[Gina Mazzio RN 01.0 - 03.0] Bone Set

by JJ Lamb

  He heard his cell phone start its distinctive version of Take Five, and he snatched it up from the counter so it wouldn’t awaken Megan Ann.

  “Bring her back!”

  “No!”

  “Wrong answer, Eddie. Do you think because you drive that fancy car you can turn your back on me? Think you can get out of it? Think you can run away like her, your mother?”

  “No, Father.”

  “That conniving woman is in your face every time I look at you. The same mealy mouth, droopy eyes. And that hair? I want to tear it out of your head!”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “I paid you unearned wages while you got all that fancy schooling. Don’t forget that. Four long years.”

  “I thanked you for that, Father.”

  “Who cares? I’m talking about now, today. I need to deliver the packages. We’ve got to deliver them!”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “I’m sick. Dying.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Maybe I can’t beat this goddam brain cancer, but I’m still strong enough to take you on. Take you out! You know that, don’t you?”

  “I know, Father.”

  “If you know so much, why aren’t you here? You have to bring her back. I need that one.”

  “I can take care of you, Father. I’ll pay for everything. I will.”

  “When did you get to be so stupid? … I NEED TO DELIVER THE FUCKING PACKAGES.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Milty Hiller doesn’t take no for an answer. You know that, right?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Remember, it’s your ass, too.”

  Eddie said nothing.

  “I can’t hear you, little boy.”

  “Yes, Father. I know.”

  “Still can’t hear you.”

  “I said, I know!”

  “KNOW WHAT?”

  “That I have to do it.”

  “That’s better.”

  “But it’s the last time, Father.”

  “WHAT?”

  “No more. You haven’t kept your promise.”

  “What promise?”

  “For ten years you’ve been promising to tell me where Mother is. I want to know now.

  “Now? Hah! Now little Eddie decides to grow a pair. Sorry, a little late for that. Should have tried that a long time ago. Now, just bring back the redhead. We’ll talk about that two-faced mother of yours later.”

  “But ...”

  The line went dead.

  * * *

  The sting of hot water sprayed against Eddie’s chest until his skin was a bright red. He ran the bar of soap across his body, took in the soothing steam.

  From behind, Megan Ann clutched him, encircled his waist with her arms. She lifted the soap from his hands and slid around to nestle into his chest. He laughed at her. “Aren’t you going to let me wash up?”

  Somehow her presence gave him substance, like he was real, not somebody’s nightmare. And she made him feel light and happy.

  “I had a wonderful time last night, Eddie, even if I did get too smashed.”

  “I’ll take you home after we clean up.”

  “No! Let me stay here, Eddie. Stay with you.”

  The large shower stall, with its half-dozen spray heads, was dense with steam, but it felt like the sun was shining on him for the first time. She jumped up, clamped her arms and legs around him, pressed her vagina against his erection.

  “Do it to me, Eddie. Do it here. Now!”

  She slid her breasts back and forth across his chest. His heart pounded in his ears.

  “Do it, Eddie! Please!”

  She moved her pelvis back and forth, up and down until he was inside her. He braced his back against the tiles as she rode the length of him.

  “Eddie!” she screamed, her movements frantic, engulfing him in an undulating silken flow.

  “Eddie!” she screamed again. He clutched her to him and laughed. Joy filled his entire being.

  He was never, ever going to give Megan Ann back to Father.

  Chapter 32

  The fourth floor nurses station was strangely empty, then Gina saw Helen headed her way from one of the patient rooms. Helen gave a quick wave, scooped up the telephone, and punched in four digits. Gina edged silently around the desk, slid into a chair next to her friend … and waited.

  Gina often wondered how Helen managed to do all the physical labor required of a floor nurse. She was barely five feet tall, yet the petite brunette had the strength of an ox. Gina once watched her hold up a fainting six-foot bruiser for several minutes until help arrived. Without her, the guy would have been flat on his face.

  The silence was making her restless. Usually there was a hum of activity throughout the Oncology unit, doctors and nurses hurrying about, visitors coming and going. At this particular moment, though, there wasn’t even the familiar sight of a patient pushing an IV pole up and down the hallway.

  Helen was so absorbed in her conversation with the pharmacy that she didn’t look up until she was finished with a string of med orders. Then, with a deep sigh, she turned to the computer keyboard, made a few entries, and hit save.

  “I suppose someday I’ll be more secure with computerized patient charts,” Helen said. “But I’m still worried that everything I enter is going to disappear out into the ether someplace, never to be seen or heard from again.”

  “Know the feeling,” Gina said.

  “Okay, so what are you doing here, my friend? Didn’t I just see you at lunch? Or have they finally thrown you out of Advice?”

  “Not yet, but I’m working on it. I decided to take a real break from handing calls this afternoon instead of working straight through like I usually do. Besides, if I didn’t get away from Tina, I swear I’d pull all my short, little curls out by their roots.”

  “I was lucky to even get away for lunch,” Helen said. “Must be nice working in the clinic.” She grinned at Gina. “Sounds like a good job to me.”

  Gina used a hand to sweep across the entire area around them. “Where is everyone? This is kind of creepy.”

  “Just the lull before the storm,” Helen said. “The docs are in a budget meeting, which really means they’re trying to find another way to toss my ass out of here, along with as many other RNs as possible. They seem to think they can get along without us. But I think they’re going to have a big problem sliding it past the accreditation committee.”

  Helen put the computer to sleep and gave Gina a questioning look. “Okay. Now, what are you really doing here? You’d never waste time visiting me unless there’s something specific going on in your devious mind. Spit it out.”

  “Does it even pay to have you as a friend?” Gina said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay, okay. I need to know why Megan Ann didn’t show up for work. Is she sick, gone AWOL, or what?”

  “Pray tell, what does that trippy redhead have to do with you?”

  Gina grimaced. “Busted.”

  “Hell, I know you like the back of my hand.” Helen grinned from ear to ear. “I even remember the days when you sounded like a Bronx hooligan. Now, at least, you just sound like the displaced person you are. Most times I can even understand what you’re actually saying.”

  “Yeah, yeah! Very funny.”

  “I am cute, aren’t I?” Helen clicked her ballpoint shut and hooked it into her pocket. She pulled Gina out of the nurses station into the drug storage alcove. “Come on, spill it.”

  “Tell me the truth,” Gina said. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “Oooh, that’s a tough one,” Helen said. “It all depends on what we’re talking about, and what phase of the moon we’re in.”

  “Right now, that doesn’t even begin to tickle my funny bone,” Gina said.

  They stopped and waited while a couple of MDs wandered into the nurses station to enter patient orders in the computer.

  “Fair enough,” Helen said when they were alone again. “I don’
t really think you’re crazy, but you are weirder than those ER chicks on TV.”

  “Thanks a bunch.”

  “Any word from Shelly?” Helen said.

  Gina winced at hearing Shelley’s name. “The problem is, it’s not only Shelly. Arina Diaz is also missing. I spoke to her mother; the poor woman is frantic.”

  “That’s pretty creepy,” Helen said.

  “Yeah, like they’ve fallen off the planet.”

  “There still could be a perfectly reasonable explanation. Maybe just a coincidence,” Helen said.

  “Maybe, but I don’t think so.” She debated whether to continue, then blurted out, “Is this the first day Megan Ann’s been out?”

  Helen was toying with her pen again. She clicked it in and out, in and out. The noise jarred Gina; she placed a hand over the offending pen.

  Helen gave her an annoyed look: “Well, yes. I mean I was off yesterday … don’t really know what was what yesterday, but today, she didn’t show up, didn’t call in.”

  “She told me she was going out with Eddie St. George, that detail man from CHEMwest,” Gina said.

  “Why do you even care about her after the way she came after you in the cafeteria?”

  “Just a silly misunderstanding,” Gina said.

  “If you say so. But it’s really hard to like her. She never interacts with any of us, yet that wiggling ass of hers sure catches the docs’ eyes.” Helen turned her nose up. “When we’re in the same space, I might as well not exist.”

  “You just don’t notice the ones who have eyes for you.” Gina gave her a big smile.

  “Sure! But back to Eddie St.George. Did you say she was going out with that hunk?”

  That’s what Megan Ann told me.”

  “He’d be enough for me to call in sick. Anytime. Who wouldn’t want to share their body fluids with him? I’d put out, too.” She clicked her pen again. “You’re not thinking she’s gone missing, too?”

  “Back up a minute,” Gina said. “You just accused her of being a slut, right?”

  “You have such a Bronx way of expressing yourself.”

  “I’m not the one who claimed she’s an easy lay.”

  “Hey, it’s all hearsay,” Helen said.

  “Well, tell me what you’ve heard.”

  Helen clicked the pen in and out again, made herself stop, then started picking at a cuticle on a colorless fingernail.

  “Some of the nurses have seen her with a variety of lowlifes. They’ve also caught her drinking in the locker room.”

  “Uh-huh,” Gina said. “And who was this observant informer?”

  “Diane ‘Big Mouth’ Utterback. The float in med/surg.”

  “Oh, my God! You’ve gotta be kidding,” Gina said. “That broad has something rotten to say about everyone. Catty little bitch. She’d backstab her own mother.”

  “You wanted to know who, didn’t you?”

  “Do you believe her?” Gina said.

  “Actually, I do. There’ve been several instances when Megan Ann stayed away from work for two, three days at a time. When she showed up again, not a word as to why she was out – not even a feeble stab at trying to make it right. Believe me, if we didn’t need her butt slaving away like the rest of us, she’d be toast.”

  “No explanations at all?” Gina said.

  “She keeps her mouth zipped,” Helen said, “which makes what everyone says and suspects that much more believable.”

  “We both know lots of people who sleep around, but they still manage to come to work,” Gina said.

  “There’s more to it than that. Face it: Megan Ann has a drinking problem, maybe a drug problem, too. Put that together with a bad case of hot panties and you’ve got a helluva situation.”

  “Demons,” Gina said. It was obvious Helen knew nothing about Megan Ann’s past, about her lost family. “Those demons plague all of us.”

  “Sorry!” Helen looked into Gina’s eyes. “You asked and I’m only telling you what I know.”

  “No problem. You’ve been a great help. You don’t need to apologize about anything.” She glanced around the nurses station. “Do you have Megan Ann’s telephone number? She’s not listed.”

  Helen walked to the employee data file and twirled the Rolodex to Megan Ann’s card. She wrote the details down and gave the paper to Gina.

  “Thank God not everything around here is computerized,” Gina said. “You wouldn’t happen to have the same kind of information for Eddie St. George, would. you?”

  “Are you kidding?” Helen spun the Rolodex to “S.”

  Gina was surprised, no, amazed at the availability of all data on the drug reps that called on Ridgewood. They could be reached at every imaginable place, at a moment’s notice. Eddie St. George was no exception. He even listed his gym and dentist office numbers.

  “Thanks for all the info,” Gina said. She tucked the note into her coat pocket. “You’re a real buddy, and there’re damn few of those around anymore.”

  “Don’t I know it," Helen said.

  Gina checked her watch again. “Better get back before Tina sends Alexandros to ream my ass.”

  Helen giggled. “Spoken like a true thug.”

  Gina threw her a kiss with one hand and flipped her birdie with the other, then scooted down the corridor toward the elevator.

  Chapter 33

  Where the hell is Megan Ann?

  Maybe Helen was right: that redhead was in hyper drive – drinking, drugging, getting laid.

  She still ought to be able to answer her goddam phone.

  It was the end of the shift, the end of what had been one truly stinking day. Gina was close to losing it. A gnawing feeling of fear and isolation was closing in on her. She had no one. No one to talk to about the missing nurses, no one to talk to about the frightening caller, and no one to talk to about the turmoil at work.

  The Advice Center was a hotbed of discontent – Chelsea was silent and staying clear of all departmental tension, Tina was her usual sarcastic and bitchy self, and Lexie was scrutinizing her every move as though she had a couple of loose screws and might suddenly turn into a screaming banshee.

  And just to add to the confusion, there were four messages on her voice mail from Harry. He was only going to want to talk about marriage, not talk about the things she needed to talk about.

  On an impulse, she called St. George’s office just before she left the Advice Center to see if he might know where Megan Ann was.

  “Mr. Edward St. George isn’t in the office at this time.”

  “Is there any way I can reach him?”

  “Ma’am, I don’t have that information. I suggest you call back tomorrow and ask for the sales department.”

  Disappointed, Gina ended the call.

  Outside, she eased into her car, closing her eyes for an instant before punching in Megan Ann’s phone number again. As with earlier attempts, the phone rang, rang, rang. Not even a pick-up by a message machine. It had to be the right number, she knew that – it had come straight from the employee database.

  She fidgeted in the car in the dark, watched the flurry of employee activity as everyone zoomed out to freedom. Yet, there she sat, going nowhere.

  “Who doesn’t have a message machine in the twenty-first century?” she muttered. Her nails scratched at the slip of paper where she’d written down bits of collected information.

  Fear and anger had morphed into inertia. She rubbed at the back of her neck and was at a loss as to how to deal with all her suspicions, unhappiness, and…

  She jumped when her cell belted out “New York, New York.” Caller ID flashed Harry’s name.

  No! She didn’t want to talk to Harry right now; she wasn’t sure if she would ever again want to talk to him. After several choruses, the phone went silent. She let out a long, deep sigh.

  Before she could relish the silence, the phone did its thing again.

  Damn it, Harry, I’m not answering.

  But the tiny screen said: SFPD Y
ee.

  Maybe she finally has something to report. Anything would be a relief.

  “Hello.”

  “Ms. Mazzio, Pepper Yee, SFPD.”

  “Detective Yee. Good! You’re alive and apparently well. I’d almost forgotten about you. Or is it that you’ve forgotten about me? And you even have my cell number.”

  “You gave it to me.”

  There was a long pause, as though the detective was waiting for Gina to spill her guts – complain like she usually did during their encounters.

  “What can I do for you, Detective?”

  Heavy breathing. Was Pepper Yee nervous?

  “Look, I really called to apologize. I know you think I’ve been ignoring you, but my investigation has been on-going … and going on to nowhere.”

  “I don’t believe this,” Gina said. “Two women, Arina Diaz and Shelly Wilton, are missing. Someone, somewhere, must know something.”

  “Face facts – there are no suspects or evidence of any kind,” Yee said. “Employee photos of the women were passed around at The Hideaway, a bar Wilton and possibly Diaz were known to frequent.”

  “I’ve been there,” Gina said. “Had anyone seen them?”

  “A couple of people recognized Wilton, but not Diaz. That was it.”

  “That doesn’t mean much,” Gina said. “That’s a busy place.”

  “True, but that’s all I have to go on.”

  “It’s also true those women are still missing.”

  “Missing doesn’t mean murdered, Ms. Mazzio.” The detective sounded miffed.

  “What about the telephone calls? That crazy man calling the advice line, then my home? You don’t find that disturbing?”

  “I do find it disturbing. But I think we’re dealing more with a stalker than anything else.”

  “And that’s not dangerous?” Gina said.

  “It bears watching, and I will be watching, Ms. Mazzio. Trust me! Other than that, I’m sorry there’s nothing more to report.”

  “So you called to say you have nothing to say other than to apologize? Well, if that’s it, I accept your apology. Now what?”

  “I’ll keep digging. That’s all I can do.”

  “And while you’re doing that,” Gina said, “maybe another nurse will go missing. Maybe another nurse has already gone missing.”