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Every Time We Say Goodbye…
Danny stopped in his tracks and wheeled around to glare at Woody.
"Excuse me?" he growled in angry disbelief.
"You heard me, Vegas boy," Woody replied, equally worked up.
"You know, for a farm hick you're sure prone to tossing out labels," Danny said sarcastically as he moved determinedly towards Woody. Jordan swallowed her own insults that she desired to throw at Woody and hurried after Danny, very aware of the others on the scene watching the confrontation.
"Danny, stop it," she pleaded firmly.
"No, if he wants to dish it out, then he's going to have to take it right back," Danny snapped, getting in Woody's face. "You wanna run that comment by me one more time?"
"I just call it like I see it," Woody said snidely. "And believe me, I've never seen her treat a guy as anything more than a convenient lay."
Danny reacted so quickly to Woody's words that Jordan didn't even have time to try to stop him from shoving Woody hard in the chest, nearly knocking him off his feet. She wasn't even sure she could have done anything, she was in such shock about what Woody had just said. The other cops on the scene immediately intervened, grabbing Woody and keeping him from launching himself at Danny, who willingly backed away as soon as the men took him by the arms.
"You son of a bitch, don't ever say anything like that about her again!" Danny said forcefully.
Jordan grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away, her face warm with embarrassment and anger at what was happening. She had never been more furious at Woody, or hurt by the things he was saying. She had heard that his temper had been reeled in, but she certainly wasn't seeing the effects of his anger management. She hoped to God that Danny didn't believe a word of what Woody was saying. The comments stung badly.
"Danny, you need to calm down," she told him. "We're still here on a call."
Danny shook his head and ran his hands through his hair.
"I can't be here, Jordan," he said, a rough edge still in his voice. "I'll rip him apart if I stay."
"Then go if you need to," she said. "Just don't do this here. This is not the place"
"Don't you care about what he just said?" he asked her incredulously.
"Yes, I think it's shitty what he's doing," she argued, crossing her arms over her chest. "But I can not deal with it right now."
"Fine," Danny said shortly, looking away from her in frustration. She didn't say anything. "I need to get out of here."
He walked away before she had the chance to say a word, his hands shoved angrily into his coat pockets. Jordan looked down at the ground, shivering from the cold and the fear that Woody's words would somehow send Danny packing. They had never really fought before. And while she never expected them not to fight, it was the intensity of this first battle and everything surrounding it that made it a hundred times worse than if they had fought about leaving the toothpaste cap off. She sniffed softly and looked up at where Woody was standing. He stared right back at her, his expression stone cold. She hated him for doing this.
Her glare nearly cut him in two. Woody had never seen that amount of resentment and sadness in her face. He had really hurt her this time. Well, that was your intention, wasn't it? he thought to himself.
Jordan watched him turn away from her and mutter something to a nearby cop, then walk off the scene. The young cop walked hesitantly towards her, looking very much like he wanted nothing to do with this personal situation.
"Detective Hoyt asked if you could just fax him the report later today," he said to Jordan. She softened a little at the pathetic tone in the young man's voice, nodding her agreement. The cop started to walk away, then stopped and turned back to her. "I wouldn't take it too personally," he tried naively to comfort her. "Word around the station is that things ended badly with Lu recently. There was another man…or something."
He walked away quickly when Jordan didn't respond to the information. She knew enough to take the PD gossip with a grain of salt. Still, if it was true, she felt bad to an extent. No one deserved to be cheated on…well, almost no one.
Left alone with nothing to do but examine the car wreck, Jordan gathered her equipment and walked towards to Mercedes. Her work was the only thing that could possibly distract her at this point. The scene did very little to release her from her problems, though. Jordan had seen the pictures from Garret's accident. The tire prints on the ground from the car spinning out on an icy road much like this one. As she neared the driver's side, she had to swallow hard to keep her stomach from heaving. Death rarely bothered her this much anymore, but this one was pulling a number on her.
She quickly assessed the visuals of the accident. The young woman was bloodied and battered. Jordan wouldn't be surprised if the autopsy revealed a crushed ribcage or a shattered skull. It looked as though she had collided with the window, hard enough to smash it. Jordan then saw the reason the police had called her in. Vomit covered the front of the girl, as well as part of the steering wheel and the dash board. Just like Phillip, this girl's stomach lining was probably destroyed. There was only one way to find out for sure. Jordan called one of the cops over to help her out.
"Did she have an ID on her?" she asked as they transferred the body to the van.
"Yeah. Keri March, age twenty three," the cop told her. Jordan furrowed her brow.
"That sounds familiar," she commented.
"It should. You've probably seen it in the local tabloids or newspapers," he said. "Right along with Westly Appleton's."
Jordan looked up, surprised. "Judge Jeffrey Appleton's son?"
"Exactly," the cop gave her a significant look. Jordan suddenly understood why there were so many people on this scene. The press was going to have a field day, as usual, with a possible murder that connected to a public figure.
Heading back to the morgue, she committed herself to spending the rest of her day conducting the autopsy. She was not ready to face Danny yet, and anything to prolong that moment was a good thing. Really, she shouldn't have felt so upset about talking to him about what happened. He had defended her, very chivalrously at that. But what if he started asking questions? Her relationship record wasn't fabulous, and she had already gone to Vegas once at his request with the intent of using him for sex, and only sex. He had to realize that that was a phase she had long passed, and the only thing she wanted now was him. He just had to.
Her mind was only half on her work, but she still found what she needed. Tox came back positive for iron poisoning and Keri's digestive system was destroyed, just like Phillip. Now she had to hand over the report to the police to let them find the connection between the killings. They were too similar to not have a tie. And Jordan fully intended to back away from the case once the file was out of her hands. She wanted nothing more to do with Woody on this one. She had just finished with the autopsy and was about to wheel the body back to the crypt when she heard the door swing open. She looked up to see Bug walk in.
"Hey," he said. "Any luck?"
"Iron poisoning, just like the other one," she told him, placing her hands on her hips. Bug nodded.
"Did you find anything to connect the two?" he asked.
"I didn't try," she said dryly. "My job stops when the body is sewn back up."
Bug looked at her skeptically, knowing she was being purposefully stubborn. The look on her face said she knew she wasn't fooling anyone. Bug sighed a little, tired of the game he thought Jordan had grown out of.
"I heard about what happened today," he told her. Jordan blinked in surprise, and tried too late to cover the fact that she cared that the day had turned into gossip already. "If you want, I can take over the case for you."
"Oh," Jordan said. Bug's offer was not what she had been expecting. She considered it for a moment, then said, "Uh, you know, I think I'll stay on it. Why should I back down?" she smiled genuinely. "Thank you, though."
"Sure," Bug said. "I just thought I'd offer. And…you know, if you wanted, we have a lot of deadly chemicals lying around. Nigel could slip them into his drink and make it look like a complete accident."
"Um," Jordan laughed. "I don't think that will be necessary. Danny scared him pretty good today already."
Bug smiled and nodded. "He's good for you, Jordan," he said after a moment, taking her by surprise again. "We all see it."
Jordan opened her mouth, but found that the sincerity of Bug's comment left her speechless. She could only smile, slightly embarrassed, and glance down at her feet briefly. She looked back up when she heard a knock on the door to the autopsy room. Danny stood on the other side of the glass, waiting for their permission to enter. Bug glanced back at Jordan with a knowing look and excused himself, leaving the door open for Danny as he left. Danny took a few shuffling steps into the room.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," she replied softly, giving him a smile. It was the encouragement he needed to walk closer to her, knowing she was not mad.
"Look…about today," he started. "I'm sorry I lost it. I wasn't thinking about what it would do to you. You were there to do a job."
"It's okay," she said, a slight sparkle in her eyes. "The more I think about it, the more I wish you had been able to knock him out. That would have been worth a trip to the DA's office for a reprimand."
Danny smiled at her. After a moment, he glanced down, the smile dropping from his face. "Um. I need to talk to you about something."
Jordan felt her heart skip a beat. She did not like the tone in his voice. It sounded too serious. Holding her breath, she waited for him to go on.
"After I left today, I got a call from Ed," he said slowly. He looked up at her, willing that she would understand what he had to tell her. "There was a huge security breach at the casino this morning. He's desperate for help, Jor."
"And he needs you to go back," she finished for him, looking down at her hands clasped in front of her.
"There's a red eye tonight that he wants me on," he said quietly, looking away from her. When she stayed silent, Danny looked up and searched her face for a moment, his brow dropping in concern. "This isn't because of today, Jordan," he told her.
"No, I know," she replied quickly. She tried to remain clam while her mind raced to rationalize him leaving her. He knew she could not come with him. She was in charge of the morgue while Garret was gone, and there was no way she was breaking that promise to him. It was bad timing, that was all. It had nothing to do with what Woody said. Danny wasn't questioning her intentions. He was not leaving because of that. Please, God, don't let my past ruin this, she pleaded silently. She felt his hands come to rest on either side of her face, lifting her face to look at him.
"I'm not going because of what happened today," he said firmly, looking her straight in the eye with as much love as he ever had. "I'm not."
Jordan let out a breath and forced herself to relax, smiling uncertainly at him. Danny held her gaze for several seconds, starting to look more nervous as the time passed.
"I know I told you I would give you more warning than this," he started falteringly, dropping his hands from her face and reaching into his pocket. "But…I don't know how long I'll have to be gone, and I didn't want to leave without giving you this."
He pulled his hand from his pocket and opened his palm towards her, revealing a small black velvet box which he opened quickly out of nerves. Jordan blinked in shock, her jaw dropping slightly at the sight of the silver ring sitting inside the box – a delicate emerald framed generously by diamonds. She felt her heart leap into her throat, and she looked up to meet his eyes…they were filled with hope.