Now she really could have used a heat lamp.
Still holding the ice pack to her thigh, she seated herself on the edge of the tub with her feet in the lukewarm water running from the spout.
Another ten minutes and the iceddown area of her thigh was good and numb. She swabbed the area again with alcohol, then poured some over her hands. She picked up the razor blade.
And began to shake.
I can't do this.
But another part of her said she could. Told her she had to. Had to do it now, before the numbing effect of the ice wore off.
But the first part of her brain screamed, Wait!
What if this whole situation was another elaborate scam by Duncan?
He'd already undermined her credibility, and made Gerry look like a fool. What if he'd. pulled the same on her? A double reverse? Slip her a Mickey, steal her key, sneak into her apartment, and jab an empty trocar into her leg while she was unconscious? Who'd expect him to pull the same stunt twice?
But he might be counting on that sort of thinking, counting on her to go running to Gerry, crying about bad old Duncan sticking a drug-filled implant in her leg. And if and when she finally convinced Gerry to check out her leg, they'd come up with another negative MRI.
And anything she said after that would be dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic.
So she couldn't go to Gerry empty-handed, or, in this case, empty-legged Either way, she had to know.
If only she had a syringe and some anesthetic.
Lidocaine! Lidocaine/ My kingdom for some lidocaine!
But there'd be no lidocaine. Only ice.
Gin grabbed a washcloth from the counter and wadded it into her mouth.
Then she used her left hand to stretch the skin over the bruise while she tightened her grip on the razor blade in her right.
Not too deep, now, she told herself. Don't want to slice the implant.
She took a deep breath and held it. With one quick move, she drove the corner of the blade's cutting edge into the skin half an inch distal to the bruise, then yanked it toward her.
She doubled over and screamed into the washcloth. Shuddering with the pain, she clung to the safety bar with her free hand and pressed her face against her knees as her eyes filled with tears and a cold sweat erupted from every pore.
And then, after a small eternity, the pain passed its crescendo. Her bunched muscles relaxed, slightly. She straightened, spit out the washcloth, and gasped for air. When she'd caught her breath, she leaned over and took a look.
Blood poured from the two-inch gash in her thigh. Thick crimson drops, startlingly red against the white ceramic finish, splashed along the inside of the tub and oozed down to the water swirling toward the drain.
She felt faint and swayed back. For an instant she thought she was going to topple backward, but she hung on until the room stopped wobbling around her.
Gin allowed herself a tight, wry smile. She thought she was used to seeing blood. Other people's blood. Not quite the same as seeing her own.
She touched the wound edge and jerked her hand back. Exquisitely tender. Those severed nerve ends were screaming. This was when she really could have used some anesthetic.
Replacing the washcloth between her teeth, she clamped down on it and groaned as she separated the wound edges. The subcutaneous fat was blood-red instead of its natural yellow. Gingerly she probed the fat with her pinky. A strange, curious, slightly sickening sensation, this groping among her own fat cells. Painful, but it wasn't the pain that was making her queasy. She'd never touched human fat with her bare hands before. Like playing with greasy tapioca.
The pain increased as she pressed deeper, searching for an opening, a depression, a channel, any clue that would tell her what course the trocar had followed.
And then her fingertip slipped a little deeper into one area of the fat. She stiffened. Could that be it? She probed further, but gently, feeling the fat give way easily before her. Yes. Something had been this way before. And recently.
And then her fingertip came to rest against something soft but firmer and smoother than fat.
Gin didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified. At least she hadn't imagined all this. There was an implant in her leg and only one man could have put it there.
And it had to come out. Now. And she had to remove it without breaking it. If she ruptured it, or even caused a tiny leak, she'd have done Duncan's job for him.
Biting down harder on the washcloth, Gin dug her finger deeper into the fat. Propelled by pain, air hissed in and out of her nostrils as she worked to get around the implant. Had to get behind it. Gently .
. .
. . . gently . . .
Gerry slammed the phone down in the middle of Gin's instructions to leave a message after the beep. He'd already left two on her machine.
Where is she?
He glanced at his watch again. What for, he didn't know.
Only half a minute had passed since the last time he'd looked.
He stretched his neck to relieve the growing lump of tension between his shoulder blades. She should have been here by now. Visions of Gin wandering around the District, dazed and confused, replayed in his mind.
Or worse yet, huddled behind a Dumpster in some alley, hiding from imaginary enemies.
Damn it. He couldn't concentrate on anything. All he could think about was Gin. The way she'd sounded . . . like her world was coming to an end.
Only one thing to do. Go out and look for her.
He picked up his car keys and called the switchboard. He left instructions that if a Gin Panzella or a Dr. Panzella called, or anyone called about her, or if she showed up in person, to put her through to his car phone.
On the chance that she might be hiding in her apartment, afraid to pick up the phone, refusing to answer the door, he grabbed the Electropick on his way out. Just in case.
He got his car out of the Bureau's underground lot and drove up Pennsylvania toward the White House, trying to backtrack along the most logical route for her to follow from Adams Morgan. She'd have to come down Connecticut, but after that it was anybody's guess.
He worked his way up to K Street where he saw a couple of cops standing outside their unit at the top of Farragut Square watching a sanit man sweep up some broken glass. He flashed his ID and asked what had happened. The older of the pair, heavyset with a mustache, leaned in the window. His breath reeked of old coffee.
"A one-car M.V.A. Nobody hurt. Driver hopped out and took off. You can bet what that means." Gerry nodded. "Hot."
"You got it." Just so no stone was left unturned, Gerry said, "You remember what make it was?
" The cop shrugged. "Nh. It was already towed when we got here.
They're running the plates, though. Somebody you looking for? " "Not likely. Just thought I'd ask." As he drove away, he made a mental note of the location. If he couldn't find Gin, he'd check with the locals later on the registration of that car.
He turned back and headed up Connecticut. Maybe the best place to start was Gin's apartment.
Gin leaned, gasping, trembling, against the side wall of the tub alcove. When the pain receded from excruciating to merely brutal, she opened her hand and looked at the bloody little lump Lying in her palm.
G ha.
She was safe. Even if Duncan bathe the entire hotel with ultrasound, he couldn't harm her. But she wasn't out of the woods yet. She had a deep, wide gash in her leg that had to be closed.
But first, Save the evidence.
She reached over to the counter and grabbed the Coricidin bottle.
Carefully she scraped the sticky implant off her palm with the lip of the bottle. She'd already learned the hard way how much more fragile these things became once they'd been implanted. The implant slid down the inside of the bottle, slowly, like some sort of scarlet slug, and came to rest on the bottom. She capped the bottle and returned her attention to the incision in her leg.