Marcus left his arm around Kate's shoulder as the7 walked the concourse. "Have I told 7ou lately how much I appreciate 7ou? You're a trouper to be carrying this for the family."

"I'll take the compliment, but nonsense," Kate replied, lightl7 slapping his chest. "You need to quit feeling sorry for 7ourself. No one in the family thinks less of 7ou for not being able to be here. And we'd be kicking back to work if 7ou tried to come. You've got a case to deal with."

"I'm hoping we can get a break in the case soon. Something has to give."

Kate smiled. "With Dave, Lisa, and Quinn on the job, you've got good help. Tell me about Shari. How did the birthday go?"

"She's a good sport. And she got through it fine." "I'm glad. Did she like the book?" "Loved it."

"What else did she love?"

He tweaked her nose and she laughed at him.

He had brought only the one carry-on bag. They headed out to the parking lot. Kate indicated her car.

The trip to the hospital was too short for Marcus to feel mentally prepared to see Jennifer. He was nervous suddenly, that he would say the wrong thing, react the wrong way.

Kate walked with him into the hospital. "Marcus-go up by yourself. She's in room 1310."

He squeezed Kate's hand and moved to the elevator.

Marcus took a deep breath before pushing the partially open door back to Jennifer's private room. Bouquets of flowers lined the window ledge, and there were so many get-well cards, they had been clipped like streamers to a string so they would be visible from the bed. In the chair by the bed sat a big panda bear and a smaller green dragon. Marcus slipped into the room quietly, for Jennifer looked to be asleep.

She had lost most of her hair. A bright rainbow scarf had been tucked around her head to cover the baldness. It was such a visible assault it made him want to cw.

He took the seat beside her bed, hoping not to disturb her, but she stirred.

"Marcus...hi." Her voice was much softer than before, and she looked like a waif for she had lost so much weight, but her smile touched her eyes. He clasped her hand and leaned over to kiss her cheek. "Hi, precious." He kept her hand folded in his as he pulled the chair over. She shifted on the bed and couldn't cover the wince. He helped adjust the pillows she used to brace her back. "Better?"

"Much." Her fingers interlaced with his. "It is good to see you. What were you thinking, going and getting yourself shot?"

Marcus closed his eyes, laughed, and leaned forward to rest his chin on the side rail of the bed so their faces were close. Trust Jennifer to get right to the point. "Someone wanted to shoot Shari."

"So you stepped in front of a bullet."

"I would have if I had known it was coming. He missed." "I'm glad he did." "So am I." "You like her?" He nodded.

Jennifer searched his face, then reached up and brushed back his hair, smiling. "Try-you're falling in love with her."

"Just between you and me-yes, I think I am." "That scares you." He nodded again. "Why?"

"She's a witness, Jen. And I'm afraid I'm going to get my heart broken when this is over and life gets back to normal."

"Nonsense. She's too smart to let go of a good thing."

Family loyalty was such an admirable thing. "Can I show you something?"

"Sure."

He reached for his billfold and withdrew the sketch he had made a few nights before while Shari was working. He unfolded it and smiled as he looked at it. He handed it to his sister. "A pretty typical pose for Shari." Jen studied it, then laughed. "Oh, this is priceless. Did you show her?" He shook his head. "She gets so absorbed in her work. She's good at it, Jen. Start her talking about policy and you had better have done your homework. And I'm starting not to wince when she tells whoever answers the phone to tell the governor she'll call him back later."

"An interesting circle of influence."

"Hmm."

"Marcus, we need her in this family," Jennifer said gently, "Someone has to be able to articulate with clarity what makes us unique. Shari would be perfect. We all like her."

"You do?" They had been talking about him on the family grapevine. He shouldn't be surprised, but he was.

"We do. She'd be good for you." Jennifer squeezed his hand. "She's got a good sense of humor. You need that. And she's already proving she can handle the pressures of your job. She's accustomed to traveling at a moment's notice. And she tells these really great stories on the phone that can leave you in absolute stitches. When you're away you can always call home and be cheered up."

"And here I was afraid you would be disappointed in my choice." "Because her background is so different? Marcus, she likes you, and she really wants to fit in. I think she envies what you have with all of us. tate likes her, and you know how careful a read of someone's character she is. We're thrilled with Shari."

He was bemused by her answer. "I wish it was as simple as waiting for the day this crisis is past, but it's more than that. Even if you are right, there are obstacles."

"I know. Shari and I have talked."

"It's hard, Jen, not to be skeptical. Shari's prayers for her father were not answered, yours to get well don't appear to be. I don't want to hurt any of you, but it doesn't fit."

Jen looked at him, thoughtful. "She's already felt the hurt that comes from having a relationship unravel over different expectations for the future. She isn't going to walk herself into a similar chasm on something as vital as religion."

"S am."

Jennifer nodded. She thought for a moment. "I can't answer all your questions, but maybe I can answer one. About me. Try reading John chapter 1I again. When Jesus' good friend Lazarus was ill and dying, Jesus heard the news and He said something very surprising. He said 'This illness is not unto death; it is for the glory of God...' It makes me wonder what He said when cancer struck me.

"Jesus loved Lazarus. Jesus could have said the word and healed him; He had done that with the sick in other situations. But in this instance He chose not to. He wasn't acting callouslyl it wasn't the fact He didn't care.

"When Jesus went on to say 'Lazarus is deadl and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe,' He was making a profound choice. He loved the men He was with to the point He was willing to let His friend die so that they might be convinced to believe. Then Jesus went and raised Lazarus from the dead."

"Your cancer is to get us to believe?"

"No. My cancer is because sin messed up this world and my body is dying. But the delay in answering my prayer for healing-that might have a silver lining. It got Kate thinking about God. It's thrown you back in turmoil." She squeezed his hand. "You've rejected God for years because of the hurt. Do you think I mind being used to tug you back? Marcus, I want you to have to face the past and deal with it."

She stopped him when he would have spoken. "Just think about it, okay? Shari and I are not going to convince you. You have to convince yourself." She pointed to the stack of magazines on the side table. "Change of subject. I need your opinion on something."

Because she was suddenly trying to sit up, Marcus hurriedly moved to help her. She was visibly weak and she collapsed back on the pillows he put behind her with a grateful smile. She picked up the top magazine and opened it to a turned down page. "So, what do you think about this wedding dress?"

"Jennifer."

"A She grinned and patted his arm. guy's opinion. That's all I want. I've marked five that I really like."

"Lisa, the lab results you were waiting on are in."

Lisa looked up from the arson investigation reference book she was scanning to find the burn point for latex to see Paula coming through the doorway of the lab. Her friend had been working on doing the DNA extraction from the glass fragments. It was after 9 P.M., the labs were quiet, most of the staff gone; they had both stayed late to see the tests finished. "What's the verdict?" With only enough DNA recovered to do one test, they had rolled the dice on which test to do.

Paula smiled and held out the file. "See for yourself."

Lisa accepted the file, feeling butterflies in her stomach. If they had guessed wrong...

She scanned the printout and the transparency and felt relief deep inside. It wasn't a full panel of markers, but what she was seeing was going to be enough. They had the major markers. "Enough to index."

Paula nodded. "If he's in any of the databases, this should be sufficient to generate a match."

"Thanks, Paula. I owe you one."

"Good. Is your brother Jack seeing anyone these days?"

Amused, Lisa shook her head. "Not since Beth moved to New Hampshire with her new job."

"That's too bad about Beth."

Lisa laughed, knowing where Paula was heading. "I suppose he's on the rebound."

"Next time he stops by, convince him to take you to lunch and then remember you already had arrangements to have lunch with me so he'll do the polite thing and make it a threesome." Paula grinned. "You can get paged or something."

"You know, I could just tell him you're interested in going to lunch with him."

"Better if he thinks it was his idea."

Lisa thought about it for a moment, then decided it would be good for Jack. It was about time he was dating again, and the idea of it being with her friend was...intriguing. "I'll see what I can do."

"Great. I knew I could count on you. I'll catch you later." Her friend headed back upstairs.

It was time to find out if all the painstaking hours of work were going to pay off. Lisa flipped on lights as she walked through the lab carrying the test results. She headed to the secure terminal, where she sat down and began entering logins and passwords, working her way through the layers of security until she finally was able to log into the national crime reference database.

Working slowly to make sure she didn't make an error, she worked down the DNA panel, identifying and entering the marker values used by the national database. She started the search.

The system was slow tonight, hers was one of several indexes being run, and she pushed away from the terminal rather than sit and watch the screen. She went to brew a pot of coffee. What if this didn't pan out? What did she try next? She was tired enough she didn't know. She always tried to have a game plan in mind, an idea of what she would try next if this led nowhere, but this case was running thin of leads to chase.

She took her time fixing the coffee, making it strong, needing the caffeine.

Quit stalling. If nothing matches, waiting here isn't going to change that.

She walked back to the desk. On the terminal an index number had appeared, was blinking red.

She spun around the chair and took a seat, on the verge of having not only an answer for Marcus but the solution of the case. She wrote down the index number, switched databases, and pulled up the details.

Daniel Gray. Age 31. Armed Robbe Aggravated Assault. Murder in the First Degree.

She scrolled down the screen.

"What the..."

She just looked at it for several moments, stunned.

Deceased. October fiT, last year. Lethal injection by the Commonwealth of Virginia.

What in the world did she do with this?

She considered the probability the DNA tests were flawed and finally rejected it. She was not above a mistake, but she knew the care that had been taken with this sample, the safeguards at each step. It was solid.

Could blood on glass fragments survive over nine months in a hotel room? No. She also rejected that. The glass shards had not been scattered over and worn into the carpet, the sharp edges dulled from friction. The glass was recent.

The database used only a subset of the markers in its search. The DNA of the shooter was similar enough to match with a dead man? She had got a mitocondrial match. It could only happen with a close family relative.

She went back to the original database, pulled the full index panel, printed it, and grabbed a red pen. She clicked on the light box and set down the DNA panel she had developed for the shooter next to the one from the national database.

Forty minutes later she knew she was looking at the answer to the case. "Hello, Daniel Gray." she whispered, easing back from the light box. "Let me guess, Judge Whitmore sentenced you to death. So who in your family decided to get revenge? Your father, your brother? Someone did. And I don't have enough DNA markers from the partial test results to tell, so we've got ourselves a nice mystery here."

She reached for the phone...and hesitated. Quinn...if he understood the importance of her telling him before Marcus, then maybe she would start giving him the benefit of the doubt on other things too. She punched in Quinn's pager number and marked it urgent.

Ten minutes later when he still had not returned her page her frustration was intense. Forget it. She picked up the phone to call Marcus. As she punched in the third number, Quinn walked through the door. 'Your page was marked urgent." His cowboy hat and his jacket were wet. It must be raining outside.

'Sit down." She was still annoyed enough at the way her heart had leaped when she saw him that she wasn't feeling particularly friendly. He raised one eyebrow at her brisk tone and pulled over a stool.

She handed over the page. 'The DNA test results on the glass shards are back."

He read it, then looked at her. 'You're sure?"

'Yes. There's your motive. The shooter is someone in his family." Quinn checked his watch, then reached for his phone and dialed. 'Marcus, we need you in Chicago. Lisa has something you should see." He listened. 'See you then," Quinn agreed and closed the phone. Lisa wasn't surprised that Marcus asked no questions. On her word alone, he would come without question.

'He'll divert to O'Hare. Who else do we need?"

'Dave," she decided. 'And someone who can get us details of the Daniel Gray case."

Marcus got Quinn's page on the way to the airport. With luck of timing he was able to grab a seat on a United flight bound for Chicago just ready to pull away from the gate.

He walked into Lisa's lab very early Wednesday morning, coming straight from the airport. Her assistant pointed him down to the research library conference center. Dave was there, Quinn, and eight others from the investigative team. They squeezed in another chair for him. He set down his briefcase, accepted the coffee he was handed, and looked across the table at Lisa. "What have you found?"

The sunlight was streaming into the room from the big windows behind her. She was tipped back in her seat with her hands cradling a cup of coffee, and she had the unfocused look of someone who had not yet been to bed. She gave a rueful smile. "The shooter is dead."

I-Ie didn't even blink. "So are we looking for a body, a zombie, or a ghost?"

"Trust you to be literal." She leaned forward and handed him a sheet of paper, crumpled from having been passed around. "The DNA I was able to pick up from the shattered glass generated this hit."

"Daniel Gray," Marcus read further down, then looked up abruptly, "Executed?"

"The death sentence was given by Judge Whitmore. The DNA matches to the Gray family, There are subtle differences in the panels when you go beyond the tags used in the database index. The shooter is a close relative of Daniel Gray, A father, brother, cousin, son. But I didn't have enough DNA markers to work with to get it tighter than that."

Marcus felt intense relief. They had the motive. Someone had gone after Judge Whitmore because of the decision he had made in this death penalty case. "Okay, you've been working this all night. How far have you gotten in identifying who in the Gray family is the shooter?"

Dave sorted files in front of him and handed over two. "Daniel Gray's father is one Titus Gray, You'll need a week to read the full file. This is the Cliffs Notes. He's into every racket on the East Coast from drugs to gambling. The FBI has been focusing on his family for years.

"I would make Titus a natural for the shooter except for one thing," Dave continued. "Titus apparently disowned Daniel after he was sent to prison and has had absolutely nothing to do with him since. A search of the prison records has yet to turn up so much as one phone call or one letter, let alone a visit during the twelve years Daniel was incarcerated."

Marcus read again the printout for the executed man. Sentenced to death for the murder of an undercover cop. "Why disown him? I somehow doubt Titus would consider killing a cop offensive."

"As best we can conclude there was a power struggle in the family, The hit wasn't sanctioned."