Part 19
"Grrrrrr!" Quinn said, and tossed Zander Smith's girlfriend's letter. " I was counting on her. She was supposed to be a distraction from the pain, not another problem! Do you ever have five minutes with no new problems?"
"The only thing that sticks with me," he smiled.
She was looking at the chart already. "But wait! A miracle! You took some of the medication? Is this real? Or did Nurse Hayes make a mistake? She must be wrong. She is usually so accurate."
"That stuff is so strange," he said. "It makes you feel really weird. Very calm. Nothing hurts. People could come up to you and insult you and you'd just think, ok. Have you ever taken it?"
"No. I've never had surgery. But if I'd had what you had, I'd feel ok about taking it. There must be a million studies to show it won't hurt you and will even help you. Some people get addicted, but that's a different problem. It isn't automatically addictive and such addictions don't arise from just taking it for awhile after a surgery. If that were true, either it wouldn't be used or it would have a ton of warnings." She stopped to pick up the letter and read a few lines of it.
"Which is worse, that, or ex-Mrs. Quinn's?"
Quinn laughed, throwing back her head even, laughed for several seconds. "Oh no! You've heard about The Letter?"
"Yes. You say that like in capital letters. It must be infamous."
"You unfortunate thing. Soon you may be subjected to The Letter itself. Not to mention The Comments."
"I did way better than that. I got an offer to have my own letter be torn to bits, or whatever it is that your parents do with this kind of letter. Joe Quinn said he would do it himself."
"Oh, that'll be good. Let me help. But don't tell Dr. Quartermaine about it, though."
"Do you think I would tell them anything?"
"OK, then."
After work, Quinn stopped at Kelly's for coffee with Joe.
"Zander told me enough that I got the basic idea," he said. "I don't feel right telling anybody about it, though. Just seemed to be in confidence."
"If that's what you think is right, ok. Like Paul said, it's got to help him just to tell somebody. You're a miracle worker! I couldn't believe that chart saying he took the medication!"
"I don't think he means to be difficult. He just got used to deciding everything on his own, and he thinks of you guys as walking into a hail of fire you aren't expecting. He's used to it, you aren't, so he tries to spare you. Apparently it would be rather tough to get a straight medical history, compared to most people, anyway."
"Maybe he is a clone!"
Joe laughed. "Dropped down from another planet?"
"You must be talking about my Zander," they looked up to see Alexis Davis.
"Hi," Quinn said, "sit down, Miss Davis." She introduced Joe to Alexis.
"Hannah at the station has me down to 360 missing Floridians of similar description and the right blood type or unknown blood type," Alexis said. " I think I can manage that. Tedious, but I can look through that number."
"There are race tracks all over Florida," Joe Quinn said. "but a big one in Daytona. This kid knows a lot about cars. So much, I'd suggest for lack of anything better, start with Daytona."
"Thank you," Alexis said. "I will. I'm going to talk to the old girlfriend now. Hey! Go with me! Three heads are better than one. It shouldn't take that long."
Quinn looked at Joe. "I'm game."
"OK," Joe said.
They went up the elevator of the tall, fancy new office building to the 15th floor penthouse offices of Deception Company. "I'm here to see one of the models," Alexis told a gentleman who apparently acted as receptionist. "Cheryl Shue."
"Is she expecting you?"
"Yes, I called ahead."
Quinn looked at Alexis. "What a small world. I met her once. I'm pretty sure of the name, and I recall she was a model. She was going out with my old boyfriend."
"That is quite a coincidence," Alexis said. "She went to PC High, too. It looks like she graduated the year before last. Did you go there? You might know some people I know."
"No, I went to Mercy. Catholic, you know. But we played each other in sports. I was a cheerleader. There were always some people I knew at PC High."
"Let's go out for a drink sometime," Alexis said, "We can find out how many degrees we are already connected."
"Great idea."
The reception man was back. "Right this way, Miss Shue is in here," he led them down a long hallway into a big room decorated like a tropical jungle clearing. Various models were wearing outfits with various jungle themes. Cheryl was wearing a camouflage bikini, and a lot of make up. The gentleman ran to her with a khaki cover up.
Alexis introduced herself.
"Hi, won't you sit down, er, uh," There were various jungle covered logs and tree stumps. The gentleman ran and found some folding chairs. Joe and Quinn looked amused. Alexis dug out a yellow pad.
The model sipped some water, and she thought she should offer them some. "Nothing, thanks," they all said. She insisted, and the gentleman started running around.
"This is a nurse at the hospital, Quinn Connor, and her godfather, Joe Quinn; and I thought you wouldn't mind if they sat in, both have learned some information about my client on their own, and we're trying to put our heads together."
"I don't think you'll remember me," Quinn said. "We met once; I think it was at the Port Charles Grill, and you were there with Scott Jankowski."
"Sure, I remember you," Cheryl said. "I hear about you a lot. Oh, all good," she added.
"You still seeing him, then?" Quinn asked, mischievously.
"Yeah. You still seeing the tall guy?"
"No, but someone else. A doctor."
"Oh, so we didn't just switch old boyfriends," Cheryl said.
"No, Zander Smith's my patient," Quinn said. "It's the medical information we need, to follow up on the family. To find out if some symptoms come from a genetic disorder."
"I don't think I can help, because I don't know the name. Since you called I've thought and thought, and all I know is Smith, and I think you said you don't think that's it?"
"Right," Alexis said. "Still, we're getting some hints and so whatever you talked about would help. He just won't tell us anything straight up. We squeeze here and there a get a drop. So I'm asking anybody who even knew him for whatever they might know. I suppose you got the same wall of silence?"
"Not totally. I can help you there, I think."
"It's his parents I'm after mainly. Did he mention them?"
"Yes. I was in high school. My parents got divorced. We were dating. He was really understanding. One weekend, it got really bad. My father made me go with him. I had a date, with Zander, and I didn't want to go. My father yelled at my mother that she put in my head that I didn't want to see him - my father. That was untrue, I was in high school and had a date with a guy, you know, it was really all about that. My mother would tell my father I didn't want to go see him for the weekend, and leave it at that. She didn't explain it was just that I had a date. I had said, "I don't want to go" in those words, but my mother knew what I meant. So Dad brought out the child visitation order, and said I had to go, and I didn't want to, and we got into this big fight. The neighbors called the police The police came and read the order and said I had to go. Those days, we didn't have cell phones. I couldn't call Zander, and asked my mother to."
"He found me next day, which I thought was a really nice thing to do. I don't know how he did that or how he even got there. My dad was at this house in this town about 30 miles north of here with this woman, who I never was too thrilled to see. Between just wanting to do stuff with my friends and not really wanting to see this woman, I never was too thrilled to have this weekend visitation with Dad. He kept taking that as that I didn't want to see him and my mother was behind it. My mother thought that was the woman that wrecked the marriage, you know."
"Sure," Alexis said.
"I know you want to know about Zander. The reason I told you all that was, he was so understanding because the same thing happened to him. But worse. It was so bad, he said it was why he left home. I must have been too upset to find out more about it. Right now I'm really upset that I didn't. But that weekend was the worst my parents ever got. Zander didn't even want to see his parents again. He didn't ever want to be in the middle of it again, and just had to make it to 18 without either parent getting a hold of him again."
"Thank you. That's great," Alexis said, "really very helpful."
Joe Quinn spoke up, "Any siblings mentioned?"
Cheryl regarded him a minute. She shook her beautiful head. "No. But I remember an odd advice he gave me when it was at the worst. He was so understanding about it all. I'll never forget it."
"Advice?"
"Yeah, he said not to let my father or mother take me out of the country without my United States passport. I guess that happened to him, and it sounded like it caused him all kinds of grief later. He said scream like hell and don't get on the plane!"
"Well thanks again. Here's my card. Can you call me if you remember anything else?"
"Sure. He's OK, isn't he?"
"He's OK"
"He was really understanding. Very kind to me when I went through all that. Gee, I hope there's nothing wrong with him."
