[Gina Mazzio RN 01.0 - 03.0] Bone Set

by JJ Lamb

  “Harry!” she screamed, pressing her face against the metal, trying to see into the mine.

  All she saw was dirt and scattered rocks on the floor inside. There was no one in sight.

  “Harry! Harry!”

  Carl gently placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Gina. You did your best.”

  “No! Ethan must have the keys in his desk drawer in the lab. “They have to be there.”

  She turned and headed back, hating her body for letting her down, for giving her so much pain. She dragged her leg and no matter how hard she tried, the best she could do was limp slowly. Her body was shutting down and all that remained were broken threads of energy.

  I can’t stop now. Please, please. I have to keep going. I have to find Harry.

  “Here,” Carl said, holding out an arm. “Grab onto me … together we can move a lot faster.”

  Gina clutched his arm, her only lifeline.

  Out of the corridor, they turned toward the laboratory. When they stepped inside the room, they saw Harry on the floor. Blood and sweat had created a huge smear under him.

  “Harry!” she screamed and fell to her knees beside him. She grabbed onto his wrist; his pulse was weak and thready. He was barely breathing.

  She bent over him. “Harry?”

  “I think he’s been drugged,” Carl said, picking up an empty syringe and a drained vial of morphine sulfate from the autopsy table.

  Gina lifted Harry’s eyelids; pinpoint pupils stared back at her.

  “There’s no time to waste.” Carl’s voice was urgent. “We have to get him to a hospital now!”

  “No! He’ll be dead before we can get him out the door.”

  Gina felt the room spinning, an edge of blackness trying to close in. She struggled to her feet, grabbed the phone and called Delores.

  “This is Gina. Listen very carefully. I’m in the lab. Harry’s been overdosed with morphine. I need you to bring several vials of Narcan down to the lab. Now!”

  “What lab?”

  “You’ve never been to the lab?” Gina’s head was exploding. “Push your employee card into the bottom slot in the elevator panel. That will take you to the basement, then turn right.”

  “And you want what, Narcan?”

  “Yes, yes—Naloxone hydrochloride … and some twenty-one-gauge butterfly catheters.” She was breathing so hard she could barely get the words out. “Run!”

  She opened the medicine cabinet, grabbed a tourniquet, a fist full of alcohol packets and tape. At Harry’s side she collapsed to her knees again and made herself slow down. But everything seemed so strange and distorted. She focused on Harry’s arm.

  “He’s shutting down, his veins are collapsing. Carl! See that towel there … stick it under hot water, then bring it to me. Hurry!”

  She wrapped Harry’s limp arm in the towel. She muttered the words echoing in her head “Harry, don’t you dare quit on me. Don’t you dare!”

  Delores came rushing in, small Narcan vials clutched in one hand, butterfly catheters in the other.

  “Gina, maybe you’d better let me do this. You look—”

  “Draw up two milligrams! Have it ready! And hurry!”

  In one continuous motion, Gina unwrapped the towel, folded it under Harry’s arm, and tied the tourniquet. She ran a finger up and down his arm, searching for any sign of a vein. Any vein.

  There was nothing.

  She closed her eyes and gently felt his arm again, then rubbed an alcohol swab on his skin.

  The faster she tried to move, the slower everything became. She reached for a butterfly catheter, held the “wings” and carefully poked its needle into his arm. She held her breath, as though air moving in her lungs would steal the needle from his vein.

  Just when she thought it wasn’t working, blood began to back flow.

  My God, I’m in!

  Her heart was tearing at her chest; she could barely breathe. She gently pushed the needle farther in.

  “Delores, attach the syringe to the tubing and inject the Narcan very slowly.”

  Gina held the needle steady as she undid the tourniquet.

  Come on, baby, don’t let me down.

  Gina gaze shifted to her watch. It had been two minutes.

  “Give him two more milligrams.”

  Delores nodded and pushed the meds slowly.

  Harry stirred, gasped for a breath.

  Oh, my God! He’s breathing!

  Gina smiled, reached for the pulse in his neck, but the room was spinning again and the blackness swallowed her.

  Voices zoomed away … far, far away.

  Silence.

  Chapter 50

  Muted voices swept away then returned like the explosive roar of the incoming tide.

  Coming. Going.

  Softer, louder. Softer, louder.

  Timeless. Endless.

  Gina turned away from the sound, sank further down into the womb of time where she could hide in mindless nothingness; safe in the endless warp of a peaceful forever.

  “Gi-in-n-na-a-a!”

  Go away!

  “Gi-in-n-a-a-a. Come back!”

  That special voice; it thundered through her solitude; rolled into her body, her heart, forced her to turn away from the quiet darkness. She spread her arms, looked up into a shaft of light.

  Slowly, she moved up through the deep, inky layers.

  Sound exploded around her.

  “Gina?”

  Her eyelids snapped open. Harry was sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Harry!” She quickly sat up, then fell back, her arms limp and heavy.

  “Hey, babe, take it easy.” He squeezed her hand. “How are you doing?”

  “You’re safe!” Tears filled her eyes. “I was so afraid I’d lost you.”

  “Well, if you hadn’t found me when you did … well, let’s just say, you’re my hero.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Just a mild concussion from where our buddy Ethan bopped me on the head. Other than feeling weak as a slug, I’m alive, thanks to your quick thinking.”

  “You’re a brave woman.” A tall man stepped forward. Gina knew him … his name was lost somewhere in her head.

  She thought a moment. “You’re the one who helped me find Harry … you’re … you’re … Carl, right?”

  “That’s me.”

  Gina looked at the woman standing next to him. “And you’re Annie, aren’t you?” She stepped up to the bed, a big smile spreading across her face. “Thanks for being there when we needed you.”

  Gina forced herself to her elbows. “Tuva? How is Tuva? Is she all right?”

  “She’s in a room down the hall,” Harry said.

  “But how is she?”

  “She insisted on seeing her mother before they could load her into the ambulance. The EMTs were not happy with her.”

  “She was in terrible shape,” Gina said.

  “When Tuva and her mother were together again, she didn’t want to leave her side,” Annie said. “It was quite a reunion.”

  “Tuva went through hell to get to her mom.”

  “Yeah, she literally went into shock and collapsed before they could get her here,” Harry said. “That neck wound of hers is pretty deep and ugly looking. They had to bring in a plastic surgeon to work on her.”

  “But she’ll be all right?”

  “Things look good and the prognosis is excellent,” Harry said. “Like you, she’s covered with bruises, but nothing could match the ones on your hip and knee. You’re going to be limping for a while, doll.” He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “You’re lucky you didn’t break anything.”

  “Tuva told us what happened in the pit,” Carl said. “If you hadn’t come along when you did … well, it’s just a good thing you were there for her.”

  “You not only saved her life, but her sanity,” Harry said. “She was really losing it; she’s still pretty shook up. “They had to sedate her just to get her to rest.�
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  “What’s going to happen to the patients at Comstock?”

  “They’re all being moved here.”

  “Here? Where am I?”

  “You’re at the main Comstock Hospital campus in Carson City.”

  “Did you have to bring me here?”

  “Yeah, well,” Harry said, “they claim they didn’t know anything about any of this mess. I think they were taking money under the table for directing personnel to Ethan, but I don’t think they were involved any more than that.”

  “It’s hard to know what the truth is,” Gina said.

  “I think they’ll do the right thing—especially now that they’re under the FDA’s microscope.”

  Harry’s voice was fading. She was falling back into the deep nothingness. But this time the darkness was only a resting place where she could be warm and safe, and sleep for a while.

  Chapter 51

  Gina and Harry sped down the twisting Geiger Grade, headed for the Reno airport. They had barely enough time to make their flight back to San Francisco. The Jeep wasn’t all that great on curves, but Harry had it under control. When she looked down from the mountain, she was glad he was ignoring his usual urge to do the pedal-to-the-metal thing. After all they’d been through, to end up at the bottom of a ravine would be too much—even for them.

  “Wish we had the Fiat,” Gina said. “I really miss it. And it would be great fun taking these curves in my little baby.”

  “Yeah,” Harry said, laughing. “If it didn’t decide to have a tantrum and not start at all, or maybe sputter out in the middle of a hairpin turn.”

  “You hate my car,” Gina said giving him an evil look.

  “Nah, I don’t hate it … when it’s running. Then it’s a cute little bugger.”

  “Gotta take the bad with the good.”

  They rode in silence for a while before Harry said, “It’s really too bad about Zelint.”

  Gina gave him her are-you-crazy look. “Too bad?”

  “Well, we need drug companies to continue to invest in finding cures for all kinds of diseases. And Zelint? Their company is facing a multitude of criminal charges, not that they don’t deserve them. But the headline is: They won’t be developing AZ-1166 or looking for any other new meds. That’s not a good thing.”

  “I guess,” Gina said. “But rigging drug trials and committing murder … well, you wouldn’t call that a good thing.”

  “No, that was despicable.”

  “The whole business gives me the chills,” Gina said, touching her throat. “Can you imagine, Delores claimed she never really saw anything, so she won’t even have to testify against Ethan?”

  “She and the other temps knew something was going on, but they never did anything about it, even claimed they hadn’t actually seen anything wrong.”

  “Bullshitsky!” Gina said. “They couldn’t figure out that patients were suddenly gone? They must have known something wasn’t kosher.”

  “Kosher, huh,” Harry said laughing. “Is that your latest Italian homily?”

  “Homily, shmomily. That’s New York talk, man. Get with it!”

  Gina tilted back into the headrest. She still felt very weak, even after doing nothing but sopping up IVs and sleeping in a hospital bed for two whole days.

  A chill rode her spine as she flashed on the pit where she and Tuva had been trapped.

  Rotten garbage. That's all they were.

  “Harry, those poor patients were murdered by Ethan so he could study their brains. Ugh! The man’s not human.”

  He reached across for her arm, squeezed it hard. “That was only one of the reasons. Remember, that pit held participants from all over the country … sent specifically to Comstock so Zelint could manipulate the side effect stats of AZ-1166.

  Gina’s eyes clouded with tears. She could still see Tuva in her hospital bed, her neck swathed in bandages, her arms covered with purple islands the size of Australia.

  It must have hurt like hell when she gave me that tight hug goodbye.

  “What did you think of Carl?” Harry said.

  “I liked Annie better.”

  “Oh, come on, babe. The man may have been reluctant to jump in at the beginning, but without him, Ethan would have gotten away. Carl did his job.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Man, what I wouldn’t have given to be there when they grabbed our mad scientist,” Harry said. “Carl really pounced on the evidence in the tablet and that little flash drive we stashed. Said that for now it was the only solid evidence they had to hold Ethan. They nabbed him just as he was stepping onto the airplane. Guess he thought he was really getting away with it.”

  “And all because you stuffed everything into that crawl space under the building, right next to where we parked the Jeep.” Gina said. “Did it ever cross your mind that Rocky and Pete would find it there and trash it?”

  “Are you kidding?” Harry said, laughing so hard he had trouble holding onto the steering wheel. “Those lazy parasites wouldn’t have known what a crawl space was if it was staring them in the face.”

  Gina looked out the window. “Harry, stop the car! Pull over!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Look!”

  “Jeez! It’s the hairy tarantulas again. First on the Carson Grade, and now on Geiger Grade. We’ve been had … coming and going.”

  “They’re big and ugly," Gina said, smiling. “But they’re pretty amazing, aren’t they?”

  “You kidding me?”

  “Hey, I’m not going to pet them or anything, but they’re beautiful in their own way ... real survivors.”

  “We’re going to have to squash some of those beauties if we’re going to catch our flight.”

  “Oh, hell, Harry. We can get the next flight. I don’t want to kill them; not any of them. Everything has a right to live.”

  “Great idea. We’ll spend the night in Reno.”

  “Harry?”

  “Yes, doll?”

  “I want us to get a cat. A rescue one.”

  “Really? Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  He gave her a big smile, turned off the engine. They held hands and watched the huge spiders migrate across the road.

  “Harry?”

  He turned from watching the moving carpet of tarantulas and sat back into his seat. “What is it, babe?”

  “You know, all my fretting and worrying, thinking and rethinking every single thing—”

  “—yeah, that does sound like you,” he said with a huge smile.

  She took his hand and squeezed it as tight as she could. “It’s almost too simple. But when you get right down to it … all that really matters are the ones you love, and the ones who love you.”

  Harry looked deep into her eyes before he pulled her into his arms, held her so tight she could feel his heart pounding.

  -The End-

  Acknowledgements

  To all the sincere and dedicated

  critique groups, especially ours –

  Peggy Lucke, Shelley Singer,

  Nicola Trwst & Judith Yamamoto.

  Thank you.

  Other Books By

  Bette Golden Lamb & J. J. Lamb

  Books in the Gina Mazzio RN Medical Series:

  Bone Dry

  Sin & Bone

  Bone Pit

  Bone of Contention

  Bone Dust

  Other novels by Bette Golden Lamb & J. J. Lamb:

  Sisters in Silence

  Heir Today...

  The Killing Vote

  By Bette Golden Lamb:

  The Organ Harvesters

  By J. J. Lamb (Zachariah Tobias Rolfe III P.I. Series):

  A Nickel Jackpot

  The Chinese Straight

  Losers Take All

  No Pat Hands

  About the Authors

  Bette Golden Lamb & & J. J. Lamb have co-authored a dozen crime novels, plus a few other individual fiction titles as both short stor
ies and books.

  Bette is also an RN and a professional, award-winning sculptor and ceramist.

  J. J. has spent his entire career behind a keyboard as a journalist, freelance writer, editor, and fiction writer.

  The Lambs have lived in Virginia, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, and currently make their home in Northern California. If you see them at a writers’ conference, say Hello!

  www.twoblacksheep.us

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