Dwight looked in on his sometimes boss, sometimes friend, general source of income, and the best bet the troubled had of staying safe. The glass doors outside the ICU allowed him to see into the small room where the officer was kept. The cleaner had strayed to the floor several times since the detective had been moved, and wished that he'd paid more attention to his unit's medic back when he was rattling off terms practicing for med school, provided he survived his tour.
The cleaner knew on a logical level that the tetracycline that reduced the quiet man to the sinister stillness before him should have been harmless. Hell, kids used it all the time to get rid of pimples. Hard to reconcile that with the jaundiced figure in the bed. Nurses were coming by every quarter hour or so, taking samples, adjusting things, simply recording notes and doing other "nursely" things. A tired looking Dr. Stark came down and stared at the officer for a while, poking and prodding and doing nothing particularly effectual as far as Dwight could tell.
He'd known before the good doctor had told Audrey that there was likely to be a need for a liver transplant. The hospital staff continued to monitor the officer, hoping that stopping the treatment itself may have been enough to stave off that need. They were doing something with the IV lines Nathan was sprouting like some sort of parasitical infection. But Dwight wasn't sure if it was working or not. The tired man had not noticed much of a change in the man since he'd been brought to the ICU.
If Nathan died, he wondered what would happen. With things as up in the air as they were, who would the Troubled turn to? Audrey was the obvious choice, but she was also linked to the Troubled's worst nightmare - Duke. Would they trust that she would keep Simon Crocker's son on a leash, or would the more militant decide that the son was no better than the father and take action independently? Would Dave or Vince quietly encourage it? Dwight shook his head. Dave, perhaps. He knew some secret that he was too afraid to speak of, yet desperately wanted out in the open. Vince had, in his own quiet way, tried to ensure Duke wasn't a threat, and at the same time had been kept safe, at least when he had sicced the ex-Ranger on the smuggler.
The blond man sighed as he moved his mop mindlessly over the worn linoleum. If someone were to hurt Duke, if Nathan weren't there to intervene, would Audrey turn into the violent, unstable woman some people, like Dave, had reported her mother to have been? Already in the time he had known her the bright smile had dimmed. Audrey had come seeking the answer to a personal mystery that had turned too convoluted and bizarre to be a nightmare. Would she finally snap if someone fatally injured Duke? Would he, Dwight, be able to stop her from seeking revenge? Could someone turn her emotional distress against her, turning her into the weapon Duke had already twice refused to be? Too many questions, and too much room for failure if Nathan didn't pull through.
Nathan was the lynch-pin that seemed to hold everything else in balance. He was calm to Audrey's unfettered enthusiasm. Stable when she was preparing to leap off the edge, and able to catch her when she couldn't do it herself. Nathan had a good head on his shoulders, and had been able to keep the town together after the Chief had died. It hadn't been until he had been brought into the meeting with the other Troubled that Dwight had begun to worry that the quiet man had begun to be polarized. Even then, he kept his head until the last abuse of Audrey being kidnapped that had led to his current situation. And in the end, he'd seemingly forgiven Duke, and believed the smuggler hadn't been responsible.
Duke had some sort of weird love/hate relationship with Nathan, but did seem to submit, mostly, to the quiet cop. He'd bitch and complain, make a lot of noise, but if Nathan needed him, the smuggler would be there. And Nathan could read Duke like a book. A lifetime together had granted him the ability to see past Duke's glib persona. The two men obviously had a complicated history. Nathan in turn did not quiet turn a blind eye to Duke's less savory habits, but at least didn't assign a full time detail to the man either. There was a truce between them, and potentially a rekindling of friendship.
Those two were a study in dark and light. Dwight wondered if Nathan were up and about if he would be able to rein in Duke or not. The happy-go lucky attitude may be permanently gone if the detective died. It was hard to argue that beyond anything else, the smuggler did trust Nathan, something that was as rare as furred trout. Dwight knew that Duke trusted him with Audrey, but not with his own safety, nor likely would he ever after the attack on the boat. Hell, he'd activated Duke's Trouble. Put the man under the stress with his ill-conceived attack that caused Duke's life to turn upside down. Vince had been right about not telling him. Duke hadn't been a threat, and likely wouldn't have been one, he realized now. Dwight took it upon himself to eliminate what he perceived as a threat to his people, and thus ensured the problems that followed. Duke had lasted a long time as a criminal, he didn't do stupid often. He wouldn't have gone on a full scale murdering spree in the small town.
The whole thing was a giant mess, one the cleaner thought was too big from anyone person alone. Now they had a dying officer, a vigilante pirate, a quasi ex-FBI/detective, two old coots that couldn't, or wouldn't, tell them vital pieces of information, and people living out a war that didn't need to happen. The whole thing seemed balanced on the edge of disaster. Like that eternal second between the moment you realized your world was about to end and you took the reflexive gasp your body demanded.
It would all fall apart if this one man fell.
Jess had a great deal of respect for the nursing staff of most of the hospitals she had worked in, both from Canada and the US. The men and women that were trained to the profession were usually two types - one kind was the called to it and ones that were looking for rich significant others. The later were usually found quickly and persuaded to find another profession or decided that the payoff was not enough to deal with miserable patients. However the ones that were called, they fought for their patients, sometimes in spite of them, and comforted the families with the truth.
People had this vision of an idealized Florence Nightingale when they thought of nurses. People who give and give and are saints. Jess knew the good nurses weren't like that. They didn't lie. They didn't sugar-coat the truth. The nurses, and even the orderlies, dealt with the patients day in and day out, they were closer than the "life-saving" doctors who rushed around. Many of them had gentle hearts that had to develop thick walls to deal with the inevitability of losing a patient. They understood pain at most every level having to deal with it day in and day out. They existed to ease suffering, and sometimes that was done best by cutting off the damaged portions, or being brutally honest when you couldn't stand to hear the truth. The nurses had told her that unless things improved very soon, the outlook for Nathan was not good. It was looking more and more like the transplant surgery would be required.
Jess had never wanted to be a nurse. She knew she didn't have the calling. That didn't mean she didn't respect those that did.
Her sneakers squeaked on the wet flooring and she spotted Dwight down the hall with a mop and bucket. He'd found lots of reasons lately to hang around the hospital, and the ICU in particular, since Nathan had begun his quick descent. She was trying to figure out if he was guarding the man, or just simply trying to be around in case Nathan took a sudden turn for the worse.
She quietly ducked into Nathan's room and looked at him. He was slowly collapsing in on himself as his body destroyed itself. The yellow tint to his skin was hard to see at the moment, between the blue wash of the florescent lights above him. It was nice to see that they had fixed the bulb that had been weakening, though she had liked the effect in her more exhausted moods. It had reminded her of one of the specialty lights they sold at Spencer's in the mall, between the lava lights and the "Borg" lights.
He looked unchanged from the last time she had snuck into see him. A nurse with the unlikely name of Ratchet who was on the night shift let Jess in to see Nathan if she wanted. The woman believed strongly in the healing power of friends and family. She swore that the patients who got visitors did better and recovered faster than those that were left alone. Humans, were, after all, prone to live in groups, and few were true loners.
She felt the paper like texture of his skin. Despite all the fluids pouring into his body, the dry air of the hospital was leaching the moisture from his skin. It made his hands look old, much older than his face. She leaned down and kissed him gently on his closed eyes, saying a prayer to any gods or kindly spirits that may have been listening to deliver him safe from whatever shores his dreams cast him upon.
The dreams didn't look unpleasant, which was a good thing given the alien abduction conversation that had been relayed to her right before he got worse. She made a note to find out from Audrey what that show was that dealt with the FBI agent that chased aliens. She could redo his office and label it with the agent's name. Audrey was sure to know it. She planned on what she would do - perhaps first changing his nameplate so it said Agent Wournos. She remembered something about a poster with a flying saucer on it. She bet Duke could find it. She'd pay him to smuggle it for her. She then wondered if posters actually could be smuggled. Duke would probably say yes just for the potential business opportunities. She spent the next half hour contemplating the redecoration of Nathan Wournos' home and office to match... whatever the show was called.
She had considered the possibility of Nathan dying in the quiet darkness of her own home. The nurses she respected had told her it was a possibility when she asked. They said that even with a liver transplant it was wasn't certain the man would live. In fact, it was possible Audrey might die. Even if they were both OK, there were long term problems for both the donor and recipient. Many were dead within 15 years. The thought of losing Nathan could not be contemplated for long. It made her house feel empty, and her bed feel much too large for her frame. Nathan belonged to this town. She needed him to keep her safe. She just needed him.
Jess just sat watching her man. She wanted him to wake up, to see him happy and pain free again. She quietly was wondering if that day would ever come to pass. Even if he did live through this he had a long, long recovery ahead of him, one that he could easily relapse in, or develop complications from. This time, though, she knew her place. It was by his side.
Audrey listened to the bar below her. Duke was having one of his eclectic music nights. He normally used the satellite radio to supply the music to the restaurant and bar, but sometimes he brought in his music collection and played it, just because. He refused to have TVs or sports radio in the bar, or at least, refused to have the sports radio on if there were more than 10 patrons. He claimed Boston sports fans were too rowdy and violent for the restaurant. He didn't seem to care that he lost business every time it seemed like maybe the Red Sox might make it again to the playoffs.
She'd heard Evanescence earlier, chased by Sweet Talk Radio, then some Paul Simon and then some things she'd never heard before, and a few she wished never to hear again, and now it was the Monkees "A Little Bit You, A Little Bit Me." She remembered the first time she heard it, really the first time she and Audrey II had heard it. Audrey II had heard it in a school dance. Audrey I had heard it in her adopted father's beat up Datsun.
For some reason it reminded her of Nathan. It took a little bit of both of them to keep things going. If either walked out, the town would become unstable. However Davy Jones pleaded for the girl to stay, and in this case she pleaded for her partner. Nathan filled a hole in her life, one that was always empty. He was like a drink of ice cold water you didn't know you needed, she thought. He could make her laugh, make her cry, and make her curse like... Duke.
She remembered spending so much of both of her lives alone. One of the things the two Audreys shared was a constant state of loneliness. Something she hadn't been even aware of until she came to the small backwater town. Nathan had been her first friend, first one in years. There was something in the man that she gravitated to, and had once momentarily mistaken for romantic love.
The quiet detective was her bedrock. She could go out and try to save everyone, because she knew fundamentally that he would be at her back, watching it. It was a strange, distracting feeling. Nathan was rather like a creeping vine, one that wound its way around you until you didn't notice you were ensnared. She rather enjoyed the feeling of security he brought with him.
She couldn't remember when she decided that he was her friend. It was more like a gradual realization than anything else. She remembered their first meeting, and thinking he was an idiot when he told her not to move when she already held a gun on him. She'd long since found out first impressions could be very, very wrong. Nathan had a sharp intelligence he sometimes hid behind a good old boy facade. He'd mastered the art of playing to people, as much a con man as Duke was in his own fashion. To be a public servant, one that was visible in the eye of the town required a certain amount of deception. She knew without a doubt that there were people walking around, natives of the town that had heard of the Troubled only as a myth. That was largely Nathan's doing.
Dwight may have been able to come up with plausible explanations for the fantastic events, but it was Nathan that everyone believed. He exuded an air of trust and honesty. Few ever doubted Nathan's word. He had a sterling reputation for being fair. The entire town believed him when he gave his word. It was an amazing thing.
And yet, Nathan, who could be cast as Maybury RFD's famous sheriff, was all together human. It was his flaws that she loved best. His complete and total cluelessness when Jess first came on to him. The way he'd been the first into Duke's room after the doctor told them the ancient young man could have visitors, and then promptly gave the ailing sailor a tongue lashing on gross stupidity and self-destructive behavior.
She knew without a doubt that Nathan was instrumental in keeping the whole town together. She was so scared he would die. The funny thing was, she recognized the shape of her loneliness now and didn't it want it thrust back on her. Having friends, real friends, was addicting. To know that she could call and he would pick up. To know that she didn't have to face everything alone. It had taken her a while, but she'd gotten used to it. Or at least she had as Audrey Parker.
The quietly failing nursing student she had once been had made friends and left them. Friends were like socks - comfortable for a time but ultimately replaceable. Her time in Haven had taught her differently. She knew what it was to have more than a superficial relationship. She saw how her actions impacted her two best friends, and it made her want to change. She wanted to be a better person because of them.
Idly she wondered if that's why Duke always was flitting around Nathan, like a moth to a bug zapper. The never seemed to get along very long, but at the same time, they were always there for each other. She wondered if her kidnapping and subsequent adventures in amnesia had taken Duke's mind off the fact that his favorite sparring partner was dying, then reminded herself that Nathan wouldn't have taken up residence in the hospital if she hadn't been kidnapped in the first place. Duke had seemed to look to Nathan as something of a compass, and navigated his life by what Nathan would not want him to do. Except slowly that was changing, too. Nathan hadn't been willing to wager it was permanent, but even he was hard pressed to say that the man that was serving drinks downstairs had not changed slightly for the better.
Nathan's rage and assumption that Duke had something to do with her disappearance was still upsetting the smuggler. God, is Nathan made it through this, and if something happened to her, would the two men kill each other? Duke still hadn't really said what had happened, but she knew he'd been waking up with nightmares. Would she lose the man that was trying so hard to change his life from a wayward scoundrel if Nathan died? Duke had already lost so much. Funny to think he'd been an innocent in Haven's troubles. For such a strong man, he really did need their protection, now more than ever.
When Nathan got better, she was going to kick his ass for trying to pull a gun on her boyfriend. The she was going to hug him and yell at him never to do something so stupid as to get shot again. Assuming he survived the transplant scheduled for just a few days later.
Duke hung his head and wondered how in he was going to make it to 2AM, when the bar shut down. Nora was out with the flu and he was covering her shifts. Being responsible was a drain on the free-spirited young man. Still, he owed it to her, and to Bill McShaw to keep the place running. It was, after all, his second chance. The crowd wasn't rowdy tonight, for which he was grateful. His shotgun would likely not be shown. He wouldn't have to break up a fight.
Sometimes you had to make the best you could of small mercies. Audrey was upstairs and she'd probably let him crawl into bed with her. Sleep sounded like a delicious luxury. When he slept he could finally turn off his mind. The sad thing was he'd been going with little sleep for so long now his body had decided it was normal. He had a hard time being unconscious for more than 4 hours at a stretch. It was making him crabby, along with the constant surveillance by Audrey.
He felt bad for her. She was like a pinball being flung into bumpers trying desperately not to fall down the hole between the flippers. The thing with Nathan was wearing on her. It was wearing on all of them. Now she faced surgery and a lifetime of potential health complications to save a friend. Even though he was sure the DNA test was right even if she wasn't, it was still hard for him to think of Nathan as her brother. He supposed that would come in time. He hoped he'd get to find out.
Another call for some drink took Duke's attention for the whole minute and a half it took to mix the liquor together. Would that all things were as simple as bar-tending. You memorized recipes and followed them. If you wanted to you got inventive and made your own. You tried to keep your patrons happy and alive, because a person caught driving drunk would sue you and likely wouldn't return, netting you less cash in the long run. Tending bar was the easiest thing he had to do, or so it seemed to him.
He wished he had an idea of what to do with Audrey. Ironically at that moment Anberlin's "Audrey Start the Revolution" started. He rather hoped she didn't start a revolution. She would, though, for Nathan. He wasn't stupid. The detective held a very special place in his lover's heart, and he wondered if their relationship would survive what may have to happen to save Nathan.
Nathan had always accused Duke of being a selfish bastard. It was the detective, though, that was angling for his partner's vital organs. Duke would not have asked Audrey to do it, would have flat out denied her help if his and Nathan's positions were reversed. There were too many horror stories of people going under the knife and not waking up. Too many things that could go wrong. The gamble would be too large. His life wasn't worth hers, wasn't worth Nathan's in the great scheme of things.
Nathan was a royal bastard to have done this to them. Leave them hanging like this, suspended, not knowing what was going to happen. Why had the damned hot-head been hellbent on killing him? Because Audrey was missing. Did Nathan really think that Duke could have ever hurt the woman that had brightened his dark and tarnished soul?
All his life Nathan had been better than him at nearly everything. Nathan was the jock, king of the school, the "good" child despite his occasional classroom antics. No one but Duke knew that Nathan had not always been the model citizen the people of Haven thought their fearless leader to be. Instead, he had been privy to Nathan's burning rage after his mother had died, something he had kept hidden from The Chief. Duke obliged him because he understood so horribly what it was to suddenly go missing a parent. The smuggler remembered waiting endlessly for his father to come back, and being angry that he had died.
When the two had been five they had been fast friends, and by the end of their eight year they'd been mortal enemies. At twelve they'd grudgingly accepted each other's existence and lack of ability to erase each other from it. Sometimes they were friends, and sometimes they were enemies. It depended on if the day ended in "y" and the phase of the moon and the alignment of the stars.
When Duke ran away from home, Nathan had sought him. The quiet boy had been the only one that had tried to keep the young man in town. He'd tracked him to a small abandoned home, mostly lost to the winter weather and rot. Nathan sometimes brought Duke food, and sometimes just fought with him. One time Duke had gone "walkabout" to use the Australian term and hadn't been there when Nathan came by. He'd been surprised to find out Nathan had been calling hospitals looking for him. After that point, he tried to hang around at least once a week, providing the other boy proof of his continued existence in town. Consequently, Nathan had been the only one he'd told that he'd gotten a job on a freighter that would take him on a long, slow trip to southeast Asia. That night Nathan had nearly beaten him unconscious. Duke had been scared at the rage, and had left the house that night, fearing that Nathan would return. He'd taken his beat-up sleeping bag and slept under one of the warehouses that lined the pier. In the morning he'd found a Chinese-English, a Korean-English and a Japanese-English dictionary by his head.
Nathan had never apologized for the incident, save by providing Duke with the reference material. He'd always been a man of few words. It was these many years later that he realized that Nathan had seen what Duke'd done as a type of betrayal, leaving him behind, mired in the town. Duke had never hidden the fact that he wanted away from the cursed town, and had planned to leave long before his eventual exit. He never realized that he'd be leaving people behind that had cared about him. Nathan had an awful funny way of showing it, usually involving bloody knuckles.
When he first started hearing the disquieting rumors from people that bad things were once again happening in Haven, he came back. He'd made a promise, and vowed silently he'd know the consequences of all promises made in the future. He was surprised to see so much had changed and yet so much stayed the same. The first overture of friendship he'd made to Nathan had been accepted. They'd ended up trying to kill each other that afternoon. Duke realized he should have asked if Nathan's trouble was back before that trip they'd taken. He had forgotten that trying to fight back against a man that felt no pain was a losing proposition. He didn't understand why Nathan had gotten so angry with him over the matter. A dogfish is still a shark, and will act like one all its life. It wasn't like anyone had expected the smuggler to change his habits that late in his life. Except Nathan annoyingly had. Had wanted his not-friend to be better than he was.
He'd been equally shocked when he lay dying on the steps of the lighthouse to find that Nathan was the one that was trying to save him. He hadn't trusted the detective to do much but heckle him as he died. He'd trusted Audrey to find the solution, despite Nathan rather than with Nathan's help, if he were honest. Yet it was Nathan that had been telling him to stay, that had kept him alive when his body shut down. Maybe Nathan had been so angry on the boat not because of Audrey potentially being hurt by Duke's actions, but because Duke himself had been put in a life-threatening situation. No, he thought. Nathan's tirade at the hospital after that incident made the other man's feelings quite well known.
It had been Nathan that had likely kept him from being killed the night Evi died, though. He sometimes resented that the detective knew so much about him, could so accurately predict his actions. OK, so many of his actions were designed to piss off that man, but still, it was embarrassing. Nathan was so perfect, except he wasn't. He was a good man. A man you could trust if your name was anything other than Duke Crocker.
Worse yet he had begun to enjoy working with Audrey and Nathan, looking into the mystery that surrounded the town. At least he had until the night Evi died. Then everything changed, became so much more serious. Audrey's revolution was starting. What had been a bizarre, but enjoyable game and distraction suddenly became fraught with obligations and duties. Then he found out why his father had wanted him to return to town. He wondered what he'd done that his karma was that bad. He wished that things would just go back to the way they were a few months ago, the chided himself for it. Wishes had no bearing on reality. The reality was that he was upset that Nathan was dying, Audrey would have to be sliced and diced to save his life, and there was absolutely nothing Duke could do to help either one of them. Maybe it was time to leave them both to their fates. The reciprocity of friendship and love was painful.
He looked at his reflection in the glass he was polishing. Bland, approachable. Good. He would be so very glad when the shift was over. Maybe he should go home to his boat instead of crashing with Audrey. Damn bastard.
The Following Day
The bell over the Gull's front door chimed, making Duke look up. There were no patrons still lingering over a late breakfast and it'd be half an hour yet before anyone arrived for lunch, so the noise gave him a mild start. At least until he recognized his guest's uniform, if not face.
"Hi," the mail carrier said uncomfortably. "I'm covering for Meg Haskell, and I am a bit confused..." The man held out a large stack of mail. "Is there an apartment in this building?"
"My girlfriend's, yeah."
"Your girlfriend's?" The man looked relieved. "Do ya suppose she'd be okay with me leaving her mail with you?"
"Pretty sure. As long it is not actually a federal offense."
The mail carrier had to have been new, Duke decided, or he wouldn't have looked so uncertain. "I don't think so..."
Resisting the urge to shake his head, Duke held out his hands for the mail. "Here, in case you cover Meg's route again, let's get you sorted. I'm Duke Crocker, and I own the Grey Gull, so anything addressed to either goes in my box by the door. And Audrey Parker lives upstairs, so that mail goes in the box by her door up the stairs. "
If anything, the mail person looked even more confused. "Do you want me to go put the mail out in the boxes now?" he asked nervously.
So I can get it later, genius? Duke asked silently. "Next time," he said blandly instead, beginning to sort the mail into three piles.
"Oh, okay. Have a nice day," the mail carrier said before fleeing.
"Uh-huh, you too." Duke stopped sorting the mail long enough to turn on the TV for company while he got ready for the lunch rush.
The mail was mostly bills, but one envelope addressed Audrey gave him pause: the return address made it plain that it was the lab she'd sent the second set of DNA samples to. "Moment of truth, huh?" he asked no one.
No sooner did he put the letter on top of Audrey's stack did the TV steal his attention. A perky raven-haired anchor was giving a teaser for the noon news stories. "And in the women's prison an inmate has just died in an attempt to escape." Duke's eyes flew to the screen, but if they'd shown a picture of the attempted escapee, he'd missed it. "More on that story at twelve."
Somehow it came as no surprise when this phone immediately began to ring. He barely needed the glance at the caller's identity for confirmation. Oh please, he thought to himself in a rush. "Audrey?"
"Julia's dead," Audrey said without preamble.
"Good," he replied fiercely. "I'm glad it's over."
"They want me to go up there, identify the body."
"You're kidding," he said, a look of disbelief wasted on a phone exchange. "Don't they know who they shot?" He was only assuming that Julia had been shot, but it seemed logical. It wasn't like they bayoneted people who try to escape these days.
Audrey sighed. "It's a formality."
"You want me to go with you?"
"I don't even want to do it myself!" she exclaimed. "But... I don't know. They might let me talk to the people they caught trying to help her escape. That could take a while."
"What could you possibly have to say to them?" he blurted out.
"I want to know about Laverne's cousin for one."
"Oh." The look of mixed anger and anguish on the dispatcher's face floated to the front of his memory. "Do I have time to wait for someone to come and cover me?"
"Probably."
"Meet you at the station?"
She sounded deeply relieved when she said "thanks."
"No problem."
His eyes skimmed over the stacks of mail on the bar as he called someone and cover for him, but he forgot all about it by the time Jaime Hall arrived to take over.
There was a chill in the air, giving Audrey goose bumps in spite of her sweater. The last time she visited a morgue she'd been fortunate enough not to have to see any bodies, which made her like Dr. Salt better than the doctor currently leading them into the prison's basement. The fact that the prison had deaths often enough to need a morgue wasn't really something she wanted think about either.
As they reach their destination, Doctor Antal spoke for the first time since murmuring apologies about the necessity of dragging them out there. Antal eyed Duke. "Did you know the deceased too, Mr..."
"Crocker. And yes. Julia and I grew up together."
And then apart, Audrey thought ruefully. She gave his hand a reassuring squeeze.
"I'm sorry. I'm always sorry when someone comes to a bad end but the urge to apologize is stronger when it's a fellow doctor. We all like to think the people in our chosen profession are above reproach, but too often people of all stripes prove us wrong."
"No doubt," she said quietly because she knew he expected a response. The infallibility of other cops wasn't something she'd spent much time thinking about. Maybe she was still too new at the job to. That thought made her uneasy, though, despite her authentic past being something only a couple of people knew the truth of. As far as everyone else on the force knew, she'd been an FBI agent before becoming a cop, not someone who hadn't stuck with any job for longer than two years, ever.
They walked through a set of swinging doors and came to a halt in front of a row of metal drawers. "Ready?" Antal asked, looking at them with big sorrowful eyes.
He must hate this part of his job. "Yes." Duke's grip on her fingers tightened slightly and she didn't know who he was trying to comfort - her or himself.
When the drawer rolled out, she half expected Julia to sit up and cackle that they had finally fallen for one of her traps. But the dead woman just lay motionless, unbothered by the piece of her skull that was conspicuously missing.
Duke leaned down and whispered into Audrey's ear. "We need to tell Dwight."
She just nodded. The cleaner have lamented not taking a headshot, someone clearly had. He should know.
"This is Julia Carr?" Antal asked by rote.
"It's her," Audrey replied.
"That's Julia," Duke agreed.
"Okay then." To her relief, Antal pushed the drawer back in. "I just need a couple of signatures on a form..." He wandered off, fetching the clipboard from the next room. Audrey felt more than a little relief that the paperwork wasn't stored in the same room as the corpses.
"They're not sure one of the other ones is going to pull through," Antal said, startling her as she tried to hand back the clipboard a couple of minutes later.
"Someone else got injured?" Duke asked.
"Yep. Don't know what they expected to happened during a jailbreak..." the corner broke off, shaking his head.
Considering that the gravely injured party had followed the Driscolls she couldn't seem to summon up any sympathy. "Do you know what hospital they're being kept in?"
"Cumberland."
"Thanks. We're all set?"
Dr. Antal made a shooing motion. "Bye."
As soon as the morgue doors swung closed behind them and separated them from Doctor Antal, Duke gave her an expectant look. "Why were you so interested in knowing which hospital the idiot that tried to help Julia escape is in?"
"As a backup plan," she said, sounding smug. "If I can't talk to the ones being held in jail, it might be a good idea to stop over at Cumberland hospital to see the poor patient."
Once he thought about it, Duke really liked that idea. "You wouldn't have to talk to him as a cop, would you? None of that due process, 'I want my lawyer' BS."
"I'd just be a visitor," she confirmed.
"But would you be a visitor who could threaten to arrest the guy if he doesn't cooperate?"
"You could threaten to arrest him," she remarked, puzzling him. "Anyone could. It's selling the threat that's tricky."
"Okay, do you think you could sell it?"
"They know I'm a cop, and nothing anyone has done since going on the offense in the woods has proven any of them to be overly endowed in the brains department. I think it's possible I could make them believe that not telling me the truth would come across as believable to them."
"Then why don't we just start at the hospital?" he asked eagerly. It seemed like nicely asking another police department if they could speak to the uninjured members of Julia's merry band of scoundrels would be a waste of time in comparison.
She gave him a long look, like he was missing something that should have been blatantly obvious. "Did you talk to Nathan right after the gun went off?"
"Of course I did," he said, feeling mildly indignant. What sort of person would have refused to speak to someone who'd been badly injured?
"How coherent and productive a conversation was it?" she asked, before adding, "on his end."
It was considerate of her to clarify that, but overly generous considering his memories of babbling at Nathan while trying to figure out a way to keep the injured man from bleeding to death before the EMTs arrived. "Uh, not very."
"Exactly."
"I didn't think of that," he admitted. Immediately after being shot probably was a less than ideal time to be interrogated, even if you were sufficiently motivated to answer the questions asked. That was pretty disappointing.
Behind them the double doors swung open, making them both jump. "Oops, sorry," Doctor Antal apologized. Duke gave him a suspicious look, wondering how long he'd been listening to them. Antal's next words confirmed that he'd been eavesdropping, though not for how long. "I thought I overheard you mention someone else being shot?" he said, looking at Audrey for confirmation. She seemed at a loss to deny it and eventually nodded. "Right. Just in case I gave you the wrong impression, Ms. Carr was the only one shot today."
Audrey's brow furrowed, and Duke was sure that he looked confused himself. "Then why are they unsure if one of the people who helped her is going to live?"
Antal didn't look like he felt sorry for the man they were discussing. "The genius went for one of the guards and got tased. I think they probably all did in the end. But this fellow wasn't very healthy to begin with, and he had a heart attack as a result."
"Poor man," Audrey said flatly. Duke was pretty sure that the irony wasn't lost on her. It seemed highly fitting to him that someone who was okay with tasing people as a means to an end should be laid low by one themselves.
"So doc, what does that mean? Could he carry on a conversation?" Duke asked, hoping to find out something useful from the snooping doctor.
"Probably," Antal agreed. "He'll be very weak, but I wouldn't be surprised if he can speak to you."
"Good to know."
Turning to Audrey, the doctor gave her a tight smile. "I was sorry to hear what happened to you. And glad that you've seemed to get through it all right."
"More or less," she agreed.
Antal turned slightly pink as he went on. "I'm not...but you should know that there are those of us who worry about what will happen to those who are." For half a second Duke expected the doctor to tell her that she had friends outside of Haven or confess that his wife or best friend was troubled, but he didn't. Instead Antal just smiled at her. "I hope there will be more justice for what happened to you."
"Me too."
Duke himself wasn't overly concerned with the concept of justice as it pertained to the Driscolls' followers. If they decided to go Jonestown and rid the world of themselves, he'd be quite content with none of them ever seeing the inside of a cell. But somehow he didn't think that'd they'd politely go kill themselves no matter how convenient that'd be for the people they'd been plaguing.
"I'd better get back," the doctor said, going back through the doors.
"So..." Duke prompted once they were alone again.
"We're still going to the station first," she replied, to his disappointment. "But now we've got a better back up plan."
"You're the boss," he said, not prepared for the look of mild disdain she gave his remark.
"Hardly," she muttered.
