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"The card metaphor…again?" she asked in frustration.

"Yes. We need more information about Waverly Health, Dr. Prescott, and also the doctor she mentioned who was in charge, Dr. Levitan. Mr. Kimoko is farther down the list."

"I suppose. But not tipping your hand is not getting us anywhere fast," she grumbled.

"It got us here."

"I just wish we knew what happened here. Did something go wrong with Jack's treatment program? Are they trying to cover up malpractice or experimental drugs or some other kind of therapy that could be deemed risky?"

Despite her annoyance, she'd just brought up three good possibilities. "Maybe all three."

"And what happened? Jack ran away?"

"Possibly. Whoever is the inside person at East River could have alerted their contact at Waverly when Jack was admitted to the hospital."

"And that person got him out of the building and back to Waverly. Can you get a search warrant?"

"Not based on what we have, which is mostly just speculation."

"But it makes sense," she said, a new light in her eyes now that she'd realized they actually were making progress.

"We need more evidence."

"I'd like to help with that."

He really should say no, because spending the evening researching with a woman he was fast becoming addicted to seeing every day seemed like a bad idea. But Rachel was a good partner. She knew the medical world better than he did.

"Okay," he said finally.

"That took you a while," she commented. "Why?"

He stopped at a light and turned to look at her. "You know why."

She flushed at his words. "That's not going to happen again."

"Why not?"

"Because…" She waved her hand in the air, searching for an answer. "We're trying to find Jack, and that's a priority."

"What happens when it's not a priority?" he challenged.

"We'll talk about it then. If we still want to," she added quickly. "Tonight is just research. That's it."

He gave in, mostly because he wanted to spend more time with her. "Okay. Why don't you come over to my place? I can tap into some of our databases from my home computer."

"I'd like to get my car first. And I'd also like to go back to my office and print out the names of everyone who missed an appointment in the last three months. Why don't you drop me off at the hospital and then I'll meet you in an hour or so?"

"All right," he said, as he drove to the hospital. "But be careful with whatever you're accessing and printing out. If the person who is working with Waverly knows how interested you are, that could be dangerous. In fact, stop talking about Jack to the staff. Let everyone think you are no longer interested."

"I already talked to people earlier today. I can't believe any of them would be working against the hospital though."

"That might be true, but you don't know who they talked to."

"Good point. I won't say anything else."

She gave him a smile and said goodbye as she got out of the car. As he watched her walk into the building, he felt an odd sense of worry. He tried to shrug it off. She was fine. She was going into a populated building at five o'clock in the afternoon. Nothing was going to happen to her.

But as he drove away, he didn't think he was going to be able to stop worrying about her until she showed up at his house. And he didn't know how to handle that. He wasn't a worrier by nature. He was used to risking his life. He was used to seeing his friends and associates risk theirs. But that was different. They were all trained for the fight—whatever the fight was. But Rachel wasn't trained. And he needed to get her out of this tonight. Before it was too late.