Honestly Love You (PASH: Russells/Chad)-Chap. 17
by caroline crane
 

Hank pulled into the parking lot of Woodlawn Assisted Living and turned off the car, taking a few minutes to size up the building before he and Chad climbed out of the car. "You sure you wanna do this?" Hank asked as they climbed the stairs to the heavy double doors leading into the retirement home.

"Yeah, man, I can't wait to get my hands on the old guy again. I've been going crazy trying to track him down since he disappeared."

Hank's eyebrows shot up at the venom in Chad's voice. "Hey, you're not going to do anything stupid, are you? It's not going to help me get the answers you want if you grab the old guy and start trying to pound answers out of him."

"No, I won't lose it, I promise." Hank stopped with his hand on front door and leveled a stern gaze at Chad. "Seriously, I promise I'll behave. I won't even talk, I just want to see if he'll tell you anything."

"Okay, but remember that it might get more frustrating before it gets better. We'll get there, but we're still at the beginning." Hank turned then and pulled open the door of the retirement home, glancing around at the warm and inviting lobby. He walked toward the reception desk and mustered his most charming smile for the elderly woman sitting behind the counter.

"Can I help you?" she asked, peering at him over the top of her reading glasses.

"I hope so," Hank answered, leaning against the counter and grinning conspiratorially. "I'm here to see a patient. Orville Perkins."

Her eyes got a little wider and she stood up and came around the counter. "Of course, visiting hours don't end for another hour. Follow me, please." She led them down a long hallway past rows of numbered doors. Occasionally they'd pass a patient or an orderly and she'd exchange pleasantries. "May I ask if you're a relative of Mr. Perkins'?" she asked over her shoulder.

"Oh, no, just a friend."

"I see." She let out a small sigh and stopped in front of a door marked 'A12'. "It's just that he hasn't had a single visitor since he came to us, save the doctor that originally placed him here. Such a sweet woman. But even she hasn't been back for months. Poor dear, he seems to be all alone in the world."

Hank felt a twinge of pity for the old guy as the woman described his lonely existence. He said a quick prayer that he wouldn't end up old and alone someday before smiling at her again. "The doctor that referred him here - you wouldn't happen to know her name, would you?"

"I don't, we've never been introduced," the receptionist confessed. She knocked on the door, then pushed it open and poked her head in. "Mr. Perkins, you've got company."

"Thanks," Hank said as they brushed past her into the room. As soon as she was gone he approached Orville's bed, taking a seat on one of the two straight-back chairs in the room. "Hello, Mr. Perkins. My name is Hank Bennett. Maybe you remember my friend Chad?"

Orville's confused gaze swung from strange the man sitting next to him to a younger man standing at the end of his bed. His eyes got a little wider but he swallowed his surprise and turned back to Hank.

"No…no, I don't recognize either of you. Should I?"

"Come on, Orville, man, it's me. Chad Harris," Chad said, taking a few steps toward the old man so he could make out his features better. "I know you can help me, you had my birth certificate, for Christ's sake."

Hank watched as Chad's jaw began to clench. His heart went out to his friend, but he knew that threatening or scaring the old guy was definitely not the way to go. The last thing they needed was to get banned from Woodlawn and end up back at square one.

"Chad, let me handle this," he said quietly. Chad caught his expression and nodded, backing away a little and forcing himself to relax. As soon as he was sure Chad was under control he turned back to Orville. "A few months ago you were helping my friend Chad here research his past. You told him you had some information that could help him, but then you disappeared and he never found what he needed. I understand you even burned a copy of his birth certificate."

"Did I? I don't remember a birth certificate," Orville muttered, his eyebrows knitting together as though he was trying to remember.

"Look, Mr. Perkins, you know Chad's searching for his birth parents. About 20 years ago you took some pictures of an abandoned baby at Mercy Hospital, do you remember that? The kid had been involved in a car accident and then he just disappeared from the hospital."

"Hospital? Sure, I remember the hospital. Someone ran me over and I had to stay in the hospital for a long time."

Hank shook his head as he realized he wasn't going to get any further with the old guy than Chad had. Either he was completely out of it or he really didn't want Chad finding the truth about his past. He glanced helplessly at Chad and shrugged.

"Damn it, Orville, you know what he's talking about," Chad snapped. He let out a frustrated sigh when Orville turned and stared at him blankly, his mouth open. "This is a waste of time, the crazy old bastard's never gonna tell us anything."

Hank sighed and stood up. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Perkins. We'll get out of your way now." He motioned to Chad and they walked into the hall together, leaving Orville alone in his room. "Listen, I'm gonna go talk to that nurse some more, see if I can get her to give me the name of the doctor that visits him. I get the feeling he isn't as out of it as he pretends to be."

"Oh, I know he's not as crazy as he pretends to be," Chad said grimly. "That's what's so damn frustrating, one minute he's fine and the next he's talking in circles."

Hank smiled sadly and put his hand on Chad's shoulder. "We'll get the answers you're looking for, Chad. We've made real progress already."

"Yeah, man, I know," Chad said. He laughed as he caught Hank's expression. "I promise I'll behave."

As soon as Hank was gone Chad walked back toward Orville's room. He placed his hand on the door knob and turned it slowly, opening the door an inch or two and peering in through the tiny opening. Orville had the phone pressed to his ear, his back to Chad as he whispered into the receiver. He pushed the door open another couple of inches and strained to hear what the old man was saying.

"You've got to come see my right away, Eve. Chad and his friend are getting too close, they know about the baby and the car accident."

Chad pulled the door shut as Orville turned to hang up the phone. "Eve?" he whispered, falling back against the door as he turned the name over in his mind. "He couldn't mean…" He pushed himself up suddenly and headed down the hall, forcing himself not to run as he searched for Hank.

~

"What made you think of this place?" Luis asked as they climbed aboard the Siren Song. The boat was moored in the Harmony Yacht Club's private marina, and Luis glanced around cautiously as he followed Sheridan on deck.

"Actually, it was something Whitney said," Sheridan admitted as she led him below deck into Julian's private cabin.

"Whitney?" Luis shook his head as he followed her, wondering when she and Whitney Russell had become such fast friends.

"Yes, Whitney," Sheridan laughed. "This is one of Julian's toys, pre-marriage. He used to spend days on this thing, I think it was one of the few places he could actually escape from Father. Our father absolutely detests the ocean. It's one of the reasons he rarely comes home."

"So this was Julian's bachelor pad," Luis murmured as he took in the pine paneling and the lush velvet cushions on the benches lining either side of the cabin. "Figures."

"I know, it's kind of overdone," she said apologetically, following his gaze to the elaborately carved wet bar and the paintings hanging on the paneled walls. "Julian always lived by the motto that 'more is more'. But he spent most of his waking hours here back in those days, it's entirely possible he forgot about some piece of evidence he stashed on board that will lead to some answers about your father."

Luis smiled gratefully and reminded himself how lucky he was that she was willing to do this for him when most women would have thrown him out of their lives by now. Maybe it was because they both had giant holes in their pasts, holes that could only be filled by delving into forgotten secrets buried somewhere in some vault owned by Crane Enterprises.

"So where do we start?" he asked.

"There's a safe behind the Degas hanging over the bar," she answered. "If we can get in there we might find what we're looking for. You work on that and I'll see what I can find in the desk."

They fell into silence as Luis worked on breaking into the safe and Sheridan rummaged through Julian's desk drawers. For the most part he'd cleaned them out when he got married and stopped spending so much time aboard the Siren Song, but there were still a few files tucked away, gathering dust in the drawers. She flipped through them but they were mostly old legal papers, left over from long-forgotten Crane business deals. Frustrated, she dropped the files in the bottom of a drawer and slid it closed. As she closed the drawer, however, she happened to glance at the length of the desk. Instantly she yanked the drawer all the way out, glancing from the length of the drawer to the outside of the desk and back.

"Luis."

"Yeah?" he asked distractedly, scowling at the safe as he tried unsuccessfully to break the lock.

"This drawer - help me pull it out all the way."

He finally stopped what he was doing and looked down at her. She was kneeling in front of Julian's old desk, yanking on one of the bottom drawers. "Why, what's the matter?"

"I think it has a false back," she answered as she gave it another tug. Luis crossed the room to her and crouched down next to her, bracing himself against one of the built-in benches along the wall as he pulled. Finally they managed to work it loose and the drawer gave way, sending both of them flying backwards as the wood hit the floor with a thud.

Luis sat up and rubbed his side where the bench had caught him, grimacing against the pain. Sheridan didn't notice, however, as she peered into the opening behind the drawer. Built into the cavity were three shelves, each one neatly stacked with piles of papers. She reached in and pulled out the contents of the first shelf, dropping them into her lap and leafing through them.

As she turned over the pages in front of her a pile of Polaroids fell to the floor, and she reached over and picked them up. Her eyes grew wider as she stared at the pictures in front of her and her mouth fell open. "Oh my God."

"What?" Luis asked, his pain forgotten as he scooted closer to her to peer over her shoulder. "Oh my God."

"I can't believe it," she whispered. "Julian had an affair with Eve Russell?"

~

Beth answered her phone on the third ring, sliding onto a kitchen chair as she arranged her fluffy white bathrobe around her. "Hello?"

"Hey beautiful, I didn't catch you in the tub, did I?"

Her face lit up at the sound of his voice and she found herself grinning like a kid at Christmas. "No, I'm out. Wait a second, how did you know I was in the tub?"

"I ran into Chad," he confessed, and she could hear the amusement in his voice. "Actually I went to the Book Café to invite you for dinner but I found him instead."

"My loss," she teased, but she was surprised to feel her heart fall a little as she realized she could have spent the evening with him instead of alone with a glass of wine and Sinatra's Greatest Hits.

"I'll let you have a raincheck," he promised. "Anyway, I made good use of the evening anyway. Chad and I dropped in on Orville and paid him a little visit."

"Oh?" She bit her lip against the disappointment in her voice - she didn't want him to know that she'd been looking forward to accompanying him to the retirement home. Actually, since their date at the skating rink she'd been looking forward to any time she got to spend with him.

"It was an interesting trip, that old guy is something else," he continued. "Meet me tomorrow and I'll fill you in on the details."

"Okay," she said a little too quickly, her heart speeding up at the thought of seeing him the next day. "Why don't you come over in the morning, I'll make breakfast."

She could hear the amusement in his voice as he answered, and she was glad she was sitting down as she felt her knees begin to shake. "Sounds great."

"So do I even get a hint about what happened?"

Hank hesitated for a minute, then let out a dramatic breath and lowered his voice. "Let's just say that the key to Chad's past might be a lot closer to home than we thought."

"That's it? Geez, Bennett, when did you get to be such a drama queen?"

He laughed and she could picture him shaking his head at her. "I learned from the best, Wallace. See you tomorrow."