Background
A fight for survival, a struggle for faith
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End of previous chapter:
Katie's voice sounded pouty and cross. She looked up at the ceiling, to Michael and then back to Abby. "If He would do that my daddy wouldn't have got hurt."
"Because He wouldn't be loving us then." Abby thought about this a lot. With all of the death and injury she saw in her profession, all the trauma to body and soul, she had dealt with this question before. "If He made us with no ability to decide for ourselves who we' want to be and what we do, then we would be like a bunch of little dolls." She reached across the narrow aisle and took Katie's doll from a chair beside the girl. "What's her name?"
"Moira."
"I know you love Moira, but does she love you back? Really love you?"
Katie hesitated and looked at the doll. "No..." she admitted. "And," she looked at Abby and lowered her voice to a whisper, "I don't really love her the way I do Daddy and Grandma and Michael."
Abby nodded. "And that's why God has to give us choices."
She handed the doll back to Katie's waiting arms. The girl held onto her hand for a second and nodded. Abby hoped she'd expressed herself in a way the little one would understand. She didn't have much experience with kids. She smiled and nodded back.
"Okay,." She stood. "I'm off to find your grandmother. I just wanted her to join me for a cup of coffee."
"Hey." Michael stopped her at the door. "Thank you. You helped ... Katie."
The memory was fresh and pleasant and, as she pushed into room 318, a shaft of light from the room cut into the dimly lit hallway. Abby felt brief surprise. With all the FBI presence on the floor, a patrolman no longer guarded the room, and Laura had failed to mention that any of the McClellan family had stayed over. "Jack?" she stage-whispered as she entered the room. He was nowhere in sight.
"Hey, Doc." Cody put a paper and pencil on the bedside table. He looked tired, his eyes hollow, his face still haggard. "You expected someone else?"
"Yes, Mr. McClellan. When I saw the light, I expected to find your brother here for the night."
"With that 'Jack' and 'Mr. McClellan' thing you have going on, you're making me feel more like Jack's father than his brother." Cody smiled again, and Abby noticed the dimples. "It's Cody," he told her. "Jack and Lane's anniversary was tonight. She basically told him that they either had a special dinner tonight or a special divorce tomorrow."
"Dinner sounds like the better choice." She glanced at his chart. "If you're in pain, I could get you something. It's been quite a while since your last dose of medication." She knew his answer before he gave it. He tended to refuse pain medication until he had no choice, agreeing only when his face paled and his hands shook. She'd explained the concept of 'pain management' to him, but he didn't seem to get it.
"No." He hesitated, glanced at the paper and back at her. "I just couldn't sleep. I decided to get something done instead of lay and count the ceiling tiles again. I wrote a couple of thank you notes for flowers and finished a letter to my grandma."
"Your grandma?"
"Yeah," Cody smiled. "Evie Curry Mcclellan. She's 90, and she'll probably outlive us all. 'Lane told me she's called every day to check up on me. She won't call me directly, of course, because she's decided I need to rest as much as I can. So she bugs Laine to death instead. Today she threatened to come down here and set all you doctors straight. I figured, since you saved my life a couple of times now,
I'd return the favor."
Abby laughed. "She's pretty tough, huh?"
"She's pretty tough," Cody confirmed. "Her sister's husband died a couple of months ago, and she moved up to Tennessee to take care of her. The fact that Aunt Min is twelve years younger than her didn't seem to cross her mind."
"She sounds wonderful."
"She is."
"Wonderful enough for you to get up at 4:00 in the morning to write a letter?"
Cody looked away from her, to the dark window. He bit his lower lip, looked back at her and attempted a weak smile. "I'm having nightmares like a little kid." He ran his hand over his tired eyes and pushed his bangs out of his face. "I mean, I know that they don't mean anything, but I wake up ... terrified." He stopped, deciding whether he wanted the doctor to hear anymore. He took a shaky breath. "In the dream they're in my house. After my kids."
Abby looked into Cody's eyes. She felt a strange uneasiness about his nightmare. The Lehmann she met would think nothing of going after children to exact revenge. She'd heard enough whispered conversation among the special agents guarding the halls to know that. She remembered Katie's intense stare and Michael's weary smile as she stood to leave them after their visit the day before. She pushed the thoughts away, still striving for some degree of detached professionalism. "I think, after everything that's happened, it would be unusual for you to not be having nightmares," she said. "I know that may not help any, but ... I could refer you to someone to talk to if you'd like."
Cody forced the corners of his lips into a smile and looked down at his hands. "Cap'n suggested that, too."
"Captain?"
Cody nodded. "Cap'n Hunter. He was my boss on the force."
"I think it would be a good idea. For you and Jack both. And maybe even for the rest of the family."
Cody nodded. "I'll see to it in the morning." He shook his head slightly and corrected himself. "Later in the morning."
Abby moved toward the bed, glancing at the paper Cody had lain aside as she entered. It was a sketch of a man. The sketch looked a lot like the one who had tried to kill him two weeks ago. "This is the nightmare?"
Cody nodded. "Yeah ... You got that right," he said quietly. "I'm pretty sure this is the one that clubbed me in the woods. I don't know if the feds need a sketch, now that they have a name, but I thought it may help."
"I'm sure it will." She studied the pencil sketch. It was as good as any she'd seen anywhere. "You're very talented. This is excellent ." she studied the picture, staring into the eyes of the man in the sketch and felt goose bumps on her arms and neck. Those eyes contained a darkness, even on paper, that felt evil.
Cody smiled slightly at the compliment. "Here." He pushed the sketch of Lehmann away, pulling other drawings from beneath it.
Abby examined the pages, spending time on each picture. Most were drawings of his family. The first, one of Jack slumbering in the chair next to the hospital bed, made her chuckle. She'd seen him in this position nearly as often as Cody had. The next was a picture of Rachel. But not the Rachel she had met to this point. Not a concerned, tired woman nursing an injured son through a lengthy hospital stay, but a laughing, vibrant woman, pitching a Frisbee to a collie pup.
"That's Mollie the Collie," Cody told her, pointing to the dog. "I have a German Shepherd the kids named Herman the German. I always feel kind of sorry for our dogs because of the names they end up getting stuck with. Michael has a twisted sense of humor."
Abby laughed and nodded. She continued to study the drawings; one of each of the children, a sketch of a woman she didn't recognize, a relative, she assumed, because she looked a lot like Katie, only much older. Another picture of his children, this time bent over a checker board. Michael smiled at Katie's victorious hoot. Abby could almost hear the sound. The last sketch was of a beach, the foreground primarily filled with shells and the footprints of a young couple walking away, arms linked around each others waists. Each drawing caught the character of the people in it. Katie's innocent smile reached up to her from the paper. Micheal's eyes, dark and warm, seemed a bit stand-offish, even in the sketch. Even the picture of the sleeping Jack caught his strength and calm.
She returned Cody's gaze, deciding to give up on distancing herself, if that were even still possible. She'd spent too many hours already with the family. She had invested too much of her energy in this case for it to remain just a case. "You want to grab a cup of coffee and see if we can find an old movie on TV?" she asked, impulse turning into words before she had a chance to think.
Cody raised his eyebrows. "Shouldn't you be going home? I'm told that even trauma doctors have to sleep."
Abby shook her head. "No. By the time I get home it'll be close to time to be back up here. When I have to come up this time of the morning I almost always stay. I read or watch some TV." She grinned. "Anyway, haven't you heard? We trauma docs are closely related to vampires. See?" She bared imaginary fangs.
Cody didn't respond to her joke, although his eyes returned her smile. "Are your babysitting rates the same as your doctor rates?"
Abby flicked her dark hair behind her shoulder and reached for the nurse call button. "More," she said. "Laura, could you bring a couple of cups of coffee to Mr. McClellan's room, please?"
"I certainly can," came her friend's reply, followed by a peal of laughter.
Abby flushed and Cody grinned.
"What was that all about?" he asked.
"I have absolutely no idea." Abby picked up the remote and flipped on the TV. She glanced sideways at Cody and smiled.
