A/N: Sorry about the long wait. I promise I've been working on this and one of my goals for this year is to get it done and posted so we'll see how that goes. I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year.
Chapter 67
Catherine knocked softly on the door to Kiri's hospital room. Trowa let her in.
"How is she?"
"She's sleeping. How did things go at the circus?"
"Fine. The Manager wasn't happy that we all disappeared but we explained everything to him. I'm not in trouble and neither is Paul."
"Good. When do you need to get back?"
"Manager said I could stay at least until Kiri wakes up. When I go back kind of depends on how she's doing and whether or not the Colonel will send her back with me."
"I don't think that decision has been made yet." Trowa cleared his throat. "Um…Cathy…before, when she was awake, Kiri told us some things about her time with Chase. Part of the reason she isn't talking is because he strangled her more than once. We think he damaged her vocal cords."
"Oh no!"
"Sally's going to see if there's anything she can do to help."
"That's wonderful, Trowa!"
"I don't want you to get too excited about the idea of Kiri talking just yet. Sally may not be able to fix her."
Cathy nodded. "Yes, but if she can…"
"Cathy," Trowa warned. "You're putting the cart before the horse. There is no guarantee that Sally can do anything. Kiri's inability to talk may be permanent. I don't want you to get her hopes up about it any more than I want you to get yours up. It would be better if you didn't say anything to her about it."
Cathy sighed. "I won't. But you will tell me if Sally can fix her, won't you?" she pressed.
"I will keep you up to date," Trowa promised, though it was mostly because he knew she wouldn't drop it until he did.
A knock on the door interrupted their conversation, for which Trowa was secretly grateful. He wanted to change the subject anyway.
Trowa opened the door and let Duo in.
"How is she?" Duo asked.
"Sleeping. I'm not sure when she'll wake up."
"That's okay. Hey, Cathy. How's it going?"
Cathy wanted to roll her eyes but she answered, "Fine," instead.
"I thought since Cathy and Paul were here maybe we should have a little victory party when Kiri wakes up. You know, to celebrate getting Carter in custody and all."
"We don't know when she'll wake up again," Trowa reminded Duo. "She may be tired enough to sleep through until tomorrow."
Duo shrugged. "If she needs the sleep she needs the sleep. But I bet that Cathy'd be here anyway. I just didn't want her to leave before we got to celebrate."
Cathy and Trowa both rolled their eyes.
"It isn't like Cathy's planning to leave before Kiri's awake again," Trowa told him. "She and Johnson have to wait for Une to release him back to the field, remember?"
Duo waved a hand. "Yeah, yeah. I know. Look, I gotta run. Heero and I need to talk to Une about something. If Kiri wakes up, text me so I can bring in the treat I got for her. Okay?"
"What do you need to talk to Une about?" Trowa asked.
"Heero and I got Carter to talk," Duo said in an undertone, not really wanting Cathy to hear.
"What did he say?" Cathy wanted to know.
Duo sighed. "I don't know that I'm allowed to tell you. It's kind of classified." He thought for a second before addressing Trowa, "Actually it might not be a bad idea to have the five of us there so we're all on the same page, but since someone's gotta keep an eye on Kiri, we can just fill you in later."
"Cathy, why don't you stay with Kiri while we go talk to the Colonel?" Trowa suggested. If Cathy was watching Kiri then they could all go get briefed at the same time and save Heero the trouble of having to meet with them separately to pass along the information.
"That's fine," Cathy said. "At least this way I know she'll be looked after properly."
"Don't be like that, Cathy," Duo said. "I promise we'll hurry and maybe by then we'll have something worth telling when I bring by that treat for Kiri."
"Whatever. Just…go," Cathy said dismissively. "Kiri and I will be just fine."
Duo was about to respond when Trowa shook his head at the braided man. It was better to shut up and leave than risk pissing Cathy off.
Trowa gave Cathy a peck on the cheek and said, "We'll be back as soon as we can. Call me if anything happens."
Cathy waited until they were gone before sitting in a chair with a sigh. "Kiri," she whispered, "wake up soon."
It didn't take long to round up Quatre and Wufei and the five pilots were soon ushered into Une's office.
"Report, Yuy."
"Agent Maxwell and I interrogated Carter." Heero quickly related all that Carter had revealed during Duo's interrogation.
When he was done, there was silence for a moment while everyone processed the information.
"So there are three more locations we have to find?" Quatre asked after a moment. "How are we going to do that? We got lucky with the San Francisco location and the L2 location. How are we going to narrow down the locations in Australia, Japan, and New York?"
"If we can get access to the vid feeds it might narrow it down," Wufei pointed out.
"Yeah, but Carter said those were at the main estate, which may or may not be the place Duo scoped out before," Trowa said.
"What makes you think it isn't the main estate?" Duo asked.
"Because we know that it's there and they know that we know."
Duo scowled at that. He'd thought he'd been able to plant bugs in the house but they'd only transmitted prerecorded conversations. He hated being made a fool of.
"I'd bet money they've got an even more secure location somewhere. Somewhere we haven't considered yet," Trowa continued. "If we can find that, we can shut down the other locations."
"You think we ought to make that our prime objective?" Duo asked.
"Yes," Heero answered. "It's the fastest way to end this case. Once Carter wakes up from his nap Duo and I will see if he will give us that information."
"And if he doesn't know it?" Quatre asked. "You said that he didn't know the locations of the other houses. He may not have been privy to this information, either."
"If he doesn't know then we'll keep working to find it, just as we have been," Heero said. "Colonel, can you have other precincts look for the other locations anyway? That way we have someone looking in case it takes us a while to locate the main estate."
Colonel Une nodded. "I will assign agents to look into possible locations. Until then, building our case against Chase so he can't get away with what he's done and finding the main estate will be our objectives. As soon as we have enough evidence against Chase I'll sign the warrant and get him off the streets. He may have information that we can use to find the main estate. Anything else we need to discuss?"
"Yes," Trowa said. He pulled Kiri's statement from his pocket and gave it to Une. "Kiri wrote that out for us when she woke up this afternoon."
Une read it over. "Has everyone read this?"
"Not yet," Heero said. Duo had told him that Kiri wrote out a statement but he hadn't had a chance to read it himself. Duo had also revealed that Kiri was unable to speak due to her injuries. He was glad to know that she wasn't just being difficult at this point. They'd been through too much with this case for stubbornness to be tolerated. Une handed it over to him and when Heero was done, Wufei gestured for the note and read it as well.
Wufei swore under his breath.
Une held her hand out for the paper. "Thank you for getting this statement for us, Agent Barton. If she has anything else to add be sure to get that as well."
Trowa nodded. He wasn't going to ask Kiri for more information because he didn't want her to have to remember anything else from that hellhole but if she was willing to tell them anything else he would listen.
"Anything else we need to discuss?" Une asked again. When no one answered, she said, "If not, Yuy, you will stay for a moment, the rest of you are dismissed."
Once the others had filed out, Colonel Une turned to Heero. "What do you make of this statement?"
"These allegations match the injuries she had when we found her."
"I want to speak to her," Colonel Une said. "I need to verify that she is telling the truth."
"We'll have to be careful not to upset her," Heero said. "In light of this new information, do you still think it wise to send her to her parents?"
"I still want her to speak to her parents and if I make it seem like a request rather than an order, she might actually cooperate."
Cathy watched Kiri wake up, but decided to let her wake up more fully before attempting to interact with her. While she waited, Cathy shot a text off to Trowa to let him know that Kiri was awake and Duo could bring in his treat for her. She didn't want to rush Kiri, even though Cathy had been so worried about how long Kiri had been out, but she figured that it would take Trowa and Duo a little while to get back with the treat. By then Kiri was sure to be ready for it. Even now, Kiri was looking around the room, but hadn't seemed to notice her.
Cathy touched Kiri's shoulder to get her attention and the girl jumped, turning her head to look at Cathy.
"Sorry," Cathy said. "I…forgot you wouldn't be able to see me."
Kiri nodded, but she still looked a little nervous. Cathy felt bad that she'd startled her.
"How are you feeling?"
Kiri thought for a second before giving Cathy a small smile.
"You're…okay?" she guessed.
Kiri nodded.
"I'm…I'm sorry…about Carter," Cathy stammered out. She was embarrassed that she had put Kiri in that situation and she still had no idea how to make it up to her.
Kiri shrugged. Cathy hugged her, relieved that she wasn't upset about it.
"Thank you," she whispered. The words couldn't express the true depth of her gratitude. Everything that Kiri had done was at her own risk and she hadn't been asked. She had voluntarily put herself in danger just to help Cathy. Cathy swore to herself that she would find a way to repay Kiri.
She let Kiri out of the hug and then moved to her right side so that Kiri could actually look at her while they talked.
"Um…so is there anything I can get you?" Cathy felt that if there was anything that Kiri wanted she would do everything in her power to get it for her. She deserved that much at least.
Kiri mimed writing and Cathy laughed. How stupid of her to forget!
"Of course! I'm sorry. Let me see if I can find you anything to write with."
Catherine opened the drawer in the table and found a pad of paper and a pen. "Here you go." She handed the writing tools to Kiri. "Now, is there anything you can think of that you need or want?"
'What time is it?'
Cathy looked at her watch. "It's 4:30. You slept most of the afternoon." She didn't add that Kiri had worried her because she'd slept so long. It was no longer important.
Kiri was writing again. 'Food?'
"You'll have to wait," Cathy told her with a wink. "Duo said he had something special in mind for you."
Cathy had agreed to tolerate Trowa's friends and not upset Kiri with her personal disagreements so she was trying to stay positive about Duo's "surprise." Kiri seemed slightly annoyed at having to wait but since she didn't put anything in writing, Cathy wasn't 100% positive that's what she was annoyed about.
"I got your things. Would you like to get changed? Pajamas might be more comfortable if you have to stay in bed."
Kiri nodded and Cathy helped to steady her so she could pull on the pajamas. Once Kiri was settled back on the bed Cathy pulled a chair over so that they could talk a little easier.
"Sally said that you're going to be laid up and she doesn't want you to do anything more strenuous than watching movies. Were there any that you wanted to watch?"
Kiri thought for a moment before writing, 'I don't know. What came out in the last five years?'
Cathy wasn't sure which movies had come out in that time as she didn't always have time to see movies in the theater. Usually she waited until they were broadcast on TV. Occasionally she would rent a video if it was one she really wanted to see, but she didn't always have time to watch movies that way, either.
"I'll see if I can get you a list. Maybe I'll just bring a few by that I liked. Were there any that you've already seen that you'd like to see again?"
Kiri wrote out a list of movies. As she handed the paper to Cathy, someone knocked on the door. It opened and Johnson stuck his head in.
"Everything okay?" he asked.
Kiri nodded and Johnson was so glad that she was feeling better that he grinned.
"Good. Duo should be back shortly." Johnson closed the door, intent on guarding the room from the outside so that Cathy and Kiri could have a little more time, but at that moment Heero and Colonel Une appeared.
"Colonel. Agent Yuy," Johnson greeted. "To what do I owe the surprise?"
"We're here to speak to the girl," Colonel Une informed him.
"Ah. I see. She might not be up for much talking. She hasn't even been awake that long."
"Be that as it may, this discussion needs to happen sooner rather than later," Colonel Une informed him.
Johnson nodded and opened the door. Heero went in, but Une stayed in the hall.
"We thought it would be better if Heero prepared her for my visit," Une explained quietly.
With the door still open, they could hear what Heero was saying.
"Would you excuse us?"
Johnson could see that Cathy was about to tell him off so he gestured to her. Cathy shot a look at Kiri before going into the hall to speak to Paul.
"What do you think you're doing?" Cathy demanded.
"We need to speak to her about her statement," Une told her. "We'll keep it as brief as possible," she added before Cathy could complain about it.
Cathy scowled. "Fine. But if you upset her, you'll have me to deal with." She plopped into a nearby chair with a huff and folded her arms.
Une chose to ignore the minor tantrum and went in to speak to Kiri.