Part VIII

Kitt sat in a very small and plain white waiting room in Red Wood Memorial Hospital; his body leaned over slightly forward with his hands folded on his lap. The rushing of four people into the room gave him a startle, but he let out a sigh of relief when he saw who it was.

"My God, Kitt, are you all right?" Bonnie asked in a rush, putting her hands on Kitt's arms as he stood up to greet them.

"I'm fine," he said as he nodded to her. "Just this cut on the side of my forehead, but that's not even deep."

"What happened?" Michael asked in a relieved, yet still shocked voice.

"Where's Nadine?" Grandma Nelly asked quickly, poking through Devon and Michael. "Is she okay?"

Kitt nodded. "Her arm broke when the car flipped over, but otherwise she's okay. The doctors are setting her into a cast now, as far as I know." He sat back down, mostly to try and relax like the doctors had told him to after having been in such a terrible accident. "I'm sorry about your car, Michael."

"It can be replaced," Michael said quickly and held his hand out, palm at the floor. "Now explain what happened."

Kitt shrugged and took in a deep breath. "Robert Oliver found us in the mall," he said honestly and simply. "We ran to the car, Robert on our heals, and ended up in a car chase with him shooting at us."

"Oh my word," Grandma Nelly said in awe, holding her hand to her mouth and sitting down slowly. Devon sat down next to her and put his hand on her shoulder to assure her everything would be fine.

"You were driving, I expect?" Devon asked.

Kitt shook his head. "Nadine was. We flipped over when he blew out the back tire with the gun and she couldn't keep it under control."

"Did you get a look at the license plate?" Michael asked.

"I didn't see one on the front of the car," Kitt replied. "If I remember correctly, though, it was a blue Chevy Malibu."

"Police reported that witnesses turned in the same type of car," Devon said. "I'll have Bonnie get on the owners of every blue Malibu in the state, more importantly this surrounding area."

"At least the two of you didn't get seriously hurt," Bonnie said. "I almost had a heart attack when the police called."

"It's not something I had wanted to go through again," Kitt told her. "Being a car rolling over is bad enough—being a passenger is nerve wrecking."

"Tell me about it," Michael said, although he wasn't very enlightened. "All of this going on before you're having surgery."

"I know," Kitt said. "They said that making it out the way I did won't affect it, thankfully."

"Yes, well, the most important thing is that both you and Nadine are alive," Devon said standing and smoothing down his suit jacket. "The sooner Robert Oliver is behind bars the better for us all."

Michael nodded, although Kitt could see in his eyes that he was thinking something more than finding their fugitive and nailing him for the crimes he's committed in the past few weeks. The look in Michael's eyes wasn't exactly a plan, but it could very possibly be something leading towards one.

The next day Kitt was on edge, and not because of the previous day's accident, but because he was nervous about the surgery. Bonnie had brought up from the laboratories a box about the size of a VCR. He knew exactly what it was the moment he saw it. It was a very similar device they had used to put "him" in when something had happened to the Knight Two Thousand. He remembered several occasions; one clearly in his mind was when the car was stolen and he was tossed out. Being in that box was Closter phobic, even to a computer, and the thought that he might have to experience it again if the surgery wasn't immediately curable was a little frightening.

However, he had found comforting words in the unlikeliest of people that afternoon—Nadine. She had found him leaving the parlor and she steadily came up to him, her left arm now hung in a sling with a purple plaster cast surrounding her hand and wrist. "Kitt!" She called out to nab his attention. "May I have a word with you?"

Kitt nodded and put his hands in his trouser pockets. She gave him a friendly smile, probably the best he had ever seen her wear. Her hair wasn't pulled back into her usual ponytail, but it gracefully hung and just barely draped past her shoulders.

"I wanted to thank-you," she said softly, "for keeping a straight head through yesterday. If it was just me, I would've panicked…and who knows what would've happened."

"I'm sorry that it happened," he said. "I had hoped that by now we'd have a lead on Robert."

Nadine nodded but started walking with him towards the front of the house. "Me too, but you guys have been great. Like I said yesterday, I haven't been really grateful and nice to you guys—especially you, Kitt. And I—"

They were stopped in the open foyer of the room where the front desk and the staircase was. Resting her hand on the desk was someone Kitt never expected to see at that moment, if ever again.

"Rachael," he said appalled. "What are you doing here?"

Rachael moved away from the desk where Cathy was seated, although Cathy left through the door behind her into the office when she felt the tension rise up in the room. Rachael stared at Kitt and then her gaze switched to look over the young brunette next to him.

"Obviously for the wrong reason," she said bitterly.

"Rachael, it is a pleasant surprise," Kitt tried to mend, taking a few steps towards her.

Rachael adjusted the strap of her purse on her shoulder. "I'm sure it is, Kitt. Aren't you going to introduce me to her?"

Kitt turned slightly to notice that Nadine was still there and then quickly understood why there was a sour feeling to Rachael's tone. "Oh, this is Nadine Corvonce. Nadine, this is Rachael Bloomdom."

"Hi," Nadine said, not quite sure of what relation Rachael was to Kitt, having never heard of her before.

"Well, I see that you two are busy," Rachael said. "Didn't take you long to replace me, did it Kitt?"

"I don't quite know what you mean by that," Kitt said honestly.

"Oh I think you do," Rachael snapped. "The stuff I heard about Michael Knight and his girls was passed onto you, I see."

"Rachael—"

"I heard you were having surgery tomorrow, so I thought I'd come by and see you while I picked up my stuff. So good luck with tomorrow and your life," she quickly finished and started out the door.

Ignoring Nadine for the time being, Kitt rushed after her, not bothering to shut the door behind him. "Rachael! Rachael, it's not what you think!"

"And what do I think?" She asked spinning around on her heals to face him.

"That Nadine is my girlfriend," he replied. "She's here on foundation business—a case."

"And you're defending yourself why?"

"Because you're acting as if I cheated on you! Although, you're the one who hasn't spoken to me since our fight last month."

"I figured you were told I went to my mother's," she replied with an edge to her voice.

"And why, may I ask, couldn't you have told me yourself? Did I upset you that much?"

"Yeah, you did actually," she snapped back. "You telling me that maybe we shouldn't be together really hurt, Kitt!"

"And you telling me that I'm nothing but a computer in a human body? That wasn't supposed to hurt?"

"Well, it's the truth!"

"Which is beside the point, Rachael," Kitt said, trying to keep his composure, although that was harder than he'd admit.

"Kitt, we just aren't relationship material," Rachael said in a much calmer tone. "I thought that if I stayed away from you for a while that I'd realize how much I loved you, but now coming home and going through this again, I see that that wasn't the case." Kitt sighed and turned his head. "Maybe I'll see you around town or something," Rachael told him as she went towards her car.

Kitt looked back at her quickly. "Aren't you working here anymore?"

"No," she said, "I quit. I can't work at a place where I'd see you all the time, no offense or anything."

Kitt watched her open the car door and throw her purse across the interior into the passenger seat. "Good-bye, Kitt."

"Farewell, Rachael…" At that point she had gotten into the car and probably didn't see him even saying the words. She was off within seconds and Kitt was left on the front stairs of the Knight Mansion feeling like he had run into a brick wall without the benefit of a molecular bonded shell.

He had to admit that since Nadine's case came about he hadn't thought much about Rachael. Their second fight wasn't expected, but then again, he should have known it'd come if he saw her again. Michael was right; they just weren't meant to be.

Returning into the house, he saw that Cathy was back at her post behind the front desk, but Nadine was nowhere to be seen. He figured she felt out of place with Rachael's sudden appearance, and probably hurt that he ran off when she was in the middle of apologizing to him for her own rudeness.

Kitt had thought it'd be best to seek her out and tell her what had happened, not to mention tell her he was sorry for forgetting she existed when Rachael appeared. Finding Nadine wasn't hard, but he soon found that he should keep his distance when he heard Michael in the room.

"Michael, I already told you what happened," she said.

"Nadine," Michael said, his voice calm yet forceful, "you need to tell us the truth about you and Robert."

"I did tell you the truth!"

"Cut the crap, Nadine," he said now sternly. "You and Kitt could've been killed yesterday! Oliver is after you for more than revenge and I want to know why right now."

Kitt could tell Michael was talking through gritted teeth. He usually did when he was angry and annoyed. He could hear small sobs coming from Nadine. There was a long pause. Kitt waited patiently for more to come, and finally it did.

"Last summer, August 2nd, was Robert's birthday," she started softly. "We had dinner reservations at his favorite restaurant, but I wanted to surprise him and show up early with his present. When I got to his house there were two strange cars I had never seen before in the driveway. I figured it was just friends, but when I got up to the front door I heard yelling. Then I heard glass shattering, so I ducked down and peaked through the window. There were three other men in there, and the glass was the top of the coffee table shattering and one of them lay on the broken pieces, whether having fallen or was thrown there, I don't know."

She took a moment to collect her thoughts and catch her breath as she cried. "Their voices were muffled, but it was something about the dough was gone and he'd pay—I guess the guy on the floor. Robert pulled out a gun from the drawer and pointed it at the guy on the floor. I could tell the guy was pleading with him, but I still couldn't figure out what happened."

"Did Robert shoot the man on the floor?" Michael asked. Kitt now understood where this story was going and how it linked to her.

Kitt could hear her steady sobs. "When Robert turned after shooting him three times, he saw me in the window—I didn't duck fast enough." She paused for a moment again. "He told me that if I didn't keep my mouth shut about what I saw he'd kill me. He made me swear the information of that and the fact that he was a drug dealer would be kept quiet."

"A drug dealer? No wonder he's after you," Michael replied. "You should've gone to the local authorities."

"I couldn't," Nadine said in an almost pleading voice. "I couldn't seem to get away from him! He knew my every move! Those guys he was with that night were customers for the drugs or whatever and somehow they started working for him to keep an eye out for me. I was even afraid to make a phone call to my brother or friend because I thought the phone lines were tapped. And every time I went out, he insisted on going with me. Michael, I got to the point where I didn't know who I was anymore….All I wanted was to be free from all of that; I thought coming to live with my grandmother would be the best thing. I didn't even pause to think that he'd follow me out here too."

Kitt took this as a time to pretend he had no idea what they were talking about and walk in. "Oh, were you two busy?" Both of them were sitting on the couch, but Kitt knew Michael's arm around her shoulders was for comfort rather than anything else.

"No, no," Michael replied and stood up. "Kitt, I think we need to go have a chat with Bonnie while she's still looking up the cars."

As Kitt followed behind Michael when he started out the door, Nadine stood up with her hands folded in a ball against her chest. "Michael, I'm sorry I didn't say anything sooner."

Michael nodded. "I understand; you just have to trust us, okay?"

"Okay."

It was like old times when Michael walked into Devon's office to see him on the phone and Bonnie at the computer in the corner typing away like a mad woman. Kitt was visually unfamiliar with the scene, but he knew what was going on just the same.

"Bonnie, I need you to look up a murder last August in Maysville, Kentucky," Michael said as he put one hand on the back of her chair and the other on the desk, leaning over her shoulder.

"One moment," Bonnie said as she reached to the left to catch a paper that was coming out of the printer. "I just finished all the DMV listings for blue Chevy Malibu's within a twenty mile radius."

"And?"

"There's actually not that many, which makes things a little easier," she said handing him the paper. "Four belong to people over the age of sixty, two were just recently totaled, and about a dozen belong to people anywhere between the ages of eighteen and fifty."

"Sounds like we have our work cut out for us," Kitt said trying to get a glance at the list.

"Yes," Bonnie said, but there was a slight kink in her voice. "But there is one car on that list that I found a little interesting. I think it's….yes, this one." She pointed to a name on the list. "Peter White had his beige Malibu repainted to blue two months ago."

"So?" Michael asked looking at the name and address.

"Peter White was wanted for multiple DUI in New Mexico and Arizona, not to mention kidnapping in Nevada."

"Not exactly a clean record," Michael said. "Which is probably why he had his car repainted so people couldn't track him easily, not to mention coming to California to slip away from police in those three states?"

"Exactly," Bonnie said satisfied.

Devon got up from his seat and went over to the group around the computer. "I just got off the phone with the commissioner," he said, "and they found the blue car."

"Really?" Kitt asked hopefully.

"Yes, in a parking lot near the supermarket," he said. "Unfortunately an eyewitness told police that two men in hats and large collared coats left the car and continued their way across the street and that was nearly four hours ago."

"So they abandoned it," Michael said tossing the print out into the trash can. "Wonderful."

"There's still the address, Michael," Kitt pointed out.

"Yeah, Kitt, but that address is the motel on 45th Avenue on the other side of town," he said. "That gives them an easy out."

"I'm sure you'll figure something out," Devon said with a smile. "You always do."