"Mark Evans is not living with his sister. She has no idea where he is," says Sharon.
Reaching for her hands, and covering them with his own, he says, "Damn. I was afraid that was going to be the case."
"Detective Nelson has issued an APB, and she'll talk to his PO in the morning." Sharon glances down at their entwined hands. The room is very quiet. She's not sure what to do or say. Before the phone rang she was drowning in a flood of feelings; physically and mentally carried away on a current of desire. The sensations he was creating with his hands, lips, tongue and teeth were overwhelming. After years of self-imposed sexual deprivation, she has no idea what the appropriate response is now. Do they pick up where they left off? Do they start all over? Do they just forget about it and go to sleep?
Andy supplies the answer by rotating both her hands with the palms up on the bed between them. "Sharon, look at me." Slowly bringing her right wrist to his lips, he deposits a soft kiss on the pulse point. He does the same thing with her left wrist. His lips barely graze the sensitive skin covering an intricate network of veins and fragile bones. He thinks of her as fragile, like the ethereal wings of a butterfly. She is fragile to him, but not weak. He knows she's breakable, and he's being very careful not to do that. His eyes never leave hers.
The sudden sound of his raspy voice in the stillness of the moment, combined with his moist mouth on her skin and the intense look in his eyes leaves her feeling woozy. Before her phone rang, he was making love to her in an almost desperate, frantic way. Now, he's not so much making love to her as worshiping her. He finally breaks eye contact, and she exhales. She wasn't even aware of holding her breath. He's ghosting the tip of his index finger from her wrist to the crook of her arm and back. They are clothed; yet, this feels profoundly more intimate to her than any physical contact they've shared to this point in their relationship.
Leaning in to whisper in her ear, he says, "I don't think you understand what you do to me. I think about you all the time. When I eat breakfast, I wonder what you're eating. In the shower, I imagine you standing under the water with me. Driving to work, I listen to the music you like. When I'm trying to fall asleep at night, I picture you underneath me with your hair spread out on the pillow."
She closes her eyes, and absorbs his words through her ears, her skin, her heart. His voice makes her feel like she's floating. It's the same weightless feathery feeling she had the night she cooked for him and drank too much wine. That night she was warm, happy and very sleepy, just like now. She hasn't had a drop of alcohol, but she could curl up like a cat with a huge smile on her face, and drift off to sleep in his arms without hesitation.
"I'm obsessed with you," he says. "Does that make me the same as Mark Evans?"
Furrowing her brow, she opens her eyes and studies his face. "Are you serious? Why would you think that?"
"Because it's true. Sharon, I love you."
"That's the difference. Mark Evans doesn't love me. He doesn't even know me. If you love someone, you don't scare them. You don't play games with them. He's a sick, violent man, and we have to put him back in prison."
"And we will," Andy says before rising, walking to the other side of the bed, and removing his robe. Pulling back the covers, he slides in with a grimace on his face. His bruised rib is aching and he needs to stretch out. Patting the empty spot next to him, he says, "Come here."
Sharon carefully aligns herself along his right side with her head resting in the crook of his neck; his arm cradling her. They continue talking quietly for a few minutes before Sharon's eyes drift shut, and they both fall asleep in that position. Seven hours later, Provenza wakes them for the second time in as many mornings with a phone call. Before Andy can even say hello, Provenza says, "Wake up sleepyhead. We caught a case, and I'm on my way to pick you up."
Sharon's presence is not necessary at the crime scene in Bel-Air; she goes back to sleep. Shortly before seven, her phone rings as she's preparing to head to work. A police officer she's vaguely familiar with informs her that Jenise Patterson, a charge nurse at Cedars-Sinai, would like for her to call the hospital as soon as possible. Her mind immediately goes into panic mode, and she starts firing questions at the officer, "Is something wrong? Is it my son? Is he in the hospital?" Before the officer on the other end of the phone can answer, it occurs to her that Andy could be the one in trouble.
"Captain, the nurse would not divulge any information to me due to HIPAA regulations. All I have is the phone number she gave me."
After hanging up with the police officer, Sharon immediately calls Cedars-Sinai to talk to Jenise Patterson. The nurse tells her that Jackson Raydor was admitted through the ER at approximately 6 a.m. with a wound in his upper torso. He had experienced heavy blood loss. Before losing consciousness, he told her to call his wife, Captain Sharon Raydor with the LAPD.
"I called as soon as I had the chance, Captain. Your husband is going to be fine, but there's a chance he may lose some mobility in his left arm. The wound appears to be from a gunshot. The bullet grazed his upper arm. He lost a significant amount of blood, and the wound was already infected when he came in through the ER. He was alone, and had no ID or insurance card on him. He was mostly unresponsive. We weren't able to get any information out of him about what happened. Doctor Rosen sedated him, cleaned up the wound, and started him on antibiotics. He's in room 933."
"Actually, he's my ex-husband, but I'll be there as soon as possible," Sharon says before hanging up. What have you done now, Jackson? She thinks to herself that it could be any number of issues: gambling money owed to the wrong people, a jealous boyfriend or husband, or a client he has hustled. This is really all she needs with everything else that's going on. She sends Andy a quick text message explaining that she's going to Cedars-Sinai to check on Jack, and then she calls the detective who is tailing her to tell him they have to go to the hospital. If she's lucky, she can get this done, and still make her meeting with Threat Management.
The sights, sounds and very particular smell of the hospital flood her senses the second she walks through the double doors. She has really had enough of hospitals lately. She's not squeamish, but she tenses up, not knowing what to expect. Why is she here? Why does she allow him to keep pulling her back into his messes? They have two great kids. Ricky and Emily are the reasons she's here. They are the reasons she will never be able to totally turn her back on him. She knows her police detail is walking discreetly behind her. Stopping just outside room 933, she opens the door and peers inside the gloom. The curtains are closed. All lights are turned off, but one. The bathroom door is open, and the light is on. She doesn't go in. She just observes the double room. There's no one in the bed closest to the door, but she can see the shape of his legs under the sheet in the bed near the windows. There's a screen set up between the beds. Sharon can see a couple of legs, clad in scrubs, beneath the screen. She closes the door, and watches the detective, assigned to escort her, approach her in the hallway. He walks up to her side at the same time as a young nurse aide walks out of the room. The aide looks at the man and woman standing just outside the door, and says, "Please only one visitor at a time, and don't stay too long. He's sleeping, and needs to rest." When the aide walks away, Sharon tells the detective to wait for her outside the door. "I shouldn't be long," she says.
Jack is lying on his right side, facing the windows. A sheet and blanket is pulled up over him. His head is half buried under a pillow. Rounding the foot of the bed, Sharon glances at the IV pole next to the privacy screen. Her eyes trace the clear plastic tubing running from the IV bag and into his left arm beneath the covers. It's very still and peaceful in the darkened room; yet, she can hear the hustle and bustle in the hallway; people are talking as they walk by the room; a woman moans in the room next door; a doctor is being paged over the intercom. Leaning in, she touches his left shoulder and says, "Jack." Everything happens quickly: he opens his eyes, his right hand shoots out from under the pillow and encircles her right wrist which is resting on his shoulder, his left hand emerges from the covers wielding a scalpel. A startled sound escapes the back of her throat. He says, "Don't make another sound or I will hurt you."
Sitting up and swinging his legs off the side of the bed, Mark Evans tightens his grip on her. "Give me your gun," he says. When she hesitates, he is up off the bed and looming over her with the scalpel poised at her throat. "I said give me your gun."
Moving as little as possible, and never taking her eyes off him, she carefully reaches inside her blazer with her left hand, snaps open the holster, withdraws the gun, and holds it out to him. "I'm going to let go of your arm, and you're going to give me the gun or this scalpel is going in your throat."
With the scalpel in one hand and the gun in the other, he moves behind her. Poking the gun hard in her back, he says, "Bring me that IV pole, and don't even think about doing anything else. I will shoot you; I have nothing to lose."
She slowly walks to the other side of the bed, and reaches for the pole. She can't see him behind her. It crosses her mind to attempt escape, but she's terrified. Her mind is still processing what has happened. She grips the pole, turns around and wheels it closer to him. He's now on the same side of the bed with her, facing her. "That's far enough," he says. "Let go of the pole and turn around." He sticks the gun in her back again. Briefly, she can feel his body pressed against her side and his breath on her face, as he leans into her, pushing her up against the screen and telling her to put her hands on it. Backing away from her, he says, "Don't move a muscle." Setting the gun on the nightstand, he raises the scalpel and slices through the tubing a few inches above where it enters his left arm. Setting the scalpel down, he retrieves the gun from the nightstand, and tells her to get his clothes out of the cupboard and put them on the bed.
Wildly looking around, she spots the cupboard in the corner of the room, and walks over to it. His shirt was cut off him in the ER, so only his pants and shoes are there. She places the items on the bed and backs away. He tells her to turn, walk back to the cupboard and put her hands on it. It's awkward, but he manages to hold the gun on her while putting his pants on and tucking the hospital gown in with his uninjured arm. Sliding his loafers on, he picks up the sling sitting on the nightstand, drapes it over his left shoulder, rests his injured arm inside it, and tucks the scalpel in the sling. Less than five minutes has passed since she entered the room.
No longer tethered to the IV pole, and in possession of two weapons, his plan is working much better than he anticipated. His arm hurts like hell, but he figures it's a small price to pay. Walking over to her, he thrusts the gun in the back of her head and tells her to walk towards the door. The detective, tasked with her protection, chooses this moment to knock softly and enter the room to check on her. Not expecting to see anything other than Captain Raydor comforting her injured ex-husband, the detective is shocked to see her approaching him with wide eyes.
