CURIOSITY PART VI
Jesse's apartment—2.04pm
Steve immediately went for the gun in his holster and held the others back. He begun to move forwards and looked around the door of the spare room to the living room. A man was there, hunting around the magazine son the table. "God, Jesse," someone said. It wasn't said with any harshness of anger, it was said sympathetically. "Where've you put it, Jess?" he kept on muttering to himself. No one answered though, of course. After a few minutes of hunting around, the man turned round slightly and Steve took a step forward. The ground below him creaked and the man looked up. He turned his head slightly. "Anyone there?" he asked.
Steve stepped out. "Sloan, LAPD, can you…"
But the man had already taken off, running toward the door. Steve took after him, not wanting to shoot the man if he could help it. That was the last thing he needed. He reached the door just as the man rounded the corner of the corridor and started down the stairs. Steve put on a burst of speed to reach the end of the corridor and catch up with him. The man got to the bottom and ran to a black Cadillac car. Fumbling with the keys, he got into the car and started it. He rode off as quickly as he could. Anders sighed; he had barely got away with it.
Steve, on the other hand, slammed his fist into the side of the stairs and didn't care about the pain. He walked back upstairs and met his father on the way up. He shook his head. "No go, the guy got away," he said in frustration. His lack of process in the case was annoying him. He had to get something concrete soon or else his captain would throw him off the case. His father could see the irritation in his son's attitude and voice. He put a hand on his shoulder.
"It was obvious that whoever this man was, he was looking for something. He was searching Jesse's apartment so there has to be something in there that we've overlooked," Mark insisted. He walked back inside. "Whatever it is, it has to be connected to this Daryl person and what Jesse was doing with him."
Amanda nodded. "I'm curious about this as well now. What was Jesse doing, having another person in his apartment which he never told us about and let alone never invited to come anywhere with us. I mean, was he a patient, which Jesse was looking after, some sort of old friend…"
"Or maybe it wasn't just our business to pry in at the time," Mark pointed out. "It had nothing to do with us. But it does now. So let's try and find what this person was looking for, and then get on track of Day Passer, whoever he is and how's he connected to Jesse."
Steve rolled his eyes. "Dad, I thought that was meant to be my job."
Mark grinned as Steve followed him and Amanda apart. Careful not to make the place a mess, they searched Jesse's apartment. Mark looked throughout the kitchen again, Steve searched Jesse's bedroom and the spare one and Amanda took care of the living room. They searched for the best part of forty-five minutes looking for anything, which could be of some importance. But it's difficult searching for something when you have no idea what you're looking for.
Steve sat back on his heels and sighed, shaking his head. The place seemed to turn up empty. He was in Daryl Passer's bedroom. Jesse's room had revealed nothing but the usual things like clothes and other personal necessities. Daryl's room had a little bit more apart from the substantial amount of medicine he held in the many drawers. There didn't seem anything else that could identify him. Steve wondered who he really was. As he was about to get up, his foot kicked something underneath the bed. Curious, he bent down to retrieve a show box lightly covered over. He took the top off and widened his eyes in surprise. "Dad! Amanda!" he called. "Maybe you should come in here."
Mark and Amanda came in almost immediately and looked at the contents that Steve had spilled out on the floor. "Where did you find it?" Mark asked.
"Under the bed."
"You didn't check under the bed first?" Amanda asked skeptically.
"Well, you'd think that if someone wanted to hide something they wouldn't put it in an obvious place," Steve said, giving her a sidelong glance. "I don't quite know what Daryl Passer was hiding but all this sure looks interesting." He picked up one of the newspaper clippings. Newly Founded lawyer, Daryl Passer, becomes Defense for the Whitney Ives Case. The picture in the small clipping showed a man walking down the stairs of a court with a woman beside him. Their heads were down so the cameras couldn't see them.
"Hey, look at the date," Amanda said pointing. "It's October 1997. That's last year. It's from Nevada." Steve nodded slowly and put the article aside. The next lot show some progresses from the case. It seemed that Daryl Passer was a new professional lawyer, doing what seemed like the big case of Nevada that year. He seemed to be doing pretty well for himself. It seemed that he'd won some of his cases.
Steve took out another clipping after going through half a dozen. Daryl Passer uncovers new evidence in front of the court-------Is Daryl Passer becoming the police as well as the lawyer?--------Daryl Passer's findings may be enough to bury him--------Then Steve saw it-------Attempts made on Daryl Passer's life.
Mark skim read the article. Daryl Passer, who has been working for at least two months on the Whitney Ives case, may find this is his last case. Police comments had said that attempts have been made on the young lawyer's life. There have been shootings in his house, bombings in his car and attempted assassinations. Daryl Passer—better known as Day—found important evidence in the trial against Marcus Lavoy who was being accused of killing and using his girlfriend, Whitney Ives. It seems that Marcus Lavoy will do anything to keep himself out of jail even if that meant killing Day Passer.
Yet another article—Trial against Marcus Lavoy—Maybe Day Passer isn't such a great lawyer as he thought. With the sudden attempts on his life, his case has been dropped and Marcus Lavoy is left to go free of charge. But Day Passer seems to have disappeared from sight. Sources claim that he has gone into the custody of the Witness Protection for some strange reason.
"Look at the date on that one: January this year. If Passer was in witness protection then what was Jesse dong with them?" Amanda asked.
"We've cleared something else up as well," Mark said. "Day Passer. Jesse wasn't talking about day as in night-and-day. He was talking about what Daryl was formerly known as. Jesse was doing something with Day here."
"Do you suppose this guy Marcus Lavoy has something to do with it?" Amanda asked.
Steve nodded. "I wouldn't be surprised." He picked up a tape from the bottom of the box. "I'm going to see what I can pick up on about Marcus Lavoy. This should prove to be very interesting as well. We'll have a listen to that later."
Amanda, Steve and Mark stood up. "At least we're somewhat closer."
Community General Hospital—6.27pm
Mark rubbed his eyes. His shift was ended, but not that he'd done anything special about them. There seemed hardly any patients to treat but the ones he did, he was distracted from. Mark knew he had to find something to distract himself from Jesse's condition. Every time he passed his room, he couldn't help but peeking in. Jesse hadn't moved from his position, his head slightly to the side and still asleep. The bruising and stitched up cuts on his face reminded him of what happened to him. He shook his head and walked away.
It was as he passed the lobby that he bumped into Norman again. Once again, the shorter man looked agitated. He hung around Mark until the doctor turned round and said, "What's wrong now, Norman."
Norman shook his head. "Steve was wrong, Mark. The nightmare is coming true. I had one of the senior nurses: she had the flu today and won't be coming back for another six weeks. Oh, God, they really are coming true."
Mark smiled and spread his hands. "I'm here. Amanda's still here."
Norman still looked worried. "You are now…But for how long…?" Worrying even more, he went off in his own direction. Mark opened the clipboard and looked through it carefully at the reception desk. He didn't seem a slender tall woman walk up to the reception. She was well dressed in a long coat from the cold that was outside. It was already growing dark outside and a strong wind was growing. She put her hands on the counter and got the receptionists attention.
"Um…hi, I'm looking for a Doctor Mark Sloan. I was told he worked here."
Mark turned round and nodded to the receptionist. "I'm Dr Sloan," he said, holding out his hand.
She took it. "Oh, coincidence. I'm Haley Johnson. Steve Sloan came to speak to me today. He said that if I asked for you, you'd be able to show me where Jesse was." Remembering his son's words to be careful around Haley Johnson, he simply smiled. Haley didn't look threatening or deceiving at all. Looking at her closely, Mark could see the traces of red around her eyes. She looked as though she had been crying all afternoon and Mark knew she surely couldn't have put on that.
Mark smiled. "Of course. You're Jesse's girlfriend, aren't you."
Haley nodded and followed Dr Mark Sloan towards the corridors. She personally thought he was a nice man. She followed him down the passageways towards ICU and opened the door for her.
She stopped dead when she saw Jesse. To Mark, he was just the same as he had been half an hour ago. Haley's mouth dropped opened and Mark could have sworn she was about to break down in tears again. "Oh, Jesse," she said, running forward, She was careful not to touch any of the wires on Jesse. She looked at him from close up, at his face and at all the connections to his body. "Is…is all this necessary?" she asked.
Mark shrugged. "Technically yes. He needs an IV for his dehydration. Don't worry, it's all standard procedure. As soon as he gets better, they'll be taken away."
Haley turned round to face Mark. "Will he get better?"
Mark sighed. He didn't know whether it was good to lie for her own benefit. He had never lied before in his life and suddenly thought that she might see through him. "Truth is, Haley, we don't really know. We have to see how he goes along."
Haley nodded and put her hand on Jesse's forehead, brushing a few strands of his blond hair. Jesse didn't stir. "You know, you don't really know love is until you're this close to losing it or already have."
"I know what you mean," Mark said quietly. Haley raised her eyebrows in surprise. "My wife, she died of cancer—some time ago now. But I took every day for granted as if we had the rest of our lives and nothing was going to go wrong. And now that I have lost her, I wish I'd made the most of it." Mark sighed, reliving the memory for a brief moment. He destroyed it suddenly. "But anyway…"
Haley smiled and looked back down at Jesse. "I made a mess of my last relationship. I thought Jesse would be able to pull me out of that and I could carry on with him. Strange isn't it. I really like Jesse."
Mark smiled. He liked Haley. "A lot of people like Jesse," he said. "You were lucky." His pager began to beep and he stopped it. "I'll leave you two. Just don't touch anything, all right, Haley?" Haley nodded but she barely heard. Mark ran out of the ICU room and towards the pathology labs where Amanda had called him. She seemed to think it was somewhat urgent.
Haley took up a small chair by the side of Jesse and sat down. She took his hand and tried not to cry again. She had been crying all afternoon, especially after Carlos had left. In her sudden anger, she picked up all the pictures on that mantelpiece and smashed them all apart from the ones with Jesse. Then, she picked them up and tore them before she regretted what she had done and swept all the glass away. Finally, after all the adrenaline had gone, she sank down on the sofa and began to cry. She couldn't believe that she had gone along with Marcus's plan at first. It seemed so easy. So easy…and yet the more time she spent with Jesse, the more she found she loved him.
Haley remembered all the times she had been teased lightly because she was blond, beautiful and got anyone she wanted. She wanted Marcus at first but then came Jesse. Haley was scared that Jesse would become like all the other boyfriends that came around—would she have got bored of Jesse. But after two months of working for Marcus and being with Jesse, she knew she liked him. It was a different relationship to Marcus'. Then came two nights ago. Unwilling, she passed all the information along and got Jesse into trouble.
She leaned forward, holding Jesse's hand. She leant close to Jesse's hear. "Hey, Jess. It's Haley." She paused not quite knowing what to say. "I know you hate me, Jesse. You have every right to hate me. I hate myself as well. You don't know how guilty I feel about what I've done. But I was scared, Jess. You couldn't imagine how it was. They were going to kill me but I had no idea that he would have done this to you." Another tear slipped down her cheek and she intertwined her fingers with Jesse's. "If I had known, I would have stopped before but then it was too late. If I had said anything they would have shot both of us."
Haley took a shuddered breath and looked back at Jesse. "You know that if there was anything I could do to stop you from ever hurting, I would. You remembered me talking to you in the warehouse when we were alone. I know you're mad at me…I know you are, Jesse, but I'm sorry. I'm sorry about everything. I almost wish I hadn't met you and then this whole mess wouldn't have happened. It should never have happened to you anyway. You're innocent of this and I just dragged you even deeper. When all this is over, I'm going to leave and never come back. You can carry on and you'll forget about me and you'll probably be glad."
Haley closed her eyes once and wiped them with her finger. "But either way, Jess, I love you. I will always love you." She leaned closer to Jesse and kissed him lightly just to let him know. "Wake up, Jess. Everyone is worried. Me and all your friends here…"
Mark had left Haley to Jesse. He wasn't particularly worried now. Despite Steve's warning that she could be a potential threat, he believed that she wouldn't do anything to Jesse. Her attitude seemed real enough and Mark had always been a good judge of character. He left Haley and then ran to the pathology labs. Amanda beeped him another time along the way and by the time he got there, he was practically out of breath. Amanda was wearing her blue uniform and blood was splattered down it. She was just about to page Mark again. In front of her was a body, dead white and lifeless, as usual.
"Mark!" she said.
"Amanda," Mark said in confusion. "What's wrong? Anyone would have thought you were dying in here with the amount of times you were paging me."
Amanda put down her pager and smiled. "Sorry, Mark, it's just that this was a little urgent and I thought I'd might like to tell you. You know that body which LAPD picked up today, the one that Steve's captain wanted him to do the case on?" Mark nodded, remembering what Steve had told them that morning. "Well, I just did this autopsy and I found some very strange things which match up with the chemicals inside his body. I've worked out who he is by barely leaving the room."
Mark shrugged. "So, who is?"
Amanda let out a sigh. "I think this is Day Passer."
Mark looked at her in shock and then down at the body. "How can you be sure?" He simply couldn't believe that! Had Amanda really worked out who Day Passer was and that he was dead in front of them on the table. Mark was still recovering from the shock when Amanda started speaking again. Things were happening so fast.
"Well for one, he had diabetes. His blood sugar was too low and he drank a bit. There was insulin at Day's house, which I have here. Secondly, there were paracetamols and stress relievers in Jesse's apartment which I have also found traces of in his body. And thirdly…"
Mark held up his hands. "All right, I believe you." He looked down at the body. "He does look like the man in the photographs."
"Male, twenty eight, light brown hair…most of it matches up. I couldn't get any blood samples or dental records."
"Well, they would have erased that if he was in the witness protection program." Mark sighed and put a hand on the table behind him. "That means that everything is slowly falling apart. Jesse, who he was staying with, is in serious condition. The case or protection that Day Passer was up against has suddenly blown up in smoke."
