Free Girl Missing by Tess Gerritsen Page A

then headed for the door. “Come back anytime,” he said over his shoulder. “I can’t wait for the next installment.”
    Back in the hospital lobby, Kat waited for Adam to call his house. Collect, of course; the punks had done a thorough job of emptying their pockets. It was a helpless feeling, being penniless. When Kat had told the ER billing clerk she’d mail in her payment, the clerkhad given her a yeah, sure look. No respect at all.
    “Thomas is on his way,” said Adam, hanging up. “We’ll give you a ride home.”
    “Who’s Thomas?”
    “Sort of my man Friday.” Adam glanced down at his soiled shirt. “And he’s not going to be pleased when he sees what I’ve done to his ironing job.”
    Kat looked down at her own wrinkled shirt. “Maybe I should borrow him sometime,” she said. “Along with his iron.”
    They sat down in the waiting area. A nurse walked by, carrying a cup of coffee from the vending machine. Kat would have loved a cup of coffee, but her pockets were empty. Broke and in purgatory , she thought.
    Half an hour passed, forty-five minutes. It was almost midnight, and things were still hopping at Hancock General. The next shift of nurses dribbled in from the parking lot, lugging umbrellas and lunch sacks. At the front door, an armed guard eyed everyone who entered. This was front-line medicine, and Hancock General was the equivalent of trench warfare. Every stabbing, every shooting that took place within a three-mile radius, anythingon South Lexington, would roll in these ER doors. So would the drug ODs. Kat wondered if another Nicos Biagi or Jane Doe had been found.
    “He’s upstairs, you know,” she said. “In the ICU.”
    “Who?”
    “Nicos Biagi. I came by to see him, earlier today.” She shook her head. “He didn’t look good. Whatever it was he shot up, it’s fried his brains. And kidneys.”
    Adam was silent. Coldly so.
    “The ER doc says it’s something new. Something he’s never seen before …” She paused as a chilling thought suddenly came to mind. She looked at Adam and saw that he was avoiding her gaze. “You said you gave Maeve a job. Was it at Cygnus?”
    He sighed. “Yes.”
    “Which department?”
    “Really, this has nothing to do with Maeve—”
    “Which department, Adam?”
    He let out another breath, a sound of profound weariness. “Research and development,” he said. “She was doing cleanup in the lab. Running the autoclave. Nothing vital.”
    “What was the lab working on?”
    “Various projects. Everything from antibiotics to hair restorers.”
    “Morphine analogues?”
    “Look,” he snapped. “We’re a pharmaceutical company. And pain relief is a big market—”
    “You’re cooking up something new in that lab, aren’t you? Something no one else has developed yet.”
    A pause. Then, reluctantly, he nodded. “It’s … a breakthrough. Or it will be, if we can iron out the kinks. It’s a close relative to natural endorphins. Latches on to the same enzyme receptors as morphine does, holds on to those receptors like Krazy Glue. So it’s very long lasting. Which makes it perfect for terminal cancer patients.”
    “Long lasting? How long?”
    “A dose will give pain relief for seventy-two hours, maybe longer. That’s its advantage. And its disadvantage. If you overdose an animal, you’ll put it in a long-term coma.” He looked up at her; what she saw in his eyes was worry, maybe guilt. And absolute honesty.
    She rose suddenly to her feet. “Come upstairs with me.”
    “The ICU?”
    “Nicos Biagi’s tox screen might be back. Iwant you to look at it, tell me if it matches your miracle drug.”
    “But I’m not a biochemist. I’d need confirmation from my staff—”
    “Then take the report back to them. Have them confirm it.”
    He shook his head. “Hospital tox screens aren’t specific enough.”
    “Why are you so reluctant? Afraid to hear the truth? That it could be a Cygnus drug that’s killing people?”
    Slowly he