There was no one who knew Carl better than herself and her dad. She had personally read all of Carl's cases and writings in the last few weeks. Somewhere in her memo or in her father's, was the person with a motive to kill Carl.

She drank the hot coffee the nurse had gotten for her, pushing back fatigue. Waiting for news was hard. There was no word from the doctors on Joshua or Dad. At least her mom was stable for the moment.

Shari prayed again for her dad and Josh, feeling the heavy weight of guilt knowing they had been hurt because of her. If only she had never written that brief. Lord, give me strength. The emotion had run its course and now there was only deep weariness. She prayed for the long night to be over.

Shari turned when the door opened slowly with a soft whoosh of air. In the dim light of the room she recognized Marcus. She didn't envy the man the job he had to do. I-Ie paused in the doorway and looked over at her mom, then nodded to the hall.

With a final look to confirm her mom was soundly sleeping, she crossed the room to join him in the hallway.

Marcus weathered better under pressure than she did. His gaze was steady and calm. She knew every bit of the stress from the last hours reflected in her face, and he wasn't missing much of that as he studied her. She hadn't been under this kind of intense scrutiny in a while. I-Ie was judging how well she was holding up, gauging what she could handle hearing.

"They've looked at your cheek?"

His question surprised her. She touched the bandage. "Yes, it will heal. Thanks for asking." The doctor had warned there might be a scar, but she didn't care. It was only the outward scar of a much bigger inward wound she would carry forever. "You've got news?"

"They're bringing Joshua down from surgery to the recovery room. He'll be there about an hour before they move him to the ICU, but the surgeon okayed a brief visit now."

Shari hesitated.

His look gentled. "The unknown is always worse than the truth." "Even when the truth is going to be pretty bad?" "Even then. Let's go talk to the surgeon."

The surgeon met them outside the recovery room still wearing his scrubs. Shari listened but didn't really hear much of what he was saying, her focus on the marked doors behind him. "Thank you, doctor."

"He came through surgery well, Miss Hanford. Please remember that when you see him." He held the recovery room doors open for her.

Shari followed a nurse, aware of Marcus immediately behind her, glad she wasn't entering this sterile, white place alone. The faint hum of machines was as much a part of the backdrop of sound as the quiet movement of the nurses.

"Joshua." She swallowed hard when she saw him, for most of the right side of his chest and all of his right shoulder were swallowed in bandages.

He was breathing on his own and his color was pretty good, but the amount of damage was worse than she had expected.

A warm, firm hand curled over her shoulder and squeezed gently. "It looks worse than it is," Marcus whispered. "lemember what the surgeon said."

Pins in his collarbone. Torn muscles. Ninety percent recoverable. That was all supposed to be positive news. It just didn't change the fact Josh had been shot. She hated hospitals, was afraid of what she sawl it reminded her too much of those long weeks when they had almost lost mom.

Push it away. That's the past. And family needs you now-strong, together. She leaned over and gripped Josh hand. "Hey. Josh. There a pretty nurse here you haven't even noticed yet." He didn't stir, wouldn't for hours yet. "You always did like to sleep through the big adventures." She wanted to cry rather then razz him, but she refused to let the tears fall.

"Sit down, Shari," Marcus offered, having retrieved a chair. "You're the best medicine there is for him right now."

She took the seat, grateful, and continued talking to Josh, letting the conversation wander, just wanting him to hear her voice.

Josh was going to have a nasty six months of recove There would be months of physical therapy to be able to lift his arm, rotate his shoulder, carry a briefcase. Even writing was going to be a problem in the next few weeks. He had paid that price for her. How was she ever going to repay him?

Marcus pulled over a seat for himself, sat down, and stretched out his legs, steepling his hands. Shari appreciated his quietness. He was a man with stillness inside, not someone in perpetual motion. She wished she could borrow that trait. She burned through energy like a hot candle. At the moment she felt like she was burning down to the end of the wick.

"You need to change your shirt." There was dried blood on the white cuff. "I'm sor I didn't notice-"

She stopped him with a hand on his arm. "I didn't mean it that way.

You paid a price for tonight as well. I'm sorry about that."

"I would have preferred being able to stop him."

At the disgusted sound in his voice she turned toward Marcus. He really meant it. He would have preferred to be in the middle of an unavoidable shoot-out with the man than to have arrived too late to do anything about it. His job took a courage she would never understand.

As calm and still as he was, she suspected he was actually very much on a hair trigger to react if necessary. Ie wasn't sitting beside her with his jacket open and a sidearm visible because he had free time. Ie was beside her because there had been a realistic judgment among the marshals that she needed that kind of protection.

He was responding like a cop. She wished she knew how to tell him thanks. "The shooter nearly destroyed my family and it was entirely incidental to him."

"Trust me, it's not incidental to those of us working the case."

"I wish I had been able to help you more with what happened."

"On the contrary, you gave us a great deal. Focus on your family; we'll find the man responsible." "I want to help." "Shari-"

"I know I fell apart on you earlier, but I won't again. You need a motive and there is no one who knows Carl better than myself and Dad."

He didn't say anything for several moments. "Deal."

He attached no strings, but she knew they were there. To get access to the investigation, she would put up with a lot of strings. She hadn't grown up around three lawyers without understanding how a criminal case was built. They would find the shooter, and she would insure they had a conviction. Not to do everything she could would be to let down Carl and the price he had paid.

Jesus, You say not to hate, but the hatred is getting me through this crisis. I can feel it building toward the shooter as I look at Josh and think about Carl, about Dad. I cry like David did-destroy my enemy! Make him pay. Whoever did this, I pray with an intensity that wells from my soul that You will lead the marshals to him. Answer this prayer Please.

Marcus looked over at her, concerned, and she realized her emotions must have been showing on her face. She forced herself to relax. Josh stirred and she tightened her hand on his. Get better, Josh. I need you. I don't want to be the strong one in this family.

After they left the recovery room, Marcus walked Shari back to the waiting room. He watched with concern as she sank down on the couch. "You need to get some sleep." It was coming up on 3 A.M., and her voice was beginning to drift when she spoke.

"l close my eyes and I see it happen," she admitted quietly. "I'll wait a bit longer before I face the dreams."

Marcus took a seat in the chair near the couch and braced his elbows on his knees as he studied her. He felt for her and the reality of what she would go through in the next few weeks. The trauma would show in so many ways: being spooked by sudden sounds, hesitation before walking into a room, fear of the dark, headaches, mood swings-her system would purge the emotions of that memory trapped in a slice of time in numerous ways.

He wasn't a trauma counselor like his sister Rachel, but he knew where the healing had to begin. "When you close your eyes, where does it start?"

"With my hand reaching up to knock on the door. If only I hadn't froze-"

He wasn't surprised at what troubled her the most. "Because you froze in the doorway, it was your fault?"

"It feels like it."

"How long did you freeze? Two seconds? Three? How long before it registered and you got voice to scream?"

"A few seconds."

"If you had been able to scream and distract the gunman, would his shots have missed Carl? Would he still be alive?"

She blinked. "When the door swung open, Carl was already beginning to fall; I heard the echo of the shots."

"So you couldn't have saved Carl," Marcus said quietly. "If you'd been able to scream sooner, would you have been able to save your father?" "I don't know."

"Shari, your screams saved your family. They flustered the shooter." He had to make her understand the importance of that. "Don't let your emotions believe a lie. They will never heal if you do. You did the only thing you could."

"I'm never going to be able to forget."

"No, but you'll remember the reality, not a distortion. You're dealing with it remarkably well."

"I'm shaking like a leaf."

"But you're not folding. Give yourself credit for that." He wished he could convey to herjust how impressed he was with that fact. The strength inside her was showing. "Are you sure you don't want me to get someone to wait with you? There are a number of people who have asked if they can come up. Friends of your family, of Carl."

She shook her head. "No. I'm hidingl I know it. But at the moment it's easier. The family will be arriving later today there will be plenty of people then." She looked over at him and there was some ruefulness to her look. "In the meantime, I'll just dump it on you."

"I've got broad shoulders," he replied, willing to take whatever pressure he could off her. She had put up a wall between herself and the rest of the world as a way to deal with the crisis, and he had no desire to push her out of that safe security "You really do need to get some rest though, at least catnap for a while. I'll wake you the instant there is news."

Since she was yawning, she didn't protest again. She stretched out on the couch, tucked her arm under her head. "Would you pray for my family?"

Her recluest surprised him, and put him in a hard position. He had believed, a long time ago, but now...

She noticed his hesitation. "You're not a believer."

It was more complex than that, but-"No, I'm not."

"I won't apologize for embarrassing you. You should be."

No apolo, no backpedaling. A woman not afraid to keep to her position and believe she was right. He found that frankness refreshing. Even if he knew she was wrong. "I'll be glad to ask those I know who do believe to pray"

"Thank 7ou. I would appreciate it."

He heard the warmth in her reply, she meant that, and he added another nugget to what he knew about her. It didn't bother her when someone didn't agree with her. That was rare.

Lisa was like that. Confident of her positions, willing to swim upstream to defend them. Kate staked a position and frankly didn't care if anyone agreed with her as long as she knew she was right. Jennifer wanted everyone to agree with her but would stand alone if she could convince no one else to stand with her. He smiled. The family never let that happen. He watched Shari drift to sleep.

The only sound in the room was the muted passing of people in the hall outside. He needed to go talk to Quinn. It was after 3:00 A.M. and the manhunt should have seen some results with the sketch, but he found himself reluctant to move.

He had noticed that when Shari spoke about the terror, she had not mentioned the fact the shooter had tried to kill her. What she had mentioned was that she hadn't done enough to help her family. While he understood that, he would do anything for the O'Malleys, he also knew the silence spoke volumes, for it was signaling that was the one fact she couldn't cope with and so hadn't yet processed.

The harshest night of her life and the only thing he could really do was make sure no one tried to kill her again. It was a bleak assessment to live with.

He hoped she would sleep until morning but knew that was doubtful. He reached for his phone and punched in the numbers to page Jennifer. It was one thing he could offer Shari. He had seen her reaction to entering the recovery room. He didn't want her facing the maze of medical questions and doctors without someone there to interpret what was said. And no one had a better bedside manner than Jennifer. Having spent a short time with Shari and knowing Jennifer, he suspected the two would strike it off as friends.

"Show me where you lost him, Quinn."

Marcus followed Lisa and Quinn into the stairway. Listening to them when he was functioning almost totally on caffeine was not a smart move. Lisa was peppering Quinn with questions that had no answers.

Marcus had worked cases with Lisa before; he knew how good she was. Not only did she approach cases differently, her mind simply didn't work like most people. She saw connections others missed. Her curiosity only got her in trouble when someone let her get out into the field without a chaperone. He didn't think Quinn would be letting that happen in this case.

Lisa paused and rubbed her thumb across the scar in the concrete where the bullet had been removed. "You fell down the stairs."

"Guilty." Quinn replied. "I was looking down the stairs thinking he had gone that way when he shot at me from above. I wasn't worried about saving my pride, just getting out of the way."

"I wasn't implying it was funny. I'm glad you didn't break an ankle."

"The last I saw him was...there." Quinn pointed. "After I stopped tumbling and worked my way back up the stairs, he was gone. So where did he go? The agents coming down from above had him pinned below the fourteenth floor."

Lisa walked up the stairs and disappeared from sight. "For him to have gotten a shot off at you-" her face reappeared-"he had to be here. Then he turns..." She hit the wall with her hand. "As soon as I reach for the stairway door, I drop out of your line of sight. He could have gone out of the stairway as soon as he fired." "Do it. Exit the stairway at the tenth floor and let's see if we can hear you," Marcus asked.

He looked at Quinn as they both heard the metal door close. "I don't know, Marcus. By the time I stopped falling and could hear again, the door could have already clicked closed."

"Could you hear it?" Lisa called down.

"Yes. Go up to eleven and try it there. And run up the stairs."

They could hear her on the stairs. "I'm sure I heard him on the stairs, Marcus. I remember it sounded like a clatter; Lisa is wearing tennis shoes and it was more distinct than that. I don't think he got off on ten," Quinn said.

The sound of a stairway door closing was audible but much fainter. "It could have been eleven," Marcus realized.

"Yes."

They walked up the stairs to join Lisa at the eleventh floor landing. "What do you think?"

"Eleven, twelve, or thirteen," Quinn confirmed.

"You said you heard his shoes?" Lisa asked.

Marcus recognized that vaguely unfocused look on her face. "What?" She shook her head and looked at the stairs going up. "Start back at ten and look hard at the steps for anything that looks like a print, a scuff. The technicians were through here once but came up blank, and that was a surprise." She started walking up.

Marcus and Quinn shared a look. They had just been dismissed to doing tech work. "You can almost see the idea percolating," Quinn remarked.

"She's a bulldog." They started down the stairs. "Where are we at with the sketch?"

"We're getting decent coverage: the hotel guests and staff; officers throughout the area-the airports, trains, and buses-they're also running it by taxi drivers, giving it to tollbooth attendants. We've got officers canvassing the surrounding six blocks showing it around; we'll repeat that at dawn.

"All flights going out of O'Hare, Midway, Meigs, or Milwaukee before 8 A.M. are being checked. We're also tracking down every vehicle we can place in this area: the parking garage and area parking lots, pulling the drivers licenses.

"The database guys promised to work a few miracles. By morning, several variations of this sketch will be on every law enforcement officer's desk in the nation. I don't think this is his first criminal act. Someone has to have dealt with this guy before."

Quinn's experience showed. All it would take was a nibble somewhere along the line and this manhunt would spring forward. Quinn could be ruthless when he was hunting. "When do you want to release it to the media?"

"Top of the hour. We should be ready to absorb the false leads by then."

"Have there been many claims of responsibility?"

"At last count-nine. The two that seemed credible have already been eliminated. They are working to clear the rest."

"You have enough men?"

"I'm getting whatever I ask for," Quinn assured. "Washington was clear on that. What I need now is some luck."

"You'll get it."