Michelle threw her purse onto her and Danny's bed and reached for the telephone. She got Dr. Bradford's secretary and was informed that she could indeed see her for thirty minutes this afternoon.
Michelle ran to take a quick shower. She had just enough time to get changed before she could make the appointment. She decided not to tell Jimmy where she was going. She would call a cab. She was already going to talk to Danny this evening about the new shadow he made sure she always had and now was as good a time as any to start going places on her own.
The cab arrived at the house less than 10 minutes after she called it. She saw it the moment it pulled up and she ran out to meet it before anyone could see that she was attempting to sneak out of the house unguarded. She felt very juvenile sneaking out of the house like this but Danny needed to see that she wasn't helpless and that things had to start getting back to normal. That is why she needed to see Dr. Bradford today. She felt like she might be on the verge of a breakthrough and she needed some prodding. The truth was there, so close she could feel it. With the right amount of nudging, she was sure it would come flooding back.
She gave the driver her destination and they were on their way. Out of habit she looked back to make sure no one had seen her cunning if not sneaky departure. It appeared that no one was privy to her absence and she settled back and tried to allow the feelings to surface in her mind.
She vaguely remembered something about plans to attend the theater. They were to see the play Death of a Salesman at the Springfield Cultural Arts Center near the University. She remembered that a problem had arisen about her transportation plans. She had to stay over at the hospital and Rick had decided to ride with her.
Danny had sent Dietz over for them and they were to meet up at Center and then enjoy the night of theater, but it hadn't happened that way.
Her memory fogged up right at that point every time. She didn't even remember how far they had gotten on their journey before the attack had occurred. She banged her head back against the headrest in frustration at having been so close to a memory but to have it snatched away from her as daylight is snatched away by the darkness.
She was going to ask Dr. Bradford to take her treatments up a step if necessary. Obviously the sessions that they had been having weren't being productive enough. She was open to any kind of new procedure or experimental therapy or whatever it took to get her to remember. She would even consider hypnosis if there were any chance it would help. She knew hypnosis wasn't an exact science but she was becoming despondent at her lack of success in regaining her memory. She refused to believe that there was a possibility that she might have to live the rest of her life not knowing what had happened that night. She owed it to Rick to find out. She owed it to herself to find out.
She didn't think she was being fair to Danny by not being able to remember either. She knew he felt her pain and if affected him almost as much as it affected her. She knew about the nightmares and she had heard him talk a time or two in his sleep and he had been tortured by the thought of her being caught in that carjacking.
She wondered if Danny could benefit from Dr. Bradford concerning his nightmares about the incident. She knew he had taken Dietz's death hard also. He had had to overcome just as much as a result of this carjacking as she had. He had lost a long time Santos employee, a brother in law and his wife had been seriously injured in the process. He could benefit from the help just as much as she could.
Soon they were at the hospital. She paid and tipped the driver and then went in the entrance that was usually reserved for emergency patients. She still felt like she was sneaking around and she berated herself for being such a fool. She was a grown woman for goodness sake and she could make a trip to the hospital without feeling like a teenage girl who had snuck out of her bedroom window after her curfew time.
She opened the door to Dr. Bradford's office and stepped in. The receptionist smiled to her and whispered that she was in another session and would be out momentarily. Michelle sat down and pick up a magazine and began to thumb through it absently.
She crossed and recrossed her legs several times. She was extremely anxious about this meeting. She felt like she would get some sort of answer today. Her visit to Rick's grave had made her vow to regain her memory with more intensity than ever.
After what seemed like hours, Dr. Bradford opened the door separating her office from the waiting area and announced that she could see Michelle now.
She took a deep breath and try to will away the feeling that this session meant the difference between her regaining her memory or losing any hope of ever finding out what had happened that fateful night barely a year ago.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Danny cursed the traffic that kept the cab from getting to the house any quicker. Something was wrong. He could feel it. He never should have left with Carmen for this trip. People were just going to have to accept that the Santos's were in complete unity, he shouldn't have to come everytime his mother crooked her finger just to prove his loyalty to the family.
So help him, if something happened to Michelle because of Carmen's hysterics, he would never forgive her. He always knew when something was wrong concerning Michelle. He felt it in his bones. Was he destined to spend the rest of his life with this feeling of dread in his gut where Michelle was concerned?
He hated treating her like a prisoner in her own house but it was his duty to keep her safe. She would be safe damn it. He would spend the rest of his life tied to this stinking family to make sure of that.
Soon the traffic began to move and he was able to discern what the hold up had been. There was a multi-car accident and it appeared as though there had been some serious injuries possibly even fatalities. The ambulances were just now leaving the scene and the scene brought back to his mind the fateful night that he had arrived at that scene just in time to see one of these orange and white vehicles leaving the scene with it's siren's blaring.
His life had forever changed that night and there was no going back. He willed the tormenting images out of his mind and stared straight ahead and brought his thoughts back to the here and now and the ever present gnawing in his gut.
He would always be looking over his shoulder. That was a fact that he had to accept. Acceptance hadn't come easy but one look at Michelle in the hospital with bullet wounds torn through her petite body was enough for him to make the deal with the devil that he had made.
The cab pulled into the circular driveway and Danny didn't wait for the car to come to a complete stop before he pushed open the door and jumped out onto the concrete, throwing a fifty dollar bill at the cabby.
He sprinted to the front door and raced inside calling Michelle's name. When he received no answer in response to her call, he began to search the house frantically for her. He began in the study where he saw Jimmy reading the newspaper. On closer inspection, he realized that Jimmy wasn't so much reading the paper but studying the racing form that he had stuck between the pages.
He jumped from the top step to the floor completely ignoring the steps in between and was totally oblivious to the pain that his ankle felt at having landed on the floor with such force.
He righted himself and shouted to Jimmy who looked up from his paper with a bewildered look upon his face.
"Yeah boss" he said totally unaware of how close to the edge his boss was.
"Where's Michelle?" Danny snorted through clenched teeth.
"She was up in her room the last time I saw" Jimmy offered.
"Well she is not there now. Did she leave the house?" Danny scoffed.
"Not that I saw boss" Jimmy said. "What is going on?" he asked with much more bravado than he felt. The boss had that look in his eye again. The one he always got when he thought about his wife being in any kind of danger. It was Jimmy's sole responsibility to keep Ms. Michelle safe when Danny wasn't around. He didn't take that job lightly either. He was paid handsomely for his service and if he said Michelle was in the house then the boss should just trust that she was in the house.
"Well if she is in the house, then she is doing a pretty good imitation of hide and seek" Danny said his voice getting louder as he spoke "because he isn't in this damn house Jimmy now where is she?" she shouted.
"I don't know boss," Jimmy said with actual fear in his voice. "I swear to God she was in here just a little while ago. She said she was gonna go upstairs and wait for you to come home. I just figured she was gonna take a bath or something that dames, I mean women like to do, you know?" he offered knowing that he was just digging himself in deeper.
Danny ran his hand through his disheveled hair. Damn, Damn, Damn. Where was she? Did she go out on her own? Had someone got to her?
He grabbed Jimmy by her shirt collar and slung him up against the wall of the study. He got nose to nose with him and issued a stern and very real warning. "If anything happens to her, I am holding you personally responsible. Do you understand me?" he said and Jimmy was too dumbfounded that all he could do was nod stupidly.
Danny grabbed his recently discarded leather jacket and raced back out onto the concrete driveway. He grabbed his cell phone and dialed her number. The only thing on the other end was an annoying message proclaiming that the A T & T customer was unavailable at this time. He threw the cell phone down onto the driveway and watched it shatter into several large pieces.
Now what was he gonna do? Where had she gotten off to? How did she get out of the house without anyone seeing what happened to her?
He went around back and hopped in his Mercedes Benz, gunning the motor. The screech of the tires as they rubbed against the pavement could be heard for at least a mile as he jettisoned his car out into the street praying that she had just decided to get out of the house. He couldn't handle the thought that someone else might have her and what he might have to do to get her back.
He picked up the cell phone attached to his dash and tried her number again. He got the same irritating message as before and had to curb his desire to smash this phone as well. He needed to remain calm. He wasn't going to be able to find her if he didn't keep his wits about him.
Who would have been so brash as to kidnap her? It had been quiet lately although the rumors about unrest amongst the rival families had reached him earlier in the week but he didn't think it would have a direct connection to the Santos'. They had been extremely neutral in the rival family wars and that alone should have guaranteed his families safety.
Someone had broken the rules though and this time Danny was not going to take it lying down. If so much as one hair on her head was harmed, the other families would face the full wrath of the Santos' in and that was something that the city of Springfield would never forget.
If Danny didn't have Michelle back safe, then he didn't care what happened to him and he sure didn't care how many he took to hell with him.