Well, she was going to give him his damn objective proof.
Forget calling Gerry. He'd only try to stop her.
She closed her eyes again. Why couldn't she simply stay here?
Hibernate for a week or a month. Order room service and watch the movies on cable all day. Anything but go outside again and dodge Duncan so she could prove to Gerry that she wasn't nuts.
Her life seemed to be a lose-lose proposition right now. Why not just, She bounded from the chair. No. She had to do this. And now. Had to go on autopilot. Couldn't think about what she was asking of herself.
Had to fight the nausea and the revulsion and fear. Had to keep up the momentum. If she stopped or even slowed she might not be able to go through with this.
And the longer she waited, the greater the chance of Duncan tracking her here.
She grabbed the ice bucket and scurried down the hall to the service nook where she quickly filled it with cubes. Once back in her room, she replaced the chain lockr drew the curtains, and turned on the TV.
She punched the remote until she found a noisy game show, then turned up the volume. Not too loud, but enough to mask any incidental noise.
She checked the thermostat and pushed it up to 75.
She turned on the light in the bathroom. Bright, clean, white the and tub, a marble vanity. She made sure the drain was open, then started the water running in the tub. As she waited for the temperature to reach a comfortable warm, she emptied the contents of the bag from CVS on the vanity counter. She set aside the smaller separate bag within, then opened the bottle of Tylenol Extra Strength and washed down four of them with a glass of water. Next she opened the bottle of Coricidin tablets. She would have preferred a test tube, but this glass cylinder full of cold tablets would have to do. She emptied the pills into the toilet. Then she began arranging the rest of her purchases.
The bacitracin ointment, gauze pads, Ace bandage, adhesive tape, and the hydrogen peroxide went to the rear of the counter, in front of them she placed the empty Coricidin bottle and the small traveler's sewing kit, along the edge she lined up the bag of cotton balls, the tweezers, the bottle of isopropyl alcohol, the Cricket lighter, and the package of single-edge razor blades.
The last item was an ice pack. She filled that with ice cubes and set it on the edge of the tub. She unbuttoned her jeans, slipped them off, and hung them on the towel rack. Gooseflesh ran up her thighs to the edges of her panties.
She soaked one of the cotton balls with the alcohol and then began rubbing it on her thigh, firmly but not too vigorously, in the area of the bruise. Didn't want to break anything under the skin. She then poured alcohol over the contact surface of the ice pack and pressed it over the bruise. This was welcomed by another rush of gooseflesh.
She glanced at the ceiling. No heat lamp. Too bad. Would have been nice.
Wedging the ice pack between her thigh and the vanity, she picked up the black and yellow box of razor blades. "SMITH single edge, Made in U. S. A. ' said the top. On the side, "Fits all single edge scrapers.
For industrial use." She had to smile at that. Industrial use? Not today.
She slipped one of the blades from the box, gripped it with the tweezers, then applied the Cricket flame to the cutting edge until it glowed red. As she let that cool on the edge of the marble vanity top, she pulled off her sweatshirt and tossed it toward her jeans.
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 .