A/N: Here's the "Bobby chapter", as promised! I promise not to have chapters without him for a while. :) Thanks to squarey for helping me work out the bugs. Please let me know what you think. I've barely got Chapter 13 started, so I need inspiration!


Bobby Goren watched the two detectives round the information desk and disappear into the ER though a pair of heavy, swinging doors. He called on all of his self control to keep his ass in his chair and not pacing the floor. It was coming home to him exactly how hamstringed he was here. As a cop, he was used to having access to almost any place and any thing he needed. Here, he couldn't even stay with Carrie in the ER for fear of the unanswerable questions it could give rise to. He scrubbed his hands over his face, scratchy with day old stubble. Linking his long fingers together, he propped his chin on his thumbs and let himself marinate in the frustration.

His ruminations were interrupted by the woosh of electric doors and the accompanying billow of cold air. A guy walked in, mid-forties, medium build, thinning black hair, blue windbreaker. Despite his average appearance, Goren felt a chill that had nothing to do with dissipating outside air. The man skipped the reception desk and headed for a door marked "stairs" to the right.

Now why would a man coming through the ER doors head for the stairs? That stairwell wouldn't connect directly to the patient rooms or offices in rest of the hospital, because there was no floor directly above them. So… lower levels. Locker and break rooms, kitchens, maintenance, the morgue. If his knowledge of the building was correct, there was an employee entrance that was closer to parking and the nearest subway and bus stops. There was no reason to come through these doors in order to get to those places.

The feeling in Goren's gut pushed him across the lobby and into the stairwell just in time to hear the metal door on the lower level clunk shut. Descending quickly, he peered through the small rectangular window just in time to see the blue windbreaker round the corner to the left, up the main corridor. Taking care to be silent, he followed into the corridors of the basement level. He might not have been able to articulate just what tipped him off, but it was like Logan always said, the day he couldn't spot the crook in the room is the day they could give him the gold watch.

He made a show of turning right into the main corridor in order to get a glance left, but the ploy was unnecessary. Blue windbreaker was not in eyeshot. At the end of the hall, yet another stairwell door was just clunking shut, kicking his cop instinct into full gear.

As he double timed it down the hall, Goren passed a cleaning cart parked outside a men's room with a maintenance uniform jacket tossed across it. He shrugged into it, getting lucky that it was only a little tight around the shoulders. Pulling a dust broom from the rack, he hurried through the door and took the stairs up two at a time. But as he emerged into the busy hall of the ER main floor, the blue windbreaker was nowhere in sight.

Goren put the duster to the floor and pushed it along the corridor, melding into the ER traffic of bustling nurses, distracted doctors and overextended orderlies all hurrying to finish up the last of their duties before the shift change at seven. This corridor was a central artery connecting the different areas of the emergency department, which branched off right and left toward the front or back of the building. It was the perfect place to blend and watch. Everyone around him was heading someplace else, so as long as he kept moving, he wouldn't attract attention and he had long, clear views down the branching corridors on either side.

On his first pass, he located Slater's room by the presence of the uniformed guard outside the door. Somewhere on the other side of the ER, Carrie was still being seen as well. Bobby didn't know where and it gnawed at him. But frustration wasn't a benign thing now. It distorted his perceptions and hazed his judgment and it had to go. He took a deep breath and forced everything to the back but the situation at hand. With his head feeling clearer, his cop instinct poked at him to keep an eye on Slater.

Sure enough, on his forth or fifth pass, a ringing metallic crash erupted at the far end of Slater's hallway near the nurse's station. A tremendous bear of a man in a hospital gown came lurching into view, hollering and dripping blood from one arm where his IV had been ripped out. He held the IV stand up in one giant paw and brandished it at the circle of people that rippled around him.

A couple of orderlies saw an opening and jumped him, but the guy had the wild-eyed look of a drug overdose and was the size of a refrigerator on legs. They were gonna need help. Obviously the same thought had occurred to the uniform. He was already on his feet and headed into the fray.

Bobby automatically moved in that direction too, but just after he passed Slater's room, he saw the blue windbreaker sidle unnoticed from the room the rampaging patient had burst from. Goren kept walking, his eyes on the calamity ahead as middle aged man passed him. Every sense on high alert now, he didn't need to look to know the exact moment the man glanced back down the hall before entering Slater's room.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Goren spun around and followed him. He hadn't been more than a dozen steps away, but when he slipped through the door, the man in the blue windbreaker was already standing over the sleeping Slater, about to insert a syringe into his IV line.

"Hey!" At Goren's exclamation, he dropped the syringe, a switchblade springing into his hand from nowhere. Icy, flat eyes assessed him for a long moment without fear, passion or excitement. They were the eyes of a cold blooded killer.

Wielding the broom he still carried like a staff, Goren faked high, then spun the duster around from below, sending the knife spinning out of his assailant's hand. Not wasting a moment on surprise, the man reached down for the .22 he had holstered on his ankle. Before he could get there, Goren rushed him, attempting to push him upright and pin him against the wall with the rod.

It would have worked too, but with the shorter man already in mid-crouch, his aim was high. Instead of pinning his target across the chest, which would have limited the mobility of his arms, Goren caught him across the throat. He leaned in, cutting into the man's air supply and trying to use his greater size to plaster his adversary against the wall, but the smaller man was too quick. Before Goren could fix his stance, the man threw a hard, whip-fast jab straight to the bundle of nerves just under Goren's right armpit.

The right side of his body seemed to implode in a lightning strike of searing white pain. Goren tried to fall into his attacker to take him down, but he'd already used the moment to his advantage and twisted free. Lurching after him, Goren managed only to grab the back of his windbreaker. Without missing a step, the hired gun slipped his arms free and was out the door. Goren staggered after him, but by the time he got to the door, the assassin was gone.

Bent over at the waist, Bobby turned to grip the footboard of the hospital bed with both hands. For a minute or two all he could do was fight to pull air into the tight fist of pain that was his right lung. A fraction at a time, the grip lessened, though the sizzling pain did not. When he was finally able to lift his head, he was greeted by the sight of Slater cowering on the bed in front of him.

"Wh…. Who are you? How… how did you find me??" This was a much different Slater than the one he'd thrown into a wall only a few hours before. With his hospital gown, IV and bandages on his head, he looked small… afraid… pitiful. But it didn't take any effort at all for Bobby to pull up the image of Carrie's face, left side covered with blood, eyes wide and scared. No. Just because he was pitiful didn't mean he deserved pity.

"You know who I am, Slater."

"N… no. No I don't."

"I'm the reason you're here… and the reason you're still here. Now I need answers and I don't have time to play games with you."

Slater said nothing. He just shivered and blinked owlishly.

"That guy. Who is he? You seen him before?" The words were terse… short… bitten off.

"No! N… never"

"Did you call anyone? Who knows you're here?"

"Nobody. I swear. I… I don't even think they called my lawyer yet. Who are you??"

Goren didn't bother to acknowledge the question. "Who wants you dead?"

Slater just stared.

"I mean besides me, Slater. Who sent a professional hit with your name on it?"

"It… I… I worked for the Manottis."

"You need to be more… specific." Goren knew his voice sounded harsh. That was intentional. What he didn't know, and couldn't fake if he wanted to, was the blade edge of barely controlled violence in his eyes.

"Carlo. Carlo Manotti was the only one I ever talked to. H… he's Dominic Manotti's youngest son. He was gonna introduce me to his father. I never met anyone else. I swear!" Slater held on the bed's rails for dear life as though he thought it a distinct possibility that he'd be killed for not having more information.

Goren straightened painfully, surprised to find the would-be killer's windbreaker still in his hand. As he turned for the door, Slater's plaintive voice called out.

"Wait!" Goren paused but didn't turn his head. "What if he comes back?"

"As soon as I'm out of the door, hit the call button for the nurse. That should bring the cavalry back down here.

Out in the hall, he glanced back toward the nurse's station to see they'd gotten the OD guy sedated. The cop and the orderlies were occupied with hefting his limp body up onto a gurney.

Goren slipped back down the stairs and looked at the windbreaker still in his hands. He rummaged through the jacket's pockets and found a pack of Camels and a matchbook from a strip club. There was also a blank envelope, the kind that comes enclosed with a power bill. On the back was scrawled: Slater St. Luke's Exam 4, ER

Retracing his steps, Goren dropped the maintenance jacket he'd been wearing on the cart where he found it. Tucking the blue windbreaker under his arm, he jogged up the second staircase, through the lobby and out into the cold, bright morning. If these Manottis could find Slater that fast, there was an excellent chance they could find Carrie as well.