"You're the officer in charge?"

"Lieutenant Dallas."

"Doctor Pruit."

"Please." Var reached out a hand, dropped it again. "Is she okay? Is Cill okay?"

At Eve's nod, the doctor sat across from the two men.

"She came through surgery. You're family?"

"Yes," Benny said before Var could speak. "We're her family."

"Her injuries are very severe."

"But you fixed her," Benny insisted.

"We put together a team of doctors and performed several surgeries. She suffered massive trauma to the head, which required extensive repair."

Eve listened while Pruit explained the damage, the repair, the prognosis, and watched faces. But she'd already seen it-just that quick flash.

"I don't understand what you're saying." Benny looked at Var. "Do you? What does it mean?"

"Cilla's in a coma," Pruit explained. "This isn't unexpected, and it may give her body a chance to heal."

"Or she won't wake up at all," Var said, bitterly. "That's what you're saying."

"Yes. We've done everything we can do for her at this time, but we'll be monitoring her very closely. She survived surgery, and you can take hope from that. But you must be prepared. She remains critical, and should she come out of the coma, there is a possibility of brain damage.""God. Oh God."

"Don't think about that." Var closed a hand over Benny's. "Not yet."

"You may want to speak to the other surgeons who worked on her. I can give you the basics. Her internal injuries were also severe. One of her kidneys was damaged too critically to save. We replaced her spleen, and can, should she wake and elect it, replace the lost kidney. She will need further surgery on her leg. We were unable to complete repairs without endangering her life."

Var took a ragged breath. "Are you telling us there's no hope?"

"There's always hope. Once she's settled in ICU, you'll be able to see her. Very briefly. You can rest assured that we'll continue to do everything we can for her. She'll get the very best of care." Pruit rose. "I f you have any more questions, someone will page me. Or you can speak to her other surgeons. Someone will come get you when she's ready."

Eve followed Pruit out. "Give me her chances. Straight."

"Fifty-fifty is generous, but I 'd have given her much less when she came into the OR. She has a strong constitution. She's young, healthy. You had an officer in my OR."

"That's right, and I 'll have an officer in her room twenty-four /seven. Not just on the door. In the room. You're doing all you can to see that she survives. So am I ."

"You're concerned with security, and another attempt on her life?"

"Not as long as I have an officer in the room."

"Fair enough. I f she makes it through the next twenty-four hours, I 'll consider that fifty-fifty more solid. For now, we'll go minute by minute."

"I need to be notified immediately of any change in her condition, one way or the other."

"I 'll see that ICU has those instructions."

"I 'd like a look at her before you let those two in."

"All right, go on up. I 'll let them know you're coming."

Eve made her way up, noting the ways in and out, the basic security measures, the movements of staff, ID. Decent, she concluded, but there were always ways around security.

She badged the nurse at the desk, pleased when the man didn't merely glance at it, but gave it a good hard look before passing her through.

As in U-Play, the walls were glass. No privacy for patients, she thought. Cill wouldn't like it, Eve concluded, but for herself, she liked it just fine. Each room, each patient was monitored by cam and machine. She doubted any of the staff paid much attention to the room screens, but expected they'd hop if any of the monitors signaled a change in patient condition.

Still, she was pleased to see the uniformed officer sitting with his chair angled to the door. He rose when she walked in.

"Take five," she told him.

"Yes, sir."

Eve moved to the foot of the bed. They'd caged the leg, the arm, she noted, which made Eve think of a droid in mid-development. The limbs inside the cages showed the livid red and purple of insult and repair. Tubes snaked, hooking Cill to monitors that hummed and beeped in a slow, steady rhythm. The bruising around her eyes showed black against pasty white skin, and the lacework of bandages.

They'd shaved her head, Eve noted, and had it resting on a gel pillow that would ease the pressure. All that hair, Eve mused. That would probably be as much of a jolt as the glass walls and cams.

I f she woke up.

"I 've gotten messed up a few times, but I have to say, you win the prize. Coming back from being put together again's got to be almost as hard as being busted to pieces. We'll see how tough you are."

She walked over to the side of the bed, leaned down. "Don't you fucking give up. I know who did this to you. I know who killed Bart. I 'm going after him, and I 'm going to win. Then he's going to pay. You remember that, and don't you fucking give up. We're going to beat him, you by coming back from this, me by taking him down." She straightened. "He was never your friend. You remember that, too."

She stood watch until the guard came back.

And when the partners went in to see her, Eve stood watch a little longer, studying them on the monitor.

"Do you think she'll make it?" Peabody asked when Eve got behind the wheel.

"She's not the giving-up type. That's in her favor. Reserve a conference room and set up a briefing with the EDD team. Thirty minutes. No, give mean hour." Eve used her in-dash 'link while Peabody made arrangements.

"Lieutenant," Roarke said.

"She's out of surgery, holding her own."

"That's good to hear. You spoke with her surgeon?"

"Yeah. They're doing what they do. Now we'll do what we do. Can you meet me in my office in twenty?"

"I can, yes."

"Bring an open mind."

He smiled a little. "I always carry it with me."

"You'll need it."

"We're set," Peabody told her. "Room B. You've got something." Peabody pointed a finger. "Something new."

"What I 've got is a dead guy without a head, a woman in critical with injuries consistent with a fall who was found on a holo-room floor. No weapons, no trace, and no security breaches the aces at EDD can find. Logic it out."

"The weapons were removed, the killer sealed up. The victims knew and trusted the killer who has supreme e-skills that have so far baffled our e- team. They'll find the breaches."

"Assuming they're there to be found. He miscalculated with Cill. She wasn't supposed to fall."

"Fall where?"

"That's a question, and we may never have the full answer to that one unless she wakes up and tells us. Meanwhile, we think out of the box. Fuck.

We burn the damn box."

She pulled into the garage at Central. "Set up everything we have, including the scans and data we got from the hospital."

"Okay, but-"

"Less talk, more work."

Eve double-timed it to her office and began to put her briefing together. She scowled at her computer and wished for better e-skills. She wanted to have at least the bones together before Roarke got there.

"Okay, you bastard, let's give this a try." She sat, and using the medical data began to build a reenactment.

Marginally pleased, she nodded at the screen as Roarke came in.

"Do you want the good news or the bad?" he asked her.

"Give me the bad. I like to end on an up note."

"We've scanned, dug, taken apart, and put back together Cill's security system, and used every test, idea, method known to man and machine going back over Bart's. We can't find a single abnormality. I 'd stake my reputation, and yours for that matter, that no one entered those apartments after the victim secured the door."

"Good."

I rritation rippled over his wonderful face. "Well, I 'm delighted you're pleased and we've lost countless brain cells on this."

"Fact: No one entered the scene after the victim. Facts are good. What's the rest?"

"We've made some progress on reconstructing the disc from Bart's holo-room. I t's one painful nanochip at a time, but there's some progress."

"Even better."

"Aren't you the cheery one?" He stepped to the AutoChef, programmed coffee.

"I know who did it, and I have an idea how."

"All right, let's start with who."

"Var."

"Well, that's a fifty-fifty for most, but you being you, the odds are higher.""I t's nice to be so easily believed."

He waved that off. "You wouldn't say it so definitely unless you were bloody damn sure. So, it's Var. Because?"

"He's the odd man out. The other three go back to childhood. He comes along later in the game-you have to play catch-up. I bet he never liked playing catch-up. But he doesn't hook in with the already established group until college. Before that, if you look at his records, he was the best-by far-in his electronics, math, science, comp, theory classes. Nobody came close."

"Used to being the star-the champion, you could say."

Eve nodded. "Yeah, you could. Then, in college, he hooks up with the other three. Not only are they as good as he is, Bart's better. And he's popular. In a geeky kind of way. Supreme Wizard of the Gaming Club. Where do they come up with titles like that? TA for a couple of classes, dorm manager. Responsible guy, cheerful guy. Brilliant, skilled, and people tended to like him."

Roarke settled in the visitor's chair with his coffee. "And that's your motive?"

"I t's the root. Who did you approach when you considered recruiting that group?"

"Bart. Yes. He was de facto leader, even then. Go on."

"And he turned you down, wanted to build his own company. His initial concept from all the statements, the data, the time lines. Equal partnership, sure, but Bart was the head, and the public face."

"True enough, but you could say both Cill and Benny had been competing with him even longer. Benny, for instance, always the sidekick."

"Yeah, I considered that. I had a moment in his apartment during the search with the droid. The Dark Knight connection."

Roarke lowered the coffee, obviously baffled. "What would Batman have to do with it?"

"How do you know that?" Baffled, she tossed up her hands. "How do I say 'Dark Knight' and you immediately click to Batman. How do you know this stuff?"

"The question might be how do you not know. Batman's been part of the popular culture lexicon for more than a century."

"Never mind. I t's just weird. I could..." She narrowed her eyes. "Who murdered sixteen male prostitutes between the ages of eighteen and twenty- three over a three-year period and fed their remains to his prizewinning hogs?"

"Christ Jesus." Despite the image, Roarke had to laugh. "I 'm delighted to say I have no idea."

"Hanson J. Flick, 2012-2015." She smirked. "You don't know everything."

"And your particular area of expertise is occasionally revolting."

"Yet handy. In any case, Benny's stuck on Cill, which could have been a motive on Bart, except there's zero going on there in the screwing around department. And Benny's happy with his place in the company. He likes his research. Cill's apartment was a mess-a kind of organized mess.

Benny's was lived-in, and he's got Mongo and Alfred for company when he wants them. I t's probably healthy in some weird way."

"Mongo?"

"A parrot. I t talks. A lot, I 'm betting. And you didn't ask who Alfred was."

"You said Benny, Dark Knight, so Alfred's the butler."