Kathy Reichs - Break No Bones

"Right." Meaning, not a chance.

"It happens. Surgeons burn out. Maybe Rodriguez went to Puerto Vallarta in ninety to practice medicine in a less stressful environment."

"A spa?"

"The text promises medically trained personnel offering options found in few clinics worldwide."

"Such as?"

"There's a number you have to call."

"Maybe Cruikshank had the ad because he was looking for a detox program south of the border."

"Why?"

"The guy was a drunk."

"Why Mexico?"

"Good burritos."

Orbital roll. "Making progress with the code?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"Patience, fair maiden."

Tossing the flyer into the box, I opened the second envelope.

Again, the contents were photocopies and printouts. There were six, maybe seven in all, some single sheets, others composed of multiple pages.

I started reading. At first, I was confused. As comprehension grew, the room receded around me, and a dark feeling took root inside me.

When I'd finished the articles, I checked the table of contents in the crime book. There it was. Fingers cold with dread, I turned to the chapter. A yellow Post-it marked the page, suggesting that particular case had been the focus of Cruikshank's interest.

Every neuron in my mind screamed no! The explanation was just too macabre. But it all fit. The clinic. The disappearances. The cut marks on Helms and Montague.

Had Helene Flynn been murdered because she'd learned about this? Had she stumbled on the truth while searching for evidence of financial wrongdoing? Had Cruikshank also found out?

I opened my lips to share the horrific idea with Ryan. I never spoke.

The next few moments exploded so quickly that in my memory there was no sequence. My later attempts to reconstruct the chronology yielded only jumbled images.

Pete moving toward the kitchen. Boyd rocketing from the den. Boyd barking. The kitchen light shooting arrows onto the corridor wall. A gunshot ringing out. Me on the floor, Ryan pressing my head to the carpet. Ryan's weight leaving my back. Me scrambling toward the kitchen, crouching, terrified. The barking more frenzied.

My blood freezing in my veins. Pete facedown on the floor, red mushrooming from some unseeable wound.

AN AMBULANCE ARRIVED. RYAN HELD ME IN HIS ARMS AS TWO paramedics worked on Pete. Boyd whined and scratched on the far side of the pantry door. I shared his fear. The kitchen seemed awash in blood. Could anyone survive the loss of so much?

Though I asked question after question, I was repeatedly ignored. After furious manipulation involving tubes and wound packing, Pete was strapped to a backboard, placed on a stretcher, and whisked away.

Two Isle of Palms uniforms arrived and asked a lot of questions. Their name tags read CAPER and JOHNSON. At one point Caper asked about the bruise on my arm. I described the previous Thursday's bottle-throwing incident. Caper put it in his notes.

Ryan told the cops he was on the job, showed his badge, and tried to deflect the interrogation. Caper and Johnson said they understood, but needed to file an incident report.

Tersely, I outlined what Pete was doing in Charleston. Caper wanted my thoughts on who might have shot him. I suggested he interrogate Herron and the GMC clinic staff. Caper's expression suggested that was unlikely to happen.

"Probably a beach prank," Johnson said. "Damn kids sneak Daddy's gun, get wasted, start firing bullets into the air. Happens every long weekend."

"Someone get drilled every long weekend?" Ryan asked.

I too knew that explanation was stupid, but I wasn't in the mood to argue. I was anxious to follow the ambulance.

An hour after the shooting Ryan and I were in the emergency room waiting area at the MUSC hospital. This time we'd entered on the Ashley Street side. The life side. I prayed Pete would be exiting through the same door.

An hour crept by. Another. Pete was in surgery. That's all they would tell me. He was in surgery.

The ER was chaos, the staff pushed to its limits by the full onslaught of an American holiday. A family of six burned in a barbecue grill explosion. A child pulled from a backyard pool. A drunk trampled by a horse. A woman beaten by her husband. A man shot by his lover. Drug overdoses. Dehydration. Sunburn. Food poisoning. It was a relief to be moved to the surgical waiting area upstairs.

We were entering our third hour when a doctor approached, face tired, scrubs spattered with blood. My heart seized. I tried but couldn't read the doctor's face.

Ryan took my hand. We both stood.

"Dr. Brennan?"

I nodded, afraid to trust my voice.

"Mr. Petersons is out of surgery."

"How is he?"

"I removed the bullet and fragments. There's some damage to his right lung."

"Don't lie to me."

"He lost a lot of blood. The next twenty-four hours will be critical."

"Can I see him?"

"He's been moved to the ICU. A nurse will take you."

The ICU was a sharp contrast to the bedlam downstairs. The lights were low, the only sounds the squeak of an occasional heel or the hushed murmur of a distant voice.

Exiting the elevator Ryan and I followed our guide to a configuration of four glass-walled units. A nurse sat in the middle, monitoring the occupant of each bed.

Tonight, the glass quadrangle held three patients. Pete was one of them.

If the sight of Emma in the ER had caught me off guard, that paled in comparison with the shock of seeing post-surgical Pete. Despite his six feet, powerful shoulders, and boundless energy, the Latvian Savant looked ashen and shrunken in his bed. Vulnerable.

Tubes ran from Pete's nose and mouth. Another from his chest. A fourth from his arm. Each was taped with adhesive. An IV tree at the head of his bed dangled several bags. Machines surrounded him, pumping and whirring and sucking. A monitor displayed an undulating series of peaks and valleys, and blipped a constant rhythm.

Ryan must have heard my sudden intake of breath. Again, he enveloped my hand in his.

I felt my knees buckle. Ryan's arm went round my waist.

Pressing a palm to the glass, I closed my eyes and conjured up a long-abandoned childhood prayer.

Disregarding hospital regs, I called Katy's cell. Got a recording. What message to leave? "Katy, it's Mom. Please call me as soon as you can. It's very important."

Go or stay? The nurse assured me Pete would neither hear nor see during the night. "Go get some rest. I'll call if anything develops."

I took her advice.

Lying in bed that night, Ryan voiced the questions I'd been asking myself.

"Do you think Pete was the target?"

"I don't know."

"That bullet might have been meant for you."

I didn't say anything. I thought the shooter had been close enough to distinguish male from female, but perhaps he'd aimed at a silhouette.

Ryan pushed his point. "No one was thrilled to see us at that clinic. If you're closing in on something, folks could be getting antsy."

"The IOP cops weren't impressed. It's America. It's Memorial Day. People fire guns."

"What's that developer's name?"

"Dickie Dupree." Ryan was thinking along lines I'd considered. "A strange car shows up. Someone beans you with a beer bottle. All around the time you're digging Dupree's site."

"The bottle could have been totally unrelated to the shooting."

"Dupree threatened you."

"Dupree could be a bottle thrower, but not a shooter or employer of shooters. That's too big-time for him. Besides, my report to the state was already in. What does he gain in having someone take a shot at me? Everything happened after we found Willie Helms's bones on Dewees. Maybe Helms is the triggering factor."