Bone of Contention: A Medical Thriller With Heart (The Gina Mazzio Series Book 4)

by Bette Golden Lamb

  The frigid water made her fingers wooden as she dragged them through the mud; she nudged a triangular piece of what she hoped was glass. Her fingers were too numb to be sure.

  The water had soaked the rope Marvin used to bind her hands and feet. She used the edge of the shard to saw at the fibers.

  Slow. Too slow.

  She needed to get free, to stand.

  The slippery floor made it difficult to get her legs under her. She braced her back against the rickety wall beneath the window frame, contracted and released the muscles of her back and butt.

  She began to move upward ... slowly.

  The wooden siding gave way and she fell out of the shed.

  Chapter 59

  Gina’s eyes fluttered open, stared into the deluge of rain. It was like someone was pouring buckets of water on her from high up in the sky.

  She was confused. The last thing she remembered was falling through a wall, hearing the sound of splintering wood.

  Now she was outside. She wanted to yell for help but her throat was constricted ... no sound escaped her lips.

  Exhaustion kept her down and she began to drift off, drift away.

  Sleep. Need to Sleep.

  Sharp, stabbing pain in her arms awoke her.

  She turned her head, slowly, painfully. She was outside a ramshackle shed, a short distance from the bay.

  She stared at the shed. There. I was in there.

  She watched the pounding rain sweep into the building. The place where she’d been taken, tied up, left to die.

  Thelma! Marvin!

  Thoughts, images flashed through her head, coming at her as fast and as heavy as the rain.

  She looked into the shed for Thelma. But all that was left of her was an island surrounded by muddy water.

  Gina cried. Her body shook from intermittent spasms. Pins and needles stabbed her fingers.

  Need to get up.

  It took three excruciating tries just to get onto her knees. Chin down, she stared at several pieces of broken window glass beneath the shattered window.

  She picked up a jagged piece and began again to saw at the wet rope that bound her hands behind her. Twice she lost her finger-grip on the shard and cut herself. The rain-blood combination made the sharp glass even more slippery, but eventually, through the pain, she felt one strand after another separate. Slowly, ever so slowly, the rope loosened enough for her to free her hands.

  * * *

  Mulzini pulled up and parked along the edge of Bridgeway at the spot where they’d found Gina’s cell earlier. The Sausalito cruiser stopped also.

  “I say we head north,” Mulzini said. “We’ll hit every street in a five to ten-block radius.”

  Harry’s stomach churned until he thought he was going to retch. How were they ever going to find Gina? Mulzini’s suggestion seemed like such a long shot.

  They’ve killed her. She’s dead. That’s why Karsh wouldn’t say anything.

  Harry looked into Vinnie’s eyes, saw shock. The heels of Vinnie’s hands squeezed his head at the temples; low guttural moans filled the back of the police car. Harry threw an arm around Vinnie, pulled him close. “Come on, man, it’s going to be okay. It has to be.”

  But Harry knew it wasn’t.

  “Listen, you two,” Mulzini said, “don’t give up on me now.” He signaled and pulled back out onto Bridgeway, the Sausalito cruiser, lights flashing, close behind.

  Harry wanted cry out. He couldn’t stand the thought of losing Gina, but he had to hold himself together, not only for himself, but for Vinnie. If the ex-marine lost it or freaked out, they might never bring him back out of it.

  “Any suggestions which way we should go?” Mulzini asked the Sausalito cop over the radio.

  “Doubt if there’s much chance of finding her in any of the occupied commercial buildings here along Bridgeway,” the officer said.

  “What’s farther down the street?”

  “Pretty much the same until Bridgeway merges with the freeway headed north. My suggestion would be to go off to the right toward the water. There are a lot of old sheds, small warehouses, and that sort of thing out there.”

  “Works for me,” Mulzini said.

  The cruiser pulled ahead and turned into the first side street that went toward the waterfront. They followed him through the mixed-use industrial area of one- and two-story buildings.

  The Sausalito cop reached the waterfront, made a broken u-turn and started back up the street toward them, flashing his spotlight from side to side.

  “This looks like someplace you wouldn’t want to go to by yourself after dark,” Harry said.

  “Someplace where that creep Karsh would feel right at home,” Mulzini said.

  * * *

  Gina held her arms up to the sky, then rubbed them. Her arms were a cold, wrinkled, fish-belly white from being under water, and her wrists were still seeping blood from cuts she’d made while jabbing at the rope with the broken window glass.

  She untied her ankles and tried to stand, but fell and couldn’t get up again for a long time.

  Every part of her ached as she forced herself to crawl back in the direction of the road. She reached out and planted one hand after another, dragging herself through the mud and water. Every time she tried to stand, her legs collapsed.

  Velvety darkness threatened to close in. A voice inside begged her to surrender. But the wind wouldn’t let her rest. It whispered, Up! Get up!

  * * *

  Mulzini made a u-turn to follow the sheriff’s cruiser; Harry and Vinnie cried out as one, “Stop!”

  The Inspector hit the brakes hard and signaled the deputy up ahead by flashing his headlights.

  “Over there!” Harry cried out. “That narrow alley on the right. I see something!” He jumped out of the car, Vinnie close behind. They both hit the wet, muddy street running.

  “Gina!” Harry screamed, his eyes watering.

  She was almost invisible on the ground, covered with mud and curled up in a heap like a pile of discarded garbage. She would have looked dead but for her toes, which kept digging in, trying to push herself forward.

  Harry rolled her into his arms. “You’re safe, baby.” He crooned, rocked her like a lost child. “I’ve got you, doll. I’ve got you.”

  Vinnie wrapped his arms around both of them ... and cried.

  Chapter 60

  Dehydration, hypothermia, pain, shock, and exhaustion had almost destroyed Gina. She’d been critical for forty-eight hours after Harry and Vinnie found her sprawled in the mud.

  The EMTs said she stopped breathing on the way to the hospital and her cardiac rhythm had been dangerously close to shut-down. They’d refused to let Harry ride along – in his state of mind they knew he would have only been another problem to deal with. But Harry was as close as he could get – he and Vinnie were following the ambulance in Inspector Mulzini’s car. Sirens, like his heart beat, blasting.

  * * *

  Gina was just beginning to feel more like her old self. She thought about the last few days in the hospital, sleeping most of the time, complaining about not being allowed to go home the rest of the time.

  But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember much of anything about her two days in the ICU. Only flashes of people hovering over her.

  Now she was sprawled across the bed in her favorite yellow flannel PJs. She lay next to Harry, who was catnapping.

  Poor guy! I’ve just about done him in ...again.

  The doorbell rang and she sat up in bed. She could hear Vinnie talking to someone; she strained to hear.

  Taneka! It was Taneka. Within a minute or so, Vinnie led the OB/Gyn charge nurse into the bedroom.

  One look at Taneka’s face and Gina felt sorry for her. She looked so apologetic and droopy next to the perky bouquet of yellow mums she was holding.

  “Hi, Taneka,” Harry said

  “Hey, how nice of you visit,” Gina added.

  Her team leader smiled meekly. “I kno
w ... I know. What took me so long?” She looked away, then took in the entire room the room before bringing her gaze back to return to Gina. “I should have come to see you in the hospital.”

  “You’re here now, that’s what counts.” Gina pointed at the flowers. “Are those for me?”

  “Of course.”

  Harry reached out for the mums. “I’ll go put them in water.”

  Gina patted the bed next to her. “Sit down.”

  Taneka sat on the very edge of the bed. Prim, rigid. But then she let the words fly, as though she’d rehearsed them several times.

  “I should have believed you, Gina Mazzio, when you told me about Thelma. And if I hadn’t left the restaurant that day, none of this,” she waved a hand over Gina, “would have happened.”

  “Taneka, it’s not your fault.” A gray and white tabby jumped up on the bed, startling them.

  “Hi, there, Tuva.” Gina wrapped an arm around the cat and brought her up to her chest. "Usually don't see you around when strangers are in the house."

  “Tuva? That’s an unusual name, especially for a cat.”

  “She’s a rescue. Harry adopted her for me. I named her for a great gal I met in Nevada.” Gina was running her fingers back and forth through the tabby’s fur – they both laughed at the responsive purr; it sounded like a buzz saw.

  “Lying around has given me time to think about everything," Gina said. "Truthfully, Taneka, I think Thelma and Marvin knew they’d never get me alone without your help. I’m sure their plans included getting rid of you, too.”

  “No!”

  “Face it, gal, you, and all those future pregnant women Thelma had planned on getting rid of, you all lucked out.”

  “I don’t think she would have hurt me.”

  “If she was willing to murder patients because they wanted abortions, and would have murdered me for suspecting her, you really think she would have left you alive as a witness?”

  The black woman’s face became a pasty gray. “Well, it’s all over for her, and they have that husband of hers locked up for her murder and conspiracy to commit murder.”

  Gina plumped her pillow and sat up taller. “Harry told me Marvin lawyered up, fought the whole thing, and tried to blame it all on an anti-abortion group called The Holy Eye.”

  “Oh, that’s the organization we’ve been reading about for weeks. They mostly go after Planned Parenthood, but they’ve been plaguing other women’s clinics lately,” Taneka said. “They’re very pro-active.”

  “I think that’s the one,” Gina said. “However, they haven’t been able to make a connection between Marvin Karsh’s actions and that particular anti-abortion group. The guy in charge claims he threw the Karshes out long ago because of their violent behavior.”

  “Anyway, Karsh ended up going down with only a whimper,” Harry said, coming back into the room with the mums in a cut glass vase. “He pleaded out after he found out the woman he intended to run away with had scheduled an abortion. “As fate would have it, she’s scheduled at Ridgewood Woman’s Health Clinic.”

  “Is that true?” Taneka said.

  “I swear!”

  “How ironic is that?”

  “Yeah,” Gina said. “Harry says she made some comment about not being up to raising a child on her own, especially the son of a murderer.”

  * * *

  “It was nice of Taneka to drop by,” Harry said.

  “I’m glad she did.”

  Harry kissed Gina’s wrist, fingered her bandaged wounds gently. “Baby, you’ve got to stop doing this to me. Some of those cuts were pretty deep ... and that’s saying nothing about the rest of your injuries.”

  “It was the only way I could free myself, Harry. I knew you’d be looking for me, but what if you didn’t find me?”

  “I know. But you nicked a vein, lost so much blood ... if we hadn’t found you when we did...”

  “It’s not my fault, Harry. Things just happen to me. It’s not like I go looking for trouble.”

  “Maybe it’s time for you to just do your job and stop examining everything that’s going on all around you.”

  “I didn’t become a nurse to hide in a hole.”

  “Doll, I need a break,” Harry said. “And it’s not only me. Vinnie says he’s not leaving our apartment until he knows you’re safe. Little does he know that may never happen.”

  “I’m really worried about him.”

  “Well, stop worrying. He’s not going anywhere. He’s camped out in our spare bedroom ... won’t even go back to Helen’s.”

  “I’ll talk to him.”

  “I don’t know, Gina. He’s obsessed with the idea that Dominick is here in San Francisco and that you need protection.”

  “Right now, with you here next to me, I feel warm and safe. Not even Dominick could get to me, no matter how hard he tried.” She let out a deep sigh. “But my poor little baby brother is still at war with the world ... and everything in it.”

  “Well, at least he didn’t lose his job over walking away to go look for you. No one turned him in, and someone even clocked him out at the end of the day.”

  “That’s super.”

  “Yeah! Seems there’re really a lot of people around here who respect the Mazzio name. Can’t imagine why.”

  “Watch it, buster. We Mazzios are starting to gang up on you.”

  “Don’t I know it! Anyway, there’s more good news. Next week, Vinnie starts the evaluation process for his PTSD. He’s asked me to go with him.”

  “You’ll go?”

  “Of course. I’ll be right there every minute.”

  Gina ran her fingers through his curly hair, rested her head on his shoulder. “What would I do without you? I can’t even imagine it.”

  “I still don’t see a ring on that finger, though, that says you’re married to me.”

  “Do I need to have a ring?”

  He drew her into his arms, buried his head against her shoulder, and whispered, “I need to know you’re mine forever, Gina Mazzio.” Then he squeezed her so hard her breath caught in her throat. “Do you understand?”

  “I do, Harry. I really do.”

  # # #

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  BETTE GOLDEN LAMB, a registered nurse, has developed parallel careers as a writer, painter, sculptor, and ceramist. Her art works can be found in a number of galleries and private collections.

  BONE OF CONTENTION is the fourth book in the Gina Mazzio, RN medical thriller series, which includes BONE DRY, SIN & BONE, and BONE PIT. These, along with SISTERS IN SILENCE and HEIR TODAY…, were co-authored with her husband, J.J.

  J. J. LAMB is a career writer – journalism, short stories, and novels. In addition to fiction co-authored with Bette, he is the creator of the Zachariah Tobias Rolfe III private eye series, the latest of which is NO PAT HANDS, nominated for a 2014 Shamus Award from the Private Eye Writers of America as Best Indie P.I. novel.

  The LAMBS live in Northern California and are members of International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime.