“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.
Books in the Gina Mazzio, RN Series:
Bone Dry
Sin & Bone
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 – Zach Rolfe, PI Series
A Nickel Jackpot
The Chinese Straight
Losers Take All
No Pat Hands
About the Authors
BETTE GOLDEN LAMB, a registered nurse, has developed parallel careers as a painter, sculptor, and ceramist. Her award-winning art works can be found in a number of galleries and private collections. J. J. LAMB is a career writer – journalism, short stories, and novels.
In addition to Bone Pit, the LAMBS have co-authored eight novels together, five of them as part of the RN Gina Mazzio
medical thriller series. Sisters in Silence, Heir Today..., and The Killing Vote are stand-alone thrillers.
BETTE’s The Organ Harvesters was named Grand Prize Winner in the 2014 Stellar Sci-Fi Contest, and J. J.’s No Pat Hands was a 2014 Shamus nominee from Private Eye Writers of America.
The LAMBS live in Northern California and are members of International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime.
The End
Bone Pit: A Chilling Medical Suspense Thriller (The Gina Mazzio Series Book 3) Page 26
