(Chapter 15. CGH, Redondo Beach. March 17.)
Steve drifted slowly back to consciousness. He felt dopey, and queasy, and all of the other dwarves surrounding him. Smiling goofily at his own drug- induced witticism, he heard a familiar voice say, "Look, he's coming around." He felt a gentle hand brush the hair off his face, and opened his eyes to see Olivia and Jesse, the two shortest adults he had ever known, watching him with great concern.
He started to laugh, then groaned, and wrapped his arms protectively about him as sore abdominal muscles protested the strain. The pain brought with it a fresh wave of nausea, and the next thing he knew, he was spitting up dark blood in an emesis basin that Liv had magically produced. Jesse handed him a glass of water and said curtly, "Rinse and spit, don't drink it."
He meekly followed doctor's orders.
With his rebellious stomach finally subdued, at least for the moment, he lay back against the pillows and looked back and forth from one of his friends to the other. Between Liv's worried look, and the thundercloud cloaking Jesse's features, he knew he was in big trouble and it wasn't just due to his illness.
Needing to know what was going on, he finally asked, "What?"
"Dammit all, Steve!" Jesse exploded. "What in the *hell* were you thinking? Isn't it enough that we have to put you back together every time the bad guys shoot you up, cut you up, and beat you up? Why do you have to go and be stupid on top of it all and tear *yourself* up? There is *no* way in *hell* you didn't know you were ill, and there is no excuse for not seeking treatment before now."
Steve hadn't seen his friend so angry since after he'd returned from Utah years ago, convinced aliens had abducted him, and no one had believed him.
"Jess..."
"Oh, just shut up, will you?"
"Dr. Travis!" Olivia was angry, too, which didn't happen often, and so got everyone's attention when it did. "Just which journal have you been reading that has lately discussed the therapeutic effects of cursing, insulting, and browbeating your patients? I'd really like to know, because I seem to have missed that article."
The room was silent a moment, then Liv's voice cut the air again, demanding, "Please, I'd really like to know."
All the fire left Jesse's eyes, his posture shifted, and his expression softened. Taking a deep breath, he apologized. "I'm sorry, Steve. I was just worried, and truth be told, I can't believe you didn't realize something was wrong."
"It's ok, Jess." Steve felt sorry for his friend. He'd only been on the receiving end of Olivia's fury a couple of times thirty years ago, and he still remembered what an unpleasant experience it could be. "I guess I did know, but I convinced myself it was just nerves. I was going to come in for my checkup as soon as we brought Emily in and got Moretti safely tucked away, but I didn't quite make it that long."
"You sure didn't," Jesse agreed, "So, how are you feeling?"
"Like two of the seven dwarves," Steve answered, grinning slightly, but remembering not to laugh. When Jesse and Liv exchanged a confused look, he said, "Dopey and Queasy."
Olivia and Jesse both smiled, and Liv said, "I'm glad you're in good spirits, but you really are quite ill, Steve."
"Yeah," Jess said, "and everybody knows their names are Dopey, Happy, Sleepy, Sneezey, Grumpy, Bashful, and Doc. There is no Queasy."
"There is now." At that moment, Steve felt his stomach lurch again, and he had just time enough to say, "Sick," before he was heaving again. Liv got him a basin just in time, and this time when he puked, the blood was bright red.
He felt Olivia's gentle fingers stroking his hair as he hung over the edge of the gurney retching and heard Jesse sigh and say, "So much for the Compazine."
"We've got to do something now, Jess. We can't wait for Lauren to get Mark here or for Maribeth and Steven to finish up in the OR."
"Endoscopy?"
"Hell, yes, he doesn't even have to fast. With all the vomiting he's been doing, his stomach's got to be empty now. All he's bringing up is blood. There's no sense in doing an upper GI series now as that will only indicate the need for a gastroscopy anyway."
Steve didn't understand half of what she said, but he knew from Liv's choice of words that it was urgent. She almost never swore.
"I'll get the exam room ready, you explain the procedure."
Olivia's wry tone of voice as she said, "Thanks a lot," was all Steve needed to know it was going to be horrible.
"That son of a *bitch*!" Emily yelled as she burst into the house at Redondo Beach.
"What happened?" Moretti asked, "He set ya up again?"
"No. He got sick on me." She threw her hat in the general direction of the coat rack and sat down to yank off her boots.
"What, he puked on ya," Moretti said as he picked up the hat and put it on a hook. "That why you're not wearin' your coat?"
"Yes! No! He didn't puke *on* me, but, yeah, he was spitting up blood. I used his cell phone to call an ambulance, and left the coat behind to cover him up. I think he was in shock." The curly brown wig came off, and she started yanking out hairpins to let her braid down.
"Oh, Emmy, that's no good."
"No shit!" She removed her glasses and jewelry.
"So what ya gonna do now?"
"I don't know," she said, as she started stripping, completely unmindful of her audience.
Moretti was getting concerned. Her sweater was coming off. When he'd first met Emmy, he wouldn't have thought twice about ogling her as she stripped, but now, he couldn't be so lecherous to a woman for whom he had found so much admiration, respect, trust, and, if he were honest, affection. He knew she'd be mad if he turned his back on her, and she was already so angry he was afraid to interrupt, but if that body suit started to come off, he would start to feel like a dirty old man.
Suddenly, he wondered when he'd started to think there was something dirty about watching a beautiful young woman get naked. Surprised, he realized it was when he had started to see Emmy as more than just a beautiful young woman. He gulped as the jeans came down. She was stunning, he mused, transfixed, but she was also tough and funny and smart as a whip, and if some gawker forgot all that just because she had a great ass, decent knockers, incredible eyes, and gorgeous red hair, he didn't deserve the time of day from her.
Emmy was a package deal, he realized. You didn't get the outside unless you could appreciate what was inside. Someday, she would make some young man very happy. If he were only thirty years younger…
He breathed a sigh of relief as she collected her things and went into her room. If he were thirty years younger, she'd have separated him from his scrotum the first time he tried to hit on her. Thirty years ago, he'd been a louse, and she'd have had nothing to do with him. Hell, two weeks ago, he'd been a louse, and she'd risked her life and her career to save his worthless tail, but he knew all he was to her was an unwelcome responsibility. He thought about his grandson, and wondered if she liked younger men, and if she did, would the kid ever have a chance with such a force of nature as Em.
Emmy interrupted his musings when she came out dressed in a sports bra, tight black biker shorts, and a weightlifter's belt. Her braid hung past her waist, and she was wiping her face with a makeup removal cloth. She was clearly getting ready for a workout. They had set up a small gym in the garage, and Emily had already started taking full advantage of it. She'd been trying without much success to get Moretti to do the same by asking him to join her in the garage on whatever slim pretext she could invent.
She strolled over to the kitchen, and tossed the cloth in the trash and said, "Well, I'm going downstairs. I think better when I'm moving. Come see the car I got us. It's a hoot." At least this time, she thought with a smile, it wasn't a pretext. She knew Moretti would be interested in the car.
When Liv explained the upper GI series, Steve was grateful that he didn't have to drink the chalky liquid she described. He really didn't think he could hold it down, but when she described the gastroscopy, he initially panicked and refused the procedure.
"There's got to be another alternative, Liv," he pleaded.
She nodded, conceding the point. "There's always another alternative, Steve."
He breathed easier for a moment.
"As I see it, you have four choices. We've already agreed the upper GI series won't work, right?"
He nodded.
"Ok, the gastroscopy. You've already done the prep for it. The entire procedure takes about thirty minutes to an hour, depending on what we find and what we decide to do about it. Recovery takes about twenty-four hours to get all the drugs out of your system."
Steve shook his head. "I don't want you sticking a tube down my throat!"
"Ok, relax. Exploratory surgery is an option. There's a much higher risk of complications because it's more invasive, and recovery takes two weeks to a month *if* everything goes *perfectly*."
Steve sighed and said, "Olivia, you know I can't be out of commission that long."
She nodded and said, "I realize that, Steve, but there is one more, really simple thing we can do to find out what's wrong."
If he hadn't been drugged, he'd have heard the sarcasm in her voice, but, stupidly, he asked, "What's that?"
"Wait until you die and have Amanda perform an autopsy," she snapped.
"That's not funny, Liv," he told her.
"It's not a joke," she replied.
"Are you sure you're not exaggerating?" He tried to remain hopeful.
"Nope." She showed him the product of his last bout of nausea and the smell of blood almost had him retching again. Quickly, she put the basin away.
"Steve," she said more gently, "I'm sorry about that, but I wanted to make you realize, when you're spitting up that much blood, and it's that bright red, there is something very seriously wrong, and it's not going to get better by itself."
He refused to look at her.
She put her hand to the back of his neck, and gently massaged the muscles there.
"If you let us do the gastroscopy, we'll know within the hour what's wrong, and we'll be able to do something about it."
He leaned against her then, and asked softly, "Will you be there?"
"Sure."
Jesse came in then.
"So, are we ready?"
Liv gave Steve a gentle squeeze around the shoulders, and he said, "Yeah."
Moretti stopped short as he entered the garage.
"Oh, shit! Ya bought an old Viper," he exclaimed, his eyes aglow like a kid's at Christmas.
Emmy laughed, and said, "Keys are in it, go start it up for a bit."
Moretti went around the car and admired it first. It looked sleek and powerful, an awesome machine. It wasn't blue, and it wasn't black. It was one of those nameless shades between that came into the night sky after the red of the sunset had faded over the Pacific.
Reverently, Moretti settled himself behind the wheel. He wouldn't start the car because then he'd *have* to drive it, and since he wasn't wearing any sort of disguise right now, he really shouldn't go outside, but he could sit behind the wheel, shift through the gears, and imagine. His right hand grasped the gearshift at his side, and he put his foot on the brake. As he felt around for the clutch with his toes, his foot slipped off the brake and descended into empty air. Confused, he examined the car closer.
Snorting with indignation, he shouted, "It's a freakin' automatic!"
Emily was stretching before she started her workout. "Told you it was a hoot. Some jackass dropped out the original manual six-speed to put it in. Pop the hood and take a look at the engine," she laughed. "It gets better, or worse, depending on your point of view."
Olivia and Jesse helped Steve climb up onto the exam table in the endoscopy lab. As he sat there, Jesse handed him a small plastic dosage cup of white stuff which he swallowed and struggled a moment to keep down. A self- inflating blood pressure cuff was wrapped around his right arm, and a tape thermometer was stuck to his forehead. Then Jesse and Olivia hooked him up to an EKG monitor and put a device on his index finger to monitor his pulse rate and oxygen.
"Is all this really necessary?"
Liv smiled. "The EKG has you worried, doesn't it?"
Steve nodded. "If this is really no big deal, I don't understand why you need to monitor my heart."
"The EKG and pulse oximeter give us an indication of how well you're tolerating the anesthesia as well as the procedure," Olivia explained. "We don't want you too heavily sedated because then you'll have trouble breathing, and if you get too agitated, we'll know you need a little more Versed."
"Versed?"
"It's a tranquilizer. Been on the market, oh, at least forty or fifty years. I've never had a patient have a problem with it."
"But Liv, you're an orthopedic surgeon."
She laughed, and said, "Primarily, yes, but you remember what a small town Punxy is, don't you? Nobody specializes exclusively in one type of practice, because there aren't really enough patients in the area to support a bunch of specialists. I've done a lot of internal medicine and family practice over the years."
"Oh."
Jesse had him open his mouth and hold his breath. "Don't swallow until I tell you."
A bitter liquid sprayed into the back of his throat, and he made a face. When Jesse told him, he started swallowing, and his throat suddenly went numb. When swallowing became difficult, he grew worried and told Jesse so.
"That's what's supposed to happen," Jesse reassured him, "so you don't gag on the scope."
As Olivia inserted an IV catheter in the back of his left hand he asked, "Are you sure we can't wait for my dad or Maribeth?"
"No, Steve, we can't," Jesse told him. "It's going to take Lauren a while to get to Malibu and back with your dad, and there's no telling how long Maribeth and Steven are going to be working on that motorcycle rider. If it were just the dark blood that indicates a slow bleed, maybe we'd wait, but so much bright red blood indicates ongoing, moderate to heavy bleeding. You may have an esophageal erosion or a tear, or some kind of bleeding in your stomach, and whatever it is, it *will* get worse until we do something about it." Looking at him with concern, Jesse said, "We need to deal with this as quickly as possible. If we wait, it could get worse, and major surgery could become necessary, do you understand?"
Steve nodded. "It just sounds so…unpleasant."
Olivia put a hand on his shoulder, smiled gently, and asked, "Steve, do you trust me?"
"Always." All of a sudden, he was taken back thirty years. Now, as then, her touch, her voice, and her smile soothed him, calmed him, and replaced doubt and uncertainty with strength and confidence. He had never had less than absolute trust in Jesse and his abilities, but as long as Olivia was there, he *knew* he would be ok.
"Then believe me when I tell you, the worst part of this procedure is imagining the worst. You'll probably sleep through most of it, and when you wake up, we'll have fixed what we can, and figured out what to do about the rest."
"Ok," he nodded, and promptly lay back on the exam table, which was slightly elevated at the head and shoulders.
As Jesse positioned him slightly turned on his left side with a small cushion under his head, Steve heard him mutter to Liv, "It still amazes me how you do that."
Liv smiled back at him across the table as she slipped a needle into the catheter in the back of Steve's hand. "It's the eyes," she said.
Steve wanted to explain to them that is wasn't the eyes, but the voice, the smile, and the touch that engendered so much trust, but the drugs, whatever they were, were already taking affect.
Moretti lifted the hood as Emmy settled herself on the Bowflex machine, and he was appalled. "*What * in *the hell* is this?"
Emily exhaled as she pushed against the Bowflex, and said, "An ethanol- electric hybrid engine."
"I see that," Moretti said, disgustedly. "They ruined this car, Em."
"Yup."
"I'm all for protectin' the environment, y'know," he rambled. "I grew up here in LA, and I can remember the days when I went out in a white shirt and came home in a gray one 'cause of the air pollution, but, hell, this is a *Viper*, for cryin' out loud."
"Yup," Emmy agreed as she adjusted the Bowflex for a different exercise. "It's a 2002 GTS Final Edition coupe, to be exact, though I have to admit, I prefer this new paint job to the original red with white racing stripes. I book marked a site on my laptop where you can read all about it." She settled back on the machine, grabbed the handles, crossed her arms over her chest, and started doing crunches.
"The paint job I can live with," Moretti conceded. "But, Em, this thing is *s'posed* to be a bad boy."
"Yup," she said, as she curled forward in her crunch.
"It's *s'posed* to run on gasoline…"
"Yup."
"…and belch exhaust…"
"Yup."
"…and growl when it idles, roar when it accelerates, and scream like a damned jet engine when it's cruisin'."
"Yup, yup, yup."
"But some *idiot* has turned it into an overgrown…"
Moretti sputtered and gestured futilely in the air, unable to find the words to express his horror.
"Flashlight?" Emily suggested, as she sat up from her last crunch.
"Yup," Moretti agreed dejectedly, as he kicked a tire and leaned on the fender.
"Does it make you feel any better to know it can still go zero to sixty in five point two and cruise comfortably at a hundred and ninety miles per hour?"
"A little," he said, smiling slightly, "but not much."
"How about this, then," Emily said as she moved to the weight bench. She loved the Bowflex for most of her strength training, but only the barbell would satisfy her for bench pressing. "It originally retailed for seventy- six grand, the dealer priced it at sixty-five, and after I showed him on my laptop all the ways it had been done wrong, he sold it to me for fifty- five. When this is all over, if I decide to keep it, payments will be less than fifteen hundred a month."
Moretti moved over to spot her. He knew she could easily bench twice her body weight, he'd seen her do so at the motel gym in Anaheim; but he'd once killed a man by dropping the barbell on his throat when he was lifting, and since the first time he'd seem Emmy work out, the image had been strong in his mind. He'd hate to see the kid die in such an easily preventable mishap.
"I s'pose that's a deal," he hedged, "but it's kinda like buyin' 'bloopers' underwear. It'll do the job, but it just ain't right."
"But unlike second-rate briefs and bras, I can fix this some day, and make her like new, though I think I'll keep the paint job."
Moretti glanced over at the car. "It is a cool color."
"Ok, Steve," Olivia said gently several minutes later, "that was the Demerol. It's a pain killer, so you should be feeling pretty good by now."
"Mmmm-hmmm."
He heard her laugh, but she was a long way away.
"This is the Versed, Steve. It's a tranquilizer, remember? If you start to feel sleepy, don't fight it. Just relax."
"Uh-huuuuhhh."
"Given that he's already had Compazine, and considering his history of heart disease and the recent blood loss, I only gave him half the dose of each drug, Jess."
The combined drugs in his system were beginning to take effect, and Jesse's words were scrambled, but Steve understood that they were going to watch carefully to make sure he was comfortable. Then he blacked out for a while.
"So," Moretti asked as he held the heavy punching bag for Emily, "wanna tell me what happened wit' the Chief?"
"The DAMN fool TRIED to TALK to me," Emily grunted as she punched.
"What's wrong wit' that?"
"LOTS of things."
"Like what?"
"He COULD have BLOWN my COVER. If the WRONG PEOPLE SAW me," she landed three fast, hard punches, "and TRACKED me BACK here, YOU could get KILLED. I am TECHnically a DIRty COP, now, and SOME people could USE that aGAINST him."
"He's no fool, Em," Moretti reminded her. "He'd never have gotten as far as he is if he was. He knew the risks, and probably had all the angles covered."
"I don't THINK so," she argued. "I THINK he was being a STUpid, STUBborn JACKass and JUST WANTed to PROVE he could SPOT me."
"Ok, ok, so, he spotted ya and came over to talk, and…"
Steve drifted back to consciousness for a few moments. He could feel the tube down his throat, and there was something in his mouth keeping his jaws open. It felt weird, but it didn't hurt, and it didn't really cause him any discomfort, so, he decided Liv was right. His imagination was the worst part of the whole thing. Jess said, "…deep tear in the esophagus…cauterize…" Then Olivia said, "…wait…more Versed…" and he was out again.
"…then I COVered him with my COAT, got some TOURists to look AFTer him, and CAUGHT the BUS outta there."
"So, whaddya think is wrong wit' him?"
"PRObably an ULcer."
Emmy was still pissed off and trying to beat the stuffing out of the heavy bag. Moretti had no doubt she was imagining it was Deputy Chief Sloan.
"CALLED MY MOM," she landed three more heavy blows in succession "and TOLD her he was ILL and that SHE should take CARE OF HIM," again with the three hard shots. "I KNOW her SKILLS and I can COUNT ON HER." The series of threes were coming more often. If anything, this workout was making her anger build, not helping her work it off. "She SHOULD be able to MAKE HIM BETTER."
"What if she can't help him?"
Emily didn't answer, she just screamed in frustration and pounded the hell out of the punching bag.
Steve surfaced again for a moment. He felt bloated, and heard Jesse say, "…little more air…get a good view," and realized that his stomach was being inflated like a basketball. Before he could get concerned about this, he drifted off.
"AUGHHH!!!!" Emily wailed as her blows landed too fast for Moretti to count. The last few were so hard that they staggered him. Then she shoved the bag, knocking him completely off balance so that he had to let go and step away. Throwing her gloves in the corner, she flopped down on the weight bench and said, "If that damn dumb *bastard* had just stayed away from me, he wouldn't have gotten sick, and everything would still be running smoothly."
Moretti couldn't help himself. He knew it was dangerous, but he had to laugh aloud. He simply couldn't contain it.
"What the *hell* is so funny?"
"Oh, lotsa things."
Emily smiled, though she was still plainly angry, too.
"Like what?"
"Well, first of all, ya idolize this guy, and here ya are, callin' him SOB and 'stupid, stubborn jackass,' and a 'damn dumb bastard'. Whudja say if he was here?"
Emily had the grace to blush. "Probably not a thing…until he left."
Moretti laughed harder, and Emmy grinned.
"Ok, Moretti, what else? You said there were lots of things to laugh at, and I need a laugh right now."
"Ya said everything would still be runnin' smoothly if he hadn't gotten sick."
"Yeah?"
"Em, things haven't been runnin' smoothly for ya since ya saddled yourself wit' me. I'm grateful for the protection and all, and really appreciate your help in gettin' back in shape, but I know I been nothing but trouble since ya met me."
"Believe it or not, I'm learning to enjoy your company."
"I know. I kinda grow on people."
"Yeah," Em grinned, "like athlete's foot."
"Hah-hah." Moretti said sarcastically, but kept laughing for real, too, and Em knew there was more.
"Ok, Moretti, what else?"
Steve heard the words "gastric ulcer" and "biopsy". He knew they did biopsies to check for cancer, and he tried to ask Jesse what he'd found, but the tube was in the way. "Just relax, Steve," Olivia said. "You're doing fine."
He sunk into unconsciousness again.
Moretti sat on the weight bench beside her. "Emmy, you ain't half the bad ass ya think ya are."
When she narrowed her eyes and cocked an eyebrow at him, he thought it would be safer to move away, so he stood and leaned against the car.
"You're tougher'n any man I know, Em, and you're smart, and ya throw a mean left. You're the only woman I ever been afraid to piss off, but there ain't no man gonna puke blood just from talkin' to ya."
She looked confused, and he knew she'd already forgotten what she'd said.
"Well, ya said if he'd a just stayed away from ya he wouldn't a gotten sick," Moretti explained with a grin. "I think he musta been sick already. Ya don't just start pukin' up blood on the spot, do ya?"
"No, you don't," Emily said, and she started to chuckle. "That was a stupid thing to say, wasn't it?"
"Yep."
Steve squirmed a bit. He could feel something move down his throat, and he heard Jesse say, "…biggest duodenal ulcer I've ever seen…" Someone rubbed his shoulder and Olivia said, "It's almost over, Steve, you're doing fine. Jess, I'm going to give him a little more Versed." Jesse nodded, and said, "I'm going to take a culture to test for H. pylori." Soon everything went dark again.
Emily was on the treadmill, now, and Moretti stood in front of her.
"So, what ya gonna do?"
Pulling an envelope out of her hip pocket, she said, "While I read the chief's plan, I'm gonna run eight miles, see if I can sprint the last 500 yards, and then take a shower. Then I'll decide what to do next."
Steve felt something coming up his throat and for a moment, he thought he was throwing up again. Then he opened his eyes and saw Jesse holding the end of the scope in his hand. Jesse reached in his mouth and removed something, and Steve felt his jaws close. Jesse looked down at him then, smiled, and said, "It's all over buddy. You can just rest now."
Steve smiled back, nodded slightly, and closed his eyes. Some time later he heard Olivia and Jesse conversing. He couldn't seem to open his eyes to see them, but he recognized their voices.
"Amanda's going to rush the biopsy and culture results," Jesse said.
"That's good. I'm pretty sure he heard you when you mentioned the biopsy, and he'll be worried," Liv replied.
There was a pause, then Olivia said, "You know, Jess, we're going to have to put him on an NG-tube for a few days for enteral feeding. Cauterization stopped the bleeding, but that tear in the esophagus needs time to heal. Any other doctor would have gone straight for open surgery when he saw how deep it was."
"Are you saying that's what I should have done?" Jess sounded defensive.
Steve fought to wake fully. He didn't understand a thing Liv and Jess were saying, and he wasn't sure if it was the drugs, the medical lingo, or something wrong with him. He did know what they were discussing sounded particularly unpleasant, though, and he really didn't want them to get in an argument over him.
"God, no, Jess. I'm saying no other doctor has the skills to handle something like that through the scope."
"Oh."
Steve was relieved. He loved the way Liv could smooth something over so easily, and more importantly, he knew she meant what she said. She always meant everything she said.
"He's going to hate it," Jesse said.
Steve finally got his eyes open to watch them discuss what they were going to do to him next. The look on Liv's face was sympathetic and concerned, but determined.
"It's the most effective, least invasive procedure, Jess. He shouldn't be trying to swallow past that tear right now, and TPN or a gastrostomy would just be too radical. You know I'm right, Jess."
"What about a liquid diet?"
Liv gave him a 'what kind of silly question is that' look and said, "You know he should be kept NPO for at least a couple of days to avoid any stress on that tear."
All the strange words were making Steve's head swim. He tried to ask what NPO meant, but it came out an unintelligible jumble. Instantly Liv was there, sitting on the stool that was placed beside him. "Hey there. You've been listening, haven't you?"
Steve nodded and his head went all swimmy again. He squeezed his eyes shut and held on to Liv and the exam table to make the world stand still. With supreme effort, he focused and asked simply, "NPOoooo?"
"It's Latin, Steve, *Nil Per Os*," she said. "It means no food or drink through your mouth."
"Whyyyy?"
"You had a deep tear in your esophagus where it meets the stomach. I managed to stop the bleeding, but you need to rest the damaged tissues for a little while," Jesse explained, as he came to stand behind Liv to be in Steve's line of sight.
"Okayyy." Steve smiled, pleased to find that he could understand them when they spoke English.
"Do you want to know more," Liv asked.
"Yeahhh." Steve thought a moment. It was hard. Then he remembered more letters. "TPN en en?"
He was sure he'd said it wrong, and Liv and Jesse's matching smiles confirmed his suspicion.
"Total Parenteral Nutrition," Jesse said. "It means intravenous feeding, but we're not going to do that. It can be hard on your liver, pancreas, and other digestive organs."
"Ohhhh." Steve struggled to remember. They had talked about something else. "Gas…Gast…Gastronono…" It seemed like his mouth was stuck. "…nononomy."
Olivia laughed gently, and Steve smiled back at her. He knew the drugs were making him goofy, and he didn't blame her and Jesse for laughing. He was grateful that they were taking the time to patiently answer his questions rather than telling him to 'just relax'. It was hard to relax when he was worried about what was to come next.
"Gastrostomy. We aren't going to do that either, Steve. It's an operation to put a feeding tube directly into your stomach through the abdominal wall."
"Nooo!" Steve struggled feebly to get away, but both Liv and Jesse grabbed him.
Liv held his head between her hands and looked directly into his eyes. "Easy, babe. I said we are NOT going to do that. We are NOT going to do it, Steve. Do you understand me? We're NOT going to operate."
He stopped struggling and looked at her. "No operationion?"
She smiled sweetly. "No, Steve, no operationion."
He giggled then and said, "You talk funny."
She laughed and said, "So do you. Do you have any more questions?"
He shook his head no, and when he stopped, everything in the room started moving. "Oooh. Dizzzzy." He closed his eyes.
He heard Jesse say, "Ok, buddy. You need to rest a little more. Liv and I will be right here." Then he felt his head and shoulders move up a little as he heard someone adjust the exam table.
"Thanks," he said, and smiled, before drifting off again.
Moretti was fixing dinner when Emily came up the stairs. Somehow, in the past two weeks, she had got him to like eating healthy foods, so he was making a big salad with lots of vegetables. He added some chickpeas and some pine nuts, which he knew were Emmy's favorites. Two salmon steaks were soon going to go in the broiler, and there was lime sherbet for dessert. Emmy had been surprised to learn he could cook at all, and once she taught him to cook with less fat, she'd been delighted to find he was willing to take over the chore. He couldn't believe how much she'd changed him in the past two weeks. He was going to have to find a way to show her how grateful he was.
"So," he asked as she downed a glass of water, "do ya like Sloan's plan?"
"Yup. It sounds good to me."
"And you're gonna go along wit' it."
"Dunno. If you agree, I might."
"Me? What say do I got in it?"
"Well, I figure since this is all about you, you should have the final word on whether we do it or not."
Until that very moment, Moretti hadn't really considered that he had a choice in what happened to him. He'd been going along with Emily because she seemed fully capable of keeping him alive. He figured when he was turned back over to the FBI and the LAPD, someone else would be determining his ultimate fate. He knew somewhere down the line was a bullet or a blade or a sack of cement with his name on it, but in the here and now, he'd come to think of himself as just a tool to help the U.S. Attorney and the DA to put away Vinnie Gaudino and as many of his henchmen as possible. He really didn't know what to say to Emmy, and before he could answer, she was off to the shower.
Steve was more alert now and able to speak clearly, but he was still feeling dopey. After the procedure Liv had just described, he thought that might be a good thing. He felt the head of the exam table move up.
"High Fowler's Position," Jesse asked.
"Yeah," Liv said, "almost upright."
"Are you sure you don't want me to get a nurse do this," Jesse asked as Olivia shined a flashlight up Steve's nostrils looking for the best entry point.
"Positive, Jess," she confirmed. "A couple years ago, I developed a real knack for this, and I think it will be easier on him if I do the procedure."
Not content to be discussed in the third person as if he wasn't even there, Steve asked, "Liv, how does one develop a knack for sticking tubes up people's noses?"
Olivia sighed. "One becomes one of only three doctors healthy enough to treat almost four hundred patients who all develop paralysis of the esophagus within the same week after being exposed to a genetically engineered virus. The nursing staff couldn't keep up with everything, so we doctors did whatever we could whenever it was needed."
"Oh." Steve wished he hadn't asked the question. "I'm sorry, Liv. It was a stupid question." He couldn't begin to imagine what she had gone through when the BioGen virus was released. "Liv, if you'd rather not…that is, if it's difficult for you to do this for me…"
She stared off into space for a moment, deciding whether she wanted to elaborate or just let the matter die. It had been months since she'd talked about her experience with the BioGen virus, choosing instead to focus on how her daughter had fared. Emmy was one of the few patients to recover, and it was so much easier thinking about her than about all the friends and neighbors who had either died or been permanently disabled by the bug.
"No, Steve, it's ok," she finally said. "For a while, it was like assembly- line medicine. Waiting room for vitals and by the time that was finished, they'd stop breathing, one after another. It just swamped us so fast. In trauma one, Davis would put them on a ventilator. Halfway through the first day, we were calling around the state, borrowing from anyone who had machines that weren't in use. Then the patients went to trauma two where someone would set up IV meds, urinary catheterization in trauma three, NG- tube placement with me in trauma four, out the door on an EKG and up to a room. All we could do was stabilize them and say a prayer before the next patient came in."
She paused again, then said with a sad smile, "Listen to me, unloading on you. I'm sorry. Maybe I'll tell you more another time, when you're stronger, if you want to hear about it. Anyway, this procedure is always difficult for me to do because I know how unpleasant and uncomfortable it is for the patient, but it's part of my job, and it's a part I am unusually good at. I need to do this, Steve, because it's something I can do to help you."
He squeezed her hand and said, "You help me just by being here, Liv."
"Yeah, there is that, but I want to do more."
He nodded. "I understand."
"So, let me get this straight," Moretti said, "you call and pretend to be sick, and ask Sloan for help. He gives you the safe house address, you take me there, and they get the bad guys who come after us. Then we run off again."
"Yeah."
"Why do we run off?"
"Because the FBI still has a leak, and if whoever it is belongs to the task force, there's too much chance that they will get the location of the secondary safe house."
"Oh. Why can't they have someone in disguise instead of using us?"
"Because, some of the bad guys might be cops involved in the bust. Except for the Chief and a few of his closest people, there's no telling who can be trusted."
"Besides the Chief, who do you trust?"
Emmy thought a while, and when she answered, she surprised Moretti. "My mama," she said.
"You want a cup of water and a straw," Jesse asked.
"I don't know, what do you think?"
"Well, I know we said he should be NPO, but if sipping water makes the tube go down easier, I don't think it'd hurt. I suppose you could just have him swallow without the water."
"Yeah, but the water will act as a lubricant. I think we should use it."
"Ok. I'll get it."
While Jesse was gone, Liv measured the tube by holding the tip of the tube at Steve's earlobe and drawing it across his face to the tip of his nose where she marked the tube, using a small piece of tape. Next, she drew the tube down to the tip of his breastbone and marked this location with a permanent marker. Then she bent the end of the tube forward so it curved slightly.
Jesse came back then, and put the cup of water in both of Steve's hands. Then Jesse wrapped his hands around Steve's.
"I'm not going to spill, Jesse."
"I know, buddy, but when someone started messing around at your face, it's a natural reaction to try to push them away. This way, I can help you resist that urge."
"Oh."
Steve watched with growing apprehension as Liv lubricated the first three inches of the tube. He knew where it was going next, and the thought was making him increasingly nervous.
"Ready?"
Jesse gave him a questioning look as Olivia asked the question. After a moment's hesitation, he said, "I guess."
"What about cops? Ya trust any of them?" Moretti was trying to figure out if Emmy really wanted to go through with the plan or if she was just bouncing around ideas.
"Well, my mama knew Commander Banks, and she liked her. The woman is the Chief's right hand."
"Yeah, an' Cainin's daughter is his left."
Emmy nodded. "There is that. Hey, this looks great," she said as Moretti placed a broiled salmon steak before her.
Olivia tipped Steve's head back and brought the tube up to his nose. Just as Jesse had said, his first instinct was to push her hands away, but Jesse squeezed his hands together around Steve's forcing him to tighten his grip on the cup of water. Steve felt the tube snaking it's way through his nasal passages and squirmed.
"Easy, buddy. It's gonna be ok," Jesse murmured.
The piece of tape Liv had placed on the tube came into view, and Steve closed his eyes. He heard a tiny tearing sound as Olivia removed the tape from the tube. A moment later, she tipped his head gently forward and said, "Ok, babe, take slow sips of water until I tell you to stop."
Jesse helped him lift the cup and straw to his mouth, and he realized his hands would have been shaking if Jesse's hadn't been there to steady him. Slowly, he sipped the water, and each time he swallowed, Liv moved the tube in a few more inches. After what seemed like forever but was probably only a few minutes at the most, she said, "Ok, you can stop drinking now."
Jesse lifted the cup away, folded Steve's hands across his abdomen, and covered them with his own. Steve opened his eyes, and Jess gave him an encouraging smile. "Almost done, pal."
Steve did his best to smile back. Then Olivia moved in front of him with a flashlight and a tongue depressor and said, "Open wide."
He felt her poke around inside his mouth for just a moment, then she said, "You doing all right?"
"I, uh, I think so," he responded.
"Good. The fact that you can talk to me tells me I didn't get it down your windpipe."
She attached a syringe to the end of the tube, and pulled back on the plunger.
"She's making sure it's actually in your stomach," Jesse explained. "If she gets gastric juices, we know it's where we want it."
"Steve, I'm going to lower you head and shoulders," Olivia said. "Then I need you to turn over on your left side."
"What's wrong," he asked, suddenly frightened.
"Nothing, Steve. It's just that I'm not getting anything, probably because your stomach's nearly empty. Laying on your left side will move your gastric secretions closer to where the tip of the tube should be."
He rolled over, and she pulled back on the plunger again. A pinkish fluid filled the tube.
"Ok, there we go. It's a little bloody, but nothing like what you were bringing up." She smiled brightly at him as she injected the fluid back into his stomach and said, "That's a good sign, Steve."
She taped the tube to his nose, plugged the end, wrapped a piece of tape around it further down, leaving a tail of tape hanging, and pinned the tail to his hospital gown. "In a couple of minutes, we'll take you to x-ray to confirm the tube is exactly where it should be, and before long, we'll set up a feeding schedule. We're going to keep you on an IV for now, to administer meds, but you'll only have to live with the tube for a few days, a week at the most. Before then, Jess and I will have worked out the proper medications for your ulcers, and you'll be feeling better before you know it, ok?"
Steve nodded, and felt the tube jiggle. "Ok. Thanks, Liv."
She smiled again and said, "Only a true gentleman would thank me for putting him through such an ordeal. Maribeth sure has worked wonders with you."
He rolled his eyes at her joke as she looked to Jesse.
"Can you stay with him for a bit, Jess? Keith is waiting for Maribeth and Steven to finish up in surgery, and I want him to have current information for them. Right now all he knows to tell them is that Steve was brought in here vomiting blood, and that's scary news to be greeted with about a love one."
"Ok, Liv," Jesse agreed. "I'll go down to x-ray with him, and I'll leave word at the ER reception desk telling you what room he's in."
"Thanks, Jess."
Liv leaned over and gave Steve an affectionate kiss on the forehead. "You did very well, Steve. I know it was rough. If you just get some rest now, I promise you'll be feeling a little better by tomorrow."
Before she left, he reached out and squeezed her arm. "Thanks again, Liv, for helping me through this."
She smiled and said, "I'm glad I was here, Steve."
"I need to talk to the Chief," Emmy said, pushing back her dessert dish. "I think it's time his old friend, Dr. Amanda Bentley-Wagner visits him in the hospital."
Moretti chuckled. "Can't resist, can ya?"
Grinning, Emily said simply, "Nope."
Steve settled comfortably back against his pillows in the dark. He'd been drifting in and out of sleep since Liv had put the feeding tube in. Jesse was giving him some kind of sedative. Of that, he was certain, because today had been a total loss, a setback in fact, and he really couldn't bring himself to care. The one bright spot, he realized proudly, was that he had gotten everyone else to go home.
He didn't object to their company, in fact, he craved it, hating to spend the night alone in the hospital instead of in bed beside his wife; but he felt so guilty about worrying them that he couldn't bear the thought of anyone spending the night beside him on a lumpy cot with a thin foam-rubber pad for a mattress. The six of them, Steven, Maribeth, his dad, Amanda, Jesse, and Liv had been arguing about who should stay with him when he finally settled the dispute for them.
"I'll stay," Liv had said, "I have nothing to do but hang around the house anyway."
"No, Olivia, there's no telling when the task force might need you. I'll stay. I have to be here at seven sharp anyway," Jesse contradicted.
"Which is exactly why you should go home and get some sleep," Amanda had argued. "All of my patients are dead. I can't hurt any of them if I'm sleep deprived."
"But you could miss important forensic evidence. He's my husband. I'm staying," Maribeth put in.
"Maribeth, you've just spent what, five hours in surgery," his dad had reminded her. "You need to sleep in your own bed tonight. This won't be the first time I've spent the night here, I'll stay."
"Granddad, at your age, you of all people should spend the night in your own bed. Go home, all of you," Steven had tried to command them. "I'm younger than any of you, and my back can take sleeping on a worn out cot. I'll stay the night."
"Oh rub it in, why don't you," Jesse had said as Maribeth had given the young man an affectionate swat on the shoulder. Then the arguing started again.
Steve silenced them by whistling through his fingers. Looking at Jesse he asked, "Do you expect me to die tonight?"
Stunned by the question, Jesse answered, "God, Steve, no."
"Is there anything you could reasonably expect to happen to me that could not be handled by the doctor on call?"
Again, Jesse said no.
"Then all of you go home," he had said. "Including you, Steven," he said, and the young man's triumphant grin died aborning.
"But, Dad…" Steven began.
"Listen, son…" Mark tried to override his grandson.
"Steve…" Maribeth said softly.
"No!" He cut them all off. "I got myself in here by working too hard, resting too little, and worrying too much about things I couldn't change. To see any of you risk your health by doing the same over me would make me sick with guilt. Jesse, I know you're going to drug me, so I should sleep well tonight," Jesse had the grace to look embarrassed, knowing he'd been caught, "and I am an adult, so I don't need anyone here to mother me and hold my hand if I should wake up. Now, visiting hours are over, so all of you scat! Go home."
There had been some more grumbling and muttering, but eventually everyone had cleared out.
Bold as brass, Emily/Amanda strolled in through the main entrance to the ER at Community General Hospital at around ten thirty that night. If anyone questioned her presence, she planned to say she had forgotten the results to an important test that she needed for a meeting with the Chief of Police first thing in the morning. It was a high priority case, and she didn't dare keep the Chief waiting. A few days ago, Emily had found some old videos of press conferences Amanda had given in her capacity as chief coroner for Los Angeles County, and she hoped she had learned to emulate the doctor's voice convincingly. If her vocal impersonation passed muster, she would wander down to the path lab, just to make it look good. On her way out, she'd stop by reception and ask for Steve Sloan's room number, explaining that since she was here, she just wanted to check in on her friend once more tonight before she left.
Nick Solomon, an FBI agent assigned to monitor the most wanted/missing persons web page tapped his colleague, Timothy Brown, on the shoulder. "Hey, Tim, we've got a hit on Emily Stephens at Community General Hospital," he said.
Brown looked at the screen and said in a bored tone, "It's the Dr. Bentley- Wagner disguise. Where's the locator say the doctor is?"
Solomon clicked on another screen. "According to this, she's at home. Should I call Agent Wagner?"
Brown thought a moment. "She probably just forgot the locator. I can't believe Stephens would be so stupid as to walk into a busy place like a hospital dressed as one of its most popular and best known employees."
"I dunno," Solomon said, "She's pulled some wild stunts already."
"Fine," Brown said, "call if you like, but I wouldn't want to be you when you wake and worry Agent Wagner over nothing."
Solomon decided to think it over a little before calling.
"Amanda?" At tall blonde doctor called to her, "What in the world are you doing here so late?"
Emily/Amanda eyed his ID as she told her story. Dr. Alex Martin was a friend of Steven's and a former protégé of Mark Sloan's according to what she'd heard.
Alex laughed. "You? Forget something that important. I guess it's true what they say. The mind is the first thing to go."
Emily/Amanda laughed with him and said, "You'll find out soon enough for yourself. Have you checked on Steve lately?"
"Yeah, about half an hour ago. He was sleeping." Alex grinned. "You're going to stop in before you go, aren't you."
She rolled her eyes and looked embarrassed, saying, "I can't help it. We've been friends forever, and I just need to see for myself that he's doing all right."
Alex shook his head, saying, "You're all a bunch of mother hens. Jesse stopped by 'on his way home' from BBQ Bob's about an hour ago."
Emily/Amanda looked shocked and said, "Home is thirty minutes in the other direction."
"I mentioned that, and he said he felt like going for a drive anyway. Like I said, you're all a bunch of old mother hens."
"Oh, we are, huh? And how many times have you checked in since you came on duty."
Now it was Alex's turn to look embarrassed. "Four," he admitted quietly.
"Since…"
"Since nine o'clock."
"Mother hen indeed. I'll talk to you later, Alex."
"See you around, Amanda."
"Cluck-cluck."
Emily/Amanda breathed a sigh of relief as Alex disappeared around a turn in the corridor. She decided to skip the path lab for fear of running into someone who might see through her disguise, and instead snatched a folder from the 'to file' basket on the ER receptionist's desk when the woman's back was turned. Then she stepped into the nearby doctor's lounge and dialed the patient information desk to get the Chief's room number.
"Tim," Nick Solomon asked his partner. "What exactly are our orders concerning Dr. Bentley-Wagner?"
Emily/Amanda quickly made her way to room 389. She needed to talk to the Chief and get out of the hospital fast. Too many people knew Dr. Bentley- Wagner for her to pass as the woman for long.
CJ Bentley-Wagner had caught an earlier flight from Chicago. The young vascular surgeon was just returning from a conference where he had renewed his acquaintance with a lovely colleague named Dr. Alicia Birch Geiger whom he had first met as a child at his Uncle Steve's almost-wedding in Pennsylvania some thirty years ago. He would have loved to spend more time in the woman's company, but he had checked his voice mail before meeting her for dinner and found that Steve had been admitted to the Community General's ER earlier that day and he had been vomiting blood. CJ had immediately changed his reservations, and since he didn't have time to meet Alicia, he had called a florist and sent a dozen roses and a note of apology to her at the restaurant where they had planned to dine. Now he was landing at LAX, and he prayed his unique skills had not been needed.
As soon as he was able, he called the hospital to check on Steve's condition again. To his immense relief, he was told his uncle was resting comfortably. An endoscopic exam had revealed a tear in the esophagus, which his uncle Jesse had been able to cauterize through the scope. Steve also had two ulcers, one in the stomach, and one in the duodenum. The culture for H. pylori was positive, but the biopsy was negative for cancer. Steve was NPO for the next few days, but he had been fitted with a feeding tube and would begin enteral feeding in the morning. In spite of the positive reports, CJ decided he really wanted to check in on his uncle before he went home. So, as he left the parking lot at LAX, he turned the car toward Community General Hospital.
"Tim, why would she be heading into the hospital at ten thirty at night?" The more Solomon thought about Dr. Bentley-Wagner's late arrival at the hospital, the more confused he got.
"At the afternoon meeting, they said Chief Sloan was sick and would be in the hospital for a while," Brown said. "Maybe she's going in to check on him."
"Maybe, but at ten thirty?"
"They are good friends."
"I suppose."
Emily/Amanda turned the light over the Chief's bed to its lowest setting and studied the man for a moment. The poor guy looked at least ten years older than he had when he'd hired her, and she couldn't help feeling guilty over the possibility that she had put him here. He was sleeping so peacefully that she was loath to wake him, but she knew she had no choice.
Shaking him gently, she said, "Chief? Chief!"
Steve woke grudgingly. I couldn't be morning yet, could it? He glanced toward the window. It was still dark outside.
"Amanda?" She looked him in the eye. Green-gold eyes. He drew in a hiss of breath. "Emily!" he whispered. "What the *hell* are you doing here?"
She gave him a lopsided grin and asked, "How'd you know it was me?"
"You have your mother's eyes."
Amanda Bentley-Wagner hung up the phone and got out of bed with a moan. A local big shot had just been murdered, and as the county's chief medical investigator, she had been called to the crime scene to give the public the impression that the police had their best people working on the case. From the sound of things, the case was so open and shut, a trained monkey could have handled it, but appearance was everything in politics, and certain politically motivated people in the police department and the DA's office wanted it to appear that they had gone beyond the call to get the killer. She knew she was just a pawn in a big, fat game, but she loved her work and was willing to live with occasionally being a political tool in order to spend the rest of her time helping ordinary people get justice.
After she threw on her clothes, she grabbed the FBI tracking device Ron had asked her to wear so they could distinguish her from the disguised Emily whenever the facial recognition program registered a hit. Then she kissed her sleeping husband goodbye, left him a note, and headed to the crime scene.
CJ paused in the doctor's parking lot. There was a strange car in his mother's spot. He looked at it half with annoyance for taking her place, and half with admiration. It was an old Dodge Viper, from around the beginning of the millennium if he wasn't mistaken. He circled it once, just to get a good look, then headed in to check on his Uncle Steve.
"Ok, sir," Emily agreed, "If Moretti goes for it, I'll contact Mama sometime tomorrow and get the ball rolling, but if for any reason I feel I can't trust Commander Banks, the whole thing is off, and you'll have to find another way to get Leigh Ann and her pals."
"Fair enough, Lieutenant. Now get out of here before someone else ID's you."
"I'll leave as soon as you're sleeping again, sir."
"You're almost as bad as your mother, you know that?"
"Runs in the family, I guess, sir." There was a moment of silence, then Emmy said, "Uh, sir?"
"If you want me to sleep, you need to be quiet," Steve gently chided her.
"Yes, sir. I just wanted to say I'm sorry for being such a pain in the ass, sir."
"Don't worry about it, Lieutenant. You'll get what you've got coming when this is all over."
"Yes, sir," Emmy said glumly.
"Now be quiet and let me sleep."
"Yes, sir. Good night, sir."
She waited until she heard his breathing deepen and even out. Then she gently brushed the hair out of his eyes, cut the light, and slipped out of the room.
"Tim…"
"What, Solomon?" Brown was getting annoyed and he let it show in his voice.
"Dr. Bentley-Wagner's locator is moving."
"So?"
"It's in Valley, Tim, and she's still at the hospital."
"Oh, shit!"
Emily/Amanda slipped out of the Chief's room and headed for the elevator. She got as far as the nurses' station when it opened and deposited Dr. CJ Bentley-Wagner at the end of the hall.
'Couldn't find a tougher sell if I was looking for one,' she thought. 'Too far from the stairs to slip off unnoticed, to close to the elevator not to keep going.' She stopped, turned, and asked the nurse for Steve Sloan's chart. If her disguise wasn't up to this test, she'd find out soon enough if her workout was. She remembered from reading his bio on the CGH web page that CJ Bentley-Wagner had run for the UCLA track team in college. He was still fit, as far as she could tell, but he was also about ten years older and at least fifty pounds heavier than she was, and she had inherited her dad's long-legged, ground eating stride.
She figured if she couldn't con him, she could outrun him.
"Hey, Mom." CJ said tiredly.
She pretended to be absorbed in the chart.
"Mom?"
"Oh, hey," she could feel him watching her expectantly as she continued to study the chart. Looking up, she said, "What?"
"What do you mean 'what'? No, 'Hi, how are you? Did you enjoy Chicago? How was the conference?'"
Not knowing if she called him 'son', or used a nickname, she settled for the name he used on the website. "I'm sorry, CJ, I'm just concerned about your Uncle Steve."
"Has his condition deteriorated?"
'Good,' Emily thought, 'occupy his mind with someone else.' "I don't think so," Amanda said. "I just worry, you know?"
CJ smiled, then and said, "I know. We all do."
Amanda smiled back. "So, hi, CJ, how are you? How was the conference? Did you enjoy Chicago?"
"Hello, Mom," her son grinned back. "I'm fine, and the conference was great. I loved Chicago, though I'd rather wait until August to visit. In March, it's much too cold." He pretended to shiver. "You'll never guess who I met there," he added excitedly.
Emily should have simply said no, but in all her life, she had only known five people from Chicago, her mother's friends at Chicago Hope Hospital, and that number was down to four now that Phillip Watters had passed on, so she pretended to guess. "Umm, Alicia Geiger?"
When CJ's Jaw dropped, she mentally kicked herself.
"*How* did you *know*?"
How the hell *did* she know? Oh, yeah!
"Mother's intuition," she said with a smile. "You're a vascular surgeon. She's a vascular surgeon. She's in Chicago, and you went to Chicago. She's very good at what she does, and I thought, 'Who else is there in Chicago that my son would be so excited about meeting?' Her name was the first to come to mind. So, did you enjoy making her acquaintance?"
The young man blushed. "I was about to make more than just her acquaintance…"
"That is more than I need to know, CJ."
He looked at her crossly. "We were just going to have dinner, Mother, but I checked my messages, and you had called about Uncle Steve, so I booked the next flight home."
"I'm sorry to have ruined your plans, CJ. He's really doing much better now."
"That's ok, Mom." CJ studied his mother; there was something different about her. The black trousers and mustard colored shirt over the black turtleneck were new to him, but there was something else. "I sent her some flowers and an apology explaining what had happened. It'll be ok. Like Ron says, 'Always leave 'em wanting more'."
She rolled her eyes and laughed slightly.
CJ was surprised not to get a rise out of her with that. He knew the expression annoyed her no end. Something was wrong. Now he realized that her clothes were slightly disheveled. No one else was likely to notice the wrinkles and creases, they were so few, but his mother was an immaculate dresser, and, come to think of it, that color was out this year.
"Mom? You ok?"
She yawned tremendously, then. "Just tired, I guess."
"I see, and what are you doing here so late anyway?"
Emily/Amanda stuck to her story. "I forgot this file I need first thing in the morning when I meet with Chief Archer. I decided to check in on Steve since I was here."
CJ knew there was definitely something wrong, now. *His* mother *never* forgot anything. She was the most organized person he had ever met. He was determined now to wheedle it out of her.
"Look, Mom, I don't like the idea of you driving home alone this late at night. It *is* almost eleven, and I see someone took your parking space near the door. Let me give you a lift, then I can crash at home tonight."
Emily resisted the chance to make a quick getaway. Amanda Bentley-Wagner had to have been headstrong and independent to get where she was, and she wouldn't be too eager to accept the offer like a damsel in distress.
"I'll be fine, CJ. I'm ok to drive home, you don't need to give me a ride."
"I want to, Mom," he said sincerely. "In fact, I insist."
She was about to protest when another yawn interrupted her.
"Well?"
"Ok, ok," she finally surrendered. "Meet me in the path lab after you've looked in on your uncle. I have a few overnight tests running in there that I might as well check on since I'm here."
"All right," he agreed, "I'll be down in a few minutes."
Ron rolled over and caught the phone halfway through the second ring. His wife had already been called out to some big shot's murder, and he'd drifted off to a light sleep while she was still getting dressed. Now he supposed it was his turn.
"Wagner here."
"Agent Solomon, here, sir. We think Emily Stephens is at Community General Hospital masquerading as your wife again, sir."
"My wife was called to a murder scene not long ago, are you sure it isn't her?"
"She was spotted at the hospital almost an hour ago, sir, but her locator is just arriving there now, after having gone to the Valley."
"Why the hell did you wait an hour to call me?"
"Mom?" CJ said with a puzzled frown as he found his mother in scrubs, performing an autopsy on a fresh body in the path lab.
"Hi, honey, how was Chicago? Did you enjoy the conference?"
As his mother's warm brown eyes met his, CJ suddenly knew what was wrong when he'd spoken to her upstairs.
Steve drifted slowly back to consciousness. He felt dopey, and queasy, and all of the other dwarves surrounding him. Smiling goofily at his own drug- induced witticism, he heard a familiar voice say, "Look, he's coming around." He felt a gentle hand brush the hair off his face, and opened his eyes to see Olivia and Jesse, the two shortest adults he had ever known, watching him with great concern.
He started to laugh, then groaned, and wrapped his arms protectively about him as sore abdominal muscles protested the strain. The pain brought with it a fresh wave of nausea, and the next thing he knew, he was spitting up dark blood in an emesis basin that Liv had magically produced. Jesse handed him a glass of water and said curtly, "Rinse and spit, don't drink it."
He meekly followed doctor's orders.
With his rebellious stomach finally subdued, at least for the moment, he lay back against the pillows and looked back and forth from one of his friends to the other. Between Liv's worried look, and the thundercloud cloaking Jesse's features, he knew he was in big trouble and it wasn't just due to his illness.
Needing to know what was going on, he finally asked, "What?"
"Dammit all, Steve!" Jesse exploded. "What in the *hell* were you thinking? Isn't it enough that we have to put you back together every time the bad guys shoot you up, cut you up, and beat you up? Why do you have to go and be stupid on top of it all and tear *yourself* up? There is *no* way in *hell* you didn't know you were ill, and there is no excuse for not seeking treatment before now."
Steve hadn't seen his friend so angry since after he'd returned from Utah years ago, convinced aliens had abducted him, and no one had believed him.
"Jess..."
"Oh, just shut up, will you?"
"Dr. Travis!" Olivia was angry, too, which didn't happen often, and so got everyone's attention when it did. "Just which journal have you been reading that has lately discussed the therapeutic effects of cursing, insulting, and browbeating your patients? I'd really like to know, because I seem to have missed that article."
The room was silent a moment, then Liv's voice cut the air again, demanding, "Please, I'd really like to know."
All the fire left Jesse's eyes, his posture shifted, and his expression softened. Taking a deep breath, he apologized. "I'm sorry, Steve. I was just worried, and truth be told, I can't believe you didn't realize something was wrong."
"It's ok, Jess." Steve felt sorry for his friend. He'd only been on the receiving end of Olivia's fury a couple of times thirty years ago, and he still remembered what an unpleasant experience it could be. "I guess I did know, but I convinced myself it was just nerves. I was going to come in for my checkup as soon as we brought Emily in and got Moretti safely tucked away, but I didn't quite make it that long."
"You sure didn't," Jesse agreed, "So, how are you feeling?"
"Like two of the seven dwarves," Steve answered, grinning slightly, but remembering not to laugh. When Jesse and Liv exchanged a confused look, he said, "Dopey and Queasy."
Olivia and Jesse both smiled, and Liv said, "I'm glad you're in good spirits, but you really are quite ill, Steve."
"Yeah," Jess said, "and everybody knows their names are Dopey, Happy, Sleepy, Sneezey, Grumpy, Bashful, and Doc. There is no Queasy."
"There is now." At that moment, Steve felt his stomach lurch again, and he had just time enough to say, "Sick," before he was heaving again. Liv got him a basin just in time, and this time when he puked, the blood was bright red.
He felt Olivia's gentle fingers stroking his hair as he hung over the edge of the gurney retching and heard Jesse sigh and say, "So much for the Compazine."
"We've got to do something now, Jess. We can't wait for Lauren to get Mark here or for Maribeth and Steven to finish up in the OR."
"Endoscopy?"
"Hell, yes, he doesn't even have to fast. With all the vomiting he's been doing, his stomach's got to be empty now. All he's bringing up is blood. There's no sense in doing an upper GI series now as that will only indicate the need for a gastroscopy anyway."
Steve didn't understand half of what she said, but he knew from Liv's choice of words that it was urgent. She almost never swore.
"I'll get the exam room ready, you explain the procedure."
Olivia's wry tone of voice as she said, "Thanks a lot," was all Steve needed to know it was going to be horrible.
"That son of a *bitch*!" Emily yelled as she burst into the house at Redondo Beach.
"What happened?" Moretti asked, "He set ya up again?"
"No. He got sick on me." She threw her hat in the general direction of the coat rack and sat down to yank off her boots.
"What, he puked on ya," Moretti said as he picked up the hat and put it on a hook. "That why you're not wearin' your coat?"
"Yes! No! He didn't puke *on* me, but, yeah, he was spitting up blood. I used his cell phone to call an ambulance, and left the coat behind to cover him up. I think he was in shock." The curly brown wig came off, and she started yanking out hairpins to let her braid down.
"Oh, Emmy, that's no good."
"No shit!" She removed her glasses and jewelry.
"So what ya gonna do now?"
"I don't know," she said, as she started stripping, completely unmindful of her audience.
Moretti was getting concerned. Her sweater was coming off. When he'd first met Emmy, he wouldn't have thought twice about ogling her as she stripped, but now, he couldn't be so lecherous to a woman for whom he had found so much admiration, respect, trust, and, if he were honest, affection. He knew she'd be mad if he turned his back on her, and she was already so angry he was afraid to interrupt, but if that body suit started to come off, he would start to feel like a dirty old man.
Suddenly, he wondered when he'd started to think there was something dirty about watching a beautiful young woman get naked. Surprised, he realized it was when he had started to see Emmy as more than just a beautiful young woman. He gulped as the jeans came down. She was stunning, he mused, transfixed, but she was also tough and funny and smart as a whip, and if some gawker forgot all that just because she had a great ass, decent knockers, incredible eyes, and gorgeous red hair, he didn't deserve the time of day from her.
Emmy was a package deal, he realized. You didn't get the outside unless you could appreciate what was inside. Someday, she would make some young man very happy. If he were only thirty years younger…
He breathed a sigh of relief as she collected her things and went into her room. If he were thirty years younger, she'd have separated him from his scrotum the first time he tried to hit on her. Thirty years ago, he'd been a louse, and she'd have had nothing to do with him. Hell, two weeks ago, he'd been a louse, and she'd risked her life and her career to save his worthless tail, but he knew all he was to her was an unwelcome responsibility. He thought about his grandson, and wondered if she liked younger men, and if she did, would the kid ever have a chance with such a force of nature as Em.
Emmy interrupted his musings when she came out dressed in a sports bra, tight black biker shorts, and a weightlifter's belt. Her braid hung past her waist, and she was wiping her face with a makeup removal cloth. She was clearly getting ready for a workout. They had set up a small gym in the garage, and Emily had already started taking full advantage of it. She'd been trying without much success to get Moretti to do the same by asking him to join her in the garage on whatever slim pretext she could invent.
She strolled over to the kitchen, and tossed the cloth in the trash and said, "Well, I'm going downstairs. I think better when I'm moving. Come see the car I got us. It's a hoot." At least this time, she thought with a smile, it wasn't a pretext. She knew Moretti would be interested in the car.
When Liv explained the upper GI series, Steve was grateful that he didn't have to drink the chalky liquid she described. He really didn't think he could hold it down, but when she described the gastroscopy, he initially panicked and refused the procedure.
"There's got to be another alternative, Liv," he pleaded.
She nodded, conceding the point. "There's always another alternative, Steve."
He breathed easier for a moment.
"As I see it, you have four choices. We've already agreed the upper GI series won't work, right?"
He nodded.
"Ok, the gastroscopy. You've already done the prep for it. The entire procedure takes about thirty minutes to an hour, depending on what we find and what we decide to do about it. Recovery takes about twenty-four hours to get all the drugs out of your system."
Steve shook his head. "I don't want you sticking a tube down my throat!"
"Ok, relax. Exploratory surgery is an option. There's a much higher risk of complications because it's more invasive, and recovery takes two weeks to a month *if* everything goes *perfectly*."
Steve sighed and said, "Olivia, you know I can't be out of commission that long."
She nodded and said, "I realize that, Steve, but there is one more, really simple thing we can do to find out what's wrong."
If he hadn't been drugged, he'd have heard the sarcasm in her voice, but, stupidly, he asked, "What's that?"
"Wait until you die and have Amanda perform an autopsy," she snapped.
"That's not funny, Liv," he told her.
"It's not a joke," she replied.
"Are you sure you're not exaggerating?" He tried to remain hopeful.
"Nope." She showed him the product of his last bout of nausea and the smell of blood almost had him retching again. Quickly, she put the basin away.
"Steve," she said more gently, "I'm sorry about that, but I wanted to make you realize, when you're spitting up that much blood, and it's that bright red, there is something very seriously wrong, and it's not going to get better by itself."
He refused to look at her.
She put her hand to the back of his neck, and gently massaged the muscles there.
"If you let us do the gastroscopy, we'll know within the hour what's wrong, and we'll be able to do something about it."
He leaned against her then, and asked softly, "Will you be there?"
"Sure."
Jesse came in then.
"So, are we ready?"
Liv gave Steve a gentle squeeze around the shoulders, and he said, "Yeah."
Moretti stopped short as he entered the garage.
"Oh, shit! Ya bought an old Viper," he exclaimed, his eyes aglow like a kid's at Christmas.
Emmy laughed, and said, "Keys are in it, go start it up for a bit."
Moretti went around the car and admired it first. It looked sleek and powerful, an awesome machine. It wasn't blue, and it wasn't black. It was one of those nameless shades between that came into the night sky after the red of the sunset had faded over the Pacific.
Reverently, Moretti settled himself behind the wheel. He wouldn't start the car because then he'd *have* to drive it, and since he wasn't wearing any sort of disguise right now, he really shouldn't go outside, but he could sit behind the wheel, shift through the gears, and imagine. His right hand grasped the gearshift at his side, and he put his foot on the brake. As he felt around for the clutch with his toes, his foot slipped off the brake and descended into empty air. Confused, he examined the car closer.
Snorting with indignation, he shouted, "It's a freakin' automatic!"
Emily was stretching before she started her workout. "Told you it was a hoot. Some jackass dropped out the original manual six-speed to put it in. Pop the hood and take a look at the engine," she laughed. "It gets better, or worse, depending on your point of view."
Olivia and Jesse helped Steve climb up onto the exam table in the endoscopy lab. As he sat there, Jesse handed him a small plastic dosage cup of white stuff which he swallowed and struggled a moment to keep down. A self- inflating blood pressure cuff was wrapped around his right arm, and a tape thermometer was stuck to his forehead. Then Jesse and Olivia hooked him up to an EKG monitor and put a device on his index finger to monitor his pulse rate and oxygen.
"Is all this really necessary?"
Liv smiled. "The EKG has you worried, doesn't it?"
Steve nodded. "If this is really no big deal, I don't understand why you need to monitor my heart."
"The EKG and pulse oximeter give us an indication of how well you're tolerating the anesthesia as well as the procedure," Olivia explained. "We don't want you too heavily sedated because then you'll have trouble breathing, and if you get too agitated, we'll know you need a little more Versed."
"Versed?"
"It's a tranquilizer. Been on the market, oh, at least forty or fifty years. I've never had a patient have a problem with it."
"But Liv, you're an orthopedic surgeon."
She laughed, and said, "Primarily, yes, but you remember what a small town Punxy is, don't you? Nobody specializes exclusively in one type of practice, because there aren't really enough patients in the area to support a bunch of specialists. I've done a lot of internal medicine and family practice over the years."
"Oh."
Jesse had him open his mouth and hold his breath. "Don't swallow until I tell you."
A bitter liquid sprayed into the back of his throat, and he made a face. When Jesse told him, he started swallowing, and his throat suddenly went numb. When swallowing became difficult, he grew worried and told Jesse so.
"That's what's supposed to happen," Jesse reassured him, "so you don't gag on the scope."
As Olivia inserted an IV catheter in the back of his left hand he asked, "Are you sure we can't wait for my dad or Maribeth?"
"No, Steve, we can't," Jesse told him. "It's going to take Lauren a while to get to Malibu and back with your dad, and there's no telling how long Maribeth and Steven are going to be working on that motorcycle rider. If it were just the dark blood that indicates a slow bleed, maybe we'd wait, but so much bright red blood indicates ongoing, moderate to heavy bleeding. You may have an esophageal erosion or a tear, or some kind of bleeding in your stomach, and whatever it is, it *will* get worse until we do something about it." Looking at him with concern, Jesse said, "We need to deal with this as quickly as possible. If we wait, it could get worse, and major surgery could become necessary, do you understand?"
Steve nodded. "It just sounds so…unpleasant."
Olivia put a hand on his shoulder, smiled gently, and asked, "Steve, do you trust me?"
"Always." All of a sudden, he was taken back thirty years. Now, as then, her touch, her voice, and her smile soothed him, calmed him, and replaced doubt and uncertainty with strength and confidence. He had never had less than absolute trust in Jesse and his abilities, but as long as Olivia was there, he *knew* he would be ok.
"Then believe me when I tell you, the worst part of this procedure is imagining the worst. You'll probably sleep through most of it, and when you wake up, we'll have fixed what we can, and figured out what to do about the rest."
"Ok," he nodded, and promptly lay back on the exam table, which was slightly elevated at the head and shoulders.
As Jesse positioned him slightly turned on his left side with a small cushion under his head, Steve heard him mutter to Liv, "It still amazes me how you do that."
Liv smiled back at him across the table as she slipped a needle into the catheter in the back of Steve's hand. "It's the eyes," she said.
Steve wanted to explain to them that is wasn't the eyes, but the voice, the smile, and the touch that engendered so much trust, but the drugs, whatever they were, were already taking affect.
Moretti lifted the hood as Emmy settled herself on the Bowflex machine, and he was appalled. "*What * in *the hell* is this?"
Emily exhaled as she pushed against the Bowflex, and said, "An ethanol- electric hybrid engine."
"I see that," Moretti said, disgustedly. "They ruined this car, Em."
"Yup."
"I'm all for protectin' the environment, y'know," he rambled. "I grew up here in LA, and I can remember the days when I went out in a white shirt and came home in a gray one 'cause of the air pollution, but, hell, this is a *Viper*, for cryin' out loud."
"Yup," Emmy agreed as she adjusted the Bowflex for a different exercise. "It's a 2002 GTS Final Edition coupe, to be exact, though I have to admit, I prefer this new paint job to the original red with white racing stripes. I book marked a site on my laptop where you can read all about it." She settled back on the machine, grabbed the handles, crossed her arms over her chest, and started doing crunches.
"The paint job I can live with," Moretti conceded. "But, Em, this thing is *s'posed* to be a bad boy."
"Yup," she said, as she curled forward in her crunch.
"It's *s'posed* to run on gasoline…"
"Yup."
"…and belch exhaust…"
"Yup."
"…and growl when it idles, roar when it accelerates, and scream like a damned jet engine when it's cruisin'."
"Yup, yup, yup."
"But some *idiot* has turned it into an overgrown…"
Moretti sputtered and gestured futilely in the air, unable to find the words to express his horror.
"Flashlight?" Emily suggested, as she sat up from her last crunch.
"Yup," Moretti agreed dejectedly, as he kicked a tire and leaned on the fender.
"Does it make you feel any better to know it can still go zero to sixty in five point two and cruise comfortably at a hundred and ninety miles per hour?"
"A little," he said, smiling slightly, "but not much."
"How about this, then," Emily said as she moved to the weight bench. She loved the Bowflex for most of her strength training, but only the barbell would satisfy her for bench pressing. "It originally retailed for seventy- six grand, the dealer priced it at sixty-five, and after I showed him on my laptop all the ways it had been done wrong, he sold it to me for fifty- five. When this is all over, if I decide to keep it, payments will be less than fifteen hundred a month."
Moretti moved over to spot her. He knew she could easily bench twice her body weight, he'd seen her do so at the motel gym in Anaheim; but he'd once killed a man by dropping the barbell on his throat when he was lifting, and since the first time he'd seem Emmy work out, the image had been strong in his mind. He'd hate to see the kid die in such an easily preventable mishap.
"I s'pose that's a deal," he hedged, "but it's kinda like buyin' 'bloopers' underwear. It'll do the job, but it just ain't right."
"But unlike second-rate briefs and bras, I can fix this some day, and make her like new, though I think I'll keep the paint job."
Moretti glanced over at the car. "It is a cool color."
"Ok, Steve," Olivia said gently several minutes later, "that was the Demerol. It's a pain killer, so you should be feeling pretty good by now."
"Mmmm-hmmm."
He heard her laugh, but she was a long way away.
"This is the Versed, Steve. It's a tranquilizer, remember? If you start to feel sleepy, don't fight it. Just relax."
"Uh-huuuuhhh."
"Given that he's already had Compazine, and considering his history of heart disease and the recent blood loss, I only gave him half the dose of each drug, Jess."
The combined drugs in his system were beginning to take effect, and Jesse's words were scrambled, but Steve understood that they were going to watch carefully to make sure he was comfortable. Then he blacked out for a while.
"So," Moretti asked as he held the heavy punching bag for Emily, "wanna tell me what happened wit' the Chief?"
"The DAMN fool TRIED to TALK to me," Emily grunted as she punched.
"What's wrong wit' that?"
"LOTS of things."
"Like what?"
"He COULD have BLOWN my COVER. If the WRONG PEOPLE SAW me," she landed three fast, hard punches, "and TRACKED me BACK here, YOU could get KILLED. I am TECHnically a DIRty COP, now, and SOME people could USE that aGAINST him."
"He's no fool, Em," Moretti reminded her. "He'd never have gotten as far as he is if he was. He knew the risks, and probably had all the angles covered."
"I don't THINK so," she argued. "I THINK he was being a STUpid, STUBborn JACKass and JUST WANTed to PROVE he could SPOT me."
"Ok, ok, so, he spotted ya and came over to talk, and…"
Steve drifted back to consciousness for a few moments. He could feel the tube down his throat, and there was something in his mouth keeping his jaws open. It felt weird, but it didn't hurt, and it didn't really cause him any discomfort, so, he decided Liv was right. His imagination was the worst part of the whole thing. Jess said, "…deep tear in the esophagus…cauterize…" Then Olivia said, "…wait…more Versed…" and he was out again.
"…then I COVered him with my COAT, got some TOURists to look AFTer him, and CAUGHT the BUS outta there."
"So, whaddya think is wrong wit' him?"
"PRObably an ULcer."
Emmy was still pissed off and trying to beat the stuffing out of the heavy bag. Moretti had no doubt she was imagining it was Deputy Chief Sloan.
"CALLED MY MOM," she landed three more heavy blows in succession "and TOLD her he was ILL and that SHE should take CARE OF HIM," again with the three hard shots. "I KNOW her SKILLS and I can COUNT ON HER." The series of threes were coming more often. If anything, this workout was making her anger build, not helping her work it off. "She SHOULD be able to MAKE HIM BETTER."
"What if she can't help him?"
Emily didn't answer, she just screamed in frustration and pounded the hell out of the punching bag.
Steve surfaced again for a moment. He felt bloated, and heard Jesse say, "…little more air…get a good view," and realized that his stomach was being inflated like a basketball. Before he could get concerned about this, he drifted off.
"AUGHHH!!!!" Emily wailed as her blows landed too fast for Moretti to count. The last few were so hard that they staggered him. Then she shoved the bag, knocking him completely off balance so that he had to let go and step away. Throwing her gloves in the corner, she flopped down on the weight bench and said, "If that damn dumb *bastard* had just stayed away from me, he wouldn't have gotten sick, and everything would still be running smoothly."
Moretti couldn't help himself. He knew it was dangerous, but he had to laugh aloud. He simply couldn't contain it.
"What the *hell* is so funny?"
"Oh, lotsa things."
Emily smiled, though she was still plainly angry, too.
"Like what?"
"Well, first of all, ya idolize this guy, and here ya are, callin' him SOB and 'stupid, stubborn jackass,' and a 'damn dumb bastard'. Whudja say if he was here?"
Emily had the grace to blush. "Probably not a thing…until he left."
Moretti laughed harder, and Emmy grinned.
"Ok, Moretti, what else? You said there were lots of things to laugh at, and I need a laugh right now."
"Ya said everything would still be runnin' smoothly if he hadn't gotten sick."
"Yeah?"
"Em, things haven't been runnin' smoothly for ya since ya saddled yourself wit' me. I'm grateful for the protection and all, and really appreciate your help in gettin' back in shape, but I know I been nothing but trouble since ya met me."
"Believe it or not, I'm learning to enjoy your company."
"I know. I kinda grow on people."
"Yeah," Em grinned, "like athlete's foot."
"Hah-hah." Moretti said sarcastically, but kept laughing for real, too, and Em knew there was more.
"Ok, Moretti, what else?"
Steve heard the words "gastric ulcer" and "biopsy". He knew they did biopsies to check for cancer, and he tried to ask Jesse what he'd found, but the tube was in the way. "Just relax, Steve," Olivia said. "You're doing fine."
He sunk into unconsciousness again.
Moretti sat on the weight bench beside her. "Emmy, you ain't half the bad ass ya think ya are."
When she narrowed her eyes and cocked an eyebrow at him, he thought it would be safer to move away, so he stood and leaned against the car.
"You're tougher'n any man I know, Em, and you're smart, and ya throw a mean left. You're the only woman I ever been afraid to piss off, but there ain't no man gonna puke blood just from talkin' to ya."
She looked confused, and he knew she'd already forgotten what she'd said.
"Well, ya said if he'd a just stayed away from ya he wouldn't a gotten sick," Moretti explained with a grin. "I think he musta been sick already. Ya don't just start pukin' up blood on the spot, do ya?"
"No, you don't," Emily said, and she started to chuckle. "That was a stupid thing to say, wasn't it?"
"Yep."
Steve squirmed a bit. He could feel something move down his throat, and he heard Jesse say, "…biggest duodenal ulcer I've ever seen…" Someone rubbed his shoulder and Olivia said, "It's almost over, Steve, you're doing fine. Jess, I'm going to give him a little more Versed." Jesse nodded, and said, "I'm going to take a culture to test for H. pylori." Soon everything went dark again.
Emily was on the treadmill, now, and Moretti stood in front of her.
"So, what ya gonna do?"
Pulling an envelope out of her hip pocket, she said, "While I read the chief's plan, I'm gonna run eight miles, see if I can sprint the last 500 yards, and then take a shower. Then I'll decide what to do next."
Steve felt something coming up his throat and for a moment, he thought he was throwing up again. Then he opened his eyes and saw Jesse holding the end of the scope in his hand. Jesse reached in his mouth and removed something, and Steve felt his jaws close. Jesse looked down at him then, smiled, and said, "It's all over buddy. You can just rest now."
Steve smiled back, nodded slightly, and closed his eyes. Some time later he heard Olivia and Jesse conversing. He couldn't seem to open his eyes to see them, but he recognized their voices.
"Amanda's going to rush the biopsy and culture results," Jesse said.
"That's good. I'm pretty sure he heard you when you mentioned the biopsy, and he'll be worried," Liv replied.
There was a pause, then Olivia said, "You know, Jess, we're going to have to put him on an NG-tube for a few days for enteral feeding. Cauterization stopped the bleeding, but that tear in the esophagus needs time to heal. Any other doctor would have gone straight for open surgery when he saw how deep it was."
"Are you saying that's what I should have done?" Jess sounded defensive.
Steve fought to wake fully. He didn't understand a thing Liv and Jess were saying, and he wasn't sure if it was the drugs, the medical lingo, or something wrong with him. He did know what they were discussing sounded particularly unpleasant, though, and he really didn't want them to get in an argument over him.
"God, no, Jess. I'm saying no other doctor has the skills to handle something like that through the scope."
"Oh."
Steve was relieved. He loved the way Liv could smooth something over so easily, and more importantly, he knew she meant what she said. She always meant everything she said.
"He's going to hate it," Jesse said.
Steve finally got his eyes open to watch them discuss what they were going to do to him next. The look on Liv's face was sympathetic and concerned, but determined.
"It's the most effective, least invasive procedure, Jess. He shouldn't be trying to swallow past that tear right now, and TPN or a gastrostomy would just be too radical. You know I'm right, Jess."
"What about a liquid diet?"
Liv gave him a 'what kind of silly question is that' look and said, "You know he should be kept NPO for at least a couple of days to avoid any stress on that tear."
All the strange words were making Steve's head swim. He tried to ask what NPO meant, but it came out an unintelligible jumble. Instantly Liv was there, sitting on the stool that was placed beside him. "Hey there. You've been listening, haven't you?"
Steve nodded and his head went all swimmy again. He squeezed his eyes shut and held on to Liv and the exam table to make the world stand still. With supreme effort, he focused and asked simply, "NPOoooo?"
"It's Latin, Steve, *Nil Per Os*," she said. "It means no food or drink through your mouth."
"Whyyyy?"
"You had a deep tear in your esophagus where it meets the stomach. I managed to stop the bleeding, but you need to rest the damaged tissues for a little while," Jesse explained, as he came to stand behind Liv to be in Steve's line of sight.
"Okayyy." Steve smiled, pleased to find that he could understand them when they spoke English.
"Do you want to know more," Liv asked.
"Yeahhh." Steve thought a moment. It was hard. Then he remembered more letters. "TPN en en?"
He was sure he'd said it wrong, and Liv and Jesse's matching smiles confirmed his suspicion.
"Total Parenteral Nutrition," Jesse said. "It means intravenous feeding, but we're not going to do that. It can be hard on your liver, pancreas, and other digestive organs."
"Ohhhh." Steve struggled to remember. They had talked about something else. "Gas…Gast…Gastronono…" It seemed like his mouth was stuck. "…nononomy."
Olivia laughed gently, and Steve smiled back at her. He knew the drugs were making him goofy, and he didn't blame her and Jesse for laughing. He was grateful that they were taking the time to patiently answer his questions rather than telling him to 'just relax'. It was hard to relax when he was worried about what was to come next.
"Gastrostomy. We aren't going to do that either, Steve. It's an operation to put a feeding tube directly into your stomach through the abdominal wall."
"Nooo!" Steve struggled feebly to get away, but both Liv and Jesse grabbed him.
Liv held his head between her hands and looked directly into his eyes. "Easy, babe. I said we are NOT going to do that. We are NOT going to do it, Steve. Do you understand me? We're NOT going to operate."
He stopped struggling and looked at her. "No operationion?"
She smiled sweetly. "No, Steve, no operationion."
He giggled then and said, "You talk funny."
She laughed and said, "So do you. Do you have any more questions?"
He shook his head no, and when he stopped, everything in the room started moving. "Oooh. Dizzzzy." He closed his eyes.
He heard Jesse say, "Ok, buddy. You need to rest a little more. Liv and I will be right here." Then he felt his head and shoulders move up a little as he heard someone adjust the exam table.
"Thanks," he said, and smiled, before drifting off again.
Moretti was fixing dinner when Emily came up the stairs. Somehow, in the past two weeks, she had got him to like eating healthy foods, so he was making a big salad with lots of vegetables. He added some chickpeas and some pine nuts, which he knew were Emmy's favorites. Two salmon steaks were soon going to go in the broiler, and there was lime sherbet for dessert. Emmy had been surprised to learn he could cook at all, and once she taught him to cook with less fat, she'd been delighted to find he was willing to take over the chore. He couldn't believe how much she'd changed him in the past two weeks. He was going to have to find a way to show her how grateful he was.
"So," he asked as she downed a glass of water, "do ya like Sloan's plan?"
"Yup. It sounds good to me."
"And you're gonna go along wit' it."
"Dunno. If you agree, I might."
"Me? What say do I got in it?"
"Well, I figure since this is all about you, you should have the final word on whether we do it or not."
Until that very moment, Moretti hadn't really considered that he had a choice in what happened to him. He'd been going along with Emily because she seemed fully capable of keeping him alive. He figured when he was turned back over to the FBI and the LAPD, someone else would be determining his ultimate fate. He knew somewhere down the line was a bullet or a blade or a sack of cement with his name on it, but in the here and now, he'd come to think of himself as just a tool to help the U.S. Attorney and the DA to put away Vinnie Gaudino and as many of his henchmen as possible. He really didn't know what to say to Emmy, and before he could answer, she was off to the shower.
Steve was more alert now and able to speak clearly, but he was still feeling dopey. After the procedure Liv had just described, he thought that might be a good thing. He felt the head of the exam table move up.
"High Fowler's Position," Jesse asked.
"Yeah," Liv said, "almost upright."
"Are you sure you don't want me to get a nurse do this," Jesse asked as Olivia shined a flashlight up Steve's nostrils looking for the best entry point.
"Positive, Jess," she confirmed. "A couple years ago, I developed a real knack for this, and I think it will be easier on him if I do the procedure."
Not content to be discussed in the third person as if he wasn't even there, Steve asked, "Liv, how does one develop a knack for sticking tubes up people's noses?"
Olivia sighed. "One becomes one of only three doctors healthy enough to treat almost four hundred patients who all develop paralysis of the esophagus within the same week after being exposed to a genetically engineered virus. The nursing staff couldn't keep up with everything, so we doctors did whatever we could whenever it was needed."
"Oh." Steve wished he hadn't asked the question. "I'm sorry, Liv. It was a stupid question." He couldn't begin to imagine what she had gone through when the BioGen virus was released. "Liv, if you'd rather not…that is, if it's difficult for you to do this for me…"
She stared off into space for a moment, deciding whether she wanted to elaborate or just let the matter die. It had been months since she'd talked about her experience with the BioGen virus, choosing instead to focus on how her daughter had fared. Emmy was one of the few patients to recover, and it was so much easier thinking about her than about all the friends and neighbors who had either died or been permanently disabled by the bug.
"No, Steve, it's ok," she finally said. "For a while, it was like assembly- line medicine. Waiting room for vitals and by the time that was finished, they'd stop breathing, one after another. It just swamped us so fast. In trauma one, Davis would put them on a ventilator. Halfway through the first day, we were calling around the state, borrowing from anyone who had machines that weren't in use. Then the patients went to trauma two where someone would set up IV meds, urinary catheterization in trauma three, NG- tube placement with me in trauma four, out the door on an EKG and up to a room. All we could do was stabilize them and say a prayer before the next patient came in."
She paused again, then said with a sad smile, "Listen to me, unloading on you. I'm sorry. Maybe I'll tell you more another time, when you're stronger, if you want to hear about it. Anyway, this procedure is always difficult for me to do because I know how unpleasant and uncomfortable it is for the patient, but it's part of my job, and it's a part I am unusually good at. I need to do this, Steve, because it's something I can do to help you."
He squeezed her hand and said, "You help me just by being here, Liv."
"Yeah, there is that, but I want to do more."
He nodded. "I understand."
"So, let me get this straight," Moretti said, "you call and pretend to be sick, and ask Sloan for help. He gives you the safe house address, you take me there, and they get the bad guys who come after us. Then we run off again."
"Yeah."
"Why do we run off?"
"Because the FBI still has a leak, and if whoever it is belongs to the task force, there's too much chance that they will get the location of the secondary safe house."
"Oh. Why can't they have someone in disguise instead of using us?"
"Because, some of the bad guys might be cops involved in the bust. Except for the Chief and a few of his closest people, there's no telling who can be trusted."
"Besides the Chief, who do you trust?"
Emmy thought a while, and when she answered, she surprised Moretti. "My mama," she said.
"You want a cup of water and a straw," Jesse asked.
"I don't know, what do you think?"
"Well, I know we said he should be NPO, but if sipping water makes the tube go down easier, I don't think it'd hurt. I suppose you could just have him swallow without the water."
"Yeah, but the water will act as a lubricant. I think we should use it."
"Ok. I'll get it."
While Jesse was gone, Liv measured the tube by holding the tip of the tube at Steve's earlobe and drawing it across his face to the tip of his nose where she marked the tube, using a small piece of tape. Next, she drew the tube down to the tip of his breastbone and marked this location with a permanent marker. Then she bent the end of the tube forward so it curved slightly.
Jesse came back then, and put the cup of water in both of Steve's hands. Then Jesse wrapped his hands around Steve's.
"I'm not going to spill, Jesse."
"I know, buddy, but when someone started messing around at your face, it's a natural reaction to try to push them away. This way, I can help you resist that urge."
"Oh."
Steve watched with growing apprehension as Liv lubricated the first three inches of the tube. He knew where it was going next, and the thought was making him increasingly nervous.
"Ready?"
Jesse gave him a questioning look as Olivia asked the question. After a moment's hesitation, he said, "I guess."
"What about cops? Ya trust any of them?" Moretti was trying to figure out if Emmy really wanted to go through with the plan or if she was just bouncing around ideas.
"Well, my mama knew Commander Banks, and she liked her. The woman is the Chief's right hand."
"Yeah, an' Cainin's daughter is his left."
Emmy nodded. "There is that. Hey, this looks great," she said as Moretti placed a broiled salmon steak before her.
Olivia tipped Steve's head back and brought the tube up to his nose. Just as Jesse had said, his first instinct was to push her hands away, but Jesse squeezed his hands together around Steve's forcing him to tighten his grip on the cup of water. Steve felt the tube snaking it's way through his nasal passages and squirmed.
"Easy, buddy. It's gonna be ok," Jesse murmured.
The piece of tape Liv had placed on the tube came into view, and Steve closed his eyes. He heard a tiny tearing sound as Olivia removed the tape from the tube. A moment later, she tipped his head gently forward and said, "Ok, babe, take slow sips of water until I tell you to stop."
Jesse helped him lift the cup and straw to his mouth, and he realized his hands would have been shaking if Jesse's hadn't been there to steady him. Slowly, he sipped the water, and each time he swallowed, Liv moved the tube in a few more inches. After what seemed like forever but was probably only a few minutes at the most, she said, "Ok, you can stop drinking now."
Jesse lifted the cup away, folded Steve's hands across his abdomen, and covered them with his own. Steve opened his eyes, and Jess gave him an encouraging smile. "Almost done, pal."
Steve did his best to smile back. Then Olivia moved in front of him with a flashlight and a tongue depressor and said, "Open wide."
He felt her poke around inside his mouth for just a moment, then she said, "You doing all right?"
"I, uh, I think so," he responded.
"Good. The fact that you can talk to me tells me I didn't get it down your windpipe."
She attached a syringe to the end of the tube, and pulled back on the plunger.
"She's making sure it's actually in your stomach," Jesse explained. "If she gets gastric juices, we know it's where we want it."
"Steve, I'm going to lower you head and shoulders," Olivia said. "Then I need you to turn over on your left side."
"What's wrong," he asked, suddenly frightened.
"Nothing, Steve. It's just that I'm not getting anything, probably because your stomach's nearly empty. Laying on your left side will move your gastric secretions closer to where the tip of the tube should be."
He rolled over, and she pulled back on the plunger again. A pinkish fluid filled the tube.
"Ok, there we go. It's a little bloody, but nothing like what you were bringing up." She smiled brightly at him as she injected the fluid back into his stomach and said, "That's a good sign, Steve."
She taped the tube to his nose, plugged the end, wrapped a piece of tape around it further down, leaving a tail of tape hanging, and pinned the tail to his hospital gown. "In a couple of minutes, we'll take you to x-ray to confirm the tube is exactly where it should be, and before long, we'll set up a feeding schedule. We're going to keep you on an IV for now, to administer meds, but you'll only have to live with the tube for a few days, a week at the most. Before then, Jess and I will have worked out the proper medications for your ulcers, and you'll be feeling better before you know it, ok?"
Steve nodded, and felt the tube jiggle. "Ok. Thanks, Liv."
She smiled again and said, "Only a true gentleman would thank me for putting him through such an ordeal. Maribeth sure has worked wonders with you."
He rolled his eyes at her joke as she looked to Jesse.
"Can you stay with him for a bit, Jess? Keith is waiting for Maribeth and Steven to finish up in surgery, and I want him to have current information for them. Right now all he knows to tell them is that Steve was brought in here vomiting blood, and that's scary news to be greeted with about a love one."
"Ok, Liv," Jesse agreed. "I'll go down to x-ray with him, and I'll leave word at the ER reception desk telling you what room he's in."
"Thanks, Jess."
Liv leaned over and gave Steve an affectionate kiss on the forehead. "You did very well, Steve. I know it was rough. If you just get some rest now, I promise you'll be feeling a little better by tomorrow."
Before she left, he reached out and squeezed her arm. "Thanks again, Liv, for helping me through this."
She smiled and said, "I'm glad I was here, Steve."
"I need to talk to the Chief," Emmy said, pushing back her dessert dish. "I think it's time his old friend, Dr. Amanda Bentley-Wagner visits him in the hospital."
Moretti chuckled. "Can't resist, can ya?"
Grinning, Emily said simply, "Nope."
Steve settled comfortably back against his pillows in the dark. He'd been drifting in and out of sleep since Liv had put the feeding tube in. Jesse was giving him some kind of sedative. Of that, he was certain, because today had been a total loss, a setback in fact, and he really couldn't bring himself to care. The one bright spot, he realized proudly, was that he had gotten everyone else to go home.
He didn't object to their company, in fact, he craved it, hating to spend the night alone in the hospital instead of in bed beside his wife; but he felt so guilty about worrying them that he couldn't bear the thought of anyone spending the night beside him on a lumpy cot with a thin foam-rubber pad for a mattress. The six of them, Steven, Maribeth, his dad, Amanda, Jesse, and Liv had been arguing about who should stay with him when he finally settled the dispute for them.
"I'll stay," Liv had said, "I have nothing to do but hang around the house anyway."
"No, Olivia, there's no telling when the task force might need you. I'll stay. I have to be here at seven sharp anyway," Jesse contradicted.
"Which is exactly why you should go home and get some sleep," Amanda had argued. "All of my patients are dead. I can't hurt any of them if I'm sleep deprived."
"But you could miss important forensic evidence. He's my husband. I'm staying," Maribeth put in.
"Maribeth, you've just spent what, five hours in surgery," his dad had reminded her. "You need to sleep in your own bed tonight. This won't be the first time I've spent the night here, I'll stay."
"Granddad, at your age, you of all people should spend the night in your own bed. Go home, all of you," Steven had tried to command them. "I'm younger than any of you, and my back can take sleeping on a worn out cot. I'll stay the night."
"Oh rub it in, why don't you," Jesse had said as Maribeth had given the young man an affectionate swat on the shoulder. Then the arguing started again.
Steve silenced them by whistling through his fingers. Looking at Jesse he asked, "Do you expect me to die tonight?"
Stunned by the question, Jesse answered, "God, Steve, no."
"Is there anything you could reasonably expect to happen to me that could not be handled by the doctor on call?"
Again, Jesse said no.
"Then all of you go home," he had said. "Including you, Steven," he said, and the young man's triumphant grin died aborning.
"But, Dad…" Steven began.
"Listen, son…" Mark tried to override his grandson.
"Steve…" Maribeth said softly.
"No!" He cut them all off. "I got myself in here by working too hard, resting too little, and worrying too much about things I couldn't change. To see any of you risk your health by doing the same over me would make me sick with guilt. Jesse, I know you're going to drug me, so I should sleep well tonight," Jesse had the grace to look embarrassed, knowing he'd been caught, "and I am an adult, so I don't need anyone here to mother me and hold my hand if I should wake up. Now, visiting hours are over, so all of you scat! Go home."
There had been some more grumbling and muttering, but eventually everyone had cleared out.
Bold as brass, Emily/Amanda strolled in through the main entrance to the ER at Community General Hospital at around ten thirty that night. If anyone questioned her presence, she planned to say she had forgotten the results to an important test that she needed for a meeting with the Chief of Police first thing in the morning. It was a high priority case, and she didn't dare keep the Chief waiting. A few days ago, Emily had found some old videos of press conferences Amanda had given in her capacity as chief coroner for Los Angeles County, and she hoped she had learned to emulate the doctor's voice convincingly. If her vocal impersonation passed muster, she would wander down to the path lab, just to make it look good. On her way out, she'd stop by reception and ask for Steve Sloan's room number, explaining that since she was here, she just wanted to check in on her friend once more tonight before she left.
Nick Solomon, an FBI agent assigned to monitor the most wanted/missing persons web page tapped his colleague, Timothy Brown, on the shoulder. "Hey, Tim, we've got a hit on Emily Stephens at Community General Hospital," he said.
Brown looked at the screen and said in a bored tone, "It's the Dr. Bentley- Wagner disguise. Where's the locator say the doctor is?"
Solomon clicked on another screen. "According to this, she's at home. Should I call Agent Wagner?"
Brown thought a moment. "She probably just forgot the locator. I can't believe Stephens would be so stupid as to walk into a busy place like a hospital dressed as one of its most popular and best known employees."
"I dunno," Solomon said, "She's pulled some wild stunts already."
"Fine," Brown said, "call if you like, but I wouldn't want to be you when you wake and worry Agent Wagner over nothing."
Solomon decided to think it over a little before calling.
"Amanda?" At tall blonde doctor called to her, "What in the world are you doing here so late?"
Emily/Amanda eyed his ID as she told her story. Dr. Alex Martin was a friend of Steven's and a former protégé of Mark Sloan's according to what she'd heard.
Alex laughed. "You? Forget something that important. I guess it's true what they say. The mind is the first thing to go."
Emily/Amanda laughed with him and said, "You'll find out soon enough for yourself. Have you checked on Steve lately?"
"Yeah, about half an hour ago. He was sleeping." Alex grinned. "You're going to stop in before you go, aren't you."
She rolled her eyes and looked embarrassed, saying, "I can't help it. We've been friends forever, and I just need to see for myself that he's doing all right."
Alex shook his head, saying, "You're all a bunch of mother hens. Jesse stopped by 'on his way home' from BBQ Bob's about an hour ago."
Emily/Amanda looked shocked and said, "Home is thirty minutes in the other direction."
"I mentioned that, and he said he felt like going for a drive anyway. Like I said, you're all a bunch of old mother hens."
"Oh, we are, huh? And how many times have you checked in since you came on duty."
Now it was Alex's turn to look embarrassed. "Four," he admitted quietly.
"Since…"
"Since nine o'clock."
"Mother hen indeed. I'll talk to you later, Alex."
"See you around, Amanda."
"Cluck-cluck."
Emily/Amanda breathed a sigh of relief as Alex disappeared around a turn in the corridor. She decided to skip the path lab for fear of running into someone who might see through her disguise, and instead snatched a folder from the 'to file' basket on the ER receptionist's desk when the woman's back was turned. Then she stepped into the nearby doctor's lounge and dialed the patient information desk to get the Chief's room number.
"Tim," Nick Solomon asked his partner. "What exactly are our orders concerning Dr. Bentley-Wagner?"
Emily/Amanda quickly made her way to room 389. She needed to talk to the Chief and get out of the hospital fast. Too many people knew Dr. Bentley- Wagner for her to pass as the woman for long.
CJ Bentley-Wagner had caught an earlier flight from Chicago. The young vascular surgeon was just returning from a conference where he had renewed his acquaintance with a lovely colleague named Dr. Alicia Birch Geiger whom he had first met as a child at his Uncle Steve's almost-wedding in Pennsylvania some thirty years ago. He would have loved to spend more time in the woman's company, but he had checked his voice mail before meeting her for dinner and found that Steve had been admitted to the Community General's ER earlier that day and he had been vomiting blood. CJ had immediately changed his reservations, and since he didn't have time to meet Alicia, he had called a florist and sent a dozen roses and a note of apology to her at the restaurant where they had planned to dine. Now he was landing at LAX, and he prayed his unique skills had not been needed.
As soon as he was able, he called the hospital to check on Steve's condition again. To his immense relief, he was told his uncle was resting comfortably. An endoscopic exam had revealed a tear in the esophagus, which his uncle Jesse had been able to cauterize through the scope. Steve also had two ulcers, one in the stomach, and one in the duodenum. The culture for H. pylori was positive, but the biopsy was negative for cancer. Steve was NPO for the next few days, but he had been fitted with a feeding tube and would begin enteral feeding in the morning. In spite of the positive reports, CJ decided he really wanted to check in on his uncle before he went home. So, as he left the parking lot at LAX, he turned the car toward Community General Hospital.
"Tim, why would she be heading into the hospital at ten thirty at night?" The more Solomon thought about Dr. Bentley-Wagner's late arrival at the hospital, the more confused he got.
"At the afternoon meeting, they said Chief Sloan was sick and would be in the hospital for a while," Brown said. "Maybe she's going in to check on him."
"Maybe, but at ten thirty?"
"They are good friends."
"I suppose."
Emily/Amanda turned the light over the Chief's bed to its lowest setting and studied the man for a moment. The poor guy looked at least ten years older than he had when he'd hired her, and she couldn't help feeling guilty over the possibility that she had put him here. He was sleeping so peacefully that she was loath to wake him, but she knew she had no choice.
Shaking him gently, she said, "Chief? Chief!"
Steve woke grudgingly. I couldn't be morning yet, could it? He glanced toward the window. It was still dark outside.
"Amanda?" She looked him in the eye. Green-gold eyes. He drew in a hiss of breath. "Emily!" he whispered. "What the *hell* are you doing here?"
She gave him a lopsided grin and asked, "How'd you know it was me?"
"You have your mother's eyes."
Amanda Bentley-Wagner hung up the phone and got out of bed with a moan. A local big shot had just been murdered, and as the county's chief medical investigator, she had been called to the crime scene to give the public the impression that the police had their best people working on the case. From the sound of things, the case was so open and shut, a trained monkey could have handled it, but appearance was everything in politics, and certain politically motivated people in the police department and the DA's office wanted it to appear that they had gone beyond the call to get the killer. She knew she was just a pawn in a big, fat game, but she loved her work and was willing to live with occasionally being a political tool in order to spend the rest of her time helping ordinary people get justice.
After she threw on her clothes, she grabbed the FBI tracking device Ron had asked her to wear so they could distinguish her from the disguised Emily whenever the facial recognition program registered a hit. Then she kissed her sleeping husband goodbye, left him a note, and headed to the crime scene.
CJ paused in the doctor's parking lot. There was a strange car in his mother's spot. He looked at it half with annoyance for taking her place, and half with admiration. It was an old Dodge Viper, from around the beginning of the millennium if he wasn't mistaken. He circled it once, just to get a good look, then headed in to check on his Uncle Steve.
"Ok, sir," Emily agreed, "If Moretti goes for it, I'll contact Mama sometime tomorrow and get the ball rolling, but if for any reason I feel I can't trust Commander Banks, the whole thing is off, and you'll have to find another way to get Leigh Ann and her pals."
"Fair enough, Lieutenant. Now get out of here before someone else ID's you."
"I'll leave as soon as you're sleeping again, sir."
"You're almost as bad as your mother, you know that?"
"Runs in the family, I guess, sir." There was a moment of silence, then Emmy said, "Uh, sir?"
"If you want me to sleep, you need to be quiet," Steve gently chided her.
"Yes, sir. I just wanted to say I'm sorry for being such a pain in the ass, sir."
"Don't worry about it, Lieutenant. You'll get what you've got coming when this is all over."
"Yes, sir," Emmy said glumly.
"Now be quiet and let me sleep."
"Yes, sir. Good night, sir."
She waited until she heard his breathing deepen and even out. Then she gently brushed the hair out of his eyes, cut the light, and slipped out of the room.
"Tim…"
"What, Solomon?" Brown was getting annoyed and he let it show in his voice.
"Dr. Bentley-Wagner's locator is moving."
"So?"
"It's in Valley, Tim, and she's still at the hospital."
"Oh, shit!"
Emily/Amanda slipped out of the Chief's room and headed for the elevator. She got as far as the nurses' station when it opened and deposited Dr. CJ Bentley-Wagner at the end of the hall.
'Couldn't find a tougher sell if I was looking for one,' she thought. 'Too far from the stairs to slip off unnoticed, to close to the elevator not to keep going.' She stopped, turned, and asked the nurse for Steve Sloan's chart. If her disguise wasn't up to this test, she'd find out soon enough if her workout was. She remembered from reading his bio on the CGH web page that CJ Bentley-Wagner had run for the UCLA track team in college. He was still fit, as far as she could tell, but he was also about ten years older and at least fifty pounds heavier than she was, and she had inherited her dad's long-legged, ground eating stride.
She figured if she couldn't con him, she could outrun him.
"Hey, Mom." CJ said tiredly.
She pretended to be absorbed in the chart.
"Mom?"
"Oh, hey," she could feel him watching her expectantly as she continued to study the chart. Looking up, she said, "What?"
"What do you mean 'what'? No, 'Hi, how are you? Did you enjoy Chicago? How was the conference?'"
Not knowing if she called him 'son', or used a nickname, she settled for the name he used on the website. "I'm sorry, CJ, I'm just concerned about your Uncle Steve."
"Has his condition deteriorated?"
'Good,' Emily thought, 'occupy his mind with someone else.' "I don't think so," Amanda said. "I just worry, you know?"
CJ smiled, then and said, "I know. We all do."
Amanda smiled back. "So, hi, CJ, how are you? How was the conference? Did you enjoy Chicago?"
"Hello, Mom," her son grinned back. "I'm fine, and the conference was great. I loved Chicago, though I'd rather wait until August to visit. In March, it's much too cold." He pretended to shiver. "You'll never guess who I met there," he added excitedly.
Emily should have simply said no, but in all her life, she had only known five people from Chicago, her mother's friends at Chicago Hope Hospital, and that number was down to four now that Phillip Watters had passed on, so she pretended to guess. "Umm, Alicia Geiger?"
When CJ's Jaw dropped, she mentally kicked herself.
"*How* did you *know*?"
How the hell *did* she know? Oh, yeah!
"Mother's intuition," she said with a smile. "You're a vascular surgeon. She's a vascular surgeon. She's in Chicago, and you went to Chicago. She's very good at what she does, and I thought, 'Who else is there in Chicago that my son would be so excited about meeting?' Her name was the first to come to mind. So, did you enjoy making her acquaintance?"
The young man blushed. "I was about to make more than just her acquaintance…"
"That is more than I need to know, CJ."
He looked at her crossly. "We were just going to have dinner, Mother, but I checked my messages, and you had called about Uncle Steve, so I booked the next flight home."
"I'm sorry to have ruined your plans, CJ. He's really doing much better now."
"That's ok, Mom." CJ studied his mother; there was something different about her. The black trousers and mustard colored shirt over the black turtleneck were new to him, but there was something else. "I sent her some flowers and an apology explaining what had happened. It'll be ok. Like Ron says, 'Always leave 'em wanting more'."
She rolled her eyes and laughed slightly.
CJ was surprised not to get a rise out of her with that. He knew the expression annoyed her no end. Something was wrong. Now he realized that her clothes were slightly disheveled. No one else was likely to notice the wrinkles and creases, they were so few, but his mother was an immaculate dresser, and, come to think of it, that color was out this year.
"Mom? You ok?"
She yawned tremendously, then. "Just tired, I guess."
"I see, and what are you doing here so late anyway?"
Emily/Amanda stuck to her story. "I forgot this file I need first thing in the morning when I meet with Chief Archer. I decided to check in on Steve since I was here."
CJ knew there was definitely something wrong, now. *His* mother *never* forgot anything. She was the most organized person he had ever met. He was determined now to wheedle it out of her.
"Look, Mom, I don't like the idea of you driving home alone this late at night. It *is* almost eleven, and I see someone took your parking space near the door. Let me give you a lift, then I can crash at home tonight."
Emily resisted the chance to make a quick getaway. Amanda Bentley-Wagner had to have been headstrong and independent to get where she was, and she wouldn't be too eager to accept the offer like a damsel in distress.
"I'll be fine, CJ. I'm ok to drive home, you don't need to give me a ride."
"I want to, Mom," he said sincerely. "In fact, I insist."
She was about to protest when another yawn interrupted her.
"Well?"
"Ok, ok," she finally surrendered. "Meet me in the path lab after you've looked in on your uncle. I have a few overnight tests running in there that I might as well check on since I'm here."
"All right," he agreed, "I'll be down in a few minutes."
Ron rolled over and caught the phone halfway through the second ring. His wife had already been called out to some big shot's murder, and he'd drifted off to a light sleep while she was still getting dressed. Now he supposed it was his turn.
"Wagner here."
"Agent Solomon, here, sir. We think Emily Stephens is at Community General Hospital masquerading as your wife again, sir."
"My wife was called to a murder scene not long ago, are you sure it isn't her?"
"She was spotted at the hospital almost an hour ago, sir, but her locator is just arriving there now, after having gone to the Valley."
"Why the hell did you wait an hour to call me?"
"Mom?" CJ said with a puzzled frown as he found his mother in scrubs, performing an autopsy on a fresh body in the path lab.
"Hi, honey, how was Chicago? Did you enjoy the conference?"
As his mother's warm brown eyes met his, CJ suddenly knew what was wrong when he'd spoken to her upstairs.
