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

by Bette Golden Lamb

  Emma started to reach for it, but her hands were shaking so much that she gave up and said, “Please read it to me.” Her eyes were still wary, as if Gina might be playing some kind of cruel joke on her.

  “Of course!” Gina ripped open the envelope, removed the letter, and began to read.

  Dear Mom,

  I’m so worried about you. Why don’t you answer my letters? I’ve written to you

  everyday and have yet to hear from you. I’ve even tried to call but I can’t get

  through to you on your cell and the office there won’t let me talk to you.

  Our doctor tries to reassure me, says not to worry. But I can’t help it. I’m very scared. I only have one mother.

  I really miss you, Mom. I have no one to talk to about my art, especially since

  Nadia is in Europe. And besides, you’re the only one who really gets my paintings.

  I can’t wait for you to come home.

  Love you.

  Tuva

  Gina folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. She reached out and gently took Emma’s hand. “I don’t know why you haven’t gotten your letters before, Emma, but I think it might be safer if I kept this for you. Just for now.”

  “I don’t understand. Why won’t they let me talk to my Tuva? Why have they kept her letters from me? Why?”

  “I wish I had an answer for you, and I will try to find out why. But for now, what say we keep this letter our little secret?”

  Emma squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”

  When Gina opened the door to leave, Rocky was standing there.

  “Why was the door closed?” he demanded.

  “Getouddahere, you miserable S-O-B! I don’t have to answer to you about patient care … or anything else, for that matter.”

  He stayed in place, like a huge immovable barricade. She stuck out her chin, let a deep breath fill out her 5-10 body, and stared straight into his eyes.

  “Man, you better get out of my way, and I mean right now.” She started moving into his space, with no intention of stopping.

  He jerked away. “We’re not finished with this.”

  “Damn straight!”

  * * * *

  Gina and Harry hurried out the front door like convicts escaping from a prison. They climbed into the Jeep and immediately dug into a couple of stale sandwiches they’d bought from the lunchroom vending machine.

  “I told you things were screwy here,” Gina said. “Now I find out that Ethan has been holding back the patients’ mail.”

  “As usual, you were the first one to pick up on all the weirdness,” Harry said. “Where does that sixth sense of yours comes from?”

  “From always running for my life as a kid.” Gina said, “At least I got something out of that.”

  She took a huge bite out of her ham and cheese sandwich. The bread was stale and she had to chew and chew before she could swallow it. It made her think of the soggy sandwich she’d seen in Emma’s room.

  “Poor Emma!” she said between bites. “I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to feel so abandoned.”

  “Lots of people are neglected by their families.” Harry looked out the window. “You just can’t make people love you. Either they do or they don’t.”

  “Well, I’m glad Emma has someone in her life who does.” Gina fanned herself with her hand. “Man, I had to get out of that place and breathe some fresh air even if all I get to look at are those flipping boulders.”

  “I miss not having my computer,” Harry said. “You were right—we should have never turned them in. If I could at least do some more research, we might get to the bottom of this whole setup and—”

  “—Harry?”

  “I’d at least feel like we were doing—”

  “—Harry?”

  “—something. We’re so isolated out here—”

  “—Harry!”

  “What is it, doll? I mean, I feel like someone’s cut off my right arm.”

  “Harry Lucke!” she yelled. “Will you please be quiet for a moment?”

  “I’m sorry.” He drew an imaginary zipper across his mouth, sealing his lips, but he was smiling at her in the next breath.

  “I still have my tablet.”

  “You have what, your tablet? He … he ordered us to hand over our computers.”

  “He didn’t say anything about tablets, did he?”

  At first he looked at her with round and startled eyes, then reached out and crushed her tight against him. Both their sandwiches went flying.

  “God, I love you, Gina Mazzio!”

  She whispered in his ear, “We can also download the flash drive I snatched from Ethan’s desk in the lab.”

  He held her at arms length and looked straight into her eyes. “You didn’t?”

  “Oh, yes I did.”

  Chapter 34

  Gina dragged through the rest of the shift, forcing herself to stay focused on the patients. Throughout the day, Rocky had virtually stood on top of her, tailing her, watching her every move. She’d dealt with creeps before, but there was something not only weird, but sadistic about the man. And the way he treated the patients was hair-raising—more like they were things rather than people who needed help.

  If she was working in a hospital, there would be places to get away from him, places to hide, places to disappear into. But there was no place here to blend in or become wallpaper. Not at Comstock.

  Their apartment was the only safe place inside the building. If it was safe.

  Have to face it: nothing is private or off-limits.

  When she finally finished the shift, she walked to the elevator, where Harry was waiting for her.

  “Where did you—”

  Gina tugged down hard on his hand and frowned at him. He nodded, pulled her close, and said nothing

  When the door to their apartment clicked shut, Harry said, “Okay, where did you—”

  She clamped a hand over his mouth, then went to the pantry, pushed aside stacks of food cans, and pulled out a large cereal box. Inside were the tablet, charger, and Ethan’s flash drive. She took his arm and led him to the bathroom, where she turned the shower and washbasin faucets on full blast.

  “This is what people do in the movies,” she whispered in his ear. “Like when they don’t want anyone to hear them.”

  “Smart move! I’m not used to all this cloak and dagger stuff.”

  “You may be smart, Harry, but you’d make a horrible spy.”

  “I didn’t go into nursing to become a spy. If I’d wanted that kind of life, I would have hooked up with the CIA, and I’ll bet they pay a helluva lot more money.” He gave her a big fake smile, showing lots of teeth.

  “It’s strange. In the beginning I didn’t really hide the tablet from Ethan … I just forgot it was in my purse.”

  “Ah, yes! The bottomless pit.”

  “Call it what you want, I don’t leave home without it.”

  “If you really think our apartment is bugged, this is way too late to be taking precautions.”

  She gave him a who-knew gesture with her hands and squinched up her face as they sat down on the floor. Gina plugged the flash drive into a USB connector, the connector into the tablet, and began downloading the stored files.

  “Everything’s gone wrong so quickly, babe. And it’s my fault. I should have been sharper. I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens to you.”

  “Forget it! We walked into a bad situation, that’s all. Heck, maybe the gods got up on the wrong side of the bed and forgot we were the good guys.”

  “I hope they remember soon,” Harry said, “because I’m as spooked as you are.”

  “Let’s see what’s on that flash drive.”

  The screen filled quickly with a long string of saved files.

  “There!” Harry said, pointing to the top of screen.

  Consent Forms A & Consent Forms B

  “Two different consent packages?” Gina said.

 
They opened the files and compared the two sets. Each listed possible side effects for those taking part in the clinical trial of AZ-1166.

  Gina tapped the screen. “Only one set lists severe upswings of age related diseases … crap … even increased dementia?”

  “They weren’t taking any chances. It was probably a lot easier to get them to consent to the one that gave the less serious and more common complications.”

  “I‘ll bet you the Fiat,” Gina said, “that the non-specific forms will be deleted at some point. That way, anyone investigating will think everyone was properly informed.”

  “Did you notice the paragraph about all bodily remains becoming the property of Zelint Pharmaceuticals for further study? And the final disposal … cremation.”

  “Yeah. That was in both consent forms,” Gina said.

  “Sure as hell would make it difficult for any outside agency to check up on the real cause of death.”

  “What’s the point of all the lies?” Gina said. “They either have a clinically sound drug, or they don’t.”

  “The point, doll? Money.”

  “But that drug is hurting people,” Gina said, “Making them sicker.”

  “Never let the truth get in the way of making a buck.”

  “That’s pretty sick.”

  “Remember that whole lecture from Ethan about industrial espionage?” Harry said.

  “Who could forget?”

  “It keeps coming back to me,” he said. “Especially since every patient in this facility is no longer on the drug.”

  “I’ve got to admit, it did make being here kind of exciting for a few minutes.”

  “Exactly. It was nothing but a come-on … he wanted us to think this was a really exotic, important job.”

  “Why go to all that trouble?”

  “To keep us interested,” Harry said, “to keep us from walking away from the exhausting job that it is.”

  “Yeah, a prison with a backbreaking load, terrible hours, and dismal working conditions, plus Rocky and Pete, the cherries on top.”

  “The large sum of money was supposed to be the clincher,” Harry said. “And we fell for it.”

  “Hook, line, and sinker. Let’s just finish what we started.” She scrolled through the file and stopped at:

  (Non FDA) AZ-1166 Side Effects.

  After a few minutes of reading, they turned to each other. Harry’s expression reflected how she felt. “The results of this study are awful. Look at those numbers … a huge percentage of the participants have had devastating outcomes—increased dementia, acceleration of heart disease, crippling arthritis, pulmonary failure, osteoporosis, stroke, and on and on. If they turn this into the FDA, they’ll never get the go-ahead to market it.”

  “See if you can bring up individual outcomes,” Harry said. “Tap in Rhonda Jenkins’ name.”

  Gina brought up (FDA) Study Participants. It was a simplified, quick scan list. Strictly the name of the participant and the outcome.

  Rhonda Jenkins: Patient discharged, slight change in vision, Alzheimer’s in remission.

  “I guess you can call blindness a slight change in vision,” Harry said.

  Derek Kopek: Patient discharged, CHF, status quo, Alzheimer’s in remission.

  “This diagnosis is a sham,” she said. “His congestive heart failure had gone to Stage IV almost immediately from the day he arrived at Comstock. That poor man was in terrible shape; he could barely breathe. They did absolutely nothing for him.”

  Gina’s eye was doing the twitch thing double time. If she didn’t know it already, it told her just how horrified she really was. “None of these outcomes match the real results of taking the drug.”

  “The FDA will only see what Ethan and Zelint Pharmaceuticals want them to see,” Harry said. “They’ll get some kind of fictional report, with statistics that favor Zelint’s new miracle product. Damn!”

  “Let’s see if Emma Goldmich is on that list.”

  “She’s still an in-patient,” Harry said.

  “I’m just curious.”

  Emma Goldmich: Patient discharge; minor increase of arthritis; Alzheimer’s in remission.

  “Can you believe it? Minor increase of arthritis? Is that nuts or what?” Gina was ready to pull her hair out.

  “Maybe she was supposed to be discharged.”

  “Hit on Research; I’ll bet those are Ethan’s notes about his laboratory procedures.”

  “Look at that!” Harry said. “Derek and Rhonda are listed under Live Brain Studies.”

  Gina’s throat was so dry she could barely speak. “All those jars of brains in his laboratory … does that mean he took brain samples from them and kept them alive … or … oh, my God! Do you think he removed their brains while they were alive?”

  Harry’s features sagged. “Either way, he was working with living tissue, trying to find out why their other diseases escalated with Zelint’s drug.”

  She covered her face. “No one was ever discharged. These patients were brought here to die. He butchered them, didn’t he?”

  He was silent.

  “Answer me!” Gina’s heart was pounding in her ears. “Do you think he experimented on everyone who came to Comstock?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but where else did he get those brain specimens? Looks like all the study’s problem patients were brought here solely for experimentation and termination.”

  “Did they think they could get away with this? Get away with murder? I mean, any of the nurses or orderlies could bring them down.”

  “You don’t think Delores, Rocky, or Pete is going to stand in their way, do you?”

  “But, Harry, what about you and me?”

  “I wish you hadn’t asked that question.”

  He shut down the tablet and disconnected the flash drive. “Let’s get the hell out of here, babe. We need to get this information to the FDA, the police, or someone who can help these patients. We’re way out of our league.”

  Gina stuffed the tablet and flash drive into her traveling purse, and headed for the elevator. At the first floor they nervously waited for the door to open, then rushed from the building and ran to the Jeep. Harry pulled out the keys, unlocked the door, and they piled in.

  “This is how you make a quick exit, doll.” He gave her a huge smile and turned the ignition.

  Nothing.

  He turned the key again.

  Nothing.

  “Someone’s been messing with our Jeep.”

  “Oh, my God, Harry! What now?”

  He jammed the keys back into his pocket. “We’d better find a place to stash the tablet and flash drive. This may be our only chance.”

  Chapter 35

  When Gina and Harry walked back into the Comstock, the trio of Ethan, Rocky, and Pete seemed to appear out of nowhere.

  The two orderlies stood on either side of Ethan, hands at their side, wide smiles on their faces.

  “There’s no escape for the two of you,” Ethan said.

  “Ain’t it the truth,” Rocky added with a sneer.

  Ethan looked directly at Gina. “Why the hell couldn’t you just leave things alone? All you had to do was perform your job, then whiz out with a bundle of money.”

  “What are you talking about?” Gina said. She looked at them with wide eyes, trying to play the innocent.

  “You were right, Ms. Mazzio.” Ethan’s voice turned low and menacing. “We did bug your apartment and we know about your mini-laptop, or whatever it is. In fact, we know about everything.” He gave them a sardonic laugh. “And as far as the movies go … watch a better quality of films. We heard every word you said in that bathroom. Maybe you should have gotten into the shower.” Ethan nodded to Rocky, who grabbed her purse, opened it, and swiped a hand all around inside of it.

  “No computer,” Rocky announced. “Nothing here but a lot of female junk.”

  “Hey, give that back to me, you creep.” She reached out and tried to pull it away from him.

&n
bsp; Rocky held the purse at arms length. “Not in charge now, are you?”

  “Why bother to listen to our conversations?” Harry asked. “Just a couple of nurses who are beat from a day slaving away on your units.”

  Ethan smiled and pointed to Gina. “We didn’t … at least not until you brought in the mail and had your little talk with Emma Goldmich. Obviously you found a letter from her daughter, Tuva, who writes to her mother practically every day. You must have pulled it out of the bundle the courier gave you.” He moved in closer to Gina. “But you never said a word about it to me, did you? From then on, I knew you both needed to be watched a lot closer.”

  “Okay, so we’re fired,” Harry said, holding out a hand to Gina. “We’ll go pack up our things and get out of here.”

  “It’s ouddahere,” Gina said, her phony laugh sounding weird even to her. She snatched her purse out of Rocky’s grip. “Why can’t I ever seem to teach you to talk like a real New Yorker, Harry, no matter how hard I try?” She turned to Ethan. “You know what? We’ll send for our things later.” Gina grabbed Harry’s hand and they started for the door.

  “Pretty cute, big city girl,” Rocky said, moving to block their way. ”Did you plan on hoofing it? You ain’t going nowhere with that dead car of yours.”

  “That’s enough!” Ethan’s voice cut like steel through the back and forth taunts. “Where is the tablet, my flash drive? Give them to me right now and I’ll let you go.”

  “That’s bullshit, Ethan!” Harry pointed at the administrator. “You have no intention of letting us walk out of here.”

  Pete stepped forward, poked a finger into Harry’s chest. “That’s right! And I owe you big time, smart ass. I’m gonna get a big piece of you … chew you up, and spit you out. This is where your luck runs out, Lucke.”

  “Oh, fuck you, Pete. People have been telling me that my whole life, and I’m still here.”

  Rocky pointed at Pete. “He doesn’t know what having a piece is, but I sure as hell do.” He leered at Gina.

  “That’s enough, I said!” Ethan shouted. “This isn’t a playground … just get rid of them!”

  Harry leaped up and jump-kicked Pete in the chest, knocking him backwards, turned and bashed Rocky solidly in the jaw with his fist. Both orderlies went to the floor in rapid succession.