Chapter 3
Don owed both the best and worst moment of his day to Dr. Kincaid's window.
When the shotgun blast blew him off the roof, he soon hit the window on the way down, hanging up on it momentarily until his body weight both ripped it from its casing and snapped his tibia like a toothpick, and he kept falling. Although he wouldn't know it for quite some time, snagging on the window also changed his trajectory, so that when he hit the ground, his head did not shatter like a watermelon on the cement sidewalk, but thudded into the wet muddy landscape closer to the building instead. His cranial unit remained in one piece, but the impact was still enough to knock him out, which he would be grateful for later. Hitting, he felt the air leave his lungs, heard the window he had brought with him shatter and felt it send a few missles of broken glass into him, but was unconscious before he could panic over the loss of air or truly feel the pain of his leg. The last thing he heard was the terrified scream of the coed on the sidewalk, on whom he had almost landed.
On the roof, Charlie was also blissfully unconscious, and didn't hear his two assailants as they berated each other for so thoroughly ruining what was supposed to have been an easy pick-up. Nor did he feel any pain in his arm when the two of them roughly lifted him to his feet, and dragged his unconscious form back across the roof to the door. Once there, the smaller man helped position Charlie in a fireman's carry over the other man's shoulder, and they started their descent.
By the time they popped out of the stairwell on the first floor, the few students and instructors who had still been in the building were milling about in a panic. At least three were on cell phones, and several ran back and forth between Don's body and the first aid kit mounted on the wall just inside the door. The trench-coated men pushed past them.
A young woman froze in front of them, effectively halting their progress. "Is that Dr. Eppes? What happened?"
The shorter man spoke and took another step to encourage her movement. "Problem on the roof," he said, lucking into the one explanation she would believe. She was part of Charlie's freshman class working on the experiment, and the thought of him up there in a storm gave her all the information her imagination needed. She continued to stay in front of them, though, backing along the sidewalk. "A guy…a guy fell off the roof," she shared. "We called 9-1-1…"
The man carrying Charlie spoke soothingly. "That's good. Why don't you see if you can help him? Dr. Eppes is badly injured, we can't wait. My partner and I will take him to the hospital in our car."
She hesitated, but persuaded herself she saw competence and responsibility in the men's determined demeanor. Plus, the one carrying Dr. Eppes had said "partner", and she had heard the campus rumours about Dr. Eppes having a brother in the FBI. Finally she stepped aside, and watched them hurry to a dark sedan left haphazardly in the handicapped parking close to the building. It had to be an FBI car, she noted, because it didn't even have a license plate. The smaller man got in back with Dr. Eppes — to give first aid during the ride, probably, she thought — and the taller man quickly got behind the wheel. The car squealed out of the parking lot, and she hoped sincerely that Dr. Eppes would be all right. She looked back at the man on the sidewalk, and wondered again what had happened on the roof.
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Megan had ridden to the crime scene with Don, but since he had taken off for Cal Sci, she was hitching a ride back to the office with David and Colby. She sat in the back of the vehicle, checking her notes, when she felt the cell phone on her waist vibrate.
She retrieved it with one hand and flipped it open, still looking at her notes. "Agent Reeves." She listened for a moment and felt the notebook slide from her fingers. "What? Are you sure?" Megan listened for a while longer, then met Colby's eyes in the rear view mirror, while David had turned around in the passenger seat and was looking right at her. "Don't call him," she instructed. "He shouldn't drive himself. We'll stop and pick him up."
She closed the cell and looked at David with horror. "That was dispatch. Don just came flying off the roof of Charlie's building at Cal Sci. He's in transit to Huntington Memorial ER. I said that we would pick up Alan."
In one motion, Colby lifted the vehicle's police light out the window and onto the top of the car, hit the siren, slammed on the brakes and executed a u-turn.
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Alan opened the refrigerator and eyed the marinating brisket, did a quick inventory of available vegetables. He needed to run to the store for carrots. He would pick up some low fat cottage cheese for Charlie, too, just in case the rich meal was too much for him. Charlie was doing well, though, and usually just ate smaller amounts of whatever he was having. The summer had really relaxed him…but, school was in full swing now, and it's possible that his stress level was rising. Better to be safe.
Alan was excited. Barring any last-minute calls to crime scenes, Don was coming to dinner tonight — a little later than usual, so he still had time for a grocery run. Donnie was bringing Cecile, so they were waiting until her shift ended at the hospital. She had come to dinner a couple of times already, but every visit meant that she and Donnie were progressing right along in their relationship. Alan was happy to see his son with anyone, at this point — and it was a bonus that he genuinely enjoyed Cecile's company. He sighed with both contentment and frustration. Now if he could just get Charlie taken care of.
He had hoped, when his son went to the symposium at MIT last summer, that Charlie would look up Amita and they would — re-establish their relationship right where it left off. But he had always known that wasn't a very practical dream. He knew for a fact that Charlie had dated at least two women during the first year of Amita's absence — it wasn't as if Charlie was pining away. Or, maybe he was…running from the obvious. Alan shook himself. Impossible to tell, really, what was going on in Charlie's heart — he shared the workings of his mind much more readily than he did his feelings. Although, with this new "honesty policy" the three of them had agreed to back when he got sick, Charlie was improving at that, too. He was probably as up-front about his feelings as he could be; hard to share something you couldn't figure out yourself! Well, at least he and Amita had been able to repair their friendship. Alan could be happy with that.
He made a mental note to get more of Don's favorite beer while he was at the store — then gave up on mental notes and started a list. He had just added the cottage cheese when he heard a car squeal into the driveway unreasonably fast, and the sound of an engine he didn't recognize. He opened the kitchen door to see what was happening, and recognized Colby and David in the front seat, saw Megan climbing out of the back, registered the flashing red light on the roof…
He watched Megan come toward him and wondered how he could still be standing. His heart had stopped, after all.