58. Endangerment

"Danny?" Bewilderment briefly checked Bonnie's rising fear. Of all the names she'd steeled herself to hear, Danny's was so unexpected as to make no sense. "It can't be… What happened? Has there been an accident?"

"It's not clear at this point." Adele spoke quickly, her tone grave. "They're saying drug overdose. His breathing's shallow, he's not responding to stimuli…" Her voice faded out suddenly, the words muffled, and then, distinct again, "Honey, I've got to go. We'll know more by the time you get here. You are coming?"

Bonnie was already scrambling off the bed. "I'll be there as fast as I can."

"Good. I may be tied up with a patient when you get here, but Eddie's around. I'll tell him to watch for you."

"Eddie?" The sense of surreality hit again. "Our Eddie?"

"He came in the ambulance with the EMTs. I don't know what the deal is there. He'll have to fill you in, himself." There was a short silence, then Adele added grimly, "Hurry, Bonnie. This could be serious."

She disconnected before Bonnie could ask about Val Dunbar, and whether Bear had been notified. It was not his weekend to have Danny, that much she knew. She was heartsick imagining him receiving the cruel call; he would be terrified, beside himself with worry. She tried to take comfort in Eddie's having been on the scene. Her cousin was unmatched in a crisis: coolheaded, decisive, skilled. Tragedies didn't occur on his watch. But how did he come to be involved, when he'd been avoiding Val assiduously for months?

This, and other questions, assailed her on the way to the hospital. Once through the ER doors, she saw at a glance that Adele's hopes of an uneventful shift had not been realized. The waiting room was packed with people, some sitting patiently in attitudes of pain and distress, others crowding round the reception desk. Bonnie stood irresolute a moment, but then, she felt a hand on her elbow, and turning, found Eddie at her side. She submitted to being engulfed in a hug, but pulled back almost immediately. Her cousin's face was unusually pale, his features drawn. "What have you heard? How is he?"

"There's been no change." His mouth was pressed in a thin line as he guided her back the way she'd come. "He's being admitted for tests and observation. They're moving him to Pediatrics now. This way," he said, indicating a corridor that led off to the right. "Elevator's down at the end."

He set off at such a pace, Bonnie had to step double-quick not to fall behind. "Have you seen Bear? Did someone reach him?"

Eddie nodded. "He was waiting when the ambulance pulled in. God, his face! Give him credit, though: he held it together, somehow."

"And Val? How's she doing? She must be a wreck."

He snorted, his lips curling bitterly. "She was wrecked, all right." He strode the last few yards to the elevator, and mashed the call button viciously. "Also, plastered, wasted, pickled, bombed…"

Bonnie gaped at her cousin, horrified. "She was drunk?"

"And disorderly. Last I saw her, she was in the back of a police cruiser being taken off to jail." A discreet ping announced the elevator's arrival. "Look," he said, as the doors slid open, and he ushered her inside, "it's a long story, and you'll get the full blow-by-blow, promise. Let's just get up to Pediatrics, and check in at the nursing station first, okay? Then, we'll find some place to sit and talk."

Adele had phoned ahead to smooth their way, but, even with the best will in the world, the nurse in charge could do little to help them. Asked what, if anything, she could tell them about Danny's condition, she replied, regretfully, "Unless you're immediate family, nothing." Eddie didn't argue with her, asking only that Baer be informed, as occasion allowed, that they were standing by, and anxious for news. "Tell him, too," Bonnie urged, "if there's anything he needs, anything at all…" The woman assured them she would pass the message on, and directed them to a nearby lounge where they might await further word.

The hospital had gone to some lengths to provide a cheery, welcoming space for visiting families. The sunny yellow walls were decorated with fanciful pictures of happy cartoon animals, and the room was bright with blonde wood tables and seating groups in warm primary colors. One corner featured a mostly-tidy collection of children's toys, books and art supplies; the remains of a good-sized block tower suggested the area had been in fairly recent use, but of the young builder and his companions there was no sign. The place was deserted.

They moved by tacit accord toward the nearest couch, a lime-green, armless affair that proved not nearly as comfortable as it looked. Bonnie perched on the edge of a cushion, and Eddie, sitting down next to her, released a long sigh, and, leaning forward, rested his arms on his knees. He stared at his feet a moment, and, then, looked over his shoulder at her, an expression on his face she was not used to seeing there: remorse. "I'm sorry, Bonnie. I know how much the little guy means to you. If anything happens to him…" He broke off, unable to finish.

Bonnie laid a gentle hand on her cousin's broad back. "It's not your fault, Eddie. I'm sure you did everything you could."

He shook his head, unconsoled. "No, this is on me. If I hadn't ditched Val the way I did, if I'd shown her some bit of the attention she wanted, maybe she wouldn't've gone off the deep end."

"Eddie, please," Bonnie said, suddenly out of patience with him. "What happened tonight?"

He stiffened at her tone, but then nodded as if to acknowledge himself in the wrong. He drew a breath, and having gathered himself, began, "I wasn't there for the first part. I'm only going on what I heard from Deena."

"Deena!" Bonnie burst out in surprise.

Eddie glared at her. "Are you going to interrupt every other word, or can I just get on with it?" When she'd apologized and promised to bite her tongue, he went on, "So, I got this call from Deena around eleven. She was spitting mad, and railing at me about Val being at the bar, and how she was drunk, and abusive, how, because of me, Val was attacking her, personally, and making her look bad in front of her customers. It seems Val's gotten it into her head that Deena's her nemesis, that she turned me against her somehow, and that she's been scheming ever since to keep us apart, none of which is true, of course. Deena dislikes her, that's a fact, but it's because Val's a nuisance, only coming into the bar in the hopes of running into me, or to fish for information. Anyway, Deena'd cut off her supply, and asked her, in no uncertain terms, to leave, but that only made Val more determined to stay, so they were at a standoff, with Val insisting she'd only go willingly if Deena called me, instead of a cab, to take her home, and Deena just as determined not to cave in to the pressure, or at least not to appear to. She didn't want to resort to force, she said, but if I didn't get my psycho ex-girlfriend out of her bar, and soon, she'd call the cops. She'd had just about all she could take.

"I was, actually… ah… in the middle of something when she called, but I wound it up quick, and hightailed it back into town, but, even so, it took me almost an hour, and, by then, things had gone to hell in a hand basket. There were police cars pulled up outside the bar, and, inside, there were signs of a fight: bar stools tipped over, broken glass and spilled drink on the floor, popcorn and peanuts scattered everywhere. Deena was off to one side, giving a statement, and Val was in handcuffs, struggling to break free from the officers trying to haul her toward the door. She lit up with relief and satisfaction when she saw me, and started shouting, 'Ask him! He'll tell you! He knows it's true!' She'd been arguing, with a drunk's pretzel logic, that they couldn't lock her up for the night because she was a single mother with a small child at home, and she had to get back to him.

"The officers weren't unsympathetic, but she'd racked up multiple misdemeanor charges, and they had no choice but to take her in. Besides, as they pointed out, she wasn't in any shape to take care of herself, let alone a kid. They assured her they'd send a squad car over to check on Danny, and, if the sitter couldn't stay, one of the patrolmen would wait at the apartment until the boy's father, or some other relative or neighbor of her choosing, could take over.

"But Val said no, that wouldn't work. They'd never get into the apartment without her. I assumed she meant the sitter had strict instructions not to open the door to anyone, and the cops must've, too, because one of them said they'd be sure to show their badges, and that always did the trick. But that wasn't it at all: no one would answer the door, turns out, because she'd left Danny alone."

Bonnie couldn't contain a gasp. "She didn't!"

"Oh, yes, she did, and, not only that, in her clueless mind, it was perfectly all right because she'd taken the precaution of dosing him with cough syrup, thereby insuring he'd sleep straight through the night, and never know she was gone. She'd done it before, so she knew it was safe.

"Well, you can imagine, everything moved into high gear after that. Val was taken off to be processed, but not before she was made to surrender her key to the other pair of officers. I've dealt with one of them before — Rick Lussier, good guy — and he agreed it'd be a good idea to have me along so, just in case Danny woke up, he'd see at least one familiar face and not be scared."

"But he didn't wake up," Bonnie prompted, when Eddie dropped his face into his hand, and covered his eyes.

He shook his head. "And we couldn't wake him when we tried. He wasn't just sleeping normally, we could all see that, and after what Val admitted, the police weren't taking any chances. Rick called in the EMTs, and while we waited, he went through the medicine cabinet, and found the cough syrup bottle — children's strength, but half empty. I knew there was an emergency numbers card in Danny's backpack, so I called Baer as soon as I knew what hospital they were taking him to, and then, I jumped in the back of the ambulance with Danny — I let them think I was family — and rode with him here. He was given oxygen, and hooked up to monitors, but there were no other measures taken, that I could see. Once we got here, and they rolled him into an exam room, I was shut out, of course. Except for the couple updates Adele smuggled out to me, I haven't heard a thing."

Despite her anxiety for Danny, Bonnie couldn't help but feel for her cousin in that moment. She could sense the anger in him, anger at Val, certainly, for her irresponsible behavior, but mainly, anger at himself for underestimating the danger she represented to Danny, and failing to protect him from it. She recognized he was not without blame in the matter, but she knew, too, that he was reserving the lion's share for himself, and reproaching himself unmercifully. She did not know what to say to comfort him, and so leaned her shoulder into his, and said only, "What a nightmare."

They were silent a while, each absorbed in their own somber reflections. Bonnie found herself thinking over Eddie's account, and being almost as puzzled as she was disturbed. She had known Val to be self-indulgent, and not as careful of Danny as she should have been, but to leave him home alone, to drug him so she could treat herself to a bender at Paradise Lost? She couldn't believe her as callous as that. There had to be more to the story… If Val'd wanted to paint the town red so badly, why hadn't she just asked Bear to take Danny? And why, after weeks of putting up with Deena's attitude, had she suddenly snapped this evening? Had she been at the bar for hours silently nursing her grievances until she could stand it no more, or had she turned up already soused, fueled with sufficient Dutch courage to have it out with Deena at long last? What was the sequence of events that had led to her blowing up so dramatically? She considered asking Eddie, but suspected he had no clue. "I wonder what'll happen to her," she said, more to herself than to Eddie.

"Val? Damned if I know. They could bring her up on a whole range of charges: disorderly conduct, misdemeanor assault, malicious destruction of property, resisting arrest. I think all Deena's going to want is compensation for the damages, and some guarantee that Val'll steer clear of the bar from now on, and, as for the rest, she'll probably get a hefty fine and maybe a few months' probation. But leaving a minor child unattended, especially at night… The District takes a very dim view of that sort of thing."

"Could she face jail time?"

"She could. If the court determines her actions placed Danny at serious risk, that's child endangerment — a criminal offense. She could be looking at months behind bars. One thing's for sure: she's going to lose custody, effective immediately. Child Protective Services will see to that."

He got brusquely to his feet, too restless to sit any longer. "I'm going to make a coffee run. Cream and two sugars, right? Anything else I can get you?"

She assured him there was nothing, and, once he'd gone, settled down to the unpleasant business of waiting anxiously. Eddie was a long time returning — he'd had to make some phone calls, he explained — and still there was no news. It was not, indeed, until nearly four in the morning, that Bear at last came to find them.

His face was haggard, his cheeks gray with stubble, half-circles like bruises under his eyes. One side of his collar, Bonnie noticed, was higher than the other, his shirt buttoned askew. She moved quickly toward him, only to hesitate, uncertain, but then, he held out his arms, and hugged her to him, briefly. "Thank you," he said, hoarsely, "for coming, for waiting." He put his hand out to Eddie. "Thank you, Booth, for everything you did for Danny. I owe you."

"Never mind that," Eddie said, gruffly. "How's he doing?"

Bear's eyes filled with tears, but he nodded. "He got about twice the recommended dose for a child his weight, but the doctor says it's not enough to cause any serious damage. Barring complications, he's going to be fine."