Caffrey Flashback

Chapter 28: Double Teamed

Jacobi Hospital. Friday night. February 27, 2004.

There was nothing like a late-night call from a hospital to get your heart pumping. Henry tamped down the panic, and focused his energy on a determination to find Neal.

But exhausted from a few days of worry, he couldn't keep the panic from manifesting as anger. He found himself irrationally angry at Neal for getting into trouble. Again. Already. It's like Neal had two settings: asleep and in trouble.

Then there were the moments of blind rage at whoever wanted to kill Neal. Henry wasn't entirely sure what he'd do if he found the would-be-murderer. Sometimes he wished for a chance to be alone with that person to exact vengeance. Sometimes he hoped someone would be around to stop him.

And lastly were the flashes of guilt. He was mad at himself for letting Neal get into trouble. Mad at himself for being annoyed at Neal. Mad at himself for being jealous that Neal was the center of attention – and how irrational was that? Henry didn't want to have Neal's childhood issues or to experience an overdose of Flashback.

He shoved the anger deep inside with the panic and calmly asked his grandparents what had happened, and whether Neal had been loopy or clearheaded. He kept texting Neal, who seemed to be in his right mind but was having a little too much fun. But that was Neal for you. Boredom brought out his reckless side. And being confined to a hospital bed was admittedly boring. Based on what their grandparents had said, Neal probably wasn't aware of just how traumatic the last few days had been for his loved ones. No one had told him how close he'd come to dying, or that someone still wanted him dead.

"Henry?" Peter said.

Henry looked up from his text messages to see his grandparents and Peter watching him. There was concern in their expressions. As if they didn't have enough to worry about, now he was adding to their stress. A grin wasn't going to fool anyone this late in the game, so he didn't bother. "Neal's in the basement," he said, and started walking toward the elevators.

"We need a plan," Peter said, walking beside him.

"I have one." Henry described what he had in mind as they looked for a service elevator that would take them to the basement.

Neal had been on the move, finally agreeing to stay in one place when Henry had texted he was on his way. They found him in the hospital's laundry area, leaning against a stack of folded blankets while talking on his phone. "I'm not an idiot, Bickerton. I'm not meeting with you in your car. Do you think you're going to drive me someplace where I'll be outnumbered and at your mercy? I don't think so. Neutral ground or you can forget it." He muted the phone and looked up at Henry. "Is my room clear?"

Henry nodded. Even though Neal sounded impressively clearheaded, it couldn't last much longer. It had been twenty minutes since he'd sent that first text.

"Meet me back in my room," he said to Bickerton and then hung up before the lawyer could try to negotiate something else. He stood up. "Thanks. It'll be good to have backup for this."

Henry grabbed one of the blankets from the stack and put it around Neal's shoulders. It was warm in the laundry area, but would be cold once they left the room, and unlike Henry and Peter he wasn't wearing a coat.

Pumped up on adrenaline, an unnaturally elated Neal told them about seeing Bickerton and the subsequent chase, and didn't seem to notice that neither Henry nor Peter said much. It wasn't until they got off the elevator that he started paying attention. "Wait," he said as they turned toward the right. "This isn't my floor."

"We're taking a detour," said Peter.

Soon they were at the entrance of the chapel. Henry looked inside and asked, "Can you give us a minute?"