Part 23 - Games

Steve dropped into a fitful sleep shortly after his father and Dr. Carter left. He slept for around an hour before waking with a start. It took him a few moments to remember where he was. He tried hard not to think about why he was there. He sat up and looked around the room a young nurse sat a few feet from the bed. She was watching him.

She moved over to the bed. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, I'm fine." He replied quietly. "I'm going to take a shower. If that's alright?" He added as an afterthought.

"OK Mr Sloan but I'm afraid you're going to have to leave the door open. I'm supposed to keep an eye on you."

Steve was too drained to respond to this with any emotion. Under normal circumstances he would have been at least indignant if not angry at the idea of needing a baby-sitter to take a shower but the events of the last few hours and now that he remembered them the last few days left him unable to respond with anything but a conciliatory. "Fine."

He spent an hour in the shower. He used hot water and went through an entire bar of soap. He still did not feel clean. The nurse eventually insisted that it was time to get out. He had just got changed into some fresh clothes and felt a little more human when Dr. Carter returned.

She spent the next two and a half hours with him. She calmly took him through what was likely to happen to him now that he had regained his memory and explained the treatment once again. There were some differences from the last time they had had this discussion. Not least of which was consideration of the possibility of further flashbacks. One of the areas of treatment would be to teach him strategies to cope with these if they occurred.

Dr. Carter then tried to get Steve to talk about his experiences. He found it impossible to talk about the attack itself but after a lot of patient coaxing he managed to discuss some of his feelings and his reactions. Especially the emotional void that he felt most of the time. He realised that even when he hadn't remembered the attack he had still felt.. he tried hard to put the feeling into words, 'empty' was the closest he could come.

Now that he knew what had triggered his emotions he was beginning to make a little more sense out of why he felt like this but he could not see that knowing why would help him change how he felt. His outlook was entirely negative. Dr. Carter knew it would take time to change those ideas round.

Finally she decided her patient had had enough for one day. They had made good progress and, although she knew Steve could not see it, she was happy with the way the session had gone.

"Before we finish I have a request." Steve said deliberately not looking at her.

"Yes?" she prompted.

Steve was hesitant before replying. "My dad and my friends: Jesse and Amanda. I don't want to see them. I..I can't face them"

"Because of what happened to you?"

"Partly I. yes, partly because they know what happened but also because.." There was a long pause.

"Because?" She prompted.

"Because of what I tried to do."

"The suicide attempt?"

"Yes," his response was barely audible.

Dr. Carter studied Steve, he would not look her in the eye. He couldn't when he was talking about his emotions. She decided to push him a little. The support of family and friends could, as she had already said, be an important part of recovery, but false thoughts about how they would react could also be a hindrance. "Why?" she asked.

"Pardon?"

"Why? Why can't you face them?"

Steve thought about it. "I'm afraid."

"Of what?" Steve did not answer. She tried again. "Afraid of what Steve?"

"That they won't.. understand.. That they won't forgive me and" he paused for longer this time. "Afraid that they'll be disappointed in me, afraid that I haven't lived up to their expectations."

"Is that important to you?"

"Yes"

"Steve, you're talking about your friends, your family. They love you and care for you. Do you really think that they will judge you like that?"

"Yes ... no... I don't know." Steve was getting agitated. "Look I just know that I can't face them at the moment. Please I don't want to see them."

"OK I'll let them know," she knew that she had pushed him as far as she could. "But just for the time being You will have to face them eventually."

"I know." Steve relaxed a little. "Thank you," he added quietly.

When Jesse and Nathan had returned rather dejectedly from their visit to Stacey Cliff's burnt out apartment they had met up with Mark and Amanda, both of whom had finished for the day. They decided to take what new evidence they had back to their make-shift incident room at the beach house. Mark knew it would be several hours before he could see Steve so he had left word with Dr. Carter's office to contact him at the beach house and they had all made their way there.

They were adding the thousands of small facts that had been gathered about each of the victims to their profiles when the phone rang. Mark went to answer it whilst the others carried on with their task. It was only when he hadn't returned after several minutes that Amanda became concerned and went to look for him. She found him sitting on his bed looking at the floor.

"Mark, are you OK?" She asked.

"Oh Yes, I'm sorry," he pointed at the phone." That was Dr. Carter. Steve is making good progress."

"I'm sensing a 'but' here."

When Mark replied his voice was heavy with emotion. It almost cracked as he spoke. "He doesn't want to see us; you, Jess, me. He doesn't want to see any of us." There were tears in his eyes. "His own father and he doesn't want to see me. How can I help him now?"

Amanda went over and put her arms around him. "I'm sure it's just temporary. You wait and see, he'll be begging us to come visit him soon." She said with more conviction than she felt. She held him for a little while longer before she pulled away. "Now come on let's go and get this case solved so that when we do see him at least we can give him some good news." She forced a smile. "And don't worry," she added, "I'll explain to Jesse."

"Thanks," said Mark and they returned to the others.

The next two days dragged past for Mark. He divided his time between work at the hospital and work on the case but his mind kept drifting back to Steve. He had found it difficult to see him on the day of the first flashback and guilt for those feelings plagued him. After all Steve did not have a choice in whether or not he wanted to deal with this. Now not being able to see Steve, to verify for himself that he was alright, made things much worse.

As a consequence of his constant distraction Mark had made little progress thinking about the case, apart from coming to the conclusion that the key to solving it was to figure out how the victims were chosen. Mark was sure that these weren't just random attacks.

Steve had spent the next two days in fairly intensive therapy. He had had several more flashbacks but none of them of the intensity or duration of the first. The brief images and associated feelings of being trapped and helpless sent him each time into a state of panic. Each time it took him time to calm down. Some of his therapy sessions were spent learning breathing techniques and other strategies to help lessen the effects.

Night time was the most difficult to cope with. Despite the exhausting effect of the flashbacks and his emotional response to them, sleep did not come easily. Dr. Carter had to prescribe something to help him and, even with this, his nights could not be called restful.

He attended group as well as individual sessions and in his free time he spent a lot of time in the communal area being forced to play one of the departments many board games with Laura, who seemingly did not understand the word no. Occasionally some of the other patients would join in but more often than not it was just the two of them. They seemed to find comfort in each others company.

In the group sessions Steve started to get some insight into the trauma that had brought Laura here. She had learnt how to sign and always had an interpreter with her so that she could fully participate in the therapy sessions.

Five years earlier she had been involved in a car crash with her family. It took place on a remote road and they had not been found for 17 hours. By the time they were found she was the only one left alive. She had screamed for help until her voice had given out and had not spoken since. It had taken five years of therapy to get her to the stage she was now at. She was expecting to be able to leave the hospital soon and start her new life. Despite her continuing inability to speak she was one of the success stories of the department. Steve got the strong impression that for a long time it looked like she would remain hospitalised for life.

In his individual sessions with Dr. Carter, Steve made a little more progress each time as he learned to talk about what was happening to him. She also did her best to break down some of Steve's barriers to seeing his father and friends. She knew that as long as he could not face them there would be a barrier to his progress. Steve had begun to show interest in whether they had caught the attacker or not. Dr. Carter used this interest, pointing out that his father would know far more than her. At first Steve refused to consider the idea but by the end of the second day he was willing to try to face his father. So it was arranged that Mark would come and visit on Saturday.

On the evening of the second day everyone was once again at Mark's house sifting through the new evidence. Mark paused and looked around. It was a familiar scene. Himself, Jesse and Amanda poring over evidence in the back room of the beach house. There was only one thing wrong. Steve was not there. Detective Nathan Turner was there in his place and good though he was it just wasn't the same. Mark sighed heavily.

"Mark?" Jesse asked, thinking that Mark had spotted something in the information he was checking.

"What, oh nothing Jess, I just drifted off for a moment. Come on let's get back to it. It's going to be another long night."

Jesse looked at him. He could imagine where his thoughts had drifted off to, Steve was never far from his thoughts either. Still he was right it was going to be another long session and they didn't seem to be any closer to finding what they needed.

Ryan moved quietly out of the on call room and slipped into the stairwell. It was Friday night and his last night on pediatrics. All of the interns then had the weekend off before moving to their new wards.

Ryan had everything in hand for his next victim. He had planned everything down to the last detail. He now just had to wait for tomorrow evening. In the meantime he had decided to have a little fun.

It looked like Sloan would definitely be a liability once he moved on to the psych ward and would have to be dealt with. So tonight was his last opportunity to try a little experiment, a new game. He would never get a better opportunity.

Once on the ward, Ryan hid himself in a vacant room opposite Steve's and waited for the nurse to complete her half hourly check. He then slid silently into Steve's room. The trickiest and most risky part was getting Steve's hands into the restraints without waking him up, but it was the risk that made it all the more interesting. Ryan was not so careful about putting the gag over Steve's mouth, by then it was too late for Steve to do anything about it. He woke up with a start.

Steve woke up into another nightmare flashback. He tried to move his arms but they were tied down. He could smell the same pungent odour, hear the mocking voice. His eyes opened in shear terror at his helplessness.

This time it was different though, There were no candles and he still seemed to be in the hospital room. He was still unable to speak or cry out, not because of drugs paralysing his vocal cords but because he was gagged. The shadowy figure stood away from him to one side and mocked him. Steve tried to fight but the bonds were too tight. He tried to sit up but he was pushed back down.

Ryan watched in amusement, he had been right. He did not need to lay a finger on Steve, suggestion was now enough to terrify the man. Maybe he would try revisiting some of his other victims. He laughed aloud, gloating in his total control. He wished he could enjoy it for longer but if he let it go on for too long, even with the soft padding, Steve might hurt himself on the restraints and Ryan did not want to leave any visible evidence that he had been here. Reluctantly Ryan moved over to the bed.

Steve tried hard to control his reactions to the 'flashback' but to no avail. He was panicking, heart racing, breathing out of control, when the 'memory' took on another new twist from his previous recollection. His attacker moved in and placed a cloth over his mouth and nose so he couldn't breathe. He struggled as much as he could but there was nothing he could do. He gasped for breath, his panic increasing as his vision started to fade to black from the edges. His last conscious thought was "Oh God! This time he's going to kill me!"

Ryan made it back to the on call room and entered. He was annoyed to find fellow intern Dr. Cole Parker sitting on the bed opposite. Why was the man always so damned cheerful even at one in the morning. "Hi Ryan, it's been pretty quiet where ya' been"

"Couldn't sleep, worrying about the kid in 502. So I decided to take a walk, clear my head." Ryan lied expertly.

"Yeah rough one that. Similar story for me; boy in 519. That's why I was reading. Guess we'd both better try get some sleep though?"

"Yeah good idea," he said, putting out the light and laying on the cot but he did not go to sleep. Instead he lay staring at the ceiling, replaying his 'games' in his head.

Part 24 - Fame is a Curse

Mark took his glasses off and pinched the ridge of his nose. He looked at his watch. It was late, very late probably time that they called it a night. Amanda had left a couple of hours earlier to collect her kids. The problem was they all knew that they were running out of time. If they didn't get a break soon then the killer was going to strike again. It had been almost a week since his last attack, unless you counted Stacey Cliff and Mark was inclined to think that she could not be included. She wasn't one of his victims, just some of the hired help who had outlived their usefulness.

"So let's review where we're up to." Mark said putting his glasses back on. "And then I suggest we all get some sleep or we won't be in any fit state to work tomorrow."

"Where do you want to start?" Jesse asked.

"What do we know about our killer?"

"He's male, Caucasian, somewhere around 6' tall, athletic build. That's all we've been able to get from the victims who are the only people to have seen him." Nathan replied.

"According to the pharmacology specialist I spoke to at the university," Jesse added. "He most likely has some sort of medical background or the guy's done extensive research. He ran some computer simulations of the effects on the body of the drug cocktail we found in the victim's systems. The drug mixture contained a combination of sedatives and muscle relaxants designed to make the victim completely unable to move but conscious."

"Have we got any leads yet on where he might be getting the drugs from?" Asked Mark directing his question at Nathan.

"No, nothing as yet but I have got people checking out both legal and illegal outlets for all of these drugs. Trouble is there are a myriad of jobs that this guy could have that would give him legitimate access to most of these drugs; Doctor, nurse, pharmacist, hell he could even be a vet and that's just the legitimate sources. Unless we get lucky I don't think the drugs source will help."

Mark sat back. "Then our only other likely lead is the victims. How is he choosing them?"

"That's the million dollar question." Jesse said. Mark ignored it.

"What do they all have in common?".

"You mean besides the fact that they are all victims in this case." Jesse couldn't resist the urge to be a little sarcastic. Days spent sifting through what seemed like millions of snippets of information for links between the victims and finding nothing had left him a little jaded.

"Jesse," Mark showed his disapproval in his tone.

"Sorry Mark, it's just there is nothing that seems to link these guys together. We've been through every aspect of their lives from where they shop to what they eat for breakfast and there is nothing to link them."

"Even the background checks have turned up nothing, different schools, colleges. Two of them moved here from out of state!" Nathan added frustration in his voice.

"And yet there has to be something." Mark insisted.

"Does there?" Asked Nathan. "Maybe we can't find anything because there is nothing to find. Maybe he just picks his victims randomly."

"No everything is too well planned for that. When Amanda went back and interviewed people in the bars where these men met Stacey, they all said that they had never seen her before that night and they all had the impression that she was there to meet someone. That doesn't sound like a random selection of victim to me. The bars are too far apart and in different parts of the city. No, I believe that Stacey was sent into those bars to specifically pick up those men."

"So where does that get us?" Asked Nathan.

"Still nowhere" Jesse said dejectedly. "About the only thing these people have in common is their success. They are all good at their chosen careers and Steve has about the worst paid job amongst them. Not that that helps us much."

Suddenly Mark's face lit up. That was it, the clue he had been looking for. How could he have missed it? "Ah but I think it does, thanks Jess"

Nathan and Jesse both looked at Mark. Jesse broke into a wide grin as he realised the significance of the expression on Mark's face and he knew that once again he had triggered Mark to realise something that would help solve the case. "You're welcome." He replied, as usual not having a clue what he had been thanked for. They both waited for Mark to enlighten them as he hurriedly sorted through bits of paper and checked through files.

"The fact that they are all successful is what links them. It's so obvious but we've got so many bits of paper here that we've all managed to overlook it." Mark searched through pieces of paper selecting some as he continued to explain. "About a week before the attack Steve had his picture in the paper. He was the principle detective involved in a high profile murder case: the Martin case. Paul Dunn had a full page feature done on him when he became the youngest vice president of the 5th National bank."

Jesse continued the line of thinking. "Peter Carpenter was featured because of a multi million dollar business merger. Carl West took over as principal at one of the cities best junior high schools." By this time both Jesse and Nathan were helping to find the newspaper cuttings from in amongst everything else.

"So all of the victims were featured in the paper. That's how he's choosing his victims - from the local press. In fact," Mark had been looking at the dates on those articles that still had the page headers. "I could be wrong, but from the dates it looks like the attacks took place exactly one week after each of the victims was featured. I can't be sure because some of these articles have the dates cut off." He looked at Nathan. " Maybe you could check the dates of these other articles against the dates of the attacks"

"Consider it done," Nathan replied, new energy in his voice. At last a break that they could really work with.

"And could you get all of the newspapers for the area for last weekend?" Mark added. "We need to try to figure out who his next victim is going to be."

"I'm ahead of you." Nathan had taken out cell phone and was dialing. It was time to wake some people up.

At 1.30 the nurse checked in on Steve. It was not a physical check just a visual one: to see that he was in bed and wasn't in an agitated state. She saw that he was there, he seemed to be sleeping peacefully. She made a note in her log and carried on with her rounds.

TO BE CONTINUED..