"Elmer, come on. The detectives need some room to work."
With a resentful look at his father, Elmer moved away, heading back up the hallway to join Louis. Didn't his dad know that he needed to be there? What if the police found something in the lab and.... Would they even know what could be important in there? He needed to be there to help and....
"Elmer, just let them look it over for a bit on their own. I'm sure they'll ask you for your opinions later." Louis wished that Elmer would just understand that he certainly wasn't trying to hurt his son or interfere in any way. He just wanted to protect Elmer from any chance of being hurt. "Everyone knows how much time you spend down there and what a big help you've been to Lona with her experiments."
"Lona doesn't think that." Elmer whispered. And even if she ever had, she certainly hadn't after the incident with the head. He was just such an idiot that he couldn't believe it.
"Lona's just a little prickly, that's all." Louis said with a soft
laugh. "Elmer, really, it's going to be alright." Louis said softly as
she saw the expression on his son's face. He couldn't help but feel guilty
for the problems his son had. Maybe if he had tried harder with Emma, not
being so uncompromising after the drug scandal and her refusal to go into
treatment, maybe if.... There wasn't any use in dwelling on that though.
They couldn't change the past and right now they needed to be thinking
about Lona and what in the world might have happened to her. "Elmer,
Hook's going to see if he can get a family history from Lona's doctor. Do
you remember anything about her family? Isn't there some relative that she
could have got a call from needing help?" now that Louis thought about it,
he couldn't remember Lona seeming to have seemingly any family either. She
had always volunteered to handle the holiday shifts so those doctors with
family could be off. He thought that that the previous Christmas when Elmer
had tricked her into coming to their house was actually the first time she
had taken a holiday off in years.
"I don't think so." Elmer said after thinking about it for a
moment, hoping against hope that someone would have slipped his mind or
something. "The only people I've ever heard of are a few cousins and I
don't think Lona's talked to them in years." Elmer stopped speaking once
more, trying to think of anything connected to Lona's family that could
help. He shook his head after a couple of minutes, though. "I think there
might have been some sort of problem when Lona's grandparents died and.
I don't think the cousins even know where she lives now."
Louis nodded in response although they needed to check with those cousins anyway to be on the safe side. He motioned for Elmer to follow him as he headed back towards the main part of the hospital to rejoin Hook and Chris. "What about friends? Lona had to have someone when she was in college or med school."
"Not from what I've heard." Elmer said. Why did his dad think
Lona would have had to have had friends in college or med school? He
certainly never had. "Why do you think she's here all the time?" Didn't
anyone but him understand how isolated Lona could be? Why hadn't he talked
to her instead of his stupid attempts at flirting, made her see that he
understood and that they could be so good for each other? What if.
What if he never had that chance now? What if Lona was....
"Elmer, we're going to find her, I promise you." Louis said gently. Okay, he was more than a bit worried himself about finding Lona and the condition that she might be in when she was found but he wasn't going to share those fears with his son.
"I never should have left her last night." Elmer said with a shake of his head, barely able to hold tears back as he thought of it. Why was he such a loser? He failed everyone. First with his mother, not being a good enough child for her to want to fight against her drug addiction, to want to be with him. Then there was his brother that he had failed to save from suicide. Elmer was sure that his father blamed him for that one big time. Now he had failed Lona, the one person he had wanted to protect so much. She shook his head as he thought of it. His brother shouldn't have been the one to jump off of the roof, it should have been him. Everyone would be much better off without him around to mess up things.
"Elmer, it wasn't your fault." Louis told his son gently. "You heard what Henry said about Lona being on her way out when he saw her and she was just starting to look sick then. You wouldn't have...."
"If I had said that I wanted to stay and do the tests then she
wouldn't have left either." Elmer said with a shake of his head. He knew
what his dad was trying to do but.... It was his fault and he knew that.
Nothing would change that fact. He had totally failed Lona and he would
never forgive himself for it.
"Elmer...."
"Don't. Just don't, okay? Let's just go upstairs and see what we can do about finding Lona." Elmer said firmly, not wanting to talk anymore. He knew it was his fault and what his dad was saying wasn't going to fix that. All he wanted right now was to find Lona somewhere safe and sound. After that, well.... Maybe he could correct the mistake that had been made five years earlier before he did anymore damage to anyone. He should have been the one who died.