115 - Revelations

“Jon, it’s him!  We’re finally going to know something!”  She was in such a hurry to answer the phone that it jumped from her hands plummeting into the deep abyss between the bed and the nightstand.  “Damn!”

“Got it...”  Jon swooped in from the bathroom, easily bending and retrieving the phone in half the time it would have taken her to maneuver herself into the right position to reach it without squishing the babies.  He passed it to her, his face as intent as she felt.  “Here.  Put it on speaker so I can hear, too.”

She nodded absently, swiping the bar just before the call went to voicemail.  “Hello?”

“Mrs. Bongiovi, it’s Hal Bugliotti.”  His voice sounded lighter than she remembered hearing it before, and Sheridan’s heart beat faster as she tapped the speaker button.  He really had something.  The light at the end of her turmoil-laden tunnel grew bright enough to blind her.  “I have some information for you.”

Jon, settling on the bed beside her, put his hand on her thigh with a gentle squeeze before taking charge of the conversation. 

“Hal, this is Jon Bon Jovi.  We have you on speaker.  Tell us what ya got.”

The man on the other end of the line cleared his throat.  “Mr. Bongiovi.  The police have one Elizabeth Miller in custody.  They believe that she’s your informant.”

“Who is she?”  Sheridan didn’t recognize that name at all and looked to Jon, who merely shrugged his shoulders.  Even if it was one of his fans, the likelihood of his identifying her with only a very non-descript name was slim at best. 

“Ms. Miller is employed with a company called Wordgo.  It’s a medical transcription service in SoHo that processes records for several practices in the area.  Apparently she’s been siphoning off useful information from the medical records that came across her desk, selling it for what she could get.”

“Jesus,” Jon hissed, his face contorting with anger.  “Medical records?? What the fuck about HIPAA?  There are laws against that shit!”

“Yeah, there are.  That’s why she’s been arrested.”

HIPAA didn’t interest Sheridan.  She didn’t care about what laws should have protected them; she was more interested in why they’d been broken in the first place.

“But why?  Why did she do this to us?  You’ve told me where she works, but who IS she?  What reason does she have for exposing our lives?”

“I’m sorry,” Hal apologized, actually sounding truly remorseful.  “That I don’t know.  I have a picture to send you, but beyond that, my contact was very limited in what he would give me.  The police should be in touch with you tomorrow.”

“How did the police get involved?” Jon wanted to know and Sheridan was curious, too.  She didn’t realize the two of them would find out after the fact.  It had been her assumption that, after discovering the leak’s identity – they would be the ones to bring police into the matter.

“They were already looking into it when I got in touch with my guy.  You’re not the only victims here, just the predominant ones.  There are at least two other public figures involved; one of them thought they knew the source and filed a formal complaint that started the investigation.”

Jon thanked the man for his time as Sheridan slumped back against the headboard.  She was furious and she wanted answers.  Why, out of all the people in New York, had THEY been chosen??  She needed answers.  She DESERVED answers!

“I realize this isn’t the best time to ask,” Hal said in lieu of the goodbye the Bongiovis expected.  “But I’d like to go ahead and get that first interview scheduled.  How does Friday sound?”

Jon’s eyes fell shut and he shook his head.  “I know you’ll understand when I tell you we have other things on our mind right now.  We’ll be in touch about the interview.”

“Hal,” Sheridan interrupted.  She had no idea what his previous experience with celebrity-types was, but she felt it was only right to assure the man that they weren’t going to renege on the deal that had been made.  “I can’t check our appointments right now, but I will first thing in the morning.  Call me about noon and I’ll have a date and time for you.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Bongiovi.  I appreciate that.  I’ll send you the photo as soon as I hang up.”

Jon disconnected the call, putting her phone on the nightstand and pivoting on his butt toward her.  One leg was drawn up under the other and she could feel the warmth of his palm through the covers as he pushed it up her thigh.

“How ya doin’?”

She met his concerned eyes with a small frown.  There were so many thoughts and emotions whirling through her mind right now that she couldn’t pinpoint one that was more significant than another.  “I don’t really know...  I do know that it’s a relief to find out that this is coming from current doctor’s visits instead of old records.  Now I can stop worrying about Suzy and Madison.  That doesn’t stop me from being confused, though.  I keep wondering why.  I also wonder where Richie fits into this.  How did his name get brought up to begin with?  And our wedding?  That wasn’t medical information.”

“Holy shit,” her husband muttered, looking a little uneasy.  “We’ll have to find out for sure, but it could be Romeo.  The kids’ therapist is in SoHo, and Ro was all bent outta shape when he heard Dottie and I discussing Richie’s drinking.  His doctor called me about it, remember?  And I called her about us getting married.”

Romeo?  He was at the start of this?  That meant...

Sheridan sat straight up, leaning forward to grip Jon’s arm.  “Zelda was right!  Help me think... What else did she say?  Something about... a dagger, wings...”

“Snakes,” Jon quietly mumbled.  “Two snakes.”

“Doesn’t that sound like medical symbol?  What’s it called?  Caduceus?”  The hair on her arms stood at attention.  “Romeo, medical... oh my God, that gives me goose bumps.  She really knew what she was talking about!”

Before he could reluctantly admit the truth in those words, Sheridan’s phone chimed out with a text message.  She immediately reached for it, swiping a finger across the surface.  “It’s the picture of Elizabeth Miller.”  Tapping on the glass, she increased the image to fill the entire screen.

The woman in the photo was fairly unremarkable.  Her nondescript brown hair was mussed as though her hand had been put through it a number of times.  Her drawn mouth was arched into a desolate frown and dark eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with red. 

Were those red eyes from drugs or something else?  While no reason was acceptable for what Elizabeth had done, at least Sheridan could make peace that the acts had been under the use of moral-altering influences.  Junkies were not rational people and had no respect for anyone, including themselves.

“Lemme see.”  Jon reached for the phone. 

When he tipped it away, the angle presented the photo in a different way and gave her a different perspective.  That perspective had her anger boiling anew.  She no longer cared if the woman was a crack whore, junkie, heroin addict or anything else. 

“Do you recognize her?” she demanded of Jon, shaking the phone with barely controlled fury.  It was bad enough that her privacy had been invaded, but now… 

His fingers locked around her wrist, halting the jerky motion.  “Hold the damn phone still and I’ll tell ya.”

“Well?” It had been all of two seconds, but her patience had dissolved in direct correlation to the rising of her blood pressure.  “Do you?”

“No.”  His eyes cut up to hers with a little frown.  “Should I?”

“Yes!  She’s the catering bartender that kept breaking all of the glasses.”  She threw the phone down on the bed, using the limited motion to vent some of her ire.  “No wonder she was so damn nervous!  That snitch was IN MY HOUSE, Jon!  She not only blurted everything we didn’t want known to the rest of the world, she used my bathroom!”

Pressing her fingers to her temple, Sheridan vainly rubbed at the headache that was trying to build. 

“Well fuck… me.”  He bounced to his feet, unable to sit still any longer.  Her husband paced the length of the bed, his hands flexing into fists in a typical show of exasperated anger.  “The medical thing is a criminal offense, but I’m sure we can file civil charges against her.  By God, they’ll be filed and pursued with everything I’ve got.  We’ll make the biggest example of her the fucking paparazzi has ever seen!  People with goddamn well think twice before opening their pie-holes about us again.”

Jon’s reaction was stereotypical Italian revenge, with a little cultured businessman thrown in.  The legal system would serve as a tool of retribution and soothe his idealistic sense of morality.  In his mind, everything would be neatly compartmentalized and justice would be served. 

She loved his passion for righting the wrongs in the world.  Truly, she did.  He used the system to remedy unfairness on a daily basis – homeless, hungry, and hurting benefitted from any legal loophole and personal supplementation that he could provide. 

But the victim this time wasn’t some nameless, faceless population.  It was THEM. 

Sheridan needed more than the legal system could provide.

“That’s fine, but I’m going down to wherever they have her tomorrow.  I want to look her in the face so that she can tell me why.  I deserve that satisfaction.”

Rather than providing the support she fully expected from him, he stopped in his pacing tracks and turned to her.  With a jaw set in granite, Jon shook his head and told her flatly, “No.”

She twisted her head to the right, squinting her eyes at him in disbelief.  Had he just told her no? 

“Excuse me?” 

“I said no.  I don’t want you anywhere near this woman.  From the looks of that picture, she could very well be on drugs and withdrawals aren’t going to make her fit to have a civilized conversation with anyone, much less the people who are throwing the book at her.”

His tone demanded to be obeyed, but she wasn’t feeling very obedient at the moment and defiantly tipped her chin.

“I’m going to see her.  Period.”

“No, you’re not.”

Blue eyes clashed with green in a husband-wife standoff, neither Bongiovi willing to give an inch. 

“Sheridan, there is abso-fucking-lutely no good that can come of talking to her.  What could she possibly say that would excuse what’s been done?  It doesn’t matter why.  What’s done is done and she will get her punishment.  That’s where you find your satisfaction.”

He didn’t understand.  His black and white, right and wrong world couldn’t comprehend why she needed this.  Maybe she didn’t really even understand why she needed this, but she did.  And she would have it – with or without her husband’s support. 

For tonight, however, she was mentally and physically exhausted from the long days of anticipation and the final explosion of her righteous anger.   They’d swum long enough in an ocean of anger.  Any longer and they might find themselves drowning in it.  Besides, Jon wasn’t the one she was mad at and she didn’t want to spend the rest of the night fighting with him.  It was easier to just let it go.

For now.

“Just get in bed, Jon,” she requested quietly.  “The babies and I want to be held.”