I tear my heart open
I sew myself shut
And my weakness is
That I care too much
And our scars remind us
That the past is real
I tear my heart open
Just to feel
– Scars, Papa Roach

---

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Coffee House: Office

“No, it has to be me.” Jason rubbed the back of his neck. “Set it up — a neutral zone,” he added.

“You sure? Because—” Cody hesitated at the door. “You’re supposed to be delegating more—”

“And I am,” Jason cut in, rounding the desk but not sitting. “But sometimes it has to be me, and this does. So make it happen and let me know when and where.”

“Yeah, okay—” Cody glanced down the hallway. “You got Spinelli coming in through the front.”

He’d been expecting Spinelli to call, not make an appearance. The hacker came through the office door, closed it behind him. “The Jackal bids Stone Cold a good morning,” he said, but the words felt a little…not like Spinelli, Jason thought, and braced himself.

“Did you find something?” Jason moved a few things aside for Spinelli to set down his laptop.

“Nothing that provides any finality, the Jackal regrets.” He pressed a fist against his mouth, stifling a yawn. “A thousand pardons, Stone Cold. The Jackal slept fitfully.”

Jason exhaled in a slow breath, rubbed his forehead. “You know, you don’t have to put every minute into this. If you need help—”

Spinelli scowled, his eyes flashing insult. “The Jackal is capable of any job Stone Cold puts in front of him. I just—” His lips thinned when he pressed them together. “Maximista was not herself last night. She—had to tell—” The younger man sat down, put his head in his heads. “She told Kate about Sonny.”

The switch from Spinelli’s verbose difficult to understand speech pattern to a simplistic one startled Jason into silence. “Spinelli.”

“It has been a most challenging year, I regret to say.” Spinelli lifted his head with a humorless smile. “Maximista still thinks of what she’s lost. Georgie, Cooper, and now Lulu. It’s a terrible weight for her to bear. At every turn, death has stalked, and the Jackal fears she questions why she is still standing after all that she’s done. The wrong sister died,” Spinelli murmured. “It’s what the world thinks, she says. The Jackal does not have the capacity to convince her otherwise.”

A bit at a loss, Jason cleared his throat, went around the other side of the desk, nearly sat down, but knew he’d just want to get up again. To pace. “I’m sorry.”

“This isn’t why the Jackal has dared to take up Stone Cold’s valuable time,” Spinelli said. He sat up, his eyes a bit clearer. “And he knows that there are many lives at stake—”

“It’s okay for you to take a break,” Jason told him. “To be there for Maxie—” He paused. “Yeah, what I’m asking you to do—what Patrick is hoping for — it’s important. But so are people.”

“I am, as always, grateful for your understanding and patience. The Jackal did take a respite to look after my fair Maximista, and now he stands only slightly fatigued, at an attention. Before I left the hospital last night—” Spinelli clicked a few buttons. “I completed a download of the software from the related machines to better understand its mechanics, codes, and output—” He shook his head. “Stone Cold does not care for the how or why, only the conclusions. There is a blip in the code on the two machines I examined.”

“A blip,” Jason repeated. Now he sat down, resting his elbows on the desk, his hands clasped in front him. “What does that mean?”

“A…misfire of the coding. When the nurse in the ICU punched in the request for fentanyl, the machine received the correct command twelve out of thirteen times. Once, and only once, did it misfire. And that misfire dispensed warfarin. The Jackal looked at the requests going back a month. This is the only misfire of that specific medication swap.”

“The only.” Jason squinted. “Were there other misfires?”

“Yes. They were always for medication that had very similar input commands, or common ingredients. The Jackal has put it to the side to investigate the more long-term issues and find patterns. In any case, every single swap had been logged and noted so that the nursing staff could develop training protocols to avoid administering the incorrect medication. No machine in the building had the exact same list, which is strange on its own. And no other machine ever swapped warfarin and fentanyl. Until two nights ago, in the ICU and then on the sixth floor. All three times, the medication was dispensed to the Fair Elizabeth.”

Jason let that information roll around, to process. “Can that kind of…misfire be done remotely, or do you need the machine in front of you?”

“These were top of the line machines when Dr. Quartermaine—Dr. Alan,” Spinelli added, “requested them in 2004, and the primary selling point of this line was the ability to upgrade remotely. If you know how to access the mainframe, you could upload anything you wanted. They were to be updated—replaced, actually — last winter. But the hospital had budget issues due to the, uh—” Spinelli looked away.

“To what happened with Jolene Crowell,” Jason said, saving Spinelli the trouble of having to say the name of the women who had killed patients at General Hospital, but ended up in a coma saving Spinelli’s life. “They didn’t replace them. They cut the nursing program and fired a lot of staff. I—I remember hearing about it.”

“In any case, Stone Cold, at this point in the investigation, the Jackal regrets to say all he can do is confirm what is already known. I have no other answers—”

“This is a good start for less than a day, Spinelli,” Jason interrupted with a shake of his head. “Suspicions are one thing, but it helps to know exactly how this happened. You’ve confirmed what Patrick suspected, and knowing how it might lead us to the who, and that’s what I care about. I also know it’ll be important to Elizabeth and a lot of other people whether or not this is a widespread case of medical sabotage or just poor equipment. See if you can dig into the coding to trace the misfires and learn everything you can.”

Spinelli brightened, clearly pleased to learn that he hadn’t failed. “The Jackal will do all that he can. I must go tell the Determined Doctor Drake what I’ve learned and see what else there is to discern.” He began to gather his things.

“Ah—could you tell Patrick to make sure—Sonny and Kate. I didn’t—Elizabeth is out of the hospital, but they’re—could he just make sure that they’re triple-checking everything?”

“The Jackal will see it done.” With a jaunty salute and his confidence restored, the tech exited the room, leaving Jason with few answers, and even more questions.

PCPD: Commissioner’s Office

Across town, Mac Scorpio’s day wasn’t any better. Beyond the double mob-related shootings that had both gone cold, he had the usual menu of assaults, robberies, and nuisance reports to deal with.

And the news that DA Scott Baldwin had cut his trip with Serena short in order to fly back and personally supervise the Corinthos and Howard investigations was only going to increase Mac’s indigestion.

Harper leaned against Mac’s open door. “You want to hear something funny?”

“Is it an actual joke or just something that’s going to depress me?” Mac scribbled his signature on an expense report. “Please don’t tell me Baldwin’s back already.”

“Not for another few hours, but it is related to air travel. I got a call from a guy at the airport — he was looking through some flight logs and he happened to notice there was a name from our APB.”

“Flight list?” Mac focused on the detective. “Who? Where?”

“Johnny Zacchara flew to Las Vegas last night.” Harper folded his arms. “One-way ticket. I had him pull the manifest. Our boy flew first class naturally. And guess who was in the seat next to him?”

Mac closed his eyes, dropped his head on the desk. “Scott is going to make my life a living nightmare when he gets home.”

“Yeah, I don’t see a way out of this. Unless Johnny Z and Nadine Crowell have a good reason for hopping a plane to Vegas a few hours after Sonny Corinthos is almost shot to death on the docks. Can you register for a lawyer, or do you think the Zaccharas will give them one as a wedding present?”

Mandalay Bay Resort: Hotel Room

Nadine stared up at the ceiling, clutching the sheet with a death grip, her heart thudding so hard against her chest that it physically ached, her lips swollen—

What the hell had she just done? Had she lost her damn mind in the last twenty-four hours—she sure as hell hadn’t left work the day before planning to witness a crime, flee to Las Vegas, get married, and then actually have sex with her husband—

“I’ve done a lot of stupid things, you know,” she found herself saying, forcing the words out in almost a wheeze. “I hid in Matt Hunter’s room, I nearly got killed by a serial killer twice last year, and I tried to search a Russian freighter—”

“I’m almost scared to ask where this is going to rank on that list.”

Johnny’s voice sounded lazy and amused, and she wanted to smack him for that, but she also wanted to jump him, too, because there was something so damn sexy in the way—

Damn it. This is how they’d ended up naked with the sheets twisted around them—

“Don’t look at me.”

“You’re staring at the ceiling, how would you know?”

“Because I can hear you looking at me.” Nadine jerked up, grabbed the top sheet to wrap it around herself, almost tripping over the long, butter cream material as she fought out of the bed and hobbled over to the bathroom.

She glanced back at the bed, realizing too late that there had only been one top sheet and Johnny had been left without—

Nadine whirled around, bumped into the door frame of the bathroom. “Can you put something on?”

She heard him sigh, then the rustling of something. “I’m decent. You can look now.”

Nadine slid a look out of the corner of her eye. “You and I have very different concepts of what it means to be decent,” she muttered, gripping the top sheet more firmly around herself. Because all Johnny had done was put on a pair of dark green briefs which did nothing to cover his chest or his thighs, and now she was having flashbacks—

She hissed, then darted into the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.

PCPD: Squad Room

The time had come, Mac thought. “Maybe I could change my name,” he said to Harper, leaning against the counter. “Move to Bali. Be a bartender. I make a mean Mai Tai. ”

“Scott would just find you there,” Harper said, tossing a report into the bin then returning to his desk.

The detective had a point, but Mac still planned to keep Bali on the list. Or Tahiti. He’d live in the center of a volcano if it meant that he wouldn’t have to deal with Scott Baldwin anymore. The man had a one-track mind when it came to mob-related crime — he’d chased Sonny for years after what he’d done to Scott’s daughter, Karen, and now, after the loss of his son Logan, Scott had a new enemy: Johnny Zacchara.

The double doors behind Mac swung open and the bombastic attorney stalked in. “How come we don’t have anyone in custody yet? Shooting in broad daylight? What the hell is happening—”

Mac flashed a bland smile. “How was California?”

Scott’s scowl deepened. “Warm. Why the hell don’t we have any witnesses?”

Mac sighed, then straightened and gestured for the district attorney to follow him to his office. Once they’d reached it, Mac closed the door.

“Because that section of Elm Street Pier doesn’t have any cameras on it, and it was before the lunch rush. It’s not a high crime area, believe it or not. The best we have is Johnny Zacchara and Nadine Crowell—” He held up a hand when Scott opened his mouth. “They were seen heading in the direction before the shooting, and we know they had a quick lunch at Kelly’s, then left the diner twenty minutes before the first 911 call. That’s it.”

“That’s enough—”

“For a conversation. But I’ve put in a call to Ric Lansing and gotten nothing back. He’s not obligated to sit down and talk to us. Especially now—”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Scott demanded. He paced the length of Mac’s office. “You know, maybe I had it wrong at the trial. Nadine Crowell’s hanging around Johnny Zacchara? Maybe she was trying to protect him all along, waiting out whatever Lulu and Johnny had going on—”

“Or maybe she was telling the truth—” But Mac’s words were lost as Scott immersed himself in his new conspiracy theory.

“What about Crowell? Can we get her in here to talk? There’s got to be something we can use.”

Mac hesitated. “She had just finished a four-day rotation at GH. She’s off until Sunday at eight in the morning. We left a card with her apartment building manager and called the number we have.” He pressed his lips together. Time for the bombshell that was going to make the rest of his day extremely unpleasant. “The last information we have on either of their whereabouts is on a flight manifest to Las Vegas.”

“Las—” Scott whirled around, stabbed a finger at Mac. “Damn it! Why didn’t you lead with that? We can call the Las Vegas PD—”

“And tell them what? Maybe someone is in your city? We have a request in with the city registrar. I’m not an idiot, Scott. Las Vegas usually means one thing — so if a wedding license is issued, we’ll know by the end of the day. But that’s not going to be enough to drag either of them in—”

“Seen at the scene of the crime,” Scott spat, slapping one finger against his palm. “Known motive against the victim — ” another finger went down. “And he marries the witness—”

“He was one of six people who left Kelly’s in the same time frame. He has zero motive against the victim outside of your fever dreams, and so far all we know, Nadine Crowell is a witness to lunch.” Mac folded his arms. “What we suspect, what we know, and what we can prove are three different things, Scott. Not that you give a damn about that—”

“What does that mean—”

“It means that you see Zacchara or Corinthos and your brain turns off. Do I think Johnny probably did it? Yeah, I do. Do I think I can prove it? Not right now. But Nadine Crowell is the unknown. She’s strikes me as pretty honest and not willing to cover up for a crime. She stuck her neck out to testify in that trial—”

“She protected Johnny—”

“You called her!  You knew she wouldn’t point the finger at Johnny, but you tried to bully her anyway!” Mac exhaled slowly. “Let’s just see how this shakes out, all right? Let’s wait to hear from the Vegas city registrar.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Scott clenched his jaw. “I’m not letting Zacchara get away with this. Not again. If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to make him pay.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

General Hospital: ICU Hallway

“Hey.” Carly pulled her sweater closed in front of her as she slid the door closed to Sonny’s room. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I called the hotel. They said you were here.” Jason looked past her through the clear walls of the ICU and saw Sonny lying on the bed, a breathing tube taped to his mouth. He exhaled in a rush, turned away.

“Have you been in there yet?” Carly asked, putting a hand on his back. “It’s…it’s not easy to see him like that.”

“No. It’s—” He’d avoided it, Jason thought. He’d filled the day with a thousand small tasks so that he could stop thinking about what was happening in the background — to avoid the reality of Sonny’s injuries and what the prognosis meant —

“You don’t have to go in right now. Come on. We’ll take a walk.” She wound her arm through his and guided him away from the room, and Jason let her because he still wasn’t ready to look at Sonny’s broken body and to face that what had made Sonny who he was — that it was gone and that they’d never get him back—

Just like April. Just like Michael.

“I’ve been thinking about how to tell Morgan,” Carly said when they reached the sitting area in the waiting room. She sat down, folded her hands in her lap, waited for him to sit next to her. “I should have yesterday, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. He’s been through so much, you know? I don’t know what this will do to him. He still asks for Michael.”

“I wish I knew the right words,” Jason said. “I don’t—I don’t know how to do it. To…” Say it out loud. He looked around, but the area was deserted. “Carly, you need to know—I know who did this.”

She looked at him, her eyes somber. “Is it—it’s someone I know?”

“It’s—Sonny shot first,” Jason said instead. “It was self-defense. I don’t know if the PCPD will ever believe it, especially with Baldwin in the DA’s office, but I know Sonny went looking for him. There was a witness who said Sonny shot first. But Baldwin isn’t likely to believe her either.

“Someone Scott hates?” Carly echoed. “Self-defense? It was Johnny.”

“Yeah. I think Sonny was set up to go after Johnny, to make him believe Johnny arranged for Kate’s shooter. Johnny wouldn’t—”

“Oh, no. No, of course not. Not with Lulu in that condition.” Carly was horrified by the possibility. “No, of course he didn’t. Sonny must have been out of his mind to think that — I thought we’d convinced him—but you said—”

“It was a very convincing setup.” He grimaced, thinking of Karpov. “Johnny came to me. He was worried what his family might do. And I agreed to help. Which means—”

“You’re protecting Johnny. Even though he did this.”

“Yeah. It’s—” Jason’s lips thinned as he pressed them together. “It’s the right thing to do. I just—I needed you to know.”

“Yeah. Okay. I can see that.” Carly stared at the linoleum floor. “It doesn’t feel real, you know. Even when I’m looking at him in that bed. It—I can’t imagine a world without him, Jason. It’s…even though I wanted to murder him most of the time, I never—I never wanted this. I don’t—” She closed her eyes, shook her head. “I always thought he’d be there. And now he won’t.”

Jason wanted to agree with her, to say his thoughts mirrored hers, but he couldn’t form the words. Couldn’t push them past his throat, so instead he stared at his hands and wondered how long he’d feel frozen like this.

“How’s Elizabeth?”

“Fine. I need to get back to her. Audrey can’t do everything—” Jason rose to his feet and Carly followed.

“Are you going to tell me why you took her home after she’d just had surgery or is this one of those things you need me to stay out of until you’re ready for me to know?”

“The second thing.” Jason kissed her cheek, squeezed her hand. “Don’t—don’t stay here too long, Carly. He…”

“Doesn’t know I’m here, yeah, I know. I just…I hate the idea of him sitting here alone.” Carly’s voice faltered. “I’ll go home when Morgan gets out of school. The house…it’s just too empty. I need something to do, I went to the hotel this morning, and people were just looking at me.”

“All right. Call me if you need anything.”

“I will. And same to you, even though we both know you won’t do it.” She forced a smile. “Go home to your family, Jason. Be with your son. You deserve it.”

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