Chapter 8

When she finally woke she had no idea where she was or how long she had been out. All she did know for sure was that she was definitely in trouble. "Damn Korsak's going to kill me." She looked around the room she was in and it would best be described as a cellar. It was dark and musty smelling and was illuminated by one bare dim bulb in the far corner. She looked around the room as her eyes adjusted to what little light the bulb provided and they came to rest on something or was it someone on a another slab across the room from her. She jumped up from her bed and fell flat on her face when a wave of dizziness overtook her body and her legs gave out. She then crawled over to the wooden slab. Fearing the worst she felt for a pulse at the neck and was surprised when she felt a strong steady beat. She turned the face and was surprised once again to see the dull almost lifeless blue eyes of Susan Kendall.

"Oh god Susan what happened? It's ok I'll get you out of here." Jane didn't notice that Susan wasn't looking at her but at something behind her. When Jane heard a noise behind her she turned in time to see the 2x4 piece of wood as it made contact with her head. It didn't knock her out it just dazed her. She felt it again and this time it almost knocked her out. She then felt a boot make contact with her ribs numerous times and she could swear she heard a few bones crack. He kept kicking her and she was too dazed to fight back. She lay there bruised and battered waiting for the fatal blow but none came.

She felt strong hands pick her up and throw her back down on the wooden slab. "Ouch! Damn that hurts." She tried to take a deep breath but couldn't get air into her lungs and her side hurt like hell.

"Jane welcome to my humble abode." The man above her was holding a knife of some sort to her throat. She felt it prick her neck then felt a trickle of blood flow down the side of her neck. "Let me tell you a little secret. Every keystroke on a computer can be traced if you know how to do it and I know how to do it. I know that you and your little group have been making enquiries about some recent activities at the hospital and I traced it back to your office."

"You consider rape and murder 'recent activities'?" Jane used all of her strength to stay conscious.

"You were getting too close to the truth so I had to do something about it."

Korsak was starting to get worried when two hours later Jane had still not returned. He decided to go check it out. As he was leaving the office he ran into Frost. "Come on something isn't right."

"What do you mean something isn't right? Isn't right with whom?"

"Cops don't say 'whom' Frost. Only you would say 'whom' in a situation like this. Jane talked to someone who called in and told her he knew who The Surgeon was so she went to meet with him."

"And you didn't go with her?" Frost asked incredulously.

"He told her he wouldn't meet her if she didn't come alone." By that time they had rounded the corner where Jane's abduction took place but they didn't stop because there wasn't anything there to tell that story. They continued on the coffee shop hoping to see Jane sitting there with the person who had called her. When they walked in the shop the both scanned the area and came to the same conclusion, Jane was nowhere to be found. "Hey Betty, have you seen Jane today?" Korsak yelled over to the woman behind the counter.

"No, and you tell her if she's getting her morning coffee somewhere else all of the sudden she better get her butt back in here. She's been buying her coffee here since she became a cop and this is the first morning in years since she didn't come in." She saw the worried looks on their faces and stopped her bantering. "Is she ok? Did something happen to her?"

"We'll get back to you on that Betty. Don't worry." Korsak tried to sound positive. "You know how she get's sidetracked. She's probably down in the morgue with Maura. See ya." They both turned and left the coffee shop.

"You know she's not with Maura. Something's happened to her." Frost looked accusingly at Korsak.

"And you think it's all my fault don't you. You should know by now you can't change her mind when she sets it on something. The guys said he would leave if she didn't come alone. If he knew her he would probably know me so I couldn't take the chance of following her. She's a good cop and can take care of herself."

When they got back to the office Frost sat down at Jane's computer and woke up her computer. When he looked at the screen he almost jumped up. "Did she mention anybody named Hoyt?"

"No why?"

"Because it turns out someone named Warren Hoyt was the lab technician that did the lab work on all of our girls." He wheeled himself back over to his desk and punched in a few keystrokes. "He also worked at a hospital in Atlanta where the same thing seemed to be happening and again in D.C." His fingers flew across the keyboard again. "He owns a piece of land out by Mt. Benedict Cemetery on Anderer Lane. Let's go."

Both men jumped up from their desks and were headed for the door when they looked up and saw Maura standing in the doorway. "Shit!" Both men swore at the same time.

"What the matter?" She looked over to Jane's empty desk. "Where's Jane?" She turned back to the two men and knew something was not right. "Korsak where is Jane? Is she ok?" He walked over to her and escorted her to the nearest chair. "No I do not want to sit down, where is Jane?"

"We think this guy, The Surgeon, has her." Korsak said softly and caught Maura as her knees buckled. He sat her down in the chair and knelt down beside her. "Frost and I were just heading out to a piece of property we think this guy owns."

You know who he is? Why didn't Jane tell me you knew who he was?"

"Because Jane didn't know. We just now figured it out." Maura looked up at Frost as he spoke in his quiet gentle voice. She could also see the anguish in his eyes. He too was worried about Jane.

"Let me grab my bag from my car then we can get going." Maura stood up to leave.

"You can't go with us Doc, this is liable to get ugly." Korsak stood at the door to stop her.

"What if she's injured? I can help her." She was trying very hard to stop the tears from falling. She had to keep it together until they found Jane. Keep it together for Jane, come on Maura you can do it. She took a deep breath and faced the two men. "I'm going, you either let me ride with you or I'll follow you, but either way I'm going out there to find Jane."

The two men looked at each other helplessly. Then Korsak turned back to Maura. "You have to promise me that you'll stay in the car until we've secured the scene and have decided it's safe for you to enter. Promise me and you can go, if you don't promise we will lock you up to keep you here. Jane will kill us if anything happens to you and I fear her more than I fear you."

"I promise on my oath as a doctor that I will stay in the car until one of the two of you come get me once we are on the scene."

"Ok let's go get our girl." Korsak took Maura's arm and led her out the door to their car.

Jane looked up into the crazy eyes of her captor. "Well you have me at a disadvantage. You know my name but I don't know yours."

"Oh forgive my lack of manners. My name is Warren Hoyt your worst nightmare." Jane looked at his hand and it was then that she realized it wasn't a knife he held in his hand but a scalpel. When she saw the scalpel she couldn't believe that something so plain looking could be the instrument that would be her end but she also decided she was not going down without a fight. She started to struggle until she felt his fist make contact with her jaw and she actually thought she saw stars. "Jane you can fight all you want, you won't get away so you might as well lay still or you'll only make it worse for yourself."

She opened her eyes in time to watch in horror as he held her right arm down and swung the scalpel down and embedded it in her hand so far that it went through and lodged itself in the wood below. Her scream could be heard throughout the wood that surrounded the cemetery to the north. "God damn it!." Jane tried her hardest not to pass out. Hoyt reached over to the table that held all of his tools and picked up another scalpel and held down her wrist of her left hand and brought the scalpel with more force than the first. Jane's scream was just as loud but this time she actually did pass out.

"Was that Jane screaming? We have to help her." Maura was reaching for the door handle as she spoke.

Korsak stopped at the back door. "You promised you'd stay in the car. Please let us do our jobs without having to worry about you too."

"Go, I promise to stay here." Maura climbed back in the car but it was killing her to do so. It went against every instinct to sit here and do nothing, especially knowing Jane was inside and she was in danger. Shortly after the men ran around the back Maura heard gunshots and she reached for the door handle but stopped herself from opening the door.

She looked up when Frost came running around the corner frantically gesturing for her to follow him. Maura grabbed her kit and ran after him around the back of the building. She saw the open door and ran down the stairs. What greeted her looked like a scene from a bad movie. "Is he going to live?" She gestured to Hoyt.

"Yeah I shot him in the shoulder, I can take care of dressing the wound if you give me some bandages. You take care of Jane." He grabbed what he needed for dressing the wound then turned to Hoyt and none to gently guided him up the stairs. Maura looked across to the other bed and was shocked to see Susan Kendall lying there being attended to by Frost.

Maura knelt down beside the unconscious body of her girlfriend and tried to keep the tears at bay. She gently removed the scalpels and placed them in the evidence bags that Frost had given her then cleaned and dressed the wounds on her hands. When she started to tend to her other wounds Jane woke up and started to fight her. "Jane don't fight me you'll hurt yourself even more." Maura gently wrapped her arms around her and held her as tight as she could without hurting her further. She didn't care if Frost saw them or not she was worried about Jane hurting herself. Jane's right eye was completely swollen shut and there were lacerations to most of the rest of her face and she appeared to not hear Maura at all.

Why the hell was she hearing Maura's voice here. Oh god does that mean he got her too? I'm going to kill the son of a bitch with my bare hands if he hurts her. "Don't hurt her, please don't hurt her."

"Jane he can't hurt anyone right now, it's ok." Maura just continued to hold her.

"Maura is that really you are you ok? Did he hurt you?" Jane's head finally cleared enough for her to figure out that it was Maura's arms holding her and not Hoyt so she relaxed against Maura's chest. "If he touched you I'm going to kill him. I can't breathe Maura I think I have a few broken ribs." Maura gently lowered her back to the wooden bed. She cut her shirt up the middle and opened it to reveal a mass of bruising from where he had kicked her. "I love you Maura." She whispered before she passed out again.

Frost looked up at Maura and smiled. "I told Korsak that there was something there but he wouldn't believe me. He owes me $5." He returned his attention to Susan.

"Frost she needs help now!" Frost looked up at the urgency in Maura's voice. "We need a medivac chopper and we need it now!"

"I'll take care of it." Korsak said from behind her and he pulled out his phone to make the call. When he finished on the phone he knelt down on the other side of the bed and got his first good look at Jane's injuries. "I should have shot that little son of a bitch in the head and saved the tax payers money for a trial." He looked up at Maura. "Is she going to be ok?"

Maura looked up at him with tears in her eyes. "She needs more help than I can give her with the supplies I have. She bleeding internally and I think she may have a Pneumothorax. Can you hear the wheeze in her breathing?" He nodded his head. "That's indicative of the lung that is being forced pressed upon by trapped air. If we don't get help soon she will die. We need to roll her onto the bad side

"Can't you do anything?" Korsak was almost pleading with her.

"We need to release some of the air that has collected within the pleural cavity between the chest wall and the lung. It's putting pressure on the lung causing it to collapse. But I don't have the necessary equipment for it." Maura was afraid she was going to sit here and watch Jane die in her arms.

"What do you need?" He was searching through boxes of junk around the room.

"I would need some plastic tubing about ΒΌ inch round. We need to find a way to release the air and open her lung." She looked down and Jane and began to worry, her breathing was becoming more and more labored as time passed. "How long did they say the medivac would be? We need it now."

"Maura it's hurts." Maura looked down and saw that Jane had regained consciousness again. "It hurts a lot." She looked up at Maura. "Am I going to die Maura?"

"Not if I have anything to say about it."

"I trust you." She smiled up at Maura.

Korsak held up some plastic tubing. "Would this work?"

"Yes that would work great. Take the bottle of alcohol from my bag and pour it through the tube and clean as much of the outside as you can the hand it to me when I say I'm ready."

"I'm going to go check on the chopper." Frost placed his hand on Maura's shoulder. He effortlessly picked up Susan and carried her up the stairs.

"Can't even stay for this one hey Frost?" Jane whispered from the bed.

Maura and Korsak shared a small laugh because they all knew he was leaving because he would probably throw up if he watched her make the incision. Maura looked up at Korsak. "You ready?" He nodded his head. "You're going to have to hold her down because this is going to hurt." She looked down at Jane who was looking up at her. "Jane this is going to hurt like hell, take Korsak's hand and break it if you have to but squeeze it tight. But you have to lie perfectly still. Scream if you have to."

"Well at least you're being honest. One time a doctor told me I was going to feel a little prick with a cortisone shot and by the time he was done I called him a little prick. Just do it." Jane just continued to look at Maura almost as if she was drawing her strength from her. Jane felt the blade cut into her side and clenched her teeth. "That wasn't so bad."

"That was the easy part sweetie, now is when it's going to hurt. Are you ready? I'll try to do it as fast as I can." Jane nodded. Maura started to insert the tube into Jane's lung and watched as first the air was released from her lungs then the blood began to seep out slowly. Maura could see that Jane was already breathing easier so she reached for the tape from the kit and taped the tube in place. "You did good honey, how are you feeling?"

"Better, but I still want the number of the truck that hit me." She smiled up at Maura. "Is Susan ok?"

"Physically I think she'll be ok but emotionally I think she is going to need help for quite some time." Maura sat holding Jane's hand and smiled down at her. Neither woman noticed when Korsak left. "Jane I thought I'd lost you and it scared the hell out of me." She leaned down and carefully kissed Jane's lips then sat back up.

Jane reached up and pulled her back down. "That wasn't very convincing Maura. I want a real kiss." Maura was more than happy to comply with her request and that was how Frost found them when he ran down the stairs.

"Ah em!" Frost cleared his throat. "The chopper's landing now." Frost stood their smiling like an idiot.

Jane looked up at him. "What are you smiling about?"

"He won $5 off of Korsak." Maura smiled down at her.

"You only bet $5? Just think about how much money you could have taken him for. Didn't you trust your own powers of observation? What kind of cop are you anyway?" She joked with him. They all looked up when they heard the medics coming down the stairs with a gurney.

"Hey Doctor Isles what brings you out to this side of town?" One of the medics said to Maura from the doorway.

Maura immediately went into doctor mode as she spoke to the medics. "Just playing on the other end of the lifeline for a change. We have a tension Pneumothorax on the left side. Chest tube was successfully inserted to relieve the pressure and there was a small amount of blood accompanying the released air. It appears that there may be a number of broken ribs and she may also have a concussion. Multiple lacerations covering the face and neck and multiple contusions cover the rest of her body. She's appears to be breathing comfortable now." By the time she was done speaking the medics had an IV started and Jane was starting to feel the pain meds.

"God I love it when you talk dirty like that. It's so sexy." Jane said as they started to lift her off the bed. "Ouch! God damn that hurts. Not breathing comfortable now, it hurts like hell." They lowered her onto the stretcher then strapped her in. "Maura you're coming with me right?" She reached up and grabbed Maura's hand and wouldn't let go.

"I wouldn't have it any other way." She looked up at one of the medics and dared him to say anything. They were out of the basement and Jane squinted at the sunlight.

"Doctor Isles is welcome in my chopper any day." He smiled a Maura over the gurney.

"Are you hitting on my girlfriend? 'Cuz if you are I'll come looking for you when I can fight again and you'll have to deal with me." Korsak heard her comment and started laughing.

"That's my girl, a fighter to the bitter end." Korsak came over and touched Jane on the shoulder. "We're going to take Hoyt back in the car. I suppose we'll see you at the hospital. Hey Maura, do you think his shoulder would hurt if we hit potholes?"

"I'm sure it would why do you ask?" Maura looked confused.

"Well then I'll have to make sure I hit every one I see on the way to the hospital. I know of a dirt road on the way back and after the rains a few days back there should be some really nice holes there."

Maura tried to hold back her smile. She took an oath to help the injured but the thought of the man that did this to Jane enduring a bumpy ride home seemed like poetic justice. "Drive careful and we'll see you when you make it to the hospital."

"See ya later guys." Jane called from the gurney and Korsak could see her waving as they loaded her gurney on the helicopter next to that of Susan Kendall. "Hey Susan are you ok?" Jane reached over to take Susan's hand then felt the pain in her own and had to stop the movement.

Susan turned her head towards Jane and saw the movement. She smiled a small smile but it was the first movement since the whole ordeal had started. "No I'm not ok, but I will be, thanks to you."