Chapter 4- You Are My Life

(Saturday 10pm) The ride in the vehicle had been a very quite one with hardly a word spoken. It had been a good time for Chance to think about what he had been told so far. This could be a trap he was walking into, but glancing into the rearview mirror at the dark haired boy in the back seat, he didn't think so. Traps didn't generally have kids involved. It made his blood boil to think that these people were willing to threaten a woman and child. Winston was probably going to be upset with him once again for taking this case, but he couldn't turn his back on these people. No one deserved to die, and that went double for kids. He thought briefly about calling Winston and letting him know what was going on, but they were all tired from the previous gig. 'Nah, better let him get a little rest before he contacted him' he thought. And there was no immediate threat. He would just take it slow and see what played out. Chance pulled the vehicle into the small driveway that Nori pointed out. She had been getting more nervous as they got closer to her home. He shifted the vehicle into park, and then glanced over at her again. "You ok?"

She nodded, took a deep breath and said, "I don't know how he's going to react to seeing you—maybe it's best if I go in first and……

"No, we go in together. I'm not letting you two out of my sight." He smiled at her encouragingly.

"Well, ok, if you think that's best." She opened the door, and Daniel followed her lead by doing the same. Chance came around the SUV and motioned for her to lead the way. Nori moved quickly towards the door. In the meantime Chance scoped out the place. The place was tiny, but well kept. The windows were small; there was no garage- just the driveway. He estimated it was probably 2 bedroom, and probably only had one other exit as the windows all looked to small to enter or exit. This was not the type place he would want to defend. Getting them out of this place would be top priority. By this time Nori had reached the front and started to unlock the door. She pushed the door open wide and hollered out "Kado?!" and started inside. Daniel dashed past her and into the kitchen as she threw her keys onto the table just inside the door. Chance slowly followed her in, but had barely made it past the door when he was grabbed from behind, spun around, and slammed into the wall. Before he could even blink a knife was pressed against his throat. He heard Nori holler out, "Kado, NO!"

"You better have one good reason for being in my house." Growled the voice.

Chance stared into the man's coal black eyes and saw pure fear.

Nori was pulling at Kado. "No Kado, this is the man my brother recommended. This is Christopher Chance. Please let him go," she pleaded.

"I thought I told you not to bring anyone else into this" Kado growled at her, but continued to stare at Chance.

"Look, buddy, she was only worried for you. Let me go and we can talk about this in a civilized manner." Chance replied coolly. He could easily disarm the guy but that probably wouldn't win him any favors.

Kado considered his words for a moment, then reluctantly let him go. "She shouldn't have brought you here—now you are in danger too." As he threw the knife on the table beside his wife's keys.

"And just what kind of trouble would that be?"

Silence reigned.

"Look, I can help you deal with whatever it is you're into."

"You a cop?"

"No, I'm not a cop. My job is too flush the problem out into the open and then deal with it." responded Chance.

Nori motioned for him to have a seat on the couch. "Come, have a seat. I'm sorry for my husband's lack of welcome." as she sent him a scalding look. "Let me put Daniel to bed and I'll be right back."

Kado finally moved over to a chair across from where Chance was sitting on the couch. Not a word was said until Nori came back. Then Chance opened with "I know you're reluctant to get anyone else involved in this. But trust me; this is right up my alley. Don't worry about me, just let me help you."

Kado looked hard at him, then finally replied "If I tell you what happened, that's just going to put one more person in danger……it's not worth the risk."

"But I think it is." replied Chance. "I deal with cases like this all the time. If you don't confront the problem head on it's just going to follow you the rest of your life. You don't want Daniel and Nori running the rest of their lives, do you?"

That seemed to get Kado's attention. "All right. I'll tell you some of it, but I'm not giving names. As long as I alone know who they are."

"Fair enough for now." as Chance leaned back against the couch.

Kado paused, glanced at Nori, and then started his tale. "About a month ago I was on the surgical floor late one night. I had just entered a room, dumped the first two trash cans and headed into the bathroom to get the trash in there. While I was in the bathroom two prominent doctors flew into the main room and started bickering. I sensed something was wrong right away and didn't move. I could see one of them from behind the door. I didn't hear every word they were saying, but something about 'He's homeless, it's worth the risk, 10 million, no one will care, and our guy needs this heart NOW, not tomorrow.' Then they got real quiet. I peered around the door to see one of them inserting a syringe into the guys IV port. I ducked back before they could see me. I heard them leave the room but it took me a few minutes to feel brave enough to leave the bathroom. I eased into the main room and was about to make a hasty exit when the heart alarm started going off. I froze for a moment as it sunk in what those guys had just done, and by the time I got my feet working again nurses and doctors were flying into the room. The doctor who I had seen through the door was one of the first into the room- he looked shocked to see me in the room, but quickly schooled his features and started trying to revive the guy. As quick as I could get out I did, knowing that I shouldn't have seen what I did." He stopped here and took a big breath. "I tried to avoid anyone the rest of my shift that night and was successful until I started to leave the hospital. I was grabbed and a couple of guys I hadn't seen before roughed me up a bit. They told me to keep my mouth shut, or else. If I went to the cops, or squealed to anyone I was dead meat. I didn't really know what to do. Over the next few weeks they didn't touch me, but they followed me around at work, and did their best to scare me, which I have to admit- didn't take much on their part. It wasn't until this week that they actually threatened my family." He stopped and looked at Chance. "I don't mind so much the threats to me, but not to my family. My plan is to get Nori out of here. Send her and Daniel for a visit home to Japan while I figure a way out of this mess."

Nori interrupted at this point. "Is that why you emptied our savings account?"

Kado turned to her his voice broke "Nori, you and Daniel are my life. If anything happened to you, I could never forgive myself."

Chance finally spoke up at this point. "Well, I agree, getting them out of here would be a safe thing to do. Do you know if these men have 'harvested' other patients for their organs? Or was this a one time thing?"

"I don't know. I suspect yes—there have been several deaths the past couple of weeks where the patient was doing fine and then suddenly died. But I don't have any proof. Under the circumstances though it sure does seem suspicious.

"I agree." Chance pulled his cell phone out to call Guerrero and get him started on this problem, but Kado jumped out of his seat and asked threateningly…

"What do you think you're doing?

"I'm calling my partners—they can help us out."

"NO! NO more people in on this….Please. Enough lives are in danger because of me."

"Look, this is what we do every day—we risk our lives to protect people like you. Those who have no chance but to stand and fight, or run and look behind them for the rest of their lives."

"NO!! You have to promise me—if you want to try and help since you are already here, fine. But NO ONE ELSE." his voice rising with each word.

Chance reluctantly closed his phone. "Alright, I won't contact them for now. But we need to get you guys out of this house and to a safe place for the night. If they are watching this house, and I expect they are, then they already know something's up. We need to leave, now."

Once more Kado refused. "No, it's almost midnight, Dani is asleep by now. We wait until morning."

Chance tried in vain to talk them out of their decision. He was not comfortable being in plain sight like this. But he couldn't force them to leave. His only option at this point was to play along and hope they could squeak another 8 hours out of being stationary. He couldn't leave them now; if something happened to them he could never live with that. He did talk them into letting him stay for the night. He would call Winston and Guerrero first thing in the morning and get them digging for some dirt on the two doctors. He was pretty sure Guerrero could find a money trail leading to someone at the hospital. The important thing was going to be to find out how far up the ladder this plot went. Two doctors being dirty was one thing, but they could be just the tip of the iceberg. He also wondered why they had not taken Kado out already. If there really was millions of dollars on the line, why risk one person knowing that? Did Kado have more on them than he was letting on? That was possible. In fact that was the only plausible answer as to why they hadn't nixed him already. But enough worrying about that. He would ask more questions in the morning. Nori had fixed him a spot on the couch, and he lay down with his gun in close reach. Maybe, just maybe they would be ok here tonight…..

TBC

Ok, I'm almost through with the plot setup. The "boring" part in my opinion. We are almost back into the action part, and a little more H/C is coming. I have given up guessing how many chapters this thing will be. The more I write the longer it seems to get. I will try my best to update with a chapter every other day. In the meantime, please keep the reviews coming. Want to make sure I'm on the right track still. Thanks for all the reviews and DON'T FORGET. Contact Fox and add your voice to keep this show going for season two! askfox at fox dot com