Chapter 14

"Danny," Eddie sighed as she peered through the peephole as yet another Reagan appeared at the threshold of the apartment that afternoon. That made three as Erin had dropped off lunch and stayed for a visit just an hour after Jamie and her mother had departed; Nicki just happened to be "in the neighborhood" between her classes across town at Columbia around three o'clock, and now here was Daniel Reagan of all people on her doorstep at five, although frankly that one surprised her as she hardly expected that he would have taken a break from such an important case to drop by and check in on her.

"Come on in," she offered as she swung the door open before making her way back to plop down on the couch with her pillows and blanket so the report to his brother would read that he had found the suspect resting as ordered or there would no doubt be hell to pay.

"I was just in the…" he started.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," she interrupted. "I've got the drill... you were just in the neighborhood. Lose the act," she advised with a shake of her head. "I had Jamie pegged for this before he even stepped foot out of the door this morning."

"You know my little brother so well," Danny admitted with a little grin as he sat his own tired self down in the comfortable leather chair across from her and deliberately put his feet up on the coffee table since Linda was not there to shoot him the evil eye for that, even though he knew someone else might if he were here. He'd have to make this fast or Jamie would get home to find them both passed out and sound asleep in the living room, although that didn't sound like such a bad idea at the moment. The older Reagan brother was exhausted and frustrated himself with all the brick walls he had been hitting during the urgent search for the shooter so had welcomed the chance to pop over here for a little while to clear his head.

Absolutely nothing new had developed on the case all day long, but Danny would have been stunned to know that he had just passed within a few feet of his quarry minutes earlier as Quinlan himself was sitting in his car parked near Jamie's usual spot down the street and growing weary with the long wait for his target to return. The wanted man had sworn at himself for missing yet another opportunity late this morning when that damn snooty-looking old woman had accompanied Reagan to his car with the child once more and he was loath to try another daytime double shot after leaving a witness the last time… still it had been tempting as he could have easily grabbed the little girl at the same moment and saved himself another trip down here later. A nighttime hit would be safer he reasoned, but his already failing eyesight left him little choice as a lifetime of chain smoking, alcohol abuse and excessive exposure to sunlight was causing him to develop a set of undiagnosed cataracts at a young age and his vision was even worse in the dark. Cursing the Reagan name, Jared looked at the time and decided to call it a day and return the next morning as he sped off in the Mercury to go get something to eat. Sooner or later Jamie was going to venture out on his own and the plan was for him to never come back.

Up in the apartment, Eddie was still frowning at Danny's last comment regarding his brother. "I don't feel like I know him at all this week anymore," she admitted. "He's not himself."

"Unfortunately, this is him," he corrected. "It's just a side you were lucky never to see before and one we hoped to never have to deal with again."

"What do you mean by that, Danny?" she pleaded as her alarm rose to another level with those words. "I talked to your dad, and he said to just watch Jamie carefully… that this is sometimes the way he reacts to stressful situations, but there's more to it, isn't there? I've seen all the looks that you've been giving each other and what Frank did with Renzulli… please tell me what's going on! I need to know how to help him!"

"It's complicated," Danny admitted with a heavy sigh. "The best way to describe it I guess is that he has a kind of self-destruct mode when things get tough like this."

"Self destruct?!" she gasped as she sat straight up and stared at him with wide eyes, suddenly envisioning the worst possible scenarios. "Like he'll hurt himself? Danny, is that what you're saying?! That's what I have to be worried about?!"

"NO! God no! Nothing like that…" he tried to assure as he kicked himself for upsetting her with such a poor word choice. Unfortunately though the truth was no less ugly. "I'm sorry for putting it that way, but it's almost worse... we're not afraid of him going out and eating his gun on purpose or anything like that. It's just that he doesn't even seem to realize what's going on which is scarier," he paused as he searched for the right approach while she still looked at him wildly. "Joe understood him," Danny continued to explain. "He always said that Jamie's brain is so ordered that when something knocks him hard enough out of whack he kind of ignores the parts about himself while he starts to restructure and put things in place… he's not settled until everything is back on the right shelf and perfectly aligned; it's like stacking boxes in a closet. Until he gets things sorted out the way he wants them again he forgets to do things like eat or watch out for himself... or how can I put it?" he muttered as saw her still-puzzled face and peered around the room until his eyes fell on the windows. "Like if the two of you were walking on the street and a bus was headed straight for you, he would completely see it coming and push you out of the way, but if he was about to be hit he'd never notice the lights until it was too late, understand? That's why dad wanted him pulled off the street; he can't afford to have him out there when he's this way."

"And this has happened before?" Eddie asked, still stunned at the depth of the answer she received in the first place. She hadn't really expected Danny of all people to be that candid with her. Even Frank had made more of an effort to fluff things over in their phone conversation yesterday. "I mean obviously…"

"Yeah, of course," he admitted. "I mean he's kinda been this way all his life... ever since he was a little kid and stuff like switching bedrooms was enough to make him scare the bejesus out of the whole family by breaking out in night terrors there for a while, or later when he was older around stressful times like finals at school and stuff, but Joe could always handle things and talk him out of it so the rest of us didn't really notice what was going on, except maybe my mom," he admitted. "She always said he was too sensitive to be a cop."

"But it got worse?" Eddie pried now that they were getting somewhere and parts of this was making sense to her now.

"When my mom passed," he admitted with a sad gaze. "He was at Harvard at the time. I mean the rest of us all knew it was coming pretty quick there at the end but she kept the worst from him and wouldn't let us bring Jamie home that last day before… before she left because he was in the middle of midterms and she knew seeing her like that would destroy him. She slipped into a coma from the morphine while Joe went to get him from Boston that night so he never really got to say goodbye before she died… she left him a letter and a recording, but it wasn't the same."

Eddie blinked back big tears thinking about what that must have done to him while Danny took a few moments to compose himself. There was so much about Jamie's family life before that she had no idea about, the Reagans always seemed so… perfect that way. "Mom thought she had more time, but that was a mistake," he admitted gruffly with a heavy heart. "That one was our fault… damn tests could have waited," he added before continuing. "When he got back to school for the next term… Joe wasn't there to head things off and it came out in sleepwalking. He ended up outside one night in the street and nearly got hit by a car. Luckily he had Spencer, but… he wasn't really prepared to deal with it at first either."

"And then Joe was gone," she surmised sadly, already reading between the lines to where this was headed.

"Yeah, and then there was that," Danny sighed. "Jamie ended up with wicked nightmares for a while and he was with Syd… sorry, hope you don't mind that I brought her up," he added before carrying on when Eddie shook her head. His little brother was going to kill him outright if he ever caught wind of this conversation taking place. "Jesus, promise me that you won't ever tell him I was talking to you about this or I'm a dead man walking and no one will ever find the body," he grimaced.

"Please Danny," Eddie urged. "Keep going. I need to know… I have to help him."

"That all happened just a couple of weeks before their big graduation. Sydney tried to help him for a little while, but she was always too much about herself and got frustrated when he told her he was suddenly dropping law to enter the academy, so he moved home for a few months before they worked it out until she eventually left for good when he got caught up in the whole Blue Templar investigation over Joe's death. He threw himself into that alone and shut us out until he almost got himself killed there because he was so focused the bus nearly hit him before we could pull him away," he answered grimly remembering that terrifying time. "If you wanna know more about that you're going to have to talk to him yourself. I can't go there."

Eddie nodded in understanding, he had already revealed far more that she had ever imagined. "And finally there was Vinny," she stated. "What got him through that?"

"You did," Danny smiled. "This sassy, short blond-haired opinionated partner showed up in his life and knocked him hard enough on his ass to made him smile again. He focused on you and that's why he was so scared to change things up for so long… you didn't know it at the time but you were his lifeline through that."

"But not this time," she frowned. "He's shutting me out too. The only one that can reach him is…"

"Kaylin," Danny agreed. "Yeah, I figured that would happen and you can't take it personally. Like I said though, he doesn't even realize he's doing it. You might have been able to talk him out of this like Joe except for the fact that you got hurt too and he feels responsible, so you're thrown into the mix that he's gotta sort out and fix with everything else. He won't let you help him until your box is back on the right shelf."

"Once, after I shot that guy in the courtyard… he said you told him when he was going through something big like this, not to look for something bigger," Eddie mused.

"Well my over-responsible tight-assed brother likes to dish that advice out, but he's not good at takin' it," Danny snorted as he sat back. It felt better to know that Eddie was more prepared to deal with this somehow. "I'm gonna let you in on a little secret. Joe always said you could judge where Jamie's at with something by the music he's listening too. His buddy George from CompStat could probably lock it down to a science for you. Anything above 1995 or just regular old headbanger classics and you're good. You see him get into any of that awful English stuff that Joe used to love from the 80s and you know you have a real problem and need to go hide the single malt."

Eddie managed a little laugh at the break in tension. Honestly, this had been one of the longest conversations she ever recalled having with Jamie's older brother and it had certainly been revealing. At least she felt she had a bit of a handle on things even though Jamie's current state still terrified her, and she certainly had no idea what to expect when he returned from his little afternoon jaunt with her mother. "I'll keep that in mind," she promised. "One more thing though, maybe you can't answer… but why Renzulli? Why'd your dad make such a point of putting him in charge of Jamie again? I know it was no coincidence, and it's really set him off. I've never seen him so angry with Sarge before."

"Renzulli used to ride with Joe," Danny answered as he stood up and prepared to leave. "He's got real insights into people. The two of them sat there and talked their way through a couple of these things with Jamie before… when he went away to Harvard and I gave him a tough time about being a lawyer, he felt disconnected from the family and then when my mother died you know. Renzulli knows Jamie almost as well as Joe did. That's why dad put him there. Tony can see through him too, and Jamie has some respect for the man even if he's a little pissed at him right now for pulling his badge and gun."

"Danny, wait," Eddie said as she stopped him while she absorbed and processed everything he had said. There was one thing though that bothered her and didn't seem to fit with what she'd seen herself. "You said several times now that Jamie doesn't even know this is really happening to him or that he can't see the danger coming when he's like this."

"Not usually, no," he agreed as he frowned while getting a sense of where she was going with this. Maybe he didn't have his little brother figured out as well as he thought he did. "Why?"

"He told me the day of the shooting, after Mrs. Carson hit him…" she twitched as she could sense that she was about to sideswipe Danny with something new that contradicted what had been the normal pattern before. "He was worried about Henry's house being too much for us to handle now… especially for me because he was afraid something was going to happen to him," she revealed while meeting his eyes. "Not afraid… that's not the right word, more like he was sure somehow. He said that after everything he's been through since Vinny… the pneumonia and how he walked away from after the building collapse… now this... he said that his luck was gonna run out and it was just a matter of time. He sounded resigned to that… it scared me, Danny. I've never heard him say stuff like that before… like he was ready to give up. I don't know how much more of this he can take."

"Damn the Carson woman for putting that in his head," he swore under his breath. If she had him thinking that he deserved it... maybe they had all miscalculated and it was gonna wind up costing them horribly this time. If Jamie was aware of the danger and just didn't care instead...

"Well, that changes things," he admitted out loud as he looked at Eddie and rubbed the back of his neck. "I need to talk to Dad. We're all gonna have to keep a better eye on him this time."

Next, Jared moves in for his second attempt while Jamie meets up with Dr. Meherin for the first time over this situation in an effort to get reinstated back to his patrol. Her advice might just put him squarely in Quinlan's sights though while Danny and Baez get their first big break in the case.