Chapter 58 "Right Or Wrong?"

A/N: (30 June 2017) Wow! Okay, I personally thanked every reviewer, and will do this from now on, because you are all deserving of my time and gratitude, and to know it! I've been wrong not to do this all along! Thank you so much, because I do this for you, and for me, but you people are the best!

I had a terrible time with this chapter, because I was stuck. Creative block, because something was coming through that I didn't want to come through. And then I got a review asking for the information in this chapter, and the words flew! So special thanks to the final reviewer of Chapter 57, who gave me the courage to write this.

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Chapter 58 "Right Or Wrong?"

(Friday, 30 December 2016, 1 a.m.)

Steve stepped out the door, ready to see Hannah's lovely and unclothed back halfway to the water, but what he saw made his eyes bug and his own nudity suddenly not seem like such a good idea. Hannah let out a frightened squeak as the neighbor two houses up picked up her micro-miniature "dog" and clutched it lovingly to her barely-there bosoms. Her bottleglass specs were apparent in the moon and starlight, as was her inability to see well even with them.

Hannah was as tense as a statue of Artemis. She was staring at the dog.

"Steve?" she said, in a thin, wavery voice. "Help?"

Steve of course had his own problems, but he knew the neighbor, and that her vision wasn't picking up on anything anyone else's would have picked up on. But he went into Total Protect mode. He grabbed a towel off the back of one chair, and another off the back of the other, and wrapped Hannah first, and then himself, sidling in front of Hannah so she could adjust her towel as she saw fit. He wrapped his around his waist and turned his voice into sugar syrup, pronouncing every word clearly and slowly to compensate for the woman's known poor hearing.

"Mrs. Benson! How lovely to see you out so late! In my private yard. I see you brought Cupcake with you! Where's Big Boy?" He whispered, soto voce, to Hannah that Mrs. Benson was a neighbor, and Hannah whispered, her own low voice shaky, "I'm s-s-s-scared of tiny d-d-dogs!" She was literally pressed against his back, probably no longer even visible to the neighbor with the bottle glass specs, unless she counted legs, which Steve knew she would not bother to do.

Mrs. Benson, who was tiny, thin, elderly and wearing a knee length floral muumuu in a neon green color visible from outer space (but probably not to her), glanced at him, peering. "Oh, John! Didn't realize you were home! Where's that son of yours? Have you had him checked by the doctor? He should have a growth spurt by now, don't you think?"

Again, soto voce, he explained to Hannah that Mrs. Benson still called him John, after his father, because she thought he was his father, and she thought Danny was him. "Yup, I'm home! My son is, uh, sleeping upstairs! It's awfully late for you, would you like me to walk you and Cupcake home?"

"Ohhhh, what a dear man you are! That would be just lovely."

Steve whispered to Hannah that she could run for the house quite safely, he'd be back in five minutes, and he heard Hannah's light footfalls as she took him up on the haven.

H50 H50 H50 H50

It was almost exactly five minutes later that Steve came in through the back door, and the first thing he noticed was the lack of lace lingerie on his floor, and Hannah fully clothed on his couch, clutching a cup of tea, which was still shaking. He slipped on his briefs, then pants and shirt, and brought out the teapot and refilled her cup and poured himself one too, setting the tray the teapot was on onto the coffee table. "I'm sorry. Mrs. Benson doesn't usually trespass like that. She didn't even see you, and I'm really sorry you got scared like that. It is a very small dog."

"When I was very small, so I shouldn't even remember it, but oh I do," began Hannah, burrowing against Steve's side, "I was attacked by this micro dog who had puppies, which I thought were plush toys they were so small, and the momma dog went berserk, and I had to have three surgeries to fix the scars from that. You can only faintly see them now." She showed Steve the faint marks on her upper arm, which truly were barely visible if one didn't know to look for them. "Perk of having a father who knows amazing surgeons."

Steve switched to Hannah's other side so he could pull her closer to him with his left arm. "I know childhood fears are the hardest ones to get past."

"I've really tried, but itty bitty dogs just … they are my spiders or snakes. Which, oddly, I am not afraid of. I'm so sorry I ruined the night!"

"Oh heavens, you didn't!" He was rubbing Hannah's arm, soothing her as best he could.

"I was going to grab the towel anyway, since I figured you passed the test and were keeping your word to Dad, but there was Mrs. Benson and … Cupcake? … and the little creature unnerved me into trembling statue-ization. Why did she call you John?"

"John was my dad's name, my middle name, and she has some Alzheimer's, and doesn't remember that my dad died, and since she can't see worth beans and had a crush on my dad even when my mom was still around, which was a bit of a neighborhood scandal, uh, anyway, she calls me John. The hysterical part is that she thinks Danny is my son and calls him Steve! Drives him nuts, but he's so polite with her, you'd never know it when she does it, until afterwards, and then he has this funny little fit, since she's such a fragile old lady, and he only does it in the house so she can't see it."

Hannah had stopped trembling. "Oh, that's so sweet! Weird of her, but sweet of Danny!"

Steve smiled, and nodded, and turned to kiss her disheveled golden hair. "It really is sweet! You haven't seen him all fuses blown, which can be not sweet, but around Mrs. Benson, he seems to even feel guilty about the indoor fits at being called Steve."

"Does someone take care of her?"

"Yes," Steve answered. "She has twin sons, fraternal but they might as well be identical, they come so close to it, and they run a car detailing shop not too far away, and have an apartment somewhere in town, but they are at their mom's a lot."

Hannah turned then after a brief silence, and looked Steve shyly in the eyes and abruptly changed the subject. "See, I think we should respect your promise to my dad, and I know I made it hard for you tonight, but most guys would not even try to keep their word. I had to see just how much it took to push you, because I won't marry a man who won't keep his word about difficult things, and you kept yours, except for the end part there, where I didn't keep mine either. So, you passed the test, and I can marry you with a fully happy and confident heart. Stiff, we are soulmates. We broke at exactly the same moment."

Steve relaxed, and felt Hannah relaxing into him, and he was happy. "I love you," he whispered, and she purred. The silence wasn't broken until he asked, teasingly, "What else are you phobic about?"

She giggled. "Weird dolls and clowns."

"What is a weird doll?"

"Those old kinds with the strange eyes that they use in horror movies." She burrowed again. "Ewww!"

"And clowns?"

"And clowns."

Steve kissed her hair again and promised they would have a weird-doll-free home, with no clowns.

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H50 H50 H50 H50

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(Friday, 30 December 2016, 7:30 a.m.)

Hannah had returned to the apartment she shared with Becca, leaving Steve to fall asleep on the couch in his living room. He felt happy, and lighthearted when he woke to the sound of someone rapping on his front door. It was early, so he hoped it was Hannah, returning, although why she would knock was rattling around in his mind. He had given her a spare key.

He was even more surprised that it was Sgt. Duke Lukela, in slightly rumpled uniform, than he was that it wasn't Hannah. Duke looked uneasy.

Steve's radar well on full alert. "Come in! What's up?"

Duke stopped just inside the door, and then made sure it was closed behind him. He turned to Steve, and took a huge breath, let it out, then pulled in another of normal size. Steve waited, knowing whatever Duke had come to tell him was not going to be good. And he knew, too, that it involved Danny.

"Steve," Duke finally began, having trouble meeting his eyes. "We got into Stan's office late yesterday, and gave it the full. Safe, desk, everything including the plants."

"And you found something?"

"I found something. And I had a bad feeling about it, so I kept it secret until I could see what exactly it was. And last night I got a look at it."

Steve nodded, and could feel the color draining out of him, because he had never seen Duke like this, so unsure, unable to meet his eyes.

The sergeant finally blew out another heavy breath while looking up at the ceiling as he pulled a clear evidence bag from his back pants pocket. Steve saw immediately that it was a phone.

He never knew how he knew what was on that phone, but Steve knew why Duke was acting so uncharacteristically upset and unsure. Steve took the bag handed him and was glad the phone was unable to touch him through the clear bag.

"Where exactly did you find this?"

"Taped to the back of his main desk drawer. Big koa wood thing. I had to get under it and shine the flashlight to see if anything was there, and I saw it, and I got a bad feeling."

Steve nodded. "So you bagged it and didn't tell anyone?"

"That's right. If …." His voice trailed off and he cleared his throat. "I been a cop for a long time, and I never hid evidence before. Not even once. But I can't put this on the record."

"You can't? Or you won't?" asked Steve.

"Both," replied Duke, swallowing, pale as a man getting over a bad stomach virus. "I can't do this to Danny, not when he's just starting to put his life back together. Stan is dead. But with this he can still hurt Danny."

And there was Steve's worry over what was on this phone, confirmed.

"Steve. Don't watch it. Destroy it. I brought it to you so you could be the one to take a hammer to this. Don't watch it."

"Okay, Duke."

Duke nodded once, hesitated, and then turned and let himself out, pulling the door closed softly behind him.

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H50 H50 H50 H50

Steve was holding the evidence bag by one corner. He felt like he was holding a snake by the tail, and it was trying to bite him if it could. This phone was toxic.

His heart was racing. Duke had told him to destroy it, not to look at it. Take a hammer to it. Because it would hurt Danny.

Steve went up to his bathroom, leaving the phone in the baggie on the back of the commode. He used his good hand to splash cold water on his face.

And then he grabbed the baggie, opened it, and, his hand shaking, turned the phone on.

Stan's whisper came to his ears, and he could see by the picture that he was in Danny's house. And he was waiting in a room up the stairs, and Danny was talking to Steve! He could just make out the audio Stan was listening to. It was Danny telling Steve he thought he was still in love with Rachel.

It was the night Stan had drugged them. And Stan was breathing and whispering curse words at Danny, briefly elated when he and Danny drank the drugged water.

Steve listened to Danny and himself succumb to the drug, and the video showed an elated, furious Stan coming down the stairs, watching the two of them lay unconscious where they had fallen. Stan said, clearly, "I'll kill you, I'll kill you! But not before this."

He grabbed Danny by the belt and hauled him up onto the couch, because he had slid to the floor, while Steve was in the chair, eyes closed, arms slack. Stan grabbed him and positioned him as if he were looking at the couch, and kept whispering, "You watch, man. You watch me hurt your boy."

And then Stan pulled off Danny's pants, and did the unthinkable. And Steve threw up, watching and listening, and when Stan swung the phone's camera over to Steve again, he threw up and kept retching until he barely had the strength to smash the phone against the floor, splintering the screen. He smashed it again and again, so it could never be fixed. He killed it. He killed it he killed it he killed it, and then he cleaned up the broken pieces, and threw them in the trash, and took out the trash, and stumbled up the stairs to the bathroom again, where he took a shower.

Shaking.

And then he was sliding down the wall of the shower, water streaming over him, and he cried until the water turned cool and then cold, and still he sobbed. He knew he and Duke were both wishing they could un-see what they had seen. And heard. But they couldn't.

Duke would never tell anyone. Steve was as certain of that as he was that he never would, either. Danny would never know.

Danny would never know.