FOREVER MINE (25 page)

We are sitting on a back road, the car is idling, and he is going over what to do again.

“Push the clutch in and slowly let it up, when it grabs, push the gas pedal; slowly.”

“Ok. You have told me a hundred times now.”

“You have stalled ninety-nine times.  If I tell you one more time maybe you’ll listen.”

“I am listening.  I just can’t get my feet to work together.”  I am getting so mad.  I hate that everything Brody does, he does perfect.  I struggle at everything.

“You just need to relax.  You’re doing fine.”

“Yeah, says the guy who’s perfect at everything.”  I look out my window; I don’t want him to see the jealousy in my eyes, or the blush that has crept into my cheeks.

“I am not, and you know it.  Now stop being a baby and drive the car.”

“Baby?”
  I say through my teeth.  I am so mad.  I put the car in gear and drive up the road shifting through the gears effortlessly.  When I’m done I pull over, put it in neutral, and get out.  “Don’t call me a baby.”

Brody is laughing so hard he can’t get out of the car.  I walk over and rip his door open.  “Get out.”  He doubles over holding his stomach.  Tears pour from his eyes.

He holds up his hand.
“H-Hold o-o-n.”
  He gets out of the car and composes himself.  Wiping his eyes and smiling, he says, “You are so funny when you’re mad, and predictable.”  He leans against the open door, putting his arms on the window “I knew if you got angry you would do it.”

I blush fierce red, “Oh crap.  I hate when you do that.”  I smack his arm. Careful not to look at where his shirt has ridden up; showing his spectacular abs, or where his pants hang low on his hips showing his bitable hips bones.  Um, yes please.

“Hey, why do you always hit me?  It really hurts.  You’re tougher than you look.”  He rubs his arm and stands up straight. 
“Ready to go?”

“No.  I want to drive more.”

“Ok, Get back in I won’t tease you anymore.”

We get back into the car and drive around for the rest of the day.  We go to the park and swing for awhile.  When it gets dark we finally head home.  Mom has dinner ready when we get there.  She made Brody’s favorite; baked ziti, salad, fresh bread.  He walks me to the door and is going to leave when he smells the aroma wafting from the kitchen.

“Mrs. J, did you make my favorite dinner?”

“I did sweetheart, come on in and set the table.  It will be ready in 2 minutes.”

“How can I resist?”  He walks in and kisses her cheek and starts to set the table. 

“How did your driving lesson go?”

“Good.  Chuck had a hard time at first, but she got the hang of it pretty quick.  I only had to make her mad once.”

Mom just laughs at us.  She thinks Brody is the funniest person to walk the earth.  I just sigh, knowing I’m in for a long night of teasing.

“Please, don’t call me Chuck.”  I glare at him over the salad bowl.

“Chuck.  Chuck.  Chuck.”  He is grinning like an idiot.

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t, you are secretly in love with me,
you
just don’t know it. 
Yet.”

“Ha.  You think everyone is in love with you.”

“They are.”  He laughs, knowing that his cockiness drives me crazy.  What he doesn’t know is he is right.  I think I do love him and it scares me.  He is a slut.  He doesn’t have girlfriends, he has sex.  That’s it.  No attachments, nothing long term.  I want long term, I want to be attached.  I know he can’t give me what I want so I am not going down that road.  Besides, if it went bad, I would lose my BFF, and that is unacceptable.  We need each other too much.

“I hope you choke.”  I stick my tongue out at him.

“You shouldn’t stick it out if you’re not going to use it.”

“Kids, enough fighting at the table.”

“But mom, he started it.”

“I said enough, I’ll get the spoon and I will finish it.”

“You and that spoon, you know I have never even seen you use it.  All these years, you threaten and threaten.  I think you are all talk, Mrs. J.”

“Uh, Oh.
  I think you should say sorry.  She is going to get you when you least except it.”

My mom just looks at him with a gleam in her eye.  “Sleep with one eye open, Brody Harrison.”  With that she walks away from the table.

“Ok, I’m scared now.  How does she do it, one minute she Betty Crooker, the next she is Mommy Dearest.  It’s freaky.”

We laugh and finish dinner.  Then we wash dishes.  I shower and go to my room, where Brody is waiting his turn.  He showers and comes back in and we lie down for sleep.  I am taking my driving test for the third time tomorrow so I need sleep.  Brody is taking me. 

The next morning I wake up to maniacal laughter.  I crack an eye lid and see Brody cornered by my mom with “the spoon’, she is laughing doing the come on sign with her hands.  I laugh under my breath it serves him right.  He makes a mad dash for the bathroom just as she swats his butt, connecting loudly with his cheek.

“I told you I’d get you!”

“You’re crazy, get that spoon away!”

Mom, fully satisfied with
herself
, gives me a quick kiss on the forehead, “Good luck, today, honey.”

“Thanks mom.”

I wake up and turn my head to the windows.  I miss him so much.  I have to find a way to live through this, even if it means giving Michael what he wants most; me.

Michael sits in his apartment watching everyone scurry around Brody’s house.  They still haven’t found the cameras he placed there on Thursday.  He watches them run background checks on him.  They talk about his parents.  They will never find his aliases.  Shannon O’Rourke is away in prison for a long time.  No one knows he came into his ER for stitches.  If they did no one would put two and two together.  He was a doctor then, he saw a lot of people. 

He watches a lone monitor sitting on another desk on the other side of the room.  Charlie is sleeping, she is tossing and turning.  He sits remembering how it felt to touch her earlier.  He missed her so much more than he thought.  She turns and looks out the window and starts to cry again.

“Oh, Charlie; please don’t cry.”  He touches her face on the screen.  “I don’t think I can kill her.”

Brody is sitting at the table typing away.  He is using the FBI’s search engine to look up back ground on Michael, while he waits for Keller and French to get back.  It allows him to search more thoroughly for information on people.  The government has resources that he could only dream of.  It helps that Fitz, has him logged in as an agent.  He can go in back doors and look for things that he couldn’t find before.

So far all he has found out is Michael took his trust fund and cashed most of it out.  He left 1.2 million dollars in an account that funds the family business and investments.  The original amount was 5 million dollars.  What does someone do with 3.8 million dollars in cash?  He could buy a lot of identities with that much bank.

“Patrick, Agent Fitz, I think I have something.  Michael was 15 when his parents died.  He received his trust fund after and only after he graduated from college.  If he chose to not go to school the account would have been rolled over to any children he would’ve had, with the same stipulations.  No college, no money.

So he graduates from college, goes to medical school, starts his internship, and receives 5 million dollars.  He never tells anyone.  Then six months later, he cashes out and quits his job.  He never told Charlie he stopped working at the hospital.  What was he doing during that time?  The spring after he quit his job is when he attacks Charlie at their home, after a neighborhood barbeque.  He would have been out of work for months at that point.”

“Double check Shannon O’Rourke’s medical records see how close the time line runs to his visit.”

“It says here that O’Rourke came in on a Saturday morning, 2am, on October 23, 2010.  That is five months after he gets his trust fund.  He cashes out in November, and in May; after Charlie has a warrant out for his arrest, he goes ghost.  Just disappears.” 

“Well, we need to find out what he was doing during the last three years.”

The computer makes a beeping noise.  Brody opens a new tab and checks an e-mail he sent out to the M.E. assigned to Emily Lawrence’s case out west.  The M.E says that the drug found in Emily’s system when they did a toxicology screen was called Haldol.  It is
very
regulated by the FDA and very hard to get a hold of.  Hospital’s use it to calm down patients that come in and are very agitated or aggressive.  If the doctor feels that the patient will harm themselves or the staff they are given a shot to put them to sleep.  The M.E. sent a copy of the report to them and to the detective who caught the case in California. 

Brody sends everyone in the room a copy of the e-mail and toxicology report to their tablets.  Agent Fitzpatrick picks up his phone and dials; he immediately starts to give directions to someone on the other end.  “I want you to check all the other cases we suspect are involved here; I want to know if a drug was used and what kind.  I want to know who has the clearance to get this drug, and I want to know who has bought it in the last three years.”  He hangs up and smiles at everyone. “This could be just what we need to break this thing wide open!”

“We are getting some Chinese for dinner, Brody you in?”  Tom Wilkinson asks.  He is another agent.  He is tall and skinny and as black as I am white; 45 year old divorcee, with twin girls; Eve and Eva.  He is funny and always hungry.

“No, Tom I’m good.  Thanks though.”