114 - Nineteenth Nervous Breakdown

“Thank you soooo much for all your help, honey,” she thanked Gavin for the fifth time and gave him a hug before he got out of the car.  It was four thirty and she was ecstatic to the tenth power about the results of their shopping excursion.  “I’ll call you tomorrow to schedule my hair appointment!”

“Don’t bother, Dollface.  I’ll put you down for Thursday morning around nine.  It doesn’t matter who else I’ve got on the books, they shall simply be passed along to another able-bodied subservient on the staff.  We should be finished in time for lunch before your other appointment at one.  I'm so excited!”  He feigned a case of the vapors and then blew air kisses.  “Go home and have hot sex with your hot man, then lock your knees together until Saturday night.  Don’t be a ‘ho.”

Being offended was pointless, so Petey just stuck out her tongue for what good it did.  He didn’t acknowledge that he’d even seen.  Gavin simply gave the car door a firm shove closed and glided regally up the front steps of the building.

“And thank you for your never-ending patience,” she said to Rocco.  “I know that couldn’t have been fun for you.”

“No worries.  That’s what I’m being paid for.”

She was about to protest that hour upon hour of spider web pantyhose and leather lingerie were above and beyond the call of duty when her phone rang.

It was her mother.

“Hi, Mom.  Did you get to Jon’s place okay?  Are you with him?”

“Hello, Patience.  I’m here, but I don’t think he is.  He certainly isn’t answering the door and I’ve been knocking and ringing for ten minutes now.”

The hair on Petey’s arms stood on end. 

“Maybe he’s in the shower.  Sit tight, I’m only a couple of minutes away.  I’ll bring Steve upstairs to unlock the door.”  Her buddy Steve the doorman actually smiled when she entered the building now.

Eight minutes later, Steve slid the key into the lock and opened the door before mutely retreating to his post downstairs.  He was well-paid for his discretion and sought to maintain it.

Petey and her mother, who had dropped their bags against the wall, were directed to stay put as Rocco pulled a gun out of his waistband and stealthily slipped across the penthouse's threshold.   He couldn’t have been more than five feet inside the door when she heard his voice. 

“I need an ambulance at 158 Mercer.  Subject is breathing but unconscious.”

That was all Petey needed to hear before hurtling through the doorway and falling to her knees beside Jon’s prone form.  “Oh, God,” she cried softly, putting her hands on his face.  Terror clutched at her heart, causing her words to come out strangled.  “Baby, wake up.  Jonny?  Sweetheart, you’ve got to wake up.” 

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

At first she hadn’t noticed the peculiar smell, but the longer she hung over him, the more it invaded her senses.  It smelled like…

“What’s that smell?” Teresa asked quietly from where she hovered behind her.  “It’s something… burnt.”

Eyes quickly skimming over the length of his body, Petey spotted the two gaping black holes in the center of Jon’s light gray shirt.  They looked like cigarette burns. 

“Petey?”  One hand gripped her forearm, his hand surprisingly stronger than his voice.

Sucking in a relieved breath, she reverted her attention away from his shirt and to his heavy-lidded eyes.  “Yes, Baby.  I’m here.  The ambulance is on its way.”  She brushed his hair back and trailed feathery fingertips across the furrows in his forehead.  Angrily blinking away tears, she summoned the cold, calculating side of her nature to the forefront.  Emotion had no place here and now.

“No.”  Those beautiful blue eyes cracked open, and his mouth drew tight with pain.  Her age-defiant man had put on ten years in the hours she’d been gone.  “No ambulance.  I’m fine.”

She gave an unladylike snort.  “Like hell you are.  You’re in the floor and you’ve been unconscious for at least fifteen minutes.  You’re going to the hospital.”

Resolute fingertips dug into the soft flesh of her forearm and his eyes glittered an angry crystalline blue.  “No.  I’m not.  Either cancel it or I’ll tell them exactly where they can stick their damn gurney.  I’m fine.  I just wanna fucking lay down on something that doesn’t feel like a slab at the morgue.”

He was too adamant and coherent to be teetering on death’s doorstep, she assessed.  Glancing at her mother, Petey received her imperceptible nod as silent agreement.  “Rocco, tell them the ambulance isn’t necessary.” 

“But –“

“Just do it, please,” she repeated firmly, clasping Jon’s shoulder as he tried to push himself into a seated position.  The bodyguard frowned with displeasure and walked into another room, but his voice could be heard intently speaking to the 9-1-1 dispatcher.

“Ohhh, fuck,” Jon muttered, lifting a hand to the base of his skull and gingerly rubbing.  “I must’ve bounced on my head.”

“Don’t try and move any more yet,” Petey urged, crawling quickly around him until she had her knees planted on either side of his hips.  Pulling his body so that his weight rested against her chest, she roved light hands over his neck and shoulders, gently kneading the solidified muscles.  “Sit still and tell me what happened.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do,” was his surly response.  “Figure out what the hell happened.  I know I went to open the door for your mom, but that’s it.  Next thing I know  you’re waking me up and I’m on the floor with a bitch of a headache.  In between is some type of damn funhouse ride that I can’t focus on well enough to remember.”

“What hurts besides your head, Baby?”  Jon’s physical state, his snappishness and the gaping hole in his memory had Petey reeling on the verge of a panic attack.

“I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee -“

“Sugar, stop.”

She didn’t realize she’d been reciting out loud and, since she couldn’t see Jon’s face from this angle, her eyes darted to her mother.  It was disconcerting to find the always controlled and in-charge Teresa Heinz Kerry  with her hand hovering uncertainly over her mouth and eyes glassy with moisture.

Don’t lose it now, Petey.

Jon grunted with the effort of sitting up and slowly pivoted his butt on the tile so that he could look into her face.  “I’m okay.”  He pushed the loose hair back from her forehead and leaned carefully forward to press a kiss to it.  “There’s nothing to be panicked about.”

“The hell there’s not!”  She didn’t mean to yell, but now she had an inkling of how Jon felt when she’d been hurt.  It was a horrible, sick, helpless feeling when you couldn’t do anything.  “You were hit with a Taser, Jon.  I think not knowing who it was or why is plenty of reason to have an anxiety attack!”

“Taser?”  His scowl of confusion only served to make him appear even more haggard and harrowed.  “Why do you say that?”

“Because of these.”  The two burn holes in his shirt pressed into his skin when she poked at them, and Jon involuntarily winced.  “Take your shirt off,” she commanded while silently ordering her shaky lips to remain still as she wordlessly ran through the opening of the Gettysburg Address.

The shirt’s tail had just cleared his ribs when Rocco interrupted, returning to the foyer and conspicuously clearing his throat. 

“What is it, man?”

The sight of Jon’s trembling hands clutching the fabric of his shirt only served to stoke the level of Petey’s anxiety.  There had to be something tangible that they could do.

His head.  Jon had a headache.  He needed something for that.

“Mom?  The guest room is through there.”  She pointed to the doorway off of the kitchen.  “Could you grab some ibuprofen or something from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom?”

“Of course,” she acquiesced with relief, happy to have something to do.  Her thick soled shoes clunked firmly across the foyer, but she was detained after only a couple of steps.

“I wouldn’t do that ma’am.”  Dark, serious eyes bore into them and Rocco revealed, “The place has been ransacked.  Mainly the study and the bedrooms, it seems.”

Pure ire washed over Jon’s face.  “Sonofoabitch!” he exclaimed with clenched fists. 

Rocco earned his money, displaying balls of steel when he calmly inquired of his volatile employer, “Do you remember opening the door, Mr. B.?”

I love thee with a passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath

Taking a deep breath, Petey figuratively stood right by the guard’s side and poked at the pissed-off man on the floor. Tenderly combing her fingers through his hair, she added, “Was there somebody before Mom got here?”

“Goddammit, I don’t know!”  Not only was he angry about being vulnerable and hurt, he was frustrated because his mind, usually as agile and sharp as a steel trap, wasn’t cooperating. 

“That’s okay,” Petey soothed.  “I’m sure there’s a security video.  We’ll just call Steve and have someone look through it.  Less than an hour’s worth of footage won’t be a tall order.  Let’s just get you off the floor, and over to the couch.  It will be more comfortable there.  Okay?  Rocco, could you help him up, please?”

“Wait!”  Something sparked to life in his eyes, and Petey knew he’d hit upon a memory.  “Tall.  There was a tall guy at the door.  From… one of the department stores.   He was delivering your stuff.”  His head cautiously pivoted, searching the foyer.  “There was a box and a garment bag.”

“I didn’t have anything delivered,” she told him quietly, nausea roiling through her stomach.  “We kept it all with us.”  It didn’t have to be Daniel.  Surely there were a lot of tall men in New York.

“Do you remember anything else?” Rocco prompted, lifting Jon to his feet.  “Anything else about how he looked?  Did you know him?”

“Lemme think!”  Jon leaned heavily on Rocco and allowed the younger man to assist him into the living room, where he collapsed onto the sofa with exhaustion.  Teresa sat in Petey’s chair while Petey perched next to him on the couch.  Ever vigilant, the bodyguard remained on his feet, hovering.  “Jesus,” Jon moaned.  “I feel like I’ve been swimming in wet cement for an hour.  My muscles are like rubber.”

“It’s the after-effects of the Taser.  You’ll have to rest for several hours before it goes away.”

“How the hell do you know so much about Tasers?” he asked Petey irritably.  “You go around frying guys a lot?”

“No,” she sighed, disregarding his grumpiness and bringing a hand to knead at his thigh.  It wasn’t so much to soothe the fatigued muscles, as to soothe her.  The touch of his hard, warm flesh fortified her.  “Bio-electronics is kind of my thing, remember?”

“God damn, mother fucker, son of a damn bitch!”

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil:

There was no doubt in her mind as to what had prompted that string of profanities.  He remembered.  The denial she’d entertained for the past few minutes was only a wishful fantasy borne of desperation.  This was Daniel, screwing up another perfectly good day.

Her mother posed the question that she couldn’t bring herself to ask.  “What is it Jon?”

“Mr. B?” Rocco inquired in nearly the same breath.

But Jon ignored them both, looking to Petey, who was worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.  “It was him, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” she lied, concentrating on the taste of blood.  She’d bitten down harder than she intended.  Oddly the physical pain didn’t hurt as much as what was going on around her.  “What do you remember?”

His eyes scoured her face, expression remaining eerily bland when he flatly intoned, “’A doctorate in electronics makes even the most innocent Taser deadly.’  He said that.  Right before I passed out.”

The first tear escaped from the overflowing pink pools forming in her lower lids and it cut a jagged path down her cheek, shimmering with each shuddery breath she took.  “Then yeah, I’d say it was him.”  That single tear marked the way for a steady stream to follow in its wake.  “I’m sorry, Jon,” she sniffled, tasting their saltiness. “I’m so, so sorry.”

To this point, he’d displayed anger, irritation, frustration and pain.  Faced with a crying Petey, he showed the first sign of fear.  “Hey,” he scolded, pulling her into his arms.  “You didn’t do this.  This isn’t your fault.”

“Yes, it is.”  She nodded against his shoulder, refusing to be consoled by the gentle hand stroking her hair.  “It’s my fault for not giving him what he wanted in the first place.  It’s my fault for loving you.  He wouldn’t hurt you if you didn’t mean so much to me.”

His voice was gruff when declaring, “I don’t wanna hear that bullshit.  You haven’t done anything but make my life better and prove that you have morals.  This little piss ant is a blip on our radar, and the blip will gone by the time we get married on Saturday.  I’m through playing.  Daniel is going to be dead before we say, ‘I do.’”  He nailed Rocco with a cold, hard stare and repeated.  “Dead.”

The arrogance of his decree took Petey from desolate to pissed in a heartbeat.  She shoved him away rising to agitatedly pace around the couch, disregarding her mother's look of worry.

"Stop being so damn cocky!  You were supposed to have already fixed this, but you couldn't and ended up electrocuted instead!  Jesus!" Agitated hands flew into the air.  "You're from New Jersey.  Don't you have family in the waste removal business or something??"

"Stop pacing and come here," he commanded quietly, holding out his hand.

She ignored him, more focused on venting her fear and anxiety under the face of anger. Her combat boots thunked louder and louder on the floor behind the sofa.  "How the hell have you managed to keep from getting killed by psychopathic fans?  Do you just let them wander around and do their worst while your security detail has their thumbs up their asses?"

"Patience..." her mother chided.

"My security detail is Matty in case you've forgotten."  The threatening growl to his voice went completely unheeded and she pushed lightly at his shoulder when she made her next pass.  Her heart was pounding overtime and it was either be a bitch or cry.  Petey hated to cry.

"Well maybe he's trying to kill you off since your mother acts like you're her only child!  He thinks it's time for some attention."

"Goddammit Petey," Jon thundered from his half-slumped pose.  "I feel like shit.  Don't make me chase you and plant your ass on this couch.  Sit the fuck down and get a grip!  I'm doing the best I fucking can!  What is it you want me to do? Call out a Navy Seal sniper team?"

"Anything's better than what you're doing now!"

He snagged her wrist as she stalked past and pulled hard, toppling her into his lap and glowering down into her eyes.  "You think I don't know that?  Don't you believe this shit eats at me every minute of the damn day?  That I'm losing my mind thinking that something could happen to you?  Or the kids?  I'm kinda fond of me, too, in case you didn't know."

The pain overrode the anger in his eyes and forced her to take a deep breath.  Screaming at him like a shrew wasn't making her feel better, anyway. "I'm more than fond of you, in case you didn't know."  Shaky fingers gently trailed down his cheek.  "I just got you Jon, I can't lose you."

"Baby, I'm not going anywhere.  I told you this will be taken care of this week.  If I have to find a goddamn redneck Deliverance hunter to track him down, I will.  In the meantime nobody goes anywhere without security and I'm doubling up on the residence watches.  I swear to you, he will cease to be a problem - faster than a speeding bullet."

"Stop saying that," she ordered peevishly, her frown growing ever deeper.  "You're not going to kill him, just stop him from messing with our lives."

He forced a chuckle, but it sounded more grim than cheery.  “I’ve got a tour coming up, Baby.  There are dire consequences to pay for fucking with the success of my tour.  You can think what you want, but Tweedy Bird done screwed with the wrong man.”