A page at this time of night could only mean one thing: the lab was dealing with so many homicides they were shorthanded and were calling in other shifts. And since she was one of the few forensic pathologists in the office that enjoyed the on-site work, she would probably be spending the middle of the night in some city alley. She would rather go deal with the dead than with another living person. She turned on the bathroom light and winced. She looked like one of the dead.

She looked like Quinn. That realization didn't improve her mood. She was glad she had said no to Quinn's offer for dinner. Women liked him too much for her to want to compete for his attention. And while she knew she wasn't the most sparkling or witty lady in her family, being asked out third was humiliating. She was the O'Malley that couldn't stay out of trouble and couldn't seem to get her social life together. Quinn had been feeling sorry for her. Enough. She was off men. They didn't make them as nice as her brothers and there was no use having her heart hurt again. She had been crying on Jennifer shoulder last night, feeling like a wimp, and she hated that.

Lisa picked up the pager and went to work wondering who had died.

Four.

S.

had." Marcus held out the Styrofoam cup. It was hot tea, very sweet. She took it from him with a murmured thanks. She was still too shaky on her feet for his comfort. If this didn't get some color back in her face, he was going to insist she accept a sedative. "Are you sure you don't want a doctor to look at that knee? You keep rubbing it." They were the only ones in the hospital waiting room. Security had this section of the hospital floor closed.

She glanced at him. "I'll be okay. I just aggravated an old inju Josh talked me into skydiving once and I landed hard."

It said a lot about Shad that she would allow her brother to talk her into trying something like skydiving. She was either fearless or brave enough to face a petrifying fear. Stepping out of an airplane took a lot of nerve. "Adventurous."

"A sucker when it comes to family." She leaned her head back against the wall. "Your mom is settled?"

"In room 84I down the hall. They gave her something to help her sleep. With her history of heart problems, the specialists didn't want to take chances. She was.., annoyed at their insistence, but she took it." "She struck me as strong willed."

"She's never been one to accept without a fight the fact her health is not good."

"The surgeon said it's going to be another hour before there is any news on Joshua and William," he commented, glad now that he had intercepted the doctor coming to see Shari. He left unsaid the grim assessment the doctor had made about her dad. She had enough to deal with at the moment, and nothing the doctor had said would change the outcome.

"Until they are out of surgew, and that will be hours, no news is good news." She sighed. "I should probably get on the phone, begin making some calls."

Her voice was steady; her color was coming back, but he could hear the reluctance. "No reason to rush it." He drank his coffee and waited. "Has anyone ever told you you're good at being tactful?"

"I'm a cop, Shari, but I've also been in your seat waiting for news about family. I can give you a moment; not much more than that, but at least a moment."

"I appreciate it." She finished her tea. "Open your notebook. I'll give you what answers I can."

Marcus glanced at his watch and noted the time on his notepad.

"Walk me through what happened tonight."

"Where do I starff"

"Anywhere safe," Marcus suggested quietly. "How about early this evening when you went down to the banquet?"

"We went down together, Carl and my family, about 5:45 P.M." Marcus started filling pages as she talked. She thought her family had gotten back to the suite about 9:45. Room service had been delivered. Carl had been shot minutes later. Marcus wrote a note to himself to make sure they immediately interviewed the hotel employee who had delivered that room service. The security net had put out the alert of shots fired at 10: 20, so Shari's time estimates sounded accurate.

"When you knocked on the connecting door, it swung open on its own?"

"The latch hadn't caught."

"Where was Carl when you saw him?"

"In front of me, about five feet inside the room." Her voice choked. "He was falling backwards and I knew his head was going to hit the wall. I heard the echo of the shots."

"Where was the gunman?"

"To my-" she looked momentarily confused.

Directionally challenged. "You're facing into the room. Where he standing?"

She held out her hand, her look grateful. 'Here. By the foot of the bed." 'Was there much distance between them?" 'Four feet? Five? Not much more."

The gunman must have stepped out from the bathroom to the end of the bed and fired. 'Did you hear Carl say anything? Cry out in alarm?" 'He seemed surprised, startled."

Surprised to find someone in the room, or surprised because he knew the shooter?

'What happened after that?"

She stumbled over the words when she tried to describe the minutes in the suite before he and Dave had arrived. Marcus paused her. 'Relax. Take it slow." He had to ask. He needed to know if she had noticed anything else about the shooter after that first shot.

Tm sor Marcus. After Josh hit me..." She shook her head.

'It's okay. Let's change subjects." He picked up the larger pad of paper he'd borrowed from another officer, then removed a second, more expensive fine-lead pencil from his pocket. 'Let's try to get a sketch."

'You're an artist?"

Tm decent at the basics." The importance of faces to his job had given him years of practice. 'Close your eyes, think about his face, and just tell me what you see."

Her eyelashes fluttered closed, and she drew and released a deep breath. 'Think tough. Intense. He's got wide cheekbones and broad eyebrows. Everything about his appearance is well groomed, except it looks like he has run his hand through his hair."

As he sketched, Marcus paid attention to how she remembered details, listening for when she hesitated. He had worked with a lot of witnesses over the years. Shari had an unusually sharp memory for detailsl very little of what she said was vague. 'What do you do for the governor?" he asked idly.

'I write speechesl I'm working on his reelection campaign."

'You use memory tricks to remember the name and face of everyone you meet." It was more a statement than a cluestionl the answer was pretty obvious. He sketched in the jawline of the suspect.

'Yes. It's instinctive now."

There was something about watching a quarry appear under his pencil that always made an impact on Marcus. It became personal, the attachment of a face to the crime. The face would stay with him for years, would remain vivid until the case was solved. Since most of his cases were tracking down fugitives, he often spent his time traveling modifying sketches of suspects to age them, change their appearance, until he knew their face as well as he knew his own.

"How would you adjust this?" He turned the sketch to her.

"Hey, it's not bad."

He smiled at her surprise.

She took it from him, studied it. He watched her close her eyes, then open them for a brief instant and close them again-it was a memory trick, a way to give her a good comparison. She handed the sketch back and indicated the cheekbones. "Lower the cheekbones just a little, and broaden his eyebrows."

Marcus refined it.

"Better."

Over the next twenty minutes, he changed it until Shari could think of no further adjustments. "That's him."

Marcus studied the face, memorizing it. He added all the specifics Shari had told him about the shooter to the bottom of the page-age, height, weight, clothing. "Let me get people working on this. And I am going to get someone to look at that knee," he warned. "You need an ice pack on that and probably a dozen other bruises."

"Josh hits like a linebacker. And I am starting to feel the effects. My ribs ache."

Shari was just like his four sisters. Downplaying what hurt unless he called them on it. "Then it's definitely time for you to see a doctor."

He glanced at his watch, found it was coming up on midnight. "I won't be long. And I'll have Craig stay with you while I'm gone."

"I'm okay, Marcus."

"l know you are, but humor me." He reached in his pocket. "Until we can get your things cleared at the scene, l got you another phone."

He hesitated, then pulled a blank page from the back of the notebook and wrote down two numbers. "Memorize them," he said quietly, "If you ever need me, for any reason, a problem, a question, just to chat about the weather-" he smiled-"or to share one of those secrets of yours, page me and put in the second number. It's unique. I'll call, no matter where I am."

She looked at it, puzzled.

"You don't need to understand. Just use it if you need it."

"Some kind of secret code."

He smiled faintly. "Something like that. A family one." He picked up his notebook. "I'll try to bring your address book back with me. Should I bring your pager, or would you like me to conveniently lose it?" "What a tempting thought. But you'd better bring it." "Will do."

"Marcus, how much can I tell people?"

He hesitated, and become serious. "Don't tell people you saw him." "Do you think that information can be suppressed?" "The longer it can be kept quiet the better."

He squeezed her shoulder lightly as he rose, reassuring her again that he would be back. He didn't want her feeling abandoned in the middle of the commotion, something that could happen without it being intended as investigators working the case focused on the dead at the expense of the living. "Listen to what the doctors tell you. And if you do need to leave this secure wing for some reason, take Craig for company."

"I've got a baby-sitter."

"Something like that," he replied. "Like I said. Humor me."

"light. Okay. It's a guy thing."

He chuckled. "A U.S. Marshal one at least. I'll be back."

Shari watched the door close behind him and found it took a few moments for her smile to fade. She really liked that man; he was definitely the right person to have around during a crisis. Ie was right about her habit of memorizing a face and name, and she had the habit of also remembering first impressions. For Marcus it was an interesting combination of words: tough, strong, kind.

She looked at the numbers on the slip of paper, memorizing them. She had worn her emergency pager far too long not to understand the significance of what he had given her. She was frankly surprised at the scope of what he had just offered.

His hand when he had squeezed her shoulder had been warm and comforting, if impersonal. He thought she could get through this; it came through in his steady gaze and touch. Shari wished she shared his confidence.

She rubbed the back of her neck. She more than just ached; the headache was becoming vicious. The muscles in her back had tightened to the point they would break; her bones refused to unlock. She got to her feet to walk the length of the room, willing to accept the pain from her aching knee to try and get her muscles to relax.

What she needed to do next... Where did she start? There were relatives to call, distant ones, but a lot of them. Shari felt ashamed to realize at that moment she was actually glad her family was in Virginia and wouldn't be able to descend for a few hours. She simply didn't have the means to cope with a crowd right now, and they would want to talk about the details. Aunt Margaret, Mom's sister, would be a great help to have here, but she lived in London. It would take a day for her to make the trip.

Carl's friends. How was she going to break the word Carl was dead? Shari shuddered just at the thought. He'd been in her life since her earliest memories, a friend of the family, the uncle she had never had. How was she supposed to tell his friends he had been murdered?

A heart attack she could have handled, but shot to death-maybe John could make those calls for her. Someone would have to call before they found out from the media.

She knew Dad was executor of Carl's will, and he was in no position to deal with that responsibility, Neither was Josh. That meant Carl's funeral arrangements would fall to her. And she would have to get plans underway quickly or mom would try to step in. That was the last kind of stress mom needed right now.

She had never planned a funeral before.

"I need that pad of paper," she murmured. She was starting to think, and she wished she could shut it off for a moment, the assault of things that needed to be done. She didn't want to be the one to handle them, but by default she was elected.

She was thirty-four, and until this point in her life the toughest challenge she had been asked to face was the defeat of legislation she had poured months of effort into, the defeat of a candidate she believed in, and the heartbreak of a relationship gone bad.

The terror she had struggled to push down and contain while Marcus was here broke through, and she leaned her head against the window, her breath fogging the glass.

Jesus, why?

She felt tears sliding down her cheeks as she remembered Carl lying dead, Josh shot, Dad shot.

I've never seen so much blood before. This is my family and it stands on a precipice of being shattered in one night. Carl is dead. mom is at risk. Josh and Dad are both in surgery. I feel like Job tonight who lost his family in a single day.

She needed her dad and brother to recoverl she didn't even want to think about God giving a different answer to her prayer. How was she supposed to pray? She had no eloquence, and not many words, only emotions. I am so scared, Lord. Did my brief cause this? I prayed so stubbornly for Carl to reach the court and I poured all my skills into writing that brief. Did I walk Carl into getting killed?

Jesus, I am so scared that I did just that. And now Josh is hurt, and Dad might die too! It had been unintentional, but the guilt swamped over her like a wave. It took time for the words memorized long ago to come through the turmoil. When they came, from Psalm 68, they settled over her with softness.

"Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears us up; God is our salvation. Our God is a God of salvation; and to God, the Lord, belongs escape from death."

Jesus had already proven His power over death. Bear me up, Lord. Hold me tight. And get all of us through this night. Please...

They should have found the shooter by now; Marcus knew it. He strode into the hotel past the security, past the growing crowd of reporters, his jaw tight. At least with a solid sketch they could turn the tide back in their favor and force the shooter to hole up and thus stay in the area.

The emotions from being with Shari were finally beginning to bleed off. There was no such thing as impassively being around grief; it always rubbed off and had to be dispelled somehow. Some cops dispelled it in morbid humor; others absorbed it and it tore apart their personal lives. Marcus tended to direct the emotions he felt back in intensity toward the case.

He couldn't undo what had happened to her, to her family, but he could help bring her justice. Swift, complete justice. He had never lost a judge before and it stung, viciously, The security center activity appeared chaotic on the surface, but only until it became apparent how the groups had appropriated space. Mike had overall coordination of the room at the moment, and he was pacing as he talked on a phone.

Marcus held up the sketch and waved Mike toward the east side of the room where Luke was working; he got a nod in reply.

He joined his deputy. Luke. "Shari was able to give us a sketch of the shooter. Put priority on getting copies to Quinn and to hospital security. Then put a rush on getting it run through our databases. I want an ID on this guy."

"Do you want it given out to the media?"