parker say I’m crazy.” Tara’s fingers did a frenetic dance along the edge of the table, and Zach had to resist the urge to still them. “They say the high fever triggered the seizure that killed Debra. But they can’t explain the fever.”

      “How do your colleagues account for the husband’s death?”