Not too long until the final chapter! Are you excited to find out what's going to happen? ;)
He had to wear the eye patch for six weeks, but today Greg was finally allowed to take it off. Nick had driven him to the doctor and was now waiting in the waiting room for him to come out. While he was browsing through some magazines, he heard a familiar voice talking to the receptionist. Looking up, he couldn't believe Mrs. Douglas was actually standing there. He thought about approaching her for a moment, but was too angry and knew it wouldn't go well. Instead, he sneaked into the examination room. "Greg!" he whispered. He received confusing looks both by Greg and the doctor.
"We're done in a few minutes, could you please wait outside?" the doctor said.
"Excuse me, doc, I need to talk to Greg for a minute."
"What's wrong?" Greg had the eye patch off, but had to do some tests before he was good to go.
The doctor left with an irritated look on his face.
"Mrs. Douglas is out there."
"What?" Greg said disbelieving, almost mocking. "A lot of rich people go to this doctor, maybe the woman outside just looks like her. There's a lot of women who look like her. Just yesterday I ran into a woman, she..."
Nick interrupted him. "Did they gave you any drugs?" He gave him a look. "I think I know what Mrs. Douglas looks like. It's her. You can take a look if you don't believe me."
Greg didn't get any drugs, but eye drops to dilate his pupils to do some tests. He had a blurred vision because of it. "I can't. I see all blurry, I don't even see you clearly."
"You don't have to see for yourself, just trust me! What are we gonna do now?"
Greg rolled his eyes. He walked into the other examination room the doctor just left in. "Dr. McDermott, there's a woman outside in the waiting room we believe is dangerous..." He briefly explained the problem and asked the doctor to call the police.
When backup arrived, Mrs. Douglas was nowhere to be seen. The receptionist talked to the officers. "She wanted to get some information of one of our patients... I told her I couldn't tell her anything because it was confidential... Then she claimed she was his mother."
"Did you give her any information?"
"Of course not! I knew something about her was wrong."
Nick and Greg walked out in the waiting room. "Where is she?"
"I'll call Russell and tell him I come in later today," Nick said, sitting in the car he had parked in front of his home.
"No, you go to work. They need you there. Besides, I'm fine. I'll join you at the lab once these eye drops wear off."
"But what if..."
Greg stopped him. "Don't you even go there. The officers are trying to find her and Brass will let us know when they do. My guess is that your home is the last place she'd hide at, okay?"
Nick sighed. "You're sure? They could go another few hours without me, that way I could drive you to work."
"Once I regain perfect vision I'll be able to drive myself." He patted Nick on the shoulder. "But thanks." He got out of the car and Nick drove off.
Being exhausted over the constant stress he felt, he decided to take a nap and wait for the drops to wear off. Lying down on the couch, he fell asleep within five minutes. He got woken up another five minutes later when he heard a knock on the door. Still not seeing all that much, he got up and looked through the fish eye and could only figure out a silhouette. "Who's this?" No answer. The silhouette was wearing a CSI cap, ensuring him it was Nick. "Did you forget something?" He opened the door and was surprised to see someone a bit shorter than Nick – shorter than what he thought he'd seen in the fish eye. It took him a moment to recognize who was standing there, but the scent he smelled was proof enough. He tried to quickly close the door, but the visitor smashed it open.
"Get back!" Mrs. Douglas yelled with a gun in her hand.
Greg raised his arms and made a few steps back. "Don't..."
"Where's Nick?"
"Out."
"When will he be back?"
Greg shook his head. "I don't know. Soon."
She closed the door. "How about you take a seat. This could take a while."
Mrs. Douglas was holding Greg hostage for fifteen minutes now. His vision was slowly getting better, but the effects of the eye drops were still impairing him a bit. Still, he kept on thinking of ways of how to take the gun away from her. So far, he came up with nothing. "Do you want me to maybe call him...? So he'll be here sooner..." Greg suggested rather helpless.
"How about you just shut your pretty face and wait with me?" she replied with a weird smile on her face. "I really didn't want this to end this way, you know... You're forcing me to do this."
Greg rolled his eyes. After ten minutes, Mrs. Douglas started walking up and down rather nervously. "...Can I ask you something?"
Mrs. Douglas looked him up and down. "Depends. What is it?"
"Why did you send Zachary Perry to break into my home?"
"Who said I did that?"
"He does. Did he take something you wanted to have?"
She sighed. "You had to butt in on my relationship with Nick and I didn't like that. You know I always liked you but... I love Nick. And nothing's gonna stand between us." She wouldn't want to admit she needed someone to break in so that she would know where Nick lived. Also, Perry brought her the CSI cap she was wearing right now. Nick had forgotten it at Greg's place, it was a lucky coincidence for her.
Greg didn't know how to respond to that, so he changed the subject. "I'm getting thirsty... Can I get some water?"
She didn't plan on caving in to requests like that, but she still kind of liked Greg. She had a twisted mind, after all. "Alright. I'll get you..." She stopped herself, then went on. "Come on, we'll get you some."
Greg got up, but quickly sat down again.
"What's wrong? Get up!"
"I can't... I... I'm feeling a little dizzy..." He tried again but failed once more. "The doctor said this could happen..."
She sighed annoyed. "I'll be just a sec... Don't move." She walked into the kitchen to get some water. When she came back, her hand still wrapped around her gun, Greg pointed one at her himself.
"Drop the gun."
Her surprised look quickly turned into an outraged one. "You lied to me! Where did you get that from?!"
One thing she didn't know about Nick was that he always kept a gun in a side table in the living room. Greg had used the opportunity to get it. "Just drop the gun!"
"No." She kept pointing it at him. "You better do it. A friend of mine will be here in a few minutes and you don't want him to find you threatening me with a gun!"
Greg didn't believe a word she said. "Me and Nick went through hell because of you! Don't think I'm not able to pull the trigger!"
Footsteps approaching the door could be heard. Both were quiet to listen for a moment, then Mrs. Douglas had an evil smirk on her face. "See? He's early."
Greg started shaking. He had no idea what to do, he kept pointing his gun at Mrs. Douglas.
"Greg, can you even see me?" She laughed. She started wandering around the room.
"Stop!"
"I just realized... You can't see whether or not I'm about to pull the trigger, right? You'll never see it coming..."
Greg felt trapped. She was right, he didn't see her hands and had no idea what she was planning to do next. He heard someone putting his hand on the door knob.
"Put the gun down if you want to live, Greg. It's as easy as that! I promise, we won't hurt you..."
He shook his head. "No..."
"It's not like you have much of a choice. Die now or live. What is it going to be?"
Thinking about taking a leap of faith and just shoot at her, he decided to put his gun down, regretting the decision the moment he did it. "Okay... I'm sorry, please don't shoot..."
The door opened.