"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.

Bleeding had slowed considerably. The blood oozing around the growing clot was thick, almost syrupy. She reached for the sewing kit and began threading a needle. The adrenaline tremor from the pain and stress caused her to miss S.

on the first few tries. She was beginning to fear that she'd never get it threaded, but finally the tip slipped through the eye.

She considered sterilizing the needle with the Cricket but discarded the idea. She couldn't sterilize the thread that way, and the wound was already grossly contaminated. She was covered for tetanus, but she had to get herself some antibiotic, a broad-spectrum cephalosporin preferably, to fend off the inevitable infection that would follow this egregiously unsterile little surgical procedure.

By way of compromise, she doused the needle and soaked the thread with hydrogen peroxide. She laid that aside and replaced the washcloth in her mouth. Then she expressed the clot from the wound and poured the peroxide directly into it. She groaned into the cloth as pink foam erupted from the opening. She writhe from the sharp, stinging agony of the nest of enraged hornets trapped inside her thigh.

When that passed, she wiped the sweat and tears from her eyes, pressed the wound edges together, and began suturing. She started at the distal end, figuring it would be easier to work her way up.

Gin winced as she forced the needle through her skin. Painful, but nothing compared to what she'd already put herself through. The needle was sharp enough, but it was designed for fabric, not the toughness of human skin. And it was straight, which made the job all the more difficult .

Forget the lidocaine, she thought. I'll settle for a hemostat and a curved needle now.

A few subcutaneous sutures and a vertical mattress repair would have been ideal, but out of the question without gut and a curved needle.

She had to settle for a simple, single loop.

She tied the first suture carefully, afraid to pull too hard and break the thread. She'd bought the heaviest she could find, but still this wasn't silk or nylon, this was plain old thread. If this repair was going to hold, she'd have to place the sutures close together, no more than an eighth of an inch apart.

She finished the first knot and cut the free ends with the little scissors from the kit. There. One done. Only fourteen or fifteen more to go.

Half an hour later, she was done. She foamed the blood off her skin with peroxide and examined her handiwork. Sixteen puckered sutures in a neat row. She blotted it dry, smeared some bacitracin ointment over it, then covered it with gauze. She held that in place with a few strips of adhesive tape, then wound the six-inch Ace bandage around her thigh to make a pressure dressing. Then she swung her legs out of the tub and stood up.

And almost fell as black spots exploded in her vision and a diesel-engine roar filled her head. She went down on one knee and clung to the vanity until the room stopped swaying and spinning.

She pressed her forehead against the cool marble and gathered her strength.

Weak. She'd figured she'd be weak afterward, but not this bad. She reached for the other little bag she'd picked up in CVS and pulled out a package of Snickers bars. Good old Pasta had always suffered chocolate attacks in times of stress and hadn't been able to resist all that Halloween candy. Gin was glad she'd given in to her. She'd need some extra calories for healing, some glucose for energy. Another thing she knew she needed was fluids. After wolfing down three of the Snickers, she filled the glass by the sink with cold water and gulped it down. She washed down four more Tylenols with a second glassful.

She felt a little better, but no way ready for the road. She pushed herself to her feet and, keeping a hand on the wall for support, made her way to the bed. She turned off the TV as she passed.

She yanked down the covers and gingerly, gently, eased herself between the cool sheets. She shivered. Had to get some rest. She was safe now.

Just a nap for an hour or so, then she'd call Gerry. She had the implant. She could show him hard evidence now. He'd have to believe.

Every one would believe.

After she had some sleep . . .

THURSDAY AFTERNOON GERRY WAS BEGINNING TO FEEL A LITTLE FRANTIC.

He couldn't help it. He'd been to Gin's apartment earlier. He hadn't been able to find her car on the street. He got no response to his repeated knocks on the door, so he'd used the Electropick to let himself in and found the place deserted. No sign of a struggle, no note left, no indication that Gin hadn't made a routine departure this morning fully expecting to return at her usual time tonight.

He'd even called Lathram's surgicenter. The receptionist had said Gin wasn't there and wasn't expected in today. He thought he'd heard something in her voice, as if she wanted to say more, but that could have been wishful thinking.

He'd checked all eleven of the District's emergency rooms and even a few in northern Virginia and southern Maryland. No Gin Panzella or Jane Doe fitting her description had come through. Same with all the local police departments. No one named Panzella or anyone like her on the arrest records.

And then he'd remembered the accident over by Farragut , , , , , i, 0', '- , . , z. = Square. He'd placed a call to the D. C. Police and was hanging around his desk waiting for a call-back now. He didn't have much hope of help from them, but he wasn't ignoring any possibility.

The phone rang.

"Agent Canney? " said a nasal voice. "We have the ID on the vehicle in that one-car M.V.A you inquired about. Belongs to a Regina Panzella of Kalorama Road here in the District."

"Damn! " Gerry said. He should have checked this out hours ago. "And the report says she left the scene of the accident? " ""Driver abandoned vehicle, according to the report." '"Nothing else?

"Witnesses said she was female, dark hair, and was the sole occupant.

" That fit Gin.

"Okay. Thanks a lot."

"Any time" So where was she? She'd cracked up her car and run away.

Where to? It had rained most of the morning.

How far could she go on foot in the rain?

Gerry reached for his coat. Better go and inspect the scene. But nother thought occurred to him as he was leaving. He called down to the data center and told them to research the credit sources for Regina Panzella. Find out what credit cards she carried and see if she made any charges today, and where.