Thank you for your patience . . . it will now (I hope) be rewarded. Posting of new sections will slow down a bit now, too. I just really didn't want to leave this part of the story hanging.
Vendetta
By BeckyS
April 2005-2006
The Eppes family and the characters and situations from the TV show "NUMB3RS"
are the property of the Scotts and the creation of Cheryl Heuton and Nick Falacci.
No infringement is intended, and no profit is being made.
The ruse worked perfectly. Don slipped out of the tavern and into the back of the truck with no one the wiser. The driver made frequent turns, took short jaunts on the highway (judging by the speed), made stops where he didn't open the back, and finally, when Don felt his temper was about to explode, they stopped again, backed up, stopped, and then he heard the latch on the back door being lifted.
"Go straight inside," the driver said, waving at a set of double doors behind a loading dock. "Someone will meet you."
Don hopped from the bed of the truck to the covered loading dock and pushed his way through the delivery doors. He looked around, not knowing what to expect, and found himself in the receiving area of an industrial kitchen. A restaurant? In a safe house?
"Agent Eppes?" A man in a white chef's uniform approached him, but there was something about the way he carried himself that said he was Bureau.
"Yes." He looked around. "A safe house?"
The 'chef' let a bit of a smile appear at one corner of his mouth. "A nursing home. There are reasons, which you'll find out shortly. This way. You'll have twenty minutes before the truck leaves. That's as long as we can make believable for a delivery."
As Don followed the agent through the maze of the kitchen and through the dining room, he wondered what he was going to say to his father. Did he know? Had anyone told him? Explained how his youngest son had been beaten to death in his own classroom? Had they shown him the pictures, told the story—
He rubbed at his face. Those pictures had haunted him all night, in spite of the pills Megan had given him. He hoped that when he finally found Charlie's body, finally saw him, that he would be able to lay that other Charlie to rest and remember his brother as he'd been in life; teasing their father, scribbling on his blackboards, shooting hoops, teaching his students.
No, it all came back to death. To a grave that would rest next to his mother's. As, someday, his grave would rest next to his father's.
"Donnie?"
He blinked back tears to see his father approaching warily.
"Donnie, are you all right?"
His father was standing right in front of him, his eyes full of love and caring, and all he could do was shake his head. Of course he wasn't all right. He closed his eyes and suddenly he was in his father's arms, sheltered as he hadn't been since a child, except for that one night when they lost his mother. Why did it take death to bring him this close to his father?
"Dad," he breathed. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I wasn't there, I didn't stop it, I should have known, I should have been able to protect him—"
"Shh," his father murmured. "It's not your fault, don't take that on yourself."
"But Charlie— Oh, God, it was so bad."
"I know." He guided Don into a small sitting room and they sat down on a couch. "But it'll all be over soon. Once we've taken care of your brother, we'll move on, just like we have before."
Don pulled back and stared at his father, appalled. "How can you say that? How can you be so calm? My God, Dad, Charlie's dead! I saw the police photos, they beat him and left him to die in his own classroom!" He clamped his jaw together. He'd never intended to tell his father the details, sure that it would rip him apart. But Alan Eppes was confused, not upset.
"Donnie, what are you talking about?"
Don felt a hysterical bubble rise up in him and he abruptly stood, unable to sit any longer. "What am I talking about? I'm talking about my brother, your son, beaten to death because of a vendetta someone has against me, and the Bureau – I can't believe it – the Bureau lost his body, so we can't even bury him!"
Alan shook his head as if that would clear up the confusion. "Son, you've got it all wrong." He rose and put out a hand to stop Don's pacing. "Come with me."
He held back. "Dad, I'm sure the Bureau told you something clean and sweet, but that's not how it was."
"Don. Come with me." Alan had an iron grip on his forearm, and whether it was the strength in his hand or old habit, when he headed for the door, Don followed.
They walked halfway down the hall and stopped in front of a resident's room. Alan turned his son to face him and spoke clearly and firmly. "I don't know what report they gave you, and I don't know what pictures you saw, but Charlie is not dead."
Don groaned and turned away. "Dad, I don't want to believe it either, but there were police photos from the crime scene."
Alan nudged the door open a little and pushed Don toward the room. "Go."
"What—?" Something was starting to tickle the back of his mind, but he couldn't fix on it. He wanted to argue, to convince his father that they had to face the truth, but something in his father's expression held him back. To please him, Don pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped through.
The lights were low and curtains were drawn across the window on the far wall, masking the details of the room in shadows. There were two beds up against the right-hand wall, the farthest one empty, the closer one surrounded by a curtain. The silence was broken only by a steady beeping and a soft mechanical wheeze that came from somewhere. Afraid of what he would find, but more afraid not to look, he pulled the curtain back.
He felt the shock as if someone had hit him. It was Charlie. Pale, silent, frozen in time. They'd found his body, though why they'd brought him here was still a mystery. Then the significance of the mechanical beeping hit him. He looked above the bed and saw a small monitor with a thin green line that steadily spiked every second or so. He saw the blood pressure cuff inflate around Charlie's upper arm, saw the numbers rise, and heard it deflate. He followed the line from the IV bag to where a needle fed fluids into his brother's arm.
Was it possible?
He walked closer to the bed, up next to it, until he was close enough to not only see his brother's chest rise and fall, but to hear him breathing. In and out. In and out. Don's heart felt like it was about to explode.
Someone had cleaned up all the blood, and a bruise and a line of stitches were all that were left on his brother's forehead. He reached out and brushed the back of his hand against the beard-stubbled cheek. It was warm.
And then Charlie blinked and sleepily opened his eyes. "Don?" His voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper. "That you?"
"Yeah," he choked out. "Just checking on you."
The corners of Charlie's mouth curved upward just a little, and his eyelids drooped. "Thanks." And his breathing evened out again.
Don stumbled away from the bed to find his father standing behind him.
Alan smiled. "See? Everything is going to be all right."
And Don Eppes felt like he'd been beaten near to death himself, and survived.