Like Father, Like Daughter….
Dani Reese opened her eyes feeling someone else in her hospital room. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. It was dark, quiet, probably the middle of the night, although she could not be sure of the time. Nothing moved, but she could feel someone there.
"I know you're there – what do you want?" she spoke hoping she sounded stronger and surer than she felt.
"I wanna know why you won't talk to me Dani" Jack Reese spoke from the shadowed corner of her room, still not revealing himself. "Are you gonna stay mad at me the rest of your life?"
If knowing it was her father was supposed to ease her worries, it failed miserably. Dani Reese was still holding onto a memory of the Bank of LA robbery that came to her that night in the car, one she and Crews had not yet spoken of in the days following the shooting, not even after they'd moved her to a private room. The room was probably not the type her Department insurance would pay for – she knew Crews was behind it and she wasn't sure why they had not talked about her father, the Bank of LA or how he miraculously reappeared in their lives.
Dani wasn't afraid her father would hurt her, but she wasn't ready to be alone in a room with him either. She found herself wishing for backup in the form of her often smiling, sometimes maniacal, red haired partner. Even on his worst day, Charlie could make her feel safer just leaning against the wall saying nothing.
Then she remembered Charlie's face the morning he'd shown up beaten by her father and she was suddenly very angry about each cut, each bruise and scrape on her partner's smiling face. Marks placed there by her father, the man who judged Crews so harshly and yet could rationalize what he'd done to her partner. She wasn't sure she wanted to talk to him at all.
"Are you going to answer me?" Jack said sternly.
"Stop talking to me like I'm twelve." She snapped.
"Stop acting like it." Jack raised his voice.
Dani missed her sidearm and her partner. She scowled fiercely. "Maybe you can tell me why you beat up my partner, who's never done you anything." She countered fiercely.
"Crews? Christ Dani, this is about Charlie Crews? You have no idea who that man is. He's dangerous and I don't want you around him. When you get out of here, I'm going to talk to the Department about getting you a new partner." Jack announced as if he could plan and predict her future.
"Crews is my partner. He's my partner now and he'll be my partner when I go back to work." Dani stuck to her guns.
"We'll see about that." Jack said snidely.
All her life, Dani had wanted to please her father. She wanted to be the kind of daughter he wanted and the kind of cop he respected, but it was clear to her now that her father did not respect her or her choices. When she was a child, she bowed to his strong will, although usually after a shouting match and a lot of slammed doors in their house. But Dani was no longer a child.
"Crews is my choice. I'm not leaving him." She raised her voice headed towards their normal shouting match decibel level for disagreements.
"That man is not good for you and this is non-negotiable, Dani - I forbid it!" Jack shouted.
Exact wrong thing to say. Dani Reese was a very stubborn young woman whose pain meds were wearing thin and she was just itching for a fight. She'd just battled back from a very serious injury, one that would have killed her had it not been for Charlie Crews. If Jack Reese thought he'd reduce Dani to tears by shouting, he was in for a surprise. He'd just shook the branch of a tree full of hornets, waved a bright red flag in the face of an angry bull. He had no idea of the reserve of anger Dani had been storing, sublimating, keeping on a low boil until it could no longer be contained.
She began in a low threatening tone, one usually reserved for perps "if you think that being my father gives you the right to tell me who I'll work with and who I'll trust - you are dead wrong. Charlie Crews is part of my life and he will be no matter what favors you call in and shady deals you make. I know what you did to him. I remember the Bank of LA and I know you were involved. I don't know how it is connected to Crews going to prison, but I know it is. Connection by connection I will figure it out and when I do -- if it leads to you, then there is no place you'll be able to hide from me."
"I'm your father and you'll do no such thing." Jack countered, but she could feel the effect her threat had on him, she could hear the fear in his voice and sense him shifting in the dark.
"Oh yes, I can and believe me - I will" steel in her voice and ice water in her veins.
"You'd chose that man over your own blood?" Jack Reese was reeling. The connection between his daughter and Crews was seamless and unbreakable. It was Jack's worst nightmare. How had it come to this? He thought. Why couldn't Charlie Crews have just died in prison? Why couldn't he take his money and walk away? He should have killed him when he had the chance Jack thought as the ramifications of his daughter's choice raced through his brain.
"And one more thing" Dani continued in a voice barely over a whisper, but laced with hate and deathly serious "you ever lay a hand on Crews again – you and I are through - no matter how this turns out" Dani growled like she was ready to come out of the bed and find him in the dark. Her tiny dark eyes were alit with fire and her anger radiated off her in waves, like heat off a blackened desert roadway.
"Dani" he began.
"We're done. You go home to Mom and if you ever scare her like that again, you won't find us here when you come slinking back" Dani said effectively shutting the door on the conversation.
Jack stalked out of the room and down the hall buried in his thoughts and trying to wrap his head around his worst fears coming true. His daughter, his only daughter, was firmly in the court of a man they'd set up for murder, a man who'd served twelve years in prison to cover up the fall out from an $18 million dollar robbery pulled off by well placed LAPD officers. Things couldn't be worse.
Dani released a shuddering breath and released the fistfuls of sheets she'd wrapped her hands around to maintain control. Then it all made sense to her. The reason she'd held back her memory of the Bank of LA, not as a trump card, not to hurt her father, but to protect her partner. She could leverage the knowledge to keep him safe as he had done for her – it was what partners do. Crews never had to know, she knew and that was enough.
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Kevin Tidwell watched as Jack Reese bolted from his daughter's room like he was fired from a cannon. The man was so preoccupied he missed Tidwell lounging outside Dani's hospital room waiting to see her – and eavesdropping. He'd overheard most of what was said between Jack Reese and his tough, temperamental daughter.
On one hand Tidwell considered the fact that he was not the subject of their argument and thought it might be a positive thing. The fact that he did not come up in conversation might also mean that he didn't merit mentioning, but Charlie Crews certainly did. Dani defended him, fought for him and even risked her family ties for the man. That meant something, what Tidwell was not sure – but he was sure he didn't like it.
He risked the late night visit, knowing it afforded him the best chance to visit with Dani without her mother or Crews there. He briefly considered entering the room, but decided instead to leave without letting Dani know he'd come. He had no idea what the hell the Bank of LA comment meant, but he'd be researching it as soon as he got back to the precinct. He shambled down the hallway, handing a small bouquet of flowers he'd bought to a night shift nurse and fading into the night.