Dangerous Attachments (Dr. Sylvia Strange Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

Rosie sighed; it was only 9 A.M. and already she'd been at work for six hours. She took off her reading glasses and stared at the tape recorder. Inmate injuries were commonplace; but this unauthorized "amputation" had occurred in the penitentiary hospital where Angel Tapia had been quarantined for measles. Definitely not routine. She pressed rewind on the tape and let it run for fifteen seconds. The interview with penitentiary nurse LaRue had gone reasonably well considering the woman had been on duty for more than thirty hours. When she let up on the rewind button, her own recorded voice filled the office.
    "How strong would someone have to be to cut off a finger?"
    LaRue coughed on tape. "Scissors are sharp. You could do it."
    There was a long pause and the faint inner workings of the worn recorder were audible before LaRue continued. "He used a rubber ring as a tourniquet. He left it on the stump and injected a digital block before cutting. That's what was in the hypo in the trash. You saw the shears, wiped clean."
    "We're talking about someone with medical expertise," Rose said.
    "Anyone who's worked outside as an E.M.T. could handle it."
    There was a light tap on the door, and then a young woman entered, her tanned arms stacked with folders and logs. "Here's the stuff you asked for," she said as she let herself out again.
    Rosie pulled a list off the top and scanned names—inmates who had worked in the hospital during the past six months—at least a dozen.
    The tape was still running. Sánchez: "Can you account for the missing dosage?"
    She found the date she wanted in the stack of log books and thumbed slowly through the pages.
    LaRue: "Not absolutely."
    The tension roller gear on the tape cassette was tight, and the machine whined rhythmically under Rosie's voice. "So the drugs could easily have been collected over time?"
    She stopped the tape. She had just come upon a second list, the last group of patients seen at the pen hospital before Angel Tapia's pinkie was severed from his right hand. One name had appeared on both lists: Lucas Watson. Just this morning, she'd seen an incidentreport . . . She found it again tucked under a thick notebook.
    It had been filed by C.O. Jeff Anderson. Yesterday.
    Inmate Lucas Watson cut his wrist during the course of a meeting with a psychologist. I did not witness the incident with Dr. Strange, but I took the inmate to the penitentiary hospital where he was given five stitches
.
    Dr. Sylvia Strange. Rosie chewed on the corner of her lower lip. Her friendship with Sylvia dated back to that scorching summer's day when the thirteen-year-old
gringa
tried to talk her way out of a fight with a
pachuca
. The
pachuca
happened to be Rosie's younger sister. Sylvia had ended up with a nasty shiner and a bloody nose. She still had a way of getting in the middle of trouble.
    Rosie fingered C.O. Anderson's incident report, then she picked up the phone and dialed a number from memory. She needed to talk to someone who specialized in
crazies
: her longtime
gringa
friend.
    "I was just walking out the door." Sylvia sounded tired.
    "I need a favor. Can you meet with me this afternoon?"
    "After three-thirty. What's this about?"
    Rosie paused. The guard tower was visible through thick, dusty windows. The smell of sewage from the prison's wastewater treatment plant wafted through the seams of plaster and glass. Someone whistled from the courtyard below. "You evaluated Lucas Watson?"
    "Sure." After a very brief pause Sylvia sighed. "Don't try to be coy, Rosie. What's going on?"
    "A delicate investigation," Rosie said, screwing up her face as she spoke.
    "The evaluation—"
    "I know," Rosie interrupted. "It's privileged information."
    "I'll see you in your office at four."
    Before leaving for the meeting with the deputy warden, Rosie fast-forwarded the tape for several minutes until she found the last of the interview.
    "What about the stitches?" Rosie didn't like the brittle pitch of her voice on