Part 96

"We are getting a really tempting offer," said Bill Worth. "And what with all those legal and psychiatric bills, he might take it. Unless it's you, of course," he said to Jax.

The ELQ board was gathering, still mostly standing around a table, getting cups of coffee and stirring them with skim milk or sugar substitutes.

"What difference does that make, for heaven's sake?" Monica asked Bill Worth. "This corporation would be rid of you, no matter who you sold to! Or, of your client, I mean," she amended, regaining her politeness.

"I will not have that Russian pirate taking over this company!" Edward declared.

"Not to worry," Jax said. "Whatever offer the Russian pirate makes, I'll make them a better."

Monica sat down, wondering whether Edward preferred Jax owing 40 or still only 20 with a "Russian pirate" owning another 20.

"Things are going strangely on the docks, lately, too," Worth said. There's a new coffee warehouse at the end of it."

"Competing with yours?" Alan asked, pleasantly, "or making it clearer to the feds that yours is no such thing?"

"There's coffee in that warehouse," Worth said. "I've seen it."

The rest of the board looked disgusted at Worth being so naïve that he thought they were naïve enough to believe that Worth's seeing some coffee in the Corinthos facility meant that it was actually a coffee warehouse.

"This activity is definitely aimed at this company," Ned said. "That is clear."

"That's why you don't want this Russian to get 20 of it," Jax said. "It's not a controlling position. But once in, he will work at it, you can be sure."

"Don't see how," AJ said. "Our family will go under rather than let him get enough to control. Hell, they'll be nervous about somebody having 40."

"He'd have someone on the board."

"Can we get on with it?" Monica said. "Today? We have the board as it exists today, and a thing or two to take care of in the present reality."

"I want you to have your place back to yourself," Zander said, "You're used to it."

"I need no such thing, but I know you need your space, too. But that's your room up there, whenever you need it," Alexis said. "Like Quinn's room over at her folks house. Think of it like that. That Gatehouse is more like your own house than having a room to go home to."

"I will. Thank you for all you've done for me, Alexis."

"I'm not done with that. Whatever you need; if you need help of any kind, or an ear, or whatever, and your parents can't or won't or you just plain don't feel like telling or asking them. Just call me. Or tell me, if you're at work."

He laughed. "I love you," he said. She hugged him, saying, "Me too. You're one of the biggest lights in my life. Don't forget it."

"I want to rent an apartment, but at least for right now, Mom would take it wrong. I'm not up for that, right now, setting back getting along with her, over this kind of thing. This way I can make some progress on that, be near Pete for awhile. If it were the house, maybe I wouldn't do it, but she's giving me a lot of space with the Gatehouse. It's generous of her, anyway. It will take me a step up, at least, to have to take care of the place on my own."

"With maids and gardeners and all the rest!"

"Well, OK, sort of take care of it on my own! And Quinn likes the Gatehouse."

"She can be your first guest."

"Oh, no. The second. You will be the first. Oh, and Mom will be third. Merely being the owner doesn't put her at the top!"

"I think she will be very happy with that!"

"She acts pretty happy, anyway."

"She is. I'm happy for you. Getting along with her, as you say. And having Peter nearby, like that. I think that is important to you."

"Meanwhile, you don't have this pseudo-son in his room next door, and hanging around. That should improve your social life."

"Are you still working on that? I guess I can expect more information on that in the near future."

"Yes," he laughed. "I plan on nagging you even more."

"In most of these cases," V. told Joanna, who sat across from her at the desk in the office, "they are found behind the wheel at the scene. It is tough to overcome the switch defense. That's what they call it when they do that."

"What kind of airhead," Joanna asked, "gets in a car as a passenger when the driver is under the influence? If the passenger is drunk, maybe they don't get it. But AJ would have gotten into a car, knowing her was straight sober, as a passenger, with a driver under the influence. AJ is – I don't know, really – I never think of him as one of the smartest people I'd ever seen. But I never think of him as one of the dumbest people I've ever seen, either."

"Two things," V. said. Joanna nodded. She liked people who organized their thoughts.

"Number one. You'd be amazed. Be a police officer for about a year, and you find out, people do all kinds of incredibly stupid things. This included."

Joanna laughed.

"Number two. AJ personally might have an unconscious death wish. That is an exaggeration, but the general idea is that his brother Jason got into a car with him when he was drunk. Shows you a bit about point one, though Jason may have been partly drunk too; they were both at a party. AJ drives, crashes, doesn't get badly injured, but Jason really does. Emily's BAC is not that high, and not that noticeable, even so, if she got in to drive, AJ might rather risk himself rather than tell her she's too drunk to drive."

"The laws are strict," Joanna said. "It's a low BAC that can get you in violation of it. She wouldn't have been stumbling around. In the end, she only really injured herself. Maybe it's worth letting it go, anyway."

"And the difficulties of proof, true, might not be worth it where she injured only herself and where she was not all that drunk. I don't like the Quartermaines continuing to think they can play games with the system, but this might not be the one to teach them a lesson on. They will come up with a bunch of witnesses from the party to say she was fine and that they saw AJ get into the car and drive off. I was there, even. I didn't see her stumbling about, but then, that doesn't mean she wasn't driving under the influence. I didn't notice her or AJ leaving."

"Those bruises were pretty clear, though. Could that be enough evidence?"

"Very possibly. And a little investigation to show them we know they are up to something might be a good cautionary warning to them. I could talk to emergency room people. Between them, and you, we could get a warrant to get a forensic doctor to review the records. Another thing, I could talk to the uniformed officers on the scene. They might have seen something that they didn't get the importance of right off the bat. Then I could talk to AJ and Emily."

"Good plan. And the paramedics on the scene."

"Right. Thanks. See, how, if you think about it, a lot of people are witnesses."

"If you need any help, let me know. Quinn noticed it too, but doesn't like telling on her patient, so to speak."

"That's understandable," V. said. "Anyway, there are three nurses at least on the case, and doctors. They'll all notice eventually."

"It might have gone over their heads," Joanna said. "Quinn is so damned observant."

Emily was awake now, and even able to get up. Quinn had her walk down the hall, and was again in doubt she should keep on the case. When she first got Emily up, she was sort of overwhelmed, intimidated, even. Why this should be so from such a silly thing, Quinn wondered, but the fact was that Emily was about as tall as Zander, and she was well built, so that Quinn simply felt like a little girl.

Quinn knew it was absurd, she was a professional and five years older than Emily, but there it was. Emily also had a certain presence and self confidence, even in a hospital gown, that Quinn could barely describe, but figured went along with being from a wealthy family, indulged, the youngest, never given any reason to doubt herself no matter what mistakes she had made.

Awhile later, Quinn passed the room and saw the Emily was talking to somebody on the phone.

Later, she talked to Joanna at the nurse's station. Everything was quiet as they watched the monitors.

"I talked to V. She thinks it is worth talking to the officers on the scene and the emergency room personnel. And the other nurses. Have they noticed this?"

"Terri Hayes noticed I had put it on the chart and remarked the same as you did," Quinn answered. "So V. thinks it is serious enough to look into?"

"To look into, yes. She said it might be hard to prove, that the switch driver defense is hard to get around. The police are usually on the scene and find the person behind the wheel. And the driver's friends testify she wasn't driving and she wasn't drunk."

"You could get injuries like that from your chest hitting the dashboard. But it is farther away. If she hit the dashboard that hard, her head would have hit the windshield that much harder."

"Then the head injury would have been worse, right. I wonder if the windshield was broken. If it wasn't, the impact was at lower speed."

"And why isn't AJ injured? He was close to the steering wheel. The seat belt, I guess. The passenger does tend to get hurt worse than the driver, too. You think AJ would do a thing like this? Zander does. He's about certain."

"Yeah, and V. pointed out, you know about the accident with him driving, and Jason as the passenger? He feels guilty. He can make it up to one sibling by helping the other. That's V.'s psychoanalysis, anyway."

"Volunteering over at Ferncliff has rubbed off on her. She and Elizabeth are both artists, and they're doing pictures for the patients over there. Something about art calming psychiatric patients down."

"V. is an artist? How interesting. Does she double as a suspect-drawer?"

Quinn laughed. "I don't know. She could. She draws anything. I saw her draw King George right at the table at the Outback that day. Remember I told you about them drawing Zander some history pictures?"

"Yeah, are they still on that project?"

"Yep. You would be amazed at their ambition! You know the famous paintings of Washington Crossing the Delaware, and of the Continental Congress? V. came over the other day with a painting of Washington crossing the Delaware! Elizabeth had done one of the Continental Congress. Not only that, she painted Zander in as a delegate!"

"Who painted Zander?" Quinn and Joanna practically jumped out of their seats. Emily was standing outside the desk.

"Are you alright?" Quinn asked. "I not sure you should be getting up by yourself, yet."

"Yes. I can't sleep. It's so weird in here."

Quinn looked at the monitor, and pulled out the chart. "You can have a sleeping pill. It doesn't do you much good to be awake at night." She got up to go to the supply room.

"Who painted Zander?" Emily asked again, as Quinn walked away.

Quinn stopped for a moment. "Elizabeth Webber, your friend. She'll tell you about it. She's doing some paintings, a series about American history." She walked off, nervous, but she had managed to keep cool and professional.

In the supply room, she measured out the medication and put it on a tray. She took a deep breath, and felt better thinking that Emily's personality was not anything like Ned's, at least. Quinn thought it would be a simple thing to keep her temper. She hadn't met any former girlfriend of Paul's; somehow they had ended up at different hospitals, being other doctors, or nurses, Scott hadn't had any, and the few times she had met Sean's old girlfriend had been short and pleasant enough, the previous relationship somehow having ended to the girl's satisfaction.

But she didn't know what to make of Emily, who was also her patient. Being the one who was older and the professional got Quinn feeling as if the responsibility to make it all go well fell entirely onto her.

Emily was back in bed, and took her pills. She asked, "Why did Elizabeth paint Zander?"

"Does anything hurt?" Quinn asked, trying to imply that this was a business relationship only.

"My head," Emily said.

"This will ease that pain, and help you sleep," Quinn said, indicating the pills. "Is it mild, or sharp?"

"Mild," Emily said. "A low, dull pain. But why don't you want to answer my questions? It's only about a painting."

"I have to do all this first," Quinn said, indicating her chart, where she intended to make a note of the "mild, low, dull, pain" and that the patient had woken up in the middle of the night. "I don't want to miss anything. I don't really know. I suppose Elizabeth liked him as a model for a colonial guy."

"How did you see the painting, though?"

"She gives them to Zander to help him with studying American History for a GED. He's got this thing about remembering better what he can picture. One day we saw Elizabeth and she said she'd do some pictures for him."

"Oh," Emily said, laying her head back. "It's nice you're friends with her, after she took your boyfriend and all that."

"That's water long over the bridge. Are you feeling sleepier?"

"Yes," Emily looked at her, with an inscrutable expression.

Quinn put the chart away and left the room.

"Do you think she heard us talking about AJ and her and the accident?" Joanna asked her later, when she had come back from checking on another patient.

"If she did she's hiding it. She was only asking about Elizabeth painting Zander. Come to think of it, why does she find that so interesting? Maybe it was a distraction so we'd think she didn't hear."

"Sneaky. She could have buzzed for you if she wanted something."

"Man, that's a scary thought. She was trying to eavesdrop? I doubt it. I don't know. Maybe she really felt like taking a walk."

"She'd be the first patient to feel like that in her condition in my experience."

"Mine too."

Elizabeth went to visit Emily the next day, and got Paul to go with her.

"I'm sorry this happened to you," Elizabeth said. "I was in an accident, too."

"Yeah, you told me, long after it happened, of course," Emily said with a wry look.

"How do you feel?" Paul asked Emily.

"Much better, today."

"Are you going to be moved down out of ICU?" Paul asked.

"I haven't heard. All I heard was, you were doing paintings of Zander. How come?"

"Oh, you mean my history paintings? How did you find out about that?"

"Nurse Connor was talking about it and I overheard her."

"I ran into them once, and we got into this conversation. The upshot is, it was going to help Zander study if he could see pictures. V., another artist, and I got into doing pictures based on American History, what he was studying. How much actual help this is to him, I don't know, but he says it does. We're going to do an exhibit of them; we've been planning it in our spare time. We probably will get it going in the summer."

"I hope you'll be able to see it, Emily," Paul said. "It will be really interesting."

"In the summer, I could," she said. "I'll be back from school."

"That's great," Elizabeth said, for form's sake.

"Is this nurse still going out with Zander? If she ever was."

"I don't know for sure," Elizabeth said. "I would have assumed so. It wasn't that long ago we saw them, V. and I, and Zander never said otherwise when I've taken him the pictures."

"I haven't talked to Quinn much recently," Paul said, "but I'd have assumed the same thing. Let me check with the gossip mill, and give you two a chance to catch up."

"OK," Elizabeth smiled, and passed her hand down his arm.

"You're really still into him, anyway," Emily said.

"Yes. What's up with you?"

"Not much. Still a few weeks to go, and I will finally be done with my freshman year. Boy, it has been the longest year of my life!"

"Where do you go, or is that still a secret?"

"I guess not. University of Kentucky."

"Sounds nice. Do you know what you're going to major in?"

"No. Something good for law school, I think. I work part time in a law firm. In the summer I'm going to be able to work at Baldwin & Baldwin. Zander took my old job with Alexis."

"That's good. You know what you want to do, already."

Paul came back in. "Teri Hayes says they're still all hot and heavy. Quinn's bulletin board has a picture of the two of them together. She took the picture of us down, and gave me my half! Sent her godfather to give me my half!"

Elizabeth laughed. "That's cute. It's like a mini-divorce. You don't have to split the property, but you have to split the pictures."

"It's a good thing that's all we had to split!"

"Well, I wonder if Zander's still mad at me," Emily said, "When you and that other girl were talking about all that stuff at the party that no one had ever told me. Like what did his mother and father do? He would never tell me. I went to ask him about it. That's when the accident happened."

"Everybody kind of knows, now," Elizabeth said. "He had run away from home when his father got arrested for violating custody orders, I think. His mother got him to come back to the US - don't remember now why he didn't just stay with her. But they became estranged, and it never got fixed up until your mom needed his medical history for heart problems."

"Don't see why he couldn't have just told me that," Emily complained. "And that Carly shot him."

"His running away, and his parents, all that was painful," Paul volunteered, "he was running from it. He probably didn't want to think about it. He'd have told no one to this day without the heart issue."

"Guess you're right," Emily said.

When Zander got to the Gatehouse, there was a big "Welcome Home" sign in English and Russian in the lobby. Everyone from the big house was working in the kitchen.

"Where's Q?" Pete asked Zander.

"Slaving away at the hospital. She has the worst possible patient. My old girlfriend got into a car accident."

"Emily? The Quartermaine girl?" asked Oksana

"Yes."

"Poor Emily!" Pete said.

"Poor Emily?" Zander hit Pete playfully. "Poor Quinn!'

"No, poor Emily, Sander," Pete said. "I hope she doesn't trip the Irish temper."

They sat down to dinner, Oksana, Zander, Peter, Rosa, Lisa and Diana.

"Thank you, this was nice," Zander said.

"Welcome home, Sandy," Peter said.

One of the family members had brought Emily some school books. Quinn thought it was odd to study during Spring Break, but for a little while, Emily seemed to be doing it.

Quinn saw a familiar looking spiral notebook.

"University of Kentucky," she said, when she saw it. "I know that school. My old boyfriend went to law school there."

"I thought your old boyfriend was that doctor with Elizabeth," Emily said.

"Yes, this is another one."

"You sure have a lot of those out there."

Quinn felt a second of impatience, but avoided any smart-alecky reply. But, at the very least, she could make the conversation uncomfortable in both directions.

"What happened in this accident?" she asked. "You have bruises all over."

"I don't remember," was the answer.

"Did you see AJ going off the road before the car hit?"

"I don't remember anything."

That figured, Quinn thought.

"But what's your other old boyfriend's name?" Emily asked. "I work at a law firm in Lexington."

"Sean Monroe."

"There's a Sean at the firm I work for," Emily answered. "Maybe two Seans."

Officer Andrew Enright told V., "I remember, Detective Ardanowski, and I know it's not evidence, but I remember Mr. Quartermaine telling me more than once that he was driving, and having an impression he was a little too insistent. That's the best I can do, because when I got there, he was out of the car, and the girl was in the passenger seat. It was his car, and she was the little sister, you know, it seemed natural he was driving, which was why it struck how he told me he was."

"Did the girl have a seat belt on?"

"Let me look at this report," Officer Enright looked at the file he had.

"No, which explains her hitting the windshield. Looking at the car, it was a moderate-speed impact – probably below 30 m.p.h."

"Was the windshield cracked, do you remember?"

"No, as noted here, and you could look at the car, too. If it gets repaired, the insurance company will probably have taken photos."

The EMT remembered some "swelling" but felt all the ribs and none were broken.

The X ray technician did X rays that confirmed it. They could see that there was no internal bleeding and were satisfied it was only a concussion. The emergency room doctors and nurses did not seem to have noticed the swelling but their job was such that minor injuries could be left for others. Dr. Jones noted the bruising and had neglected to put it on the chart, but he had noticed it. His focus was the concussion, the only injury that required the hospitalization.

"Come to think of it, I had a fleeting thought she was amazingly banged up in the chest for a passenger," he said. "The day after, bruising shows up more. Reminded me more of a driver than a passenger, that way."

V. found AJ at home and asked him some questions about it.

"What time did you leave the party?"

"Must have been about 10, 11, really, really hard to say, because it was a party, and I paid no attention to the time."

"Why did you leave?"

"Emily had a headache."

"Had she had any alcohol? I didn't notice."

"A couple of glasses of champagne. But I worry that she's thin and it doesn't take much. That's why I drove."

"It's your car, isn't it?"

"Yes. She likes to drive it though. You know how younger siblings are."

"Did she want to drive?"

"Yes, but I wouldn't let her."

"So you were going northbound on Lake Road. How did the accident happen?"

"The accident? Oh. I plowed into that tree."

"Why? You weren't drunk. Were you tired?"

"Yes," he said, "and a deer came out and I swerved to avoid it and lost control."

"How fast were you going right before this happened?"

"Must have been doing about 35."

"Did you get a chance to hit the brakes?"

"I can't even remember, it happened so fast."

"OK. Call me if you remember anything else."

"You guys are going to charge me with something, right?"

"Why do you ask that?"

"You're asking questions. Why else would you?"

"Investigating. Maybe it was only an accident."

"I hope you decide that."

Alexis loved the Gatehouse. "This is perfect for a bachelor! And here's your picture. That was so sweet. Florida and Russia. But are all visitors allowed? It just occurred to me. What if you want to have your Dad over?"

"I think Mom would allow for that. I'm waiting to see what happens in terms of Mom coming over. I wonder if she will stop by every time she drives in herself, or rarely! I don't even have a prediction! I figure I'll invite him over and then if she realizes it, she'll have to do the complaining and boot me out."

"It's really looking up, over the car and everything. Maybe they'll even align against you over the car."

They both laughed. "That would be something!" Zander exclaimed.

"How often will you go up to the main house, is another question."

"It's easier, so maybe more often. Amanda - I'm still going to meet her at the office, though. I don't want to risk being late in the morning."

"Now if you were driving your car, this would never be a problem."

"I would get a ticket every day! Taggart would see to it!"

Alexis laughed. "You could be right."

"How are you doing with your Horror Patient, that Englishwoman?" Zander asked Quinn when he went to her apartment on the evening of her day off.

Quinn laughed and put her arms around him.

"Not too bad. I came close to losing it once. And I learned the identity of her university."

"No way! You have a security clearance for that information when you are the girlfriend of that deviant?"

"The Grandfather was there arguing with a guy and a girl who were there visiting her. He told me not to permit them to come back. Then he told me not to let you in to see her either."

They both laughed at this.

"Which I certainly will not allow," Quinn said. "It is bad for the patient. It is bad for the student. It is bad for the nurse. The college seems to be general conversation now, and it is a real coincidence. She goes to the University of Kentucky, where Sean went to law school. I spent two years visiting that place on the weekends!"

"Amazing. So she is at Shyster Sean's university."

"Yeah, she works in a law firm in Lexington, she says, and there are a couple of Seans there."

"Wouldn't that be a coincidence?"

"Too much of one. Well, there are many Seans in the world, fortunately. She asked about the paintings. She heard Joanna and I talk about them. She wanted to know how Elizabeth came to paint you, or something. And Teri Hayes told me she asked if I was still seeing you."

"Which Teri Hayes told her was so, I hope."

"Of course. This is standard, old gossip now."

"Good," he said. "I like being known as your man. Though the opposite could be true for you."

"No, you'll find most people like you, if you pay attention. It's only some of the English who don't."

Quinn went down to the regular ward to do her post-check on Emily.

She was doing very well, now. She was sitting up and looked fine. She complained of feeling stiff all over, but said her head actually didn't hurt.

Lucky came in to see her.

"Quinn, what are you doing here?" he asked.

"I work here."

"They put you on Emily's case?"

"Yes."

"Odd, that they would do that, considering Zander."

"Oh it's not odd," Emily said. "They put whoever comes up in the rotation on, and almost nothing will get them to change it."

"Bureaucracies," Quinn said. "It worked out fine," she told Lucky.

"I hope Zander isn't still mad at me," Emily said, pulling her blankets closer around her.

"No one likes being broken up with," Quinn said. "When somebody drops you, you can't help but feel kind of mad. But he does say you did a lot for him and he mentions that with gratitude whenever he speaks of you."

"We didn't even break up for a real reason."

"You've got to watch that family of yours," Quinn advised, wondering at herself. "They interfere an awful lot."

"But how would you know?"

"Zander. He told me, of course. About what your grandfather did. It just sounds like they were always in the way."

"He told you about that?"

"Of course. It was a big problem for him. For you too. You were in high school, and should have been having a lot of fun, your senior year. But you spent a lot of time with a cold hearted drug dealer, but got him to take a half step back toward humanity - really, I'm grateful to you. It was much easier for me than it would have been without that half a step, I'm sure."

"We were really in love, but technically still we are, because I never knew what was going on."

"Forget it, Emily," Lucky said. "Zander is not worth it. No offense, Quinn," he said, aside.

"You never did understand, Lucky," Emily said. "Zander even wanted me to go away to school and agreed to not knowing where I was. I agreed to not knowing about his family. We did that for each other."

"Strange thing to do for each other," Quinn said. "I want to know everything."

"I thought you weren't that serious about him. It is a surprise that you're still going out with him."

"Why would you think that?"

"Hospital gossip mill."

"That isn't always entirely right."

"So you aren't serious now?"

"I don't know. It's that stage where you really can't say, or don't know yet."

"You never know," Lucky said. "You should know that, Quinn. I thought Elizabeth was serious and you thought Paul was serious. Now look where we're at."

"You never know," Emily agreed.

Zander told Quinn on the phone he had a surprise for her, and told her to come to the Gatehouse.

"Do you notice anything different?"

"No, not really."

"Look around some more."

Bemused she walked through the kitchen and up to the living room and through the hall.

"Open stuff up," Zander suggested.

In the bedroom she opened the closet and saw his clothes in there, and so she opened the drawers to see if they held clothes, too.

"You're going to live here! Good! I'm glad!"

"I hoped so."

"How happy Oksana and Pete must be. And Rosa!"

"They were here my first night. I tried to get it all in order before I showed you."

"How often have they been here since?" Quinn asked, with a mischievous grin.

"So far, so good! I've gone up there as much or a little more, and in a couple of days, no one has dropped in unexpectedly. I'm still waiting for a surprise visit, though."

"Do you think your mom has keys?"

"I don't know! She could come in any time!"

"A surprise visit!"

"I think she's too busy for that."

"Invite her up regularly, and that will prevent surprise visits. That worked with my family when I first moved out."

"That's brilliant. I'll do it." He gave her a hug, then maneuvered her back onto the bed, and fell on top of her.

She put her arms around him.

"Stay here tonight," he said. "I'll lock this room's door, just in case."

"My car will be out there. You could get caught!"

"Now we find out how Oksana feels about all that," he answered.

"OK, you got me where I can't bear to refuse," she giggled. "Let's risk it." She reached up to kiss him.