Chapter 8
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Mark was going to find his son and Jesse- and he was going to find them alive, he hoped.
To the petrified men standing cautiously on the defunct heap of metal, seconds seemed like hours. Both distinctly heard the droning wail of firetrucks on the other side of buildings, could hear the urgent shouts of brave workers as they tried to save the building and its inhabitants. Neither gave even the slightest whim of being rescued a single thought; in their minds, the firetrucks simply existed to help others-not them. Steve's gruff voice broke the haziness and unreality of the situation.
"We might have to jump," he said with no evident emotion.
"You really are crazy! We just did one of the stupidest things imaginable and you want us to jump- again?!!" Jesse exclaimed, momentarily releasing his tight grasp on the railing fragments, only to clutch it for dear life a second later.
Steve gave a mildly hurt look for his friend's uncharacteristic outburst.
"Jess, the building could collapse any minute and..." Steve reasoned softly, trailing off stupidly at the end.
"And you think we should move to safety before it does," Jesse relented. "Sorry, it's just..." It was Jesse's turn to leave the sentence hanging.
"That we're trapped on an extremely unstable fire escape of an ancient apartment building that is currently engulfed in flames and we could fall to our instant deaths at any minute. I can see why you're a little irritable," Steve offered some dark humor, managing a slight, quick grin.
"Yeah, something like that," Jesse offered, unable to restrain his horrified gaze from peering over the edge and taking in the taunting reality of their predicament.
"We could try to call for help," Steve suggested halfheartedly, frustrated to no end at not being able to do anything .
"They'd never hear us. They're too far away and they need to be saving the people inside," Jesse pointed out grimly.
Steve and Jesse lapsed into a mournful silence, each lamenting over the impending danger they faced.
When Mark parked in front of his destination, sheer terror encased him. The grizzly sight was bad enough on TV, but this was catastrophic. He tried in vain to drown out the shrill, agonized cry of mothers desperately calling out for their children, tried to ignore the evil cackling of the inferno that loomed over him. Only the increasingly imperative need of finding his son and Jesse snapped him out of his depressed fascination and the building that he gawked at.
His frantic search began with the side of the white hot apartment complex and carried him around narrow side streets towards the uninhabited back.
Steve and Jesse were completely stunned when their crestfallen eyes fell upon an older white haired man scanning the area beneath them. While momentarily unable to move or speak in shock, they quickly regained their composure.
"Dad!" Steve shouted loudly, urgently, from above.
Was that... Steve? Mark froze in mid-stride and hastily glanced around him, but saw not a soul. Great, now he was hearing things, all just a part of his subconscious playing cruel tricks on him.
"Dad!!" Steve tried again, a desperate plea for help.
This time, Mark was ready. He looked above him and gasped as he saw a disheveled Steve Sloan and Jesse Travis. Both were covered in debris and singed.
"Steve!! Jesse!!!" Mark greeted as a sudden wave of emotion gripped him. He was ecstatic that they were alive and outside, but they were in a pretty bad place right now, also.
"Hey, Dad," Steve called evenly.
"Hey, Mark," Jesse quivered, still immensely afraid of plummeting to his death.
"Are you OK?" Mark voiced just a tiny portion of his mammoth worry.
"I'm fine, Mark," Jesse answered, "But Steve,"
"I'll live," Steve interrupted. "Do you think you can call someone to get us down from here?"
Later that week, Amanda, Mark, and Jesse each occupied a seat around the familiar doctors' lounge, discussing the case. Steve shuffled into the room, brandishing a large stack of folders and yet another white bandage around his arm.
"So, Steve, how does it feel to get injured in the exact same location by the exact same person?" Amanda teased.
Steve shot her an irritated glance. "A wooden beam did it, not Peter Clayton... err, John. And would you stop badgering me about it? It's not like I actually meant to be shot in my own restaurant, kidnapped, and trapped in a fire," he complained, heading over to the refreshing coffee pot and pouring himself a steaming cup. He grimaced in pain as the action sent a spike of pain through his ribs.
"Is your side still bothering you, Son?" Mark asked, looking somewhat concerned.
"A little," Steve admitted, before adding, "I'm fine, Dad."
Steve carried his mug and folders over to the soft couch and gently eased himself beside his father.
"Any word yet on Ryan, the kid I told you about, Amanda?" Steve asked, hoping intently that Amanda had not seen him, which could mean he was still alive.
"I'm sorry, Steve. I found a young man matching the description you gave me. His name was Ryan Hills," Amanda told him reluctantly.
"Oh, no," Steve groaned, "He was just a kid. I don't think he was going to hurt us. He might have even turned himself and John in."
"Have you gotten any leads on Pete... I mean John?" Mark inquired.
"None. Any and all fingerprints were destroyed in the fire. This guy is good- evil, but cunning," Steve commented with understandable frustration.
"A criminal mastermind, even though he's twisted and unstable," Jesse quipped.
"Jesse, that's it!!!" Mark exclaimed happily.
Three quizzical pairs of eyes stared at Mark, silently prompting him to continue.
"That's how we catch the killer! He's unstable. He wants to finish the job, and that very thing will cause his downfall," he continued, the famous twinkle lighting up his ocean blue eyes.
"Dad, I don't follow. What are you suggesting?" Steve asked bluntly, a confused scowl showing plainly on his features.
"Where's Theresa Rumen?" Mark suddenly asked.
"Where she belongs- in jail," Steve answered plainly, even more at a loss to where this was going.
"We use her as bait. John will want to kill her. He wants to make sure everything is done perfectly. We'll trap him in the act."
"I don't know, Dad. What if she gets away? Do you really think he's stupid enough to go to jail and kill her?" Steve asked.
"Not if she, let's just say, gets hurt and ends up in the same hospital where a cop just happens to be hiding in the same room," Mark hinted.
"Are you suggesting we hurt Theresa so we can use her as bait?!!" Jesse asked, looking skeptical.
"No, but if someone convinced her that she needed to go to a hospital..." Mark reasoned, leaving the rest of them to digest his idea.
"Then she would go to the hospital and neither of them would know what was really going on!" Jesse summed up, finally catching on.
"Wouldn't it look suspicious if there wasn't a guard on her door then? And I'm sure John isn't stupid enough to go into a room that has a black-and-white posted there!" Steve argued.
"No, Steve, you don't get it. He knows there will be a guard, and he will try to outsmart him or her. We can get a guard who is in on it and have them act like a real one. I'm sure John will find a way to distract any guard," Amanda excitedly backed Mark's theory. She was beginning to understand too.
"Who would convince her that she's hurt?" Steve asked, not at all liking the fact that he was the only one who didn't understand. "She knows who you and Amanda, and Jesse are."
"She does?" Jesse asked in bewilderment, a confused frown appearing on his face briefly.
"The pictures that we found were hers. She knows all of us," Mark informed him quickly.
"Then who does the job?" Steve asked, slightly annoyed.
Outside of the lounge, Alex Martin breezed past, grasping a patient chart tightly in one hand.
Mark cracked an impish grin. "I have an idea."
"Dr. Sloan, I don't know about this," Alex protested after being ambushed and practically dragged into the doctors' lounge by Mark.
"Oh, come on. It'll be easy. Besides, you're the only one of us who the killer doesn't know who you are," Mark pleaded, pinning Alex into an uncomfortable situation.
"Yeah, I'd go, but she wouldn't buy it and she might try to kill me or something," Jesse chimed, "Besides, I'm sure you'd be good at it. Just convince her and the guards that she might be having... just make something up."
"I'm not very good at lying," Alex admitted, adverting his eyes to the solid floor underneath him.
"You don't have to lie, exactly," Amanda assured him from her seat in an olive green chair. "Just overplay 'symptoms' and express your concern for getting her to a hospital. You don't have to actually say that something is definitely wrong with her."
"I don't know..." Alex mumbled. "It's illegal, isn't it, Steve?""I'm not here," Steve spoke softly, grinning mischievously as he sipped his coffee. "And if anyone asks, for all intensive purposes, this is just a standard police trap."
"Alright, I guess," Alex agreed slightly hesitantly, "but you owe me." He smiled playfully as he exited the room.
"Bye, Alex. And thanks," Mark called, eyes bursting with joy.Alex sighed as he trudged sown the corridors of the hospital. What had he gotten himself into? Oh, well. It was for his friends, after all.
Alex stood erect in front of the large, stark white building, mentally preparing himself for the scheme Mark had sent him to accomplish. Mumbling soft reassurances to himself, he picked himself up and sauntered into the building."Can I help you?" a hefty woman asked irritably, staring down at a massive heap of papers strewn across her desk.
"Uh, yeah. I'm here to see Theresa Rumen," Alex explained, a little embarrassed.
The lady's corpulent face displayed a distinct grimace as she once again returned to her paperwork.
Alex uncomfortably watched her ignore him and found himself taking in the horrid sight of her wooden desk, with large potato chip bags, crumbs, and fast food wrappers littered everywhere.
"James, take this young man to cell 6A," she finally monotonically ordered a guard after getting fed up with Alex's expectant looks and mere presence.
"Uh, don't you need my name and ID or something?" Alex asked nervously.
"Technically, yes, but frankly, I don't really care," The lady snuffed, hoping intently for this guy to leave.
"Well, uh, my name's Alex Martin and I'm here on personal business," Alex added.
James didn't say a word, but gruffly motioned for Alex to follow. After murmuring a quick, undeserved thanks, Alex hastily tailed the burly guard, winding through halls of the jail to get to the right place.
As Alex briskly trotted through the corridors, a shiny thermostat caught his eye. Unnoticed, he surreptitiously reached out a hand and cranked it way up.
"Here we are, 6A," James informed him as he let Alex into the door leading to Theresa's cell .
"Who are you?!" Theresa bitterly demanded.
"Theresa, I represent..." Alex started, trying to recall what he had practiced with Steve for so long.
"I don't need no lawyer or preacher!" she fumed at him.
"Actually, I'm a doctor," he replied brightly. A little truth always helped a lie, or deception, in his case. "A friend, I believe you know him, wanted me to talk to you."
"Peter!" she cried. "Tell me, does he love me?!"
"Actually, that's why I came here," Alex spoke confidently, now more into his role, "You're looking pretty pale, you know. Are you feeling OK?"
"I'm fine. Now, tell me what you came here to tell me!!!" she ordered.
"Hold on. Don't you think it's cold in here? I mean, I'm wearing a sweater and I'm freezing!" Alex enthused, feigning concern. Man, was he hot! It felt like he was smoldering in an oven, but even so, everything was going according to plan.
"No, I'm kind of hot," she admitted, a little nervous.
"Hot! Oh, no. This is not good. I've seen lots of patients with fever like this," Alex made a very convincing show.
"You, think I have something?" Theresa asked starting to get truly worried.
"It's very possible that someone exhibiting this kind of fever and symptoms needs to be hospitalized."
"Are... Are you sure?" she quivered.
"Guard! Guard!"
"How did you do it?!" Mark asked Alex excitedly from the doctors' lounge after Theresa had unofficially been given a private room.
"Yeah, she was truly convinced she was suffering from fever, being hot, then being really cold," Jesse added cheerfully.
"Nothing too illegal, I hope," Steve commented wryly more to himself than to anyone else.
"Well, a really incompetent secretary and guard let me get in without an questions or ID," Alex proceeded to give a recall of what had happened.
"What?!!" Steve asked incredulously.
"Anyway, I turned up the thermostat really high and pretended to be cold. Obviously, we were both burning up, but she thought it was just her. When she got out of the building, she was cold because she didn't have a jacket," Alex summed up.
"Now, to wait and catch the bad guy!" Jesse declared.
John stood outside in the mammoth parking lot of CGH. He had information that his old accomplice had been brought to the hospital. This was his chance to finish the job, and he would; he was sure about that.
TO BE CONTINUED