Blood Orchid

By Jenna Ryan

Trauma surgeon Kate Marshall won’t be forced into hiding after an ominous warning. Not even after a patient with connections to a vicious crime lord with a taste for revenge dies on her table. But when a ghostly figure appears just before bullets start flying, Kate might be forced to admit she’s in trouble.

Ex-Army doctor Jason Nolan should have been on duty at the hospital. Instead, he’s numbing the pain of his past in a waterfront bar. When the tall, leggy, Grace Kelly lookalike stalks in to give him a piece of her mind, he deserves it.

Kate doesn’t deserve to be stalked by a serial killer with a motive that extends all the way to the Louisiana bayou and has ties to a past Nolan would like to forget. And only Nolan can help Kate navigate the terrifying path. A path riddled with voodoo, superstition, and death.

Each book in The Shadow Sisters Series is a standalone story that can be enjoyed in any order.
Book #1: Black Rose
Book #2: Blood Orchid
Book #3: Scarlet Bells
Book #4: Dark Lily

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Aug 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781640632943

Jenna Ryan

Growing up, romance always had a strong appeal for Jenna Ryan, but romantic suspense was the perfect fit. She tried out a number of different careers, but writing has always been her one true love. That and her longtime partner, Rod. Inspired from book to book by her sister Kathy, she lives in a rural setting fifteen minutes from the city of Victoria, British Columbia. She loves reader feedback. Email her at [e-mail] or visit Jenna Ryan on Facebook.

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Blood Orchid

The Shadow Series, Book 2

Jenna Ryan

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Jacqueline Goff. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Select Suspense is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

Edited by Heidi Shoham

Cover design by Fiona Jayde

Cover art from iStock and The Reed Files

ISBN 978-1-64063-294-3

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition December 2015

Republished August 2017

Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Epilogue

About the Author

Discover the Shadow series…

Black Rose

Blood Orchid

Scarlet Bells

Dark Lily

Discover more Entangled Select Suspense titles…

Scarlet Bells

Raw Redemption

In Walked Trouble

To my parents, who always believed.

Chapter One

The huge stone manor looked haunted, Kate Marshall mused, particularly at night under a hazy quarter moon. Sitting alone on a rise of land with a dense patch of equally haunted forest fanning out from its storied walls, it could have been plucked from a dark fairy tale. Or a horror film, she supposed. For now, it stood as an eerie life-and-death testament to the hospital it had become a century and a half after its birth.

Many wings had been added over the years, and the interior had been brought completely up to code. It was a state-of-the-art eighty-five-bed private facility, and yet for all that, on the surface at least, it remained a relic from a bygone era.

People from all over the Bay Area came to St. Mark’s in order to go on living. Sometimes they died, but mostly they hoped they wouldn’t. That was the ideal, at any rate. Unless they worked there, as Kate had for the past three years. Unless the ideal was shattered by grim reality.

Don’t do this, she murmured into the thickening fog. It doesn’t help.

Rocking her head from side to side, she regarded the murky outline of the old house one last time and then pushed off from the back of her car.

She did this occasionally after a bad shift: pulled over on the steep road that wound down to the bay, climbed out and stared at what was. Thought back to what had been. Questioned what might have been.

Damn it. Thoughts and conjectures didn’t help either. As a child, the manor had given her chills. Apparently, she reflected, it still could.

Filmy fingers of fog drifted through her line of vision. Only a few streetlights burned on the road, making it the perfect spot for anyone requiring a moment of solitude to stop. Unless, of course, a bad driver happened to be squealing down the hill at twice the legal limit.

She spotted the headlights first, weaving wildly from side to side. Okay, that was a bad sign. Drunk at the wheel, she assumed, and she pulled the keys to her Prius from her coat pocket.

Do not be deceived by what is unreal, Kate Marshall. Fear only what is. A woman’s voice, whisper-thin yet strangely clear, came from behind her. Startled, Kate whirled to face the shadows.

A tiny female figure stood on the slippery outer edge of the road. She wore a dark coat and a veil that covered her head and face. Her hands were folded one over the other. Kate spied a tattoo on the back of her left hand that might have been a flower.

She started to speak, but the woman cut her off with an urgent, Move now!

Kate snapped her head around as the weaving car shot out of the fog. The headlights were blinding, but even through her momentary shock, she knew the vehicle was coming straight for her.

She jumped back instinctively, as fast and as far as she could. Unfortunately, the shoulder was rough and her heel caught in a crack. As the headlights bore down, she stumbled and fell.

The car, a behemoth from her current perspective, screeched to a halt less than six inches from her feet. It sat there, as if panting, for several seconds. Then the driver slammed into Reverse and peeled away to brake on the opposite shoulder.

Well, hell. She closed her eyes briefly while her heart hammered and her body trembled. What was going on out here? Who’d be crazy enough to fly down a San Francisco hill in the fog at night with no—

Wait, the woman! But when Kate scrambled to her knees, no one stood on the edge of the road.

Okay, going crazy, she said aloud. Seeing people. Hearing voices. With her fingers pressed hard to her temples, she looked again. And still no one stood there.

The growl of a powerful engine brought her back. She swung her gaze to the vehicle and felt annoyance war with fear.

Climbing to her feet, she brushed dirt and pebbles from her trench coat. Whatever had just happened, she didn’t need it after tonight’s double shift from hell.

The Cadillac on the shoulder seemed to float in a sea of gauzy white. The weird effect sustained until the driver’s door burst open and a woman wearing a blood-red coat and stiletto boots clattered out.

Her heels clicked unevenly on the damp pavement.

Definitely drunk, Kate reflected, and unfortunately recognizable. Taking a last uncertain look behind her, she braced for the face-to-face she’d known would come at some point but had actively hoped to postpone until tomorrow.

Illuminated by high beams and swirling mist, the approaching woman’s sharp features shifted from drunken sorrow to glittering fury. Fingers curled, she all but lunged at Kate. You let my son die, you incompetent bitch! You killed him!

Kate didn’t defend herself. Wrong time and place. Instead, she offered the standard physician’s apology. I’m so sorry, Ms. Perradine—

Sorry? Anna Perradine’s shrill voice echoed through the night. You’re sorry? You don’t know what the word means, Dr. Marshall. Wobbling closer, she snarled, But I promise you, you will.

As a fully licensed trauma surgeon, Kate was accustomed to dealing with emotional outbursts. Shock and disbelief were the usual first reactions to the death of a loved one, and anger certainly wasn’t uncommon. But she couldn’t recall ever encountering the kind of poisonous rage that was now being directed at her by this woman—who had already directed some at her over the phone. Maybe it was time for straighter talk.

Ms. Perradine, she said again. Your son lost a great deal of blood at the scene. He took three bullets to the chest. We did everything possible to stabilize him, but truthfully, he was gone before he reached the hospital. The paramedics—

The woman made a dangerous sound. "Paramedics aren’t doctors, Doctor. I wouldn’t expect them to save the life of anyone in Frankie’s condition. It was your job to do that, and you failed. Miserably."

Anna. A man materialized out of the fog to touch the woman’s arm. Don’t you think—

I don’t have to think! She took two staggering steps, swatting his hand as she might a pesky mosquito. I know. And what I know is this. You were a fill-in surgeon, Dr. Marshall. A third-rate replacement for the bastard who should have operated on my son. I’ve spoken to the chief of surgery. Dr. Nolan was scheduled to be on duty tonight.

Yes, he was. But he had—

Shut up, Anna shouted. My son’s dead, and it’s Jason Nolan’s fault just as surely as it is yours. You’re both murderers!

When guilt pricked, Kate pushed it away. She’d done nothing wrong. This was merely a woman who’d suffered a tragic loss lashing out. Dr. Nolan is an excellent surgeon, she said. But I promise you, there’s nothing he or anyone could have done to save Frankie.

The woman struck Kate with a single stinging blow across her cheek.

Teeth set, Kate balled her fingers. And still there’s nothing anyone could have done. Nothing at all.

This time, Anna’s companion grasped both of her arms. The restraint didn’t prevent her from scalding Kate with a look. You’ll pay for this, do you hear me?

Kate had a feeling half of San Francisco could hear her.

You killed my son—you and the son of a bitch who should have performed the surgery. Did last night’s storm keep you awake, Dr. Marshall? It kept me awake. Thunder that violent comes with lightning, millions of volts of untamed electricity. A single strike can cause instant death, just like that. She snapped—or attempted to snap—scarlet-tipped fingers in Kate’s face. That’s how it’s going to be for you and Nolan. Death. Again, her fingers didn’t quite snap. Just like that.

Kate said nothing. She simply absorbed the woman’s virulent stare.

Snatching free, Anna shrugged the shoulder of her jacket into place and jerked her chin up. If you don’t recognize my family’s name, I suggest you look it up on Google, Doctor. You and your brilliant counterpart have made yourselves one hell of a powerful enemy tonight. Powerful and deadly.

Chapter Two

Ten o’clock had come and gone by the time Kate exchanged the scrubs she’d been too tired to remove at the hospital for a pair of faded jeans and boots, a billed cap, a black leather coat that hit her low on the calf and a rapidly growing anger that demanded an outlet. Calling him every unflattering name she could think of, she went in search of Jason Nolan.

It didn’t require much brainpower to figure out where he’d be. When someone from St. Mark’s wanted to get drunk and wallow, that person headed straight for the last remaining stretch of derelict waterfront in the city and did the Barbary Coast thing until he or she either passed out or wound up in jail.

Either scenario worked for Kate, but only after she’d slashed Nolan into a thousand bloody pieces.

She started with Shanghai Lily’s for the simple reason that it was the most disreputable of the three bars in the area. The low, ugly building squatted under a pier that was as badly in need of demolition as the business it sheltered. If memory served, both bar and pier had been condemned twice in the past two years, however, being private property, no one could touch either structure without the approval of the corporation that held the title. So here they sat. A rat hole that smelled like perfumed bilge water and a dock with all the charm of a rotting corpse.

Thick fog shrouded the walls and blacked-out windows as Kate pushed her way inside. She’d been here twice before, and she didn’t like it any better on her third visit.

Her uncle called the place the devil’s earthly abode, but he was a stuffy old sot who believed that Big Bird was a symbol for foreign takeover. Her grandfather, on the other hand, claimed Lily’s was the final resting place for every opium addict who’d ever passed through its nineteenth-century doors. Good old Grandpa. At ninety-three, what did he care if believing in ghosts wasn’t tolerated in the Marshall family? Intolerance didn’t make a thing impossible.

Kate pictured her grandfather’s face and grinned. Then her eyes adjusted to the weird bluish haze, and she zeroed in on the only back booth with a single occupant.

It was Nolan, all right. Long, dark hair, dark shirt and jacket. Even if she hadn’t recognized his outline, Kate could have identified him by the pair of slinky women in tight silk dresses who were eyeing his booth like felines in heat. So typical.

Ignoring them, she strode across the floor, avoiding the flaccid hand that drifted toward her from a low sofa, halted and planted her palms on the pitted wood table.

You, Jason Nolan, are an A-number-one, head-of-the-list, top-of-the-heap bastard. You need to know that, and I need to tell you since we’re apparently both slated to wind up on slabs in the morgue next to Frankie Perradine. I’m sure you recognize the name, but on the off chance you don’t, Frankie is—or was—the eldest nephew of Alistair Perradine, a man who, unless you’ve been living on Mars, needs no introduction to anyone in the Bay Area.

Raising his head, Nolan shot her a bleary-eyed warning. Go away, Kate.

That’s it? Shoving back, she frowned briefly at her sticky palms. That’s all you have to say? Are you so drunk you missed the part of my tirade that put Frankie Perradine in our creepy basement morgue? Because that’s where he is and where he’ll stay until the autopsy’s complete.

I don’t care about Frankie Perradine.

She blinked. What?

You heard me. Now take off.

I’m not… Nolan, you’re a surgeon. You’re supposed to care about all people.

The warning light in Nolan’s eyes took on a dangerous edge. I’ve never made that claim, Kate. Piss off and leave me alone.

Fine. She waved at a wisp of illegal smoke. If that’s your attitude, I’ll stop at telling you off. You don’t deserve anything more.

Glad you agree. Go.

She could punch him, she supposed, and make him listen. Or she could turn, walk and let the chips fall. But Anna’s threats had been very real, and death was too severe a punishment for a man who’d saved so many lives.

A pronounced creak had her casting an uncertain glance into the rafters. The dusty overhead lights popped off and on. They fluttered