“Dr. Hartman,” she said into her phone, in case it was a patient.

“Lieutenant O’Rourke, NYPD,” the voice said, sounding official. “We have your sister here. You’re listed as her emergency contact and next of kin.” Sasha’s heart started to pound as she listened. “She’s all right,” he said in a gruff tone, “but she’s been injured. There was a homicide. The victim was shot in the back, and the bullet went through him and lodged in your sister’s leg. It missed the artery, but she’s lost a fair amount of blood. She’s conscious. She’s in the trauma unit at NYU hospital. Can you meet us there?”

“Oh my God, I’m upstairs. I’ll be right there,” Sasha said, and hung up, and looked frantically at Alex.

“What happened?”

“Valentina. Someone got killed and the bullet went through him and lodged in her leg. She’s in trauma.”

“Here?” She nodded and ran out of the doctors’ lounge to the nurses’ desk.

“Get someone to cover for me,” she said, trying to sound calmer than she felt. “My sister’s been shot. She’s downstairs in trauma. If you can’t find anyone, I’ll come back. We don’t have anyone in labor.”

“Yet,” the nurse added, shocked by what Sasha had told her. “Is your sister okay?”

“I don’t know. I think so. She was shot in the leg.” She kissed Alex goodbye then—he had to go back to work—and she left the floor at a dead run and went down the stairs to the main floor to the trauma unit. She asked for Valentina, and found her in a cubicle surrounded by policemen, covered with blood from head to foot, and hysterical. “What happened?” Sasha asked her. She was deathly pale, and they were examining her leg, and had given her a shot for the pain.

“They killed Jean-Pierre. We came back today. We were making love, and someone shot him. The bullet went through him and is in my leg. But they killed him.” She was sobbing, and was in shock. Sasha watched them sedate her, and left the cubicle when Valentina got drowsy, and went to look for Lieutenant O’Rourke. He was waiting for her outside. After she introduced herself, she watched him do a double take when he saw her. He took her into an examining room to explain. Kevin O’Rourke was a burly Irishman, and he announced himself immediately as “Homicide. NYPD.”

“Your sister’s boyfriend was an arms dealer,” he said simply. “One of the biggest in France. He expanded his operation to the States and the Caribbean several months ago. We’ve been watching him since he got here. He just did some kind of big deal in France. We don’t know what it was yet—we’re waiting to hear from Interpol. Someone got to him tonight. They shot him in the back while they were…er…uh…in bed. The bullet went right through his heart, angled downward, through his back, came out his chest, and lodged in her upper thigh, where it is now. That’s all we know for the moment. We’ll need to talk to your sister to see what she knows, after they get the bullet out. She’s in no condition to talk to us now. She’s damn lucky—the bullet could have hit the artery, and she’d be dead.” He looked serious as he said it.

“Is she in trouble?” Sasha asked bluntly.

“Not that we know of. We’ve seen her with him for months. She may be able to identify some faces for us. But these big guys don’t usually share information with their women. She’s not in trouble with us, for the moment, but she will be with them, whoever killed him. She may have seen the shooter. If she did, she’s in serious danger. Jean-Pierre was no small dealer—he moved up recently to selling nuclear weapons, to Middle Eastern countries and individuals of assorted nationalities. The French authorities have been watching him too.”

“What are you going to do to protect my sister?” Sasha asked in panic, still concerned she could wind up in trouble with the law herself.

Kevin O’Rourke was unhappy when he answered. “Ten minutes ago I thought we had a problem. Now we have two of them. I didn’t know she had an identical twin. We may have to help her disappear for a while.”

“I can’t disappear with her,” Sasha said firmly. “I’m a senior resident on the OB ward. I can’t take time off while you look for the killer.”

“You may have to,” he said grimly.

“I can’t,” Sasha said, without giving him an inch. She was not going to screw up her residency for Valentina. She had worked too hard for it.

“Your life could be at risk too.”

“No one has any reason to connect her to me. She hangs out in high-flying circles all over the world. I’m here all the time, delivering babies.”

“We’ll talk about it,” he said, sidestepping the issue, as the surgeon came to talk to Sasha. They were about to take Valentina into the OR to remove the bullet. He said she had lost blood, but her vital signs were stable, and they were giving her a unit of blood. Sasha went back to see Valentina again, she was woozy from the pre-op sedation, but Sasha kissed her and told her she’d be fine, and then they rolled her away. Sasha didn’t go into the operating room with her, and a few minutes later Alex joined her. He had found someone to cover for him for a little while. She filled him in on what had happened, and what the lieutenant had told her about Jean-Pierre. It was all seriously unnerving, particularly about any future risk to Valentina from the shooter.

“I had a terrible feeling about him when I met him. I don’t know where she finds them. But this one was the jackpot.” Sasha was deeply upset.

“Maybe this will teach her a lesson,” Alex said, looking unhappy. Sasha nodded, but in the meantime, this was going to change Valentina’s life dramatically, if she had to go into hiding, possibly for a long time. And Sasha was not going with her. She didn’t tell Alex about the risk to her, and what the lieutenant had told her, and then he went back to work upstairs.

Valentina was in a private room on the surgical floor two hours later, with two policemen outside her door, and a nurse with her in the room to make sure that she didn’t bleed again. Sasha spent a few minutes with her, but Valentina was sleepy from the anesthetic and pain medication, and she wasn’t making sense. Sasha left her and was about to go back to work when the lieutenant came looking for her again.

“How is she?” he asked her.

“Pretty out of it from the drugs. Otherwise she’s okay.” The surgeon had told her how lucky Valentina was—the bullet had done no major damage. Anything could have happened—she could have lost her leg or died. It was serious proof to Sasha that her sister’s life was out of control, and she had terrible judgment about men.

“Did she ever say anything to you about the guy?” he asked Sasha.

“Only that he was a wonderful person, and treated her like a queen. I met him once and thought he was scary. She’s got a weakness for bad guys.”

“She won the prize this time,” he said, echoing Sasha’s own thoughts about her sister. “We’re going to talk to her tomorrow about disappearing her for a while, and we want to know if she can ID the shooter. And we need to talk to you too.”

“I told you, I’m not going anywhere. I have a serious job here, and he wasn’t my boyfriend.”

“Maybe not, but you’re the mirror image of your sister. If you won’t let us protect you, then you’re going to have to make some major changes to your appearance. We can help you with that. But you can’t go around looking like her, or you may run into the guy by accident and he’ll kill you. These people mean business—they don’t fool around.” She had learned that tonight, and so had Valentina.

“Where would you put her?”

“Someplace safe, out of the city. We have secure locations. She’ll have to cooperate with us. And you have to do everything you can to change how you look, so you don’t wind up being a decoy. We don’t want you to get hurt by these people,” he said kindly. She was an innocent, unlike Valentina, who had taken the risk of consorting with criminals, even if she didn’t know to what degree. Jean-Pierre clearly wasn’t a simple businessman, and she must have known it, even if she knew no details. There was nothing wholesome about him. They had seized his plane that night and found the cargo hold full of concealed weapons. “Are you on duty tonight?” he asked her, and she nodded.

“Until six A.M.”

“I’m going to send two of my men upstairs with you, and I’m sending them home with you. I want two cops with you at all times until further notice, and we catch the killer.”

“Can they be in plain clothes?” He thought about it for a minute and nodded. It would be better that way. “Good. I want them in hospital scrubs while they’re here. I don’t want to be the talk of the hospital, trailing policemen behind me.”

“You can thank your sister for that,” he said tersely, and Sasha nodded.

“I know.”

He assigned two policemen to her, and she had them change into blue surgical pajamas before they went upstairs. Their weapons showed under the thin scrubs, and Sasha had them put white doctors’ coats over the scrubs. It worked, and the lieutenant laughed when he saw them.

“Just like on TV,” he teased his men. “Try not to get sued for malpractice—the department won’t pay for it.” They followed Sasha back upstairs then. And miraculously, no women in labor had come in. The two policemen in costume followed her around, and sat in the doctors’ lounge with her, while she dozed. They were on their feet at full alert, the minute Alex came through the door to check on her. He took her into a corner of the room to talk.

“What’s with the two guys in costume?”

“They’re here to protect me,” she whispered. “I may need them for a while.” She realized that she was going to need permission from the head of the residency program. Her sister had put her in a hell of a position. And when she left at six o’clock with Alex, the two cops followed them home, ready to stand at the door of the apartment. She invited them in to have coffee at the kitchen table. The Great Dane looked up with interest, lifted his giant head, and went back to sleep. Alex and Sasha said goodnight, went to her room, and went to bed. He was worried about her and didn’t like what was going on.