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What Dreams are Made Of

Part 5

An Emergency Story by

Dee
 

Links to Parts 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7.

 

 

 

  Johnny swiftly parked his vehicle in the lot behind the station.  As usual, he was the last one to arrive but this time he was not late.  When he spotted Roy’s car, he grinned as his partner managed to make it on time considering how late the time was when they got home last night.  Both Joanne and Bree had given in on letting them go to an exhibition game under one condition…they got to go with.

 

Johnny’s aunt stayed for the whole week after Johnny’s birthday, stating that she wanted to spend time with her great-niece.  When the subject of the game came up, Bree talked Rosemary into spending a little extra time with Sierra so she and Jo could join the guys at the game.

Whistling a happy little tune, Johnny entered the engine bay of Station 51.  He could hear Marco and Chet having a heated discussion in the dayroom about last night’s game.  Shaking his head with laughter, he walked into the locker room to see what his partner was up to.

“Morning, Junior.  So what’s up with the happy whistling?” Roy asked when he glanced up to his partner entering.

“Just a happy day, Roy,” replied Johnny as he hung up his clothes and began to change into his uniform.  “It’s Friday and I have a feeling it’s gonna be a great day.”

“Keep thinking that,” stated Roy as he shut the locker door and leaned against it. 

“Got any plans for the long weekend?”

“Thinking of taking the girls camping in the San Gabriel National Park if Bree doesn’t talk my aunt into staying for the weekend,” said Johnny.  “Or we might have to just hibernate at the ranch and have a quiet time to ourselves.  What about you and the family?”

“Just working on that ‘Honey-Do’ list on the fridge,” sighed Roy when he thought about the projects needing to be worked on at home.

Johnny chuckled at the expression on Roy’s face when he mentioned Joanne’s honey-do list.  According to his partner, it was a never ending list.  With just a few minutes to spare, the pair left the locker room to join their coworkers in the engine bay of the station for roll call.

As the guys lined up for inspection, Captain Stanley noticed that they were all in good spirits and hoped that this would continue throughout the day.  Once roll had been taken, he handed out their duties for the day and talked about possibly practicing some drills in the afternoon should time allow.

Roy and Johnny did their morning check of the equipment on the squad before attending to the duties assigned to them.  When they called Rampart to do a calibration check on the defibrillator, they could hear Dixie giggling in the background, wondering what had the ER head nurse in such a good mood.  Shaking his head, Johnny signed off and put the equipment away.

Entering the dorm to take care of the beds, Johnny could hear Chet muttering to himself in the locker/shower room.  Chet still was on latrine duty as punishment for powder bombing the captain and Mike instead of Johnny.  He couldn’t help but chuckle at some of the things Chet was commenting on under his breath in the locker room.

“What did you say, Cap?” asked Johnny as he tried not to giggle.  “I’m sure Chet didn’t say what you think you heard.”

Chet’s head popped around the edge of the lockers that were closest to the bathrooms, looking totally worried as he scanned the room for their captain.  When all he saw was Gage, he threw the wet sponge at him.

“Damn you, Gage!” shouted Chet.  “You trying to give me a heart attack?”

“Well, Kelly, you should have heard yourself,” chortled Johnny as he picked up the sponge that landed by his feet.  “If the Cap had walked in, you would probably be assigned latrine duty for the duration of your service here.”

The two kept up their verbal sparring as they continued on with their assigned duties.  Mike, who had just finished up in the engine bay, shook his head at the ongoing barrage of insults coming from the dorms and locker room.  He entered the dayroom where Roy had also just finished cleaning and could see Johnny’s partner laughing as he was also hearing the insults all the way into the dayroom.

“Do you think they will ever outgrow the insults?” asked Mike as he sat down at the table.

“Highly doubt it,” replied Roy. 

“If that ever does happen, we all better be worried,”Marco chuckled in reply from the stove where he was whipping up a batch of chili for lunch.  He couldn’t agree more with Roy’s assumption that if Johnny and Chet ever quit tormenting each other, it could only mean the world had come to an end.  He grabbed a plate of assorted breads his mother had given him to bring to work, setting it down on the table in front of Mike and Roy.

“Grab what you like before those two make it in here or there will be nothing left,” he said.

“What kinds did your mom send this time, Marco?” asked Mike.

“There’s banana bread, pumpkin bread, sweet almond bread,” he replied.  “She said she added a couple of new ones in there but I can’t remember what she said they were.”

Both Mike and Roy snagged their favorites when they heard the twits still arguing as they walked across the engine bay.  Marco had held back a couple of the captain’s favorites for him as he knew he was on the phone with the chief.

Spotting the goodies on the table, Chet elbowed Johnny to the side and practically dove towards the table.  Mike pushed his chair back out of the way to avoid getting tackled by the stocky Irishman.  He shot Chet a dirty look for acting like an overgrown kid when it came to homemade breads by Marco’s mom.  Being tall enough, Johnny reached over Chet’s head and snatched up two slices of pumpkin bread whisking them quickly out of reach.

“Could you two be anymore childish?” asked Captain Stanley as he watched their antics from the doorway.  “You think you never got fed around here.”

“Buf if…” started Johnny trying to talk around the slice he stuffed in his mouth.

“Drop it, Gage, especially when you have a mouthful,” stated Hank as he approached the table.

Hank sat down and thanked Marco for the plate that was placed in front of him.  He eyeballed the ‘twits’, motioning with the tilt of his head for them to sit down.  Chet and Johnny both sat down without saying another word.  Roy pushed the milk carton towards Johnny, knowing his partner preferred that to coffee with his snacks.

“Don’t forget to tell your mother just how much we really appreciate these treats she keeps sending us,” he said as he bit into a slice of sweet almond bread.  The guys around the table nodded their heads in agreement.

*******************

As the guys were being admonished for their childish behavior, Bree was spending her last day at Rampart feeling torn as she found she was going to miss working there more than she thought.  She always felt the call to sing and perform but in the short time she had worked in the lab at the hospital, she found she also enjoyed the camaraderie of the people she spent time with.

Today, Jack had kept her in the lab, saying that she needed to finish up some of the research she was close to completing.   She figured that maybe something was in the works for her last day but then chalked it up to wishful thinking as she knew she hadn’t been here long enough for that type of a goodbye.  Putting the final touch on the research she had been working on, she shut the binder and put it on Jack’s desk.

She was officially done at noon.   She was surprised that no one had stuck around to say goodbye, but then she chuckled inwardly as lunch breaks usually were interrupted and given a chance you took one when it was quiet.  Entering the employee locker room, it amazed her how much stuff she managed to accumulate in her locker even after six months on the job.  Girl, you are a pack rat, she thought to herself as she shut the locker for the last time.

Jack was waiting for her in the hallway when she came out of the locker room.

“Didn’t you go for lunch yet?” she asked her former supervisor.

“Not yet.  I thought I would walk with you upstairs so it didn’t seem so lonely,” he replied.  “As you have already figured out, most of your coworkers took advantage of the slow day and ran for lunch.”

“You’re right on that,” stated Bree smiling.  “I don’t blame them either.  I would have done the same.”

The pair joked about some of the sillier things that had happened during Bree’s short stay at Rampart.  Jack always knew that she would go back to her roots and that working in the lab was just a stopover for the young singer.  When Mandy had approached him about an applicant for the research assistant position, he was intrigued by the honesty that Mandy showed him.  She admitted that her cousin didn’t have a lot of experience working in a lab and had only a semester of classes completed.  He was still willing to give the girl a chance and she didn’t disappoint him.

Of course, the poor girl had to go through the whole interview process in person with Dr. Brackett being one of the interviewers.  A lot of the applicants never made it past the perfectionist doctor and in fact most would admit afterwards that the man terrified them, but not so with Bree.  She walked right into his office, answered every question truthfully and if she didn’t know the answer, admitted it.

Jack held the door open to allow Bree into the ER first.  He spotted Dixie by the nurses’ station and nodded ever so slightly towards the head nurse.  Bree turned to Jack and smiled up at him.

“Jack, I want to thank you for taking on a greenhorn as your assistant.  I found it an eye opening experience and a rewarding one too,” she stated as she hugged him.

“My pleasure, Bree, and if you ever decided to leave the music business for good, you’re always welcome back here.”

Dixie walked up to the pair and linked her arm with Bree’s.  “How about you and I head over to the staff lounge for a cup of coffee?”

“I would love that, Dixie,” said Bree as she tried to smile through the tears in her eyes.

Dixie grinned up at Jack (with Bree missing the whole exchange) and motioned for Bree to precede her.  Jack stayed back by the nurses’ station as he knew Bree would have figured out something was up if he followed the two women.  Dixie stepped up to the door and pushed it open allowing Bree to step in.

“SURPRISE!” was all she heard as she jumped out of her skin.  When she opened her eyes, all her coworkers from her shift were in the staff lounge.  There were sandwiches, chips, sodas surrounding a cake in the middle that said ‘We will miss you.”

Bree sniffled and wiped the tear that was threatening to escape.  She glanced at Dixie who was chuckling next to her.

“I really wasn’t expecting this,” she said.  “I just figured I’d sneak out and life would go on as before.”

“Did you really think we would let you go without so much as a goodbye?”

questioned Mandy as she put her arm around her cousin’s shoulders and steered her towards the table.  “You may not have been here a long time but we wouldn’t have done that to you.”

Mandy shoved an empty plate into Bree’s hands and told her to start the line. 

Everyone else fell into place behind her.  Sitting down at the only open table, Bree talked and joked with her coworkers, answering all their questions that they never dared asked when she was working.

They were all laughing and giggling when Mandy and Bree told some of the stories of the pranks they played on tour.  What they even found funnier was the fact that no one suspected Bree as the instigator of the pranks, but instead zeroed in on Mandy.

She smiled as she listened to Mandy tell them about one particular prank that almost went haywire and could have been disastrous.  Watching this group of individuals that she had the pleasure of working with, she thought she couldn’t have worked with a better team.  When they first learned of her past and status as a singer, they were curious like anyone else but wouldn’t ask the questions they wanted answers to.  Bree decided to tell them an abbreviated version, leaving out her relationship with Johnny and once she had done that, they closed ranks on anyone who tried to dig up dirt on Bree Montgomery and if she truly was that person working in the lab.

Dixie popped up beside Bree and asked, “So just how surprised were you?”

“Very,” she replied.  “At first I thought that maybe something was in the works but then I thought of how quiet it had been and figured most took off and grabbed a lunch break that usually was interrupted for one reason or another.”

“Mandy came up and asked if she could do this in the staff lounge up here as it would be too hard to pull it off on the cafeteria patio.  It worked out perfect…”

Just then Dixie and everyone else heard Dixie being paged to return to the nurses’ station in the ER.  Standing up, she leaned over and hugged Bree really hard, whispering in her ear to not be a stranger.  Bree whispered back that she wouldn’t do that to Dixie.

The head nurse ran out of the lounge and headed to the ER.  Shortly after her departure, the lab crew finished up and headed out too.  Mandy started cleaning up the leftover food and bagged up the garbage for the custodian to pick up later.

“Come on, cousin, let’s blow this place for the day.”

“I thought you had to work tonight?” questioned Bree.

“I do but I figured we could go do a little shopping or something before my shift starts,” replied Mandy as she followed her cousin out of the lounge.

******************************

Dixie walked briskly into Treatment Room 3 to find Johnny trying to calm down a young child who wanted no one but his mommy.  She had seen the mother outside of the room talking with Roy.

“What have we here, Johnny?” she asked the paramedic as she pulled a stool alongside the gurney.

“Dixie, I would like you to meet Peter,” stated Johnny as he glanced over at the young boy next to him.  “Peter, that pretty lady sitting on the other side of you is Dixie and she is the best nurse here at Rampart.”

“Johnny, Dr. Early will be in shortly,” said Dixie to the paramedic without taking her eyes off the child.  “Can you tell me what happened to him?”

“It seems Peter was trying to keep up with his older brother.  The older boys decided to climb a chain link fence and when Peter tried to follow over the top, his foot slipped and he came down on the barbed top of the fence.”

Dixie smiled at Peter and said she just wanted to look at his injury and that she wouldn’t touch it.  The child complied and raised his arm, showing a gaping wound on the underside of his upper arm.  The barbed section of the fence had penetrated pretty deep with the fatty portion of the boy’s underarm hanging out through the wound.

She had Peter lower his arm back down once she gently wrapped the cloth back around to keep it covered.  Smiling at the child, she ruffled his hair and said that a really nice doctor was going to come in and they would fix him up. 

No sooner had Dixie told Peter about Dr. Early, he walked into the room.  Joe had a wonderful way with children and their panicked parents.  He sat on the stool that Dixie had vacated so it put him at the same eye level as the boy.  He talked with him for a little bit and listened while the boy talked about his older brother and how he wished he could do the same things that he does.  Joe chuckled and told him that there was plenty of time for that.

Seeing that he was no longer needed, Johnny left the treatment room.  Turning around to see where his partner disappeared to, he spotted him at the nurses’ station talking to Bree and Mandy.  Knowing it was Bree’s last day, he sprinted over to talk to her.  He never saw Traci who had just left Treatment Room 1 and had been smiling at him when she thought he was looking at her.

She seethed with an inner rage as she watched him pick up the blonde and swing her around.  She couldn’t believe the luck that the twit had when it came to the press.  Bree had pulled the rug out from under Traci’s feet by giving an all-inclusive interview to People Magazine right after Traci had leaked details to the reporter from the LA Times as to exactly where the missing country singer was working.

Traci couldn’t stand watching the couple any longer.  She whipped around and headed for the cafeteria to have an early lunch.

“Johnny, please put me down,” giggled Bree.  “You are making me dizzy.  Not to mention everyone is staring at us.”

“Who cares!” he exclaimed as he kissed the end of her nose.  “It’s a wonderful day.  The sun is shining and not even Chet could ruin my day.”

“Roy, what have you been feeding him?” Bree asked the blonde paramedic as she struggled to get her equilibrium back in line.

“Nothing,” replied Roy, chuckling at the expression on her face.  “But maybe that’s the problem…he’s delirious from the lack of food.”

“That explains a lot,” she stated drily.  “He never could think straight on an empty stomach.”

Before Johnny could defend himself against his partner and girlfriend, the guys’ radio went off and from the sounds of it, this was a big one.  All joking aside, the guys listened for the information that would tell them where they were heading. 

“Station 51...Station 110...Station 36...Station 10...Engine 38...Truck 127.….Structure fire at the industrial park…4538 Industrial Drive…repeat structure fire at the industrial park, building is fully engaged….4538 Industrial Drive….cross street is 12 Avenue.  Be cautioned that shots have been fired….police and sheriff are on the scene….proceed with caution.  Time out 1253.”

 

  Roy took off at a dead run for the squad as Johnny quickly kissed Bree goodbye, saying he would be careful.  He slid onto the passenger seat barely getting the door shut before Roy had the squad in gear and flew out of the parking lot.

Even though he knew the situation seemed grave, Johnny was still grinning like a Cheshire cat as they headed towards the industrial park where the location of a warehouse fire had been spotted.  All he could think about was how much he was looking forward to this shift ending and taking Bree and their daughter camping in the very same spot that he and Bree had first spent time alone at.  He hadn’t told Bree exactly where they were going to but knew she would be very pleased with what he planned.

The smile was all but wiped from his face when they came upon the warehouse. 

The squad had caught up to their station, following right behind Big Red, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.  Going to a fire that also had the added bonus of an unknown person with a gun is not something the firefighters wanted to be part of. 

As Station 51 rounded the corner, they could see the other stations who had arrived and that the building indeed was fully engulfed.  Mike slowed the engine down near the hydrant and Chet and Marco jumped off and began pulling hose off of the back of the truck.  Johnny ran over to help them as soon as Roy had stopped the squad.  Captain Stanley went over to talk with Vince, one of the LA Police at the scene, standing with the Chief.

 

“Vince, any luck with finding the person who was shooting at you guys?” asked Captain Stanley.

 

“No such luck.  Right after the fire trucks started showing up, the shooting stopped.  The shots that were fired were not coming from inside the burning building.  With all the commotion, nobody is sure which direction they were coming from.”

 

“That’s just wonderful.  We got someone out there who is trigger happy and we have no clue just where he is.”

 

“Sorry, Captain.  We got some men combing the area but so far nothing has turned up.”

 

While the captain talking with the police, Roy went running to help with the hoses and told Johnny, Chet and Marco that the shooter was still somewhere in the vicinity but no one knew exactly where.  The Chief had told Captain Stanley that they were going to focus more on saving the few buildings around the one that was burning as there was no way to get inside to fight it. The plan was use two of the four stations to concentrate on the burning building and the others would be strategically placed around the parameter and used to water down the buildings that were to the west of the one burning.  Station 51 would be helping with the burning building.  Roy was holding the hose and aiming it towards the building and Johnny was bracing him from behind.

He smiled from the tree line that was located a good distance behind the burning building.  When he was looking for the perfect place to set the final stage of his plan into action, this one was perfect.  It was close enough so that ‘fire boy’s’ station would be called to help fight the fire but secluded enough that the fire he had started would not be noticed immediately.

For a few hours he had waited patiently, watching the building as the first small wisps of smoke snuck out the broken windows.  Soon flames were shooting through the roof and he could hear sirens in the distance.  When the first police car arrived, he took a couple of shots at him just to get his attention.  He shot off a couple of more rounds from a different side of the building to confuse the officer.  Like it would be hard to do that anyway, he thought.

As the fire engines and their crews arrived, he melted back into the tree grove and began his intense search for the one he needed to eliminate.  He did not make a sound as he slipped between the trees.  Soon he spotted a couple of firemen readying themselves to man the hose aimed at the building.  Using the scope on his rifle, he established this was the one he was looking for, calculating the distance he would need for his shot and patiently waited for the right moment.

The two were concentrating on the fire before them and never knew that danger was a distance behind them.  The unknown assailant silently crept through the dense trees behind Station 51’s location, keeping a good distance between them so not to be detected should any police officer be nearby.  He had heard the two talking to each other as they got into place and prepared to fight the fire he had set.  He knew that the one in bracing the other from behind was the one he was looking for.  He patiently waited for his target to shift positions as he never really liked shooting anyone in the back.   Using the telescopic lens for his rifle, he slowly brought the rifle to his shoulder carefully taking aim.  His wish was soon answered as Johnny stood up to loosen up a kink in his back and when he turned, the finger on the trigger pulled.

As Johnny raised his arm to stretch and try to remove the kink, he felt something stinging him in the right side.  As he reached for his side, he felt a rather odd sensation and found his knees were beginning to buckle.  He tried to grab Roy’s back to alert him but instead felt himself sliding in slow motion to the ground.

 

When he felt his partner’s hands lift from bracing him, Roy turned to see what was going on and saw his partner fall to the ground.  Automatically, he shut down the water supply and ran to Johnny.  As he turned him onto his back, Roy noticed a dark spot on the side of Johnny’s turnout coat.  Grabbing the coat, he pulled it away from Johnny and was shocked to see the blood running from Johnny’s side.  He immediately began shouting for help to anyone who might be in range of hearing him.

 

Johnny grasped his partner’s wrist to gain his attention.  Looking down, Roy noticed his partner was still conscious, but was having difficulty with his breathing and at the same time was trying to tell him something.

 

 “Roy, I think someone shot me.  Why would they do that?” he asked breathlessly.

“I don’t know, junior, but I’m gonna find out,” stated Roy not bothering to hide his anger or concern from his voice.

He kept shouting for help and soon spotted Chet coming around the corner of the building.  Chet slid to a stop as he noticed the scene in front of him.  He couldn’t help but notice the blood seeping through Roy’s fingers as he tried to staunch the flow from Johnny’s side.

“Chet, Johnny’s been shot!  He’s having problems with his breathing…get me the O2 ASAP.  Also get Cap!”  Roy looks at his partner and says, “Help is coming, Johnny.  Hold on!”

 

Chet turned and ran to grab the oxygen and any other piece of equipment he knew Roy would need.  As he sprinted around the corner, he located the Captain talking with Chief McConnike by the Chief’s car.

 

As he flew by his superiors, he shouted Roy’s message towards them, “Cap, Johnny’s been shot!  Roy wants you over there right now.  I’m getting their stuff!”

 

Dropping what they were doing, Captain Stanley and the Chief ran around the corner of the building and what they saw made their hearts skip a few beats.  Roy looked up as he saw them coming towards him.  And right behind them was Chet carrying the O2 tank and Marco carrying the rest of the equipment.  The Chief immediately radioed for another engine and squad to be sent to their location.

 

“Cap, it’s bad.  Blood is seeping from a wound in his chest on the right side and he’s also bleeding on the left.  I think one of his lungs may have been hit and it sounds like it might already be collapsing.”

 

Hank placed his hand on Roy’s shoulder and in a calm tone of voice (hoping it will calm the senior paramedic) said, “We are going to do all we can for him.  I’ve called an ambulance to this location and the Chief called in a replacement station for us.  Let’s get to work on saving Johnny.”

 

Chet set the bio-phone down next to the captain who would relay the information to Rampart.  Marco had placed all the other equipment next to Roy and had begun to set up the oxygen for Johnny.

 

“Rampart, this is Squad 51.  How do you read?” asked the Captain as he kept one eye on his men.

 

“Read you loud and clear, Squad 51.”  Dr. Early looked at the phone puzzled as the voice did not belong to either Johnny or Roy.

 

“Rampart, we have a Code I, one victim.  I will be relaying the information for the paramedics.”

 

“Describe the incident, 51.”

 

“One of our paramedics has been shot by a sniper’s bullet at the location of a fire we were called to.  Be forewarned that the victim is Johnny Gage.”

 

Dr. Early looked at Dixie who just came out of treatment room 1.  “Dixie, is Kel available?”  When she shook her head no, he continued, “Then please locate Dr. Morton.  I will need his assistance.”

 

Dixie took off in the direction of the staff lounge as she thought she had seen him head in that direction.

 

“Do you have vitals on the victim yet?”

 

“Affirmative, Rampart.  Blood pressure is low and shocky.  Pulse is weak and rapid and respirations are shallow and labored.  We do have him on O2.”

 

Roy began hooking up the EKG so that they could monitor his heart.  His own heart was racing as he couldn’t tell how bad the damage was to Johnny.  He had found the exit wound above Johnny’s hip on the left side when he noticed the blood dripping from the hem of the turnout coat as he tried to take it off of his partner.  He felt a hand touch his arm and he turned to see Johnny trying to tell him something.

“What is it, Junior?”

 

Johnny removed the mask from his face so Roy could hear what he had to say, “Roy…it hurts…to breathe.  I need you to tell Bree…tell her…”

 

“Tell her yourself when you get to the hospital,” stated Roy as he tried to place the mask back on Johnny’s face.  “I am not letting you go and don’t you think otherwise.  Don’t try to speak.  Save it for later.”

 

“You have to…tell her…I am sorry I wasn’t careful enough …and I love her,” he said breathlessly.  “Roy…pain…can’t breathe.”  As if trying to talk had robbed him of what little strength he had left, Johnny lapsed into unconsciousness.

 

Roy grabbed the biophone’s receiver out of the Captain’s hand and all but shouted into it, “Rampart, patient has lapsed into unconsciousness but before he did, he was complaining of pain, not being able to breathe.”

 

“Insert endotracheal tube.  Start an IV of Ringers Lactate,” directed Dr. Early as he glanced at the EKG strip.  He didn’t like how it looked and practically shouted at the paramedic on the other end, “Get him here ASAP!  Time is of the essence!”

 

Dr. Morton sprinted up to the base station just as Dr. Early stated the last order.  He asked his coworker what happened.  Dr. Early filled him in on what was happening as they headed to the ER entrance to await the ambulance.  Dixie had gone to set up treatment room 4.  Carol called up to the OR, giving the staff upstairs a heads up on the situation (per Dr. Early’s request) and asked them to have room ready for the patient as soon as they got him here and had him stabilized.

 

The sirens of the ambulance approaching were a welcome sound to the men of Station 51.  Vince directed the ambulance to follow him to where the guys were.  Chet and Marco helped lift Johnny onto the gurney with Roy climbing in behind him.  Marco shut the doors, giving two quick slaps to signal the driver and the ambulance was off.  The guys quickly gathered up the equipment left behind, stowing it back in the squad.

 

“Hank,” Chief McConnike spoke, “This fire is almost under control.  I have ordered Station 51 to stand down until B shift can replace you.  Take the engine and squad back to the station.  The guys should be there waiting for you to get back.  Then head to the hospital to check on your guy.”

 

“Thanks, Chief.  We really appreciate it.”  He turned to Chet and told him to drive the squad to Rampart and pick up the equipment from Roy, return to the station and then they would all ride to Rampart to check on Johnny’s condition.

 

As the ambulance raced towards Rampart, Roy could feel his stomach tighten in fear as he watched Johnny’s heart rate jump all over the place.  He knew that whatever entered his body had to have bounced around before exiting out.  God only knew what damage was done inside.  With one more glance at the monitor, Roy quickly jumped into action, yelling at the driver to speed it up.

Dixie could hear the sirens of the ambulance, waiting impatiently outside the treatment room for them to bring Johnny in.  Mike and Joe were waiting near the entrance to assist in any way they could.  The doors flew open and the guys were pushing the gurney quickly around the corner.  Roy was on top of the gurney performing CPR on Johnny while ambulance attendant manned the AMBU bag as they rolled down the hall.

 

Dr. Early asked Roy, “When did this happen?”

 

“Just as we pulled in.”

 

  Quickly Johnny was pulled onto the table in the treatment room with Roy still performing CPR.  Dr. Early grabbed the defibrillator paddles and hit the charge button.  Roy cleared the table when he saw the doctor was ready.  When it turned red, Joe placed the paddles on Johnny’s chest and yelled, “CLEAR!” 

Everyone pulled back and he hit the buttons.  Johnny’s back arched as the current went through him.  They all looked at the EKG and it was still V-fib.  Again, the paddles were charged and Dr. Early yelled, “CLEAR!”  The second time did it.  The EKG read a weak sinus rhythm and they knew that could change in a heartbeat.  Dixie quickly grabbed a blood pressure cuff and put it on Johnny to see where his blood pressure was at.  When she finished and had given Dr. Early the information, she leaned over by Johnny’s ear and told him to not give up.  The ER staff kept on working feverishly to stabilize Johnny as they knew he needed to get to the OR for surgery to repair any damage done by the bullet.

 

Roy stepped back to let the doctors do their work as he knew Johnny was in good hands.  He looked down at his own hands, noticing for the first time the blood that covered them.  He began to shake as he realized just whose blood was covering them.  Seeing that Roy was close to the edge, Dixie walked over, led him to the sink in the corner and placed his hands under the warm water.

 

He looked at the nurse and smiled wanly at her.  He knew she was trying to keep him from worrying about his partner on the gurney behind them.  He could hear Joe and Mike both shouting orders to the other nurses in the treatment room.  When he was done washing his hands, Dixie took him out to the nurses’ station where Chet was anxiously waiting for some news.

“Why don’t you two go to the staff lounge and have some coffee until we know how he is.  There is no sense in standing out here and worrying yourself to death.  He is just about ready to go up for surgery.”

 

Chet looked at Roy then back at Dixie before stating, “I have to get the squad back to the station.  I will be right back.  The others should be here shortly.”  With that said, Chet grabbed the equipment, ran down the hallway so he could get the squad back to the station and be back to find out how Johnny was doing.

 

“Dixie, I am really not in the mood for a cup of coffee.  I would rather just stay out here and wait until the rest of the crew gets here, if you don’t mind.”  Roy looked a little defeated as he said this.

 

  “No problem, Roy, but I am going to have a cup of coffee,” replied Dixie as she turned to the small coffee pot at the nurses’ station.  Roy just about jumped as she slammed her fist on the counter.  “DAMN IT!  Why does this have to happen?  What is wrong with people that they have to take it out on someone who doesn’t deserve it?”  Dixie put her head down but not before Roy saw the tears in them.

 

“Dixie, we have to believe he is going to come out of this.  We all know he is pretty lucky at getting out of his scrapes.”

 

“One of these days he is not going to be as lucky and then where will we be?”  She looked up at Roy and knew he was thinking the same thing, that none of them would be the same if that ever happened.

While the pair stood by the base station, each lost in their own thoughts, one of their own was pulling into the parking lot.  Mandy smiled to herself as she locked the door to her car and headed towards the hospital.  After Bree’s goodbye party, they had headed to downtown Torrance to do a little dress browsing.  Mandy couldn’t help but giggle when she remembered the look on Bree’s face when they pulled up in front of a bridal shop.  She told Bree they hadn’t set a date yet but that she just wanted to see what was on the market for dresses as some of the styles that were out weren’t exactly what she wanted in a dress.

Just as she was about to cross into the ER parking area, she noticed the squad flying by her with Chet driving it.  She watched as the squad rounded the corner of the parking lot and left her line of sight…when it dawned on her that something had to have happened to one of the guys if Chet was in the squad.  She turned and sprinted for the ER.

Spotting Roy and Dixie standing at the base station, she ran up to them and asked, “What happened?”

Both Roy and Dixie jumped as the sudden presence of Mandy broke them from their thoughts.  The tears immediately welled up in Dixie’s eyes and to avoid bursting into tears, she left the base station to check on the patient in treatment room 1.  Roy glanced at the brunette with confusion written on his face as if he was unsure of what was actually going on.  Before he even had a chance to register the question Mandy had asked, the door to treatment room 4 had opened up.  Mandy looked on in shock as the gurney being rolled out had Johnny lying upon it with an endotracheal tube in his mouth, numerous IVs and a heart monitor that sounded way too eerie to her.

Dr. Brackett had joined them in treatment room 4 shortly after Dr. Early had defibrillated Johnny and said he would join them in the OR.  He yelled for them to hold the elevator, asking the few on board to be please exit as they needed to get the patient up to the OR stat.  Watching the doors to the elevator close, Mandy’s shock gave way to the need to get answers.

“Will someone please tell me what the hell happened?” she all but shouted as she turned to Johnny’s partner.

The vehemence in her voice broke Roy from his confusion and he turned to her said in a matter-of-fact tone, “Johnny was shot.”

“What?” she exclaimed.  “How?  Where?”  So many questions ran through her mind at that point that she didn’t know how to phrase them, much less ask them.

“At the scene of the fire that we were called to,” said Roy as he realized that it was Mandy next to him.   “We were helping contain it to the burning building while the other stations were working to keep the nearby building from catching on fire. 

Knowing there was someone with a gun in the area didn’t help us but we had a job to do.  Johnny took a shot in the side.”

“Oh dear God,” cried Mandy.  “Has anyone tried to reach Bree yet?”

When Roy failed to answer her questions, she took that as a no.  Grabbing the phone on the nurses’ station counter, she immediately dialed the number to Johnny’s ranch.  After ten rings she got no answer.  She thought that was odd and then remembered Bree saying something about stopping at the market before heading home.  She figured she would give it a few more minutes before trying again.

“Mandy?” asked Roy.

“What is it, Roy?”

“Would you please call my wife?  I don’t know if I can even find the words to tell her what has happened,” he replied in a tired voice.

Picking the phone up, she dialed the number to Roy’s house.  On the third ring, a young boy answered the phone.

“Is your mother available, Chris?” Mandy asked him in calm voice that even surprised her.

Yeah was the reply she got as Chris turned and yelled for his mother while still holding the phone in his hand.  Roy even jumped when he heard his son yelling and made a mental note to himself to talk to his son about yelling while still holding the phone.

“Hello, this is Joanne DeSoto,” replied Joanne as she took the phone from her son.

“Hi, Joanne, it’s Mandy,” she stated.  “I hate to bother you but Roy asked me to call you.  There’s been an incident at the scene of the fire the guys were called to.”

Joanne asked in a slightly teasing tone, “What happened to Johnny this time?”

“There is no easy way to say this, Jo, but Johnny’s been shot,” said Mandy as calmly as she could.

Silence pounded Mandy’s ears as she waited for Joanne to answer her.  For what seemed like minutes, nothing was said.  Finally, Mandy did hear an intake of breath from Joanne and could tell she was trying to get herself under control.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.  I’m sure the neighbor lady will watch the kids for me,” said Joanne.  “Oh, dear lord, that boy is trying to give me gray hairs before my own children do.  Tell Roy I love him.”

Hanging up the phone, Mandy relayed Joanne’s message to her husband.   She stood and stared at the phone as if willing to ring then picked it up one more time to try to contact Bree.  Again it rang and rang with no answer.  She thought Bree should have been home by now but then remembered that Johnny’s aunt was staying with them and watching Sierra this week.  She wondered why she hadn’t answered the phone.

Dixie exited treatment room 1 pushing a young boy in a wheelchair.  She was admonishing the lad for thinking he could fly with his mother’s robe wrapped around his neck.  With his leg in a cast, she was telling him exactly what he could not do and that if he even attempted to try and she saw him back in her ER, he was going be in more trouble with her than with his mother.  Glancing up at the boy’s mother, she winked and joined in the boy’s laughter.

After making sure the boy was in safe hands, Dixie returned the wheelchair to the holding area by the ER doors.  Walking back towards the base/nurses’ station, she saw that Roy had not moved from his previous position and that Mandy was looking at the phone in her hand with total frustration.

“Something wrong, Mandy?” the head nurse asked as she came around the desk.

Glancing up to see Dixie had returned, Mandy replied, “I can’t get a hold of Bree and no one is answering at the ranch.  I know Johnny’s aunt is still there so I can’t understand why she is not answering either.”

“Could they be outside on the patio and just not hearing the phone ring?” Dixie queried as she poured herself a cup of coffee.  “I know that Bree loves to take Sierra outside when it’s nice out.”

“The phone is loud enough that you can hear it on the patio,” stated Mandy.  “No, that is not it.  I just have a very bad feeling and I don’t like the fact that no one out there is answering the phone.”

When Roy heard Mandy say something about a bad feeling, he pushed himself away from the wall and turned to say something to her.  “What do mean by ‘a bad feeling’?”

“I can’t place my finger on it, Roy, but I just feel that something is not right.  Did anything seem out of the ordinary at the scene of the fire?” she asked.

“It seemed like an ordinary fire to us.  An abandoned building that more than likely had vagrants squatting in it,” he stated.  “Of course it didn’t help that we had the exception of someone with a happy trigger finger who took pot shots at the police and then quit.”

Mandy’s head popped up.  She looked at Roy like he had just spoken in a different language.  “Come again?” she asked.

“Somebody took a couple of pot shots at the pot shots at the first police officer on the scene.  When we arrived, Vince was telling the captain that as soon as the fire trucks arrive, the shooting stopped.  That is, until Johnny was shot at.”

No sooner had that comment left Roy’s mouth did the thought enter into his mind and into Mandy’s as to what was really going on here.  He could see the fear in her eyes just as clearly as she could see the disbelief in his.

“Do you…” Roy began.

“I’m not sure…it’s just a feeling I have,” interrupted Mandy.  “I’m gonna head out to the ranch to check on Bree and Sierra.”

“I’ll go with you,” he said.

“Roy, you can’t.  You need to be here when they are done in surgery.  Johnny’s gonna need you near him,” stated Mandy as she turned to Dixie.  “Dix, could you please call the lab and let them know what is going on.  I am sure they are wondering why I haven’t shown up yet.”

“You shouldn’t go out there alone,” stated Roy.  “If what you are feeling is right, you could find yourself in danger also.  I wouldn’t feel right if you headed out there by yourself.”

“She won’t be by herself,” countered Joanne as she approached them from behind.

Roy whipped around and grabbed his wife in a big hug.  She could feel the relief in her husband’s embrace and knew he was barely keeping his emotions in control.  She also knew that once Johnny was out of surgery and out of danger, he would release them only to her.

“I’m so glad you are here,” he whispered to her before he released his hold on her.

Keeping her arm around her husband’s waist, Jo glanced at Dixie and asked, “Have we heard anything on Johnny’s condition?”

Dixie shook her head, still finding it hard to think about Johnny.  Jo looked at Mandy and knew the brunette was chomping to get out to the ranch.  She turned to Roy, took his face between her hands and kissed him.

“You go and wait for word on Johnny.  I will go with Mandy to the ranch and promise to call you as soon as we get there,” she stated.  Turning to Mandy, she asked “You driving or shall I?”

Mandy shook her car keys at Joanne indicating that she was going to drive.  Roy watched as his wife and Mandy headed out of the ER, fearing what they might find when they get to the ranch.  Once they were out of sight, he turned back to Dixie and the two once again stood silently side-by-side deep within their own thoughts about their friend.

  Joanne hung on to the door handle for dear life.  She didn’t realize what she was getting into when Mandy said she would drive.  The girl was whipping in and out of traffic like the other cars were standing still.  Silently she said prayers that they would make it to the ranch in one piece.

Mandy took her foot off the accelerator but did not touch the brake instead let the car slow down on its own as she spotted the exit she needed to take.  She deftly slid the car into the exit lane with a flick of her wrist and the flash of the car’s blinker. 

Glancing to her right, she could see Joanne’s mouth moving in what she could surmise was a prayer.  She couldn’t help but let the giggle inside her escape as she noticed the death grip that Joanne had on the door handle.

Hearing a giggle come from her left, Joanne turned her head to see the amusement on Mandy’s face.

“I’m glad you find life flashing before your eyes amusing,” groused Joanne as she struggled to get her racing heart under control.

“You were never in any danger, Joanne,” stated Mandy as she picked up speed once more.  “If girls were allowed to race cars in the NASCAR circuit, I think I would give it a try.”

“That’s easy for you to say…never in any danger,” retorted Joanne.  “Sit on this side and whip in and out of traffic then tell me there’s no danger.  I would like to get the ranch in one piece.”

Mandy threw her head back and laughed out loud.  It was like having Bree sitting in the seat next to her.  She never liked Mandy’s racing style of driving…even though she herself was known to break the sound barrier when given the chance.

The pair collapsed into companionable silence as they flew down the road.  As she approached the intersection near the gas station, Mandy barely slowed down but glancing both directions and seeing no approaching cars or cops blew through the stop sign like it wasn’t even there.  Joanne looked in disbelief at the girl but knew she was only concerned for her cousin and her baby.

She couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when Mandy slowed the Trans Am down (to what she considered a manageable level) as they turned on to the gravel road that would lead them to the ranch.  They both spotted the driveway at the same time and could feel their hearts pounding with fear and anxiety at what they might find when they arrive.

Mandy didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until she saw Bree’s Mustang still parked in the driveway.   She parked the vehicle directly behind Bree’s car and rested her head on the steering wheel to try and bring herself under control before she went inside and chewed her cousin out for worrying her.  Joanne herself felt relief in seeing the car sitting in the driveway.

“Come on, Mandy, let’s go inside and give that girl grief for worrying us half to death,” said Joanne as she exited the car.  “After that, I’m going to give her more grief for the wild ride I had to endure to get here.”

“Admit, Joanne, you found it thrilling,” chuckled Mandy as she got her heart and breathing slowed down.  “I’m sure neither you nor Roy drive like that when you don’t have the kids with you.”

Joanne chuckled quietly to herself before she finally admitted to Mandy that she did find it a little thrilling…but only a little.  They bantered back and forth as to just what they were going to say to Bree when they got inside and giggled a little more over some of the more outrageous statements each made…until they were facing the front door.

Immediately Mandy knew something wasn’t right as the door wasn’t completely shut and she knew Bree would never leave it that way as Sierra had just mastered crawling and could really get around on the hardwood floors in the house.  She motioned for Joanne to step behind her and then using the tip of her shoe she pushed the door open wider.

At first glance, nothing looked like it was out of order.  The two women softly stepped over the threshold and peered down the hallway towards the bedrooms but heard no giggle of a child or laughter of an adult.  Subconsciously, Joanne and Mandy clasped hands as if to gather strength if they had to flee.  A few more steps and they were in the living area with their backs to the kitchen.

Seeing nothing unusual in the living area, Joanne turned around to check out the kitchen.  She softly gasped at what greeted her.  Tugging on Mandy’s arm, she pointed towards the kitchen floor.

When she heard the gasp from Joanne and felt her tug, Mandy was almost afraid to turn around and see what was waiting behind her.  As if in slow motion, she turned and followed the direction that Joanne was pointing in.  She could feel the blood drain from her face as all she saw in her field of vision was a pair of feet sticking out from the other side of the kitchen island.

***************************

The two detectives entered Rampart General Hospital’s ER hoping that a familiar face would be around to help them locate whom they needed to talk to.  Detective Crockett glanced towards the ER nurses’ station and spotted Dixie talking on the phone while she was entering data in the chart in front of her.  He silently motioned to his partner and headed down the corridor towards the station.

Dixie could hear footsteps heading in her direction as she was hanging up the phone.  Looking up, she immediately recognized the two detectives who have been working on Bree’s stalker case.  From the expressions that the two men had on their faces, this was not going to be a social call.  She could feel the butterflies add themselves to the rock she already had sitting in her stomach from worrying about Johnny in surgery.

“Miss McCall, we need you to point us in the direction of Roy DeSoto.  It’s very urgent,” stated Detective Crockett rather bluntly.

Without a word, she pointed in the direction of the staff lounge that was located down the hall from the nurses’ station.  She watched as the detectives moved with a hurried purpose towards the lounge.  Now she was wishing Carol hadn’t gone on her lunch break just then as she would like to be in the room for that conversation.

Detective Crockett pushed open the door to the staff lounge and was greeted by five anxious faces that looked crestfallen when they realized it wasn’t who they expected to see.  Davison followed closely behind and glanced around the room realizing the one person they really hoped to see was not there.

Roy could feel his heart rate rise at the appearance of the two detectives.  He knew they wouldn’t be here if it didn’t have something to do with Johnny’s accident and Bree’s stalker.  He turned from the window and faced the two men.

“Detectives,” he said.  “I have a feeling that this is not a social call that you are making.”

“You are pretty astute, Mr. DeSoto,” said Crockett.  “We, unfortunately, are not here with pleasant news.  We were hoping to see Miss Leigh amongst you.  Do you know when she is going to arrive?”

Roy glanced at his coworkers before replying to the detective’s question.  “We’re not sure if and when she will be arriving, Detective.  We haven’t been able to reach her at home.  My wife and Bree’s cousin are on their way out to the ranch right now to see why she hasn’t been answering her phone.”

Clutching the manila envelope in his hand, Crockett had a feeling that he knew exactly what Mandy and Jo would find at the ranch and it was not going to be Bree or her daughter.  Davison came to the same conclusion.

“Crockett, we better get out there…now!” he said to his partner.

When Roy heard that, he reached out, grabbed the older detective’s arm and asked him, “What’s happened?”

Davison already had the door open and was halfway into the hallway expecting his partner to be right behind him.  Realizing the older man was not following, he turned to see Roy grabbing his partner’s arm.  He saw his partner hand the paramedic the manila folder.

“We received this about five minutes after a call was made informing us that your partner was brought here to Rampart with a gunshot wound.”

Roy reached in the folder and pulled out a picture of Johnny with a red X across his face.  On the back of the picture, it stated “Now she is mine.”  As the blood drained from his face, he realized he had just sent his wife and Mandy to the ranch where a madman could be lying in wait for them.

“Oh dear God,” he said softly as Chet and Marco snuck a peek over his shoulder and blanched at the picture of their coworker.  “What do we do now?”

“Mr. DeSoto, you all do nothing.  You wait here to learn how your coworker is fairing from his injuries,” said Crockett motioning behind his back for Davison to have a little patience.  “We are going to head out to the ranch with sirens blaring in hopes of preventing an incident.  As soon as we know something, we will call here.”

He turned and quickly followed his partner through the ER hallway and out the door.  Dixie had just been exiting Treatment Room 3 when they blew by her.  She knew something definitely was up from the haste they were making and the looks on their faces.  She thought if she had run into those two outside she would have been scared.

Carol came walking back to the nurses’ station when Dixie told the base station was her and took off at a good clip for the staff lounge.  As she approached the door, she could hear the raised voices coming from inside and knew that whatever information the detectives imparted to them was not good…at least not from the wording she could hear in the hallway.

“…and until we know for sure what is going on, Kelly, we will not be taking off like a Wild West posse to hunt this person down,” stated Captain Stanley.  “Is that understood?”

Chet muttered something unintelligible.  “Would you care to repeat, Kelly?”

“I’m sorry, Cap.  I can’t help but think we could be out there doing something,” Chet replied with a sour look on his face.

“And what good could you do?” asked Dixie as she entered the room.  “Chet, the maniac as you called him tried to hurt all of you at one time or another.  If you took off out of here to try and hunt him down, what would you do if you found him?  You have no clue just who this person is!”

“But…” Chet started to say.

“No buts, Chet,” continued Dixie as she sat down in the seat that Marco vacated for her.  “If he is the one who shot Johnny, he is an expert marksman because from Roy told me of the area the shot had to have come from the tree grove near the warehouse.”

Chet opened his mouth to saying something else but caught the look the captain was throwing his way and thought better of it.  Instead he opted for pacing the floor, stopping once or twice to look out the window before resuming the pacing.  He kept telling himself it’s not because he was overly concerned for Johnny but because he didn’t want to have to break in a new pigeon.  As he looked out the window for the third time, he mentally slapped himself and thought…you do care what happens to him…you just don’t want the others to figure it out.

The rest of Station 51’s crew watched the stocky Irishman pace around the room and kept their smiles and thoughts to themselves.  They knew Chet would never admit that he cared about what might happen to Johnny so they allowed him to keep that delusion and never let him know that they already knew the score.

Dixie sat with the guys for a few more minutes before she had to return to work.  She knew the next hour or so was going to wear on them while they waited for news on Johnny’s surgery and from Mandy on Bree’s status.  She relieved Carol at the base station and placed a call to the cafeteria to order some sandwiches and coffee to be sent to the staff lounge.

Roy finally had enough of watching Chet pace.  He got up and stood next to him at the window.  “Chet, stop with the pacing.  It’s not gonna do any good except maybe wear the finish off the floor.”

“Not funny, Roy,” retorted Chet.  “I just hate waiting around hospitals and with Gage we have been here enough.  Some idiot is out there terrorizing us with the purpose of getting his hands on Gage’s girlfriend.  I just feel we should be doing something to help, that’s all.”

“We know, Kelly, we know,” said Roy as he laid his hand on Chet’s shoulder.  “The waiting is enough to kill any of us but for right now it’s all we can do.  If we get in the way of the detectives and/or police, we could find ourselves in trouble.  Worse yet, if we did locate this maniac, that would be even more trouble as so far he has been two steps ahead of us.”

Before he could say anything more, the door opened with a candy striper pushing a cart loaded with sandwiches and coffee for the guys.  Chet smiled as his stomach announced it was hungry.  Before she could even tell them who sent it, the guys were helping themselves.  The girl just shook her head and giggled as she walked out of the room.

****************************

Mandy swallowed hard and prayed that whoever was on the other side of the island was only unconscious.  Slowly she made her way to the island with Joanne following closely behind.  Placing one hand on the edge of the island counter, she stood on her tip toes and peered over the counter, gasping out loud as she saw Johnny’s Aunt Rose lying motionless on the floor.

She quickly rounded the island and dropped to her knees, feeling for a pulse.  She released an audible sigh of relief when she felt the strong carotid pulse beneath her fingertips.  She couldn’t imagine having to tell Johnny his aunt was no longer with them, had that been the case.  If Bree has been taken, that was going to be hard enough to break to him after what he just went through.

Joanne leaned heavily against the counter when she realized that Rosemary was just unconscious.  Just the shock of seeing only a pair of feet from where they had been standing was enough to scare another ten years off her life.  All she could think of was first Johnny, now Rosemary…and where the hell is Bree.  Breaking through her thoughts was a snapping sound.  She looked down and saw Mandy trying to get her attention.

“Jo, keep it to get it together,” stated Mandy.  “I need you to try and find the first aid kit that Johnny usually keeps in the house.”

“Sorry, Mandy.  I’m still trying to wrap my head around this whole mess,” said Joanne as she began searching the cabinets for the kit.

“I think we all are,” replied Mandy.  “I just hope like hell Bree has Sierra and they are hiding in the barn.

While Mandy checked to make sure Rosemary’s pulse was still going strong, Joanne kept looking for the first aid kit.  Finally in the floor-to-ceiling pantry, she located it up on the highest shelf.  Naturally, she thought as she grabbed the stepstool next to the pantry, he would have to keep it in the highest spot so us short people had problems getting to it.

It didn’t take her long to locate the ammonia capsule within the kit.  She broke the casing and gave it to Mandy who slowly waved it under Rosemary’s nose.  In just a few moments, Rosemary’s consciousness came to life and her arms tried their best to swat away the awful smell that was near her.

“Rosemary, come on.  Open those eyes for me.”

Rose could hear the voice and kind of recognized it but wasn’t sure.  As her awareness returned, the memory of what caused her to lose consciousness in the first place came back in full force.

“NO!” she screamed, trying to fight the girl trying to help her.

“Rose!” Mandy shouted softly as she grabbed the woman’s flailing arms in her hands and placed her face directly in line with Rosemary’s vision.  “Rose!  Look at me…it’s Mandy, Bree’s cousin.”

Kneeling behind Rosemary, Joanne helped to steady her while Mandy worked on helping the older woman regain her senses so she could let them know what happened to Bree and her daughter.  Gently she took hold of the woman’s flailing arms and wrapped her own around her from behind as Mandy softly talked to her while holding her face.

Mandy could see the confusion slowly ebb out of Rosemary’s eyes.  Waiting patiently on her knees, she slowly counted in her mind while awareness began to surface in Rosemary.

“Mandy?” she questioned.

“Yes, Rosemary, it’s me,” replied Mandy with a very relieved smile on her face.  “Are you okay?  Do you think you can stand?”

“I think so,” stated Rosemary rather shakily.  She reached up to grab the edge of the counter and would have tried to pull herself up if Mandy hadn’t stopped her.

“Rosemary, let Joanne and I raise you up.  I don’t want you taking any chances of passing out halfway up and hitting the floor again.”

The girls helped the older woman up from the floor, very slowly walked her over to the couch and sat her down.  Mandy did a cursory exam of Rosemary’s condition noticing her pupils, although sluggish, did react to the little flashlight she had found in the first aid kit.

While Mandy checked Rosemary over, Joanne contacted the LA County Fire Dispatch to request a squad and ambulance to be sent to their location.  She relayed what little information she had to the dispatcher, apologizing for not having more to give him.  She then called the LA Police Department and asked for one of the detectives assigned to Bree’s stalker case, only to be told that neither he nor his partner was there at the time.

“Rosemary, I need you to tell me where Bree and Sierra are,” stated Mandy.

The woman shook her head before she looked up at Mandy.  Both Jo and Mandy were taken aback at the haunted look in Rosemary’s eyes.  Her body shook with a slight tremor as if the memory of took place earlier was too much for Rosemary to bear.

“Rosemary, what happened out here?” Mandy asked softly as she knelt in front of her, taking her hands in hers.  “We need to know so we can notify the police.”

“He surprised me.  He snuck up behind me while I was placing Sierra in the playpen and just grabbed me,” stated Rosemary in an almost emotionless tone of voice as she stared over the top of Mandy’s head.  “He placed a knife to my throat and said if I didn’t cooperate, he would first slit my throat and then he would hurt the baby.”

Joanne sat down next to Rosemary, placing a comforting arm about her shoulders.  She could feel the tremors still coursing through the woman’s body and hugged her slightly to convey that no harm would come to her.

“What happened next?” questioned Mandy.

“He pulled me backwards into the kitchen so we couldn’t be seen by Bree when she came home.  Sierra had been so startled by him grabbing me that she just sat there…she didn’t cry once.  That poor child…I’m afraid of what he might do to her.  It seemed like he didn’t even like her.  She is so innocent.”

Realizing that Rosemary was starting to ramble off topic, Mandy squeezed her hands hoping to give some comfort to her and get her attention once more back to what happened at the ranch.

“Rose, what did he do when Bree got home?  Where are they?”

“The minute Bree walked into the house, Sierra started crying.  It was as if her mother’s presence broke her out of the shock she had been given,” continued Rosemary.  “As she stepped towards the living room to pick up her daughter, he shoved me forward, still with the knife to my throat and said her name.  That stopped Bree right where she was at.  I saw the color drain from her face…”

As she was telling the story to the two women, Rosemary was reliving it in her mind and she could see everything all over again.  She jerked her hands from Mandy’s grasp and covered her face as if to obliterate what she had seen.  She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes as the fear began to creep up her body.  She had seen the madness in his eyes and she was afraid for the young woman and child.

“Rose!” shouted Mandy.  “You have to finish the story!”

The next words out of Rose’s mouth stunned Mandy and Joanne.

“Mandy, she said his name,” cried Rosemary.  “She knew who he was!”

“WHO!” Mandy all but screamed this at the visibly shaken woman.

Rosemary looked Mandy straight in the eye and said, “She called him Ethan.”

Mandy fell back upon her heels and then onto the floor.  That name hadn’t been mentioned around their family for a long time…at least not since he came back from Vietnam after his second tour of duty.

Memories of childhood came rushing back, assaulting her senses from all sides.  In her mind’s eye, she clearly saw the very first day that she and Bree had met Ethan.  She was thirteen and Bree was ten.  They had been sent to spend part of the summer with their grandparents in California.

“Girls, hurry up,” shouted their grandmother down the hall at them.  “Grandpa is already in the car!”

Bree rolled her eyes as she watched her older cousin put the finishing touches on her makeup, as if there were going to be boys her age wherever they were going, she thought.  Grandma had told them it was just ten miles down the road.

The girls’ parents were taking a long cruise around Australia and New Zeeland so the pair had been sent to spend the next five weeks with their grandparents in Southern California.  Mandy had already stated how bored she was.  She had just discovered the allure of boys and had been “testing the waters” her mother had said when they arrived.  At 10, Bree still thought of boys as playmates and not potential dates.  She thought her older cousin was nuts.

“Come on, Mandy, before grandma gets really mad at us,” whined Bree.

“Quiet, cousin,” replied Mandy.  “I’m just about ready.  Besides, mom always says a lady should look her best when she goes somewhere just in case she meets someone.”

“Hogwash!” shouted Bree from the doorway.  “You’re just hopin’ that you run into some cute guy so you can practice smiling and batting your eyes at him.”

“Better to be doing that than spending all my time with horses,” she retorted.

They both heard their grandmother shout again at them.  Mandy bolted from bathroom quickly almost running Bree over in her haste to get out before grandma came looking for them. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she smiled and hoped that there will be boys where they are going.  Bree glanced at her cousin’s attire and thought ‘Grandma is gonna have a heart attack when she sees how short that skirt is’.  She knew that was why Mandy took so long to get ready…so there would be no time to change her outfit.

Shaking her head, Bree turned and walked out the door.  She kept muttering under her breath that her cousin is just looking for a way to piss off grandma and this will do it.  At the age of 13, Mandy had hit the teenage “I know everything” phase and poor grandma and grandpa now had to deal with her moods for the summer.  Just before they got to the foyer of the house, Bree slipped to the side so her poor cousin had to approach grandma full on.

“What in the world?!!” stated their grandmother.  “Oh, never mind.  Get in the car.  Your grandfather is going to have a fit when he sees what you are wearing.”

They followed their grandmother out of the house trying not to giggle as the woman muttered to herself something about the youth of today and their ideas.  Their grandfather never said a word about Mandy’s skirt.  He just kept his face forward and hoped that no one (especially his wife) would see the grin he was trying to hide.  He knew exactly what his 13-year-old granddaughter was up to…she wasn’t pleased with being stuck out in the country…she wanted the beach and the boys.  So this was her way of showing her displeasure.  That would change shortly when she realized just what they were up to.

Twenty minutes later, he turned down a long driveway that led to their neighbors’ home. 

Harry McNamara was well known local breeder of American Quarter horses and Paints.  When they first learned that the girls were going to be spending five weeks that summer, he and his wife agreed that it was time to buy some horses for them to ride.  A few months prior to their arrival, they had come over to pick out the horses and were assured they would be ready for the girls to ride when they got there.

“Grandpa, why are we going to the McNamara’s home?  I thought you said we were going to a barbeque or something like that,” said Mandy as she realized she wore this for nothing.

“Child, what I said was I have a surprise for you.  You were the one who said it had to be something like a barbeque.”

He parked the car and told the girls to get out and behave.  Mandy heaved a heavy sigh as if she was being tortured and got out.  Bree bounced up alongside of her as she had figured out that grandma and grandpa had brought them here to ride.  She spotted Mr. McNamara walking towards them from the location of the bar.

“Jackson, nice to see you again,” said Harry as he extended his hand to his neighbor. 

“Katrina, it is good to see you.”

“Hello, Harry,” she said as she pulled Bree forward.  “You remember our granddaughters…this is Brenna and the young lady standing to my left is Amanda.”

Harry winked at Brenna as he remembered her.  She was always sneaking into his pasture and playing with the horses, had been ever since she could walk.  Bree giggled when Harry winked at her.  She was remembering the same thing he was…all the times she snuck into his pastures and he would have to come and get out before she either got trampled or started a stampede.  No matter what her parents or grandparents told her…she just had to be with the horses.

Mandy watched the exchanged between the older gentleman and her cousin.  Bree was more comfortable here than she was.  Living in Alaska, she didn’t have the opportunity to visit her grandparents as often as Bree did.  She felt no malice towards the younger girl as like Bree, she also got along with people well and could fit into any crowd.  She caught a movement near the barn door and gasped as a young man came walking through the very same door holding the reins of two beautiful horses, a paint and a quarter horse.  He was dressed in Army fatigues and was smiling.

“Mandy!” shouted Joanne for what seemed like the fifth time trying to get the brunette’s attention.  “What’s going on?  And who the hell is Ethan?”

Looking up at Joanne, she swallowed hard before she answered.  “Ethan was our neighbor’s son.  When we first met him, he had just enlisted in the Army and was about to be sent to Vietnam for one of two tours of duty.  After his second tour, he went AWOL from the hospital out East, just up and disappeared.  Every now and then, he would unexpectedly show up at his…”

Suddenly Mandy jumped to her feet, startling both Rosemary and Joanne.  Grabbing her purse, she turned back to the other two women.

“Joanne, stay with Rosemary until the ambulance arrives.  I hope the police show up here shortly,” stated Mandy.

“Where are you going?” asked Joanne.

“The McNamara place up the road about ten miles…I need to check on…well, let’s just hope when I get there everything is just fine,” replied Mandy.

Reaching for the door once again, she gave Joanne a weak smile as she pulled the door open.  Without looking up, she felt for the handle of the screen door.  Not finding it, she looked up and screamed as she saw the man standing in front of her.

*******************************

Roy took over with the pacing that Chet had been doing earlier.  He first would pace from one end of the room and back, sit down and then once more stand up to pace once more.  Chet and Marco tried more than once to start a game of cards and gave up as their concentration just was not on it.  Mike sat quietly leaning back into a corner of the couch.  Their captain had taken himself for a walk as he couldn’t stand sitting anymore in the staff lounge.

For the last hour and a half, various paramedics that knew Roy and Johnny stopped in whenever they brought someone to Rampart, just to see if there was any news on Johnny and his condition.

While Roy continued his incessant pacing in the staff lounge, two very tired doctors stepped out of the elevator near the nurses’ station in the ER of Rampart General Hospital.  Kel ran his hand through his dampened hair and looked up to see Dixie walking towards them.

  “How is he?” she questioned.  “How bad was the damage internally?”

“One question at a time, Dix,” said Kel wearily.  “They are taking him to recovery right now, but why don’t we save the explanation until we are all in the lounge that way I don’t have to repeat the tale over again.”

Nodding her agreement with Kel, Dixie fell into step alongside.  She couldn’t help but notice the exhaustion written in their expressions.  It made her wonder just how bad Johnny’s internal injuries were.  Kel opened the door and motioned for Dixie to proceed first.

As he stepped into the staff lounge, five expectant faces glanced up at once.  Kel could see the worry written in their eyes and in one especially he saw fear.  The one face he had expected to see wasn’t there and it surprised him considering how well he knew how the young woman felt about the paramedic.

Roy stepped forward, almost dreading what the doctor might have to tell.  He could see weariness in Brackett’s eyes and hoped that it was just from performing surgery and not from having to inform them the worst has happened.

“Dr. Brackett?” questioned Roy.  “How’s Johnny doin’?  Did he have any problems during surgery?”

“He’s in recovery, Roy,” replied Kel as he took the cup of coffee offered to him by Marco, nodding his appreciation to the fireman.

Roy was practically jumping out of his skin waiting for Dr. Brackett to tell them news of Johnny’s surgery and how he was doing.

“The bullet entered Johnny’s body right below the axilla on the right side.  At the angle it had entered, it sliced through his right lung and grazed across his liver, exiting out the left side just above the hip,” stated Kel in a matter-of-fact tone.  “We figure it hit a rib causing it to angle towards the hip, missing the stomach and the small intestine.”

Anyone could have heard a pin drop at that point.  Dixie paled when Kel talking about where the damage from the bullet had been done.  She had been watching Roy’s reaction as the senior paramedic turned as pale as she felt.  No one said a word as they waited to hear more on Johnny’s condition.

“Like I said before, he is in recovery,” continued Kel.  “But we all know how that goes for Johnny.  He either comes out of anesthesia perfectly or he has to give us a hard time and add a few complications.  Let’s just hope it’s the first scenario.”  He heard a round of agreement to that statement from those in the room.

“Dr. Brackett, just how bad was the damage from the bullet?” asked Roy.

“The wound in the right lung was clean through with the bullet missing the diaphragm by just a fraction of an inch.  It then skipped across the liver leaving several nicks in its wake before burrowing a deep groove towards the edge as it exited just above the left hip.”

Feeling the stress and strain of the last two hours coming down on him, Kel stood up to take his leave.  Before he walked out the door, he turned to the men one more time and said, “One of the nurses from ICU will be down to take you up once they have him settled in and comfortable.  He’s going to have a chest tube in for a few days to help with keeping the lung inflated until its healed enough to work on its own.  Barring any unforeseen complications, Johnny should make a full recovery.  It might take a couple of months before he can return work full-time but he will return.”

The door shut behind him and an audible sigh could be heard throughout the room.  But before anyone got comfortable with the news of Johnny, Kel shot back into the room.

“Now I remember something I was going to ask you…where is Bree?  Did anyone think to call her and let her know what has happened?”

“Doc,” said Roy.  “You might want to come in and sit down.”

Noticing the somber look on Roy’s face, he knew that his news wasn’t going to be as good as his.  He sat back down in the seat he just vacated and waited for Roy’s explanation of Bree’s absence.

“We don’t know where she is,” Roy continued.  “The minute Johnny was brought in Dixie tried to call but received no answer.  Her cousin arrived and tried numerous times to call the ranch but also received no answer.  So Mandy and Joanne took off for the ranch to see why no one was answering the phone.  We haven’t heard from them yet.”

“There’s more to this story, isn’t there?” questioned Kel.

“Yes,” replied Roy.  “Shortly after Johnny was taken up for surgery, the two detectives assigned to Bree’s stalker mystery showed up.  Not only had they heard about what happened to Johnny, they were also looking for Bree due to what was delivered by messenger at the police station.”  He tried to stifle a cough but failed.

Dixie slid a glass of water across the table as she could hear the dryness in Roy’s throat and knew if he didn’t hydrate himself, he would start coughing.  He smiled at her as he took a deep drink from the glass before he continued.

“The detectives had been sent a picture of Johnny with a red X from corner to corner.  On the back of the picture was one message…Now she is mine.  We haven’t heard from either of them and the longer the time without news, the worse I’m afraid it might be.”

Roy heard a soft but strongly worded curse from behind him and inwardly chuckled as he realized it came from Chet.  Even though Bree had gotten the best of Chet the last couple of times the group hung out together, Chet admired her spunk.  Now not only was their friend /coworker holding onto life, his girlfriend and daughter may be missing.  Chet was only stating what everyone was thinking.

Silence ruled the room for a few more minutes before Kel got up and left the room without a word.  He strode purposefully to his office and once inside, locked the door behind him.  Exhaustion took over as he sat down at his desk, placing his head in his hand.  He hadn’t told them the total truth of what occurred in surgery…of how they almost lost Johnny twice on the table…he couldn’t do and doubted that he ever will tell them.

**************************

She tried to slam the door but the man’s foot blocked the way.  She could tell by the grimace on his face that at least it hurt when she tried.  The minute Joanne and Rose heard Mandy’s scream, they knew something or someone surprised her.  The girl startled them as she came running into the great room, grabbing one of the fireplace tools to brandish at the intruder.

Both men cautiously stepped into view of the three women.  Mandy was in front of Rose with Joanne alongside her.  Each of them was holding an object as they were bent on doing as much damage to the intruders if they could.  When the intruders were within their sight, Mandy saw the badges that both men were holding out in front of them.

“Damn you!” she cried as she lowered the poker.  “Why the hell didn’t you announce who you were when you saw me reaching for the door?”

Joanne lowered her weapon also as she realized the two ‘intruders’ were actually the detectives she had been trying to get a hold of to inform them of what has happened out at the ranch.

“Ladies, we are truly sorry for startling you,” said Crockett.  “We actually thought you had seen us as you had been looking directly at the open door before you turned back to your friends.”

“Well as you can tell, that was not the case,” stated Mandy a little sarcastically as she tried to slow her racing heart.  “I don’t have time to chat.  Joanne can fill you in.” 

She made to move around the detectives before she was stopped.

“What’s the hurry?” asked Davison as he stepped in front of Mandy.

“My cousin is missing.  Her boyfriend’s aunt was attacked by the stalker who took my cousin.  And worst case scenario, he is our neighbor’s son who is suffering from some form of mental breakdown and thinks he is the best thing for my cousin.  I am trying to get over to his father’s home to see if he is okay and if he has seen his son!”

“You are doing no such thing, young lady,” stated Crockett.  “My partner and I will head over there and check things out.  And from what I am hearing, there is an ambulance heading this way.”

“No!” shouted Mandy as she strode briskly behind the detectives.  “I want to make sure Mr. McNamara is alright.”

Detective Crockett turned around and stopped Mandy in her tracks.  “You are not going to follow us!  If anything has occurred at the neighbor’s ranch, it will be considered a crime scene.  You will stay right here.  And so help me…if I see you anywhere near that ranch, I will arrest you!  Understood?”

Mandy nodded and watched as the two detectives quickly left the ranch.  Standing in in the doorway, she was completely dumbfounded by the way those two “Neanderthals” took over and left her there.  She wanted so badly to follow the detectives but knew the detectives wouldn’t hesitate to arrest her if they decided she was interfering.

She went back to the living room to wait with the other two ladies for the ambulance to pull into the driveway.  Joanne and Rose both stared at her from the couch, the latter looking dead tired and probably feeling the same she thought.

“What are you going to do, Mandy?” asked Joanne

“The only thing I can do, sit here and wait for the detectives to return,” she replied.  “But I think you should ride in with Rose that way you can also can check on Johnny, and let Roy know what’s going on out here.”

Rose’s head shot up when she heard Mandy say something about checking up on Johnny.  She groaned as the sudden movement sent her head spinning and caused it some throbbing.  Both girls turned quickly when they heard Rose groan.  That’s when it dawned on Mandy that they hadn’t told Rose about Johnny’s accident.

“Rose, are you okay?” she asked.

“Will somebody tell me what happened to my nephew before I disgrace myself and throw up?” retorted the older woman wryly as she tried to bring her aching head and unruly stomach under control.

Before she had a chance to explain things to Rose, the paramedics from Station 51 entered the living room.  Mandy introduced Rose to the paramedics who gave them their names, Peters and Swanson.  The pair immediately got down to work, contacting the hospital and checking Rose’s vitals.

Tilting her head to the side, Mandy conveyed the message to Joanne that she needed to talk to her in the kitchen.  The two left Rose in the paramedics’ expert hands and stepped into the kitchen.

“I hate to lay this one on you, Joanne,” said Mandy.  “I’m going to leave it to you to explain to Rose the situation with Johnny.  I’m going to stay out here and wait for the detectives to return with what Mr. McNamara had to say.”

“I think I can handle it,” replied Joanne.  “Rose is pretty leveled headed and she knows the hazards of Johnny’s profession even though it doesn’t include getting shot.”

The girls could hear Rose joking with the two young paramedics and giving them grief by telling them that if they didn’t give her the royal treatment she would make sure her nephew Johnny heard all about it.  One of the paramedics had caught Mandy’s silent plea to not say a word about Johnny’s situation just yet.

“Did you say your nephew is John Gage over at Station 51?” asked the paramedic who said his name was Peters.

“Yes, I did,” said Rose, trying to keep her eyes open.  “You know, young man, I really would like to go to sleep and that incessant pressure on my arm from the cuff is just a little uncomfortable.”

“I’m sure it is, Rose, but I need to check your blood pressure.  As far as sleeping, well as soon as we get you checked out and to the hospital, I’m sure they will let you sleep.”

“But I really want to close my eyes now.  I was sleeping so good before the girls woke me and started asking me all sorts of questions,” stated Rose with an impish grin.  “My head didn’t hurt as much when I was sleeping.”

Swanson chuckled as he instructed Rose to look at him and flashed a penlight to check her pupil dilation.  Rose batted at the penlight playfully.

“Sorry, Rose, but we have to check all of your responses.  I’m sure the light is harsh to your eyes.”

Rose muttered something under her breath that had the paramedics chuckling.  The ambulance attendants stood patiently nearby waiting for instructions.  Once the paramedics had finished their observations and checks on Rose, they got their final instructions from the hospital and motioned for the attendants to bring the gurney over.

They put Rose in a reclining position and headed out to the ambulance.  Mandy and Joanne followed close behind.   Peters jumped in the back of the ambulance to ride with Rose and Swanson instructed Joanne to ride upfront.   After talking with Mandy for a moment, Swanson jumped in his squad and followed the ambulance down the driveway and back to town.

Mandy stood outside for a few more minutes before heading back inside.  She was worried about Bree and Johnny’s neighbor, someone that she had known she was a kid.  Standing in the living room, she tried to imagine the fear that not only Rose felt when she was grabbed from behind but the terror that Bree experienced when she realized just who her stalker was.  Softly she whispered a prayer as she waited for the detectives to return.

***********************

Roy followed the ICU nurse down the hall to Johnny’s room.  They had waited about half an hour in the staff lounge before Dixie called upstairs and talked with the head nurse in ICU.  She told the guys to follow her as she took them upstairs to the ICU waiting room.

Shortly after they settled into the waiting room, Johnny’s nurse came down to get one of them.  Consensus was that Roy should be the one to visit him first.  As they approached Johnny’s room, Roy braced himself for the worst.  They had been in this situation before when Johnny got bit by that rattler and the night he was struck by a hit and run.  But for some odd reason, this little escapade had him shook more than the others.

The nurse pushed the door and motioned for Roy to enter.  She was allowing Roy to go in alone as most at Rampart knew of their friendship and how Roy could be a calming effect on Johnny when he was hurt.  Quietly she shut the door behind Roy.

As he walked towards the bed, it amazed him how dark they could make a room in this hospital.  Why not let in the light and allow it help in the healing process, he thought as he pulled a chair closer to the bed.

The endotracheal tube was still in place with a ventilator helping him breathe.  Poor Johnny, he thought if you could only see all the tubes and IVs running from you.  He could hear the steady beep of the heart monitor keeping track of his heart rate, almost keeping in time with the hum of the ventilator.

The nurse had explained to Roy that they were keeping him heavily sedated for the night so the healing process could have a head start on him.  He chuckled as they all knew Johnny too well in this hospital and his ability to try and sneak out or avoid staying here for a prolonged period of time.

He leaned on the bedrail and stared at the heart monitor.  He wanted to say something to Johnny but what.  For once he was at a loss for words.  It should have been Bree sitting here holding his hand with he and Joanne nearby for support.  He hadn’t heard from Joanne or Mandy since they left the hospital over two hours ago.

“Well, junior, it’s another fine mess you got yourself in,” he said with a little humor.  “I really don’t know how you manage it.  You’ve got everybody up in arms with this one.  Don’t worry though, we will make sure that Bree and Sierra are taken care of while you are in the hospital…”

He left the sentence hanging as he was almost afraid to go on.  He didn’t know if Bree and her daughter were alright.  What if this was the worker of the one who has been stalking Bree.  What if he managed to shoot Johnny and kidnapped Bree.  There were so many what if’s…Roy hung his head and took a few deep breaths to try and calm his already frayed nerves.  He never heard the door open or the ‘pssst’ noise that was being made to attract his attention.

Chet finally gave up trying to get Roy to look up at him.  Checking around to make sure the nurses weren’t watching him, he snuck in the room and quickly closed the door.  He crept up to Roy and touched him on the shoulder.  Roy jumped sending Chet skidding backwards, almost falling.

“Good grief, Chet,” exclaimed Roy in a soft but firm tone.  “Don’t sneak up on a guy like that!”

“Sorry, Roy, but I was trying to get your attention from the doorway and that wasn’t working.  I thought you were asleep.”

“Well, now that you’ve taken a few more years off my life, what do you want?”

“Dixie called up to the waiting room,” he replied.  “Squad 95 brought Johnny’s aunt in and Joanne’s with her.”

Roy stood up and headed for the door.  As he grabbed the door handle, he turned to Chet and asked, “What about Bree and her daughter?”

“I don’t know.  Dixie didn’t say anything but that you might want to come down to the ER as soon as possible.”

Without another word, Roy slipped out of Johnny’s room and with a purposeful walk headed straight to the elevator.  He wondered what had happened that they had to bring Johnny’s aunt in by ambulance.  He knew this wasn’t going to bode well for Johnny’s recovery.

As soon as she saw Roy step off the elevator, Joanne ran to her husband.  He pulled her into his embrace and held her while she softly began to cry.  He knew just from his wife’s reaction that things didn’t look good for Johnny as far as his family was concerned.  When he felt her sobs subside, he cupped her face in his hands and used his thumbs to wipe the tears from the corners of her eyes and cheeks.

“I take it things weren’t all in order when you got to the ranch,” stated Roy.

Joanne sniffled before she replied.  “No.  When we got there, the front door was ajar which Mandy said was unusual since Bree made sure it was always shut due to Sierra crawling.  It’s what we found when we got inside that scared the daylights out of us.”

“What the heck did you find out there?” he asked.

“Rose, unconscious on the kitchen floor,” she said softly.  “Oh, Roy, my heart just about jumped out of my chest.  She was just lying there so still.”

“And Bree?” he gently questioned.  “What about her and the child?”

“Gone.  Rose was almost hysterical as Mandy gently pried bits and pieces of information related to what occurred at the ranch.  It was what she told us next that scared Mandy half to death.”

“Jo, it couldn’t be that bad,” said Roy.

She glanced up at him and replied, “Yes it was, Roy.  It rocked Mandy onto her heels.  Bree knew her stalker…she knew him!”

While Roy tried to absorb the information his wife had just imparted to him, neither he nor Joanne noticed Dixie approaching them from the treatment room.  She knew what Joanne was telling her husband because Rose had just finished telling her the whole sordid story.  She was finding it just as hard to believe as Roy was.

“How are you doing, Joanne?” asked ER’s head nurse as she walked behind the nurses’ desk.  “Any residual headaches?”

Jo smiled at Dixie, knowing exactly what she was doing.  “Just mild ones now and then, but I have a feeling I’m going to have a bad one tonight.”

“With all the stress of today, I wouldn’t be surprised,” replied Dixie as she looked up at Roy from her perch at the desk.  “I take you are still trying to comprehend everything, Roy?”

“That’s an understatement, Dixie,” he retorted.  “I’m still trying to wrap my head around Johnny’s accident then my wife goes and throws this new detail at me.  I’m beginning to think the whole world has gone mad.”

Turning to his wife, he asked her, “Just who is this person that Bree knows?”

“According to Mandy, he was their neighbor’s son.  They first met him when they came to spend half the summer with their grandparents back in 1963.  He had just finished up with basic training and was home for a couple of weeks before being shipped out to Vietnam.”

Roy felt a small shudder travel up his spine when Joanne mentioned Vietnam.  He could only imagine what this young man experienced when he was there.   As he stood there lost in his own thoughts, he didn’t hear Jo or Dixie calling his name.

“Honey?” questioned Joanne as she tugged on the sleeve of his work shirt.

“Sorry.  I guess I was a few miles away from this conversation.”

“To say the least,” giggled Joanne.  “I was asking you how Johnny was.  Dixie said he got out of surgery about an hour ago.”

“He’s doing as well as can be expected.  They are keeping him sedated for the time being.  Chet’s with him now and I’m sure the others are impatiently waiting their turn to go in.”

Dixie looked at Roy and shook her head.  “You actually left Chet alone with Johnny?  That’s like letting the fox have free rein with the chickens.”  Having stated that, the head nurse couldn’t help but burst out laughing at the picture her imagination concocted.

Roy and Joanne couldn’t help but join in her laughter as the picture of Chet behaving himself alone in the room with Johnny was funny.  Knowing Chet, he was thinking of ways to get his ‘pigeon’ to wake up.

After the laughter died down, the conversation turned the predicament that they were finding themselves in…how to tell Johnny once he was well enough what has happened to Bree and their daughter.  It was a somber group that greeted Mandy when she walked into the ER.

“Mandy!” cried Joanne when she saw the brunette heading towards them.  “What did you find out?”

“They told me that the house had been broken into but there was no sign of Mr. McNamara,” stated Mandy.  “Detective Crockett said when they did a quick search of the home they found today’s date circled on the calendar with the notation ‘Barstow Horse Auction’.  So they assumed that Mr. McNamara is at the auction.”

“Where are the detectives right now?” asked Roy, noting that the detectives didn’t return with her.

“Still checking out both ranches.  They are hoping the searches will turn up clues as to where Bree might have been taken,” replied Mandy.  “At Johnny’s place, they just want to make sure that they don’t miss anything that might crucial to Bree’s safety.”

Roy snorted when he heard that.  “Seriously, Mandy, do you think they will find anything that could lead them in the right direction?  This guy has been two steps ahead of all of us in achieving his ultimate goal of getting to Bree.  If he hasn’t left any clues before, what makes them think he has left any behind now?”

“I don’t know if they will find anything but I can sure as hell hope they do,” she retorted with the same exasperation that Roy was feeling.  “But knowing Ethan and the skills he acquired while in the Army, he’s not going to leave a clue behind at all.”

Joanne decided to step in when she heard the frustration in both Roy and Mandy’s voices.  She knew it would only be a matter of time for they began to argue about the whole dilemma and the ER nurses’ station was not the place for this.  But before she had a chance to interrupt the pair, Dr. Early and Rose joined them, successfully putting the heated discussion at an end.

As soon as the doc and Johnny’s aunt had caught up with them, the group decided it was time to head upstairs to check on Johnny’s condition.  It was a somber group that got onto the elevator that would take them to the ICU.  Each seemed to be lost in thought regarding the situation that placed Johnny in the hospital due to a gunshot wound and took something very precious to him.

The doors opened to look directly at the nurses’ station of ICU.  The silence was broken by the various beeps, hums and swooshes of equipment being used by the patients unfortunate enough to require their services.

Roy opted to escort Rose to Johnny’s room while the rest detoured to the ICU waiting room.  With a quick stop at the nurses’ station to check in, the pair quietly entered the room.  Roy heard the soft, quick intake of breath from Rose and knew that even though she has visited Johnny in the hospital before, it always took you by surprise.

Rose glanced down at her nephew lying all too quietly in the bed.  She barely registered the chair that Roy had placed behind her.  Leaning over, she gently brushed a lock of hair that had fallen across his brow and into his eye.  She softly kissed his forehead before she sat down, taking his hand in hers.

She glanced up at the heart monitor with its steady beeping.  From there, she turned her gaze to the respirator and the tube that peeked out from under the covers.  Even with her husband’s illness, she had never seen so much equipment in one room to keep someone alive.  A tear slowly slid down her cheek.

“Rose, he’s gonna be okay,” Roy said quietly as he sat in a chair on the opposite side of the bed.

“I know he will be.  It’s just so unnatural to see him so still,” replied Rose as she wiped the tear away.  “I don’t know about you, Roy, but I have never seen him so still…not even when he was a young boy.”

“That’s true for even today,” he chuckled as he remembered Johnny bounding into the station that morning.  “All he could talk about was the plans he had for the upcoming Labor Day weekend.  He was excited about taking Bree and Sierra camping.”

Rose softly gasped and looked across the bed at Roy.  “Oh…how are we going to tell him about Bree?” she asked as the tears once again filled her eyes.

“We’ll worry about that when the time comes.  Right now, we’re just going to concentrate on helping him get better.”

“You know that she will be the first one he will ask for when he wakes up.  How do we tell him that we failed in keeping her safe?”

“Rose, let’s wait to the cross that bridge tomorrow.  Dr. Brackett won’t keep him on the vent for more than a day.   He will begin lowering the sedative this evening so that by morning he will be easier to wake.”

He reached across the bed to place his hand on top of Rose’s and gave it a quick squeeze hoping to reassure the woman that everything will be okay.  The pair sat in companionable silence, each saying a private prayer for Johnny’s recovery.

Johnny could hear the voices around him but knew it was futile to communicate.  He could hear what sounded like a ventilator in the room and knew they stuck him on one for the night.  He had been fighting against whatever Dr. Brackett had given him because he wanted to be awake for Bree…unfortunately it was stronger than he was.

In his mind he felt paralyzed but knew it was just the effects from the anesthesia he had been given in surgery and the sedative prescribed to keep him calm.  He tried to lift his eyelids to see just who was in his room but couldn’t find the energy to do that.  Before he gave into the darkness that was threatening to envelop him once again, he thought he heard whoever was in the room mention Bree by name and hoped that everything was alright.

As he gave into the quiet darkness of sleep, in the back of his mind he could feel a presence that didn’t make sense.  It was almost a panicked feeling that washed over him from somewhere he didn’t recognize…a voice crying in the night for him.

The ICU nurse assigned to Johnny’s care quietly entered the room and explained that they would have to leave momentarily as she needed to check his vitals amongst other things.

The pair quickly complied with the nurse’s request and exited the vicinity.  Deciding to join the rest in the waiting room, they quickly walked the hallway through ICU to the visitor’s lounge.  Rose stopped in the doorway of the lounge and glanced at her nephew’s friends…no, family…that had gathered there to await his recovery.

Roy wondered what made Rose stop so abruptly until he glanced at the group gathered in the waiting room.  Everyone had that look about them that said this isn’t happening, that it’s just a bad dream.  In the middle of the room were the two detectives who were assigned to Bree’s stalker case and from the looks on their faces, the news was not that good.

He gently took Rose by the elbow and escorted her into the room.  The senior detective then asked them to close the door.  As Roy closed the door, chaos erupted.

*******************************

She could sense something wasn’t quite right.  In the deepest corner of her mind, she felt a presence…a weak one but a presence nonetheless.  She thought she recognized what or who the presence was but something was preventing her from reaching it.  Her body shook with the frustration she was feeling.

She was oblivious to her surroundings but knew she was missing something although unsure of what that was.  Once again she could feel the presence trying to contact her, failing to do so.  Her heart was beating rapidly as panic strived to make itself known.  Blindly she reached around her, touching only air.

Something brushed against the fringes of her unconscious mind causing her to swing around in an attempt to locate what it was.  Just as she was about to give up and ignore whatever it was, she felt it brush her once more…only this time she recognized the touch.  She cried out his name…Johnny!

  Bree jumped in her seat.  She tried to raise her hands to her face, only to discover she had just one free hand.  As she struggled to wake herself from the stupor she was in, she realized she was in a moving car and was not alone.  She swung her head to the left and gasped softly as the realization of the situation returned to her.

She noticed the driver was sitting calmly to her left with his eyes straight forward, humming a tune softly under his breath as he maneuvered the car down the road. 

Bree tried to shift her legs and realized that her ankles were tied together.  Her right hand was handcuffed to the door handle/armrest.  Assessing her predicament, she tried to keep her frustration to a minimum as he had not noticed she was alert.

The next thought that entered her mind was Sierra…where was she?  The thought of him harming her daughter sent a river of rage running through her veins.  No longer thinking she didn’t want him to notice she was awake, Bree turned her head towards her captor with venom in her eyes.

“Where’s my daughter?” shouted Bree.

He jumped as the sound of her voice breaking the silence.  Turning his head slightly, he smiled and replied, “Nice to see you are awake.”

“Skip the pleasantries.  Where is my daughter?” she shouted once again.

“You know, Bree, shouting at me is not going to get you anywhere.  Try being a little bit nicer and you might just learn something.”

Bree snorted in derision at his statement and replied, “And why would I want to do that?  You stole me from my home, abused a guest in my house and on top of that, you have been harassing people I care about!”

He quietly but firmly stated “Because if you don’t try to be a little nicer, I can put an end to your life and that of your daughter’s.  What do you have to say now?”

Bree just stared at him, her eyes wide and mouth open.  She didn’t know how to reply to that statement.

He looked at her, once again with a smile on his face.  “That’s what I thought.  Your daughter is safely asleep in the back seat of the car.  All you have to do is turn your head and you can see her.”

She turned her head enough to see the car seat in the back seat and a tousled head of dark hair sticking above the blanket.  Swallowing hard, she turned to face forward again and softly muttered ‘thank you’.

The driver smiled to himself and began humming his favorite song again.  He knew this was just the beginning, that she would try to thwart him at every turn but in the end he would have his way and her spirit would be tamed.

Bree leaned back on the head rest, looking out the passenger window.  The tears fell unheeded down her cheeks and she had no desire to wipe them away.  She knew deep in her heart the presence that she felt before she woke up was Johnny and that somehow her captor had harmed him…how she did not know.

As they flew down the highway, Bree tried to think of how she could survive this.  If he had only left her daughter at home and just taken her, she thought, at least then I could have fought him every step of the way.

She gazed out the window as trees, fences and other objects flew by in her field of vision.  Dusk was falling and she still had no idea where they were at, or if they were even still in California.  She could feel her eyes getting heavy once more and gave into the soothing comfort of sleep.  As she slipped into the unconscious part of her mind, she once more felt the presence alongside her…this time it was comforting and she welcomed it.

**************************

Once Roy had shut the door, everyone started talking at the same time.  He tried to imagine what had everyone in an uproar and wondered just what had he and Rose missed while they were in Johnny’s room.

Scanning the room, he could see a variety of emotions racing across the faces of his coworkers/friends.  Mandy was sitting curled up next to Marco and from the look of her eyes, she had been crying.  Chet had his back to the whole group, seemingly studying the weather outside the waiting room window.  The rest of the group from the sounds of their voices, were in a state of some type of shock.

Suddenly an ear piercing whistle burst through the upraised voices causing everyone to clamp their hands over the ears as if in pain.  Turning from the window to gaze at his friends, Chet pulled his fingers from his mouth.

“That’s better,” he stated.  “It was getting a little out of hand, don’t you think?”

“What the hell is going on?” asked Roy as he joined his wife and Captain Stanley with his wife, Emily.

Joanne linked arms with her husband and gently squeezed his as an indication to settle down, that now was not the time to lose his temper.  He couldn’t help feeling that that was exactly what he wanted to do…get angry.  He felt an overwhelming need to release some of the stress he was experiencing due to this whole absurd situation.

He glanced down at his wife and smiled, then turned his gaze back to the two detectives in the room and once more asked, “Just what the hell is going on?”

Detective Crockett returned Roy’s gaze and replied, “While we were investigating the grounds at Mr. McNamara’s ranch, we made a gruesome discovery.  Mr. McNamara did not make it to Barstow as planned.  A member of our team discovered his body buried underneath some straw in the back of the barn.”

Roy could do nothing but stare at the detective.  Dead, he thought, Johnny’s neighbor was murdered by the same person that took Bree and her daughter. 

When he made eye contact with Mandy, he could see within her eyes the terror she was feeling and could only imagine what she was thinking.

“So what do you plan to do about this new discovery?” he inquired of the detective. 

“Obviously this means you are dealing with a more dangerous person than you first believed.”

“That’s why we decided to immediately come here with the news.  We didn’t want any of you to hear about this on the TV or read it in the papers,” stated Crockett.  “As of right now, we will be posting a guard outside Mr. Gage’s room and patrols will start back up again in your neighborhoods.  We don’t know if he will come back but we aren’t taking any chances.”

“He won’t be coming back,” stated Mandy in a flat tone of voice.  “He has what he wanted along…Bree…he has no reason to keep harassing us.  With the special training he had in the Army…”

When Mandy mentioned that, both detectives’ heads shot up and the look on their face said it all.  Davison whispered something in his partner’s ear.  Crockett shook his head and turned towards Mandy.

“What do you mean special training?” he questioned.

“He received special training with the military as a sniper,” she replied.  “He also has survivalist training.  So if you want to know what really scares me is the fact that he could take my cousin anywhere in this country and it would be very hard to find them.”

Nothing more was said and silence once more ruled the waiting room.  Crockett pulled his partner over by the windows and the two were having a very intense conversation from the looks on their faces.  Roy watched the two detectives intently, wondering if there was something they weren’t telling them.  He could tell just by the tension in the air that he wasn’t the only one thinking that.

When the detectives first walked in and gave them the bad news, Mandy felt her heart sank.  It was over two years ago when this whole mess started.  All she could think about was Mr. McNamara and found it hard to not only believe he was dead but that his own son had committed the crime.  She wondered just what had happened to Ethan in Vietnam to make him completely lose control of reality.

All Bree had ever wanted to do was sing, she thought.  As far back as she could remember, Bree has always been writing what Mandy thought were poems but they turned out to be lyrics that she was waiting to put to music.  She did that as soon as she learned the basics of the piano and guitar.  Now, her life was endangered due to someone who developed an unhealthy attachment to her…someone who had been a friend and confidant to both girls.

On the other side of the room, Joanne, Emily and Linda entertained Rose with stories of how they all first got to know Johnny.  Joanne couldn’t help but release a small giggle as she caught a glimpse of Rose’s face when she told her about Johnny’s first foray into the DeSoto family life, and how she discovered that the young man was just an overgrown child who thrilled her own children with his antics.

Just talking about Johnny and his zest for life seemed to lift the spirits of those in the room who had come to know and love the young paramedic.  Dixie couldn’t help but spill the beans on some of the nurses that Johnny chased after and ultimately turned him down.  Chet, of course, couldn’t be left out and regale about the times that the phantom caught his pigeon totally and thoroughly off guard.

Detective Crockett leaned against the wall and listened to the group talk about their friend.  He knew they were trying to stall the inevitable…what could be done to try and locate Bree and Sierra and reunite them with Johnny.  Davison looked at his partner and tipped his head towards the group.  Crockett nodded in agreement and the pair went to join the others.

“Excuse me,” said Crockett hesitantly as he really didn’t want to interrupt them.  “I think we need to talk especially to you, Miss Montgomery.”

“Please, I would prefer that you call me Mandy,” she replied.  “What is it you wish to talk to me about?”

“Just what do you know about Ethan McNamara?” asked Crockett bluntly.

Mandy took a deep breath before she answered.  She looked at those around her and felt safe.  Lastly she glanced at her fiance and drew strength from him to tell what she knew about the man who took her cousin.

“I don’t know how much I really have to tell you about Ethan,” replied Mandy.  “I only met him a couple of times.  It was Bree who spent more time at our grandparents’ home and got to know him.”

“Whatever you know just might be helpful,” replied Davison.

“My first encounter with Ethan was in 1963 when I was 13,” stated Mandy as she chuckled over the memory of that first meeting.  “As you can imagine a 13-year-old teenage girl who was discovering boys and she meets a young man in Army fatigues…well let’s just say I’m the reason my grandparents’ hair was turning gray that summer.”

She glanced over at Marco and smiled, “No offense, honey, but you were not my first crush.”

“None taken, chica,” he replied.

“Anyway, Ethan and I did talk a lot that summer.  He was home for two weeks before they shipped him over to Vietnam.  He did confide in me that he was scared about what might be awaiting him over there but he was also very proud to be serving his country,” continued Mandy.

Before Mandy could say anything else, Detective Davison interrupted her.  “Why was he confiding in a 13-year-old girl?”

Blushing, Mandy answered the question, “Because I was an incorrigible child and had been flirting shamelessly with him.  As my grandmother put it so succinctly, ‘I was testing the feminine waters.’  Ethan put a stop to it and flat out told me that he looked at me like a younger sister…believe me I felt really foolish after that, but it also changed things as I felt I could talk to him and knew that he wouldn’t break my confidence and he knew I wouldn’t break his.”

“How old was he at that time?” asked Crockett.

“He was 22 and had left college to join the Army.  His father was quite proud of him.”  Mandy felt the tears well up in her eyes as she thought of Mr. McNamara.

Davison let her regain her composure and asked her if she knew why he did a second tour of duty.

“He felt he had unfinished business over there,” she stated.  “When he returned after his first tour, Bree had told me she had seen him.  He seemed the same but yet something was different about him…not scary different, but just different.”

  Getting up from the couch, Mandy walked to the window, turning around to lean against it before she continued.

“Something happened to him over there…what we don’t know.  All Mr. McNamara could tell us was that he was sent to Walter Reed out East and about three days after he got there, he went AWOL…”

Mandy talked about how that summer of 1969 was something neither she nor Bree would ever forget.  She said that’s where they learned about Ethan’s elopement from Walter Reed and that no one, not even his father, has heard from him.  During their last week in California, they had been invited over to the McNamara ranch for a barbeque.

The barbeque had been underway for a couple of hours and everything was going just fine…until an unexpected guest arrived.  From the expression on Mandy’s face, everyone knew that the day had not ended well.  She began pacing back and forth in front of the windows as the memories of that day came flooding back.

She spoke of the surprise in Mr. McNamara’s face as he looked at his son.  At first they hadn’t been sure it was Ethan as his hair was long and he was sporting a scruffy beard.  His tone of voice and overall demeanor should have been an indication that everything was not alright with Ethan, even though he told them he was fine.

His manner had been quite abrupt with his father, said Mandy, and he all but brushed him aside as he went into the house.  He locked himself in the bathroom and when he returned three-quarters of an hour later, he had showered, changed clothes.  His hair was in a ponytail and his beard had been trimmed.  But he seemed very wary of those around him.  His stance was guarded along with the expression in his eyes…until Bree came back from her ride out in the far pasture…

“It was almost as if a switch had been flipped inside him,” stated Mandy.  “He still was abrupt to the rest of us but with Bree…he came fully alive.  In typical Bree fashion, she ran up to him and gave him a hug, telling him she was so glad to see he was alright…”

Mandy suddenly stopped in the middle of her tale as she finally realized that was the beginning of his obsession.  The tears filled up her eyes and spilled down her cheeks as the whole time it had been in front of them and none of them knew it.

Marco quickly walked over to her and pulled her into his arms.  The look he gave the detectives said it all…back off.   For a short period of time, Mandy relaxed and cried in Marco’s embrace but then leaned back, brushed the tears away and turned back to the group.

“Are you okay?” asked both detectives at the same time.

“Yes.  As I was talking about the next meeting with Ethan at the barbeque, it dawned on me that that’s when the obsession with Bree began, only we were too ignorant to realize it.”

“How was anyone to know that this young man was suffering from some type of breakdown?  I don’t think anyone in that group could have understood what happened overseas or the effects it had on any of the soldiers who came home,”

stated Crockett.

“I know but towards the end of the party, Bree was doing everything in her power to avoid Ethan.  Just before we left, she came running over to me with Ethan hot on her heels.  What happened after that was truly memorable…”

Chica, you don’t have to tell this if you don’t want to,” said Marco as he put his arm back around her waist, pulling her tight against his side.

“No, they need to know what they are dealing with.  I saw firsthand what he is capable of,” stated Mandy.  “He grabbed her arm in a desperate attempt to keep her from leaving.  He was practically shouting at her that she couldn’t leave.  Could you imagine what a 16-year-old girl is thinking when someone tells her that she had to stay with him…that they belonged together?”

Joanne, Emily and Linda all had tears glistening in their eyes as they listened to Mandy speak of the argument that had ensued.  She talked of how Bree was trying everything in her power to be gentle with the young man but in the end had to rudely tell him to his face that she was not interested in him nor would she ever be interested in him.

What happened afterwards stunned them…the look on Ethan’s face was like a chameleon, one expression after another rapidly crossed it.  Any sanity that had been in his eyes left and the demons haunting him took over.  He stepped back from Bree, telling her that one day she would be his and she would love it.  People had come running over when they heard Bree shouting but Ethan saw none of them.  He violently pushed anyone in his way aside but before he headed down the road, the family dog had the unfortunate timing of walking right in front of him.  Without a second thought, Ethan had picked up the dog, snapped its neck and threw it on the ground.

“…that was the last time we ever saw him,” said Mandy with sadness in her voice.  “He would occasionally show up at the ranch but only when Mr. McNamara wasn’t around.  The only reason we knew that was because items would be missing from the house like food, a shirt or two of Mr. McNamara’s, stuff like that.”

Joanne had found a box of tissues and brought them to Mandy who thanked her for them.  A glass of water was also handed to her when she started coughing.

“I don’t know if there is anything in there that is helpful,” she stated after a drink of water.

“Well, it gives us a better insight to him but we will have to do contact someone within the Army to help us find out exactly what training he had and what might have caused his break with reality,” replied Crockett.  “Thanks for your help.  We will leave so that you can visit Mr. Gage one more time before visiting hours are up.”

The two detectives took their leave of the close group of friends.  Silence ruled the ICU waiting room while the friends absorbed the story that Mandy had told them.  Finally, Chet broke the quiet of the room by asking, “And just how do we break this news to Johnny…that his girlfriend and child are missing?”

*********************************

He felt her touch before he heard her voice.  Wake up, Johnny, was what she was saying.  Now why would he want to do that, he thought.  He was lying beside her in the tent by the lake.  She had woken him by her soft touch as she brushed his hair from his eyes.

“Wake up, Johnny,” she said once again as she brushed kiss across his forehead.  “You need to wake up, sleepyhead.  It’s a beautiful day outside and we don’t want to waste it.”  She touched his forehead again and then tried to tickle his toes.  He gently kicked at the hand doing the tickling.

The way he was feeling, he felt like he was coming down with something and he didn’t want to disappoint her by being sick.  He tried to tell her but it felt like his throat was blocked by something.  Raising his hand was a feat in itself as it felt like it was made of lead.

Suddenly she wasn’t there anymore.  He tried to scream but no sound came out.  Irritation poured from every fiber of his being as he couldn’t understand why he was helpless.  Trying to give into the darkness that wanted to consume him, he thought he heard Bree say that she was alright and not to worry.  Not to worry…that renewed his strength to fight the darkness and try to wake up.  He knew something wasn’t right.

Roy watched as Johnny’s legs moved around under the covers.  Occasionally he could see his eyelids flutter but knew his friend was fighting against waking up.  This was nothing new to them at Rampart…Johnny never did make a good patient.

Soon he noticed Johnny was exhibiting more activity…along the lines of he was agitated.  He watched Johnny’s right hand clench and unclench, wondering what his friend was dreaming about that had him so upset.  Without warning and what seemed to be the speed of light, Johnny’s hand reached up and grabbed the ventilator tube.

Roy sprang into action, leaping out of the chair and just as quickly grabbing Johnny’s hands to keep him from pulling the tube out of his throat.  At the same time, Johnny opened his eyes and saw his friend standing over him.  Eye contact was instantaneous and had an immediate calming effect on Johnny, although Roy wasn’t taking any chances and kept a hold of Johnny’s hands.

Dr. Brackett and a nurse came running into the room when they heard Roy shouting for help.  Brackett breathed a sigh of relief when he realized Johnny surprised them once again and woke up a lot faster than they thought he would.

Kel took one of Johnny’s hands from Roy to check his pulse.  “So you decided to come to the living?” he asked in a joking manner as he smiled down at the young man.  “You had us all worried when they brought you in.”

Johnny’s gaze darted back and forth between the doctor and his partner.  He wished he could say what he had on his mind but unfortunately knew it was impossible with the tube stuck down his throat.  As if he knew exactly what Johnny was thinking, Kel motioned the nurse to hand him some gloves.  Roy stepped back so the nurse could assist the doctor in the removal of the ventilator tube.

Shortly, Kel was ready to remove the endotracheal tube and told Johnny to take a deep breath and cough.  With a few moments, he had rapidly pulled tube out and raised the head of the bed.  He took the stethoscope and asked Johnny to take a few breaths so that he could listen to his lungs.  Once completed, the respiratory therapist stepped to do some simple exercises with him.

After a few minutes of breathing exercises, Johnny was getting a little bit irritated.  He had questions he wanted answers to.  His irritation finally was recognized by the therapist who said she would be in later that afternoon to go through the exercises again.

When he was finally able to say something, Johnny found that his his voice was hoarse and his throat felt so dry.  Rolling his eyes upwards, he finally pointed towards the pitcher on the bedside and tried to say, “Waa…tr.”

“Here, junior, but remember to sip slowly,” said Roy with a chuckle as he held the straw for Johnny to sip from.

Even though it hurt to swallow, Johnny just about drained the glass.  Roy looked over at Kel who was shaking his head at the patient.  The incorrigible child in Johnny was making an appearance and they both knew it was only a matter of time before he would begin asking when he could leave.

Kel decided to stop that tirade before it started.  Pulling a chair up, he sat down to have a little talk with his patient.  “Johnny, before you even think of asking the inevitable question of when you can leave, I need to remind you that you had major surgery involving a gunshot wound that collapsed your lung.  You still have the chest tube in and more than likely it will be there for another day or two depending up on rapidly your lung heals…”

Johnny glanced over at Roy and rolled his eyes as Dr. Brackett continued on with his lecture.  Kel had seen the look exchanged between the two and knew by the frown on Roy’s face that he had conveyed to Johnny to behave and listen.

“…so until I know that lung is fully healed and you are breathing without difficulty AND have no complications, you will stay put,” he concluded.

“But…” Johnny started to say before he began to cough.  Roy quickly handed him his water glass refilled.

“Sorry,” apologized Johnny.  “Throat’s dry.”  He could hear how raspy and hoarse his voice sounded and hoped that it would go away soon.

“Don’t apologize, junior,” chuckled Roy.  “I have a feeling this won’t stop you from talking.”

Smiling as he knew his partner was right Johnny decided to go straight to the heart of what had been bothering him.  “Where’s Bree?”

He immediately caught the glance exchanged between the doctor and Roy and knew that something happened while he was out of it.  His mind recalled the dream he was having that morning and thinking he could feel Bree’s presence with him, saying that she was alright and not to worry.  Now he was worried.

“Once more I will ask…where’s Bree?” he asked with a little more force behind his words.

Kel decided to wait outside and let Roy handle this.  Roy tipped his head in agreement and pulled his chair up alongside the bed to talk with his friend.

He watched as Roy struggled to find the words to answer his question.  Deep down he knew that somehow his getting shot and Bree not being there at the hospital were connected.  As he made that connection, Johnny felt like his heart was breaking.  The ache was almost too much to bear.

“He’s got her, doesn’t he?” inquired Johnny as he tried to help his friend along.

Roy looked up and his expression told Johnny all he needed to know.  “We’re thinking that all along his plan was to harass us to the point where someone did get hurt and while we were all focused on that, he would swoop in and take Bree…”

“But what about my daughter…where is she?” interrupted Johnny.

“You and I both know that Bree would never let anything happen to Sierra.  We think he has her too…as a way to control Bree…so she will do as he wants.”

“Dear God!” cried Johnny.  Roy could only sit there and watch as the realization sunk in that his family had been taken from him.

He leaned back against the pillows behind him as the tears streamed down his cheeks.  Who was this person, he thought, who feels they have the right to destroy just so they can achieve what they think rightfully belongs to them.  He silently cursed them in his mind and railed in frustration that he was incapacitated to the point he could not help in trying to locate his love.

“Roy, I need to get out of here,” stated Johnny in a matter-of-fact tone as he threw the covers off of himself.

“Junior, you know damn well you are in no shape to go anywhere.  Brackett told you that a few minutes ago,” replied Roy as he stood up in anticipation of what Johnny might do.  “That chest tube is still in and you sure as hell cannot go anywhere with that, pulling it out will only cause more damage!”

“You think I don’t know that!” shouted Johnny.  “Some madman has Bree and Sierra and I will be damned if I’m gonna stay in this hospital while they are in danger!”

He was finding it hard to catch his breath but that wasn’t going to stop him.   He tried to swing his legs over the side of the bed but felt an instant pulling on his right side. 

He rolled his eyes upwards as he realized that the chest tube was on his right.  Before he could reach around to grab at it, he felt a hand clasp his wrist.

Roy kept a firm grip on Johnny’s wrist while he kept his eyes focused on his friend.  He knew that Johnny was in no shape to attempt getting out of Rampart, and even if he did manage to get out of bed…he would probably go straight to the floor.  He silently prayed that Dr. Brackett had still been standing outside of the hospital room and had heard Johnny’s argument with him.

As if upon cue, Dr. Brackett walked into Johnny’s room followed by a nurse carrying a small silver tray.  Roy breathed a silent sigh of relief but never took his eyes or grip off of Johnny.   The damning look that Johnny gave him before turning his eyes on Brackett didn’t faze him one bit.  He had been on the receiving end of that look too many times to count.

Kel could see the pleading look Johnny was giving him but knew it was in the young man’s best interest that he be sedated, however so lightly, once more.  Taking the syringe the nurse had filled with the correct dose, he injected it into the IV hanging on the left side of Johnny’s bed.

“Why did you have to do that, doc?” questioned Johnny with a sad tone to his voice.  “I just want to help in finding Bree.  Can’t you understand that?”

“I do understand that, Johnny, but what I understand even more is that you will do her no good if you take off out of here before you are completely healed,” was Kel’s reply. 

“Besides that, there is a police officer stationed outside your door, Johnny.  You would not have gotten far.”

He could feel his eyes getting heavy but he thought he heard the doc say that there was a police officer outside of his hospital room.  He frowned as he thought about that and wondered what everyone was so afraid of.  Pally, he thought, when this sedative wears off you got a lot of explaining to do.

*********************************

  She smiled as the warm, calm feeling cascaded throughout her body.  She felt safe even though his arms weren’t around her.  His presence lent strength to her that let her know she could make it through whatever the future had to throw at her.

Opening her eyes, she gasped as she saw the beautiful path in front of her strewn with pinkish purplish flowers.  Tentatively she took a step and giggled as she felt the path beckoning her to walk upon it.  She couldn’t help herself…she just had to dance.

She twirled and dipped.  The petals seemed to be swirling around her as she danced with her arms flung out.  She noticed that she had a soft flowing dress and when she twirled the skirt flared out around her legs.  She loved the feeling of it.

She stopped to take in the beauty of the woodland path once more.  As she stood silently, she thought she heard a voice…a male voice beckoning her to follow.  She smiled to herself as she thought she felt Johnny’s presence near her and laughed as she felt he was playing hide and seek.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are, my love,” she sang.  “You will find great rewards for revealing yourself.”

Nobody appeared but once again the voice beckoned her to follow it.  She giggled as she stepped off the path and felt the softness of the petals beneath her feet.  She followed the voice as weaved in and out, leading her further away from the woodland path.

Suddenly she noticed it was slowly turning gray around her.  She had left her woodland path behind and was now upon a hardened trail.  Tears welled up in her eyes as she felt her strength abandoning her.  She could no longer hear the voice and the presence she felt was no longer comforting.

As she darting in and out of the trees, she could not locate the path she had been on.  It scared her as she no longer knew where she was.  The voice she now heard was harsh and rough…and it was getting closer.  A hand clamped down on her shoulder and she screamed…

She was gasping for air as she popped up from her prone position.  Her shock was almost palpable around as she opened her eyes and stared in disbelief at what she was seeing.

As she gazed at her surroundings, she could see the smooth boards of the hardwood floor, partially covered by area rugs.  Looking above her head, she could see the roughhewn beams that supported the ceiling of the cabin.  The living and kitchen were a combined space but she was unsure if it hosted a bathroom and noting the small bed she woke up on…not sure if there was a bedroom.

Anger replaced shock when she realized was she chained by the ankle to a bolt anchored to next to the wall.  A small growl grew in the back of her thought until it burst forth in a loud shout of fury.

“You don’t need to shout.  I was only around the corner.”

“What the hell have you done to me and where the hell is my daughter?” screamed Bree as she fought to keep herself from launching at him to ‘do damage’.

“Your daughter is safe, sound and sleeping,” he replied.  “As for where you are, let’s just say you are in a warm place that will keep you safe.”

“Damn your cryptic remarks!” cried Bree.  “Why are you doing this to me?”

Ethan kept his distance from the petite blonde as from her stance and the fury in her eyes he knew she wanted to do bodily harm to him.  He shook his head and made a ‘tsking’ noise as he knew she wouldn’t understand why he had to do this…not only for him but for her safety.  Now was not the time to try and explain this to her.

“You wouldn’t understand, my love,” he replied as he stood back up.  He still had things he needed to do before they would be completely safe where they were at.

“I don’t give a damn if I will understand the reason you did this or not!  I want to know why.  And I want to know what you have done with my daughter,” stated Bree angrily.  “So help me if you have harmed her that will be the last thing you will ever do.”

He turned around and said, “She is fine.  I’m not going to bring her out to you as it would only wake her up and it was hard enough to get her to fall asleep.”  With having said that to her, he turned and walked back out the door.

Bree stood and watched him leave with her mouth wide open.  He totally dismissed her as insignificant and walked out.  Sitting down on the edge of the bed, she once more gazed at her surroundings and wondered what to do.  She had no clue where her child was and that scared her.  Knowing what Ethan was capable of, she was afraid of what he could to do a defenseless child.   She couldn’t understand why he felt he had to chain her…she wasn’t going to leave, at least not without her daughter.

She could tell by the light sneaking through the covered window it was daylight but what time of day she couldn’t be sure of.  She wasn’t even sure what day it was.  Somewhere since the time he grabbed her and Sierra from the ranch and waking up chained to the floor of this cabin, she had lost time…how much was uncertain.

Her mind raced back through the past years and she wondered what she could have done that might have circumvented Ethan from following this path of destruction.  In her heart she knew there was nothing she could have done…that a violent war had drastically changed his psyche, but that didn’t stop her mind from looking back and questioning her actions.

A creaking door hinge alerted her to the fact that Ethan was returning to the cabin.  She hurriedly wiped any traces of the tears she had been crying and hoped he would at least free her other hand so she could sit up.

Ethan walked into the main living area of the cabin they were in, carrying a load of firewood.  He placed it next to the woodstove that sat in the opposite corner from the bed Bree was sitting on.  Brushing his hands on his jeans, he turned back to Bree and could see the plea in her eyes.

“I can tell by the look in your eyes you want the chain removed,” he said as he knelt by the bed.  “How do I know I can trust you?”

“Where would I go?” questioned Bree.  “You have my daughter somewhere that I don’t know about.  I have no clue where we are.  I don’t even know if we are still in California.  Please remove the chain.  I promise I won’t go anywhere.”

He smiled at her, stating, “I can’t do that, Bree.  I know you…you are headstrong and stubborn.  You would not be afraid to try and navigate the area we are in even with your daughter in tow, knowing that you would eventually find help.”

“You are such an ass!” she shouted.  “What the hell did I do to make you want to do this to me?”

Calmly, Ethan stood up.  Glancing down at Bree, he could see the frustration in her eyes.  He smiled at her but she noticed that his smile didn’t reach his eyes…those remained cold, emotionless.  It sent shivers up her spine.

“I have to leave for a while.  The chain is long enough for you to navigate the living and kitchen area, down the hall to the bathroom and to the bedroom.”

Surprise was etched upon her face.  “You’re leaving?” she questioned.

“You’ll be alright.  There is enough food to last for a while and there is plenty of firewood to keep the cabin warm should it get cold out,” he said as he grabbed his coat off the peg by the door.

Bree flew off the bed and charged towards Ethan, intent on causing harm but discovered that the chain did not reach all the way to the door.  She screamed with rage as he stood just out of her reach.  Once again he smiled down at her, a calm demeanor that was betrayed by his dark eyes…eyes that smiled at her full of pure evil.

As she backed away from him, he had one more thing to say, “It might be awhile before I get back as I have unfinished business to attend to before I can return to stay. So I suggest you think about the situation you are in and how you are going to adapt to it.”

Before she had a chance to reply, the door was shut and she heard it lock from the outside.  Bree stood staring at the door, still trying to comprehend just what had happened.  Breaking free from her shock, she turned and briskly walked to the bolt that anchored her chain to the floor in the kitchen.

Testing the weight of the chain in her hand, Bree grabbed a good length of it and tugged with all her strength.  It didn’t take long to realize that there was no way she was going to be able to pull that loose.  Giving up for the moment, she surveyed the room.

Since she knew the chain would not allow her to reach the front door, she hoped that she had enough length to reach the back of the cabin…and luckily it did.  She opened the only door in the back and discovered the bathroom.  A little bit rustic but at least the place had running water.  She made quick use of the facility and headed back into the kitchen.

‘Damn it, Bree.  Get your head straight,’ she admonished herself.  The last door held the bedroom and she knew that her daughter was inside.  Anxiously she reached for the doorknob and turned it.  The room was dark inside due to the window being covered.

Bree felt around for the light switch when she realized there was no electricity in the cabin.  It may have running water but there was no electricity.  Muttering under her breath, she felt her way to the window and threw open the curtains and shades.  The room brightened quickly.

Seeing her daughter’s favorite blanket on the bed covering a slight little lump, she released the breath that she had been anxiously holding, afraid of not finding her daughter in that room.  Bree gently sat down on the edge near the sleeping child and smiled as she pulled the blanket back for a view of her daughter.

For a moment she sat on the bed not comprehending what she was seeing.  The lump under the bed was not her daughter…but a doll, a doll with dark hair that passed for her child.  She stood up, feeling the panic build within her chest.  Her mouth opened in a silent scream before darkness swallowed her in a faint.

 

Continued in part 6

Posted to Site 08/25/13

 

 

Links to Parts 1. 2. 3. 4.

5. 6. 7.

 

 

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