Hawaii Five-0
Best Laid Plans
Chapter 10: Everyone Deals With Loss Differently
Leilani paced back and forth between the door and the wall of April's hospital room trying to settle Jessica. Leilani had tried just about everything she could think of to try and calm her down; checking and changing her diaper, giving Jessica her bottle, burping and putting her in her stroller and pushing it back and forth. Leilani without a doubt knew that all Jessica probably wanted was her mother; but with April nowhere to be found, that wasn't going to be an easy task to fulfil. As Leilani continued to hug little Jessica and rub her back in another effort to calm her down, she was interrupted when there was a knock at the door. Looking to the doorway, Leilani saw two men dressed in army dress blues and immediately knew they were here to talk to April about Michael.
"Excuse me Ma'am" one of the men said in a quiet voice in an effort to try and avoid upsetting the baby any further.
"We're looking for April Williams and we were told we could find her here. I'm Captain James Taylor and this is Captain Andrew Smith; we're chaplains from the US Army"
"I'm Leilani, a friend of April's; you're here about Michael" Leilani said as she laid Jessica down in her stroller.
"Yes Ma'am" Captain Taylor replied.
"You're actually not the only ones looking for her" Leilani stated.
"What do you mean by that Ma'am?" Captain Smith asked.
"April ran off from the hospital earlier today" Leilani replied.
"The Five-0 task force and HPD are out there looking for her but…"
"No sign of her" Captain Taylor finished.
"No" Leilani said as she sat down on the chair next to Jessica's stroller.
"They're also looking for a sniper too which doesn't make it any easier"
"Does anyone have any idea why April would take off?" Captain Smith asked.
"I got a call no too long ago from her brother, who's a detective with the Five-0 task force" Leilani explained before continuing.
"And he said that he and his partner found some things at her house that would suggest she may be looking for the sniper herself"
"Well that's completely understandable that April wants to find who did this to her husband" said Captain Taylor in a way that suggested to Leilani that they knew Michael.
"Did either of you know Michael at all?" Leilani asked.
"Actually yes Ma'am we did; which is why we volunteered to come and see April" Captain Smith replied.
"We were deployed together last year and we kept in touch; he was always talking about April, how excited he was about becoming a father and that he was going to be back in time to see her be born"
"I'm just really worried about her" Leilani stated.
"There's something wrong with April's heart and there's a chance she could have some complications; she needs to be in a hospital"
"From what Michael told us, April's pretty tough" Captain Taylor stated. "I'm sure she'll be fine"
"Me too, but I can't help but worry…April's a really good friend and I don't won't Jessica to lose her mother too" said Leilani.
"I'm going to call her brother and see they're any closer to finding her; I'll just be out in the hall if you don't mind watching Jessica for a minute" she said.
"Go ahead, take all the time you need" Captain Taylor said.
"Don't worry if we can't get a hold of April; we can talk to you about the arrangements that need to be made"
"Thanks" said Leilani as stepped out into the hall to call Danny to hopefully get some positive news on finding April's whereabouts and to tell him about the army being here, also looking for April.
Standing around the computer table back at Five-0 headquarters, the team was cross referencing the list of names Steve and Danny had found at April's house with those that they had managed to compile when they were going through the case files earlier that day. April had managed to create a list of twelve names purely from her memory and they had just found another name in their list that was also on April's list. Danny was sure that if this was a list from when April was working as a nurse back in Newark, the list would probably be never ending. Catherine had come up with a suggestion to maybe cross reference these names with cases that both April and Michael either of them worked on. Catherine was now making contact with Queen's Medical Center to obtain records from E.R. cases in the past six months that April and Michael had worked on to hopefully help whittle down the list to lead them to a potential suspect.
While Catherine was going on the phone with Queen's Medical Center to obtain the records, Danny's phone rang with Leilani's name coming up on the screen.
"Leilani what's up?" Danny answered.
"You haven't by chance found April yet have you?" Leilani asked.
"No why?" Danny asked.
"Two chaplains from the army are here about arrangements for Michael" Leilani replied.
"And let me guess, they're looking for April?" Danny asked pinching the bridge of his nose.
"You guessed right" Leilani replied.
"But listen, I can take care of it, they said they could talk to me if they can't get a hold of April"
"You're sure? You don't mind?" Danny asked.
"No I don't mind" Leilani replied.
"You just worry about finding your sister and that sniper, I've got this" she assured him.
"Okay, thank you" Danny praised her. "We'll call you if we have any news on April"
"Okay thanks" Leilani said before disconnecting the call.
"What's up? Is everything alright?" Steve asked Danny as he turned back around to face the computer table.
"Oh yeah, everything's just peachy" Danny replied sarcastically.
"Two chaplains from the army showed up at the hospital to talk to April about arrangements for Michael. But, because April's not there, Leilani said that she'll take care of it for her"
"At least it'll be one less thing April will have to worry about right now" Chin stated.
"Yeah" Danny agreed.
"And I can totally promise you that Leilani is good at this kind of stuff" Chin assured him just as Catherine and Kono emerged from her office with her tablet that had the records the hospital e-mailed her on it.
"Okay, the hospital e-mailed us E.R. records and incident reports from the last six months with both Michael and April's names on them" Catherine stated.
"We crossed referenced the names on them with our list of names and we got one match" Kono explained.
"So we ran the name and it's pretty safe to say this is our shooter" said Catherine.
"Meet Shannon Nichols, 39 years old, widowed, has a gun license and get this, has sniper rifle training" Kono explained.
"Okay, what do think this woman's motive is for opening fire on emergency service workers?" Danny asked.
"Why would this woman want to carry out revenge this way?"
"This is why" Catherine stated as she flicked up a newspaper article and an accident report from HPD.
"A year ago yesterday, Kevin, Jamie and Sophie Nichols were T-boned at high speed at an intersection in Waikiki after a man driving a van suffered a stroke at the wheel and died"
"Jamie suffered massive head trauma and was pronounced at the scene; he was 7 years old" Kono stated.
"Kevin, 37 and Sophie, 10 were both taken to Queen's Medical Center in a critical condition" Catherine stated.
"Not long after arriving at the hospital, Sophie died from massive internal bleeding; Kevin died about an hour later from the same thing while he was in surgery" Kono explained.
"Jeez" Danny murmured.
"Where was Shannon when this happened?" Chin asked.
"She was at home; Kevin was taking Sophie and Jamie to a birthday party" Catherine replied.
"Where do Michael and April come into this?" Steve asked.
"Michael and April both treated Sophie" Kono replied.
"The hospital also gave us an incident report with April and Michael's names on it" Catherine stated.
"When Shannon Nichols was told her daughter and her husband had also both died; understandably distraught, she physically lashed out at April when she tried to console her and punched her in the face and vowed to avenge her family's deaths"
"April obviously took Shannon's threats for revenge as a serious threat" Danny stated.
"But because she was grieving, nobody else took it as a serious threat"
"Yeah and because they didn't take it seriously, innocent people were killed and we still don't know if she's done" said Steve.