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Chapter 5

H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O*

By long-learned habit, Ponch could sleep virtually anywhere and at any time of day or night. It was a necessary skill he had acquired in the Army and then couldn't afford to lose. Conversely, the smallest relevant sound would wake him fully. At three in the morning, the gentle vibration of his cell phone on his side table did the trick. The vibration moved the phone noisily counter-clockwise where it thrummed against the digital clock. First going for his reading glasses, Ponch frowned for the odd intrusion since such a thing hadn't occurred since his retirement from Tripler.

"need help clinic. J."

He read it twice before the 'J' sunk into his brain. "Jasper?" Eyes then wide, he was on his feet in seconds and waking Ellen. "Jazz is in trouble. I don't understand … but Ellen, look."

Brandishing the text message under her nose, he was dressed moments later and grabbing his car keys.

"What does this mean? What kind of help could he possibly need at this hour?" Ellen was instantly confused and as worried as her husband. "Are you going there?" He didn't answer the first question because he clearly didn't know either as he continued out of the bedroom with one shoe on and one shoe off. As for going, he hadn't even hesitated to think twice about it.

"Alphonse!" For some inexplicable reason Ellen was frightened when she heard the tinkle of his car keys. "Alphonse! I"m not sure you should go. You can't take this risk .. you can't afford to get into trouble."

But he was already gone before she had set her own feet to the hardwood floor. By the time she made it to the front door of their home, she could just barely see the tail lights of their large SUV disappearing down the street.

Hurrying down the highway, Ponch's mind was racing. Any number of things could be wrong from the most benign of arguments to a badly ill patient, to something even much more dire. He had no doubt that Jazz's trouble at the clinic was going to be Alan Parker though. None at all. So it was there that his brain continued to settle and his worry only grew as bold calls to Jazz's cell phone rang before going to voicemail.

"Something's wrong." Ponch muttered under his breath as he closed the distance to the remote clinic. At best, it was a thirty minute drive and not only due to traffic but also because of its poorly maintained last few miles of pitted town road.

Though he felt strange for doing it, he parked on a side street to walk quietly along the few darkened, dusty houses where he paused under a tree. The clinic was equally darkened and somber in the moonlight without a car in sight. He sighed and frowned as he looked around and slowly crept forward. He saw no one or nothing that seemed out of place, but instead of immediately checking either the front or rear doors, Ponch walked around the building to peer into windows with one hand shading the moon's glare.

Again, nothing was out of place and he saw no movement whatsoever. Ponch sighed unhappily as he shook his ring of keys to find the one that Jazz had so recently provided him to the small clinic. Using the rear door, Ponch cautiously entered and leaned against his back against the door as it softly snicked shut. He waited then to just listen before checking each of the main rooms before making his way to the small rear bedrooms that had been long ago converted to tiny offices.

Jazz's own door stood wide open and his desk was spotlessly clean. It was another habit that Ponch secretly approved, but this time it was too clean. Much too clean in fact without a stray piece of paper or manila file folder. Nothing had been readied for the next day's shift. Leaning over, he turned on the small desk lamp and rapped his knuckles worriedly on the bare surface. Out of interest, he tried once more to call Jazz's cell phone.

The loud off-synch metallic vibration startled him almost immediately. Three times, then four he heard it before the call went to voicemail. Then Ponch was auto-dialing again as he rounded Jazz's dilapidated, old desk and waited. On the cusp of the first vibration, he was on his knees and digging through the metal waste basket where he found the cell phone buzzing away proving that Ponch himself, was the caller as his name flashed across the screen.

When his thumb found the strength to end the call, Jazz's screen changed to show the young doctor had missed four recent calls. All of which, Ponch knew, would be from him.

In a rising unfamiliar feeling of near panic, he called Steve first barely aware of the time and not even remotely apologetic when the foggy-voiced man picked up on the third ring. Waiting in the gloom for Five-0 to arrive, his next call was to his wife.

~ to be continued ~