Bone Pit: A Chilling Medical Suspense Thriller (The Gina Mazzio Series Book 3)

by Bette Golden Lamb

  “Mmmmm, a veritable feast. I couldn’t do better at MacDonald’s,” Harry said, sitting down.

  “Sometimes,” Gina said, “I don’t think you care about staying alive.”

  “l don’t, unless I can spend it with you.” He reached across the table and squeezed her hand, his eyes all soft and dreamy.

  Gina’s face felt hot. “Don’t say that, Harry. It makes me feel weird.”

  “You are weird. But let’s eat anyway.”

  After a few bites, Gina dabbed her mouth with her napkin. “I guess I ought to tell you about something that happened today.”

  “Uh huh,” Harry said, stuffing his face with three French fries all at once, dripping gobs of catsup into his napkin. He wiped at his mouth before Gina could warn him and smeared the red sauce all over his cheeks.

  Gina started laughing. She jumped up and brought him another napkin. “Try this.” She held out her hand and waited until he placed the red paper mess into it. “As I was saying, I think I got into a little bit of trouble today.”

  Harry was suddenly all ears. “Trouble? What kind of trouble?”

  Gina leaned back in her chair. “Well, I tried eating a snack in the cafeteria.”

  “Don’t stall, Gina. Tell me about the getting in trouble part.”

  “I was only giving you some background, telling you the whole story—”

  “—skip the build-up.”

  “Okay, so I decided to see if maybe they had some extra food in the kitchen.”

  “How on earth did you find the kitchen?”

  “Well, you see,” she said, “if you use your ID card, there’s a slot on the elevator panel … I’ll show you tomorrow.”

  “Go on,” he said, ignoring the rest of his dinner.

  “It’s really pretty creepy down in the basement, but I wandered down one corridor and found the kitchen. I was just peeking inside at these two guys in the kitchen, and I guess they heard me.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I kind of freaked out … so I ran … you know … to get out of there. But they caught me before I could get back into the elevator.” The silence in the room was closing in on her, she could barely breathe. Her voice sounded small and timid to her. “I only wanted a sandwich. What’s wrong with that?”

  “I don’t understand why you can’t try to stick with the program … do your job and stop looking for trouble.”

  “I wasn’t! I only wanted something decent to eat.”

  “You could have come here to grab a bite. You didn’t have to wander around, dig into places you have no reason to be.” He paced around the room before coming back to her. “This is exactly how you almost froze to death in that butcher’s freezer in San Francisco.” He grabbed her elbows, then pulled her into his arms. “I almost lost you then. I can’t go through that again … do you hear me?”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks. “I do, Harry. I really do.”

  “Promise me you won’t do anything like that again? Please, Gina. Please!”

  She wanted to say something comforting … something to reassure him. But her voice was lost and the room remained smothered in silence.

  Chapter 13

  Carl Kreuger was grumpy, or, as his wife would say, he’d gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. Man, he hated that trite, stupid, hackneyed, ridiculous expression. But he loved his wife—she was the best thing that ever happened to him—so it was a good thing he was usually more of an “up” kind of guy and didn’t often have to hear those inane words.

  No matter what his wife said, getting up on the wrong side of the bed had nothing to do with the black cloud hanging over his head today. No, it was the third friggin’ time in six months that his transfer request to move from the FDA’s New York Office of Criminal Investigation to its Los Angeles division had been turned down.

  Shit, I hate New York City and every last one of those pushy, funny-sounding people who live piled on top of each other … and think nothing of it.

  His attitude was stupid, he knew that. But when he left the FBI in Albuquerque to hitch up with the FDA’s special investigative unit, he’d thought moving to New York was a dream come true. So did his wife. The difference between them: she loved the big city.

  Oh, if I didn’t adore that woman life would be so much less complicated.

  He scooted down into his chair, would have crawled under the desk if he thought he could get away with it and still have a job. He didn’t want to see or talk to anyone.

  He scanned his schedule for the day. Right at the top of the list was a 10 o’clock appointment with a Tuva Goldmich. His secretary’s note said something about a drug study problem.

  Drug study, drug addiction, drug control, drug trial. And on and on. Sometimes I think if I hear that “D” word one more time, I’ll yell my head off. Poor attitude for an FDA criminal investigator, that’s for sure.

  Well, he’d better get his rotten attitude under control if he wanted to bring home the bacon.

  Ugh! Hate that one, too.

  He stood, lifted his jacket from the back of the chair, poked his arms through the sleeves, crossed the office to his small closet, and checked himself in the door mirror. He immediately cinched up his rep tie and ran a hand through his short blond hair. He looked all right, except for that volcano welling up on his cheek threatening to erupt like Vesuvius. It never failed. Any emotional problem and zits blossomed like daffodils in springtime. Not so pretty, though.

  To squeeze or not to squeeze? That’s the question.

  Before he could give it any more thought, he was out the office door to the reception area. There were three people waiting; only one was a woman.

  “Ms. Goldmich?” he called out to the woman and smiled.

  The petite, brown-eyed brunette stood and walked up to him with a nervous gait, but she held out a hand and shook his firmly. “Call me Tuva, please.”

  “I’m Carl Kreuger.” He chuckled. “But you can call me Carl. Why don’t we go on back to my office, Tuva?”

  She followed him down the narrow corridor. Once they were in his office and seated, he waited a moment. What she said in the next few minutes would either really motivate him or put her request on the bottom of his work pile. Didn’t know why it was that way, but that’s the way it was.

  “Tell me about the problem.”

  Tuva Goldmich crossed her ankles, tucked them under the chair. She looked off into the distance before meeting his eyes. “I’m not sure how to start.”

  “Tell me why you’re here.”

  “My mother—”

  “—-her name?” he interrupted.

  “Emma Goldmich.” He wrote the name on a memo pad. “She’s been a participant in a national drug study for Alzheimer’s ... has been for the past year.”

  “A national study? Are you certain?”

  “That’s what they told me.”

  He held up a finger for her to wait while he searched through the “A” file in his computer for ongoing drug studies for that specific disease.

  There was a long list of different Phase I investigations, where fewer than one-hundred volunteers were being tested with a new drug “Which pharmaceutical company are we talking about?”

  “Zelint.”

  He scanned the pharmaceutical companies until he found it—a small company with very few active studies in the works.

  Looks like they’d completed Phase I … used fewer than one hundred healthy subjects for their new drug, AZ-1166.

  “Sorry, “he said to Tuva. “Just give me another minute.”

  And they also completed Phase II—with a few hundred volunteers

  Before he could stop himself, he let out a long whistle. “Zelint is the only Phase III study in that disease category at this time.”

  “What does that mean?” Tuva said.

  “It means that Zelint Pharmaceutical’s study will provide evidence for the safety and effectiveness for the Alzheimer’s drug your mother has been taking. Then the drug will
be considered for FDA approval. If they approve it, it will be released to the public. That’s when they move into Phase IV for post-market monitoring.”

  “How many people are in the Phase Three study, the one my mother’s in?”

  Carl looked at the numbers. “Over a thousand across the US.”

  How did the company managed to keep this away from the news hounds?

  Tuva sat up taller in her seat.

  “This could be a real break-through for the treatment of Alzheimer’s.” He hesitated for a moment before adding, “I think your mother’s lucky to be in this study.”

  “I had to be talked into it by our primary care doctor. I was resistant to signing her into the study because she had to be moved into a special facility for constant observation. But it was worth it. After a few months, it was actually amazing. She became my mom again.”

  “I hear a but in there,” he said.

  “Well, her mind definitely improved but the rest of her has gone downhill. I mean, she’s always had arthritis. Some days were better than others, but she managed to take care of herself once she got moving.” Tuva pulled a tissue from her purse and blew her nose.

  “Did your mother have a job”

  “She was a professor of fine art … she retired three years ago.” Tuva looked away. “Within six months after taking the test drug, her Alzheimer’s was in remission, but her arthritis exploded. It got so bad she could barely stand. She was in horrible shape.”

  “Did the investigators think it was from the test drug?”

  “No. They insisted it was part of the same symptoms she’d always had. But that’s not true. She was so much worse. I told them that, told them there must be something wrong with the drug they gave her.” She gave Carl a forlorn look. “I mean, isn’t that possible?”

  “Anything’s possible,” Carl said.

  “The investigators were very nice about it. They said they were going to help her, move her to a special facility in Nevada where they would treat her arthritis and give her advanced medical care.”

  Advanced medical care for arthritis? I guess they planned on replacing every joint in her body.

  “Have you gone out to Nevada to see your mom?”

  “Everything is so expensive and I just lost my job. I hope to visit her …soon.”

  “What exactly is troubling you? I mean, the fact she’s not close and you can’t see her doesn’t mean there’s something wrong.”

  “That’s true. But I’ve written to my Mom every day since she left. She hasn’t answered one letter.” Tears rolled down Tuva’s cheeks again. “That’s just not like her. I’ve even tried calling her, but they tell me she’s never available.” Tuva reached for a tissue from her purse. “Something’s wrong. She’s in some kind of trouble. I just know it.”

  Carl tapped his pencil on the desk top. “Tuva, let me do some digging around and see what I can come up with.”

  She studied him very closely. “You’re not going to bury this in some slush pile, are you?”

  Carl Kreuger shook his head, stood, walked around the desk and escorted her to the door and down the narrow hallway. “As I said, let me give it some thought. I’ll get back to you. I promise.”

  She gave him a forlorn look before opening the outer door to the OCI offices and heading for the elevator.

  Carl returned to his desk and stared at the computer screen. For a while he was caught up in the stats for the random, double blind study Zelint Pharmaceutical was involved in.

  He thought about Tuva Goldmich’s observations about her mother. But still, AZ-1166 could be an exciting drug.

  Yeah, how many of those have I seen go down the tubes in the last year? So many failures. So many duds.

  In a few minutes his mind was wandering and he was caught up in planning the next steps he would have to take to transfer the hell out of friggin’ New York City.

  Chapter 14

  Gina tossed and turned, stared into the dark night, while Harry slept like he didn’t have a care in the world. She couldn’t settle down. No matter how hard she tried not to think of her ex-husband, her mind drifted back to him and how he had almost killed her in a drunken rage. He’d beaten her, jammed a bottle up inside, tearing her insides until she’d almost bled out … died.

  She looked at Harry’s shadowy outline—peaceful, calm, sleeping on his side of the bed. When she lived with Dominick, he would spread out, shove her to the side until she could barely find a spot to hang on. Every time she would talk about getting a king-sized bed, he would laugh at her. That’s all. Just laugh.

  Gina forced herself to inhale through her nose and exhale through her mouth. Concentrate only on her breathing. She finally drifted into a light sleep. When the alarm went off, Harry kept trying to wake her, get her going. It wasn’t easy.

  “Bad night?” he asked.

  Gina nodded.

  “Dominick?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You know I won’t let him hurt you,” Harry said. “I promised before, and that promise is forever.”

  “But he’s out of prison now. The thought of him being free—“ It took her a moment to finish the sentence, she couldn’t stop the shivers that raced down her spine, “—it’s scary; he swore he’d kill me.”

  “He’s not getting anywhere near you, doll.” Harry reached out, pulled her into his arms. “He’s in New York, three thousand miles away. And we’re here.”

  “I hope that’s where he stays.”

  Harry held her at arms length. “Aren’t you the one who’s always saying: Take it one day at a time? I promise we’ll get through this.”

  She could barely smile.

  * * * *

  Gina was caffeine-wired, sleep-deprived, and jumpy all morning. She kept her eyes on Rocky, but the creep seemed to do a great job getting patients ready for breakfast while she worked at top speed to get the pain meds out. He acted as if she didn’t exist and she returned the favor.

  When she had one med left to administer—not a narcotic for a change—she began to relax. She walked into Derek Kopek’s room and immediately detected a hint of nicotine polluting the air. But there wasn’t a sign of tobacco anywhere—no ashtray, no cigarette pack.

  Nothing.

  Kopek was standing at the window, his breathing labored; he was fighting for every breath just to remain upright.

  “Okay, Mr. Kopek. Where did you hide those cigarettes?” She wanted to call them coffin nails, but she thought it might be a rough way to begin a relationship.

  He completed a slow arc and looked at her. “You mean where are the coffin nails, don’t you? That’s what you really wanted to say. Right?”

  “Maybe. But I don’t have to tell you how uncool it is for someone with a ticker problem to smoke.” Her eyes swept over the swollen ankles sticking out of his carefully pressed pant legs.

  “Uncool? Stupid is probably what you want to say.”

  “Mr. Kopek—”

  “—oh, for heaven’ sake, call me Derek, will you” There were long pauses between every sentence to give him time to catch his breath. “And I’ll call you by your first name. That’s the way the world is today. We’re all ‘friends.’”

  “You seem to think you know exactly what’s on my mind, Derek.” She lifted a small paper cup off the identifying med card on her tray and handed it to him. Then she walked over to a dresser where there was a pitcher of water and an empty glass. The room was spacious, and it looked professionally decorated, with matching rust-colored curtains and bedspread. Pictures decorated the walls, along with a large framed map of South America.

  She filled the glass and brought it back to him. “So why don’t you take your pills and I’ll leave you alone. Since there’s no real need to verbally communicate. You already seem to know what I’m thinking or what I’m going to say.” She gave him a big smile and waited for him to swallow his meds.

  A pink flush spread across his face as he tossed the wadded medicine cup into a waste basket ne
xt to him. That minimal effort increased his breathing rate dramatically.

  “I suppose I am acting like an idiot.” He looked into Gina’s eyes for the first time since she stepped into the room.

  “Well, I might have chosen different words.” She laughed. “But it would have been something like that.” She pointed: “Nice map.”

  “I spent most of my life there in the jungles, mostly the Amazon, searching for plants that could contain healing compounds.” He moved slowly, collapsing into a chair.

  “And where are you from?”

  “You have to ask? That’s a first.”

  He smiled. “Okay, so how long has it been since you left New York?”

  “About three years.” She walked up to the window, sat on the sill. “Other than the Amazon, where are you from, Derek?”

  “Not too far from here. I was brought up in Reno.” His eyes drifted as though he was seeing something other than his room in the Comstock Medical Facility. “But I'm a stranger here. As I said, I’ve spent most of my life wandering through the Amazon rainforest.”

  A sudden coughing spasm shook his body. His breathing became even more rapid, shallower. He bent over, caught between coughing and trying to breathe. A small oxygen tank was close to him, but Gina could see he had no intention of using it. It was hard for her to sit there and not rush to place the oxygen jets into his nose.

  “How about using some oxygen to help you breathe?” she finally said.

  He shook his head.

  “Give the meds a chance to kick in. It’ll help soon,” Gina said. She took his hand and squeezed it.

  He finally sat up taller, but he rubbed hard at his chest. “Don’t bullshit … a bullshitter … Gina. This is never … getting better.” He ended the sentence with another bout of coughs that didn’t seem to want to stop.

  She thought about his chart, his diagnosis, his prognosis, and most of all, her observations. She could see what Derek Kopek had to cope with every single day and night. He was in the final stages of congestive heart failure.

  He’s right. He’s never getting better.