Who: Dani and Billy McShane (NPC) What: Dani's past catches up with her, like it did with Jordan Where: The hospital parking garage first, then an abandoned warehouse on the pier When: Monday evening Rating: Pretty high (violence and death)
Dani's morning started off great. The kids got up and to school and day care without a hitch, her morning coffee had been extra rich. She had a short, easy day ahead of her at work, and she was looking forward to the look on Grey's face when he actually got to see Jordan that night. Maybe it wasn't going to lead to picket fences and suburbs, but it was something she knew her son needed. In a way, she needed it too.
But the morning peace was shattered when she checked the normal news feed on her computer, and caught a very new, but very familiar name. She read the article, feeling the bottom of her stomach drop out; gun shot wounds, stab wounds, coma. Her heart followed her gut's lead when she actually pieced together the time the periodical listed with the texts that'd pulled her out of sleep that night. Pieces of a puzzle she knew, but hadn't seen in years - all of it added together, falling into place like bricks of an imploding building. Five minutes after she'd been elated and happy, Dani was throwing up her breakfast in the kitchen sink.
She spent the rest of the morning and afternoon wringing her intellect dry with exactly what to do. Jordan had been at the hospital since three-something in the morning, but she was still getting texts from his phone all morning - which meant someone else had it. Someone looking for her - and the kids. Someone she'd sent a picture to - just another thought that twisted like sour milk in her stomach. Whoever it was had enough smarts to find Jordan, and he'd been under government protection, under a different name. Dani... was not. She called her lawyer, but on the phone could only go through the same motions she had for the last month - making sure things were in order for the kids if something happened to her. She changed her computer and email passwords.
Then she got a babysitter.
It was six in the evening by the time she got to Jordan's room in the ICU. The sight nearly balled her over. Jordan was there, but somehow the room felt empty and cold. He'd been cleaned up, the white bandage around his head was pristine and gleaming, but it still turned her stomach every time she looked up to see tubes in his nose and mouth. She'd sat there with his hand laced and pressed between her two for at least two hours. An hour to let the acid burn behind her eyes sear away the topical pain until she was numb enough to think. An hour to pray he'd wake up, and another hour to say her goodbyes. Dani left a chunk of her soul in that hospital room, just like she'd left another in Chicago. If it weren't for Grey and Opal, she was certain there would've been nothing left.
But there was - and it had to be protected.
Tennis shoes instead of high heels made little noise on the parking garage cement as she made her way, numbly, back to her car. Every shadow had dangerous potential, every sound behind her pricked at old paranoia. When she got to the newer model sedan, just as she had in her apartment garage that morning, Dani scuffed her jeans, crouched under the side door to make sure there were no extra wires in the undercarriage. A thought tuned in the back of her mind that this would be something she would probably end up doing every single day for the rest of her life.