Page 162 of A Dead End Wedding

Isat, stunned, at my desk for a long time after I hung up with Dr. Phillips. He'd said it was flat-out impossible that the chemical with the unpronounceable name that had infiltrated the insulin had come from any stage of the manufacturing process. I'd also learned way more than I ever thought I'd want to know about the difference between porcine and human forms of insulin, recombinant DNA, and the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas.

If it's tampering, no wonder they wanted to cover it up. If health care professionals and consumers panic because they can't trust the safety of BDC's insulin manufacturing process, they'll all go straight to Eli Lilly or one of the other insulin manufacturers.

BDC's primary source of profits is its insulin.

BDC's stock price will plummet, and the company will go bankrupt.

Holy crap.

It was time to call in the big guns. I honestly didn't know what to do with this information. But my friend at the FDA would. I needed to call him again.

As I picked up the phone, I heard shouting from the lobby. I shoved my chair back and ran down the hall, almost afraid to find out what was happening this time.

I skidded to a stop at the end of the hallway, mouth falling open in disbelief. A man the size and shape of a bull moose loomed over Max, yelling at the top of his lungs.

And he was clutching a baseball bat.

Normally I would have been scared stupid. But after the alligator, I was just mad. I walked out there, pasting a calm smile on my face. "Excuse me, sir, I'm December Vaughn. May I help you?"

I was careful to stand behind him and to the side, so he'd have to turn to face me, hopefully giving Max the chance to getout of there. He must have been on to me, though, because he only half-turned, and he kept jerking his head from side to side to watch both of us.

I didn't know where Gina and Daisy were, but I hoped they stayed out of the way.

"You've already helped me enough," he roared. "Now my wife left me, and her crazy mother is gonna have me arrested. I needed that money. So now I'm going to make you pay."

Funny, he didn't look a thing like a Nervil. As the icy chill shot up my spine, I let out a nervous laugh. "First, I'm attacked by an alligator, and now by a Croc. What is it about me and reptiles?"

He took a step closer and raised the bat a few inches. "This Croc is gonna mess you up. Think of it as a little going-away present from me."

I tried for calm on the outside, since my inside was freaking out.I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die, and I haven't had sex for nearly a year. I'm going to die, and this hairy, unwashed man is going to kill me.

"Mr. Croc, er, I mean, Nervil, you really don't want to do this," I said, as soothingly as I could muster with a giant, smelly man menacing me. "You can easily work out this misunderstanding over the bank, but if you hurt me, the police will charge you with a serious crime."

He bared his teeth in a terrifying caricature of a smile. "Yeah, murder. Premeditated."

He raised the bat, and I dropped back a step. Max, who'd been frozen to her seat, jumped up and started screaming.

The door opened, and Croc whipped his head around to see who was coming in. I ran behind the chairs in the waiting area.

"Max, quit screaming and call 911!" I yelled,

Gina walked in, leading Daisy.

"Oh, crap!" I said. "Gina, get out of here – fast!"

Daisy, who usually loved everybody, started barking and growling at him and straining at the end of her leash, as though she were going to attack Croc. Considering she weighed maybe ten pounds, I didn't think she'd do much damage.

As we watched helplessly, Croc almost casually swung out one booted foot and caught Daisy in the ribs. She yelped pitifully and flew across the floor, and her tiny body smashed into the side of the couch. She fell on the floor and lay there, whimpering.

Something inside of me snapped. I grabbed the nearest heavy thing I could find — which was my framed, oversized law school diploma — right off the wall and went after him, screaming. "Nobody kicks my dog!"

Gina and Max snapped out of their paralysis at the same time. Gina jumped him from behind and wrapped her arms around his neck and started choking. Max grabbed her industrial-sized stapler and ran around the desk. She started smashing the stapler into his knees.

Croc roared and crashed around like the outraged moose he looked like. He threw Gina off, and she smacked her head on the side of the desk. Then he backhanded Max and knocked her down. Finally, he stood there, heaving, and stared at me. "I'm gonna kill you slowly," he snarled.

I backed up till the backs of my legs hit the couch, not allowing myself to look down at Daisy for fear I'd start crying. Then I lifted the diploma in my hands, stopped midway, and whipped my gaze to the side to stare at the door, which was now directly behind Croc. "Thank God you're here!" I yelled.

Croc yanked his head around to stare at the closed door, and I lifted the diploma and smashed it down on his head with all my strength, glass side down. His knees crumpled and, eyes slowly glazing, he sank to the floor.

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