Wow, Friday again! Thanks for the comments and reviews. You have worked hard at figuring out the plot and giving me your take on things, much appreciated. Ok, here we go!
Bridge of Sighs
Chapter 21
Humpty Dumpty
Adrianna was hoarse. She had been screaming for help for such a long time she feared her voice would give out and then, she would never be found. The water she was lying in was very cold, and from all appearances, looked clear. Thirst was her enemy under the unrelenting sun, but with all of her other worries, poison, and a broken leg, the last thing she was concerned about was bad water. She took the chance to scoop up a handful of water and swallowed it greedily. Then another and another. Her raw throat was instantly soothed. Patting more water on her face to keep herself alert, Adri waited for her voice to gain strength. Then she would begin to call out for rescue once again.
A mile away two young teenaged boys were riding their bikes along a narrow path that ran parallel to their Daddy's ranch. They had been tasked to ride the fence and see what repairs needed to be done. Supposedly they had accomplished this task last week, but they hadn't bothered to do it, not all of it at least. As rancher's kids, they were used to hard work so they weren't necessarily lazy, but then again, it was blazing hot this time of day after school let out, and the last thing they wanted to do was check every acre of land for broken fences. Since their Daddy would be expecting a report from them this weekend, they had no excuse to delay completing their task another day. They set out with popsicles lodged in their mouths and Cokes in their backpacks. To make their job go quicker they had ipods firmly blasting tunes directly into their brains. If they worked fast, they could be home in an hour, two tops, then they could jump in the pool and relax until homework time.
Adri shifted her weight as her back was cramping up in the cold water. Pain instantly assaulted her, the nerves in her shattered leg sending furious signals of fractured bones and torn tissue to her brain. Crying out in anguish, she looked up into the clear, impossibly blue sky, and knew that not so very far away from her, thousands of people were going about their daily lives unaware of the girl slowly dying at the bottom of a well. The thought of it made her weep.
(St. Augustine Hospital)
Cho and Abbott pulled up to the hospital and parked. They had no idea if this patient was just an unfortunate citizen or Adrianna, maybe Miriam. Why would anyone be infected by snake venom via a knife blade? It had to be one of the two women they were searching for. It had to be! The agents who had gone out into the hill country had radioed Abbott telling him that the snake shed turned out to be a dead end, even though it appeared that hostages had been held there. So where had the women gone? And why didn't the young cop who found the woman just check the photos of the missing women to find out if this was the person the FBI was searching for? Sheriff Arkell had some explaining to do.
The two FBI agents presented their badges and were shown to the floor where the unidentified patient was resting. Abbott and Cho had photographs of Adrianna and Miriam in their pockets. If this woman was one of them, perhaps they would discover the whereabouts of the other woman in the next few minutes! As they stepped off the elevator, a doctor was waiting for the two agents.
"Hello? Are you from the FBI?" he asked nervously, eyeing the intimidating men in black.
"Senior Agent Dennis Abbott, this is Agent Kimball Cho" Abbott said as both held out their ID badges. "You have a woman here who needed anti-venom for a coral snake bite?"
"Yes, well no, but yes…" the doctor sputtered, utterly flustered by the presence of two FBI agents in his hallway. "I mean, yes she has coral snake venom in her system, but it was on the edge of a knife, so she says" he explained, feeling stupid now.
"Do you have a name? Who is she?" asked Cho.
"Oh we don't know yet. She is very distraught and was barely able to speak to us when she was brought in" said the doctor.
"Not able to tell you her name, but able to tell you she had snake venom in her system?" said Abbott, finding this interesting. "Selective memory" he added.
The doctor looked from one man to the other, and saw the irony of the statement. "Ah, yes, I guess so..."
"May we see her?" asked Abbott.
"She's resting now. We gave her an injection for the venom and she should be feeling better very soon."
"We need to see her doctor. We might be able to identify her for you" said Cho, not easily dissuaded from his mission.
"Well as long as you don't upset her, I can let you look in on her. But just for a moment gentlemen, she's had a very traumatic experience" he reminded them.
"We'll just be a moment, thank you Doctor" smiled Abbott. He desperately hoped that he would see young Adrianna sleeping soundly in the bed. The doctor led them down the hallway to a private room by the nurse's station.
"Just for a moment" the doctor reminded them again.
Abbott nodded, then he and Cho stepped into the quiet room. Asleep in the bed was a contented middle aged woman, curled up secure in the knowledge that she had pulled off one of the greatest hoaxes in years, if ever. All of her enemies were vanquished and she had emerged victorious. She slept the sleep of a winner.
Cho and Abbott stared at the reclining figure of Miriam Hoekstra and smiled. Based on the information Jane and Cal had told them, Miriam's days of freedom were over. She would be a very disappointed woman when she woke up.
They stepped out of the room and Abbott got on his cellphone to arrange a guard to watch her room. Cho stationed himself outside her door until he could be replaced. Abbott went back into her room and quietly placed a handcuff on her left wrist, attaching it to the bar on the side of her bed.
"Gotcha!" he whispered into her peaceful face before he silently slipped out of her room.
(Austin General Hospital)
Teresa pulled aside the blue curtain to find Jane rubbing his arm where the injection had been administered.
"Were you a brave boy for the doctor?" she teased her disgruntled boyfriend. 'Boyfriend'... she thought the word seemed so sophomoric. He wasn't a boy and was certainly more than a friend. If only there was a more adult phrase she could employ to enshrine their relationship. Jane wasn't her fiance, but was as committed to her as she was to him. For now, for herself, she would have to be content to call him her lover. Her beloved lover.
"Yes I was brave! But did you see the size of that needle? It would bring down an elephant!" Jane complained.
"Well suck it up, because the alternative would be dying of the venom."
"Point taken. When can I get out of here?" asked Jane, even though he felt like hell.
"Not today" replied Teresa, prepared for his request. Hospitals were anathema to Jane, so he had no intention of sticking around one minute longer than necessary.
"You still need to be stitched up, and you have a concussion, so you need bed rest" she reminded him.
"Fine. Get a doctor in here with a suture kit and we can be on our way. And before you argue with me" Patrick said, stopping her objection before it began, "I have a perfectly fine bed at home. Why stay here and take up a bed someone else might need more? Then I'll rest better under your gentle care" he finished with a compliment. As he spoke, he swayed ever so slightly, the room starting to spin in his peripheral vision.
Teresa knew he was angling for her to agree with him, and dammit, he was right. Resting at the hospital would be less peaceful than being at home, if she could keep him at home. As for the stitches, she wanted that attended to quickly as well.
"Tell you what, I'll find the doctor and see when they plan to stitch up those knife wounds, then maybe I can convince him to release you to my care."
"Thank you Teresa, I'll be good, I promise!" Patrick beamed at her, as if his release papers were as good as signed already.
"You will be under my watchful eye Mr. Jane" Teresa warned Patrick. When he tried to laugh at her, she turned serious.
"Patrick, you got shot in the head, and you were pistol whipped. All kidding aside, those are serious injuries, and if, by some stroke of luck, you are released today or tomorrow, you will damned well stay home and rest or I will bring you back here myself! Understood?"
The smile fell off Patrick's face as he was reminded how close he came to dying today. Of course his lover would be worried about his health even if he was a bit too cavalier about it. He should have realized how stressful this had been for Teresa.
"I'm sorry Teresa. I just want to go home, with you. I am tired and to be truthful, I don't feel all that well, but if rest is all I need, then I can do that on the sofa, in my bed, wherever you choose, as long as I don't have to stay here listening to toilets flush at three a.m. every ten minutes. So, I promise to be good and do what the doctor says. Really" he said, this time truthfully.
Leaning into him for a kiss, Teresa then got up and headed for the hallway, to find the ER doctor. While she would be happy if Jane was kept in the hospital at least for the night, she knew his goal was snuggling up to her tonight, asleep in his own bed. Sighing, she would do her best to make him happy. Ultimately, it was out of her hands.
(FBI Headquarters)
Cal and the agent who had accompanied him from the hospital stepped off the elevator. When Cal had been here just one day earlier, he was a bundle of nerves. What a difference 24 hours made. Now he was self-assured, relaxed and eager to help bring down a killer. His bravery on the bridge had been a life changing moment for him. Now he knew that he could do whatever he wanted to do, whatever he needed to do, to be happy.
The agent pointed the way to the same interrogation room Cal had sat in yesterday, but it was far less intimidating today. Once he was settled, coffee was brought in and the agent got busy videotaping his statement. Cal poured his heart into his testimony, leaving no detail out, until a clear picture emerged of Miriam Hoekstra and her ongoing pilgrimage to destroy the remaining members of the Hoekstra family. While he had no idea where his sister had been taken, Calvin told the agent about how Agent Jane had found proof of Miriam's trip to Holland the weekend his grandparents died, and described how she admitted she had sedated Henny, and Klaas by mistake, then set their house on fire. By the time Cal finished speaking with the agent, his testimony would be a huge hammer of evidence, enough to bring a conviction against his Aunt when and if she was caught and charged with murder.
(Austin General Hospital)
Lisbon had to wait to speak with the overworked ER doctor, but eventually she managed to snag him before he left for a small break.
"Sorry to take you away from your other patients doctor, but can you tell me when Patrick Jane will have his injuries sutured?"
The doctor had to think for a moment. Which patient was Patrick Jane? Oh yes! The FBI agent!
"Yes, Agent Jane...yes.. I have given orders for his arm and leg to be sutured. If it hasn't been done yet, it will be anytime now. Is that all?" he asked hopefully, desperate to sit down.
"Well, no, actually. Agent Jane really wants to go home today. He believes he will rest better in his own bed and maybe he has a point" Teresa said in a rush, hoping the doctor would just agree and be done with it. She was wrong.
"No, I'm sorry to disappoint Agent Jane, but absolutely not. His head injury must be monitored overnight at the very least. Although he might feel fine right now, as the hours pass, he may go downhill for a while, nausea, vomiting, dizziness… a whole list of side effects from two blows to the head. Believe me Agent, he doesn't want to be dealing with that tonight. Also, the anti-venom can sometimes result in the patient feeling sick, so we have to watch Mr. Jane for a reaction as well. I'm afraid I can't release him."
Lisbon nodded and thanked the doctor, then turned back towards Jane's cubicle. When she got there, it was empty. Now where did he go?
It took another ten minutes for her partner to be located, but eventually Teresa found Patrick in a treatment room, his arm and leg numbed up with shots of lidocaine. An intern was busy stitching up the long cut in Patrick's arm, but fortunately, he felt no pain.
"There you are!" Teresa said in relief. Any time Patrick went missing in a hospital was a bad day for Lisbon.
"You had just left when they came for me. See, I'm getting put back together again, like Humpty Dumpty! Did the doctor say I can go home?" Patrick asked, expecting good news.
Teresa stood off to one side, purposefully not watching each stitch as it went into Patrick's raw red skin.
"I did find the doctor, but, you can't go home Patrick" she began, until he cut her off.
"But I'm fine! Look, my stitches will close the knife wounds, and I promise to go right to bed when we get home!" he assured her, trying to ignore the fact that he felt like his bed was listing from side to side like a small boat in the ocean.
"I believe you Patrick, but the doctor said the side effects of the gunshot wound will show up as the day wears on. He said you could get light headed, dizzy, nauseous...or worse. The staff want to monitor you to make sure you don't go downhill" she explained, seeing the disappointment in his face.
"I'm sorry, I tried" she added kindly.
Jane sighed deeply, his hopes for getting out of there dashed. He would never admit it to Teresa, but he felt lousy, queasy even. If he could just keep the little bit of liquid in his stomach from coming back up, he'd be lucky.
"Just try to relax and sleep maybe, OK? It'll make the time go faster" Teresa suggested. Jane gazed back at the man working on his arm and pulled a face. Ugh, big mistake to watch the man sew him up like a piece of upholstery. When the intern put the last stitch in his arm, he then went to work on Patrick's leg. 20 minutes later, both injuries were sutured and wrapped in multiple layers of gauze and Patrick was wheeled to a private room two floors up from the ER department. When the freezing came out his injuries would hurt like a son of a bitch.
Looking around at his pale green, non-descript room, Jane resigned himself to a long, boring night. Teresa stood back as the nurse taking care of Jane got him settled, then checked his vitals. Five minutes later, they were alone again. Patrick lay back against his pillows, light headed from everything that had happened to him in the last few hours.
"Can I get you anything?" Teresa asked, hoping to make his evening imprisoned in the hospital a bit more palatable.
"Yes, some Thai food, a good cup of tea and a good book" he said like a grump.
Taking his hand in hers, Teresa smiled down at her disgruntled man.
"How about that cup of tea first? I think you would regret Thai food once it sits in your stomach for a while. But I can rustle up a bagel or toast to go with the tea. I'll try to find a good book while I'm at it."
Jane smiled back at his lovely girlfriend and felt bad for being grumpy with her. She understood him so well.
"Sounds good. Especially the tea."
"OK then, let me go and get working on that and I'll be right back" she smiled, standing up. Lisbon walked over to the door and cast a quick glance back at Jane. He already had his eyes closed.