A/N: Another new chapter! Enjoy!
I Keep On Loving You
Chapter 16
For Sara, each day was unrelenting determination. She ate, went to rehab, ate again, returned to rehab, ate again, and took a shower. At least once, sometimes twice, a day, she had a visitor—Catherine, Nick, Greg, or Jim made a brief but welcomed visit, usually bringing a favorite food. By the time the evening news was on the television, she was exhausted. The privacy provided by her room was her reward for a day's work and when Grissom arrived and closed the door, they were ready for a peaceful interlude which meant one or both fell asleep while the television provided a measure of familiar intimacy.
While Sara had a fairly rigid schedule, Grissom had been surprised at how busy he was every day. He left the rehab facility after helping Sara dress, driving home to take the dogs for a walk, sometimes bringing one or both dogs back to visit with Sara and others in the facility. He puzzled over the information he had on the deaths of men in rehab. And he continued to work on an appeal to Sara's workers comp insurance company—if all went according to plan, she would be discharged from Red Rocks to go home and be an outpatient for the next step of rehab. But he had to meet certain criteria to make the plan workable.
He had talked to Benita several times. After he and Catherine had read the facility's report, and shared it with Nick and Greg, the general consensus was—nothing had happened—or if something had happened, there was no evidence. The administrator had already planned to insist on an autopsy on anyone who died in rehab. So the demise of at least nine men remained a series of perplexing and premature deaths.
It had taken a few days for Sara to know everyone in rehab—the patients, or residents, in rehab were the same ones every day. And as everyone was impaired in some way, the staff worked to make a congenial environment, calling encouragement across the room as an elderly woman finally made it to the end of parallel bars or Sara managed to move, unassisted, from the elevated mat to a chair or the young man completed his first two miles on a treadmill.
Some of the people were stoic, too tough for self-pity and ignoring the plight of anyone else. Others saw miracles in everything that happened—everyone was special—and who gave encouraging words to all. The therapists and techs were cheer leaders for everyone. By her second day, Sara was trying to be one of the encouragers as she battled through the pain of learning to move again.
As she wiped sweat from her face and shoulders, Gracie handed her a bottle of water. Looking up, Sara smiled at her former roommate who stood above her, a bright aluminum walker holding the elderly woman upright.
"Well, look at you!" Sara said, adding congratulations as she accepted the bottle of water.
Gracie smiled, wrinkles lifting her forehead and crinkling her eyes. "I'm going home tomorrow or the next! Got a walker and a cane—so I'll be ambulating on my own two feet from now on."
"That's great, Gracie. Will you be okay at home?"
Nodding rapidly, Gracie whispered, "I'll be fine—I'm worried about you—when will you be able to be up on your feet again? And just because I'm gone, doesn't mean you should drink the water in here!"
Her voice serious, Sara said, "I'm going to be very careful, Gracie. Hopefully, I'll get out of here early next week and then over to the institute where I'll learn to walk again. I'm going to be fine!"
Continuing in a whisper, Gracie said, "I'm still going to worry. All those men dying—don't drink from the water!" She pointed to the water dispenser. "And when the guy comes in, don't take any of those packets from him!"
This was the first Sara had heard about 'packets'; she asked, "What packets?"
"Those little things that flavor water—he's always handing out handfuls—like we can't drink plain water."
"Do you have any of these packets?"
Gracie shook her head, saying, "I'm not taking any of his poison!" She pointed to a coffee pot on a small table. "He leaves some in a box." Seeing Sara's expression, she said, "I'll get you a handful—do you think it's really poison? Could that be killing people?"
Puzzled, Sara answered, "Probably not—it's a common product—but I would like to have a few."
Slowly, Gracie made it across the room using her walker. Attached across the front was a fabric bag and when she reached the table, she rummaged around until she found a small white box and dumped the contents into her bag. She retraced her steps, grinning at Sara as she pushed the walker across the floor.
"We're going to solve this, aren't we? I knew you were smart—I just didn't think about these before now." The elderly woman stuck her hand into the bag and brought out a dozen single-serving packets of name brand flavor enhancers—lemon, lime, raspberry, a variety of teas.
Sara shook her head. "I don't think these have caused anyone to die, Gracie. It's like…" Sara tried to think of a product Gracie would know. "It's like Tang or Kool-Aid." She opened her hands to take packets that kept tumbling out of Gracie's bag. In the last handful, Sara noticed something different—three small packets smaller than her little finger—were different.
Spreading the packets beside her, Sara raked fingers through them separating the packets into little stacks of fruit flavors, teas, vitamin supplements, protein supplements, and the last group of small clear packages containing a white powder. She picked one up and rolled it between her fingers, reading a faded word hand written on it.
Gracie's eyes widened. "Is it drugs? Like cocaine or something like that?"
Sara made a soft laugh, saying, "I don't think it is—my Spanish is rusty but I don't think cafeína means a small restaurant. And I have a friend who can tell us what's in these packets." She gathered all the packets, keeping several, including the ones containing white powder. "Let's put these back—and keep these—can you take these to my room?" Sara smiled, "We'll eat lunch together and I'll call Gil."
"Oh, I'm going to get to help solve this mystery!" Gracie beamed with pleasure. "You think it's something, don't you?" She placed the ones going to Sara's room in the pocket of her pants.
Sara shook her head. "I'm not saying that—so let's keep it between us for now."
Gracie was delighted to be part of Sara's plan; she shuffled across the floor and dumped the packets back into the box. Waving at Sara, she said, "I'm going to tell them to deliver my lunch to your room!"
Sara waved and returned to her rehab exercises working another fifteen minutes before a tech rolled a wheelchair over to the mat.
"Lunch time," he announced as he handed the remote control device to her. "It's fried chicken day."
Sara had heard about the delicious fried chicken. "I'm a vegetarian, Mark."
"You're missing out on something good." The young man adjusted the slide board and waited while Sara moved to the chair. Smiling, he said, "Lots of improvement—you'll be leaving us soon."
"If only I could stand up—use crutches."
"You will."
The young man pushed her to the door and held it open for her. Once she was in the hallway, it was a straightforward roll to the end of the hallway and her room where she found Gracie waiting on the sofa.
"This is a nice room—plenty of space," Gracie said. "I know you are happy to have your husband stay with you."
For several minutes, the two women talked about the amenities of the room and then lunch arrived. After that, they talked about food—what was on their trays, the best places to eat, favorite foods—and Sara forgot to call her husband.
As she stirred her high-calorie milkshake, Sara said, "At first I really liked the taste of these but now, if I never saw another one, I'd be happy."
Laughter bubbled from Gracie as she sipped her milkshake. "I don't think I can taste anything anymore, so I just swallow for the nutritional value. All that exercise in rehab—we need calories. Have you put on any weight? That's a big deal around here."
Sara shook her head, "I haven't—get weighed again tonight and I'm thinking about hiding rocks in my pockets just so it will look like I'm gaining weight." She slurped the milkshake down. "I feel like I'm turning into a dumpling but it doesn't show up as weight gain—just going soft. Oh! The packets—are they in your pocket?"
The older woman dug a hand inside her pants pocket and pulled out the small packets, laying them on the bedside table. Gracie laughed again and reclined against the back of the sofa. "This is comfortable—do you mind if I stay for a few more minutes?"
Sara smiled; she knew Gracie wanted to be there when Grissom saw the packets. "Please do—would you like to watch your show? The remote is there," she pointed to the back of the sofa. "Closing the blinds cuts the glare on the screen, too."
While Gracie closed the room-darkening blinds, turned on the television and searched for her favorite noon time game show, Sara aligned the wheelchair beside the bed, lowered the armrest, attached the slide board, and managed to move herself to the bed. As she settled on the bed, relieved to have her butt out of the wheelchair and a little proud that she had finally been able to move without help, she knew it would be a long time before she had the ability to do simple activities without exhaustion.
The television had erupted with shouts from the game show audience as participants were selected—Sara realized this show had been on since her childhood—and she turned to ask Gracie how long the show had been running.
Gracie held the television remote in her hand, her chin rested on her chest; quietly, Sara laughed. The older woman had fallen asleep in the first minutes of the game show.
Sara struggled to place the pillow wedge under her cast and lay back to relax for a few minutes before returning to rehab. The television provided a noisy-mind-numbing background to the noon-time sounds outside the room. Her limbs felt heavy as she made herself as comfortable as possible and, unexpectedly, she drifted to sleep.
Something—a spasm or muscle contraction jerked Sara from sleep, she thought—that sudden awakening that came from a cramp; she lay there for a minute, confused, because her leg was not cramping. Her mind foggy with sleep, the sound of the television added to her confusion before she remembered Gracie was in her room and they had eaten lunch together.
Suddenly, around the edges of the television noise, she heard something else and a fleeting sense of déjà vu told her this same noise was what had woke her up. It was the sound of a grunt or a throat clearing; quickly she looked in the direction of the sofa thinking Gracie had made the sound in her sleep. But it appeared Gracie had not moved since dropping off.
She heard a sigh, a quiet rustle of fabric against fabric, and realized it came from the other side of her bed. A second passed as she thought the sounds were made by an aide, attempting to be quiet, coming in to pick up the lunch trays, but as she attempted to turn—her leg held by the pillow wedge slowed her progress—the sigh turned into a wheezing grunt.
A hand touched her sock-covered foot.
"Gil?" she whispered. "Gracie came for lunch—I forgot to call you."
Another grunt.
Suddenly, she realized—this was not a familiar sound. The hand on her foot did not belong to her husband. She twisted too quickly causing a flash of pain to light up her brain and close her eyes. Reaching for her beeper or her phone, she realized both had been left on the table where she had eaten lunch. Stretching as much as she could, she tried to find the emergency cord above her bed—with no luck.
She turned again, attempting to face the intruder, only to find her feet tangled in a blanket, her cast heavy, preventing an easy roll. There was a man at the end of the bed. Her eyes focused—a face behind a surgical mask, a man wearing a gray plaid shirt unbuttoned to reveal a white sagging chest. His hand was hidden by an overhanging belly but she knew what he was doing.
His hand started crawling up her leg as he took a shambling step forward.
Sara screamed, flailing at the man with both arms.
In a miasma of confusion, everything happened at once.
An aluminum cane sailed through the air and found its mark against the man's shoulder. He staggered, falling across Sara's bed.
The door opened; Grissom faced a confusing scene of two women shrieking and yelling, bed linens whirling around the bed. The two dogs on leashes immediately started barking; Sally Sue straining at her restraint trying to reach the bed.
Just then, the clash and clatter of dishes, flatware and trays added to the chaotic commotion. Gracie had managed to stand, knocking over dishes as she gained her footing, yelling at the top of her lungs as she did so. She had managed to grab the cane and was hitting the man's backside.
Behind Grissom, nurses and aides suddenly rushed into the room nearly knocking him over in their rush to enter.
There was so much shouting as everyone seemed to surge forward at the same time—trying to wrap his mind around what was happening, Grissom only saw Sara—experiencing a moment of horrified confusion as a scene of slapstick comedy in a poorly written play seemed to unfold before his eyes.
A man, his plaid boxers below his knees, khaki pants at his ankles, his white sagging butt up in the air as legs flailed and thrashed, was being held in a kind of locked-arm choke hold by Sara, using her fractured arm to hold the guy's head between her body and her elbow while she tried to capture his arms. The look on her face was one of gritty determination; her strength of will channeled into a physical power that had rendered the old man useless.
Grissom and one of the nurses pulled the two apart as chaos continued for several more minutes; everyone talked at once. Two aides hustled the old man away.
"I knew he was harmless," Sara kept saying, "but he kept coming—I—I couldn't get away from him!"
The dogs managed to land on the bed. The nurse was running her hands over Sara, asking questions that were not answered.
Grissom managed to hug her; his concern growing as Sara repeated the same sentence again.
Gracie shook off the aide who had arrived and was trying to persuade her to leave the room. "Someone needs to clean up this mess! That old man should be locked up—or at least a ball and chain put on him! He tried the same thing last week in another room!" Gracie's usually cheery manner had turned into the shout of a tough-talking tyrant.
Grissom had managed to get on the bed with Sara, caressing her face, studying her eyes; she was hugging her dog who had become instantly obedient once she had reached Sara. Bexar was tucked between Grissom and Sara, apparently satisfied with the situation that had put him on the bed.
"Are you okay?" He whispered into Sara's ear as he held her close.
Her head tilted up; she asked, "Please, can everyone leave—just for a little while?"
The woman cleaning up the broken and scattered dinnerware raised her eyes, saying, "Thirty seconds and I'm out."
The nurse straightening the covers said, "Are you sure? Are you alright I'll need to ask you some questions later." To no one in particular, she said, "I have to inform the administrator—the physicians—write up a report." She smoothed the blanket over the end of the bed and looked with pleading eyes at Sara.
Sara nodded.
Gracie, still standing with her walker, nodded her head. "You need some peace and quiet." She headed to the door, clearly directing her words to the nurse. "Nothing like an old fool—everybody will claim he has dementia, but he doesn't. He's a nasty old man! Doesn't need to be here—he should still be in jail!" She shuffled toward the door, turning back to Sara. "We'll visit later, dear. I won't go home until we get to talk again." She lifted one hand in a wave—pointing to the bedside table.
The door finally closed. Somehow, during the mêlée, the television had been turned off.
Grissom leaned against the bed's headboard and pulled Sara into his arms. The dogs shifted and settled again, the fracas forgotten for the moment. With gentle fingers, Grissom pushed several locks of hair behind Sara's ear. He kissed the top of her head.
"Are you sure you're okay?" He asked.
"I'm fine, really—just scared ten years off my life!" Smiling, she said, "I don't want to get between Gracie and her cane—did you see her?"
Grissom grimaced, "Who was that guy?"
"I don't know." Sara sighed and then softly laughed. "Why was he wearing a surgical mask? Did he think he was a doctor?"
Hugging her tightly, Grissom said, "I don't think so—I think Gracie is right about him—he's a—a—criminal if he's not a rapist! What did she say about him being in jail?"
"I didn't hear that."
"Well, since the administrator and I are on friendly terms, I'm going to ask. If this guy has been entering rooms uninvited, climbing into bed with women—unlike you and Gracie who can fight him off—he has no place in a care facility."
Sara kissed his cheek; he turned enough to kiss her mouth and asked, "Sure you're okay?"
"Yeah—and I think I know what killed those guys in rehab—I meant to call you about it!" She pulled away, looked at the bedside table and uttered, "Oh, shit—they're gone!"
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