Diagnosis_ danger - By Marie Ferrarella & Jenna Mills Page 0,2

title of friend seriously and did whatever was required of him to maintain that position. Despite all his quirks, loyalty was never a question.

Taking a breath, Natalya waited for a response on the other end but there was none.

Okay, so he was hurt. It wasn’t as if this was the first time. She could deal with that. “Clancy, I’ve had one of those days they write sitcoms around. I didn’t even have time for lunch today.”

There was still no response on the other end. She could just see him feeling rejected. Guilt began to prick at the edges of her conscience like tiny nettles in a field of overgrown weeds.

Maybe this was a really big deal for him. She supposed she could muster up some strength. After all, she’d managed to survive thirty-six-hour shifts at the hospital during her intern days. That wasn’t exactly a century ago.

“Okay,” she surrendered, “if you promise to have a sandwich ready for me, I’ll be by your apartment in a half hour. Lucky for you I’ve got a little black dress stashed in my supply closet for just these kinds of emergencies.”

Natalya waited for the inevitable onslaught of backhanded gratitude that Clancy had turned into an art form. When it failed to materialize, she had no idea what to make of it. Was he pouting? Was something wrong?

“Clancy, say something,” she ordered.

“Come. Please.”

Each word sounded more like steam escaping from a faulty radiator in the dead of winter than something that had actually been spoken.

An uneasiness undulated through her, but she banked it down. “Clancy, if this is your idea of a joke, it’s not funny.”

Clancy was not beyond playing practical jokes. She had always thought that it was his way of dealing with the fact that he earned a living by working in a mortuary. She knew it couldn’t exactly be pleasant, having to deal with grieving people and dead bodies every day.

That and—in contrast to her own home life, which was the last word in warmth—Clancy’s childhood had been one with which Dickens could have sympathized.

He looked like a walking victim, something that he was with a fair amount of regularity. Until Natalya had come into his life.

When Clancy made no response to her words, she suddenly asked, “Are you sick?”

Instead of saying yes or no, she heard him repeat the word “Come,” weakly.

In the background, she heard a noise, like a loud bang. And then there was nothing. The connection disappeared.

Had she lost the signal, or had something happened to Clancy? She didn’t want her mind going there, but he wasn’t the type to carry a joke too far.

“Hello? Hello? Clancy, if this is your stupid idea of a joke…” she said, clinging to the hope that it was. She’d rush off to his apartment, thinking the worst, and Clancy would be there in that almost threadbare tuxedo he insisted on wearing to gallery openings, waiting for her. And grinning that lopsided grin of his.

At which point she wouldn’t know whether to hug him with relief or beat on him with both fists for scaring her.

She stood and debated her next move. Hot tub, or Clancy’s apartment.

With a silent promise to herself to read him the riot act once she found him alive and well, she chose Clancy’s apartment. Natalya quickly changed into the dress she kept on hand for last-minute invitations to hospital fund-raisers and the occasional unexpected date that came upon her like a diamond in the rough.

She was dressed, out of the office and heading toward the elevator in less than five minutes. Adrenaline was pumping through her veins even though she told herself that there was nothing to worry about and that Clancy was fine.

She was still telling herself that when she was standing outside of Clancy’s small apartment some twenty-five minutes later. She knocked on his door, but he didn’t answer. Not then, nor the second time that her knuckles rapped against the door.

She could feel her palms growing slightly damp.

“Clancy,” Natalya said under her breath, “I swear I’m going to wring your skinny neck if you’re doing this to get even with me for trying to beg off,” she promised more to hearten herself than to threaten him.

Beneath it all was an uneasy feeling that something was very wrong.

“Enough with being polite,” she announced, digging into her purse. She took out her key to Clancy’s apartment, which he had given her in case of emergencies.

“I think this qualifies as an emergency,” she said out loud,