Chapter 3
"I found a needle under the shelf right by the spot you had your tussle with that guy."
Terri looked blankly at Sully. With all the build up and insinuation, she had been expecting something a little more significant. "A needle?"
"A syringe," Davis clarified. "We think he might have injected you with something, while you two were fighting."
"What?" Terri shook her head. "He didn't ever have a chance to inject me with anything."
"He could have when he punched you in the side," Sully said.
Terri pulled up her hospital gown and felt the spot where she'd been hit. It was still very tender. "I can't quite see it," she said. "Is there something there?"
Davis leaned down closer for a better look. "There's a bruise," he said. He ran his finger tips gently over the spot. "I think I can see a needle mark."
"What?" Adrenaline pumped straight to Terri's heart. "Are you sure?"
"I'm pretty sure," Davis said. He looked for a second longer, then pulled her hospital gown back down and stood up straight. "Maybe we should get a doctor in here to look at it."
She reached down and grabbed the nurse call button and pushed it several times.
A second later, a voice sounded through the intercom built into the bed. "Nurse's station, what can I do for you?"
"I need a doctor right now," Terri said. "It's an emergency."
"What sort of an emergency?" the disembodied voice asked through the bed.
"Please, just get a doctor," Terri said. It came out more frantic than she'd expected.
"Right away," the bed answered.
Terri raised a shaking hand to her head, which had started to throb. She closed her eyes and leaned back into the pillows, trying to calm herself. She didn't normally let herself get worked up, but this was the most scared she'd been in a long time.
Faith was standing at the window at the end of the hallway, staring out the glass, without seeing anything beyond it. She didn't see or hear Bosco walk up beside her. When he first started speaking, she didn't hear him. She was too lost in her own thoughts to listen and comprehend what he was saying. Slowly, however, she focused and realized he was speaking to her.
"-not your fault. There's no way-"
"Look, Boz. I understand you're trying to help and all, but I'd rather not hear it right now, if you don't mind."
"Well, you need to hear it," Bosco said. "You can't blame yourself for what happened today. It wasn't -"
"'What happened today'?!" Yokas interrupted. "What happened today is that Terri ended up in the hospital and some sick jag-off thinks its one big joke."
"It was an accident." Even to him, his comment sounded hollow and untrue.
"No, it wasn't. There is something going on here, Bosco. Something serious." Faith looked down at her hands, envisioning Terri's blood on them again. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists. She opened her eyes. When she realized her hands were clean, she looked at Bosco. "We need to tell her about the phone call."
"Let's think about this for a second, Faith," Bosco said, trying to keep the anger from his voice. "What will telling her accomplish? You know how she'll react. She doesn't want to stay in the hospital any longer than she has to and this'll give her an excuse to leave."
"She has a right to know," Faith said.
"Maybe," Bosco said.
"'Maybe'?" Faith looked at him incredulously. "Bosco, someone called me and told me it might be worse next time. She needs to know someone is out there threatening her."
"We don't know that," Bosco said. "It could've just been a crank call."
"He called me on my cell phone, Bosco," Faith answered. "How'd he get that number?"
"I don't know, Faith," Bosco said. "Look, I'm only thinking about Terri right now, okay? You know how she'll react. I just don't think she needs to worry about something like this, on top of everything else that happened today."
Faith could see his reasoning and thought in silence for a few moments. Despite the fact it alarmed her a little that Bosco was being the rational one and trying to talk her into keeping a cool head, she had to agree with him. Terri would undoubtedly want to pursue the matter, even if it meant hindering her healing process. "Alright. I'll wait to tell her," Faith said. "But if anything else happens-"
"Nothing else will happen, Faith," Bosco said.
In the silent disbelief that followed his remark and as if on cue, a voice wafted toward them from down the hall. "Room 316, Doctor. She sounded very distressed."
Faith shot Bosco a swift "Why-did-you-have-to-say-something" look as they both headed hastily back to Terri's room.
"You okay?" Sully asked, taking a step closer to the bed.
"I don't know," Terri answered, truthfully. She couldn't get her heart to stop racing. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"
"I wasn't sure it meant anything," Sully answered. "It's a bad neighborhood. Some junkie could have dropped it." He gestured toward the TV. "Then I saw the tape."
Terri nodded. It made sense. Her reasoning was coming back to her as she slowly calmed herself and focused on something other than the implications of the needle stick. "What did you guys do with it?"
"I called CSU over to the store," Sully said. "They took it to get tested. Price said he'd get the lab working on it as soon as he could. As soon as he finds out anything, he should call."
"Price is a good guy," Terri said, absently. Her mind was still reeling.
"Yeah," Sully said.
There was a soft knock on the door as it opened and a doctor and nurse came in. "Are you alright?" The doctor asked, slightly winded.
"I just found out that I was injected with something earlier today," Terri said. "I don't know what it was, or if the needle was dirty."
The door burst open and Bosco and Faith entered the room. They both surveyed the situation for a moment, concern donning both of their expressions.
"What's going on?" Bosco asked, looking from the doctor, to Terri. "Is everything alright?"
The doctor held up his hands. "Whoa! There are way too many people in here. Officer Swensen should be resting." He motioned to the door. "I need you all out, please. There's coffee in the lounge down the hall."
Terri averted the imminent mutiny with a quick nod and a small reassuring smile. "It's okay," Terri said. "Give us a minute."
Bosco still looked like he wanted to protest, but Faith took him by the arm and helped lead him from the room. Sully and Davis followed.
The moment the door closed behind them, Bosco pulled his arm free from Faith and turned to Sully and Davis. "What the hell happened?"
Sully told him about the syringe and the needle mark on Terri's side and what they suspected had happened back at the store.
His suspicions and fears confirmed, Bosco lost his battle keeping a cool head. "Son of a bitch!" Bosco turned on his heel and started down the hall, away from Terri's room, toward the elevators.
Davis immediately went after him. "Wait, Bosco. Hold up a minute." He caught up with him and grabbed him by the shoulder.
"Get off me, Davis!" Bosco warned.
"Bosco, just calm down," Faith said, catching up to the two of them as Davis pulled Bosco to a stop. "Where do you think you're going?"
"Don't tell me to calm down, Faith!" Bosco spat. "I want to go put a hole in that guy's head!"
"What guy?" Faith asked, aware the roles of reason-ee and reason-er had reverted back to normal. "What are you talking about?"
"This whole thing's been a set up, Faith," Bosco said through clenched teeth.
By this time, several nurses had looked to see what the commotion was. One of them whispered coldly, "This is a hospital! We have patients resting. You need to keep it down!"
Bosco used the nurse's interruption to pull free from Davis's hold and start toward the elevators again.
"Bosco would you stop." It was Faith who caught Bosco this time and pulled him to a stop. "What are you talking about? What set up?"
"Some jag-off calls us and warns us that it could have been worse," Bosco fumed. "And you want me to calm down and sit here on my ass doing nothing, while we got the guy responsible for this sitting in lock-up?"
"Wait a minute. What do you mean 'us'?" Faith asked. "You told me you heard about Terri on the scanner."
"Yeah, well, I lied."
"Damn it, Bosco," Faith said softly. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"You were too bothered by your call. I didn't want you to freak out because some jag-off is getting off by calling and harassing people."
"What call?" Sully asked.
Faith shook her head in disbelief. "You should've told me."
"What call?" Sully repeated. "What is going on?"
"Let's take this out of the hallway," Davis suggested. The nurse was giving them another look.
Bosco wasn't in the mood to defend his actions or to be told off for them, but still he followed after Davis as he led the way down the hall and into the nurse's lounge.
Once they were inside the empty room and the door was closed behind them, Sully again repeated his question. "What call?"
Faith looked to Bosco to see if he wanted to answer, but one look told her the answer. She turned to Sully and said, "As they were moving Terri to her room, I got a call, on my cell, from some guy who knew about Terri's accident and he told me next time it could be worse."
"What?!" Davis exclaimed. "He mentioned Terri by name?"
Faith thought about this for a moment. "No, he didn't. He said 'your partner'."
"And you Bosco?" Sully asked. "What did they say to you?"
"What difference does that make?" Bosco asked. He thought back to his call.
Your girlfriend just had a bit of an accident. I would call your partner and see what's going on. I sure hope this is just an isolated incident. I'd hate to see someone really get hurt.
"Bosco," Sully said, warning in his voice. "I want to know if Terri was the target, or if it was just random."
"'The target'?" Faith said. "What do you think is really going on?"
"Nothing good." Sully cocked his head to one side and sighed loudly. "Did you guys notice the camera in the store?"
"Of course we did," Bosco said, annoyed. "We watched a tape from it."
"No," Sully corrected. "I mean the angle. It just happened to be aimed right at the spot of the fight."
"So what? Lucky break," Bosco said.
"Yeah, right," Sully said. "And how many convenience stores can you think of that have real surveillance cameras, with tape running?"
Bosco got the point, but still didn't want to concede. "So?"
"'So,'" Sully repeated. "Someone went to a lot of trouble to hurt a friend of mine today and, personally, I'd like to find out who and why."
An uncomfortable silence fell over them. After a moment, Davis cleared his throat and voiced what he knew no one else would. "Let's assume Terri was the one whoever did this was after. Do we know anyone that would want to hurt her?"
"She's a New York City Police officer," Bosco said. "Just anyone in the entire criminal population."
"I don't think so," Davis said. "I mean, it wasn't some two bit thug. This whole thing obviously took a lot of time to plan and carry out. Whoever set this up had the time and resources to make sure he got who he was after."
Bosco shook his head. "I'm not going to do this." He pointed a fingerat each of them. "We're not going to do this. This is just some sick game someone is playing and I'm going to go down to the house and see what I can beat out of that guy."
"Bosco, what is wrong with you?" Faith asked. The sharpness of her voice caught them all by surprise. "Someone put Terri in the hospital. You need to focus on that, instead of worrying about who you're going to beat information out of."
"I can't just sit here, doing nothing. I need to do something." Bosco looked down at his feet. "I don't know what else to do."
Faith put a hand on his shoulder. "Look, Boz," she said, her voice softer. "I understand how you feel, but maybe this time, all you need to do is be here, for Terri. If there is someone trying to hurt her, she is going to need all of our help."
Sully cocked his head to one side andcleared his throat. "I think I remember hearing something about Terri when she first joined the department that may have something to do with all this, but I'm not sure if it's true or not."
All eyes turned to him.
"Now, again," Sully said. "This is just something I heard around the house after she started. It was the type of story that, when you heard it, you thought that the person telling you either had a beef against Terri and they were making it up."
Davis waved his hand in a circular motion. "All right, enough with the preface. Get to the story."
"I just want you to know that I've never found out if this was true or not," Sully said. He sighed loudly and crossed his arms over his chest, then started into the tale of Terrisa Marie Swensen's past.
"If your baseline test for HIV is normal, you will need to be retested at three weeks, six weeks, three months, six months, and then at a year. In the mean time," Doctor Thomas said. He pulled his latex gloves off and tossed them in the garbage. "We'll start you on Zidovudine. That's about all we can do at this point."
Terri pressed the tape on the bandage covering the newly disinfected injection site on her side, and pulled her hospital gown back down. "Sure, fine. How long do I have to stay here?"
"We're trying to get you scheduled for a head CT," Dr. Thomas said. "I'll have the nurse come back and let you know when that will be. Until then, I want you to take it easy."
The doctor started toward the door.
"How long after the CT can I go, doc?" Terri asked. "I don't really want to stay here any longer than I have to."
"We'll see what the CT has to say," Dr. Thomas said. He flashed her a quick smile, then left the room before she could ask any more questions.
The nurse was checking Terri's IV and the different monitors that Terri was hooked up to. "Do you need anything else, hun?"
"A ticket out of this place," Terri sighed.
The nurse smiled. "Anything else?"
Terri nodded. "Yeah. I'd like to go to the bathroom."
"Do you need some help?"
"No," Terri said, unable to keep the edge from her voice. "I can manage that on my own, thanks. Would you please just help me with this?" She shook all the cords that were hooked on her. "How many of these do I really need?"
"I suppose we can unhook everything but the IV for a minute," the nurse said. She pulled the heart monitor from Terri's finger and removed the other pads from Terri's chest and neck before she helped Terri get to her feet.
Terri held the IV stand in one hand and stood upright. The floor was cold, but it still felt good to stretch a bit. "I think I can get it from here."
The nurse nodded. "I'll just wait out here for you, hun."
"Sure," Terri said. She slowly made her way across the cold floor and into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.
Terri looked at her face in the mirror. The swelling above her eye had gone down enough that she could just barely open her eye. She pulled at the tape holding the 4x4 piece of gauze covering the stitches and slowly peeled it off her face. This revealed a dark bluish-purple bruise that went from below her eye, up beyond her forehead and disappeared into her hairline.
In the center of the bruise, just above her eyebrow and running parallel to it, there was a cut about three inches long. She touched the cut gingerly with the tips of her fingers. It didn't hurt as bad as she'd expected.
Terri stared at herself in the mirror. Or as bad as it could have been, she thought.
She sighed and looked down at the sink, thinking about everything that happened, both at the store and here at the hospital.
The guy they'd arrested had run not to the exit, but to the only isle in the store the surveillance camera had a clear view of. He could have let her catch him, so they could get in the fight that would mask the injection with the punch. Whatever he shot her with was most likely what had made her dizzy, which had caused her fall and brought her here.
Was it possible that this was just an accident? Or was she being paranoid because she thought there was something more going on. Her thoughts drifted to who she thought might be responsible for orchestrating something like this. The first name that came to her caused her to shutter.
She'd left Chicago almost nine years before, trying to put her past - and him - behind her. If this was his doing, he wouldn't give up if the first attempt had gone wrong. Who knows, Terri thought, maybe this wasn't the first attempt. Maybe he'd been here a lot longer than she first thought. Perhaps he'd even followed her out here.
She angrily pushed all these thoughts from her head. She was letting this worry her too much and she knew the more she thought about it, the more paranoid she would make herself. She decided not to dwell on this anymore and go from there. This had been an accident, nothing more, and she was going to be fine. She just needed to get better and get back to work and putthis whole thing behind her.
Feeling confident and relaxed, she took one last look in the mirror before she turned and grabbed the door handle. As she opened the door, the first thing she noticed was a large bouquet of roses. The second was the man holding them.
Her heart stopped and her jaw clenched. Her confidence and calm melted away, to be replaced by fear and uneasiness. "Where's the nurse?"
"It's good to see you too, Marie." Kyle Holladay set the flowers down on the table. "I told her I was your husband and we needed a few minutes alone."
"What are you doing here?" There was a slight quiver in her voice.
"I heard you were here, so I came to see if you were doing okay and if you needed anything."
It seemed so surreal that just moments before, she had been thinking this whole situation felt like something her ex boyfriend would be capable of doing. Now, here he was, in her hospital room with flowers, seven hundred miles from where she'd left him.
She forced herself to stare him in the eyes, hoping she looked surer of herself than her churning stomach felt. "'You heard I was here'? From who? The guy you had stick me with a needle back at the store?" Terri asked. She glanced around, realizing she was alone with this man without any way to defend herself. Her heart felt like it would pound through her chest.
Kyle chuckled. "You always were the accusative type." He shrugged. "Besides, if you did get stuck with a needle, I'm sure it was clean. And I'm sure it was nothing more than some fast acting insulin that would bring your blood sugar down low enough to warrant a hospital visit."
An odd feeling came over her. Revulsion mixed with relief. "You bastard," Terri said through clenched teeth. "Get out."
"Now, now, Marie. Let's not be too hasty." Kyle walked over to a chair. He took his jacket off and draped it over the back of the chair before he sat down. "Why don't we sit and chat for a little while. Catch up on old times."
"I have nothing to say to you," Terri spat.
"Well, then, I'll talk, and you listen." He reached into his jacket and started to pull something out.
Terri took a step back. "There are cops all over in this building," she said. "You wouldn't dare." Where was her gun?
Kyle finished pulling out what he was reaching for. He held up a black leather wallet and shook it at her. "Sorry, Marie. No such luck." His dark eyes turned icy. "But, yes. I would dare."
Terri knew he wasn't bluffing and this caused a new fear to pump adrenaline through her system. She was alone and unarmed with a man who was able and willing to kill her. She looked at the door behind him, wondering if she could make it passed him.
"Don't you want to know what's in it?"
"A twenty year old condom?"
Kyle ignored her. "It contains your future."
"That was my next guess," Terri said dryly.
"In this wallet, I have three choices for you. The first is the best and the one that I'd strongly recommend." Kyle opened the wallet and pulled out a plastic key card.
"What is that?" Terri asked.
"This, my dear, is a key to my suite at The Peninsula."
"And why would I want a key to your suite at The Peninsula?" Terri asked, her stomach turning because she could guess at his answer.
Kyle smiled. "Well, I thought we might meet there one night. For old times' sake. Maybe order room service, open a bottle of champagne and-"
"What's my second choice?" Terri cut in. The ideas going through her head were progressively getting worse.
"Number two is a key to a safe deposit box at a bank downtown." Kyle stood and walked a few steps toward her. "And your third choice is the one I'd suggest you don't take."
Terri stood defiantly, trying desperately to keep the fear she was feeling off her face. Where was everyone?
Kyle stood in front of her and eyed her up and down. He reached out his hand and placed it gently on her cheek. "It's nothing. If you don't take either of the first two, then your future will be gone."
He grabbed the back of her neck roughly and pulled her face to within an inch of his. "You broke my heart, Marie. I loved you and would've given you anything you asked for, but you broke my heart instead."
"You asked me to be someone I didn't want to be," Terri said in a whisper. "I didn't like what I was becoming. Why couldn't you just let me go?"
"Because you're mine!" Kyle growled, and Terri felt spit hit her face. "I wasn't willing to let you go then and I'm not willing to let you go now."
Terri reached up and pulled his hand from her neck. "You'd better go, Ky, before someone finds you here."
In an instant, Hyde was replaced by Jeckle. Kyle smiled. "Sure. I just wanted to stop by and make sure that you were all right." He picked up his jacket he'd hung over the back of the chair. "Now, Marie, you have some choices to make. I'll give you until this time Friday, that's three days, before I make the choice for you."
He walked back over to her. "Please, don't make me do that." He stepped closer. "I still love you, Marie. I don't want to hurt you. Don't make me."
Without warning, he leaned in and kissed her. His hands wrapped around her waist, then found their way into the open slit in the back of her hospital gown. His hands wandered. He pulled her body into his.
Terri closed her eyes and let him touch her, painfully aware of the thinness of the gown she was wearing. She knew that if she tried to resist, he would get violent, and she was in no condition to defend herself or take any kind of beating. She felt tears in her eyes and tried to hold them back.
As Kyle finished and pulled away, a single tear rolled down her cheek. "Go, Ky," she whimpered. "Please."
"I do love you." He caressed her cheek one last time before he turned and left the room.
With one hand on her stomach and the other over her mouth, Terri quickly ran into the bathroom and retched over and over again.
