"Are you okay?" Elliot had asked, pulling back. She grimaced.
"We might have to postpone this," she had said regretfully.
Now she was asleep again and Elliot sat in the chair beside her bed, not willing to go home and leave her, not able to fall asleep in the uncomfortable seat. Something in him felt hurt, and he wasn't sure why. He wasn't worried about her, she'd be out of the hospital the next day and she was tough anyway, tenacious. But the thought of a baby changed everything. She was right, he knew that. She would've had to quit her job and the same thing would've happened to them as had happened to Kathy and him.
He looked at Olivia's sleeping face and felt a stab of pain. She hadn't told him. She hadn't trusted him. He might've never found out. It hurt that she was willing to let that lie stay between them always. And, God help him, he still loved her.
He shook himself and tried to focus on the case. He could sort this thing with Liv out later, but they needed to catch this bastard before he struck again. It had been personal from the beginning, but it pissed him off even more that this guy had the nerve to attack Olivia, and almost kill her. If only he could figure out where he knew this guy from.
The door opened, casting a beam of florescent light on Olivia's bed. Elliot glanced up to see a priest enter. He made his way past her bed to the adjacent one and pulled the curtain open. Another patient had been moved in earlier, a cancer patient in her last days. Elliot saw the priest's shadow through the curtain. He sat down beside the other patient's bed and began to mumble.
Salve Regina,
Mater misericordiae
Vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
Elliot found himself joining in quietly. He hadn't spoken the words for years,
Ad te clamamus, exsules filii Hevae;
Ad te suspiramus gementes et flentes in hac lacrymarum valle.
The words were relaxing and flowed freely.
Eia ergo advocata nostra, illos tuos misericordes oculos ad nos converte.
Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui, nobis post hoc exsilium ostende.
O Clemens, O pia,
O dulcis Maria.
Olivia opened her eyes slowly in the dark and Elliot stopped.
"Sorry. Did I wake you up?"
"No. I wasn't really sleeping," she lied, "What were you saying?"
"Just something I picked up back in catchesim classes."
"Ah, the good, old-fashioned Catholic upbringing," she smiled. Elliot's eyes opened wider as an idea came into his head. It was crazy and far-fetched, but it just might be right.
"My Catholic upbringing," he said quietly.
"What?" She asked.
"I've got to make some calls. Get some sleep. I'll be back soon," he said, standing up quickly. He started out, then turned back and kissed her on the forehead as an afterthought. She was already falling asleep.
**********
"Hello?" The voice on the other end was bleary.
"Hi, mom?" Elliot was on his cell phone in his car.
"Elliot?"
"Sorry to wake you. I'm coming over."
"Now?"
"It's important. I need to find some stuff from my catchesim," he said.
"Honey, I don't know where it is. Your father put it all away when you left the church. Don't tell me you're converting back..."
"Sorry. It's for a case I'm working."
"Well, okay. But your father won't be happy."
Elliot shut off his phone.
**********
He found the list in a box in his parents' basement.
"C, C, C, C, " he mumbled as he ran his finger down it. There were three names with beginning or last names of C. He wrote down the names, addresses, and phone numbers in his notebook, and left quietly. Try as he might, he couldn't remember any of these guys. Catholic school was a repressed memory for him.
**********
Colin watched CNN with great interest. The coverage of the incident was minimal. It lasted about a minute and came on after the headline news. He slammed a fist against the wall.
No one was going to stop doing it with this kind of coverage. Nobody saw it. And they mentioned survivors.
Colin was displeased. It had been a shoddy job on his part. He had to fix his mistakes.