"Good job, guys." Lightner turned away, but Kate grabbed the sleeve of his white coat and pulled him to her.

"Get me out of here," she whispered in a hoarse voice muffled by the mask.

"No can do. It'll be a few more days before you're ready for the floor. Another week or so before we can talk about discharge."

"No, please," she said in between breaths, tugging at his jacket, surprised at how much effort that small movement took. "I'm going crazy in here." She stopped herself before telling him about her-fits, she decided to call them. It was a tiny word, made the terrifying episodes seem small and manageable.

Lightner laughed. "You cops are all the same. I know you want to hit the streets and find the man that shot you and your partner, but you have to stay here until your lungs have had a chance to heal."

Kate refused to release her grip on his coat. "Rob-what happened, how did it happen?"

A shadow crossed Lightner's face before he took a deep breath and turned his full attention onto her. Those eyes, dark, deep blue, seemed to draw her into an intimate embrace.

"Three nights ago, you were shot twice in the chest. The first one tore some blood vessels near your heart, collapsed your lung. Your vest deflected most of the second, it broke your collarbone, caused some soft tissue damage, nothing serious."

"Damn it! I know I've been shot in the chest." That wasn't what she was asking. Kate tried again. "Rob-"

Her voice trailed off, she couldn't force herself to say the words. She grabbed the bed rail. She would not cry, would not lose it here, not in front of strangers. "Was it fast?"

"Yes," he said, his gaze reaching out to her. "He was gone at the scene."

The image of the shooter's mocking grin as he pivoted and emptied two rounds at point blank range into Rob's face filled her mind. She licked her parched lips, tried to find enough saliva to swallow the lump that had lodged in her throat. "Have they caught the guy?"

"No, not yet. Detective Carter is waiting to talk to you."

"Send him in." Kate snatched at the chance to do something, anything to help catch Rob's killer. Then she remembered the old woman. Lightner would think she was nuts. But her visions, fits, whatever they were, they were too real to ignore. If she told him about the woman, maybe he could save her in time, maybe what she saw wouldn't happen. Better yet, he could tell her that it was a normal reaction to the drugs or anesthesia.

Maybe Lightner had the answers she needed.

"Did something else happen to me?" she asked, fearing the answer. She fought to keep her face relaxed, expressionless, tried to hide the anxiety churning through her gut as she waited for his reply. "Something that could mess up my brain, make me see things?"

Lightner hesitated, looking at her now with true concern. "Seeing what kind of things?"

"I saw her die." With an unsteady hand, Kate pointed across the room to the old woman. She drew in her breath, ignoring the blaze of pain it ignited. She had to tell Lightner, had to try to help prevent what she had seen from coming true. "They did CPR and put a tube down her throat, shocked her over and over, four times, then everyone left." She tore off the piece of paper that she'd drawn zigzag lines across. "That's how it happened. You have to help her."

To Kate's annoyance, Lightner shoved the paper into his pocket without looking at it. Instead he flipped through Kate's bedside chart, holding it like a shield between them as he spoke. "Mrs. Greenbaum? She's doing so well we've transferred her to the medical service. Believe me, we don't let the fleas take any of our patients if we're at all worried." His expression grew remote once more.

Kate didn't care about any of his medical mumbojumbo. "I'm telling you, I saw her die."

"No signs of seizure activity," he muttered, flipping her chart shut, talking about her as if she wasn't there. Finally he looked up at Kate once more. "Did this happen while you were asleep?"

"Asleep, awake, it keeps happening. Over and over. I can't control it. It's like a flash. All the sudden I can feel, sense everything happening. When it's over and I look at the clock a few minutes have gone by like I've lost time." Her hands closed into fists of frustration. What could she say to make him believe her?

"I'll check your meds, but it's not unusual after a severe trauma such as yours for patients to be confused." He looked as if he was going to say more, glanced at his watch instead.

Kate slumped back on the pillow. It was obvious he didn't believe her, but what she'd seen, felt was real, damn it! She could still smell the acrid scent from when they shocked the woman. None of the details were confused, in fact they were all too sharp and vivid.

Suddenly her vision clouded. The smell of burnt flesh combined with the crack of her ribs breaking as a woman pounded on her chest. Electricity jolted through her again and again. She tried to scream but no sound came. Then there was nothing, just a dark void.

"Kate, hey slugger, you still with me?" Lightner's voice came from inches away.

Her vision cleared. She had sagged down in the bed and struggled to push herself upright, releasing a fresh torrent of agony from her side. Lightner wrapped his hands around her waist, effortlessly sliding her up to a more comfortable position.

"She's going to die!" Kate cried out. Or tried to. Her voice emerged in a scared, hoarse whisper.

"You had another one, didn't you?" Lightner asked, his voice more distant as he straightened and pulled away.

She nodded, trying to reorient herself.

"No tonic-clonic movements, vitals stayed stable," he murmured without translating as he flashed a bright light into both her eyes. "Fundi sharp, pupils reactive."

"Listen." Kate pushed his hands away. "It happened just like I told you. You have to stop it."

"Calm down," he said in that patronizing tone she was beginning to despise. "I think what you need is to get some sleep."

"Just promise me," she tried one last time, aware of how pitiful she must sound and hating her helplessness. "Promise you won't forget."

"I promise. If you promise to get some rest."

Kate nodded her agreement and collapsed back on the pillows. Lightner walked away.

Leaving Kate alone, truly alone. Her partner gone, the partner she had sworn to keep safe, and now her mind was going as well.

Lightner had left the curtains around her bed open. Kate glanced across the room to where the little old lady slept like an angel. One more person she was powerless to save. Kate wrapped her fingers around the bedrail, gripping it in frustration.

Her vision blurred and the kaleidoscope images of the woman's death seared into Kate's brain. Again. And again.

And there was nothing Kate could do to stop it.

CHAPTER 6.

Kate spent the rest of the morning engulfed in the vortex of the ICU routine. Nurses buzzed around, changing dressings, drawing blood or giving her strange, brightly colored fluids through the IV that went into her right shoulder. For a place that was supposed to be restful and healing, it seemed as chaotic and raucous as the night the Steelers won the Super Bowl. A constant barrage of alarms buzzing, beepers shrieking and phones ringing mingled with the smells of antiseptic soap, urine and blood.

Her brother, Michael, had stopped by on his way to work. A CPA for a major accounting firm downtown, he'd spent the time rattling off the numbers charted by her nurses, seemingly more cheered by the prospect that her "ins and outs" balanced and her blood pressure and other vital signs had stabilized than the fact that she was now breathing on her own and talking to him.

She wasn't too surprised. Ever since they were kids, she and her big brother always got along better when they weren't talking. His world was one where order reigned, while Kate had chosen to leave law school to join their father in a universe punctuated by chaos.

After Michael left, Kate tried to analyze her momentary lapses of reason. Tried to be an objective investigator. What triggered them, was there a pattern, could she predict when they would happen? How to stop them? And the big question: was she going crazy?

What if she was nuts? The shooter would walk for sure. Juries tended to doubt the testimony of nutcases on a day pass from Western Psych, even if they were ex-cops.

Ex-cop. The word rattled through Kate's brain, echoing and repeating itself, synchronizing with the beeping of her heart rate on the monitor.

Kate was startled out of her reverie by a hesitant cough beside her.

"Carter! How'd you get past the guards?" Kate gestured to the nurses' station. She was delighted to see Mel, he had been her training officer when she first joined the force six years ago. Now he was a detective with Major Crimes.

"How're you doing?" He eyed the tubes and wires radiating from her body with suspicion.

"Don't worry, it's not as bad as it all looks," she said, her voice sounding gravelly. She swallowed hard. The breathing tube was gone, but it left in its wake a powerful sore throat. "Any word on the shooter?"

Carter shook his head. He sank down in the chair beside her bed, a small sigh of exhaustion escaping from him. Kate ignored it, of course. As she did the dark circles smudging his eyes and the new frown lines etched into his forehead. She'd never embarrass him by letting him know she knew he was only human.

"Did they tell you about Rob?"

It took her a moment to master her voice as she remembered Turner's implications that she might have screwed up, caused Rob's death. "What's happening?"

He pinched his nose, pushing his glasses up higher. "Turner's gone ballistic. Has the Officer Involved guys from Internal Affairs working overtime, trying to piece together a story." He slanted his gaze at her and Kate knew what he was thinking.

"Turner wants them to blame me." Anything to be able to face his daughter with answers about her husband's death. She swallowed, trying to muster the courage to ask. "The worst thing is," she stumbled over her words, "I'm not sure he's not right."

She kept going over and over the events of that night, but she couldn't be absolutely certain she hadn't hesitated, that there wasn't some way she could have prevented Rob's death.

"Did I screw up, Mel? Was I too slow, did I freeze?" She hated the anguish in her voice, but she needed to know.

Carter shook his head in time with each of her questions. "No, Kate. Don't even think that. I saw the tape, you did everything humanly possible."

"Humanly possible? What the hell does that mean?" Partners were supposed to go beyond *humanly possible' when it came to protecting each other.

He jutted his chin forward, as close to disrespecting a superior officer as he would ever come. "Don't you listen to Turner. He needs to blame someone and you're the only target handy. His ass is on the line as well. Two fatalities in the department this year and both of them from Turner's command. Makes the brass take a close look at how he's running things."

"They want to blame him for Sherry Thomas?" She frowned. Thomas had been killed during a traffic stop two months ago; there was no connection to the robbery at the Minimart.

"The best way for Turner to get off the hook is to feed them another scapegoat. Seeing as how you two already get along so well, is it any wonder he's throwing you to the IAD guys? I told you to get out of that House."

Turner was from the old school, the one where women stayed home and cooked and ironed, waiting for their man-anywhere but out on the streets doing a man's job. When Kate first transferred to his command, he'd made a pass at her during the annual Christmas party. A pass that had ended up with him flat on his ass.

Then she and Rob had started working together and somehow rumors had started that they were having an affair. Rumors that were a constant source of embarrassment to Turner as Rob's father-in-law and commander.

Kate blew her breath out. Now, with Rob dead, Turner had plenty of reasons to target her for wrecking his daughter's home. "Do I have anything to be worried about?"

Carter removed his glasses, always a bad sign. Her stomach clenched, waiting for the worse. He polished them across his slacks before answering. "I don't know. The victims in the store saw nothing. Our only video is from a State Store down the block. The camera was focused on their parking lot and was too far away to make out any details. We could see movement and shapes and the muzzle flashes, that's all. Nothing on a canvass of the neighborhood and no forensics except the ballistics."

She shifted in her bed, trying in vain to find a comfortable position. Kate was hoping for an answer-one way or the other, she'd learn to live with it. It was this gnawing uncertainty that was killing her. The monitor skittered into a staccato rhythm as her heart sped with anxiety. "What do you have so far?"

Carter started to sigh again, then caught himself. "Not a whole hell of a lot. Did you get a good look at the shooter? The people in the store were so rattled we can't get a coherent description."

"I saw him, Carter. He looked me in the eye and smiled at me. Right before he came out and did Rob."

"Sure you're up to this?" He shifted his chair closer to her bed and pulled out his notebook.

"Who gives a shit if I am?" she snapped, irritated by his protectiveness. "Stop wasting time."

Her outburst drew a slight smile from him. He nodded at her in approval, as if she'd passed some kind of test. "Tell me everything."

Kate closed her eyes, tried to re-create the memory from Friday night. Overwhelmed and confused, she felt her pulse throb in her temples and her fingers grow numb. She couldn't remember what they were doing before the call came, couldn't remember the call itself, all she saw in her mind's eye was the shooter smiling at her, then turning and shooting Rob, and there was blood everywhere- "Hey, calm down, it's okay." Carter's voice penetrated her haze.

Kate opened her eyes, realized she was hyperventilating. Not a fit, thank God. Just bad memories. But not enough of them.

Damn it, she replayed that night constantly. It had taken over her dreams, invaded most of her waking moments. Why couldn't she focus on any of the details now?

"I'm sorry," she said, embarrassed by tears of frustration she wiped away with her free hand.

"No, it's my fault, I shouldn't be pushing you so hard, so soon. We knew you might not be back to normal-" He stopped, began again. "After what happened-"

She stared at him, and when he looked away, she knew he meant more than her getting shot. "Carter, what are you talking about?"

He cleared his throat, pushed his glasses up his nose. "I-uh-I thought they would have told you about-you know-"

She swallowed hard, more worried about the strange look on his face than the monitor alarming her racing heartbeat. Had Lightner betrayed her? Told Carter about her fits?

"That night-do you remember anything? After you were shot?"

"Some. Bits and pieces." She closed her eyes. The chill of a misty rain, the smell of cordite and blood, the sounds of her blood spilling into the sewer and the killer's laughter seared through her mind in a quick flash. She shook off the memories with a shudder.

When she opened her eyes, Carter was watching her, his lips tightened in concern. "Maybe we should talk about this later."

"No. Now."

He considered for a moment, then relented. "All right. When the paramedics arrived at the scene you weren't breathing but you still had a faint pulse. They scooped and ran but they lost vitals en route. You were down eight minutes before Lightner brought you back."

Goosebumps rippled across her skin. "You're saying that I was-that I-"

"You were dead for eight minutes."

CHAPTER 7.

Dead? Her breath hitched, scraping against her already raw throat. Her vision blurred as she stared directly into the brilliance of the overhead light. She didn't blink; she couldn't blink. "Dead?"

Carter didn't answer her. Instead he focused on his notebook for a long moment.

"Many victims have a temporary memory loss, there's no reason you should be any different," he finally said, avoiding the "D" word.

Kate looked at him in shock. Was that what she was now? A victim?

Her perception of her place in the universe shifted then tilted back into place as she drew in a deep breath, the pain shooting through her chest helping to focus her.