Free Devil Wind (Sammy Greene Mysteries) by Deborah Shlian, Linda Reid

and military bearing fostered by his years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and as an Army MASH unit commander in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. According to the hospital buzz, after Bishop made colonel during the Gulf War, he’d been on his way to a couple of stars and an influential billet at the Pentagon. But in ninety-three, he’d inexplicably decided to retire into the private sector and academia. LAU Med was quick to snap up one of the nation’s leading cardiovascular experts. For Reed it was a chance to train with the best.
    Normally dressed in sharp, tailored suits, tonight Bishop wore an open-necked polo shirt and khakis, evidence that he’d rushed to get to the hospital for his VIP patient. Seeing Reed, Bishop pulled the stethoscope from his ears and cracked a trace of a smile.
    “Nicely done, Reed.” Not given to effusive praise, Bishop added that he’d already reviewed the videos of the procedure in the cath lab and had been impressed with both the technique and the result. “Dr. Wyndham here saved Neil’s life, Julia,” he told the attractive fifty-something brunette hovering anxiously just behind them.
    Hiding confusion, Reed smiled at the dignified woman who reached over and clasped her husband’s hand. Hadn’t Lou said Prescott’s wife was very young and blonde?
    “Thank you, Dr. Wyndham, from the bottom of my heart.”
    Prescott’s intense stare telegraphed an unspoken message.
    Nodding at the congressman, Reed understood what was expected of him. Something he’d learned as an adolescent dealing with his father’s same penchant for attractive young mistresses. Smile, and keep up pretenses at all cost. “You’re very welcome, Mrs. Prescott. Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of your husband.”
    Prescott visibly relaxed, and, closing his eyes, rested back on his pillow. Though Reed smiled politely, he had a strong urge to take a long, cleansing bath.
     
    Left alone in the break room, Sammy and Michelle studied each other like opponents before a tennis match, wondering whether one possessed a killer serve or a trick drop-shot. To Sammy, it was no contest. Her heart-shaped freckled face gave her a perpetual elfin look that her copper colored hair and green eyes only amplified. Michelle, on the other hand, was a goddess. California-style.
    Sammy would have liked to dismiss the tall, lanky blonde as mere eye candy, but Michelle clearly had brains too. After all she was a doctor, like Reed. Toughen up, kid, You’re the one who broke up with Reed. Can’t play the jealous girlfriend now.
    Exhaling, Sammy broke the strained silence. “No. I’m not his fiancée. Never was, in fact. We are just old friends.”
    “I didn’t ask.”
    “But you wanted to.”
    Michelle returned a faint smile. “Reed doesn’t like bananas.”
    “Neither do I,” Sammy admitted, tossing the fruit squarely into an open wastebasket by the door. “What happened to your ear?”
    “One of my patients was a little, uh—?”
    “Crazy Courtney?” Sammy probed.
    “I really can’t say.” The quiver in the set of Michelle’s jaw said it all.
    “Detox, psych ward, or both?”
    “Really.” Avoiding Sammy’s gaze, Michelle picked up several charts. “So you can gossip on your talk show? You media people are so nosy.”
    Sammy countered, “I am authorized as press—”
    “No one’s supposed to know about Prescott! How’d you find out?”
    Sammy stopped in mid-sentence. Prescott? Congressman Prescott? Head of the House Armed Services Committee? So Courtney wasn’t the big cheese. “I’m an investigative reporter,” she said. Or at least I used to be.
    Shaking her head, Michelle strode by Sammy, her charts tucked under one arm. “Well, you’re not finding out anything from me,” she said at the door.
    Sammy kept her expression blank, hoping to hide the fact that she could read the patient names on the files, though their significance only struck her after Michelle had disappeared down the hall. One,