Disclaimer's the same as always: I own nothing but the story line and a great affinity towards everything having to do with Lie To Me.
Thanks to those who have taken the time to review – they're greatly appreciated. :)
As soon as he left the hospital a little after 9 p.m., Cal called his daughter, Emily, filling her in on what had happened as he drove to police headquarters. He could tell by the sound of her voice that she was worried and that she was also surprised to find out that he wasn't at the hospital. But knowing he wouldn't bother answering, she didn't ask him why. She made plans to go to the hospital and he promised to meet her there later.
He had just arrived, waiting to talk to the Chief of Police, when he received the call from Gillian updating him on Ria's condition. Hearing the shakiness in Gillian's voice as she told him that Ria had had a seizure when she was in the room with her left him feeling even more uneasy than before, but also cemented his determination to find the perp.
Ushering Cal into his office, the chief briefed him on what they already had from the fourteen witness statements. Eyewitness accounts were notoriously unreliable, but most seemed to agree that it was a male driver in an old, beat up red truck with D.C. plates and that he had been swerving in and out of oncoming traffic. He ran nearly head on into Torres' car and then taken off with the right front of his truck smashed in. Only one person claimed to catch part of the license plate, the last two numbers: 65. They were just running the numbers and description through their database when Cal showed up.
When the computer finished searching the database, the Chief showed him the results: there were 26 possible matches.
"There's no way a judge is going to give me a warrant to search the garages of 26 people or arrest any of them unless we narrow it down." The Chief sighed in frustration and ran his hand over his face. It was clear to Cal that he had seen too many similar dead ends to really expect to find the guy.
But Cal couldn't stand the idea of the guy walking free. "Alrigh'. Well, we don't need to arrest 26 people. All I need is a minute with each of them and I can tell you which one it is."
"We can't bring 26 people down to the precinct just to question them for a minute. And the likelihood of all 26 cooperating is slim."
"Well then we'll go door to door. Just give me the addresses and an officer to go with me to do the arrestin' when I find the slimy bastard."
The chief seemed to debate this over in his mind for a moment before relenting. "Okay. I'll send an officer over to The Lightman Group in the morning to accompany you, unless you'd prefer to come here first instead."
"What? Are you bloody mad? I'm not waitin' til the mornin'. We'll go now."
"Dr. Lightman, it's after 10 o'clock. You can't go beating down 26 doors this late at night in search of one guy." Cal opened his mouth to state that he bloody well could and would, but at that moment his phone started ringing.
# (At the hospital, earlier.)
When Gillian returned from calling Cal and stopping at the cafeteria, she noted that Emily had arrived. She handed Loker & Reynolds a cup of coffee each and handed Eva a bottle of orange juice. She offered Emily the second orange juice she had bought for herself, but she declined, having brought a traveler's mug of hot chocolate with her.
They chatted quietly for a while, sat in silence for a longer while, and watched the nurses come and go, periodically checking on Ria's condition. Eva refused to move from her seat by Ria's bedside, never saying a word, just silently willing her sister to be okay. Gillian leaned on the doorframe watching her and knew that she was having a difficult time with it all. Ria was the only decent family that the girl had left and it was easy to read the worry and fear written across her face. She moved over to stand behind Eva, placing a hand on her shoulder to offer some semblance of comfort and support, giving her a small smile when the girl looked up at her in unspoken appreciation.
She was still standing there a moment later when she first noticed it: Ria's hand, the one closest to Eva's, started moving. She looked up at her face expectantly and felt a rush of excitement and relief to see her slowly opening her eyes. "Ria." Saying her name caused everyone else to look up and see she was now waking up. They simultaneously got up and moving closer to the bed.
"I'll get the nurse." Emily stated and took off in a hurry.
When Ria finally pulled herself fully awake, she looked around, taking in the people standing around her bed, noting that her sister and all her friends were surrounding her with looks of relief on all their faces. Everyone, except Cal, that is. She noticed his absence, but was too groggy to analyze what it meant.
"Where am I?" She asked, confused.
"You're in the hospital. You were in an accident. Do you remember any of it?"
Ria tried to process what Gillian was telling her, tried to remember what happened, but it was proving difficult.She shook her head no. The last thing she could recall was leaving the office to pick up her sister. She made an effort to sit up but felt too weak to move much. The nurse, who had just walked in, lightly touched her shoulder, telling her not to move and that she needed to check her over. They backed off enough to give the nurse room to work, but unwilling to move too far away now that she was awake. The nurse checked her over and upped her pain medication a notch. Ria was already slipping back into sleep before the nurse turned to address the other occupants of the room.
"She's okay. It's a good sign that she came out of her coma this early, but now she needs to rest, which means you need to leave. One, maybe two people can stay with her, but she needs quiet and any disturbances will not be tolerated." She waited to see each of them nod in acknowledgement before leaving the room.
They hugged each other out of happiness and relief before deciding on who would stay and who would come back later. It was agreed on by everyone except Eva that she needed to go home and get some rest. She tried to protest but she couldn't deny how exhausted she felt, so she reluctantly agreed to let Reynolds drive her home, with the agreement that she'd return early in the morning and they'd call her if anything happened. Reynolds planned to drop off Eva and then head home for the night, agreeing to pick Eva up again in the morning before returning to the hospital. Emily watched as Gillian and Loker debated on who would stay with Ria and who would go home. Eventually Gillian pulled rank on him, and told him to go home and get some much needed rest. He relented, but insisted on returning in a little while to give her the chance to go home and rest as well. Emily left the room to call her dad and Gillian took up Eva's chair at Ria's bedside.