Tess Gerritsen - Harvest

"I'll be fine."

"OK." Again, she heard Katzka sigh. "But I want you to call a locksmith in the morning. Have him install deadbolts on all the doors. Especially if you're going to be spending a lot of nights home alone."

"I'll do that."

There was a brief silence. He had pressing matters to attend to, yet he seemed reluctant to hang up. At last he said, "I'll check back with you in the morning."

"Thanks, Katzka." She hung up.

Again she paged Mark. Then she lay down on the bed and waited for him to call back. He didn't.

As the hours passed, she tried to calm her growing fears by tallying up all the possible reasons he wasn't answering. He could be asleep in one of the hospital call rooms. His beeper could be broken. He could be scrubbed and unavailable in the OR.

Or he could be dead. Like Aaron Levi. Like Kunstler and Hennessy. She paged him again. And again.

At 3 a.m., the phone finally rang. In an instant she was wide awake and reaching for the receiver.

"Abby, it's me." Mark's voice crackled on the wire, as though he were calling from across a long distance.

"I've been paging you for hours," she said. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the car, heading to the hospital right now." He paused.

"Abby, we need to talk. Things have… changed."

She said, softly: "Between us, you mean."

"No. No, this has nothing to do with you. It never did. It has to do with me.You just got sucked into it, Abby. I tried to get them to back off, but now they've taken it too far." ' Who has?"

"The team."

She was afraid to ask the next question, but she had no choice now. "All of you?You're all involved?"

"Not any more." The connection briefly faded, and she heard what sounded like the whoosh of traffic. His voice regained its volume. "Mohandas and I came to a decision tonight. That's where I've been, at his house. We've been talking, comparing notes. Abby, we're putting our heads on the block. But we decided it's time to end this. We can't do it any longer. We're going to blow this thing wide open, Mohandas and me. And fuck everyone else. Fuck Bayside." He paused, his voice suddenly breaking. "I've been a coward. I'm sorry."

She closed her eyes. "You knew. All this time you knew."

"I knew some of it — not all. I had no idea how far Archer was taking it.! didn't want to know. Then you started asking all those questions. And I couldn't hide from the truth any longer…" He released a deep breath and whispered, "This is going to ruin me, Abby."

She still had her eyes closed. She could see him in the darkness of his car, one hand on the wheel, the other gripping the cellular phone. Could imagine the misery on his face. And the courage; most of all, the courage.

"I love you," he whispered.

"Come home, Mark. Please."

"Not yet. I'm meeting Mohandas at the hospital. We're going to get those donor records."

"Do you know where they're kept?"

"We have an idea. With just two of us, it could take us a while to search all the files. If you helped us out, we might be able to get through them by morning."

She sat up in bed. "I won't be getting much sleep tonight anyway. Where are you meeting Mohandas?"

"Medical records. He has the key." Mark hesitated. "Are you sure you want to be in on this, Abby?"

"I want to be wherever you are. We'll do this together. OK?"

"OK," he said softly. "See you soon."

Five minutes later, Abby walked out the front door and climbed into her car.

The streets of West Cambridge were deserted. She turned onto Memorial Drive, skirting the Charles River as she headed southeast, towards the River Street bridge. It was 3.15 a.m., but she could not remember feeling so awake. So alive.

At last we're going to beat them.t she thought. And we're going to do it together. The way we should have done it from the start.

She crossed the bridge and headed onto the ramp for the Turnpike. There were few cars travelling at that hour, and she merged easily with sparse eastbound traffic.

Three and a half miles later, the Turnpike came to an end. She changed lanes, preparing to turn off onto the South Expressway ramp. As she curved onto it, she suddenly became aware of a pair of headlights bearing down on her.

She accelerated, merging onto the southbound expressway. The headlights pulled closer, high beams glaring off her rearview mirror. How long had they been behind her? She had no idea. But they were zooming in now like twin bats out of hell.

She sped up.

So did the other car. Suddenly it swooped left into the next lane. It pulled up beside her until they were almost neck in neck.

She glanced sideways. Saw the other car's window roll down. Glimpsed the silhouette of a man in the right passenger seat.

In panic, she floored the accelerator.

Too late she spotted the car stalled ahead of her. She slammed on the brakes. Her car spun and caromed off the concrete barrier. Suddenly the world tilted sideways. Then everything was tumbling over and over. She saw darkness and light. Darkness, light.

Darkness.

'… Repeat, this is Mobile Unit forty-one. Our ETA is three minutes. Copy?"

"Copy, forty-one. How're the vitals?"

"Systolic holding at ninety-five. Pulse one ten. We've got normal saline going in one peripheral line. Hey, looks like she's starting to move."

"Keep her immobilized."

"We've got her in a collar and a spinal board."

"OK. We're ready and waiting for you."

"See you in a minute, Bayside…"

And pain. Short, sharp explosions of it in her head.

She tried to scream, but no sound came out. She tried to turn away from that piercing light, but her neck seemed trapped in a choke-hold. She thought if she could just escape that light and burrow back into darkness, the pain would go away. With all her strength she twisted, straining to break free of the paralysis that had seized her limbs.

"Abby. Abby, hold still!" a voice commanded. "I have to look in your eyes."

She twisted the other way, felt restraints chafing her wrists, her ankles. And she realized that it was not paralysis that prevented her movement. She was tied down, all four limbs strapped to the gurney.

"Abby, it's Dr. Wettig. Look at me. Look at the light. Come on, open your eyes. Open."

She opened her eyes, forced herself to keep them open, even though the beam of his penlight felt like a blade piercing straight through her skull.

"Follow the light. Come on. That's good, Abby. OK, both pupils are reactive. EOM's are normal?The penlight, mercifully, shut off. "I still want that CT."

Abby could make out shapes now. She could see the shadow of Dr. Wettig's head against the diffuse brightness of the overhead lights. There were other heads moving around on the periphery of her vision, and a white privacy curtain billowing like a cloud off in the distance. Pain pricked her left arm; she gave a jerk.

"Easy, Abby." It was a woman's voice, soft, soothing. "I have to draw some blood. Hold very still. I have a lot of tubes to collect." Now a third voice: "Dr. Wettig, X-ray's ready for her."

"In a minute," said Wettig. "I want a bigger bore IV in. Sixteen gauge. Come on, people."

Abby felt another stab, this time in her right arm. The pain drove straight through her confusion and brought her mind into startling focus. She knew exactly where she was. She couldn't recall how she'd arrived, but she knew this was Bayside Emergency Room, and that something terrible must have happened.

"Mark," she said, and tried to sit up. "Where's Mark?"

"Don't move! We'll lose this IV!"

A hand closed over her elbow, pinning her arm to the gurney. The grasp was too firm to be gentle. They were all hurting her, stabbing her with their needles, holding her down like some captive animal.

"Mark!" she cried.