Pinewood Corner Kitchen Chapter 17
Gabriella was trying to make herself get back to normal about the gray bedroom. It had been months now, and while she knew that they all hadn’t moved on completely by a long shot, what happened to James in there was over. It was just a room. And she was going to make herself remember that, starting by going in there to do some of her work.
Technically, she wasn’t on until nine that morning. So she took her personal laptop into the gray bedroom and sat down on the bed furthest from the door, the one James had not twisted and screamed in as the antidote restored his mind and free will over the course of a torturous week. She had the idea that she could maybe just putter around online. Maybe look at new crockpots. Or get some ideas to fix her kitchen once the soot and scorch marks were gone.
She wasn’t going to do anything Chapman-related, she wasn’t going to attempt to access any Foundation resources that were off-limits without a waiver, and she definitely wasn’t going to give in to temptation and look up Bradley to see whatever horrific sin he’d committed that might keep him from getting a non-Foundation job. And when he showed up in the doorway as she was debating stick-on backsplashes, she was beyond grateful she didn’t have his mugshot up on the screen.
“I’m calling the fire department now,” he said. “There’s another code they can use for paranormal shit.”
“Thanks,” she said, aware her face was probably red.
If he noticed anything weird, he didn’t comment on it as he left.
Madelyn got to work as Gabriella was starting research for the Bancroft case, something to do with an elderly woman’s estate and a potential ghost that came along with it. If she wasn’t also waiting on the all-clear from Bradley to call her insurance company, she might find this fascinating. But as it was, she was so distracted that when Madelyn stopped in the gray bedroom’s doorway, the Bancroft research might not have existed anymore.
“How are you?” Gabriella asked.
Madelyn shrugged. “Better than you, apparently.”
“Are you psychic now too?” Gabriella asked, mostly joking since she knew the much more likely answer to that question. “They killed my crockpot.”
“No!”
“Yes!” Gabriella said through maybe hysterical laughter. “Two evil psychics hate me so much they found out where I live and burned my crockpot to send me a warning!”
“And was it received?” Madelyn asked as she sat down on the bed beside Gabriella.
“Loud and clear,” Gabriella admitted. “I don’t want them to know they scared me, but oh my God.”
She sighed and shook her head. “I’m alright, though. Really, how are you?”
Madelyn shrugged again. “I’m okay,” she said. “Me and Graham talked for a while last night. He swears it had nothing to do with me. Like, up and down swears his feelings about the Foundation have nothing to do with me. And I believe him.”
That was a relief. They had been dating less than a year, but Gabriella already couldn’t imagine the two of them not being together. And then there was the awkwardness that always came with working around two people who had recently broken up. Even if it was allowed by Foundation rules, it didn’t make things not awkward in a situation where everyone was depending on one another. So a small part of her relief was based in that.
Madelyn looked around the room and Gabriella could tell they were thinking about the same thing. “Graham stayed late last night,” she said. “I hope he and James were able to talk, but I don’t know.”
Gabriella wasn’t sure what to say. “James came in and talked to me yesterday too,” Madelyn said.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It helped, but he looked like shit, so I wish he hadn’t felt obligated to take care of me.”
Madelyn looked like she regretted starting that conversation, so Gabriella let it go. “I’m glad you’re alright,” she said.
“Same to you,” Madelyn said. “I’m just sorry about the crockpot.”
“It was such a good one, too,” Gabriella groaned. “It had a timer and it was bigger than the old one I got from my aunt and-”
There was a knock on the doorframe. Bradley was standing there. “You can pick up your report from the fire department after three,” he said.
“Thank you.”
He ignored her, looking around the room for a second. Then he walked away and Gabriella felt a sudden need to leave the room too.
“Want some coffee?” she asked Madelyn.
“Please.”
She couldn’t make this room be a normal room. Not yet.
***
The phone rang as Gabriella was eating her lunch, for once remembering to prepare herself for more time reading about and looking at food that was both incredible-looking and out of her ability to prepare. Well, not all of it. She was a decent cook, but some of these things required specialized kitchen equipment. If anyone here had them, it was Graham, but she wasn’t about to ask about it. Her focus had to be psychic attacks, not tomorrow’s dinner.
She was alone out here. Madelyn was downstairs and Bradley had left to run a few errands. He’d been limping as he went and she did her absolute best not to notice, even as she wanted to offer any help she could while stuck in headquarters. But that meant no one else was within reach of the phone, so she abandoned her sandwich and answered.
“North County Branch, Gabriella speaking. How can I help you?”
“Hello, Gabriella, I’m Mindy, I’m calling from Foundation Medical Services. Is your captain there?”
“Just a moment.”
She put Mindy on hold, nearly hanging up on her before hitting the right button at the last second, then went to James’s office, where the door was mostly closed.
“James?” she called, knocking lightly.
He had his head down at his desk and was snoring softly. Gabriella was tempted to let him sleep, but he’d be pissed if she did that. So instead, she called him again as she walked into the room.
“James?”
He didn’t move. But as her hand touched his shoulder, he snapped back up. “What?”
“It’s just me,” she said. “There’s a phone call for you.”
He groaned. “Shit, I’m sorry.”
“Want me to tell her you’ll call back?”
“No, I’ve got it,” he said. “Who is it?”
“Mindy from Foundation Medical Services?”
James sighed. “Save me from health insurance,” he muttered. “Thanks.”
He picked up his phone and took her off hold. “This is Captain McManus,” he said, sounding far more awake than he had a few seconds earlier.
Gabriella glanced at the textbooks on his bookshelves. There was a dusty one about psychic abilities near the end of one of them and she attempted to slide it out of place as James listened to whatever Mindy was saying.
“Right,” he said. “But why are you calling me with this?”
She was on her tiptoes as she grasped the book and started to carefully pull it out from between two larger volumes. “No, I understand that,” James said. “I’m not talking about secrets. But this is private medical information about one of my team. Why aren’t you calling him directly? Or his physician. I shouldn’t know this.”
He looked pissed and Gabriella almost felt bad about the fact that this made her feel a little better about how ready he was to be back. “Right,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose with the hand not holding the phone. “But that’s between him and his doctor, not his captain. Do you get what I’m saying? Have you spoken to him yet?”
She got the book out, but hesitated before leaving. “Right,” James said. “Alright. Fine. Thank you.”
He hung up, then buried his face in his hands with a groan. “Are you alright?” Gabriella asked.
“Yeah,” he said, sitting up. “Is Bradley here?”
“He’s at Market Basket.”
“If you see him before I do when he gets back, can you tell him I need to talk to him?”
“Of course.”
He smiled bitterly at her. “Thanks.”
“I’m going to take this?” she said, holding the book up awkwardly.
“Yeah.”
***
The book turned out to be an ancient waste of time, but it kept Gabriella occupied until Bradley got back about thirty minutes later, holding a handful of grocery bags. She met him at the door and took them out of his hands before she could bother to offer and get rejected.
“James needs to talk to you,” she said, catching a bag of cleaning supplies before it slipped out of her grip.
“Let me just do this.”
“I heard the call and he was pretty pissed they didn’t call you directly,” she said, her voice low. “Go talk to him.”
He looked at her, then went up the stairs and straight into James’s office without bothering to knock, closing the door behind himself. Gabriella brought the groceries up to the kitchen and began unpacking them, listening for the sound of fighting from James’s office.
It didn’t come. Instead, the door opened again about five minutes later and Bradley walked out. He stopped in the dining room, looking around. “Are you okay?” Gabriella asked.
He nodded, still looking around the room with what she realized was an oddly calm fury. Then he turned and walked toward the back door. She watched out the window above the kitchen sink as he went down into the backyard, picked up a large rock from the base of the stairs, and started walking toward the tree line to the small patch of almost-woods that separated them from the property behind them. He lobbed the rock at a tree and it hit with an impact she could hear through the closed window.
“FUCK!” he yelled, walking a few steps with his hands clenched behind his head.
Gabriella turned away and went back to putting the remaining few groceries in the cabinets as another rock clearly hit the same tree. By the time she was done, four rocks had hit their target and Bradley was coming back up the stairs. He walked into the dining room as Gabriella pretended she hadn’t seen anything.
“They canceled my surgery,” he said, standing at the head of the table, slightly breathless as he held onto the back of a chair. “They won’t tell me why, just that they can’t do it this year. Since it isn’t life-threatening, we can try again next year, but no promises on anything.”
“What about outside the Foundation?”
“I’ll have to find a doctor, establish care, and then get all the necessary appointments and transfers,” he said. “It’d take more than a year.”
“The emergency room?”
“They won’t cover it,” he snapped, and she told herself not to take it personally.
“Whatever,” he muttered. “It’s not going to kill me.”
They both realized what he’d said at the same time. Before she could open her mouth, Bradley jabbed a finger at her. “Don’t fucking say it.”
She didn’t, but when she glanced into James’s office, she accidentally made eye contact with him as Bradley walked away. And she could see the slightest amount of relief on his face.
