To all of those confused readers, yes, I did publish a chapter 10 yesterday and then

removed it. Thanks to an eagle-eyed and very loyal reviewer, who pointed out a huge error,

I was able to rewrite and, hopefully (LOL), retain my reputation for attention to detail,

which I had obviously, and inadvertently, bungled. A thousand apologies!

"God damn it, I hated doing that," Haseejian growled angrily as he slumped in the passenger seat of the green Galaxie.

"Yeah, I can imagine," Healey commiserated from behind the wheel, glancing over with a sympathetic shake of his head. "I don't blame Steve for being so mad – I would be too. My god, both of them were almost killed."

"And, god damn it, I had the warrant. I was minutes, if not seconds, away from radioing Mike."

"I know. But that doesn't alter the fact that when they went after the Imperial, they had no legal right, just a gut instinct."

A heavy silence hung in the air around them for several long seconds. Then the Armenian sergeant offered tentatively, "I could lie… I could tell them I'd already told Mike I had the warrant –"

"Don't even think about it!" Healey shot back, cutting a worried glance across the front seat. "It would mean you'd have to get to Mike before IA talked to him to get him to comply - which I don't think he'd do, by the way," he emphasized pointedly, "and if the two of you were caught in a lie, he'd be demoted and you'd probably be canned. So don't even think about it, all right?"

Haseejian had been staring at his partner with an angry frown. When Healey finished talking, he took a beat, cleared his throat then spat out. "Yeah, all right. But damn it, Dan, we gotta do something. That ambulance-chaser Campbell is good. You know who he is, right? He's the guy that got a hundred thou for that drunk that got hit by the bus, remember? Even though he walked into the street in the middle of the night, all in black? The driver didn't even have a chance… and it wasn't his fault but Campbell managed to ruin that guy's life." He snorted derisively.

"Well," Healey said slowly as he turned the Galaxie into the Hall of Justice parking lot, "we've gotta be careful, no doubt about that, but what I want to do is find out how the kid in the Imperial is linked to the bank robbery. And the sooner we do that, the sooner we can get Mike and Steve exonerated."

As the car pulled to a stop in a parking space, Haseejian nodded grimly. "Yeah… yeah, you're right. Let's nail the little bastard… legally."

# # # # #

"Rudy, when can I see Mike?"

Olsen looked at the young inspector with as warm a smile as he could muster. "Not for a while yet, I'm afraid. The doctors don't want you moving around quite yet, I've been told, and neither can he, so you're just going to have to wait. Besides, the guys from IA have to interview you both first, remember?"

Steve nodded carefully, trying not to jar his throbbing ribs, every breath still a challenge despite the pain medication he was constantly receiving. "When is that going to happen?"

"Today hopefully…" The captain shrugged.

"How is he?"

"Who – Mike?" The younger man stared at him with diminishing patience. "Oh, ah, well, he's doing okay, same as you."

"Rudy…" There was as much veiled threat in the tone as Steve dared to impart; this man was, after all, his superior officer, a rank higher than his partner even.

The captain sighed. He knew he couldn't continue to evade and he wasn't about to lie. "He, ah, he has some bleeding on the brain –" He saw Steve stiffen in alarm and continued quickly. "- but it's stopped, they think, and he's starting to get better, but they want to keep a close eye on him for a few days, just to be on the safe side." He finished with a small reassuring smile.

As the worried green eyes bored into him, Olsen shifted uncomfortably. "Listen, ah, why don't I try to use whatever influence I have and get you in to see him. How does that sound?"

Unblinking, continuing to stare, his chest starting to heave slightly, Steve eventually nodded. The captain reached out and patted his arm. "I'll, ah, I'll go and look into that, right now…" he said quietly as he started towards the door. He looked back and nodded encouragingly.

Out in the corridor, he hung his head and sighed heavily. With all the self-reproach the boy was already carrying about the accident, he couldn't bring himself to tell him about Mike's partial blindness, even if it was temporary. But if there was anything he could do about getting them together, even for only a few minutes, it would go a long way towards assuaging a lot of the guilt that seemed to shroud everyone at the moment.

# # # # #

"Matthew Alan Delancy!" Haseejian bellowed as he dropped a thin file folder onto the desk in front of his partner, who, slapping a palm over the receiver up to his ear, frowned in annoyance.

"Yes," Healey said into the phone after removing his hand, "yes, I'll get back to you on that as soon as I can… Yes…" He hung up, glaring at Haseejian. "Who the hell is Matthew Alan Delancy?"

"He, my friend, is – was – the other occupant of the house on McAllister when our friend Russell took the flyer in the Imperial. The, ah, the pot supplier, I'm guessing, but who the hell knows." He gestured at the file.

Frowning, aware from long experience that he was being set up, Healey picked up the thin folder and opened it. It was empty.

With a broad grin, the Armenian sergeant dropped heavily into the guest chair.

Healey stared at him with an annoyed frown, tossing the empty file back on the table. "So you're trying to tell me Delancy doesn't have a record or what?"

"I'm telling you that Delancy seems like a choir boy. Not even a traffic ticket. And he's twenty-six. He may be a closet pot-smoker, and possibly a flying-under-the-radar dealer, but he's not a felon and chances are he's not a bank robber or a murderer."

"Twenty-six?" Healey repeated and his partner nodded. "That makes him quite a bit older than the guys this Baker dude supposedly hangs with, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," Haseejian agreed, drawing out the word, both of them contemplating the implications. "So what the hell was he doing hanging around with Russell? And why in the hell did Delancy have Baker's grandmother's car in his garage? And where was Baker?"

"Umh-humh… all very good questions. And questions we have to get answers to, and fast, if we want to get Mike and Steve off the hook, right? Nobody's lawyers're gonna tell us, are they? So, let's get off our duffs, as Mike would say, and get to work."

With a sober, confirming nod, Haseejian got to his feet and followed his already departing partner out the Homicide office door.

# # # # #

Olsen walked through the heavy glass-paneled door of the ICU and crossed towards a cubicle at the back. He quickly became aware of a flurry of activity in the small room he was heading for and his heart started to pound.

As he got closer, he could see several people wearing surgical gowns, gloves and masks standing over the bed. A nurse intercepted him before he could cross the threshold into the room.

"I'm sorry, you can't go in there right now."

Olsen looked at her quickly, his brow knit in worry. "What's going on?"

She pulled him away from the door and he followed stiffly, almost reluctantly. "The lieutenant suffered an increase in the pressure inside his skull –"

"I thought they said the bleeding had stopped?" he interrupted anxiously.

She nodded. "That was what we thought, but further scans indicated that the bleeding had only slowed and not stopped. The pressure became too much and the lieutenant lost consciousness about an hour ago. And the decision was made to relieve the pressure on his brain in the hopes that it will stop the bleeding."

Olsen glanced back over his shoulder towards the cubicle. "They're operating on him in there?" he stammered in disbelief.

The nurse nodded again, this time with a slight smile. "It's not considered life threatening and can be done under local anesthesia. As a matter of fact, they're almost done."

Olsen swallowed heavily. "Is he awake?"

"No. No," she said softly, "he's still unconscious, but now that the pressure has been relieved, he should wake up soon."

"So, ah, so what happens next?"

"Well, we'll keep him here in the ICU for the next several days, make sure the bleeding does stop and that there are no further complications, and then he can go home." She wrapped her hand around his upper arm and squeezed. "He's in good hands, Captain, and he's going to be okay…"

Overwhelmed, Olsen raised a hand to cover his mouth. He nodded unsteadily. How in the hell was he going to explain this to Steve?

He felt a tug on his arm and he looked at the nurse again. "Do you want me to tell you what they're doing? It might make you feel a little better about what's going on…" she said kindly, and smiled when he nodded.

# # # # #

"Hey, just thought I'd let you guys know," Inspector Bill Tanner glanced up from his desk as Healey and Haseejian came through the Homicide office door, "all but eighteen Imperials have been eliminated from our list. And," he took a sheet of paper and turned it around on his desk so they could read it, "these are the names of Baker's… chums."

Haseejian snorted as he glanced at his partner before picking up the list. "Calvin Young and Alfred Russell." He glanced up at Healey then looked at Tanner. "We already know about Russell, he was the one driving the Imperial." He looked at the list again. "Calvin Young, hunh? It says here 'no record, no wants, no warrants'. So, what, this guy's a choir boy too?"

"Too?" Tanner asked, glancing at Healey with raised eyebrows.

"Thanks to that warrant, which was a little too late in coming," the Irish sergeant sighed in frustration, "we've, ah… detained the guy that was in the McAllister house when Russell decided he had to get outa town so fast. He's not –" he glanced at the list, "Calvin Young, and he has no record either, not even a parking or a jaywalking ticket in his entire twenty-six year old life." He looked at his partner and chuckled. "I didn't think that was possible."

Haseejian snickered. "Neither did I."

Tanner harrumphed, then raised his eyebrows. "Has he lived here in The City all his life?"

Healey looked at his partner, eyes widening. Haseejian smirked. "You know, now I realize why we keep this guy around."

Chuckling, Tanner turned back to a report on his desk as the two sergeants headed toward their own desks. Tanner looked over at Assistant Inspector Lee Lessing and grinned. "Sometimes you gotta give the old guys a push in the right direction…" he chuckled evilly and the younger man joined in.

# # # # #

Uncharacteristically insecure, Captain Rudy Olsen stood outside Steve Keller's hospital room, debating with himself as to whether he should go in or not. He knew the unseasoned inspector was already consumed with guilt about the accident on the Embarcadero that could have easily ended more tragically than it began. And he had no doubt that although the decision to take out the fleeing Imperial, by any means possible, had been sanctioned by his superior, it was an action that the young detective now regretted more than anything.

And the fact that there was now a potential reckless endangerment charge hanging over his head only increased the burden on the affable and gifted young man's slender shoulders. He didn't want to add another millstone, but it wouldn't be fair to anyone if he kept one partner in the dark about the other.

Pasting what he hoped was a passively optimistic look on his weathered face, he pushed open the heavy wooden door and entered the quiet room. Steve was lying back against the partially raised bedhead, his eyes closed, his left hand supporting the cast on his right. He opened his eyes when he heard the door open, his expression remaining neutral.

The captain approached the bed, the smile getting a little wider. "Hey… how are you feeling? Any better?"

Steve's eyebrows knit as he stared at the older man. "What's wrong, Rudy?"

Damn, the older man cursed to himself. The lieutenant had taught his protégé a little too well. Allowing his smile to wan, he swallowed guiltily. "Listen, ah, Mike's had a bit of a setback," he began reluctantly.