Pantheon - Chapter Seventeen (05/29/2007)
And the pairings continue to be Amy/Lucy and Max/Dominique. ^_^
Title: Pantheon
Author: That'd be me. *grins* Andrew, Obsidian, call me what you want. But only if it's nice. ;)
Rating: R, or MA, whichever you understand better. ^_^
Comments: Obviously, this is an AU, but it'll be a bit more alternate then most, as this fic's Amy has something of a hidden past, which is in the process of shaking quite a number of worlds as it surfaces. And if you thought there was angst in my last fic... *evil chuckle*
Never fear, Lucy-fans! Our much-beloved Miss Diamond will be returning soon! :)
Legal Disclaimer: I do not own 'D.E.B.S.' That belongs to the fabulously talented Angela Robinson. 'The Pretender' was created by Steven Long Mitchell and Craig W. Van Sickle. (No idea who owns it now, as I don't think it's TNT anymore...)
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Chapter Seventeen
"...really not sure yet which one. I mean, I did only just get here."
Regina Roorback looked up as the voice drifted into hearing range. It wasn't so much that the conversation sounded especially interesting, really, as much as it was that she was so bored that anything was a welcome distraction. It was a rather slow night, which was certainly not a bad thing, but when the only things to do are paperwork or nothing, and the paperwork is fairly well done already...
"Yeah, I think so. I was trained to do just this sort of thing, after all. Yeah... yeah, I know..." An amused snort. "Tell me about it. But you know why... Yeah... Exactly."
It was that new doctor, who'd been brought in to replace that other new doctor when he'd had some kind of family emergency and had to leave. Bradshaw, they'd said her name was. She looked a little young to be a doctor, really, but if O'Neil thought she was good enough, who cared what the desk clerk thought? She'd only been there for longer then any of them, after all. Why should it bother her if everyone was taken in by the latest young, pretty thing?
"I know... It shouldn't be too long... I miss you, too. Oops, I'm there. Gotta go... I love you, too. Talk to you later."
She was practically in front of Regina's desk by then, so she could see how the girl's face changed with that, a radiant smile changing her from pretty to breathtaking. She was in love, all right. She was glowing with it.
And somehow, Regina couldn't bring herself to be annoyed with the young doctor anymore. There was just something about her that could instantly win you over, could charm anyone.
Bradshaw put her phone away, smiled at Regina, and went about her business.
And for some reason, that was just fine.
**********************************************
Janet moved silently through the infirmary - or, at least, as silently as she was able. She knew she was probably a rampaging buffalo compared to Amy, but the kind of training it evidently took to move that quietly she could live without.
She'd managed to catch a nap after getting the errands that Mr. Phipps had assigned her, then hurried to go check on Max and Dom before he could find out she was awake and give her more. She knew it was just because he wanted to keep her too busy to worry about anything, and she could appreciate his intentions, but her brain didn't shut off that easily. The only way she would be able to stop worrying was to see for herself that they were all right.
She'd then likely start worrying about Amy, but not nearly as badly. After all, Amy wasn't in any real danger, was she? The idea that any common criminal could get the better of her when everyone from Lucy Diamond to The Centre to Kali couldn't was laughable.
She spotted a couple of empty beds that she could have sworn had had occupants just a few hours ago, and felt a little cheered. If some of the injured D.E.B.S. were well enough to be released then things were definitely looking up. She was a little confused when she saw that Dom's bed was empty, too, until she turned to look at Max.
Well, that answers the question of where Dom went, she thought, fighting down a giggle despite herself.
For some reason, Dom had joined Max in her bed, and was draped over her protectively. Janet felt a little concerned for a moment, until she saw that Dom had carefully arranged herself so that she wasn't touching anywhere near Max's injury. The French girl looked curiously serene, though it was a little hard to tell, given that her face was all but buried against Max's neck. Max herself had a surprisingly peaceful look on her face.
Janet honestly wasn't sure what to make of it. Sure, she'd known Dom had taken Max for a tumble in bed, but this wasn't typical post-sex Dominique behavior. She never stuck around - or never let her lovers stick around, rather. Not that Max could really go anywhere, since they were on the same team - which had been Janet's biggest worry about the whole thing, what would happen to the team dynamic, not to mention their friendships - but still... Dominique didn't typically initiate such contact. And, as far as Janet knew, she never... cuddled.
There was only one thing she could think of to do.
She rummaged through her pockets until turning up her phone, then aimed it at the bed and snapped two quick pictures. They were then sent to her private email account, just in case.
"You do realize that if Max finds out about that, she'll kill you, right?" a voice asked from behind her.
She turned to find Kathleen sitting at Monica's bedside, blinking at her sleepily. The younger D.E.B. winced as she moved, leading Janet to suspect that she'd been there for a while. "She'll have to get in line," Janet said, attempting a smile. It didn't quite take. Time to change the subject. "How is she?" she asked, nodding towards Monica.
Kathleen looked down at her teammate - whose hand, Janet noted, she still hadn't let go of - and gently brushed a strand of hair away from her face. "Oh, fine. Except for the part where she just won't wake up."
Janet bristled inwardly, but didn't say anything. She could hardly blame Kathleen; she'd probably be reacting the same way if that had happened to one of her team.
"Sorry," Kathleen muttered a moment later, eyes locked on Monica. "It's just... She needs to wake up. There are... things I still need to tell her. Things I should have said ages ago." She looked so lost as she said it that Janet's heart broke.
Having a sneaking suspicion what some of those things might be, she didn't say anything, merely moving over to Kathleen's side and giving her a hug. "You should go get something to eat," she said when Kathleen let her go. "Stretch your legs."
"But-"
"Ah-ah!" She interrupted, holding up a finger. "No arguing. She'd want you to take better care of yourself." She considered making it an order, which she could technically do as a senior, despite not having her stripes yet, but figured that wouldn't be necessary. Besides, that really wasn't her style. "Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on her until you get back. If anything changes, I'll call you right away."
Kathleen wavered indecisively for a few moments, but her stomach really was starting to growl, and she certainly did have a lot of kinks to work out. "All right," she said finally. "But if she so much as twitches-"
"I'll let you know," Janet promised. After a final, lingering look at her comatose best friend, Kathleen moved slowly inbetween the beds and out of the infirmary. Janet sighed and sunk down into the newly vacated chair.
Absently, she wished she'd brought a book, or something.
**********************************************
Two hours into her shift, Amy hadn't really made much in the way of progress. It was a little frustrating, really. Given how light the patient load was at the moment, she knew she wasn't likely to get many better chances. Still, she had finally shaken her babysitter, since she'd been told just where everything was, who everyone was, and briefed on proper hospital policy on just about everything, the 'tour guide' O'Neil had assigned her had left to go do his own job.
And about damn time. She knew this sort of thing took time, but she'd been getting impatient to finally get started on it already.
Except now she had a new patient.
She wasn't really mad, though. She couldn't be. Her patient's six-year-old girl was one of the cutest kids she'd seen in a long time.
"What's that?" she asked, light blue eyes wide and innocent, peeking through blonde bangs.
"It's a bandage I'm going to be putting on your mother's arm once her cut is disinfected," Amy replied readily, not looking away from her work.
"Why?"
"Well, we don't want your mommy getting sick."
"How would she get sick? It's a cut."
"Germs and other nasty things can get into the body through a cut if it's not treated right away," she explained as she began applying the bandage. "That's why your mommy always puts a band-aid on any cuts you get."
"So that's a big band-aid?"
"Pretty much, yeah." She wrapped a bit of gauze around it.
"I'm sorry if she's bothering you," the patient - a Mrs. Nancy Piller - said. "It was just too late to find a sitter, and her father's away on business..."
"Not at all," Amy replied with a smile. "The only way you learn things is by asking questions. Trust me, I've been there."
Though she'd been a bit older. She finished putting on the dressing mostly on autopilot, gave the little girl a final, warm smile, and sat down for a moment, allowing herself to remember what it had been like, knowing that there had been so many things that she just didn't know, didn't understand.
“What is that?” the girl asked curiously. All they'd been able to get out of her was that her name was Amy, bad people were after her, and they'd know immediately if anyone called the police about her. That particular question had been on her lips almost continuously since they had left the house that morning.
It had been three days since they'd found her on the roadside, and this was the first time they'd been able to convince her to actually go somewhere with them. And it had still taken quite a bit of convincing, given that they were going to see a psychiatrist.
“Where?” Michael Bradshaw asked. Amy hadn’t pointed, and he tried to follow the direction that her eyes were looking, but it was an exercise in futility since the girl’s eyes darted back and forth frantically, seemingly trying to take in the entire landscape all at once. Amy had been baffled by many of the things in their house - it had taken almost three solid minutes just to explain the concept of an electric can opener - but he didn’t see that there was much of anything that even someone as inexperienced as she seemed to be would have difficulty comprehending in the middle of the park they were in.
“I think she means that playground.” Diane did point, and Michael felt chagrined that his wife had not only proven herself more observant, but that she’d picked out the one thing in their line of sight that Amy might need explained.
“Play...ground?" Amy repeated slowly. "What plays there?” The devices looked quite curious to her, and she could not readily imagine what they were for.
“Children,” Michael replied. He pointed out the items in turn. “That’s a slide, that’s a teeter-totter, and those are swings.”
Amy looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language, which he supposed that he was in this instance.
Diane smiled. "It would probably be easier to show her then to tell her." It also might just put her in a better mood to go see the psychiatrist, which would be very helpful.
The first day after they'd found Amy had been spent trying to get the girl to talk to them, which they'd been moderately successful at. They'd called Dr. Gold, an old friend of Michael's father, and asked him to come over the next day.
That hadn't gone quite as well. No sooner had he set foot in the house then Amy had disappeared. They hadn't heard any doors opening or closing, and she wasn't in the backyard. None the less, when they checked the house from top to bottom, there had been no sign of her. Dr. Gold had suggested that, if they were able, they should bring Amy in to his office the next day. He'd set aside a good-sized chunk of the day, just in case. They'd thanked him, and he'd left.
They'd headed back into the kitchen and, to their surprise, there was Amy, sitting at the table and eating a bowl of cereal - she'd been utterly fascinated by the box of Corn Pops she'd found; one of the few things she had mentioned about wherever it was she'd come from was that the food there was terrible - and reading a magazine, as if she'd been there the whole time.
They'd gotten the hint, and didn't try to surprise her with anything like that again.
When they'd sat down with her and explained, she hadn't liked the idea, but once she'd understood that it was a necessary step towards her being allowed to stay with them, she'd reluctantly agreed.
So if investigating the playground helped her feel even a little more at ease with the whole thing, then that's what they were going to do.
The slide reminded her far too much of something from one of the obstacle courses they'd been made to run over the years, so she steered clear of it. The "teeter-totter" seemed to be designed to accommodate two people, and she did NOT like the idea of being helplessly up in the air, dependent on someone else to get her down. The swings, though...
They also reminded her of something from her training a little, but she found that could be ignored easily enough, and they were so entrancing that she soon forgot all about it completely.
She couldn't help but wonder if that was what it felt like to fly.
She laughed, and even giggled a few times. But most of all, she smiled. It was so wonderful, and so unlike anything she'd ever experienced before, that she just couldn't help it. And for once, she didn't have to bury the happiness she felt, because there wasn't anyone who would tell her it was bad, anymore. She could be happy, she could be free, and that would be just fine with everyone.
Her smile became radiant, and Michael and Diane were instantly, completely charmed. Looking back later on, Diane would be able to point that out as the exact moment she knew she'd never be able to give Amy up, would walk through fire for the girl if she had to, and would never let whoever it was she was hiding from hurt her ever again.
Amy knew full well she'd gotten very lucky in stumbling across two extremely understanding individuals. She didn't want to think about what might have happened if she'd been found by someone else.
Even with the Bradshaws, things had occasionally been bad enough. There had been questions on their end, too, and her continual nightmares certainly hadn't helped. But they hadn't pushed, perhaps recognizing that doing so would get them nowhere.
She knew she probably should tell them the truth sooner or later, but she just couldn't. At least, not quite yet. She rather liked the idea that there were at least two people out there that thought of her as a normal young woman. Yes, they knew she'd been through some trauma, but not much more then that, and they didn't know about her current job.
Or her current girlfriend.
Actually, they didn't know that she would have even wanted a girlfriend, but only because it had never really come up. She had a feeling that they wouldn't really mind that she was in love with another woman. That the woman in question was Lucy Diamond might not go over well, but she didn't care.
Besides, once they got past the whole "super villain" thing, she knew they'd love her, too.
"Hey, Bradshaw! You still with us?"
She blinked at the sudden voice from off to the side, and refocused on the present. "What?"
Carol Fairbairn was standing there, looking amused. "We wearing you out too quickly? You looked like you were a million miles away."
Amy smiled and stood. "Not quite that far, unfortunately. Just a million years ago."
Carol chuckled, shaking her head. Her short auburn hair didn't move at all. "I know how that goes," she agreed. The woman was practically a stick, and even shorter then Max. "Slow days like this, it's easy to let your mind drift."
"Slow days like this, you can actually get away with it," Amy said, watching her closely without making it look like that was what she was doing.
"I suppose so," Carol said as they began walking down the hall towards the case board near the front desk. "God knows it could be worse."
"Oh?" Amy asked, curious as to where this was leading, and how much work it would take to lead it around to Jenkins' death.
As it turned out, none. "Well, you heard what happened to that poor Mr. Jenkins, right?"
"Wasn't that ruled an accident?" she asked. It wouldn't do to seem too interested, at least not right away.
"Of course it was!" Carol agreed. "But-"
"Except that it wasn't," Regina interrupted as Amy checked the board for a patient that would put her close enough to the surgery area to try and track down some more of her suspects, and get a better look at the crime scene. "Not that kind of accident, anyway. You know full well Jake screwed up and killed that man." It was hard to tell while she was sitting down, but she looked to be even shorter then Carol, though much more rotund. Her curly dirty-blonde hair was cut very short, reminding Amy of some of the elderly women she'd met nine months ago when one of the D.E.B.S. cases took them to a nursing home.
"How can you say that?" Carol asked, sounding shocked. "You know he's one of the best surgeons we've got! He'd never make a mistake like that!"
Amy was pleasantly surprised. If they kept up like this, she wouldn't even have to interrogate them. They'd do it to themselves. "Oh, please," Regina shot back snidely. "Despite what he may have sometimes thought, he was NOT God."
"What IS your problem with him, anyway?"
"I don't like his attitude!" Unnoticed, Amy clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a sudden giggle.
Fortunately, they were too busy glaring daggers at each other. Once she had herself under control, she asked, "A mistake like what?"
Both women started, as if they'd forgotten anyone else was nearby. "The M.E. said he must have accidentally cut an artery without noticing," Regina said reluctantly. "By the time someone noticed that something was wrong, it was too late."
"Who was that?"
"Me," Carol admitted. "But I'm telling you, he didn't do anything wrong. And I've seen patients bleed out before. That isn't what happened here. I don't know what did, but I know that didn't!"
"Yeah, you just keep dreaming that," Regina said dismissively. Amy took that as her cue to pluck a chart from the rack and slip away.
It seemed she was going to have to also find time in her schedule for sneaking a trip down to the morgue.
**********************************************
It was AM - very, very AM - by the time Max woke up again. She was mildly alarmed to find that she couldn't really move, until she saw that the cause of that was the tight embrace Dominique had her in.
Memories of the previous evening came back, and she felt her face warming a little. Whether that was because of what had happened in general, the fact that her body had given in so quickly and easily to Dominique, or that she was being held in such a tender embrace by another girl where just anyone could see them was unknown.
For some reason, she was surprised to find that Dominique had kept her word and stayed. She was also surprised by just how nice this felt. Even so, they couldn't just stay this way. "Dominique," she tried, but her voice was still quiet from sleep. She cleared her throat, wishing for a glass of water.
That did more to wake Dominique then calling her name had, and she murmured something in French, her breath tickling Max's throat, making her squirm a little. Which wasn't to say that it had felt even remotely bad. Quite the opposite, in fact. Her heartbeat picked up a bit, waking her further, and a tingling sensation from much lower agreed that she should awaken fully. She tried her best to ignore that, but it wasn't easy with Dominique stuck to her like a limpet. "Wake up," she said, louder.
Dominique stirred, shifted, and opened her eyes, looking momentarily confused as to where she was. That swiftly cleared, though, and she let her lips ghost briefly across Max's before pulling away. As Max fought down a shiver, Dominique reached over to the table and retrieved a glass of water. "Sip this slowly," she advised.
Max very carefully moved herself into a sitting position - which didn't hurt quite as much as she'd been expecting it to, though it hardly felt good - and did as she was told. The water cooled and soothed her dry and aching throat, and seemed to be the best tasting water she'd ever had. Once she was finished, Dominique set the empty glass back on the table. "Morning," Max said, feeling uncharacteristically lost for words.
"Indeed?" Dom checked her watch. "Ah, so it is. Good morning, then. Are you feeling better then you were last night?"
"Couldn't exactly feel worse," she muttered. "Not in here, anyway. I... Oh, you know what I mean."
"Of course." Though it was interesting to watch Max babble so. She looked at her watch again and sighed. "In a few hours, I will 'ave to check back in with ze Centre," she said quietly.
"From what you said, they don't have any idea who you really are," Max said carefully.
"I do not believe they do, but I find I am... somewhat reluctant to go back, immediately."
"Well, unless you have another idea, you may have to." She didn't sound happy about it.
And suddenly Dominique realized that she did have another idea. "I am supposed to be attempting to find a way to bring Amy back to ze Centre, am I not? But they know force would not work, and that she is too smart to be tricked into going back. So I would have to learn more about her, even gain her confidence."
"Uh-huh..." Max said, sounding confused.
Dominique favored her with a rare smile. "To do that, 'Diabolique' would have to be accepted into her circle of friends. And what better way then by seducing her best friend?"
Max stared at her in disbelief. "...what?"
She fought down a grin. "I believe you heard me correctly."
"I don't see how I could have. I mean, it sounded like you actually wanted to use your assignment as an excuse to screw me silly with everyone knowing what was going on."
"That eez essentially it, yes."
The disbelief in her stare increased by a factor of ten. "Are you nuts? Ms. Petrie will never go for that."
"I believe she would. This eez espionage, after all." She paused as something occurred to her. Amy might well decide to try the same approach in regards to Lucy Diamond, which might go a bit better not only if there was a successful precedent, but also if Dominique suggested it now herself, and said that she thought it was a good idea. She wished to see if Kali was correct, and they truly were in love, and this was the only way she could think of to do so.
The only minor snag was that no one else knew about their mission, and would thus get VERY confused.
She'd have to talk to Amy about it when she got back. The Perfect Score would doubtlessly have an idea or three.
"Do you even know how to date someone?" Max asked bluntly. "Just one person? Consistently?"
"How 'ard can it be?"
"It's not just sex, you know."
"Though there will be much of that."
Max buried another shiver. "Yeah, maybe..."
Dominique chuckled. "No. There will be no maybe about it." She trailed a finger over Max's breast, watching the nipple harden under her hospital gown. "Will there?"
Max gave her a hard stare. "Don't think you can just get me so hot that I'll agree to anything you say."
Dom kissed her, slowly and tenderly. "I do not," she murmured against Max's lips. "I am simply stating a fact."
"Not until I get out of here," Max breathed, none the less surrendering to the kiss.
Ten seconds later, she broke her own rule, slipping a hand down Dominique's skirt. The French girl moaned quietly in surprise and pleasure.
It seemed her plan was evidently succeeding even before it had technically begun.
**********************************************
Amy sat slumped over the table in an otherwise empty breakroom, head resting on her arms. Her shift was finally over, which meant she now had all the time she needed to look around and search for clues.
Which she would do... in a few minutes.
She'd been trained to get by on little sleep, but that sudden upsurge in patients two hours before her shift was done had been a little draining.
She just needed a few minutes rest. Then she'd be fine.
Unfortunately, Gower and Halsey hadn't been working during her shift, so the one thing she'd been able to do before they'd been swamped was stop and see Hoffman.
Lee Hoffman was belligerent and combative, even without being high on anything - though the withdrawal likely wasn't improving his mood much. He hadn't had any idea who Phillip Jenkins was, and couldn't remember threatening him at all. Watching him carefully as he spoke, Amy believed him. And the orderly keeping an eye on him confirmed that he'd been right there since long before Jenkins' surgery until the present.
So she'd made some progress, at least. One suspect down, five to go. Rising from her chair, she shook off her residual weariness and headed purposefully out into the hall.
Since there were now plenty of patients to deal with, the staff was largely distracted, making it easy enough to slip up into O.R. 2. The police hadn't been able to keep it sealed up for very long, since it was a fairly active hospital, but the equipment that had been in use on the day of the murder had been set aside in what looked like a storage closet. After making sure that there wasn't any kind of surveillance set up - there wasn't, a fact which wouldn't help her much, really, in the long run - she picked the lock, slipped inside and turned on the lights. The scalpels, clamps, and other such instruments gleamed, but she knew none of them would be helpful. If it had been a surgical error, the only way she'd know was to examine the body.
She hated doing autopsies, but sometimes there just wasn't any other way.
There was just enough of the sedative used on Jenkins left to take a sample of. There was enough for more then one, really, but she wanted to leave enough for the police. They should have already, but someone from the hospital had likely taken care of that, which didn't really help at all. Too many people would have had the opportunity to screw around with the test, if whoever had done it hadn't botched it on purpose themselves. Someone on the police force must have thought of that, because she couldn't figure out any other reason everything would be sitting in a closet like it was. Taking her sample and locking the door behind her, Amy left the O.R. and headed down to an empty lab.
Ten minutes later, she'd finished running the series of tests she'd thought up and come to one inescapable conclusion.
Carol had been right. Phillip Jenkins hadn't bled out from a severed artery. He'd been poisoned. And she'd have to check something in Jarod's notes, maybe ask a few more questions to be sure, but she thought she knew who'd done it.
Now she just had to figure out why.
**********************************************
Amy slipped the small blue notebook back into the locker she'd been provided - actually Jarod's, which was just fine by her - and sighed. She'd been afraid of that.
Jarod had noted that the gloves Dr. Jake had been intending to wear had torn only moments before he'd gone in to perform the surgery, and he'd had to select a new pair from the general box, rather then use his preferred brand. When Jarod had talked to him, Jake had called it a bad omen.
Amy called it great luck, since it was probably all that had saved his life.
Dr. Jake's box of gloves would still be in the trash bag up in the closet, she knew, and she might have to go up there to confirm her hypothesis later, but for now she was operating - so to speak - under the impression that someone had actually been attempting to kill Willis, with Phillip merely being collateral damage. The thought sickened her, but it made sense. And since nothing else had happened since, the killer was evidently satisfied with Dr. Jake being removed from the hospital and discredited. Jarod had noted that he wasn't even speaking to any of his colleagues anymore.
Which had told her who the killer had been. Or, more accurately, killers.
Whatever Regina's problem with Willis Jake was, it seemed to be personal. Just having him suspended wouldn't be good enough for her. Not to mention there really hadn't been any chance for her to get all the way up to the O.R. without being seen. Lee Hoffman had already been cleared. Carol had been the one to hook up the sedative IV, true, but there wouldn't have been any way she could have prepared something like that on the spur of the moment, and someone would have noticed if she'd tried to screw around with it. Also, Amy didn't think Carol was capable of something like that. And she knew from murderers. Mike Halsey was the obvious choice, except that he'd been in as much danger as Dr. Jake. Besides, if there was one thing she'd learned over the years, it was that it was rarely ever the "obvious" choice. Halsey might have been jealous of Jake, but he was still a good doctor, and would never sacrifice a patient just to try and kill his rival. And most of all, he may not have been suspended, but his surgical privileges had been severely reduced for the time being.
Which left her with only one possibility: Dennis Gower.
Gower had had ample opportunity to both lace the sedative with poison and poke tiny pinprick holes in Dr. Jake's gloves. With both Jake and Halsey removed from the surgical schedule, he was being allowed to perform more and more surgeries, providing the motive.
The only problem was means. The poison used to kill Phillip Jenkins had to have come from the hospital dispensary, which Gower did not have access to. Or he shouldn't have, anyway. Someone would have had to provide him with clearance, and erase any mention of his visit from the hospital records. And there was only one person in the hospital who could do both of those things.
Doctor Elliot "one 'L'" O'Neil.
This seemed a bit extreme for just the possibility of someone learning of his gambling habit, though. Unless Jake had been planning on blackmailing him... But Jarod hadn't said anything about that, and it still didn't track. Given that the attempt to kill him had failed, Jake would be demanding even more money now.
Unless... Unless Jake had been getting too close to something else. Something that he wasn't likely to find out now that he was banished from the hospital. She slipped quietly out of the locker room and snuck up to hospital records.
What the hell was she supposed to be looking for, anyway? Something to do with O'Neil, obviously, but that didn't exactly narrow it down. Sitting down at a computer terminal, she quickly hacked into the records and searched for any files regarding Doctor O'Neil. And wow, was that ever a lot of files. Okay, O'Neil and death. Smaller, but still alarmingly high.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. What was that? O'Neil, Laura, Mrs.? A few moments of typing and she was looking at the death certificate for one Laura O'Neil. It seemed she'd been killed by blunt force trauma to the head two years ago, and had been pronounced by Dr. Elliot O'Neil, her husband and beneficiary. A copy had been forwarded to State Farm Insurance in order to claim her one hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy.
Hello, new motive.
Unfortunately, she had a lot of circumstantial evidence and guesswork, but nothing that would really stand up in court. Not yet, anyway. She'd have to place a couple calls to the local authorities to get them in on this and show them what she had, then, she decided, she'd take a page from Jarod's playbook, and do this his way.
It promised to be a lot of fun.
**********************************************
Elliot O'Neil looked up at the knock on his office door. "Come in," he called, not exactly heartbroken about having to interrupt his work on the budget. Though in a way, even that was strangely enjoyable. Overcoming the very real threat of losing his position, he knew - or worse. But he hadn't, and Jake was gone, before he'd discovered more then a hint that something wasn't quite right. Shame about Jenkins, but if there was one thing an administrator quickly learned about, it was acceptable losses.
The new temp doctor, the Bradshaw woman, slipped inside with a smile, shutting the door behind her. She was definitely a better choice that Jenner character. She was much less inquisitive for one, not to mention much nicer to look at. "Do you have a minute, Doctor O'Neil?"
"Certainly, Doctor Bradshaw. What can I do for you?" He took a sip of his coffee, then set it down.
She sat down in the guest chair. "Well, I'm a little worried about Carol," she began, fidgeting nervously. "This whole thing with Doctor Jake seems to be getting to her."
He sighed. This wasn't really unexpected, but that didn't mean it wasn't unwelcome. "I'm not surprised. They used to be involved, until he broke it off. It seems she still carries a torch for him."
Bradshaw nodded. "I kind of guessed it was something like that, but, well... She's getting a bit obsessed. Last time I saw her, she muttered something about a life insurance policy and a murder. Couldn't really figure out what she was talking about."
O'Neil felt his heart momentarily stop. No, she couldn't... she couldn't know about that! Doing his best to conceal his reaction, he put on a thoughtful frown. "That does sound worrying. I'd best go have a chat with her." He rose from behind his desk and headed for his office door.
Bradshaw's voice stopped him. "Oh, Dr. O'Neil?" He turned to see she'd gotten up as well and was holding out his mug. "Your coffee?"
He managed to summon up a genuine smile. "Thank you, Dr. Bradshaw." He all but gulped the rest of it down, frowning a little at the somehow off taste but not overly caring. He needed the caffeine just then.
"Oh, don't mention it," she said, though her voice was starting to sound far away. "I think Carol went home a while ago, though. I'm only still here because I had some work to catch up on."
Yes, it was a bit late - or rather, early - in the day for her to be there, wasn't it? He hadn't even thought of that. You must be getting old, Elliot, he told himself, idly rubbing his chest as he thought. A burning sensation... He shrugged it off. "I'll have to talk to her tonight, then. In the meantime, you should really go home and get some sleep," he said, voice starting to shake. Perhaps he'd also drunk that too fast, because he was starting to sweat, and the burning sensation was getting worse. His coffee mug fell from his grasp to the carpeted floor with a dull thud, miraculously not breaking.
"Are you all right, Doctor?" Bradshaw asked, her concerned voice seeming to come from miles away. The burning turned into pain. He clutched his chest. The office began to blur around him, and he lost his balance. The last thing he heard before he blacked out was her saying, "Don't worry, I'll get some help."
**********************************************
Dennis Gower had been having a pretty good day. He'd only been there for a couple of hours, but had already been asked to assist with two surgeries. True, they were ordinary, small-time operations, but they were more then most people his age were doing, and you had to start somewhere.
So when he'd gotten a call from Dr. Bradshaw telling him to meet her in O.R. 2 he'd all but run there. Despite the... negative memories that room held, he wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to get in some more practice. If things kept up at this rate, his career was golden.
When he got there, she met him with a look of relief. "Thank God. I couldn't find any other surgeons, and this just couldn't wait any longer." She waited patiently while he washed up and put on a pair of gloves, then led him into the operating room.
There on the table was Dr. O'Neil.
He paused and frowned. "What is this?"
As if on cue, Dr. O'Neil stirred. "Bradshaw...? What's...?"
"You suffered from a rather severe heart attack, Doctor," she said sympathetically. "We took some X-Rays while you were unconscious, and I'm afraid you're going to need a bypass. But, fortunately for you, I managed to find the best surgeon currently in the hospital to do it."
Gower all but grinned upon realizing that she was talking about him. Even the rather backhanded nature of the compliments she'd more or less given him didn't penetrate. All he could think was two words: Bypass operation. This was the big leagues, and he was going to be the primary surgeon! And on the boss, no less! Sure, if anything went wrong, his career was over, but nothing would happen. He was the best one there!
O'Neil didn't seem to share his confidence. "No!" It was obviously supposed to be a shout, but came out barely louder then a whisper.
"Oh, don't worry, you'll be fine," she said soothingly. "Unless there's something I should know...?" She raised her eyebrows inquisitively at both of them.
"...no," O'Neil said weakly.
"Of course there isn't," Gower said, trying to project confidence. He really had no way of knowing just how useless that was with this audience.
"Good." She began hooking up the sedative IV. "I'm sorry I couldn't set this up sooner, Doctor, but there simply wasn't time."
"Really, it's a good thing you guys keep these pre-hung, or this would have taken even longer," she commented. "They didn't do that at the last hospital I worked in."
Gower froze. "Pre-hung?"
"Yeah. Somebody left it in that closet over there," she said, pointing to the storage area that held the supplies left over from the Jenkins debacle. "Got your gloves from there, too."
He backed frantically away from the table. "Are you insane?! You can't-" He took a deep breath and tried for calm. "You can't just use medication that's been sitting out. Or gloves that aren't fresh."
"Nonsense. They were fresh right out of the box, and there's nothing wrong with this sedative. Is there?"
O'Neil's mouth was opening and closing like a fish, but he couldn't seem to get out any words. Bradshaw noticed. "What's wrong, Elliot?" she asked innocently. "Don't want to be awake for this?" Her voice turned hard. "At least you know what's happening to you. Phillip Jenkins went to sleep expecting to have his appendix taken out, then never woke up. His wife lost her husband, his children lost their father, and a good doctor lost his job and his reputation. All to cover up your other murder."
"What?" Gower blinked at her, uncertain. What was she talking about?
She rolled her eyes, stalking slowly around the table towards him. Reflexively, he moved to the side, trying to keep the table - and O'Neil - between them. "Why did you think he wanted Willis Jake dead?"
"Nobody was supposed to die!" he protested. At her blatantly skeptical look, he added, "It's true! All that was supposed to happen was that the patient would start to go south, and I'd be able to jump in and save the day." He winced. It sounded so pathetic when phrased that way, but he couldn't think of a better one, and she wasn't giving him time to try.
"Oh, please. You're supposed to be a doctor! You're here to save lives, to help people! Not for your own glory! And you should have looked up just what you were giving your patient. If you had, you would have found that it was fatal. To both him and anyone who came into contact with his blood. But you did know about that part, didn't you?" She shot a look at his gloved hands.
He winced. "It just would have knocked him out for a while," he protested weakly.
"No. Doctor O'Neil's plan was to use Mr. Jenkins to kill Doctor Jake. Someone was always supposed to die. Two someones, in fact. It was just bad luck his plan missed Doctor Jake, but it did get him out of the hospital, which was good enough." She smiled down at the wide-eyed O'Neil, and it wasn't a nice smile. "It wouldn't do for anyone to discover you'd murdered your wife, too, now would it?" His eyes somehow widened further, and he shook his head in mute denial.
"He what?!"
She looked up at him, that same smile still on her face. "Well, you see, our good Doctor O'Neil here has something of a gambling problem. A bad one. Two years ago he was in deep, deep debt. And not only did he owe some loan sharks some serious money, but if anyone at the hospital found out, he'd lose his job. And then how would he gamble? So he decided to collect on his wife's insurance policy. One hundred thousand would keep him solvent for quite a while. Only problem was, she needed to be dead for that to work. But he wasn't going to let something like that stop him. So he killed her, paid off the bookies, and no one was the wiser.
"Until now. Something Doctor Jake did or said convinced Doctor O'Neil that he was getting too close to uncovering what he'd done. So Jake simply had to go. And if a husband and father got caught in the crossfire, well, such is life."
O'Neil looked white as a sheet, and closed his eyes. In sadness, shame, or something else, Gower didn't know, but he did know that it was a fairly compelling admission of guilt. "Well... You're gonna help me save him, right?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Why would I do that?"
"Well... he should go to jail, shouldn't he?"
Her mouth quirked. "You both should. But this'll save the penal system some time."
"I can't do this by myself!"
"But I thought that was your whole philosophy," she said with mock-surprise. "That you're better then everyone else, and don't need anyone's help."
"I was wrong. Please!"
She was heading for the door, but paused to give him a vaguely mischievous look. "Gosh, I'd love to help, but... I'm not really a doctor."
**********************************************
Amy slipped out of the operating room fighting down a smile, and was met there a plainclothed detective and a couple of uniformed officers. "When are you going to tell him that the IV is just filled with colored water?" the detective asked, admirably straight-faced.
"Oh, give them a few more minutes," she said with a grin. "This ought to make the surgical staff here happy."
"Oh, not just them," Carol said, enveloping her in a tight hug - at least, as much as someone so thin could. "Thank you. I'm sure if Willis was here, he'd say the same."
Amy hugged her back. "Jarod did most of the work. All I did was finish it. And I wish I could stay to talk to Willis, and the Jenkins family, but unfortunately, I need to go."
A few minutes later, after she'd disentangled herself from Carol and chatted a bit further with the police, as well as given them the D.E.B.S. phone number in case of any legal problems, she found a secluded spot to signal for a beam out.
Two murders solved, and two killers behind bars. Not a bad way to start the day.
________________________________________________________________________
I know, I know! Still no Lucy. But she will be in the next chapter, I promise!
Next time - Amy confides to Lucy why she chose the art school in Barcelona, Jarod and Mr. Phipps have a talk, and Max and Dominique continue dancing around each other.
Title: Pantheon
Author: That'd be me. *grins* Andrew, Obsidian, call me what you want. But only if it's nice. ;)
Rating: R, or MA, whichever you understand better. ^_^
Comments: Obviously, this is an AU, but it'll be a bit more alternate then most, as this fic's Amy has something of a hidden past, which is in the process of shaking quite a number of worlds as it surfaces. And if you thought there was angst in my last fic... *evil chuckle*
Never fear, Lucy-fans! Our much-beloved Miss Diamond will be returning soon! :)
Legal Disclaimer: I do not own 'D.E.B.S.' That belongs to the fabulously talented Angela Robinson. 'The Pretender' was created by Steven Long Mitchell and Craig W. Van Sickle. (No idea who owns it now, as I don't think it's TNT anymore...)
________________________________________________________________________
Chapter Seventeen
"...really not sure yet which one. I mean, I did only just get here."
Regina Roorback looked up as the voice drifted into hearing range. It wasn't so much that the conversation sounded especially interesting, really, as much as it was that she was so bored that anything was a welcome distraction. It was a rather slow night, which was certainly not a bad thing, but when the only things to do are paperwork or nothing, and the paperwork is fairly well done already...
"Yeah, I think so. I was trained to do just this sort of thing, after all. Yeah... yeah, I know..." An amused snort. "Tell me about it. But you know why... Yeah... Exactly."
It was that new doctor, who'd been brought in to replace that other new doctor when he'd had some kind of family emergency and had to leave. Bradshaw, they'd said her name was. She looked a little young to be a doctor, really, but if O'Neil thought she was good enough, who cared what the desk clerk thought? She'd only been there for longer then any of them, after all. Why should it bother her if everyone was taken in by the latest young, pretty thing?
"I know... It shouldn't be too long... I miss you, too. Oops, I'm there. Gotta go... I love you, too. Talk to you later."
She was practically in front of Regina's desk by then, so she could see how the girl's face changed with that, a radiant smile changing her from pretty to breathtaking. She was in love, all right. She was glowing with it.
And somehow, Regina couldn't bring herself to be annoyed with the young doctor anymore. There was just something about her that could instantly win you over, could charm anyone.
Bradshaw put her phone away, smiled at Regina, and went about her business.
And for some reason, that was just fine.
**********************************************
Janet moved silently through the infirmary - or, at least, as silently as she was able. She knew she was probably a rampaging buffalo compared to Amy, but the kind of training it evidently took to move that quietly she could live without.
She'd managed to catch a nap after getting the errands that Mr. Phipps had assigned her, then hurried to go check on Max and Dom before he could find out she was awake and give her more. She knew it was just because he wanted to keep her too busy to worry about anything, and she could appreciate his intentions, but her brain didn't shut off that easily. The only way she would be able to stop worrying was to see for herself that they were all right.
She'd then likely start worrying about Amy, but not nearly as badly. After all, Amy wasn't in any real danger, was she? The idea that any common criminal could get the better of her when everyone from Lucy Diamond to The Centre to Kali couldn't was laughable.
She spotted a couple of empty beds that she could have sworn had had occupants just a few hours ago, and felt a little cheered. If some of the injured D.E.B.S. were well enough to be released then things were definitely looking up. She was a little confused when she saw that Dom's bed was empty, too, until she turned to look at Max.
Well, that answers the question of where Dom went, she thought, fighting down a giggle despite herself.
For some reason, Dom had joined Max in her bed, and was draped over her protectively. Janet felt a little concerned for a moment, until she saw that Dom had carefully arranged herself so that she wasn't touching anywhere near Max's injury. The French girl looked curiously serene, though it was a little hard to tell, given that her face was all but buried against Max's neck. Max herself had a surprisingly peaceful look on her face.
Janet honestly wasn't sure what to make of it. Sure, she'd known Dom had taken Max for a tumble in bed, but this wasn't typical post-sex Dominique behavior. She never stuck around - or never let her lovers stick around, rather. Not that Max could really go anywhere, since they were on the same team - which had been Janet's biggest worry about the whole thing, what would happen to the team dynamic, not to mention their friendships - but still... Dominique didn't typically initiate such contact. And, as far as Janet knew, she never... cuddled.
There was only one thing she could think of to do.
She rummaged through her pockets until turning up her phone, then aimed it at the bed and snapped two quick pictures. They were then sent to her private email account, just in case.
"You do realize that if Max finds out about that, she'll kill you, right?" a voice asked from behind her.
She turned to find Kathleen sitting at Monica's bedside, blinking at her sleepily. The younger D.E.B. winced as she moved, leading Janet to suspect that she'd been there for a while. "She'll have to get in line," Janet said, attempting a smile. It didn't quite take. Time to change the subject. "How is she?" she asked, nodding towards Monica.
Kathleen looked down at her teammate - whose hand, Janet noted, she still hadn't let go of - and gently brushed a strand of hair away from her face. "Oh, fine. Except for the part where she just won't wake up."
Janet bristled inwardly, but didn't say anything. She could hardly blame Kathleen; she'd probably be reacting the same way if that had happened to one of her team.
"Sorry," Kathleen muttered a moment later, eyes locked on Monica. "It's just... She needs to wake up. There are... things I still need to tell her. Things I should have said ages ago." She looked so lost as she said it that Janet's heart broke.
Having a sneaking suspicion what some of those things might be, she didn't say anything, merely moving over to Kathleen's side and giving her a hug. "You should go get something to eat," she said when Kathleen let her go. "Stretch your legs."
"But-"
"Ah-ah!" She interrupted, holding up a finger. "No arguing. She'd want you to take better care of yourself." She considered making it an order, which she could technically do as a senior, despite not having her stripes yet, but figured that wouldn't be necessary. Besides, that really wasn't her style. "Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on her until you get back. If anything changes, I'll call you right away."
Kathleen wavered indecisively for a few moments, but her stomach really was starting to growl, and she certainly did have a lot of kinks to work out. "All right," she said finally. "But if she so much as twitches-"
"I'll let you know," Janet promised. After a final, lingering look at her comatose best friend, Kathleen moved slowly inbetween the beds and out of the infirmary. Janet sighed and sunk down into the newly vacated chair.
Absently, she wished she'd brought a book, or something.
**********************************************
Two hours into her shift, Amy hadn't really made much in the way of progress. It was a little frustrating, really. Given how light the patient load was at the moment, she knew she wasn't likely to get many better chances. Still, she had finally shaken her babysitter, since she'd been told just where everything was, who everyone was, and briefed on proper hospital policy on just about everything, the 'tour guide' O'Neil had assigned her had left to go do his own job.
And about damn time. She knew this sort of thing took time, but she'd been getting impatient to finally get started on it already.
Except now she had a new patient.
She wasn't really mad, though. She couldn't be. Her patient's six-year-old girl was one of the cutest kids she'd seen in a long time.
"What's that?" she asked, light blue eyes wide and innocent, peeking through blonde bangs.
"It's a bandage I'm going to be putting on your mother's arm once her cut is disinfected," Amy replied readily, not looking away from her work.
"Why?"
"Well, we don't want your mommy getting sick."
"How would she get sick? It's a cut."
"Germs and other nasty things can get into the body through a cut if it's not treated right away," she explained as she began applying the bandage. "That's why your mommy always puts a band-aid on any cuts you get."
"So that's a big band-aid?"
"Pretty much, yeah." She wrapped a bit of gauze around it.
"I'm sorry if she's bothering you," the patient - a Mrs. Nancy Piller - said. "It was just too late to find a sitter, and her father's away on business..."
"Not at all," Amy replied with a smile. "The only way you learn things is by asking questions. Trust me, I've been there."
Though she'd been a bit older. She finished putting on the dressing mostly on autopilot, gave the little girl a final, warm smile, and sat down for a moment, allowing herself to remember what it had been like, knowing that there had been so many things that she just didn't know, didn't understand.
“What is that?” the girl asked curiously. All they'd been able to get out of her was that her name was Amy, bad people were after her, and they'd know immediately if anyone called the police about her. That particular question had been on her lips almost continuously since they had left the house that morning.
It had been three days since they'd found her on the roadside, and this was the first time they'd been able to convince her to actually go somewhere with them. And it had still taken quite a bit of convincing, given that they were going to see a psychiatrist.
“Where?” Michael Bradshaw asked. Amy hadn’t pointed, and he tried to follow the direction that her eyes were looking, but it was an exercise in futility since the girl’s eyes darted back and forth frantically, seemingly trying to take in the entire landscape all at once. Amy had been baffled by many of the things in their house - it had taken almost three solid minutes just to explain the concept of an electric can opener - but he didn’t see that there was much of anything that even someone as inexperienced as she seemed to be would have difficulty comprehending in the middle of the park they were in.
“I think she means that playground.” Diane did point, and Michael felt chagrined that his wife had not only proven herself more observant, but that she’d picked out the one thing in their line of sight that Amy might need explained.
“Play...ground?" Amy repeated slowly. "What plays there?” The devices looked quite curious to her, and she could not readily imagine what they were for.
“Children,” Michael replied. He pointed out the items in turn. “That’s a slide, that’s a teeter-totter, and those are swings.”
Amy looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language, which he supposed that he was in this instance.
Diane smiled. "It would probably be easier to show her then to tell her." It also might just put her in a better mood to go see the psychiatrist, which would be very helpful.
The first day after they'd found Amy had been spent trying to get the girl to talk to them, which they'd been moderately successful at. They'd called Dr. Gold, an old friend of Michael's father, and asked him to come over the next day.
That hadn't gone quite as well. No sooner had he set foot in the house then Amy had disappeared. They hadn't heard any doors opening or closing, and she wasn't in the backyard. None the less, when they checked the house from top to bottom, there had been no sign of her. Dr. Gold had suggested that, if they were able, they should bring Amy in to his office the next day. He'd set aside a good-sized chunk of the day, just in case. They'd thanked him, and he'd left.
They'd headed back into the kitchen and, to their surprise, there was Amy, sitting at the table and eating a bowl of cereal - she'd been utterly fascinated by the box of Corn Pops she'd found; one of the few things she had mentioned about wherever it was she'd come from was that the food there was terrible - and reading a magazine, as if she'd been there the whole time.
They'd gotten the hint, and didn't try to surprise her with anything like that again.
When they'd sat down with her and explained, she hadn't liked the idea, but once she'd understood that it was a necessary step towards her being allowed to stay with them, she'd reluctantly agreed.
So if investigating the playground helped her feel even a little more at ease with the whole thing, then that's what they were going to do.
The slide reminded her far too much of something from one of the obstacle courses they'd been made to run over the years, so she steered clear of it. The "teeter-totter" seemed to be designed to accommodate two people, and she did NOT like the idea of being helplessly up in the air, dependent on someone else to get her down. The swings, though...
They also reminded her of something from her training a little, but she found that could be ignored easily enough, and they were so entrancing that she soon forgot all about it completely.
She couldn't help but wonder if that was what it felt like to fly.
She laughed, and even giggled a few times. But most of all, she smiled. It was so wonderful, and so unlike anything she'd ever experienced before, that she just couldn't help it. And for once, she didn't have to bury the happiness she felt, because there wasn't anyone who would tell her it was bad, anymore. She could be happy, she could be free, and that would be just fine with everyone.
Her smile became radiant, and Michael and Diane were instantly, completely charmed. Looking back later on, Diane would be able to point that out as the exact moment she knew she'd never be able to give Amy up, would walk through fire for the girl if she had to, and would never let whoever it was she was hiding from hurt her ever again.
Amy knew full well she'd gotten very lucky in stumbling across two extremely understanding individuals. She didn't want to think about what might have happened if she'd been found by someone else.
Even with the Bradshaws, things had occasionally been bad enough. There had been questions on their end, too, and her continual nightmares certainly hadn't helped. But they hadn't pushed, perhaps recognizing that doing so would get them nowhere.
She knew she probably should tell them the truth sooner or later, but she just couldn't. At least, not quite yet. She rather liked the idea that there were at least two people out there that thought of her as a normal young woman. Yes, they knew she'd been through some trauma, but not much more then that, and they didn't know about her current job.
Or her current girlfriend.
Actually, they didn't know that she would have even wanted a girlfriend, but only because it had never really come up. She had a feeling that they wouldn't really mind that she was in love with another woman. That the woman in question was Lucy Diamond might not go over well, but she didn't care.
Besides, once they got past the whole "super villain" thing, she knew they'd love her, too.
"Hey, Bradshaw! You still with us?"
She blinked at the sudden voice from off to the side, and refocused on the present. "What?"
Carol Fairbairn was standing there, looking amused. "We wearing you out too quickly? You looked like you were a million miles away."
Amy smiled and stood. "Not quite that far, unfortunately. Just a million years ago."
Carol chuckled, shaking her head. Her short auburn hair didn't move at all. "I know how that goes," she agreed. The woman was practically a stick, and even shorter then Max. "Slow days like this, it's easy to let your mind drift."
"Slow days like this, you can actually get away with it," Amy said, watching her closely without making it look like that was what she was doing.
"I suppose so," Carol said as they began walking down the hall towards the case board near the front desk. "God knows it could be worse."
"Oh?" Amy asked, curious as to where this was leading, and how much work it would take to lead it around to Jenkins' death.
As it turned out, none. "Well, you heard what happened to that poor Mr. Jenkins, right?"
"Wasn't that ruled an accident?" she asked. It wouldn't do to seem too interested, at least not right away.
"Of course it was!" Carol agreed. "But-"
"Except that it wasn't," Regina interrupted as Amy checked the board for a patient that would put her close enough to the surgery area to try and track down some more of her suspects, and get a better look at the crime scene. "Not that kind of accident, anyway. You know full well Jake screwed up and killed that man." It was hard to tell while she was sitting down, but she looked to be even shorter then Carol, though much more rotund. Her curly dirty-blonde hair was cut very short, reminding Amy of some of the elderly women she'd met nine months ago when one of the D.E.B.S. cases took them to a nursing home.
"How can you say that?" Carol asked, sounding shocked. "You know he's one of the best surgeons we've got! He'd never make a mistake like that!"
Amy was pleasantly surprised. If they kept up like this, she wouldn't even have to interrogate them. They'd do it to themselves. "Oh, please," Regina shot back snidely. "Despite what he may have sometimes thought, he was NOT God."
"What IS your problem with him, anyway?"
"I don't like his attitude!" Unnoticed, Amy clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a sudden giggle.
Fortunately, they were too busy glaring daggers at each other. Once she had herself under control, she asked, "A mistake like what?"
Both women started, as if they'd forgotten anyone else was nearby. "The M.E. said he must have accidentally cut an artery without noticing," Regina said reluctantly. "By the time someone noticed that something was wrong, it was too late."
"Who was that?"
"Me," Carol admitted. "But I'm telling you, he didn't do anything wrong. And I've seen patients bleed out before. That isn't what happened here. I don't know what did, but I know that didn't!"
"Yeah, you just keep dreaming that," Regina said dismissively. Amy took that as her cue to pluck a chart from the rack and slip away.
It seemed she was going to have to also find time in her schedule for sneaking a trip down to the morgue.
**********************************************
It was AM - very, very AM - by the time Max woke up again. She was mildly alarmed to find that she couldn't really move, until she saw that the cause of that was the tight embrace Dominique had her in.
Memories of the previous evening came back, and she felt her face warming a little. Whether that was because of what had happened in general, the fact that her body had given in so quickly and easily to Dominique, or that she was being held in such a tender embrace by another girl where just anyone could see them was unknown.
For some reason, she was surprised to find that Dominique had kept her word and stayed. She was also surprised by just how nice this felt. Even so, they couldn't just stay this way. "Dominique," she tried, but her voice was still quiet from sleep. She cleared her throat, wishing for a glass of water.
That did more to wake Dominique then calling her name had, and she murmured something in French, her breath tickling Max's throat, making her squirm a little. Which wasn't to say that it had felt even remotely bad. Quite the opposite, in fact. Her heartbeat picked up a bit, waking her further, and a tingling sensation from much lower agreed that she should awaken fully. She tried her best to ignore that, but it wasn't easy with Dominique stuck to her like a limpet. "Wake up," she said, louder.
Dominique stirred, shifted, and opened her eyes, looking momentarily confused as to where she was. That swiftly cleared, though, and she let her lips ghost briefly across Max's before pulling away. As Max fought down a shiver, Dominique reached over to the table and retrieved a glass of water. "Sip this slowly," she advised.
Max very carefully moved herself into a sitting position - which didn't hurt quite as much as she'd been expecting it to, though it hardly felt good - and did as she was told. The water cooled and soothed her dry and aching throat, and seemed to be the best tasting water she'd ever had. Once she was finished, Dominique set the empty glass back on the table. "Morning," Max said, feeling uncharacteristically lost for words.
"Indeed?" Dom checked her watch. "Ah, so it is. Good morning, then. Are you feeling better then you were last night?"
"Couldn't exactly feel worse," she muttered. "Not in here, anyway. I... Oh, you know what I mean."
"Of course." Though it was interesting to watch Max babble so. She looked at her watch again and sighed. "In a few hours, I will 'ave to check back in with ze Centre," she said quietly.
"From what you said, they don't have any idea who you really are," Max said carefully.
"I do not believe they do, but I find I am... somewhat reluctant to go back, immediately."
"Well, unless you have another idea, you may have to." She didn't sound happy about it.
And suddenly Dominique realized that she did have another idea. "I am supposed to be attempting to find a way to bring Amy back to ze Centre, am I not? But they know force would not work, and that she is too smart to be tricked into going back. So I would have to learn more about her, even gain her confidence."
"Uh-huh..." Max said, sounding confused.
Dominique favored her with a rare smile. "To do that, 'Diabolique' would have to be accepted into her circle of friends. And what better way then by seducing her best friend?"
Max stared at her in disbelief. "...what?"
She fought down a grin. "I believe you heard me correctly."
"I don't see how I could have. I mean, it sounded like you actually wanted to use your assignment as an excuse to screw me silly with everyone knowing what was going on."
"That eez essentially it, yes."
The disbelief in her stare increased by a factor of ten. "Are you nuts? Ms. Petrie will never go for that."
"I believe she would. This eez espionage, after all." She paused as something occurred to her. Amy might well decide to try the same approach in regards to Lucy Diamond, which might go a bit better not only if there was a successful precedent, but also if Dominique suggested it now herself, and said that she thought it was a good idea. She wished to see if Kali was correct, and they truly were in love, and this was the only way she could think of to do so.
The only minor snag was that no one else knew about their mission, and would thus get VERY confused.
She'd have to talk to Amy about it when she got back. The Perfect Score would doubtlessly have an idea or three.
"Do you even know how to date someone?" Max asked bluntly. "Just one person? Consistently?"
"How 'ard can it be?"
"It's not just sex, you know."
"Though there will be much of that."
Max buried another shiver. "Yeah, maybe..."
Dominique chuckled. "No. There will be no maybe about it." She trailed a finger over Max's breast, watching the nipple harden under her hospital gown. "Will there?"
Max gave her a hard stare. "Don't think you can just get me so hot that I'll agree to anything you say."
Dom kissed her, slowly and tenderly. "I do not," she murmured against Max's lips. "I am simply stating a fact."
"Not until I get out of here," Max breathed, none the less surrendering to the kiss.
Ten seconds later, she broke her own rule, slipping a hand down Dominique's skirt. The French girl moaned quietly in surprise and pleasure.
It seemed her plan was evidently succeeding even before it had technically begun.
**********************************************
Amy sat slumped over the table in an otherwise empty breakroom, head resting on her arms. Her shift was finally over, which meant she now had all the time she needed to look around and search for clues.
Which she would do... in a few minutes.
She'd been trained to get by on little sleep, but that sudden upsurge in patients two hours before her shift was done had been a little draining.
She just needed a few minutes rest. Then she'd be fine.
Unfortunately, Gower and Halsey hadn't been working during her shift, so the one thing she'd been able to do before they'd been swamped was stop and see Hoffman.
Lee Hoffman was belligerent and combative, even without being high on anything - though the withdrawal likely wasn't improving his mood much. He hadn't had any idea who Phillip Jenkins was, and couldn't remember threatening him at all. Watching him carefully as he spoke, Amy believed him. And the orderly keeping an eye on him confirmed that he'd been right there since long before Jenkins' surgery until the present.
So she'd made some progress, at least. One suspect down, five to go. Rising from her chair, she shook off her residual weariness and headed purposefully out into the hall.
Since there were now plenty of patients to deal with, the staff was largely distracted, making it easy enough to slip up into O.R. 2. The police hadn't been able to keep it sealed up for very long, since it was a fairly active hospital, but the equipment that had been in use on the day of the murder had been set aside in what looked like a storage closet. After making sure that there wasn't any kind of surveillance set up - there wasn't, a fact which wouldn't help her much, really, in the long run - she picked the lock, slipped inside and turned on the lights. The scalpels, clamps, and other such instruments gleamed, but she knew none of them would be helpful. If it had been a surgical error, the only way she'd know was to examine the body.
She hated doing autopsies, but sometimes there just wasn't any other way.
There was just enough of the sedative used on Jenkins left to take a sample of. There was enough for more then one, really, but she wanted to leave enough for the police. They should have already, but someone from the hospital had likely taken care of that, which didn't really help at all. Too many people would have had the opportunity to screw around with the test, if whoever had done it hadn't botched it on purpose themselves. Someone on the police force must have thought of that, because she couldn't figure out any other reason everything would be sitting in a closet like it was. Taking her sample and locking the door behind her, Amy left the O.R. and headed down to an empty lab.
Ten minutes later, she'd finished running the series of tests she'd thought up and come to one inescapable conclusion.
Carol had been right. Phillip Jenkins hadn't bled out from a severed artery. He'd been poisoned. And she'd have to check something in Jarod's notes, maybe ask a few more questions to be sure, but she thought she knew who'd done it.
Now she just had to figure out why.
**********************************************
Amy slipped the small blue notebook back into the locker she'd been provided - actually Jarod's, which was just fine by her - and sighed. She'd been afraid of that.
Jarod had noted that the gloves Dr. Jake had been intending to wear had torn only moments before he'd gone in to perform the surgery, and he'd had to select a new pair from the general box, rather then use his preferred brand. When Jarod had talked to him, Jake had called it a bad omen.
Amy called it great luck, since it was probably all that had saved his life.
Dr. Jake's box of gloves would still be in the trash bag up in the closet, she knew, and she might have to go up there to confirm her hypothesis later, but for now she was operating - so to speak - under the impression that someone had actually been attempting to kill Willis, with Phillip merely being collateral damage. The thought sickened her, but it made sense. And since nothing else had happened since, the killer was evidently satisfied with Dr. Jake being removed from the hospital and discredited. Jarod had noted that he wasn't even speaking to any of his colleagues anymore.
Which had told her who the killer had been. Or, more accurately, killers.
Whatever Regina's problem with Willis Jake was, it seemed to be personal. Just having him suspended wouldn't be good enough for her. Not to mention there really hadn't been any chance for her to get all the way up to the O.R. without being seen. Lee Hoffman had already been cleared. Carol had been the one to hook up the sedative IV, true, but there wouldn't have been any way she could have prepared something like that on the spur of the moment, and someone would have noticed if she'd tried to screw around with it. Also, Amy didn't think Carol was capable of something like that. And she knew from murderers. Mike Halsey was the obvious choice, except that he'd been in as much danger as Dr. Jake. Besides, if there was one thing she'd learned over the years, it was that it was rarely ever the "obvious" choice. Halsey might have been jealous of Jake, but he was still a good doctor, and would never sacrifice a patient just to try and kill his rival. And most of all, he may not have been suspended, but his surgical privileges had been severely reduced for the time being.
Which left her with only one possibility: Dennis Gower.
Gower had had ample opportunity to both lace the sedative with poison and poke tiny pinprick holes in Dr. Jake's gloves. With both Jake and Halsey removed from the surgical schedule, he was being allowed to perform more and more surgeries, providing the motive.
The only problem was means. The poison used to kill Phillip Jenkins had to have come from the hospital dispensary, which Gower did not have access to. Or he shouldn't have, anyway. Someone would have had to provide him with clearance, and erase any mention of his visit from the hospital records. And there was only one person in the hospital who could do both of those things.
Doctor Elliot "one 'L'" O'Neil.
This seemed a bit extreme for just the possibility of someone learning of his gambling habit, though. Unless Jake had been planning on blackmailing him... But Jarod hadn't said anything about that, and it still didn't track. Given that the attempt to kill him had failed, Jake would be demanding even more money now.
Unless... Unless Jake had been getting too close to something else. Something that he wasn't likely to find out now that he was banished from the hospital. She slipped quietly out of the locker room and snuck up to hospital records.
What the hell was she supposed to be looking for, anyway? Something to do with O'Neil, obviously, but that didn't exactly narrow it down. Sitting down at a computer terminal, she quickly hacked into the records and searched for any files regarding Doctor O'Neil. And wow, was that ever a lot of files. Okay, O'Neil and death. Smaller, but still alarmingly high.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. What was that? O'Neil, Laura, Mrs.? A few moments of typing and she was looking at the death certificate for one Laura O'Neil. It seemed she'd been killed by blunt force trauma to the head two years ago, and had been pronounced by Dr. Elliot O'Neil, her husband and beneficiary. A copy had been forwarded to State Farm Insurance in order to claim her one hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy.
Hello, new motive.
Unfortunately, she had a lot of circumstantial evidence and guesswork, but nothing that would really stand up in court. Not yet, anyway. She'd have to place a couple calls to the local authorities to get them in on this and show them what she had, then, she decided, she'd take a page from Jarod's playbook, and do this his way.
It promised to be a lot of fun.
**********************************************
Elliot O'Neil looked up at the knock on his office door. "Come in," he called, not exactly heartbroken about having to interrupt his work on the budget. Though in a way, even that was strangely enjoyable. Overcoming the very real threat of losing his position, he knew - or worse. But he hadn't, and Jake was gone, before he'd discovered more then a hint that something wasn't quite right. Shame about Jenkins, but if there was one thing an administrator quickly learned about, it was acceptable losses.
The new temp doctor, the Bradshaw woman, slipped inside with a smile, shutting the door behind her. She was definitely a better choice that Jenner character. She was much less inquisitive for one, not to mention much nicer to look at. "Do you have a minute, Doctor O'Neil?"
"Certainly, Doctor Bradshaw. What can I do for you?" He took a sip of his coffee, then set it down.
She sat down in the guest chair. "Well, I'm a little worried about Carol," she began, fidgeting nervously. "This whole thing with Doctor Jake seems to be getting to her."
He sighed. This wasn't really unexpected, but that didn't mean it wasn't unwelcome. "I'm not surprised. They used to be involved, until he broke it off. It seems she still carries a torch for him."
Bradshaw nodded. "I kind of guessed it was something like that, but, well... She's getting a bit obsessed. Last time I saw her, she muttered something about a life insurance policy and a murder. Couldn't really figure out what she was talking about."
O'Neil felt his heart momentarily stop. No, she couldn't... she couldn't know about that! Doing his best to conceal his reaction, he put on a thoughtful frown. "That does sound worrying. I'd best go have a chat with her." He rose from behind his desk and headed for his office door.
Bradshaw's voice stopped him. "Oh, Dr. O'Neil?" He turned to see she'd gotten up as well and was holding out his mug. "Your coffee?"
He managed to summon up a genuine smile. "Thank you, Dr. Bradshaw." He all but gulped the rest of it down, frowning a little at the somehow off taste but not overly caring. He needed the caffeine just then.
"Oh, don't mention it," she said, though her voice was starting to sound far away. "I think Carol went home a while ago, though. I'm only still here because I had some work to catch up on."
Yes, it was a bit late - or rather, early - in the day for her to be there, wasn't it? He hadn't even thought of that. You must be getting old, Elliot, he told himself, idly rubbing his chest as he thought. A burning sensation... He shrugged it off. "I'll have to talk to her tonight, then. In the meantime, you should really go home and get some sleep," he said, voice starting to shake. Perhaps he'd also drunk that too fast, because he was starting to sweat, and the burning sensation was getting worse. His coffee mug fell from his grasp to the carpeted floor with a dull thud, miraculously not breaking.
"Are you all right, Doctor?" Bradshaw asked, her concerned voice seeming to come from miles away. The burning turned into pain. He clutched his chest. The office began to blur around him, and he lost his balance. The last thing he heard before he blacked out was her saying, "Don't worry, I'll get some help."
**********************************************
Dennis Gower had been having a pretty good day. He'd only been there for a couple of hours, but had already been asked to assist with two surgeries. True, they were ordinary, small-time operations, but they were more then most people his age were doing, and you had to start somewhere.
So when he'd gotten a call from Dr. Bradshaw telling him to meet her in O.R. 2 he'd all but run there. Despite the... negative memories that room held, he wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to get in some more practice. If things kept up at this rate, his career was golden.
When he got there, she met him with a look of relief. "Thank God. I couldn't find any other surgeons, and this just couldn't wait any longer." She waited patiently while he washed up and put on a pair of gloves, then led him into the operating room.
There on the table was Dr. O'Neil.
He paused and frowned. "What is this?"
As if on cue, Dr. O'Neil stirred. "Bradshaw...? What's...?"
"You suffered from a rather severe heart attack, Doctor," she said sympathetically. "We took some X-Rays while you were unconscious, and I'm afraid you're going to need a bypass. But, fortunately for you, I managed to find the best surgeon currently in the hospital to do it."
Gower all but grinned upon realizing that she was talking about him. Even the rather backhanded nature of the compliments she'd more or less given him didn't penetrate. All he could think was two words: Bypass operation. This was the big leagues, and he was going to be the primary surgeon! And on the boss, no less! Sure, if anything went wrong, his career was over, but nothing would happen. He was the best one there!
O'Neil didn't seem to share his confidence. "No!" It was obviously supposed to be a shout, but came out barely louder then a whisper.
"Oh, don't worry, you'll be fine," she said soothingly. "Unless there's something I should know...?" She raised her eyebrows inquisitively at both of them.
"...no," O'Neil said weakly.
"Of course there isn't," Gower said, trying to project confidence. He really had no way of knowing just how useless that was with this audience.
"Good." She began hooking up the sedative IV. "I'm sorry I couldn't set this up sooner, Doctor, but there simply wasn't time."
"Really, it's a good thing you guys keep these pre-hung, or this would have taken even longer," she commented. "They didn't do that at the last hospital I worked in."
Gower froze. "Pre-hung?"
"Yeah. Somebody left it in that closet over there," she said, pointing to the storage area that held the supplies left over from the Jenkins debacle. "Got your gloves from there, too."
He backed frantically away from the table. "Are you insane?! You can't-" He took a deep breath and tried for calm. "You can't just use medication that's been sitting out. Or gloves that aren't fresh."
"Nonsense. They were fresh right out of the box, and there's nothing wrong with this sedative. Is there?"
O'Neil's mouth was opening and closing like a fish, but he couldn't seem to get out any words. Bradshaw noticed. "What's wrong, Elliot?" she asked innocently. "Don't want to be awake for this?" Her voice turned hard. "At least you know what's happening to you. Phillip Jenkins went to sleep expecting to have his appendix taken out, then never woke up. His wife lost her husband, his children lost their father, and a good doctor lost his job and his reputation. All to cover up your other murder."
"What?" Gower blinked at her, uncertain. What was she talking about?
She rolled her eyes, stalking slowly around the table towards him. Reflexively, he moved to the side, trying to keep the table - and O'Neil - between them. "Why did you think he wanted Willis Jake dead?"
"Nobody was supposed to die!" he protested. At her blatantly skeptical look, he added, "It's true! All that was supposed to happen was that the patient would start to go south, and I'd be able to jump in and save the day." He winced. It sounded so pathetic when phrased that way, but he couldn't think of a better one, and she wasn't giving him time to try.
"Oh, please. You're supposed to be a doctor! You're here to save lives, to help people! Not for your own glory! And you should have looked up just what you were giving your patient. If you had, you would have found that it was fatal. To both him and anyone who came into contact with his blood. But you did know about that part, didn't you?" She shot a look at his gloved hands.
He winced. "It just would have knocked him out for a while," he protested weakly.
"No. Doctor O'Neil's plan was to use Mr. Jenkins to kill Doctor Jake. Someone was always supposed to die. Two someones, in fact. It was just bad luck his plan missed Doctor Jake, but it did get him out of the hospital, which was good enough." She smiled down at the wide-eyed O'Neil, and it wasn't a nice smile. "It wouldn't do for anyone to discover you'd murdered your wife, too, now would it?" His eyes somehow widened further, and he shook his head in mute denial.
"He what?!"
She looked up at him, that same smile still on her face. "Well, you see, our good Doctor O'Neil here has something of a gambling problem. A bad one. Two years ago he was in deep, deep debt. And not only did he owe some loan sharks some serious money, but if anyone at the hospital found out, he'd lose his job. And then how would he gamble? So he decided to collect on his wife's insurance policy. One hundred thousand would keep him solvent for quite a while. Only problem was, she needed to be dead for that to work. But he wasn't going to let something like that stop him. So he killed her, paid off the bookies, and no one was the wiser.
"Until now. Something Doctor Jake did or said convinced Doctor O'Neil that he was getting too close to uncovering what he'd done. So Jake simply had to go. And if a husband and father got caught in the crossfire, well, such is life."
O'Neil looked white as a sheet, and closed his eyes. In sadness, shame, or something else, Gower didn't know, but he did know that it was a fairly compelling admission of guilt. "Well... You're gonna help me save him, right?"
She raised an eyebrow. "Why would I do that?"
"Well... he should go to jail, shouldn't he?"
Her mouth quirked. "You both should. But this'll save the penal system some time."
"I can't do this by myself!"
"But I thought that was your whole philosophy," she said with mock-surprise. "That you're better then everyone else, and don't need anyone's help."
"I was wrong. Please!"
She was heading for the door, but paused to give him a vaguely mischievous look. "Gosh, I'd love to help, but... I'm not really a doctor."
**********************************************
Amy slipped out of the operating room fighting down a smile, and was met there a plainclothed detective and a couple of uniformed officers. "When are you going to tell him that the IV is just filled with colored water?" the detective asked, admirably straight-faced.
"Oh, give them a few more minutes," she said with a grin. "This ought to make the surgical staff here happy."
"Oh, not just them," Carol said, enveloping her in a tight hug - at least, as much as someone so thin could. "Thank you. I'm sure if Willis was here, he'd say the same."
Amy hugged her back. "Jarod did most of the work. All I did was finish it. And I wish I could stay to talk to Willis, and the Jenkins family, but unfortunately, I need to go."
A few minutes later, after she'd disentangled herself from Carol and chatted a bit further with the police, as well as given them the D.E.B.S. phone number in case of any legal problems, she found a secluded spot to signal for a beam out.
Two murders solved, and two killers behind bars. Not a bad way to start the day.
________________________________________________________________________
I know, I know! Still no Lucy. But she will be in the next chapter, I promise!
Next time - Amy confides to Lucy why she chose the art school in Barcelona, Jarod and Mr. Phipps have a talk, and Max and Dominique continue dancing around each other.