Robbery In Progress

*Kelsey*

The drive to the hospital should have taken roughly 23 minutes, emphasis on "should have." Plus the traffic in this God forsaken city, that trip was more like 40 minutes to an hour. How is it that this city is filled with people who don't drive and yet there's still all these cars driving around? One of these days someone would give me answers to these questions. But today, those weren't the questions I needed answered. Today, apparently, I needed to know "the why." What did that even mean?

Sure, people are complex and have reasons, blah blah blah. But how exactly was I expected to crack the codes of the universe by talking to some guy's sister?

Was I used to talking to people who committed crimes? Yes. Did I sometimes employ those people in my company? Yes. But that was to collect the bigger fish. It would be absurd for me to think that every person with a criminal record was a bad person.

It would be especially rude considering how straight up broken our justice system is. I mean, yikes.

But there was a difference between victimless crimes and crimes with victims. Aside from the victim status, I mean. That is clear to me, thank you. I'm just saying that someone smoking pot could get away with the "ended up in the wrong crowd" argument pretty easily. In fact, that isn't even a crime in like, a ton of states now. But robbing banks and shooting people...that just doesn't fall in the same bucket for me. I'm not grasping exactly how it could for anyone, but I suppose I'm not the one with a degree in psychology or whatever requirements a person would need for a job as a crisis negotiator.

Regardless of my internal struggle, I still had a job I needed to do. So I took a breath, got out of my car and headed into the building. It was across the street from the hospital, both buildings were tall but not really skyscraper worthy. It was about forty floors short of that if I had to guess.

Once instead, the staff seemed to be expecting me because once I walked up to the front desk with my badge they were already escorting me to the elevator.

"Nurse Kylie is free to answer any of your questions, of course within reason. Anything related to the patient's medical history would have to come directly from Ms. Roberts if she were so inclined. We recognize that you are on a bit of a time crunch in your investigation, but please keep in mind that our main priority is still the patient and we would ask that you avoid upsetting her. The fight with cancer is a mighty one and it sometimes takes all the strength one has to muster." The woman paused to make direct eye contact with me before continuing, "don't take advantage."

Holding up my hands in surrender I replied, "wouldn't dream of it. She's not on trial here."

Appearing satisfied with my response, she allowed the elevator to close and went back to her post.

"She seems nice," my tone light as I commented aloud for Nurse Kylie. I earned myself a small chuckle and a soft smile.

"She's something. Ms. Roberts is on the twelfth floor. I will walk you to her room then wait outside in case she needs anything."

"Can you tell me if you've seen her brother visit her at all?" We had ten flights to go after all, I was obviously going to take advantage.

She nodded, "his visits used to be very regular. Every Sunday around lunch time. Sometimes he would stop by on Saturdays, too. But a few months ago he disappeared for awhile. No visits for at a least four or five weeks, I think. Then a little over a month ago, he was back. But not with any sort of schedule like before. He would stop by sporadically, but I haven't seen him for a few days now."

By the time she was done answering we had reached the twelfth floor, so we stepped out. Unlike the main floor with the gargoyle-like receptionist and the charged energy of activity, this floor was quiet. Not silent, there were people talking and such, but the vibe up here was just plain dull. It was actually making me depressed just being here, I suddenly remembered the pain and sorrow that my family went through with my mom and I didn't like it one bit.

I realized Nurse Kylie was off walking and talking so I shook off the feeling and rushed after her as gracefully as possible. I caught up just as she was entering someone's room, Rose Roberts' presumably.

"I've got someone here that would like to talk to you if you're up for it," Nurse Kylie said to the woman laying in bed. She was young, I knew that from the file obviously. It said she was nineteen. But I mean, she looked so young. She was hooked up to all kinds of machines and she looked weak, and yet she smiled without a care in the world.

"I'm always up for company, are you kidding? This place is straight up depressing most days. Is this one interesting?"

Her reply made me smile. She may be battling cancer but this kid was a force to be reckoned with, I could tell.

"I'd like to think I'm interesting," I replied for myself, waving the nurse off with a smile. I sat next to her bed, "my name is Kelsey. I'm a police detective."

"In that case, I have an alibi." Her words were serious but she was smiling.

I chuckled, "you're not suspected of anything. I'm actually more interested in your brother's story. If you'd be willing to share. He seems to have gotten himself into a bit of a pickle recently, I'd like to know why."

There, I did it. The best way to find the why is to ask, right? That oughta get me somewhere.

"I'm not sure how much help I'll be for you, then. My brother visits, but he's thirteen years older than me, there's a lot I don't know about him."

*Off to a great start.*

"Can you tell me what he he is like with you, then? We can start there." I pulled a note pad out of my bag. I would be lying if I said I would remember everything she said. And I stopped telling myself that lie around sophomore year of college when I flunked out of art history due to lack of notes. Okay, it was my poor test scores, but those test scores were poor because I didn't have any notes to study from.

"How long do you have?" She asked ruefully. "I'm kidding," shaking her head she became serious, "Jason is thirteen years older than I am so I basically don't remember him in my childhood. By the time I was five, he was leaving for college. He was around for holidays and such but other than that I didn't really see him. But then fourish years ago now, our parents died. Six months apart. Jason moved me out to New York with him then."

"Where were you before New York?"

"Boston. My mom was in banking, and my dad was an insurance guy or something." She turned her attention to her bedsheets, picking at imaginary lint. "Dad wanted Jason to follow in his footsteps, and he tried for awhile. That's what he went to school for. NYC," she noted off handedly. "But two years in he left school I guess. I remember that because dad would always make comments about it. And then mom would always yell at him for making comments about it." I sat quietly as she continued. At this point, she seemed to be in her own world. I didn't want to startle her or anything, so I just took notes as she continued. Hoping to God something in here turned out to be helpful. "After that he bounced around a few places, or at least that's why he says whenever I ask him about it. When he moved me out here though he started a job in finance. A real Monday through Friday deal, is what he always called it. Said our folks would be happy about that. I lived with him for about a year or two before we got the diagnosis. He took it pretty hard, I think, but I don't think he wanted me to know that. Suddenly this guy I barely knew that spent most of his time being angry with our parents, with me, with the world even, was Mr. Happy. Putting on a smile and a brave face every time he came to see me. But a few months back we got the notice."

"What do you mean 'the notice'?" I shook my head in confusion.

"My kidneys are failing. I need a transplant. But Jason lost his job, which means no insurance. Without insurance, we can't even cover the costs for me to stay here. As each day passes we fall farther and farther into debt. He told me not to worry about it, hell I've got plenty of other things to worry about. The failing kidneys if you forgot, but I can't just not worry about the money. The transplant alone would be four hundred thousand dollars. Where are you going to get that kind of cash?"

I realize her question was rhetorical, but I knew where you could get that kind of cash. *Banks.*

And I just found my why.