(Chapter 17. Safe house, CGH, other places in and around LA. March 18.)
"Did you get a look at Commander Banks? How bad was she? I couldn't tell, I was too busy playing sick." Emily asked as she and Moretti moved from the PT Cruiser to the Viper.
"Dunno. She took it in the head an' dropped like a sack of stones."
"Shit!"
Emmy pulled out a cell phone and punched in a number. Moretti laughed aloud. At Emmy's furious look, he said, "Sorry, Em. I'm worried about Banks, too. When I talked to her today on the phone, she seemed ok, for a cop. It's just." He trailed off. It wasn't as funny as it had been a moment ago.
"Just what?"
"Well, how many cell phones *do* you have?"
"Oh, four with me, and at least a dozen more back at the house."
"Why?"
"I steal as many as I can every time I'm out and about. You can only use each one once, or the cops can track you. If I have to make a lot of calls, I need several phones."
"I see."
"Now," she told Moretti, "I'm calling the hospital. When they answer, ask for Dr. Travis, either Dr. Sloan, or either Dr. Bentley-Wagner in that order. Whoever you get, raise some hell about the breach of security, tell them Commander Banks was shot, and tell them you'll be calling back in one hour to talk to my mother about her condition. Tell them they need to get their act together if they ever want to see you again. And remember I'm sick."
Moretti nodded, Emmy pressed the send button, and he completed the call.
Cheryl moaned in pain as the young paramedic pressed a heavy gauze pad to her head wound and put her hand over it to hold it in place. "Thanks, Jim."
"It's just a graze, but you're going to have to get it stitched up. You were lucky." He went to stow his gear in the ambulance.
"Lucky?" She called after him. "Lucky to be shot in the head?"
"Lucky to be shot in the head and still have all your brains inside it," Dion said, as he entered the garage. "One of the shooters was a SWAT sniper with a high powered rifle. He and another of them are known associates of Rossi's. There were five in all. Two are dead, one's in very shaky condition. I doubt he'll last long enough to make a statement. Two surrendered without a fight, but they've already asked for their lawyers. We can't even question them."
"All out of your division?" Ron asked.
Dion nodded dejectedly, "Yeah."
"What else have you got?"
As Dion turned to speak to Ron, Cheryl snapped, "Captain! Unless you have taken a job with the FBI, you report to me!"
Both men turned to look at her, taken aback by the outburst. Cheryl was usually congenial and cooperative, and this territorial attitude was out of the ordinary for her. To their relief, she put a finger to her lips, winked and nodded, mouthing the words, 'Yes, ma'am,' to Dion. Then she gave Ron the small black box Emily had pressed into her hand as she clutched it in her delirium.
"Yes, ma'am," Dion responded, sounding suitably chastened.
As Jim and his partner came round to load her into the ambulance, she pointed to the black box in Ron's hand and said, "You two take care of things here, ASAP, then head to the hospital to brief me."
"Yes, ma'am," Dion replied again.
"Rogelio, your mama told me you said my problems would be over by the end of the day. I would hate to have to tell her you were wrong."
Gorini started to sweat. His Uncle Vinnie could make threatening conversation about the weather.
"The day isn't over," he said with a nervous laugh. "Give me until morning."
Vinnie Gaudino thought a moment. Roger could tell he was thinking because he heard his heavy breathing. Vinnie Gaudino was clever, and a very smart man in his area of expertise, but serious thinking was always quite an effort for him.
"Rogelio, you or Moretti. One of you will not be breathing at sunrise."
"I'll get him, Uncle Vinnie."
"I hope so, Rogelio. You're a good boy, and my sister, your mother, loves you very much. It would break my heart to tell her you had a tragic accident."
When Maribeth arrived to check on Steve at around nine pm, she found Cheryl, Dion, Ron, and Liv in his room. Ron was scanning the room looking for listening devices, and a very tired looking Olivia was sitting a little too comfortably on the bed beside Steve, though she did have the courtesy to get up and move to the other side of the bed when Maribeth came in.
"Is this what you call resting?" she asked Steve.
"Babe, they'll be out of here in half an hour. They just stopped by to update me on the situation."
"Steve, I don't care if they stopped to bring you flowers and chocolates, you are supposed to be resting." In a tone that included the whole group, she said simply, "Out, now."
Dion got up to go.
"Dion, stay," Steve insisted. "Maribeth, I have rested all day, and I am getting damned sick of it! Even Dad was getting bored and had Steven take him home at the end of his shift. I have also been worrying about Emily and Moretti all day." At her incredulous look, he said, "I'm not just saying this to con you. I really will rest better when I know how things went and what's coming next."
"We're clear," Ron said.
Steve looked imploringly at his wife, and she finally relented. "Ok, thirty minutes," she said, sitting on the bed beside him in the space Liv had just vacated. Looking at Liv, she noticed deep lines of fatigue in the other woman's face, and realized that for the first time, she looked her age. For a moment, Maribeth felt meanly pleased that Liv was actually looking old, then she squashed a sudden flash of guilt with righteous indignation that Liv was paying so much attention to Steve.
"Where's your husband?" she asked.
The slight emphasis on 'your' put such a charge in the air, Cheryl was surprised the lights didn't short out. The men didn't even seem to notice.
Olivia stifled a yawn and crossed her arms over her chest. She was clearly exhausted. "He's at Em's house, with young 'Fredo Cioffi and Charles Donovan, trying to anticipate what Emmy will need, so we can wrap this mess up. Moretti called, demanding to talk to me here in one hour."
"At my husband's bedside?"
Olivia gave her a calm, even stare, and said placidly, "At the hospital. I knew Cheryl and Dion would be briefing Steve, so I decided to come here to get the whole story."
"So," Maribeth said, fixing her husband with a look he didn't quite comprehend, "what is the 'whole' story."
Steve shrugged and looked to Dion, who looked to Ron who looked to Cheryl, who looked around the room before addressing Ron and Dion. "First of all, guys, I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier, but it occurred to me that if the men who attacked the safe house knew about it before we used it, they could have bugged it. I didn't want their cronies to have any clue what had happened there or what we knew about them, little as it may be."
Ron and Dion nodded. Steve said, "Good thinking."
"Thanks." Turning to Liv, Cheryl continued, "The hospital phone lines are clean. They're going to patch Moretti's call through to you here."
Liv agreed, "I'll tell him you're ok, and if you're here, I'll give the phone over to you."
"Good." Now Cheryl turned to Maribeth. "Understand this. Except for Emily, Moretti, and Keith, no one outside this room knows what's really going on. Even the paramedics at the scene and the back up Dion and I called in don't really know why they were there tonight. We think we are this close," she held her thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart, "to closing up all the mafia leaks in the LAPD as well as the local offices of the FBI, and the Witness Protection Program, but if anything leaks out, this sting will fall down like the house of cards that it is."
Looking at Cheryl, the tall, blonde doctor pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes, and said, "I can keep a secret."
Keith sat in the armchair by the window, head in his hands, staring at his prosthetic feet. For the first time in thirty years, he felt inadequate because of his missing legs. If he had been whole, he could have been there when his daughter walked into the trap at the safe house to serve as bait. He got around all right, most of the time, and with the advances of recent years, he even had what passed for sensation from his feet and legs, which helped tremendously with his balance. On good days, his feet were even ticklish, a fact that delighted his wife no end. But when he was worried or upset, the increased firing in his synapses sometimes caused a 'short' in his brain's interpretation of the electrochemical signals coming from his feet. He knew, had he been there during the firefight, he would only have been a hindrance and a danger to the police and his daughter. The adrenaline rush would have caused anything from muscle spasms, to a complete loss of balance, to crippling, screaming-at-the-top-of-his-lungs pain.
So, he was left to waiting, wondering, and going back over plowed ground with a couple of rookies to see if there was anything they missed. It wasn't hard for him to play the worried father, but he felt it best to withdraw as much as possible, because every lie he had to tell to continue the ruse stuck in his throat and put his precious baby at greater risk. He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, and looked up to see the redheaded Officer Charles Donovan smiling down at him, offering him a cup of strong black coffee.
"Thank you, Charles."
Donovan nodded and said, "I'm sure she'll be all right, sir."
Keith nodded back, "I hope so." He knew his daughter wasn't ill, but he was worried nonetheless. There were plenty of other dangers lurking round her right now.
"She survived this bug once before, right? From what Hannah.uh, Miss Wagner has told me, if she is sick again, it shouldn't be as bad this time because her immune system already has antibodies to fight it."
"That's what I understand, Charles, but the fact is, the BioGen virus is manmade, and no one really knows what it will do or how it will act."
Worried brown eyes studied him closely, and Keith wished he could tell this young man the truth. Donovan and Cioffi had proven so reliable throughout this ordeal, he thought it unfair to leave them out of the loop now, but he also understood how important it was to keep the circle of those in the know as small as possible. One slip, one careless word could endanger his daughter, and as much as he liked and trusted the young men, he wasn't willing to take that risk.
He gulped down his coffee, got out of the chair, and limped over to the table. Looking from Donovan to Cioffi, he said, "Ok, let's have at it again, gentlemen."
Emily and Moretti pulled into a parking garage to steal another car. They were going to follow a plan similar to the one they had before. Moretti wanted an SUV, but Emmy refused, explaining that they were more likely to roll over, and if they had to do any fast driving, she didn't want to take that risk. Chuckling, Emmy decided to take an ancient Jeep instead. Frustrated, Moretti asked why.
"I learned to drive in one of these," she said. "My mama bought it in bulk, Army surplus, and assembly required when she was sixteen. She and eight of her friends went together and bought each of themselves one and one for the auto mechanics teacher to pay him for the time he took to teach them how to assemble and maintain the cars. They formed a club and called themselves Cloud Nine and painted all the Jeeps with different colored clouds. Mama's was a god-awful pink. She still has it, sort of."
"Sort of?"
"Well, it's got about a million miles on it, and just about everything has been replaced at least once. It's still Mama's Jeep, I guess, but it's not the same Jeep."
Moretti just laughed. "All the money your mama's got an' she keeps an old wreck around."
Emmy looked at him defensively and said, "It's not an old wreck. Mama knows a lot about cars and she has always taken good care of it. She's had it over half a century, and there's only been one time the engine didn't crank on the first try."
"Whatever, Em. A fifty-year-old Jeep is still just an old Jeep."
"Not my Mama's. It's got sentimental value."
Moretti just laughed.
Ron had found a message scratched into the surface of the black box Emily had given Cheryl. "Plug me into a fully-charged laptop, turn it on, and wait."
"I already played this once on the way over here," Ron said to Cheryl, "and I called Captain Cioffi at the station, telling him to have his men on standby. I told you about the important stuff, but I think you should see it for yourself."
He hit the power button on the laptop, and a computer-generated caricature of Emmy appeared and spoke to them. It was a false-color image, mostly black and white, with the only color being the flame-red, wild curls and the gold-green eyes.
"Hey, there," the image said in a passable imitation of Emily's voice. "I hope everything went ok, so far. I'm sorry to change the game on you now, but a thought came to me after Moretti talked to Mama at lunchtime. This other contact I have--the guy who hooked me up with Rossi, Marino, and Velasquez, blew Leigh Ann's cover, and by the time you see this, will have the baddies after me at your place--I think we could pull the same ruse on him twice. If there's gunfire at your safe house, Moretti's gonna call my contact and say he got the number from my cell phone's record of the last ten calls. He'll tell my contact what went down, pretend he thinks the guy is FBI or someone else waiting to help him, and ask for a safe place to stay. Soon as we know where we're going, I'll transmit to you, and you can send in backup." The caricature took on a pensive frown, then, with forced cheer and an attempt at a cavalier attitude, said, "I sure hope you're watching this, because if you aren't Moretti and I are dead meat."
"So," Steve said summing it up neatly, "she's going to call her contact, and see if he's set up a safe house. If he has, she's going to use this to let us track her and bring in backup."
Ron nodded. "Cioffi is back at the station. I'm going to get this thing rigged to transmit her position to him so can coordinate his men to back her up. Y'know, she really is a clever kid."
"Too clever for her own good," Liv said, a muscle twitching in her jaw. "What if something had happened and her gizmo didn't work?"
Maribeth felt a sudden flash of sympathy for the worried mother. She probably hadn't slept in days. Letting go of her jealousy for the moment, she said gently, "Don't think about that. Nothing went wrong."
Olivia gave a derisive snort. "My daughter is out there, on the run from God alone knows who, and you say nothing went wrong. Hah."
Maribeth looked apologetic, and said, "Well, nothing went wrong tonight."
Olivia raised her voice, gold-green eyes flashing bright with anger despite the dark circles beneath them. "Two cops are dead, Maribeth! Dirty cops, yes, but still dead! Another is dying, Cheryl nearly had her brains blown out, we still don't have Leigh Ann because nobody's talking, and Emmy is still out there and planning to walk *right in* to another trap. Something most definitely *did* go wrong tonight!"
She burst into tears.
If Steve had had half a brain in his head, he would have just held her hand and spoken soothingly, but foolishly, he pulled her to him, down on the bed beside him and wrapped her in a comforting hug, the action causing him to unwittingly turn his back on his wife. "Shh," he hushed her. "It's gonna be ok, Liv. Emmy's a sharp kid, and she'll come through this just fine." He stroked her hair, rubbed her back, and let her snuggle against him, already fast asleep.
"Son of a bitch," Maribeth muttered, and stalked out.
Looking at the empty space where Maribeth had been, Steve said, "What's wrong with her?"
"You, old friend," Ron said pointing to him, "are an idiot."
Cheryl stifled a laugh and turned away, Dion covered his eyes and shook his head, Liv murmured in her sleep and snuggled closer.
Steve looked down at the unruly mop of red curls spread out over his chest, gazed at the empty spot in the doorway through which his wife had just passed, and said, "Damn!" Then he sucked in a sharp breath of pain as his stomach started to burn.
Emmy and Moretti were sitting in the stolen Jeep, hidden in a dark alley behind a disused warehouse. She took out yet another cell phone, and when Moretti stifled a chuckle, she rolled her eyes. She dialed the hospital and told him, "Remember, only talk to my mama."
"Right."
Emmy pushed send.
Continuing to curse a blue streak under his breath, Steve carefully reached around Liv and disconnected his NG-tube from the feeding pump. Shuddering uncontrollably at the weird, intrusive sensations running through his body, he clamped off the tubes as he had seen the nurses do when they attached a new bag of feeding solution, and slipped carefully from Liv's embrace, putting his pillow between her arms to give her something to hold onto.
As he tried to rise from the bed, Dion gently pushed him back down, but Steve pushed back.
"Uncle Steve, she'll get even madder if you go wandering about in your condition."
"Dion," Steve said through gritted teeth, trying his best to ignore the cramping in his stomach and the creepy-crawlers that went scurrying around under his skin every time the NG-tube moved. "Get out of my way or I will *knock* *you* *out*. I need to talk to my wife *right now*."
Dion tried again to restrain him, but Ron placed a hand on the younger man's shoulder and said, "Let him go, son."
Taking a deep breath, Dion nodded and moved aside.
Steve shifted to a sitting position and used his IV pole to help himself stand up. Then he staggered sluggishly to the door of his room and looked up and down the hall for Maribeth. With his wife nowhere in sight, he decided to ask for her at the nurses' station, but as he set off in that direction, he heard the phone ring.
Moretti was calling.
There would be decisions to make.
Liv might need him.
Steve felt torn.
Ron caught the phone halfway through the first ring. "This is Agent Wagner."
"She's right here, Moretti, just a second." Ron covered the receiver and asked Liv. "You ready?"
Instantly awake, Liv nodded. "Yes. Of course."
She took the phone, and Dion saw her knuckles go white. He heard the tension in her voice and saw the fear in her gold-green eyes. He remembered his Uncle's failed wedding when he was a boy, all the people talking about how difficult her childhood had been, and how her whole family had died in a fire while she was off at a summer camp. He knew she was terrified of losing her child, probably more so than most parents because she had already lost so much, and had nearly lost her daughter twice in the past three years. This woman was in a fragile state, and she was going to need some help soon. He went off to the opposite corner of the room and used his cell phone to call the ER and have them send his Uncle Jesse up.
"Mr. Moretti, this is Olivia Stephens, how is my daughter?"
"Oh, thank God." Looking to the others, nearly fainting with relief, Olivia said, "She wasn't shot."
"Commander Banks is ok, Mr. Moretti. She's right here if you want to talk to her."
Cheryl took over the phone, and Olivia sank back onto the bed, curled up, and clutched the pillow, rocking herself slightly.
Dion whispered into his cell phone, "Much more of this, Uncle Jess, and she's going to snap." As Cheryl made plans with Moretti, he noticed Olivia becoming even more distraught. "Maybe you should bring some kind of sedative. I'm going to call Keith."
Steve heard Ron's voice, strong and commanding, "This is Agent Wagner."
There were three people with Liv. Jess and Amanda were in the building if they were needed, and Keith was in Brentwood. Steve decided to go after his wife.
He made his unsteady way to the nurses' station and asked the nearest young woman on duty, "Where's my wife?"
She gave him the deer-in-the-headlights look and then glanced at her two companions who were sitting in the uneasy silence of those whose conversation had just been interrupted by the subject of their gossip. Steve grabbed her wrist, not tightly enough to hurt her, but just to get her attention and said again, giving each word the weight of a sentence, "Where's. My. Wife?"
The girl looked at him a moment more, then pointed to a nearby door. "Supply room."
"Thank. You." He gave each of the women a furiously indignant glare, then limped over to the door. He was so damned stiff from spending over twenty- four hours in bed. A man his age.he made a face as the phrase crossed his mind.just couldn't lay in bed for days on end if he wanted to continue walking. When.things.with Maribeth were settled, he would talk to Steven and Jesse about getting some more exercise while he was in the hospital.
When he reached the door, Steve opened it and peeked inside. "Sweetheart?"
A box of tongue depressors came sailing at his head, and he barely managed to duck out of the way. As it flew by, the lid came open, and dozens of little wooden paddles clattered to the floor. Screwing up his courage, he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.
Moretti snapped the phone shut, grinning, and said, "They're gonna give us everything they can as soon as they can get it to us."
Emily just nodded.
"What? Em, that's great! We're gonna have a freakin' army of cops backing us up."
"Yeah," Emmy said, "and we have no idea which of them might 'accidentally' shoot us in the back for fifty grand."
"Oh. Is there a plan B?"
"Always." She smiled smugly.
"Talk to them, in the den. We know it's clear. My dad checked it after Leigh Ann left today."
"Ok. How's Liv?"
"She's upset," Dion said, "You better come over here."
"Ok. Talk to you later."
Keith hung up the phone and asked Cioffi and Donovan to join him in the den. At least now, he didn't have to pretend with them.
"Maribeth."
This time a box of disposable latex gloves came sailing at him. Unable to duck in time, Steve batted them away with his arm. He continued to advance as his wife turned away, looking for something else to throw. When he was close enough, he gently wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
"Damn, you! Let me go," she hissed.
But Steve could tell she didn't want him to let her go. Instead of struggling, she melted back into him, weeping.
"Tell me what's wrong, baby."
"As if you didn't know."
"I think I do, Maribeth, but I think you'd feel better if you told me yourself."
"You still love that.other woman!"
He sat on a convenient shelf, pulled her back against him, between his legs, and settled her on his thigh, cradling her against his body, stroking her arms.
"You've known that for thirty years, sweetheart."
"But she wasn't here for thirty years!"
"You were."
"Oh, Steve, I don't know why I'm so jealous, but every time I see her, I just want to scratch her eyes out."
She turned and threw her arms around his neck, sobbing loudly, now. He stiffened as she jostled the NG-tube, and she misinterpreted the body language.
"Damn you, Steve Sloan! You're still *in* love with her," she wailed, pulling away from him.
Steve grabbed his wife's wrist. He would not, could not, let her go now.
"No! Maribeth, it's just the damned tube!" he shouted.
She looked at him, wild-eyed, and began pounding and clawing at the hand wrapped around her wrist, bruising her knuckles and his, her fingernails tearing into his flesh and drawing blood.
Shutting out the pain she caused, and the pain he was about to cause himself, he dropped to his knees on the hard tiled floor and looked up at her.
"Maribeth, I'm begging you. Don't walk away from me," he pleaded. "Don't walk away from us. Don't walk away from the past thirty years."
Her struggling had slowed, but it had not yet stopped.
"Thirty, years, darling. You were here and she wasn't. I loved her, yes, as an old and very dear friend, but I didn't need her. I needed you. Please, Maribeth."
Tears were slipping down Steve's cheeks, but he was not embarrassed. He was not ashamed to beg. He would prostrate himself on the floor at her feet if he had to, but he *would not* let *this* woman walk out of his life.
"I thought of her often, yes, but I never called her, never wrote to her, never spoke of her, because I didn't need her. Through the earthquake and the riots, the drought, the scandals, my heart attack, through it all, the whole time, all I needed was you, Maribeth. If you leave, I will curl up right here on the floor and die, because without you, I have no reason to ever stand up again."
She stopped struggling, but didn't move toward him.
"Please, Maribeth," he whispered. "Stay with me."
She stepped toward him and caressed his face with her fingertips, her touch so light it made him shiver. He turned his head and kissed her palm. The fingers of her other hand stroked his hair.
"When did you ever get so gray?" she asked softly.
"Who's this?" Moretti growled into the phone. Emily had her ear pressed to the phone beside his so she could follow the conversation.
A calm, cultured voice answered. "Anyone who has this number knows who I am. Who are you?"
Moretti paused, letting the voice think he was uncertain. When the voice sighed, Emmy cued Moretti to begin speaking again. "This is Giancarlo Moretti. You know what happened at the LAPD safe house?"
"Oh, yes, Mr. Moretti. I'm *so* glad you called. How is Lieutenant Stephens?"
"She ain't screamin' for her mama no more, but I think that's 'cause she's too sick to scream." He glanced to Emmy, and getting the thumbs up, he continued. "Look, I know she been callin' you a lot 'cause she's only got three numbers in her cell phone, this one, Sloan's, an' her answering service. I need help. Where can I go?"
The voice tried to be warm and friendly, but it sounded far too pleased with itself.
"I'm glad you asked, Mr. Moretti. I have recently found a nice place for you and the Lieutenant, but she hasn't called lately, so I haven't been able to tell her about it. It's in Culver City, close to Marina Del Rey. Would you like the address?"
"Yeah, an' some protection, an' an ambulance for Stephens."
"Maribeth?"
"Hmm?" she continued stroking his hair.
"I need some help. My knees are killing me, and I don't think I can stand up on my own."
She chuckled softly and helped him to his feet.
Donovan let out a low whistle. "That's a bold move, sir."
"Just plain stupid, if you ask me," Keith said. Donovan and Cioffi exchanged confused glances as Keith continued. "See, Emmy's always liked living on the edge, and since she got so sick a couple years back, well, I get the feeling she either thinks she's indestructible or just doesn't give a damn any more."
Cioffi said, "She's been daring all along, sir, but she's also been very careful. My dad says she's a good cop. She'll be ok."
"I hope you're right, 'Fredo," Keith said.
Donovan gave him a thump on the shoulder. "Don't worry, sir, we'll take care of her."
Cioffi nodded, "We sure will."
Keith smiled, thinking, 'Ah, the innocent exuberance of youth.' "Thanks, boys," he said. "Now, I need to get to the hospital to be with my wife. Dion says she's not handling this very well. Could one of you give me a ride? My prosthetics aren't working very well tonight."
At the young men's puzzled looks, he pulled up his pant legs to reveal his artificial limbs. "Oh, come on, don't tell me you hadn't noticed." He knew very well they hadn't. For the past thirty years, Olivia had been regularly developing improvements for prosthetic limbs, both in appearance and function, and most people didn't even notice his when he was in shorts. This most recent set had a very lifelike polymer 'skin' with individual hairs implanted, and when someone pulled the hairs, it hurt.
"No, sir," Donovan replied. "I noticed you limped, but I just thought it was age."
"Oh, really?" As worried as he was, Keith couldn't resist teasing the young man.
"Oh, not that you're old, sir, but you know, some people as they age.er.that is...ummm."
Keith put up a hand to stop the young man in mid-stammer. "Relax, kid. You guys aren't old enough to remember the Six-Million-Dollar Man, are you?"
They stared blankly.
"Better.Stronger.Faster.?"
They shook their heads.
Keith slung his arm around Donovan's shoulders and said, "Give me a lift, and I'll tell you all about it."
Emily and Moretti snuck up on the "safe" house her contact had provided. She wore a fanny pack that held a rag, a bottle of chloroform, a large suction cup, a glasscutter, and a roll of duct tape. Her nine-millimeter nestled comfortably in a shoulder holster, just in case. Moretti had the forty-five she had given him, still stuck in his belt. They had parked several blocks away and closed in on foot. She had linked her laptop to a GPS tracking device she wore on her belt and recorded their route as they traveled to the area. After a twenty-minute head start, the computer would transmit to the device she had given Commander Banks, and the cops could begin following them. With any luck at all, they would have the bad guys subdued and be out before the police arrived. Emily felt like Spiderman, tie 'em up and leave 'em for the police.
They cased the place and found that all the lights were on downstairs, except for in the living room where some dolt was watching television, and there was an ambulance out front, but they had spotted no guards. When Moretti remarked on the absence of the guards, Emily said, "Why put out guards for our safety when the plan to blow us to hell anyway?"
"You got a point."
Sneaking around the house and peeking in the windows, they counted four men plus the ambulance attendants, heavily armed. "Probably with annihilation ammo," Emmy said, making Moretti shiver.
"Ok," she whispered, "here's the plan."
"Steve," Maribeth said as she helped him to his feet and hugged him close, "why does she need you and not her husband?"
Steve sighed and rubbed soft circles on his wife's back as he held her tight. "I don't know, hon. Maybe it's because LA is my turf and she feels more secure with someone who knows the area. Maybe it's that I'm still a cop and Keith retired years ago." He tilted Maribeth's face up so he could look her in the eye, and added, "But I know this, whatever happens, she won't come between you and me. I love her like a friend, but you are my life. Besides, I think she and Keith are as happy together as you and I have been. These are just extraordinary circumstances."
Maribeth nodded and put her head on his shoulder.
They snuck around to the porch beside the living room. The TV was blaring so loudly no one would hear as Moretti boosted Emmy up onto the porch roof. After confirming that the second-floor window had no alarm attached, she stuck the suction cup on the window and cut a six inch square piece out of it. It was triple paned glass, so after she pulled the suction cup free of the scrap of glass, she repeated the operation two more times. Then she reached in through the hole, unlocked the window, and opened it. Finally, she went to the edge of the porch, Moretti climbed onto the rail, and Emmy helped him onto the roof.
Emily slipped through the open window to the second-floor bedroom, and Moretti squeezed in after her.
"Two weeks ago, an' I never woulda made it," Moretti commented.
Emmy grinned and said, "Neither of us has made it yet."
She opened her fanny pack and took out the chloroform, the rag, and the duct tape. Handing the tape to Moretti, she said, "Now we need to get their attention." She hunted around the room and found a lamp. Opening the door so the guys downstairs knew which room to come to, she threw the lamp to the floor and splashed some chloroform on her rag.
When Steve and Maribeth emerged from the supply room, they found four nurses standing about the hall, trying to look very busy.
Not even bothering to whisper about it, he said to Maribeth, "I guess we have been the talk of the town."
She shared his contempt for gossip, and didn't mind shaming the nurses a bit. They should be ashamed. "Ever since Olivia *and Keith* showed up, speculation has run rampant around here. People haven't forgotten her or what she *used to* mean to you, and naturally, they *think* there is trouble waiting to happen."
"Well," Steve said, "it's a good thing you trust your husband and Keith trusts his wife. I'd hate to think of the problems we'd have if you were the type to take such *vicious* gossip to heart." Steve turned to his wife, smiled, and winked. She grinned back and nodded, and they enjoyed a long, deep, wet, very public kiss. Steve was very glad that years ago, Maribeth had gently but insistently worked to make him get over his aversion to public displays of affection. Normally, he wouldn't be quite so passionate in the hospital corridor, but this was for a good cause.
Pulling her close in a hug, he whispered in her ear, "*That* should give them something to *talk* about."
Whispering back, she said, "They're just jealous. I've got the best looking cop in LA."
Arm in arm, they turned and headed back to his room.
Nardo Giani, beer in hand, sat in the living room flipping channels on the TV, "Nothin' on.Nothin' on." He was in charge, and he had learned from watching Mr. Gaudino, that when you were in charge, you always had other people do the work for you. That way, if something went wrong, you could give somebody hell for it. "Nothin' on.Nothin' on." So, he had Tony and Frank Colombo and Joey Russo and the guys in the ambulance watching for Moretti and the cop. "Nothin' on.Nothin' on." The way the front drive came right up to the living room window, he was sure to see their headlights. "Nothin' on.Nothin' on." There was no way they'd slip past him. Giancarlo Moretti was a dead man.
A sudden crash jolted him from his rerun-induced hypnosis, and he hit the mute button, cursing as if he'd actually been interrupted. Yelling out to the kitchen where Frank and Tony were having coffee, he said, "Be a little more careful, will ya? I'm tryin' ta watch somethin' in here."
"Wasn't us, Nardo," Frank yelled to him.
Getting up and cursing his way to the kitchen, Nardo found Frank and Tony sitting at the table, looking as innocent as two mobsters possibly could. He headed into the dining room. "Joey?"
"Wommebas," Joey mumbled without looking up from his copy of Les Miserables. Joey always mumbled, he'd gone to speech classes all through school, right up until he dropped out at seventeen, but they'd never helped. He just couldn't talk.
"Of course it wasn't you. Ya never do nothin' but read."
When Joey went back to his book, Nardo slapped him upside the head and said, "So, what the hell was it, jackass?"
Shrugging, Joey answered, "Pstirs."
If he hadn't jerked his head up toward the stairway, Nardo wouldn't have known he'd said, "Upstairs."
"Well, quit pretendin' ya know how ta read, ya idiot, an' check it out," he said, yanking Joey from his seat by the collar of his shirt and hitting him on the head as he shoved him toward the stairwell. Frank and Tony came to watch and laugh as Joey was manhandled yet again. They stood beside Nardo at the foot of the stairs, then, as he watched Joey's progress.
Steve and Maribeth returned to Steve's room to find it quite full. Ron, Dion, and Cheryl were sitting in chairs near the window, talking softly, watching the computer, and waiting for something to happen. Someone had made a run to McDonalds, and the greasy smell wreaked havoc with Steve's stomach for a moment. Maribeth sensed his distress, but he swallowed hard and shook her off.
Amanda was sitting on Steve's bed beside Liv, and Jesse was leaning over her from the other side. Both were speaking to her softly. Liv was unresponsive. Even worse, she lay curled in a tiny ball, wrapped around Steve's pillow, clutching the sheets, a fist pulled up to her mouth, staring blankly ahead, and rocking ever so slightly. As Steve and Maribeth watched, Amanda noticed them and said a word to Jesse, who came over to speak to them.
"Hey, guys," Jesse said.
Despite the worried look in his friend's blue eyes, Steve had to smile. Jesse had gown a moustache years ago, when, finally turning forty, he had decided he was tired of having a baby face. Whenever he tried to be serious, stern, or solemn, it made him look almost comical. Back then, nobody had had the heart to tell him that it had just made him look like a little boy wearing a false moustache, and over time, he became so attached to it, or maybe it became so attached to him, that they could never tell him it still had the same effect today, especially when it was full of crumbs, as it was now. Steve had always wondered if Jesse had also grown the facial hair to look more like his own dad, Jesse's hero and mentor.
"They interrupted your lunch, didn't they," Steve asked before Jesse began.
"Huh?"
Steve brushed his own upper lip with his index finger, and understanding the gesture because he'd seen it many times before, Jesse wiped his face and studied his palm for a moment as if trying to identify the source of the crumbs.
"What's up?" Maribeth asked.
Looking over his shoulder at Liv for a moment, Jesse said, "She's been like that a while now, since Moretti called. She hasn't said a word, and she just keeps getting more and more.lost.inside herself. Maybe you could talk to her, Steve."
As Jesse looked apprehensively from Maribeth to Steve, she realized he had probably heard the gossip. She patted Steve on the back and said, "Go ahead, love." Smiling at Jess, she said, "It's ok, we worked it out."
She laughed to herself when Jess breathed a sigh of relief before trying to sound matter-of-fact, saying, "You always do."
Joey ascended the stairs cautiously. He wished Nardo hadn't cuffed him about the head. Nardo was always hateful to him. Everybody was hateful to him, but Nardo was the worst. Just because he didn't speak properly, didn't mean he was obtuse. Actually, Joey thought he was considerably more intelligent than Nardo. If *he* was overseeing this operation, with five subordinates to assist him, he'd have a minimum of one man keeping watch and another walking the perimeter continuously so that nobody could move in surreptitiously and catch them unawares. Nardo had to realize there were several individuals and agencies intent on capturing Moretti for various reasons.
He arrived at the landing at the top of the stairs and gazed down the hall. A door was open, and Joey knew then that something was amiss. When he had first entered the residence, he'd reconnoitered and closed the upstairs doors behind himself. He crept stealthily down the hall to the open door and peered in.
The room was as black as a cloudy sky at night. He stepped just inside the door and allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness, and felt a kiss of cool air. Filmy white curtains billowed in an evening zephyr. Something was amiss indeed. As he had been securing the house earlier in the evening, Joey had examined the locks on all the windows to ensure that they were in fact closed. That window should not have been open.
He stalked toward the window to close it, but had only managed a step or two when he felt a rag slip over his face and inhaled the acrid scent of chloroform. As he succumbed to the void that was unconsciousness, he heard Giancarlo Moretti softly mutter, "Aw, Joey, I'd a thought you'd a been smarter than this."
Maribeth couldn't understand how a woman pushing seventy could look like she was still sixteen, but Liv managed it, and it looked perfectly natural to boot. She wondered if Keith, who did look his age, had ever had a stranger tell him he was a disgraceful dirty old man for seducing such a young lovely. She smiled to herself then, and suddenly realized, that's why she was feeling so jealous.
She'd never really been afraid that Steve would trade her in for a younger model, but when an.'old favorite' showed up, *and* she looked like a younger model as well, Maribeth had started to worry. Then, because her husband was so preoccupied with this case, she had chosen not to worry him further and tried to deal with her feelings on her own. By keeping everything bottled up inside, she had allowed her jealousy to filter everything she saw between Liv and Steve, turning it into something it was not.
But now, Liv looked scared. More to the point, she looked like a scared child, and as Maribeth watched, Steve, like a big brother or a best friend, sat beside the bed, directly in her line of sight, and tried to comfort the frightened little girl.
"Liv, honey?" Steve said softly, brushing the wayward curls off her face.
She didn't even look at him.
"Liv, I know you hear me," he murmured, "look at me."
She drew up into an even tighter ball, and kept on rocking.
"Olivia Margaret Regis Stephens, look at me now," he kept his voice gentle but stern.
Her eyes finally met his.
"Emmy's gonna die, Steve."
"No, sweetheart, she'll be ok. We're gonna help her."
"She's on the move!" Ron exclaimed.
Liv flinched, whimpered, closed her eyes, and started rocking harder.
"Yeee-hahhhhh!" Emmy screamed as the Jeep sped away from the curb. "Was that a rush or what?"
Moretti looked at her in disbelief. "You're insane. Ya enjoyed that, didn't ya?"
She looked back at him and said, "No. Actually, it sucked, but it's like a damned roller coaster. Now that it's over, it's fun to think we actually did that and survived."
Moretti shook his head, "You're outta your mind. Are ya ok?"
"Just some bruises. I'll probably be sore tomorrow."
After they had laid Joey out on the bed and bound him and gagged him with duct tape, they'd waited for whoever came next. Two guys, Tony and Frank Colombo, Moretti said, came up together a minute later, and Emmy chloroformed one while Moretti clocked the other with the butt of his gun. A few minutes later, Nardo Giani, came bounding into the room like the big, stupid bear of a man he was. Liv had leapt onto his back, wrapped an arm around his throat, and held the chloroform to his face as he crashed back into the wall and the bookcase trying to beat her off. He'd finally crumpled, though, and Moretti had bound and gagged him where he was. Finally, they'd snuck up on the ambulance. The two 'attendants', Jimmy Bregazzi and Ray Zucco, as Moretti identified them, were happy to cooperate when they found themselves staring down Emmy's 9 millimeter and Moretti's forty-five. Emmy had stuck a note in Bregazzi's breast pocket. As they left, she took the tracking device off her belt and tossed it into the bushes. When the cops sped by moments later she and Moretti ducked behind a car parked down the block, then ran like hell for the jeep.
"Didn't seem we were there that long," Moretti muttered.
"Time flies when you're having fun."
"She *what*?" Ron yelled into the phone.
Liv flinched, and with his eyes, Steve indicated that Amanda should quiet her husband. Amanda nodded and moved off to do just that.
"*Six* of them?"
"Ron," Amanda said quietly gesturing to where Liv lay rocking herself on the bed.
He nodded and lowered his voice.
"All tied up and waiting for you, with a note?"
Cheryl and Dion gave him questioning looks.
"I don't know. That's the Commander's call."
Shaking his head, he gave the phone to Cheryl. "You're not going to believe this."
At Steve's questioning look, Ron explained. "It seems Emily and Moretti arrived at the bogus safe house a good while before your men, subdued the six men there, one by one, bound and gagged them, and left us a note. Then slipped off into the night."
"I'll be damned," Steve said. "Any sign of them?"
Ron shook his head no. "Looks like a clean getaway."
"Liv, do you hear that, sweetie? Emmy's ok."
She just shook her head and continued to rock.
A message flashed on the computer screen. READ THE NOTE.
"Charge them? I don't know. Give me a minute. Meantime, separate them, and get 'Fredo and Donovan down there to watch them. I don't want anybody talking to any of them until Agent Wagner and I get there." She covered the phone and said, "Cioffi wants to know if he should charge them? What do you think? If we do, what do we charge them with? Sounds like all we have are six guys bound and gagged. They were carrying, but that's nothing."
Ron shrugged.
Cheryl glared, "Well, we sure as hell can't let them go."
Dion suggested, "Have Al read you the letter. Maybe she left us some evidence." Cheryl gave him an incredulous look, and he said, "Think about it. It's *exactly* what she would do if she could."
Just as Keith was getting out of the car, Donovan's radio squawked. "Car 38 report to Station, code three. Car 38 report to Station, code three."
Looking surprised, Donovan said, "That's me. Gotta go."
Waving goodbye to the young man, Keith headed to the reception desk to get Steve's room number.
"Got the note," Cioffi said. "Kid prints everything as if it were a police report."
Cheryl heard an envelope tearing open and paper rustling. "As smart as she is, would you believe she can't write cursive? She told me once all she can do is sign her name. She learned to type so young there seemed no point in learning to write."
"The letter, Al," Cheryl urged impatiently.
"Yeah, yeah. Still, I wonder why she can't write it if she can read it." Cioffi knew he had a habit of rambling sometimes, but he and Commander Banks were old friends, so when she pestered him about it, he usually made a point of going one more round before he followed orders.
"Ok, it's really short. Says, and I quote, 'Each of these men is a material witness in the possible kidnapping and false imprisonment of the others.' Looks like she gave us something to hold them on, huh?"
"She sure did, and without charging them. So, they have no need for lawyers. Do that, and keep them isolated from other people and each other. Agent Wagner and I will be there soon."
"What's up, guys?" Keith asked as he saw Cheryl and Ron coming down the hall toward him.
They didn't even stop walking. Cheryl just turned around and backpedaled towards the exit. "Looks like Emmy and Moretti are all right. Liv needs you; she's in Steve's room. Dion is still upstairs and he can fill you in. We have six thugs to interview."
The information came so fast most of it went right over Keith's head, but he did latch on to the two most important things as far as he was concerned. Emily was ok, and Liv needed him.
Joey sat alone in a cell at the police station, contemplating his situation. He was still a relatively young man and did not particularly fancy the thought of spending the remainder of his years incarcerated. He knew he was not lacking in intelligence, and had only dropped out of high school because speech therapy had proven ineffective for him and he simply could not tolerate the teasing he had received at the hands of his classmates. Roger Gorini had confidence in him because he seldom spoke, and when he did, what he said was of utmost importance. The authorities could close several cases with the information he could provide, and he had access to information that Giancarlo Moretti was entirely unaware of.
He considered his position. When the police had locked them up in separate cells, Nardo had threatened him, yelling, "Dammit, Joey, I'm gonna kill you, you stupid son of a bitch. It's your screw up got us here."
He had no doubt that Nardo was intent on carrying out his threat. Nardo had continued to scream, threaten, and curse everything about Joey from his books, to his cat, to his mother, until the red-headed officer who was guarding them now had clouted him in the head and told him, "Shut your mouth Giani, you're givin' me a headache."
Joey smiled, remembering the look on Nardo's face when, for probably the first time in his life, someone had smacked him instead of the other way round. Grinning even wider, he made a decision that, he hoped, would change his life forever.
"Oh, hell," Keith muttered as he walked into Steve's room and caught sight of his wife. She was curled around the pillow in a tight little ball, the sheets balled up in her hands, eyes tightly shut, sucking on a fist and rocking frantically. Steve sat beside her, stroking here hair and murmuring to her, but his actions seemed to have no effect. Keith hadn't seen her this bad since after the BioGen crisis was almost over and Emily was recovering. Looking at Dion, he asked, "Why the hell didn't you call me sooner?"
"She wasn't like this until just before I called you," Dion explained. "I was on the phone with Jess, thinking she might need a friend and a sedative. She was on the hospital phone talking with Moretti. All of a sudden, she gave the phone to Commander Banks, crawled onto the bed, and curled up like that."
Keith thought a moment, then nodded, accepting the explanation. He was her husband and would have seen the signs and known this was coming. Except for Steve, Jesse, and Amanda, these people were virtual strangers and could never have been expected to know what to do even if they had noticed she was a little off her usual even keel. Keith went over to the bed and put a hand on Steve's shoulder.
"I'll handle this."
Steve nodded, whispered a few more words to Liv, and moved out of the way. Keith looked around the room and asked, "Could all of you give us some privacy, and, uh, dim the lights and shut the door on your way out." Then all his attention focused on his wife. "Olivia, baby, it's me, Keith. It's gonna be ok, sweetheart."
On his way out, Steve said, "I'll make sure all the calls to my room are routed to the nurses' station, Keith, and if Emmy calls, I'll come let you know."
Jesse added, "I'm right outside the door, too, Keith. If you want me to, I can give her something to calm her down."
Only half aware that he was responding, Keith said, "Ok, Steve. Thanks, Jesse, but I don't think we'll need it."
In the dark quiet, Keith took off his shoes and lay beside his wife on the narrow hospital bed. He'd done this before, but he'd never had to pull her back when she was this far gone. Gently tugging the pillow she clutched, he said, "Put this aside and hold on to me, baby."
At first, she clung even tighter to the pillow, but with gentle, insistent coaxing and cajoling, he finally got her to release the pillow. He slipped it out of her arms and dropped it to the floor behind him, then he moved closer to her on the bed. "I'm right here, O."
For a moment, she did nothing, then her arms shot out quick as lightening, and she embraced him so tightly his ribs hurt and he couldn't draw a full breath. After several more minutes, he managed to negotiate her into what was a slightly more tolerable, if not more comfortable, position, and they lay like that for a long time as he softly murmured and pleaded and tried to convince her that she needed to come back to him.
Every two and a half minutes--Joey knew it was two and a half minutes because he had been counting the seconds--the redheaded police officer paced past his cell, turned, and meandered back to the other end of the cellblock. This time, when the young man ambled past him, Joey attempted to capture his attention.
"Psttt."
The young man favored him with a slightly annoyed gaze, looked away, and moved on.
"Psssttt."
The youthful visage turned his way again, and the dark brown eyes peered at him in aggravation.
"What?"
"Wamdill."
Confusion flashed across the young officer's countenance.
"What?"
Mustering all his concentration, knowing this had to be a fait accompli before the police spoke to the others, Joey made another attempt. Slowly he articulated his desires. "Wan um deeuh."
He could see the officer trying to process his words. "Deeuhl," he reiterated.
Joey saw the moment the light of understanding dawned. "You want to cut a deal."
Joey nodded.
"With what?"
"Lummeerideut."
"Huh?"
"Lummeerideut," he repeated, miming scribbling words on his palm.
"You wanna write it out?"
Joey nodded vigorously.
"Let me talk to the sergeant about getting you paper and a pen."
Joey moved closer to the bars. Clutching them and putting his face against them, he watched as the young man began to pace back to the other end of the cellblock. "Pees." He knew the word was 'please', but he could never get it to come out right.
Keith had been with his wife for half an hour, whispering soothing words to her, stroking her hair, rubbing her back, and all the while begging her, "Please, baby, don't hide inside yourself. Talk to me. Come back to me. Let me help. A burden shared is a burden halved, sweetheart. Let me help you. Tell me what's wrong."
Slowly, the rocking had stopped, and though she still clutched him tightly, the tension in her back and shoulders had eased. Others might not notice, but, after thirty years of marriage and several terrifying crises, he could tell she was almost ready to open up.
"Talk to me, O. Let me help you, sweetheart."
A deep, shuddering breath, and, face still pressed against his chest, she asked, "Is she dead yet?"
"Oh, baby, no. As far as we can tell, Emmy is just fine. O?"
"I don't believe you."
She had started rocking again.
*No, dammit. I will not let her slip away.*
"Olivia," his voice was soft and gentle, but very stern. "Look at me. Now."
It took her a moment, but she went still, and tilted her head up to look him in the eye.
"We have always been honest with each other. I wouldn't dream of lying to you. As far as we know, Emmy is safe. You have got to stop imagining that the worst is going to happen."
"The worst always happens, Keith."
Inwardly, Keith groaned. They'd had this discussion more times than he cared to count. Olivia had a strong religious faith that had carried her through many hard times, but whenever her family was in danger, she became prey to her nightmare fantasies. Usually, she could see hope where no one else did, and she was often right, but when it came to family concerns, there were dark things inside her that she had never properly dealt with, and sometimes they threatened to overwhelm her. He supposed he couldn't blame her, life had been inordinately cruel to her when she was young; but he had hoped after thirty years of marriage, thirty years of a good marriage, she would be strong enough to keep a more positive outlook when things got tough.
"That is not true."
"Keith."
"No, Olivia, I will not allow you to do this to yourself. I know your granddad beat you. I know how your family died. I sure as hell know what Ted did to you because I was there. All that ended over thirty years ago when Steve stood aside and let you marry me."
"But Emmy."
"I know, baby. She *almost* died when she was born, but she didn't. We *almost* lost her when she was fifteen, and it took a while, but we all got back together. The BioGen virus *almost* killed her, but it didn't. Our daughter is tough and strong and smart, and she is one hell of a fighter. She is gonna be ok."
"Promise?"
"Of course I do."
"Say it."
"I promise," Keith didn't hesitate, though had he thought about it, he might have.
"Chief Sloan, it's for you."
Steve took the receiver from the young nurse. "Sloan here."
"Hey, Chief." It was Emmy. "Moretti and I are safe, and I think we've given you everything you need to find out who's behind the leaks in the FBI and the Witness Protection Program as well as in your own office."
"It was a damned fool stunt to pull, Lieutenant."
"But it worked."
"Yeah? At what cost? Do you have any idea what you're putting your mother through?"
"Mama?"
"She's in shock, Emily, almost catatonic. She won't talk, won't even look at people. She just crawled into a bed here at the hospital and.hid inside herself."
Silence. Then, "Let me talk to her."
"She's unresponsive."
"She'll respond to me."
"Ok, hold on while I have them transfer the call." Steve handed the phone over to the nurse instructing her to have the call transferred to his room in one minute, and he stressed that she should wait one minute to allow him time to inform Keith that the call was coming through.
"I'll be damned," Cheryl muttered. "This information closes four homicides we've been working on for months, proves three cases of bribery for major city contracts we never knew we had, and promises to give up the man behind the attempts on Moretti at our safe house and the place where we found Joey, here. We've got locations on murder weapons, records of hit transactions, and he says there's a lot of it on audio tape, and he can show us where it is and how it's filed."
"And I can tell you," Ron said, as he finished glancing through the sheaf of papers Cheryl had handed him, "none of it seems to duplicate what Moretti has told us."
Joey smiled, obscenely pleased with himself. He had written out everything while Banks and Wagner had watched, over twenty pages of his fine, delicate script, and he knew they would find it impossible to resist what he had to offer.
"You'll testify to all of this in court?"
Joey thought about it a minute. He hadn't considered this particular obstacle before. Surely, his inability to articulate clearly wouldn't be the sole issue preventing him from making an arrangement with the authorities. Certainly, Banks and Wagner, or the DA and the U.S. Attorney had dealt with witnesses who could not speak before.
Finally, shrugging and raising his hands, palms up in a gesture of futility and helplessness, he said, "Candauk."
"I beg your pardon," Cheryl said.
Groaning, tapping at his lips, then throwing his hands up in the air, he shouted, "CANDAUK!" Tapping his temple, he said, "DUH!!!!"
Now catching his meaning, Cheryl said, "If someone read this aloud into the record and asked if this was your testimony, would you say under oath that it was.in every trial at which we used it?"
Carefully, clearly, Joey said, "Yais."
"What do you want?" Ron asked.
"Gimme the tape, Rogelio."
"Tape, Uncle Vinnie?"
"Everyone knows you record every conversation, Rogelio. Give me the damned tape."
Roger Gorini grinned nervously and said, "Oh, right, the tape. Of course, Uncle Vinnie."
"Rogelio," Vincent Gaudino said as he took the tape from his nephew's shaking hand, "I am sorely disappointed in you."
"I know that, Uncle Vinnie," Roger said quietly. "I'm sorry." He knew he was going to die, but he had a plan so he wouldn't go out alone.
"I know you are, Rogelio, but you know I can not let this failure go unpunished."
"I know that, Uncle Vinnie."
"This will be hard on your mother, my sister."
"I know, Uncle Vinnie. Please, tell her I love her."
Vinnie nodded. He could grant his nephew that small favor. He had planned to do so anyway.
"Ok," Gaudino turned to leave. "Do it, Marco," he told his bodyguard.
"Wait, Uncle Vinnie!"
"Do not disappoint me again, Rogelio. Take it like a man." As he turned to look at his nephew, his eyes grew wide to see Roger pulling a gun from his desk.
Joey snapped his fingers and motioned for a pen and paper, which were promptly provided. He didn't have to contemplate his demands. He knew what he most desired before he had made the decision to attempt to acquire it.
I AM AN INTELLIGENT MAN WHO HAPPENS TO HAVE A SPEECH DISORDER THAT CANNOT BE CORRECTED. I DO NOT WISH TO BE TREATED AS AN IDIOT. I WANT A COLLEGE EDUCATION, NOT MERELY THE DEGREE THAT THE WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM PROVIDES ITS ENROLEES, BUT THE ACTUAL EDUCATION THAT MAKES THE DEGREE MEANINGFUL. I WISH TO LIVE IN A CITY WITH NUMEROUS MUSEUMS AND THEATERS, AND A SYMPHONY. I WILL ALSO REQUIRE A WELL PAYING JOB IN WHICH I NEED NOT SPEAK TO MANY PEOPLE, AND A REASONABLY SAFE RESIDENCE.
I ALSO WANT NARDO GIANI CHARGED WITH ASSAULT AND THREATENING BODILY HARM.
Ron and Cheryl held the paper between them as they read it. Both of them had to smile when they read the last line, thinking that if Giani had just treated his young accomplice better, he'd have gone free.
"Joey," Ron said, "if you're so smart, why'd you become a mobster?"
He returned the paper so that Joey could write out his response.
Steve poked his head around the door to find Liv and Keith sitting in his hospital bed talking quietly. Olivia wasn't her usual bright and cheery self, but she wasn't curled up in a catatonic ball, either. That had to be progress.
"Guys, Emily is on the phone."
Liv was on her feet in a flash, but Steve motioned her back down. "I'm having the call transferred here. The phone should ring any sec."
The ringing of the phone cut him off, and as Liv leaped to answer it, he looked questioningly at Keith. Receiving the thumbs up, he smiled, nodded, and would have left them alone had Keith not waved him into the room.
Joey accepted the paper from Agent Wagner, and proceeded to explain why he had chosen the life he had lived right up until an hour ago.
MY PEERS HOUNDED ME OUT OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS BECAUSE OF MY GARBLED SPEECH. MY PARENTS WERE FINANCIALLY ILL EQUIPPED TO PROVIDE FOR ME EITHER THE ASSISTANCE I NEEDED TO IMPROVE MY SPEECH OR THE SPECIAL SCHOOLING I REQUIRED TO ADAPT TO A WORLD THAT WAS NOT SUITED TO DEALING WITH MY PECULIAR DISABILITY. I.SUSPENDED MY FORMAL EDUCATION AT SEVENTEEN, AND HAVE BEEN ENTIRELY AN AUTODIDACT EVER SINCE. THIS WORLD OFFERS FEW EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR A YOUNG MAN WITH NO DIPLOMA AND NO COMMUNICATION SKILLS.
"So, Joey, what kind of job would you like?"
Joey thought a minute.
I AM UNCERTAIN, BUT I DO LOVE BOOKS AND MUSIC, AND I AM SURE I CAN LEARN ANYTHING ANYONE SHOULD TRY TO TEACH ME.
Ron looked at Cheryl, and said, "Get some men you can trust, and check this out. If it rings true, I think I have a friend who can help us out."
Joey sat back and beamed with joy. It appeared that he was about to embark on a journey into a new and wonderful future.
"Emmy!" Liv shouted into the receiver so loudly that both Keith and Steve cringed.
"Lay down," Keith said, indicating the now vacant hospital bed. "You look like you could use the rest."
"I'm ok," Steve said, shaking his head.
"Maybe so," Keith conceded, "but you know if you don't go back to bed, both your wife and my wife will be pissed at us."
Steve grinned and shook his head, but knowing Keith was right, he lay down, contenting himself with bringing the head of the bed to an upright position. It had been a trying day, and he didn't want either of the women upset again.
"Emmy," Liv continued at a lower volume. "Are you all right, sweetheart?.You are.Good.He is, too.How's your shoulder? No infection, I hope.You did?.Good.Baby, I do wish you'd be more careful.I know sweetheart, but your job doesn't require you to take risks like the one you did today.Ok, baby, he's right here. I love you. Bye."
Liv handed the phone over to Keith.
"She's ok?" Steve inquired.
Smiling, Liv nodded. "Yeah. She took Jesse's stitches out of her shoulder a few days ago, and says it's healing nicely. Moretti's ok, too."
"Ok, I'll tell him. I love you sweetheart. Bye." Keith hung up the phone and said, "I'm supposed to tell you Moretti says Joey is a smart kid and Agent Wagner and Commander Banks should be able to make a deal with him if they treat him right."
Steve reached for the phone and said, "Good. I'll call them now."
Reaching out, Liv slammed down the receiver and said, "No, you won't. You are supposed to be resting, and this was supposed to end hours ago. Keith can go out in the hall and tell Dion to call them. Meanwhile, I am going to get you settled for the night."
"But, Liv."
"No arguments," she cut him off.
Laughing, and glad he wasn't the patient, Keith headed off to do his errand.
"Ok, Joey," Ron said. "If everything pans out, I can get you a job at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C."
Joey positively glowed.
"You'll be attending GWU there, and majoring in Library Science, assuming you pass the entrance exams you'll have to take in lieu of having a high school diploma. Does that suit you?"
Joey nodded vehemently. "Yais, oyais."
"Ok, then," Cheryl said. "We need a name. Who sent you and the others to kill Moretti?"
Joey's face rumpled in concentration. "Green-ee."
"I'm sorry?"
Sighing, wishing just once he could say something coherent, Joey motioned for pen and paper.
GORINI, he wrote when Ron gave him the materials to do so.
"Who?" The agent asked.
ROGER GORINI, THE NEWS ANCHOR.
Now Cheryl was doubtful. "What does he have to do with Moretti?"
NOTHING. HE IS VINCENT GAUDINO'S NEPHEW.
"Ohhhhh," both cops said as understanding dawned.
After filling in Dion, Keith turned to Maribeth and said cheerfully, "I think you better get in there. She's trying to settle him for the night, and he's fighting her every inch of the way. There is definitely a war brewing."
Shaking her head and groaning in frustration over her pigheaded husband, Maribeth headed off to help Liv. She walked in to the room to see Steve grabbing Liv's wrist.
"Please, Liv, just stop. Don't touch it."
"Steve," Olivia said gently, placing her free hand over the hand tightly gripping her slender wrist.
Maribeth was proud and pleased to realize that she didn't feel jealous any more. She no longer saw Liv as a threat. All she saw now was a kind woman who cared infinitely for her husband and was trying to help him.
"I have to irrigate it," Olivia told him, "or it will get clogged, and then we'd have to pull it out and put a new one in." In the hand Steve held away from him, she held a syringe filled with a saline solution for irrigating the NG tube.
Maribeth approached the foot of the bed to check his chart. Steve saw her, but Liv's back was to her as she was intent on dealing with him. Maribeth put her finger to her lips to indicate that Steve should not disclose her presence just yet, and he nodded slightly.
Checking the chart, she found that Liv had already withdrawn Steve's stomach contents and measured them. Steve's stomach was nearly empty, which was a good sign that he was digesting the feeding solution properly. Once Liv irrigated the tube, they could start a new bag of feeding solution and leave Steve alone for the night.
"Liv," Steve pleaded, "you don't understand. I just can't bear to have anyone touch it anymore."
"Steve, I know it's uncomfortable, but."
"Fingernails on a chalkboard."
Olivia visibly trembled from head to toe, nearly dropping the syringe of irrigation solution. Maribeth shivered as well, and drew an inward hiss of breath.
"Steve," they both gasped, and Liv turned to look at Maribeth.
There was a brief moment of tension before Maribeth smiled and said, "He's not tolerating it well, is he?"
Liv shook her head no, but didn't get the chance to say anything because Steve cut her off.
"Dammit, I am miserable *all the time*," he said desperately. "My nose is sore, and my throat is sore, the tape itches, and every time I turn my head or swallow, my skin starts to crawl because the damned thing moves. I can barely tolerate it as it is, but somebody messing with it just about kills me. The only reason I haven't pulled it out myself is I am afraid I won't be able to finish the job."
Liv and Maribeth looked at each other, and Maribeth shrugged. She knew from reading the journals that Olivia's experience with the BioGen virus had prepared her better for dealing with these issues that all her own years of experience possibly could have.
Nodding, Liv asked, "Maribeth, do you have a flashlight on you?"
Maribeth nodded and handed over her penlight and accepted the syringe of irrigation solution that Olivia held out to her.
"Ok, Steve," Olivia said soothingly as she got a tongue depressor from the supply kit they had been keeping in Steve's room, "Why don't you let me check your throat to make sure you're not having an allergic reaction to the tube? If you are, it has to come out. Open wide and say, 'Ah.'"
Maribeth smiled as her husband complied obediently. He never would have given in that easily for her. She was beginning to see how it might be nice to have Olivia around.
"Well," Olivia said softly, "your throat is a little red, but it's not enough to cause concern at the moment. I'll see about getting you some anesthetic spray to use at your discretion, and that might make you a little more comfortable, ok?"
"All right," Steve said grudgingly.
"Now," she said, sitting on the edge of the bed, "this is going to be a bit more unpleasant, but I need to check inside your nose. Will you let me do that?"
Steve looked to Maribeth, and she smiled encouragingly. She was beginning to understand how this small woman worked such wonders with a stubborn mule like Steve. She asked him if she could do something, she didn't tell him what she was going to do. Steve was a man used to taking charge, and by asking his permission, she was letting him take charge.
"Ok," he agreed reluctantly.
As she reached to touch his nose, Steve reflexively tried to push her away. She moved away and asked, "Steve, could you please sit on your hands for me for a minute?"
Suddenly, Maribeth saw the other half of the formula. It was something Maribeth knew she would never be able to learn. Throughout her career, Maribeth had worked hard to maintain an aura of unshakable confidence and unquestionable competence, and, though she was still caring and gentle, it had left her with a hard edge. For her, that was enough with most patients.
With her knot-headed husband, though, she had always realized that something different was needed. Now she knew what it was. If it had been simply a matter of asking instead of telling, she could have managed it herself, but there was something about Olivia's manner that made people want to do as she asked. He softness and gentility, her kindness and gentleness, her sweet caring nature made people ashamed to say no to her, because they knew without a doubt that she had their best interests at heart.
Maribeth felt her stomach tighten in sympathy as her husband sat on his hands, stiffened, and screwed his eyes shut in anticipation.
Olivia looked up his nose, and gently moved the tube a bit to get a better look. Steve whimpered and squirmed and she said, "Sorry."
Finally returning the penlight to Maribeth, she said, "It doesn't look too bad up there, Steve. I think we can give you some nose drops that will ease your discomfort. They're somewhat unpleasant to put in, but they'll do the trick for hours. Will it be ok if we try that for the night and wait to see how it works before we considered something else tomorrow?"
Steve thought about what she had said a moment, then agreed. "But if it doesn't get better tomorrow, we will do something else, right," he asked rather pathetically.
She patted his leg and said, "Of course we will. But for now, let's just try this."
"Ok."
"Good, now, would you like me to re-tape the tube so it doesn't shift when you move?"
"Yes, please."
While Olivia worked, Maribeth put the irrigation syringe back in the basin of solution for the time being and said, "I'll get the throat spray and the nose drops, Liv, if you'll prepare the feeding solution. We'll wait until he's more comfortable to finish the irrigation and start the feeding pump, ok?"
Olivia nodded, "That sounds like a good idea."
Half an hour later, Steve was resting comfortably, nearly asleep. Because he'd had such a stressful day, Jesse had come in and increased his dosage of pain medication and tranquilizers. Keith had stopped in to say good night before he and Olivia left, and he explained that Dion had left some time ago to check out some of the information Joey had given Cheryl and Ron.
"I wish you'd consider staying the night, Liv," Jesse said. "You gave us all quite a scare."
"Mmmm. 'Sright." Steve mumbled. "I haven't worried so much in a lonnng timmmme."
Olivia chuckled, brushed his hair out of his eyes, and said, "Go to sleep, Steve, you're stoned."
"Mmmm-hmmm."
Looking at Jesse, she said, "Really, Jess. I am ok. You know I always have been one to slip around the bend from time to time."
"Which is exactly why I think you should stay the night, just in case."
"Jess."
"Wait," Maribeth said, "Let me offer a solution. Steven can sleep on the fold out bed in Dad's apartment, and you and Keith can use the spare room. You can stop by the Brentwood house on the way for a change of clothes."
"I don't know, Maribeth. I'd hate to put you out."
"Liv, I want to do this. I've treated you badly."
"Maribeth..."
"No, I mean it, and I want to make it up to you. This way, Jesse can rest easy because you'll be close to medical attention should you need it. Besides, there's too much tension at Emily's house with the task force there all the time. You and Keith can't rest properly even when they're gone. Move into the guest room at the beach house. Work in Brentwood with the task force during the day, and come back to the beach house at night."
"Sa gooood plannnn," Steve slurred.
This time everyone chuckled.
"Ok, we'll do that, but let's go straight to Malibu tonight, and Keith and I can go back to Brentwood to shower and change there tomorrow. I'm bushed and don't want to go twenty minutes out of the way just for clean clothes."
Their plans made, everyone said goodnight to Steve and headed their separate ways.
"Easy, Marco," Roger said. "I'm not going to shoot anybody."
"Den wut you need da gun for?"
"Well," Roger said, "I, uh, I'm going to shoot myself."
Gorini took a letter off his desk and said, "Uncle Vinnie, could you make sure Mama sees this? It's a suicide note, and it gives her a reasonable explanation of why I would kill myself. The cops won't be able to pin it on you, Mama'll never blame you, and with what I've written here, she can't blame herself either."
Vinnie took the letter and stood there for a few seconds, tapping it into his hand. "Rogelio, if you do this thing, take your own life, you can not be buried in consecrated ground."
Roger shrugged. "I haven't been to mass since I was eighteen, Uncle Vinnie. It doesn't matter to me."
Gaudino nodded, then said, "But it will matter very much to your mother, my sister."
Roger pretended to think. He had known from the moment he had heard that Nardo and the others had been arrested what he was going to say and do here, but he had to pretend to think about it, or his Uncle Vinnie would know something was up.
"Uncle Vinnie," he asked, holding out the gun butt first. "Would you do it?"
"That is what I pay Marco for, Rogelio."
"I know, Uncle Vinnie, but I can't do it myself, for Mama's sake, not because I am afraid, and I don't want a stranger to do it."
"Rogelio, you have known Marco for many years."
"He's worked for you for years, Uncle Vinnie, but I haven't known him. Please, Uncle Vinnie, you have the tape. No one will ever know. Mess the place up, and use my gun. It will look like a robbery. No one will ever know. Please, Uncle Vinnie."
Gaudino thought a bit. He started breathing heavily. His nephew was doing him proud, finally, begging not for his life, but for a way to protect his uncle and his mother even in death.
"Ok, Rogelio," looking at his bodyguard, he said, "take the petty cash, the laptop, his cell phone, watch, wallet, and jewelry. Is there anything else of value in here, Rogelio?"
Roger nodded toward the wall as he removed the last of his jewelry and handed it to Marco. "The painting. It's worth a few grand."
Marco took the painting down. "Now what, boss?"
"Take it out to the car and wait for me."
Marco left, and Gaudino looked sadly at his nephew. "Ok, Rogelio, let's get it right." He held out his hand for the gun. "Go out the door and come back in as if you were walking in on a robbery."
Roger Gorini did as he was told. Much to his surprise, he was not afraid. He knew this was the end, and he suspected he was going to hell, if it existed, but the thought didn't frighten him. As he came back in the door, he felt the hard cold muzzle of a pistol pressed against the bone behind his right ear and smiled. Everyone knew he taped everything, but only two people knew he always made two copies. Joey was already talking to the cops, and, he figured, Liana eventually would. One way or another, his fat old bastard Uncle Vinnie would sooner or later be following him straight to hell.
He heard the discharge, smelled the cordite, and was gone.
Vincent Gaudino looked down at his nephew's body. "Rogelio, you were a good boy. It's a shame you couldn't get rid of Moretti for me."
"Did you get a look at Commander Banks? How bad was she? I couldn't tell, I was too busy playing sick." Emily asked as she and Moretti moved from the PT Cruiser to the Viper.
"Dunno. She took it in the head an' dropped like a sack of stones."
"Shit!"
Emmy pulled out a cell phone and punched in a number. Moretti laughed aloud. At Emmy's furious look, he said, "Sorry, Em. I'm worried about Banks, too. When I talked to her today on the phone, she seemed ok, for a cop. It's just." He trailed off. It wasn't as funny as it had been a moment ago.
"Just what?"
"Well, how many cell phones *do* you have?"
"Oh, four with me, and at least a dozen more back at the house."
"Why?"
"I steal as many as I can every time I'm out and about. You can only use each one once, or the cops can track you. If I have to make a lot of calls, I need several phones."
"I see."
"Now," she told Moretti, "I'm calling the hospital. When they answer, ask for Dr. Travis, either Dr. Sloan, or either Dr. Bentley-Wagner in that order. Whoever you get, raise some hell about the breach of security, tell them Commander Banks was shot, and tell them you'll be calling back in one hour to talk to my mother about her condition. Tell them they need to get their act together if they ever want to see you again. And remember I'm sick."
Moretti nodded, Emmy pressed the send button, and he completed the call.
Cheryl moaned in pain as the young paramedic pressed a heavy gauze pad to her head wound and put her hand over it to hold it in place. "Thanks, Jim."
"It's just a graze, but you're going to have to get it stitched up. You were lucky." He went to stow his gear in the ambulance.
"Lucky?" She called after him. "Lucky to be shot in the head?"
"Lucky to be shot in the head and still have all your brains inside it," Dion said, as he entered the garage. "One of the shooters was a SWAT sniper with a high powered rifle. He and another of them are known associates of Rossi's. There were five in all. Two are dead, one's in very shaky condition. I doubt he'll last long enough to make a statement. Two surrendered without a fight, but they've already asked for their lawyers. We can't even question them."
"All out of your division?" Ron asked.
Dion nodded dejectedly, "Yeah."
"What else have you got?"
As Dion turned to speak to Ron, Cheryl snapped, "Captain! Unless you have taken a job with the FBI, you report to me!"
Both men turned to look at her, taken aback by the outburst. Cheryl was usually congenial and cooperative, and this territorial attitude was out of the ordinary for her. To their relief, she put a finger to her lips, winked and nodded, mouthing the words, 'Yes, ma'am,' to Dion. Then she gave Ron the small black box Emily had pressed into her hand as she clutched it in her delirium.
"Yes, ma'am," Dion responded, sounding suitably chastened.
As Jim and his partner came round to load her into the ambulance, she pointed to the black box in Ron's hand and said, "You two take care of things here, ASAP, then head to the hospital to brief me."
"Yes, ma'am," Dion replied again.
"Rogelio, your mama told me you said my problems would be over by the end of the day. I would hate to have to tell her you were wrong."
Gorini started to sweat. His Uncle Vinnie could make threatening conversation about the weather.
"The day isn't over," he said with a nervous laugh. "Give me until morning."
Vinnie Gaudino thought a moment. Roger could tell he was thinking because he heard his heavy breathing. Vinnie Gaudino was clever, and a very smart man in his area of expertise, but serious thinking was always quite an effort for him.
"Rogelio, you or Moretti. One of you will not be breathing at sunrise."
"I'll get him, Uncle Vinnie."
"I hope so, Rogelio. You're a good boy, and my sister, your mother, loves you very much. It would break my heart to tell her you had a tragic accident."
When Maribeth arrived to check on Steve at around nine pm, she found Cheryl, Dion, Ron, and Liv in his room. Ron was scanning the room looking for listening devices, and a very tired looking Olivia was sitting a little too comfortably on the bed beside Steve, though she did have the courtesy to get up and move to the other side of the bed when Maribeth came in.
"Is this what you call resting?" she asked Steve.
"Babe, they'll be out of here in half an hour. They just stopped by to update me on the situation."
"Steve, I don't care if they stopped to bring you flowers and chocolates, you are supposed to be resting." In a tone that included the whole group, she said simply, "Out, now."
Dion got up to go.
"Dion, stay," Steve insisted. "Maribeth, I have rested all day, and I am getting damned sick of it! Even Dad was getting bored and had Steven take him home at the end of his shift. I have also been worrying about Emily and Moretti all day." At her incredulous look, he said, "I'm not just saying this to con you. I really will rest better when I know how things went and what's coming next."
"We're clear," Ron said.
Steve looked imploringly at his wife, and she finally relented. "Ok, thirty minutes," she said, sitting on the bed beside him in the space Liv had just vacated. Looking at Liv, she noticed deep lines of fatigue in the other woman's face, and realized that for the first time, she looked her age. For a moment, Maribeth felt meanly pleased that Liv was actually looking old, then she squashed a sudden flash of guilt with righteous indignation that Liv was paying so much attention to Steve.
"Where's your husband?" she asked.
The slight emphasis on 'your' put such a charge in the air, Cheryl was surprised the lights didn't short out. The men didn't even seem to notice.
Olivia stifled a yawn and crossed her arms over her chest. She was clearly exhausted. "He's at Em's house, with young 'Fredo Cioffi and Charles Donovan, trying to anticipate what Emmy will need, so we can wrap this mess up. Moretti called, demanding to talk to me here in one hour."
"At my husband's bedside?"
Olivia gave her a calm, even stare, and said placidly, "At the hospital. I knew Cheryl and Dion would be briefing Steve, so I decided to come here to get the whole story."
"So," Maribeth said, fixing her husband with a look he didn't quite comprehend, "what is the 'whole' story."
Steve shrugged and looked to Dion, who looked to Ron who looked to Cheryl, who looked around the room before addressing Ron and Dion. "First of all, guys, I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier, but it occurred to me that if the men who attacked the safe house knew about it before we used it, they could have bugged it. I didn't want their cronies to have any clue what had happened there or what we knew about them, little as it may be."
Ron and Dion nodded. Steve said, "Good thinking."
"Thanks." Turning to Liv, Cheryl continued, "The hospital phone lines are clean. They're going to patch Moretti's call through to you here."
Liv agreed, "I'll tell him you're ok, and if you're here, I'll give the phone over to you."
"Good." Now Cheryl turned to Maribeth. "Understand this. Except for Emily, Moretti, and Keith, no one outside this room knows what's really going on. Even the paramedics at the scene and the back up Dion and I called in don't really know why they were there tonight. We think we are this close," she held her thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart, "to closing up all the mafia leaks in the LAPD as well as the local offices of the FBI, and the Witness Protection Program, but if anything leaks out, this sting will fall down like the house of cards that it is."
Looking at Cheryl, the tall, blonde doctor pursed her lips, narrowed her eyes, and said, "I can keep a secret."
Keith sat in the armchair by the window, head in his hands, staring at his prosthetic feet. For the first time in thirty years, he felt inadequate because of his missing legs. If he had been whole, he could have been there when his daughter walked into the trap at the safe house to serve as bait. He got around all right, most of the time, and with the advances of recent years, he even had what passed for sensation from his feet and legs, which helped tremendously with his balance. On good days, his feet were even ticklish, a fact that delighted his wife no end. But when he was worried or upset, the increased firing in his synapses sometimes caused a 'short' in his brain's interpretation of the electrochemical signals coming from his feet. He knew, had he been there during the firefight, he would only have been a hindrance and a danger to the police and his daughter. The adrenaline rush would have caused anything from muscle spasms, to a complete loss of balance, to crippling, screaming-at-the-top-of-his-lungs pain.
So, he was left to waiting, wondering, and going back over plowed ground with a couple of rookies to see if there was anything they missed. It wasn't hard for him to play the worried father, but he felt it best to withdraw as much as possible, because every lie he had to tell to continue the ruse stuck in his throat and put his precious baby at greater risk. He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, and looked up to see the redheaded Officer Charles Donovan smiling down at him, offering him a cup of strong black coffee.
"Thank you, Charles."
Donovan nodded and said, "I'm sure she'll be all right, sir."
Keith nodded back, "I hope so." He knew his daughter wasn't ill, but he was worried nonetheless. There were plenty of other dangers lurking round her right now.
"She survived this bug once before, right? From what Hannah.uh, Miss Wagner has told me, if she is sick again, it shouldn't be as bad this time because her immune system already has antibodies to fight it."
"That's what I understand, Charles, but the fact is, the BioGen virus is manmade, and no one really knows what it will do or how it will act."
Worried brown eyes studied him closely, and Keith wished he could tell this young man the truth. Donovan and Cioffi had proven so reliable throughout this ordeal, he thought it unfair to leave them out of the loop now, but he also understood how important it was to keep the circle of those in the know as small as possible. One slip, one careless word could endanger his daughter, and as much as he liked and trusted the young men, he wasn't willing to take that risk.
He gulped down his coffee, got out of the chair, and limped over to the table. Looking from Donovan to Cioffi, he said, "Ok, let's have at it again, gentlemen."
Emily and Moretti pulled into a parking garage to steal another car. They were going to follow a plan similar to the one they had before. Moretti wanted an SUV, but Emmy refused, explaining that they were more likely to roll over, and if they had to do any fast driving, she didn't want to take that risk. Chuckling, Emmy decided to take an ancient Jeep instead. Frustrated, Moretti asked why.
"I learned to drive in one of these," she said. "My mama bought it in bulk, Army surplus, and assembly required when she was sixteen. She and eight of her friends went together and bought each of themselves one and one for the auto mechanics teacher to pay him for the time he took to teach them how to assemble and maintain the cars. They formed a club and called themselves Cloud Nine and painted all the Jeeps with different colored clouds. Mama's was a god-awful pink. She still has it, sort of."
"Sort of?"
"Well, it's got about a million miles on it, and just about everything has been replaced at least once. It's still Mama's Jeep, I guess, but it's not the same Jeep."
Moretti just laughed. "All the money your mama's got an' she keeps an old wreck around."
Emmy looked at him defensively and said, "It's not an old wreck. Mama knows a lot about cars and she has always taken good care of it. She's had it over half a century, and there's only been one time the engine didn't crank on the first try."
"Whatever, Em. A fifty-year-old Jeep is still just an old Jeep."
"Not my Mama's. It's got sentimental value."
Moretti just laughed.
Ron had found a message scratched into the surface of the black box Emily had given Cheryl. "Plug me into a fully-charged laptop, turn it on, and wait."
"I already played this once on the way over here," Ron said to Cheryl, "and I called Captain Cioffi at the station, telling him to have his men on standby. I told you about the important stuff, but I think you should see it for yourself."
He hit the power button on the laptop, and a computer-generated caricature of Emmy appeared and spoke to them. It was a false-color image, mostly black and white, with the only color being the flame-red, wild curls and the gold-green eyes.
"Hey, there," the image said in a passable imitation of Emily's voice. "I hope everything went ok, so far. I'm sorry to change the game on you now, but a thought came to me after Moretti talked to Mama at lunchtime. This other contact I have--the guy who hooked me up with Rossi, Marino, and Velasquez, blew Leigh Ann's cover, and by the time you see this, will have the baddies after me at your place--I think we could pull the same ruse on him twice. If there's gunfire at your safe house, Moretti's gonna call my contact and say he got the number from my cell phone's record of the last ten calls. He'll tell my contact what went down, pretend he thinks the guy is FBI or someone else waiting to help him, and ask for a safe place to stay. Soon as we know where we're going, I'll transmit to you, and you can send in backup." The caricature took on a pensive frown, then, with forced cheer and an attempt at a cavalier attitude, said, "I sure hope you're watching this, because if you aren't Moretti and I are dead meat."
"So," Steve said summing it up neatly, "she's going to call her contact, and see if he's set up a safe house. If he has, she's going to use this to let us track her and bring in backup."
Ron nodded. "Cioffi is back at the station. I'm going to get this thing rigged to transmit her position to him so can coordinate his men to back her up. Y'know, she really is a clever kid."
"Too clever for her own good," Liv said, a muscle twitching in her jaw. "What if something had happened and her gizmo didn't work?"
Maribeth felt a sudden flash of sympathy for the worried mother. She probably hadn't slept in days. Letting go of her jealousy for the moment, she said gently, "Don't think about that. Nothing went wrong."
Olivia gave a derisive snort. "My daughter is out there, on the run from God alone knows who, and you say nothing went wrong. Hah."
Maribeth looked apologetic, and said, "Well, nothing went wrong tonight."
Olivia raised her voice, gold-green eyes flashing bright with anger despite the dark circles beneath them. "Two cops are dead, Maribeth! Dirty cops, yes, but still dead! Another is dying, Cheryl nearly had her brains blown out, we still don't have Leigh Ann because nobody's talking, and Emmy is still out there and planning to walk *right in* to another trap. Something most definitely *did* go wrong tonight!"
She burst into tears.
If Steve had had half a brain in his head, he would have just held her hand and spoken soothingly, but foolishly, he pulled her to him, down on the bed beside him and wrapped her in a comforting hug, the action causing him to unwittingly turn his back on his wife. "Shh," he hushed her. "It's gonna be ok, Liv. Emmy's a sharp kid, and she'll come through this just fine." He stroked her hair, rubbed her back, and let her snuggle against him, already fast asleep.
"Son of a bitch," Maribeth muttered, and stalked out.
Looking at the empty space where Maribeth had been, Steve said, "What's wrong with her?"
"You, old friend," Ron said pointing to him, "are an idiot."
Cheryl stifled a laugh and turned away, Dion covered his eyes and shook his head, Liv murmured in her sleep and snuggled closer.
Steve looked down at the unruly mop of red curls spread out over his chest, gazed at the empty spot in the doorway through which his wife had just passed, and said, "Damn!" Then he sucked in a sharp breath of pain as his stomach started to burn.
Emmy and Moretti were sitting in the stolen Jeep, hidden in a dark alley behind a disused warehouse. She took out yet another cell phone, and when Moretti stifled a chuckle, she rolled her eyes. She dialed the hospital and told him, "Remember, only talk to my mama."
"Right."
Emmy pushed send.
Continuing to curse a blue streak under his breath, Steve carefully reached around Liv and disconnected his NG-tube from the feeding pump. Shuddering uncontrollably at the weird, intrusive sensations running through his body, he clamped off the tubes as he had seen the nurses do when they attached a new bag of feeding solution, and slipped carefully from Liv's embrace, putting his pillow between her arms to give her something to hold onto.
As he tried to rise from the bed, Dion gently pushed him back down, but Steve pushed back.
"Uncle Steve, she'll get even madder if you go wandering about in your condition."
"Dion," Steve said through gritted teeth, trying his best to ignore the cramping in his stomach and the creepy-crawlers that went scurrying around under his skin every time the NG-tube moved. "Get out of my way or I will *knock* *you* *out*. I need to talk to my wife *right now*."
Dion tried again to restrain him, but Ron placed a hand on the younger man's shoulder and said, "Let him go, son."
Taking a deep breath, Dion nodded and moved aside.
Steve shifted to a sitting position and used his IV pole to help himself stand up. Then he staggered sluggishly to the door of his room and looked up and down the hall for Maribeth. With his wife nowhere in sight, he decided to ask for her at the nurses' station, but as he set off in that direction, he heard the phone ring.
Moretti was calling.
There would be decisions to make.
Liv might need him.
Steve felt torn.
Ron caught the phone halfway through the first ring. "This is Agent Wagner."
"She's right here, Moretti, just a second." Ron covered the receiver and asked Liv. "You ready?"
Instantly awake, Liv nodded. "Yes. Of course."
She took the phone, and Dion saw her knuckles go white. He heard the tension in her voice and saw the fear in her gold-green eyes. He remembered his Uncle's failed wedding when he was a boy, all the people talking about how difficult her childhood had been, and how her whole family had died in a fire while she was off at a summer camp. He knew she was terrified of losing her child, probably more so than most parents because she had already lost so much, and had nearly lost her daughter twice in the past three years. This woman was in a fragile state, and she was going to need some help soon. He went off to the opposite corner of the room and used his cell phone to call the ER and have them send his Uncle Jesse up.
"Mr. Moretti, this is Olivia Stephens, how is my daughter?"
"Oh, thank God." Looking to the others, nearly fainting with relief, Olivia said, "She wasn't shot."
"Commander Banks is ok, Mr. Moretti. She's right here if you want to talk to her."
Cheryl took over the phone, and Olivia sank back onto the bed, curled up, and clutched the pillow, rocking herself slightly.
Dion whispered into his cell phone, "Much more of this, Uncle Jess, and she's going to snap." As Cheryl made plans with Moretti, he noticed Olivia becoming even more distraught. "Maybe you should bring some kind of sedative. I'm going to call Keith."
Steve heard Ron's voice, strong and commanding, "This is Agent Wagner."
There were three people with Liv. Jess and Amanda were in the building if they were needed, and Keith was in Brentwood. Steve decided to go after his wife.
He made his unsteady way to the nurses' station and asked the nearest young woman on duty, "Where's my wife?"
She gave him the deer-in-the-headlights look and then glanced at her two companions who were sitting in the uneasy silence of those whose conversation had just been interrupted by the subject of their gossip. Steve grabbed her wrist, not tightly enough to hurt her, but just to get her attention and said again, giving each word the weight of a sentence, "Where's. My. Wife?"
The girl looked at him a moment more, then pointed to a nearby door. "Supply room."
"Thank. You." He gave each of the women a furiously indignant glare, then limped over to the door. He was so damned stiff from spending over twenty- four hours in bed. A man his age.he made a face as the phrase crossed his mind.just couldn't lay in bed for days on end if he wanted to continue walking. When.things.with Maribeth were settled, he would talk to Steven and Jesse about getting some more exercise while he was in the hospital.
When he reached the door, Steve opened it and peeked inside. "Sweetheart?"
A box of tongue depressors came sailing at his head, and he barely managed to duck out of the way. As it flew by, the lid came open, and dozens of little wooden paddles clattered to the floor. Screwing up his courage, he stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.
Moretti snapped the phone shut, grinning, and said, "They're gonna give us everything they can as soon as they can get it to us."
Emily just nodded.
"What? Em, that's great! We're gonna have a freakin' army of cops backing us up."
"Yeah," Emmy said, "and we have no idea which of them might 'accidentally' shoot us in the back for fifty grand."
"Oh. Is there a plan B?"
"Always." She smiled smugly.
"Talk to them, in the den. We know it's clear. My dad checked it after Leigh Ann left today."
"Ok. How's Liv?"
"She's upset," Dion said, "You better come over here."
"Ok. Talk to you later."
Keith hung up the phone and asked Cioffi and Donovan to join him in the den. At least now, he didn't have to pretend with them.
"Maribeth."
This time a box of disposable latex gloves came sailing at him. Unable to duck in time, Steve batted them away with his arm. He continued to advance as his wife turned away, looking for something else to throw. When he was close enough, he gently wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
"Damn, you! Let me go," she hissed.
But Steve could tell she didn't want him to let her go. Instead of struggling, she melted back into him, weeping.
"Tell me what's wrong, baby."
"As if you didn't know."
"I think I do, Maribeth, but I think you'd feel better if you told me yourself."
"You still love that.other woman!"
He sat on a convenient shelf, pulled her back against him, between his legs, and settled her on his thigh, cradling her against his body, stroking her arms.
"You've known that for thirty years, sweetheart."
"But she wasn't here for thirty years!"
"You were."
"Oh, Steve, I don't know why I'm so jealous, but every time I see her, I just want to scratch her eyes out."
She turned and threw her arms around his neck, sobbing loudly, now. He stiffened as she jostled the NG-tube, and she misinterpreted the body language.
"Damn you, Steve Sloan! You're still *in* love with her," she wailed, pulling away from him.
Steve grabbed his wife's wrist. He would not, could not, let her go now.
"No! Maribeth, it's just the damned tube!" he shouted.
She looked at him, wild-eyed, and began pounding and clawing at the hand wrapped around her wrist, bruising her knuckles and his, her fingernails tearing into his flesh and drawing blood.
Shutting out the pain she caused, and the pain he was about to cause himself, he dropped to his knees on the hard tiled floor and looked up at her.
"Maribeth, I'm begging you. Don't walk away from me," he pleaded. "Don't walk away from us. Don't walk away from the past thirty years."
Her struggling had slowed, but it had not yet stopped.
"Thirty, years, darling. You were here and she wasn't. I loved her, yes, as an old and very dear friend, but I didn't need her. I needed you. Please, Maribeth."
Tears were slipping down Steve's cheeks, but he was not embarrassed. He was not ashamed to beg. He would prostrate himself on the floor at her feet if he had to, but he *would not* let *this* woman walk out of his life.
"I thought of her often, yes, but I never called her, never wrote to her, never spoke of her, because I didn't need her. Through the earthquake and the riots, the drought, the scandals, my heart attack, through it all, the whole time, all I needed was you, Maribeth. If you leave, I will curl up right here on the floor and die, because without you, I have no reason to ever stand up again."
She stopped struggling, but didn't move toward him.
"Please, Maribeth," he whispered. "Stay with me."
She stepped toward him and caressed his face with her fingertips, her touch so light it made him shiver. He turned his head and kissed her palm. The fingers of her other hand stroked his hair.
"When did you ever get so gray?" she asked softly.
"Who's this?" Moretti growled into the phone. Emily had her ear pressed to the phone beside his so she could follow the conversation.
A calm, cultured voice answered. "Anyone who has this number knows who I am. Who are you?"
Moretti paused, letting the voice think he was uncertain. When the voice sighed, Emmy cued Moretti to begin speaking again. "This is Giancarlo Moretti. You know what happened at the LAPD safe house?"
"Oh, yes, Mr. Moretti. I'm *so* glad you called. How is Lieutenant Stephens?"
"She ain't screamin' for her mama no more, but I think that's 'cause she's too sick to scream." He glanced to Emmy, and getting the thumbs up, he continued. "Look, I know she been callin' you a lot 'cause she's only got three numbers in her cell phone, this one, Sloan's, an' her answering service. I need help. Where can I go?"
The voice tried to be warm and friendly, but it sounded far too pleased with itself.
"I'm glad you asked, Mr. Moretti. I have recently found a nice place for you and the Lieutenant, but she hasn't called lately, so I haven't been able to tell her about it. It's in Culver City, close to Marina Del Rey. Would you like the address?"
"Yeah, an' some protection, an' an ambulance for Stephens."
"Maribeth?"
"Hmm?" she continued stroking his hair.
"I need some help. My knees are killing me, and I don't think I can stand up on my own."
She chuckled softly and helped him to his feet.
Donovan let out a low whistle. "That's a bold move, sir."
"Just plain stupid, if you ask me," Keith said. Donovan and Cioffi exchanged confused glances as Keith continued. "See, Emmy's always liked living on the edge, and since she got so sick a couple years back, well, I get the feeling she either thinks she's indestructible or just doesn't give a damn any more."
Cioffi said, "She's been daring all along, sir, but she's also been very careful. My dad says she's a good cop. She'll be ok."
"I hope you're right, 'Fredo," Keith said.
Donovan gave him a thump on the shoulder. "Don't worry, sir, we'll take care of her."
Cioffi nodded, "We sure will."
Keith smiled, thinking, 'Ah, the innocent exuberance of youth.' "Thanks, boys," he said. "Now, I need to get to the hospital to be with my wife. Dion says she's not handling this very well. Could one of you give me a ride? My prosthetics aren't working very well tonight."
At the young men's puzzled looks, he pulled up his pant legs to reveal his artificial limbs. "Oh, come on, don't tell me you hadn't noticed." He knew very well they hadn't. For the past thirty years, Olivia had been regularly developing improvements for prosthetic limbs, both in appearance and function, and most people didn't even notice his when he was in shorts. This most recent set had a very lifelike polymer 'skin' with individual hairs implanted, and when someone pulled the hairs, it hurt.
"No, sir," Donovan replied. "I noticed you limped, but I just thought it was age."
"Oh, really?" As worried as he was, Keith couldn't resist teasing the young man.
"Oh, not that you're old, sir, but you know, some people as they age.er.that is...ummm."
Keith put up a hand to stop the young man in mid-stammer. "Relax, kid. You guys aren't old enough to remember the Six-Million-Dollar Man, are you?"
They stared blankly.
"Better.Stronger.Faster.?"
They shook their heads.
Keith slung his arm around Donovan's shoulders and said, "Give me a lift, and I'll tell you all about it."
Emily and Moretti snuck up on the "safe" house her contact had provided. She wore a fanny pack that held a rag, a bottle of chloroform, a large suction cup, a glasscutter, and a roll of duct tape. Her nine-millimeter nestled comfortably in a shoulder holster, just in case. Moretti had the forty-five she had given him, still stuck in his belt. They had parked several blocks away and closed in on foot. She had linked her laptop to a GPS tracking device she wore on her belt and recorded their route as they traveled to the area. After a twenty-minute head start, the computer would transmit to the device she had given Commander Banks, and the cops could begin following them. With any luck at all, they would have the bad guys subdued and be out before the police arrived. Emily felt like Spiderman, tie 'em up and leave 'em for the police.
They cased the place and found that all the lights were on downstairs, except for in the living room where some dolt was watching television, and there was an ambulance out front, but they had spotted no guards. When Moretti remarked on the absence of the guards, Emily said, "Why put out guards for our safety when the plan to blow us to hell anyway?"
"You got a point."
Sneaking around the house and peeking in the windows, they counted four men plus the ambulance attendants, heavily armed. "Probably with annihilation ammo," Emmy said, making Moretti shiver.
"Ok," she whispered, "here's the plan."
"Steve," Maribeth said as she helped him to his feet and hugged him close, "why does she need you and not her husband?"
Steve sighed and rubbed soft circles on his wife's back as he held her tight. "I don't know, hon. Maybe it's because LA is my turf and she feels more secure with someone who knows the area. Maybe it's that I'm still a cop and Keith retired years ago." He tilted Maribeth's face up so he could look her in the eye, and added, "But I know this, whatever happens, she won't come between you and me. I love her like a friend, but you are my life. Besides, I think she and Keith are as happy together as you and I have been. These are just extraordinary circumstances."
Maribeth nodded and put her head on his shoulder.
They snuck around to the porch beside the living room. The TV was blaring so loudly no one would hear as Moretti boosted Emmy up onto the porch roof. After confirming that the second-floor window had no alarm attached, she stuck the suction cup on the window and cut a six inch square piece out of it. It was triple paned glass, so after she pulled the suction cup free of the scrap of glass, she repeated the operation two more times. Then she reached in through the hole, unlocked the window, and opened it. Finally, she went to the edge of the porch, Moretti climbed onto the rail, and Emmy helped him onto the roof.
Emily slipped through the open window to the second-floor bedroom, and Moretti squeezed in after her.
"Two weeks ago, an' I never woulda made it," Moretti commented.
Emmy grinned and said, "Neither of us has made it yet."
She opened her fanny pack and took out the chloroform, the rag, and the duct tape. Handing the tape to Moretti, she said, "Now we need to get their attention." She hunted around the room and found a lamp. Opening the door so the guys downstairs knew which room to come to, she threw the lamp to the floor and splashed some chloroform on her rag.
When Steve and Maribeth emerged from the supply room, they found four nurses standing about the hall, trying to look very busy.
Not even bothering to whisper about it, he said to Maribeth, "I guess we have been the talk of the town."
She shared his contempt for gossip, and didn't mind shaming the nurses a bit. They should be ashamed. "Ever since Olivia *and Keith* showed up, speculation has run rampant around here. People haven't forgotten her or what she *used to* mean to you, and naturally, they *think* there is trouble waiting to happen."
"Well," Steve said, "it's a good thing you trust your husband and Keith trusts his wife. I'd hate to think of the problems we'd have if you were the type to take such *vicious* gossip to heart." Steve turned to his wife, smiled, and winked. She grinned back and nodded, and they enjoyed a long, deep, wet, very public kiss. Steve was very glad that years ago, Maribeth had gently but insistently worked to make him get over his aversion to public displays of affection. Normally, he wouldn't be quite so passionate in the hospital corridor, but this was for a good cause.
Pulling her close in a hug, he whispered in her ear, "*That* should give them something to *talk* about."
Whispering back, she said, "They're just jealous. I've got the best looking cop in LA."
Arm in arm, they turned and headed back to his room.
Nardo Giani, beer in hand, sat in the living room flipping channels on the TV, "Nothin' on.Nothin' on." He was in charge, and he had learned from watching Mr. Gaudino, that when you were in charge, you always had other people do the work for you. That way, if something went wrong, you could give somebody hell for it. "Nothin' on.Nothin' on." So, he had Tony and Frank Colombo and Joey Russo and the guys in the ambulance watching for Moretti and the cop. "Nothin' on.Nothin' on." The way the front drive came right up to the living room window, he was sure to see their headlights. "Nothin' on.Nothin' on." There was no way they'd slip past him. Giancarlo Moretti was a dead man.
A sudden crash jolted him from his rerun-induced hypnosis, and he hit the mute button, cursing as if he'd actually been interrupted. Yelling out to the kitchen where Frank and Tony were having coffee, he said, "Be a little more careful, will ya? I'm tryin' ta watch somethin' in here."
"Wasn't us, Nardo," Frank yelled to him.
Getting up and cursing his way to the kitchen, Nardo found Frank and Tony sitting at the table, looking as innocent as two mobsters possibly could. He headed into the dining room. "Joey?"
"Wommebas," Joey mumbled without looking up from his copy of Les Miserables. Joey always mumbled, he'd gone to speech classes all through school, right up until he dropped out at seventeen, but they'd never helped. He just couldn't talk.
"Of course it wasn't you. Ya never do nothin' but read."
When Joey went back to his book, Nardo slapped him upside the head and said, "So, what the hell was it, jackass?"
Shrugging, Joey answered, "Pstirs."
If he hadn't jerked his head up toward the stairway, Nardo wouldn't have known he'd said, "Upstairs."
"Well, quit pretendin' ya know how ta read, ya idiot, an' check it out," he said, yanking Joey from his seat by the collar of his shirt and hitting him on the head as he shoved him toward the stairwell. Frank and Tony came to watch and laugh as Joey was manhandled yet again. They stood beside Nardo at the foot of the stairs, then, as he watched Joey's progress.
Steve and Maribeth returned to Steve's room to find it quite full. Ron, Dion, and Cheryl were sitting in chairs near the window, talking softly, watching the computer, and waiting for something to happen. Someone had made a run to McDonalds, and the greasy smell wreaked havoc with Steve's stomach for a moment. Maribeth sensed his distress, but he swallowed hard and shook her off.
Amanda was sitting on Steve's bed beside Liv, and Jesse was leaning over her from the other side. Both were speaking to her softly. Liv was unresponsive. Even worse, she lay curled in a tiny ball, wrapped around Steve's pillow, clutching the sheets, a fist pulled up to her mouth, staring blankly ahead, and rocking ever so slightly. As Steve and Maribeth watched, Amanda noticed them and said a word to Jesse, who came over to speak to them.
"Hey, guys," Jesse said.
Despite the worried look in his friend's blue eyes, Steve had to smile. Jesse had gown a moustache years ago, when, finally turning forty, he had decided he was tired of having a baby face. Whenever he tried to be serious, stern, or solemn, it made him look almost comical. Back then, nobody had had the heart to tell him that it had just made him look like a little boy wearing a false moustache, and over time, he became so attached to it, or maybe it became so attached to him, that they could never tell him it still had the same effect today, especially when it was full of crumbs, as it was now. Steve had always wondered if Jesse had also grown the facial hair to look more like his own dad, Jesse's hero and mentor.
"They interrupted your lunch, didn't they," Steve asked before Jesse began.
"Huh?"
Steve brushed his own upper lip with his index finger, and understanding the gesture because he'd seen it many times before, Jesse wiped his face and studied his palm for a moment as if trying to identify the source of the crumbs.
"What's up?" Maribeth asked.
Looking over his shoulder at Liv for a moment, Jesse said, "She's been like that a while now, since Moretti called. She hasn't said a word, and she just keeps getting more and more.lost.inside herself. Maybe you could talk to her, Steve."
As Jesse looked apprehensively from Maribeth to Steve, she realized he had probably heard the gossip. She patted Steve on the back and said, "Go ahead, love." Smiling at Jess, she said, "It's ok, we worked it out."
She laughed to herself when Jess breathed a sigh of relief before trying to sound matter-of-fact, saying, "You always do."
Joey ascended the stairs cautiously. He wished Nardo hadn't cuffed him about the head. Nardo was always hateful to him. Everybody was hateful to him, but Nardo was the worst. Just because he didn't speak properly, didn't mean he was obtuse. Actually, Joey thought he was considerably more intelligent than Nardo. If *he* was overseeing this operation, with five subordinates to assist him, he'd have a minimum of one man keeping watch and another walking the perimeter continuously so that nobody could move in surreptitiously and catch them unawares. Nardo had to realize there were several individuals and agencies intent on capturing Moretti for various reasons.
He arrived at the landing at the top of the stairs and gazed down the hall. A door was open, and Joey knew then that something was amiss. When he had first entered the residence, he'd reconnoitered and closed the upstairs doors behind himself. He crept stealthily down the hall to the open door and peered in.
The room was as black as a cloudy sky at night. He stepped just inside the door and allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness, and felt a kiss of cool air. Filmy white curtains billowed in an evening zephyr. Something was amiss indeed. As he had been securing the house earlier in the evening, Joey had examined the locks on all the windows to ensure that they were in fact closed. That window should not have been open.
He stalked toward the window to close it, but had only managed a step or two when he felt a rag slip over his face and inhaled the acrid scent of chloroform. As he succumbed to the void that was unconsciousness, he heard Giancarlo Moretti softly mutter, "Aw, Joey, I'd a thought you'd a been smarter than this."
Maribeth couldn't understand how a woman pushing seventy could look like she was still sixteen, but Liv managed it, and it looked perfectly natural to boot. She wondered if Keith, who did look his age, had ever had a stranger tell him he was a disgraceful dirty old man for seducing such a young lovely. She smiled to herself then, and suddenly realized, that's why she was feeling so jealous.
She'd never really been afraid that Steve would trade her in for a younger model, but when an.'old favorite' showed up, *and* she looked like a younger model as well, Maribeth had started to worry. Then, because her husband was so preoccupied with this case, she had chosen not to worry him further and tried to deal with her feelings on her own. By keeping everything bottled up inside, she had allowed her jealousy to filter everything she saw between Liv and Steve, turning it into something it was not.
But now, Liv looked scared. More to the point, she looked like a scared child, and as Maribeth watched, Steve, like a big brother or a best friend, sat beside the bed, directly in her line of sight, and tried to comfort the frightened little girl.
"Liv, honey?" Steve said softly, brushing the wayward curls off her face.
She didn't even look at him.
"Liv, I know you hear me," he murmured, "look at me."
She drew up into an even tighter ball, and kept on rocking.
"Olivia Margaret Regis Stephens, look at me now," he kept his voice gentle but stern.
Her eyes finally met his.
"Emmy's gonna die, Steve."
"No, sweetheart, she'll be ok. We're gonna help her."
"She's on the move!" Ron exclaimed.
Liv flinched, whimpered, closed her eyes, and started rocking harder.
"Yeee-hahhhhh!" Emmy screamed as the Jeep sped away from the curb. "Was that a rush or what?"
Moretti looked at her in disbelief. "You're insane. Ya enjoyed that, didn't ya?"
She looked back at him and said, "No. Actually, it sucked, but it's like a damned roller coaster. Now that it's over, it's fun to think we actually did that and survived."
Moretti shook his head, "You're outta your mind. Are ya ok?"
"Just some bruises. I'll probably be sore tomorrow."
After they had laid Joey out on the bed and bound him and gagged him with duct tape, they'd waited for whoever came next. Two guys, Tony and Frank Colombo, Moretti said, came up together a minute later, and Emmy chloroformed one while Moretti clocked the other with the butt of his gun. A few minutes later, Nardo Giani, came bounding into the room like the big, stupid bear of a man he was. Liv had leapt onto his back, wrapped an arm around his throat, and held the chloroform to his face as he crashed back into the wall and the bookcase trying to beat her off. He'd finally crumpled, though, and Moretti had bound and gagged him where he was. Finally, they'd snuck up on the ambulance. The two 'attendants', Jimmy Bregazzi and Ray Zucco, as Moretti identified them, were happy to cooperate when they found themselves staring down Emmy's 9 millimeter and Moretti's forty-five. Emmy had stuck a note in Bregazzi's breast pocket. As they left, she took the tracking device off her belt and tossed it into the bushes. When the cops sped by moments later she and Moretti ducked behind a car parked down the block, then ran like hell for the jeep.
"Didn't seem we were there that long," Moretti muttered.
"Time flies when you're having fun."
"She *what*?" Ron yelled into the phone.
Liv flinched, and with his eyes, Steve indicated that Amanda should quiet her husband. Amanda nodded and moved off to do just that.
"*Six* of them?"
"Ron," Amanda said quietly gesturing to where Liv lay rocking herself on the bed.
He nodded and lowered his voice.
"All tied up and waiting for you, with a note?"
Cheryl and Dion gave him questioning looks.
"I don't know. That's the Commander's call."
Shaking his head, he gave the phone to Cheryl. "You're not going to believe this."
At Steve's questioning look, Ron explained. "It seems Emily and Moretti arrived at the bogus safe house a good while before your men, subdued the six men there, one by one, bound and gagged them, and left us a note. Then slipped off into the night."
"I'll be damned," Steve said. "Any sign of them?"
Ron shook his head no. "Looks like a clean getaway."
"Liv, do you hear that, sweetie? Emmy's ok."
She just shook her head and continued to rock.
A message flashed on the computer screen. READ THE NOTE.
"Charge them? I don't know. Give me a minute. Meantime, separate them, and get 'Fredo and Donovan down there to watch them. I don't want anybody talking to any of them until Agent Wagner and I get there." She covered the phone and said, "Cioffi wants to know if he should charge them? What do you think? If we do, what do we charge them with? Sounds like all we have are six guys bound and gagged. They were carrying, but that's nothing."
Ron shrugged.
Cheryl glared, "Well, we sure as hell can't let them go."
Dion suggested, "Have Al read you the letter. Maybe she left us some evidence." Cheryl gave him an incredulous look, and he said, "Think about it. It's *exactly* what she would do if she could."
Just as Keith was getting out of the car, Donovan's radio squawked. "Car 38 report to Station, code three. Car 38 report to Station, code three."
Looking surprised, Donovan said, "That's me. Gotta go."
Waving goodbye to the young man, Keith headed to the reception desk to get Steve's room number.
"Got the note," Cioffi said. "Kid prints everything as if it were a police report."
Cheryl heard an envelope tearing open and paper rustling. "As smart as she is, would you believe she can't write cursive? She told me once all she can do is sign her name. She learned to type so young there seemed no point in learning to write."
"The letter, Al," Cheryl urged impatiently.
"Yeah, yeah. Still, I wonder why she can't write it if she can read it." Cioffi knew he had a habit of rambling sometimes, but he and Commander Banks were old friends, so when she pestered him about it, he usually made a point of going one more round before he followed orders.
"Ok, it's really short. Says, and I quote, 'Each of these men is a material witness in the possible kidnapping and false imprisonment of the others.' Looks like she gave us something to hold them on, huh?"
"She sure did, and without charging them. So, they have no need for lawyers. Do that, and keep them isolated from other people and each other. Agent Wagner and I will be there soon."
"What's up, guys?" Keith asked as he saw Cheryl and Ron coming down the hall toward him.
They didn't even stop walking. Cheryl just turned around and backpedaled towards the exit. "Looks like Emmy and Moretti are all right. Liv needs you; she's in Steve's room. Dion is still upstairs and he can fill you in. We have six thugs to interview."
The information came so fast most of it went right over Keith's head, but he did latch on to the two most important things as far as he was concerned. Emily was ok, and Liv needed him.
Joey sat alone in a cell at the police station, contemplating his situation. He was still a relatively young man and did not particularly fancy the thought of spending the remainder of his years incarcerated. He knew he was not lacking in intelligence, and had only dropped out of high school because speech therapy had proven ineffective for him and he simply could not tolerate the teasing he had received at the hands of his classmates. Roger Gorini had confidence in him because he seldom spoke, and when he did, what he said was of utmost importance. The authorities could close several cases with the information he could provide, and he had access to information that Giancarlo Moretti was entirely unaware of.
He considered his position. When the police had locked them up in separate cells, Nardo had threatened him, yelling, "Dammit, Joey, I'm gonna kill you, you stupid son of a bitch. It's your screw up got us here."
He had no doubt that Nardo was intent on carrying out his threat. Nardo had continued to scream, threaten, and curse everything about Joey from his books, to his cat, to his mother, until the red-headed officer who was guarding them now had clouted him in the head and told him, "Shut your mouth Giani, you're givin' me a headache."
Joey smiled, remembering the look on Nardo's face when, for probably the first time in his life, someone had smacked him instead of the other way round. Grinning even wider, he made a decision that, he hoped, would change his life forever.
"Oh, hell," Keith muttered as he walked into Steve's room and caught sight of his wife. She was curled around the pillow in a tight little ball, the sheets balled up in her hands, eyes tightly shut, sucking on a fist and rocking frantically. Steve sat beside her, stroking here hair and murmuring to her, but his actions seemed to have no effect. Keith hadn't seen her this bad since after the BioGen crisis was almost over and Emily was recovering. Looking at Dion, he asked, "Why the hell didn't you call me sooner?"
"She wasn't like this until just before I called you," Dion explained. "I was on the phone with Jess, thinking she might need a friend and a sedative. She was on the hospital phone talking with Moretti. All of a sudden, she gave the phone to Commander Banks, crawled onto the bed, and curled up like that."
Keith thought a moment, then nodded, accepting the explanation. He was her husband and would have seen the signs and known this was coming. Except for Steve, Jesse, and Amanda, these people were virtual strangers and could never have been expected to know what to do even if they had noticed she was a little off her usual even keel. Keith went over to the bed and put a hand on Steve's shoulder.
"I'll handle this."
Steve nodded, whispered a few more words to Liv, and moved out of the way. Keith looked around the room and asked, "Could all of you give us some privacy, and, uh, dim the lights and shut the door on your way out." Then all his attention focused on his wife. "Olivia, baby, it's me, Keith. It's gonna be ok, sweetheart."
On his way out, Steve said, "I'll make sure all the calls to my room are routed to the nurses' station, Keith, and if Emmy calls, I'll come let you know."
Jesse added, "I'm right outside the door, too, Keith. If you want me to, I can give her something to calm her down."
Only half aware that he was responding, Keith said, "Ok, Steve. Thanks, Jesse, but I don't think we'll need it."
In the dark quiet, Keith took off his shoes and lay beside his wife on the narrow hospital bed. He'd done this before, but he'd never had to pull her back when she was this far gone. Gently tugging the pillow she clutched, he said, "Put this aside and hold on to me, baby."
At first, she clung even tighter to the pillow, but with gentle, insistent coaxing and cajoling, he finally got her to release the pillow. He slipped it out of her arms and dropped it to the floor behind him, then he moved closer to her on the bed. "I'm right here, O."
For a moment, she did nothing, then her arms shot out quick as lightening, and she embraced him so tightly his ribs hurt and he couldn't draw a full breath. After several more minutes, he managed to negotiate her into what was a slightly more tolerable, if not more comfortable, position, and they lay like that for a long time as he softly murmured and pleaded and tried to convince her that she needed to come back to him.
Every two and a half minutes--Joey knew it was two and a half minutes because he had been counting the seconds--the redheaded police officer paced past his cell, turned, and meandered back to the other end of the cellblock. This time, when the young man ambled past him, Joey attempted to capture his attention.
"Psttt."
The young man favored him with a slightly annoyed gaze, looked away, and moved on.
"Psssttt."
The youthful visage turned his way again, and the dark brown eyes peered at him in aggravation.
"What?"
"Wamdill."
Confusion flashed across the young officer's countenance.
"What?"
Mustering all his concentration, knowing this had to be a fait accompli before the police spoke to the others, Joey made another attempt. Slowly he articulated his desires. "Wan um deeuh."
He could see the officer trying to process his words. "Deeuhl," he reiterated.
Joey saw the moment the light of understanding dawned. "You want to cut a deal."
Joey nodded.
"With what?"
"Lummeerideut."
"Huh?"
"Lummeerideut," he repeated, miming scribbling words on his palm.
"You wanna write it out?"
Joey nodded vigorously.
"Let me talk to the sergeant about getting you paper and a pen."
Joey moved closer to the bars. Clutching them and putting his face against them, he watched as the young man began to pace back to the other end of the cellblock. "Pees." He knew the word was 'please', but he could never get it to come out right.
Keith had been with his wife for half an hour, whispering soothing words to her, stroking her hair, rubbing her back, and all the while begging her, "Please, baby, don't hide inside yourself. Talk to me. Come back to me. Let me help. A burden shared is a burden halved, sweetheart. Let me help you. Tell me what's wrong."
Slowly, the rocking had stopped, and though she still clutched him tightly, the tension in her back and shoulders had eased. Others might not notice, but, after thirty years of marriage and several terrifying crises, he could tell she was almost ready to open up.
"Talk to me, O. Let me help you, sweetheart."
A deep, shuddering breath, and, face still pressed against his chest, she asked, "Is she dead yet?"
"Oh, baby, no. As far as we can tell, Emmy is just fine. O?"
"I don't believe you."
She had started rocking again.
*No, dammit. I will not let her slip away.*
"Olivia," his voice was soft and gentle, but very stern. "Look at me. Now."
It took her a moment, but she went still, and tilted her head up to look him in the eye.
"We have always been honest with each other. I wouldn't dream of lying to you. As far as we know, Emmy is safe. You have got to stop imagining that the worst is going to happen."
"The worst always happens, Keith."
Inwardly, Keith groaned. They'd had this discussion more times than he cared to count. Olivia had a strong religious faith that had carried her through many hard times, but whenever her family was in danger, she became prey to her nightmare fantasies. Usually, she could see hope where no one else did, and she was often right, but when it came to family concerns, there were dark things inside her that she had never properly dealt with, and sometimes they threatened to overwhelm her. He supposed he couldn't blame her, life had been inordinately cruel to her when she was young; but he had hoped after thirty years of marriage, thirty years of a good marriage, she would be strong enough to keep a more positive outlook when things got tough.
"That is not true."
"Keith."
"No, Olivia, I will not allow you to do this to yourself. I know your granddad beat you. I know how your family died. I sure as hell know what Ted did to you because I was there. All that ended over thirty years ago when Steve stood aside and let you marry me."
"But Emmy."
"I know, baby. She *almost* died when she was born, but she didn't. We *almost* lost her when she was fifteen, and it took a while, but we all got back together. The BioGen virus *almost* killed her, but it didn't. Our daughter is tough and strong and smart, and she is one hell of a fighter. She is gonna be ok."
"Promise?"
"Of course I do."
"Say it."
"I promise," Keith didn't hesitate, though had he thought about it, he might have.
"Chief Sloan, it's for you."
Steve took the receiver from the young nurse. "Sloan here."
"Hey, Chief." It was Emmy. "Moretti and I are safe, and I think we've given you everything you need to find out who's behind the leaks in the FBI and the Witness Protection Program as well as in your own office."
"It was a damned fool stunt to pull, Lieutenant."
"But it worked."
"Yeah? At what cost? Do you have any idea what you're putting your mother through?"
"Mama?"
"She's in shock, Emily, almost catatonic. She won't talk, won't even look at people. She just crawled into a bed here at the hospital and.hid inside herself."
Silence. Then, "Let me talk to her."
"She's unresponsive."
"She'll respond to me."
"Ok, hold on while I have them transfer the call." Steve handed the phone over to the nurse instructing her to have the call transferred to his room in one minute, and he stressed that she should wait one minute to allow him time to inform Keith that the call was coming through.
"I'll be damned," Cheryl muttered. "This information closes four homicides we've been working on for months, proves three cases of bribery for major city contracts we never knew we had, and promises to give up the man behind the attempts on Moretti at our safe house and the place where we found Joey, here. We've got locations on murder weapons, records of hit transactions, and he says there's a lot of it on audio tape, and he can show us where it is and how it's filed."
"And I can tell you," Ron said, as he finished glancing through the sheaf of papers Cheryl had handed him, "none of it seems to duplicate what Moretti has told us."
Joey smiled, obscenely pleased with himself. He had written out everything while Banks and Wagner had watched, over twenty pages of his fine, delicate script, and he knew they would find it impossible to resist what he had to offer.
"You'll testify to all of this in court?"
Joey thought about it a minute. He hadn't considered this particular obstacle before. Surely, his inability to articulate clearly wouldn't be the sole issue preventing him from making an arrangement with the authorities. Certainly, Banks and Wagner, or the DA and the U.S. Attorney had dealt with witnesses who could not speak before.
Finally, shrugging and raising his hands, palms up in a gesture of futility and helplessness, he said, "Candauk."
"I beg your pardon," Cheryl said.
Groaning, tapping at his lips, then throwing his hands up in the air, he shouted, "CANDAUK!" Tapping his temple, he said, "DUH!!!!"
Now catching his meaning, Cheryl said, "If someone read this aloud into the record and asked if this was your testimony, would you say under oath that it was.in every trial at which we used it?"
Carefully, clearly, Joey said, "Yais."
"What do you want?" Ron asked.
"Gimme the tape, Rogelio."
"Tape, Uncle Vinnie?"
"Everyone knows you record every conversation, Rogelio. Give me the damned tape."
Roger Gorini grinned nervously and said, "Oh, right, the tape. Of course, Uncle Vinnie."
"Rogelio," Vincent Gaudino said as he took the tape from his nephew's shaking hand, "I am sorely disappointed in you."
"I know that, Uncle Vinnie," Roger said quietly. "I'm sorry." He knew he was going to die, but he had a plan so he wouldn't go out alone.
"I know you are, Rogelio, but you know I can not let this failure go unpunished."
"I know that, Uncle Vinnie."
"This will be hard on your mother, my sister."
"I know, Uncle Vinnie. Please, tell her I love her."
Vinnie nodded. He could grant his nephew that small favor. He had planned to do so anyway.
"Ok," Gaudino turned to leave. "Do it, Marco," he told his bodyguard.
"Wait, Uncle Vinnie!"
"Do not disappoint me again, Rogelio. Take it like a man." As he turned to look at his nephew, his eyes grew wide to see Roger pulling a gun from his desk.
Joey snapped his fingers and motioned for a pen and paper, which were promptly provided. He didn't have to contemplate his demands. He knew what he most desired before he had made the decision to attempt to acquire it.
I AM AN INTELLIGENT MAN WHO HAPPENS TO HAVE A SPEECH DISORDER THAT CANNOT BE CORRECTED. I DO NOT WISH TO BE TREATED AS AN IDIOT. I WANT A COLLEGE EDUCATION, NOT MERELY THE DEGREE THAT THE WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAM PROVIDES ITS ENROLEES, BUT THE ACTUAL EDUCATION THAT MAKES THE DEGREE MEANINGFUL. I WISH TO LIVE IN A CITY WITH NUMEROUS MUSEUMS AND THEATERS, AND A SYMPHONY. I WILL ALSO REQUIRE A WELL PAYING JOB IN WHICH I NEED NOT SPEAK TO MANY PEOPLE, AND A REASONABLY SAFE RESIDENCE.
I ALSO WANT NARDO GIANI CHARGED WITH ASSAULT AND THREATENING BODILY HARM.
Ron and Cheryl held the paper between them as they read it. Both of them had to smile when they read the last line, thinking that if Giani had just treated his young accomplice better, he'd have gone free.
"Joey," Ron said, "if you're so smart, why'd you become a mobster?"
He returned the paper so that Joey could write out his response.
Steve poked his head around the door to find Liv and Keith sitting in his hospital bed talking quietly. Olivia wasn't her usual bright and cheery self, but she wasn't curled up in a catatonic ball, either. That had to be progress.
"Guys, Emily is on the phone."
Liv was on her feet in a flash, but Steve motioned her back down. "I'm having the call transferred here. The phone should ring any sec."
The ringing of the phone cut him off, and as Liv leaped to answer it, he looked questioningly at Keith. Receiving the thumbs up, he smiled, nodded, and would have left them alone had Keith not waved him into the room.
Joey accepted the paper from Agent Wagner, and proceeded to explain why he had chosen the life he had lived right up until an hour ago.
MY PEERS HOUNDED ME OUT OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS BECAUSE OF MY GARBLED SPEECH. MY PARENTS WERE FINANCIALLY ILL EQUIPPED TO PROVIDE FOR ME EITHER THE ASSISTANCE I NEEDED TO IMPROVE MY SPEECH OR THE SPECIAL SCHOOLING I REQUIRED TO ADAPT TO A WORLD THAT WAS NOT SUITED TO DEALING WITH MY PECULIAR DISABILITY. I.SUSPENDED MY FORMAL EDUCATION AT SEVENTEEN, AND HAVE BEEN ENTIRELY AN AUTODIDACT EVER SINCE. THIS WORLD OFFERS FEW EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR A YOUNG MAN WITH NO DIPLOMA AND NO COMMUNICATION SKILLS.
"So, Joey, what kind of job would you like?"
Joey thought a minute.
I AM UNCERTAIN, BUT I DO LOVE BOOKS AND MUSIC, AND I AM SURE I CAN LEARN ANYTHING ANYONE SHOULD TRY TO TEACH ME.
Ron looked at Cheryl, and said, "Get some men you can trust, and check this out. If it rings true, I think I have a friend who can help us out."
Joey sat back and beamed with joy. It appeared that he was about to embark on a journey into a new and wonderful future.
"Emmy!" Liv shouted into the receiver so loudly that both Keith and Steve cringed.
"Lay down," Keith said, indicating the now vacant hospital bed. "You look like you could use the rest."
"I'm ok," Steve said, shaking his head.
"Maybe so," Keith conceded, "but you know if you don't go back to bed, both your wife and my wife will be pissed at us."
Steve grinned and shook his head, but knowing Keith was right, he lay down, contenting himself with bringing the head of the bed to an upright position. It had been a trying day, and he didn't want either of the women upset again.
"Emmy," Liv continued at a lower volume. "Are you all right, sweetheart?.You are.Good.He is, too.How's your shoulder? No infection, I hope.You did?.Good.Baby, I do wish you'd be more careful.I know sweetheart, but your job doesn't require you to take risks like the one you did today.Ok, baby, he's right here. I love you. Bye."
Liv handed the phone over to Keith.
"She's ok?" Steve inquired.
Smiling, Liv nodded. "Yeah. She took Jesse's stitches out of her shoulder a few days ago, and says it's healing nicely. Moretti's ok, too."
"Ok, I'll tell him. I love you sweetheart. Bye." Keith hung up the phone and said, "I'm supposed to tell you Moretti says Joey is a smart kid and Agent Wagner and Commander Banks should be able to make a deal with him if they treat him right."
Steve reached for the phone and said, "Good. I'll call them now."
Reaching out, Liv slammed down the receiver and said, "No, you won't. You are supposed to be resting, and this was supposed to end hours ago. Keith can go out in the hall and tell Dion to call them. Meanwhile, I am going to get you settled for the night."
"But, Liv."
"No arguments," she cut him off.
Laughing, and glad he wasn't the patient, Keith headed off to do his errand.
"Ok, Joey," Ron said. "If everything pans out, I can get you a job at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C."
Joey positively glowed.
"You'll be attending GWU there, and majoring in Library Science, assuming you pass the entrance exams you'll have to take in lieu of having a high school diploma. Does that suit you?"
Joey nodded vehemently. "Yais, oyais."
"Ok, then," Cheryl said. "We need a name. Who sent you and the others to kill Moretti?"
Joey's face rumpled in concentration. "Green-ee."
"I'm sorry?"
Sighing, wishing just once he could say something coherent, Joey motioned for pen and paper.
GORINI, he wrote when Ron gave him the materials to do so.
"Who?" The agent asked.
ROGER GORINI, THE NEWS ANCHOR.
Now Cheryl was doubtful. "What does he have to do with Moretti?"
NOTHING. HE IS VINCENT GAUDINO'S NEPHEW.
"Ohhhhh," both cops said as understanding dawned.
After filling in Dion, Keith turned to Maribeth and said cheerfully, "I think you better get in there. She's trying to settle him for the night, and he's fighting her every inch of the way. There is definitely a war brewing."
Shaking her head and groaning in frustration over her pigheaded husband, Maribeth headed off to help Liv. She walked in to the room to see Steve grabbing Liv's wrist.
"Please, Liv, just stop. Don't touch it."
"Steve," Olivia said gently, placing her free hand over the hand tightly gripping her slender wrist.
Maribeth was proud and pleased to realize that she didn't feel jealous any more. She no longer saw Liv as a threat. All she saw now was a kind woman who cared infinitely for her husband and was trying to help him.
"I have to irrigate it," Olivia told him, "or it will get clogged, and then we'd have to pull it out and put a new one in." In the hand Steve held away from him, she held a syringe filled with a saline solution for irrigating the NG tube.
Maribeth approached the foot of the bed to check his chart. Steve saw her, but Liv's back was to her as she was intent on dealing with him. Maribeth put her finger to her lips to indicate that Steve should not disclose her presence just yet, and he nodded slightly.
Checking the chart, she found that Liv had already withdrawn Steve's stomach contents and measured them. Steve's stomach was nearly empty, which was a good sign that he was digesting the feeding solution properly. Once Liv irrigated the tube, they could start a new bag of feeding solution and leave Steve alone for the night.
"Liv," Steve pleaded, "you don't understand. I just can't bear to have anyone touch it anymore."
"Steve, I know it's uncomfortable, but."
"Fingernails on a chalkboard."
Olivia visibly trembled from head to toe, nearly dropping the syringe of irrigation solution. Maribeth shivered as well, and drew an inward hiss of breath.
"Steve," they both gasped, and Liv turned to look at Maribeth.
There was a brief moment of tension before Maribeth smiled and said, "He's not tolerating it well, is he?"
Liv shook her head no, but didn't get the chance to say anything because Steve cut her off.
"Dammit, I am miserable *all the time*," he said desperately. "My nose is sore, and my throat is sore, the tape itches, and every time I turn my head or swallow, my skin starts to crawl because the damned thing moves. I can barely tolerate it as it is, but somebody messing with it just about kills me. The only reason I haven't pulled it out myself is I am afraid I won't be able to finish the job."
Liv and Maribeth looked at each other, and Maribeth shrugged. She knew from reading the journals that Olivia's experience with the BioGen virus had prepared her better for dealing with these issues that all her own years of experience possibly could have.
Nodding, Liv asked, "Maribeth, do you have a flashlight on you?"
Maribeth nodded and handed over her penlight and accepted the syringe of irrigation solution that Olivia held out to her.
"Ok, Steve," Olivia said soothingly as she got a tongue depressor from the supply kit they had been keeping in Steve's room, "Why don't you let me check your throat to make sure you're not having an allergic reaction to the tube? If you are, it has to come out. Open wide and say, 'Ah.'"
Maribeth smiled as her husband complied obediently. He never would have given in that easily for her. She was beginning to see how it might be nice to have Olivia around.
"Well," Olivia said softly, "your throat is a little red, but it's not enough to cause concern at the moment. I'll see about getting you some anesthetic spray to use at your discretion, and that might make you a little more comfortable, ok?"
"All right," Steve said grudgingly.
"Now," she said, sitting on the edge of the bed, "this is going to be a bit more unpleasant, but I need to check inside your nose. Will you let me do that?"
Steve looked to Maribeth, and she smiled encouragingly. She was beginning to understand how this small woman worked such wonders with a stubborn mule like Steve. She asked him if she could do something, she didn't tell him what she was going to do. Steve was a man used to taking charge, and by asking his permission, she was letting him take charge.
"Ok," he agreed reluctantly.
As she reached to touch his nose, Steve reflexively tried to push her away. She moved away and asked, "Steve, could you please sit on your hands for me for a minute?"
Suddenly, Maribeth saw the other half of the formula. It was something Maribeth knew she would never be able to learn. Throughout her career, Maribeth had worked hard to maintain an aura of unshakable confidence and unquestionable competence, and, though she was still caring and gentle, it had left her with a hard edge. For her, that was enough with most patients.
With her knot-headed husband, though, she had always realized that something different was needed. Now she knew what it was. If it had been simply a matter of asking instead of telling, she could have managed it herself, but there was something about Olivia's manner that made people want to do as she asked. He softness and gentility, her kindness and gentleness, her sweet caring nature made people ashamed to say no to her, because they knew without a doubt that she had their best interests at heart.
Maribeth felt her stomach tighten in sympathy as her husband sat on his hands, stiffened, and screwed his eyes shut in anticipation.
Olivia looked up his nose, and gently moved the tube a bit to get a better look. Steve whimpered and squirmed and she said, "Sorry."
Finally returning the penlight to Maribeth, she said, "It doesn't look too bad up there, Steve. I think we can give you some nose drops that will ease your discomfort. They're somewhat unpleasant to put in, but they'll do the trick for hours. Will it be ok if we try that for the night and wait to see how it works before we considered something else tomorrow?"
Steve thought about what she had said a moment, then agreed. "But if it doesn't get better tomorrow, we will do something else, right," he asked rather pathetically.
She patted his leg and said, "Of course we will. But for now, let's just try this."
"Ok."
"Good, now, would you like me to re-tape the tube so it doesn't shift when you move?"
"Yes, please."
While Olivia worked, Maribeth put the irrigation syringe back in the basin of solution for the time being and said, "I'll get the throat spray and the nose drops, Liv, if you'll prepare the feeding solution. We'll wait until he's more comfortable to finish the irrigation and start the feeding pump, ok?"
Olivia nodded, "That sounds like a good idea."
Half an hour later, Steve was resting comfortably, nearly asleep. Because he'd had such a stressful day, Jesse had come in and increased his dosage of pain medication and tranquilizers. Keith had stopped in to say good night before he and Olivia left, and he explained that Dion had left some time ago to check out some of the information Joey had given Cheryl and Ron.
"I wish you'd consider staying the night, Liv," Jesse said. "You gave us all quite a scare."
"Mmmm. 'Sright." Steve mumbled. "I haven't worried so much in a lonnng timmmme."
Olivia chuckled, brushed his hair out of his eyes, and said, "Go to sleep, Steve, you're stoned."
"Mmmm-hmmm."
Looking at Jesse, she said, "Really, Jess. I am ok. You know I always have been one to slip around the bend from time to time."
"Which is exactly why I think you should stay the night, just in case."
"Jess."
"Wait," Maribeth said, "Let me offer a solution. Steven can sleep on the fold out bed in Dad's apartment, and you and Keith can use the spare room. You can stop by the Brentwood house on the way for a change of clothes."
"I don't know, Maribeth. I'd hate to put you out."
"Liv, I want to do this. I've treated you badly."
"Maribeth..."
"No, I mean it, and I want to make it up to you. This way, Jesse can rest easy because you'll be close to medical attention should you need it. Besides, there's too much tension at Emily's house with the task force there all the time. You and Keith can't rest properly even when they're gone. Move into the guest room at the beach house. Work in Brentwood with the task force during the day, and come back to the beach house at night."
"Sa gooood plannnn," Steve slurred.
This time everyone chuckled.
"Ok, we'll do that, but let's go straight to Malibu tonight, and Keith and I can go back to Brentwood to shower and change there tomorrow. I'm bushed and don't want to go twenty minutes out of the way just for clean clothes."
Their plans made, everyone said goodnight to Steve and headed their separate ways.
"Easy, Marco," Roger said. "I'm not going to shoot anybody."
"Den wut you need da gun for?"
"Well," Roger said, "I, uh, I'm going to shoot myself."
Gorini took a letter off his desk and said, "Uncle Vinnie, could you make sure Mama sees this? It's a suicide note, and it gives her a reasonable explanation of why I would kill myself. The cops won't be able to pin it on you, Mama'll never blame you, and with what I've written here, she can't blame herself either."
Vinnie took the letter and stood there for a few seconds, tapping it into his hand. "Rogelio, if you do this thing, take your own life, you can not be buried in consecrated ground."
Roger shrugged. "I haven't been to mass since I was eighteen, Uncle Vinnie. It doesn't matter to me."
Gaudino nodded, then said, "But it will matter very much to your mother, my sister."
Roger pretended to think. He had known from the moment he had heard that Nardo and the others had been arrested what he was going to say and do here, but he had to pretend to think about it, or his Uncle Vinnie would know something was up.
"Uncle Vinnie," he asked, holding out the gun butt first. "Would you do it?"
"That is what I pay Marco for, Rogelio."
"I know, Uncle Vinnie, but I can't do it myself, for Mama's sake, not because I am afraid, and I don't want a stranger to do it."
"Rogelio, you have known Marco for many years."
"He's worked for you for years, Uncle Vinnie, but I haven't known him. Please, Uncle Vinnie, you have the tape. No one will ever know. Mess the place up, and use my gun. It will look like a robbery. No one will ever know. Please, Uncle Vinnie."
Gaudino thought a bit. He started breathing heavily. His nephew was doing him proud, finally, begging not for his life, but for a way to protect his uncle and his mother even in death.
"Ok, Rogelio," looking at his bodyguard, he said, "take the petty cash, the laptop, his cell phone, watch, wallet, and jewelry. Is there anything else of value in here, Rogelio?"
Roger nodded toward the wall as he removed the last of his jewelry and handed it to Marco. "The painting. It's worth a few grand."
Marco took the painting down. "Now what, boss?"
"Take it out to the car and wait for me."
Marco left, and Gaudino looked sadly at his nephew. "Ok, Rogelio, let's get it right." He held out his hand for the gun. "Go out the door and come back in as if you were walking in on a robbery."
Roger Gorini did as he was told. Much to his surprise, he was not afraid. He knew this was the end, and he suspected he was going to hell, if it existed, but the thought didn't frighten him. As he came back in the door, he felt the hard cold muzzle of a pistol pressed against the bone behind his right ear and smiled. Everyone knew he taped everything, but only two people knew he always made two copies. Joey was already talking to the cops, and, he figured, Liana eventually would. One way or another, his fat old bastard Uncle Vinnie would sooner or later be following him straight to hell.
He heard the discharge, smelled the cordite, and was gone.
Vincent Gaudino looked down at his nephew's body. "Rogelio, you were a good boy. It's a shame you couldn't get rid of Moretti for me."
