Chapter 9

Grover had returned to the station and finally convinced Steve and Danny to go home to rest, and Kono had joined Chin at the hospital, computer on her lap as she looked deeper into Foster's background. Compared to yesterday passing at a million miles an hour, time today was standing still. Liliuokalani, Emma's boss, had came by around noon and was still in Frasier's room, holding her hand and murmuring to her gently. An HPD officer stood outside the door, and Chin and Kono kept glancing up and down the hallway.

It was pretty quiet, and after a long day and night, Chin was nodding off against Kono's shoulder. A nurse had brought both of them coffee not long before, and after finishing her own, Kono stole her cousin's. After talking with Lou, all of the loose ends in Hawaii had apparently been tied up. But the wheels in her head kept turning because she knew that Steve's gut was still churning.

After hearing what happened in the shootout, there was tension pervading the team. It was hard to question that it was Emma's decision to get involved in the firefight, but it was Steve's original decision to go after Ito where he lived, without backup. But if they hadn't gone after him, then who knows where he could be, and what danger Emma would be, and how it might have escalated. It made Kono's head spin.

She was combing through the boys' backgrounds and financials, and felt a tug in her heart. Jack Wright, the boy who got pulled in into the plan last minute, really didn't have any money to afford college. Not that he would have the chance to go to college soon, he would be in prison for assault with a deadly weapon, and maybe even manslaughter charges if the DA didn't go easy on him.

The boy that was killed was a similar story—he was probably a pretty good kid, based on what Kono read into his background. Maybe he too was just in it for college money. Some low-level banger's story of fortune had managed to ensnare Kahue, who went to his friends and wrapped them up in the conspiracy. The only thing they should have been guilty of was stupidity. Everything escalated, too fast to stop or to think for all parties involved.

And now, for the first time since this all had started, time had finally slowed down. Not all cases went like this one, open and closed in the space of 3 days…it was exhausting to all involved, the equivalent of sprinting an entire mile. Kono still was taken by surprise when things happened so fast, when their first leads solved the case, not their fiftieth. It made the whole team uneasy, as they were so used to digging and dragging out answers from trails gone cold, or from professional criminals gone silent.

To ease this, Kono spent her time reading. Reading emails, tests, bank statements…anything she could get her hands on, for anyone and everyone involved. She was deep in a rabbit hole when she felt her attention being drawn to a dark-haired man at the nurses' desk down the hall. After talking briefly with the nurse, he started walking down the hall towards Emma's room. She watched him surreptitiously, trying to get a read on him, but the man merely walked to the end of the hall and into another patient's room. Kono rolled her shoulders, trying to release the tension that had suddenly (and unnecessarily) gathered.

She gently nudged Chin Ho, waking him from his sleep. "Hey, cuz, I need to grab some fresh air. I'm getting jumpy. You good?"

"Hmph." He rubbed his eyes. "Yeah, go." He yawned and checked his watch. "I think Steve said he was coming by with lunch soon anyways."

Chin picked up the tablet that Kono had set down and began his own process of filtering through the information, checking if anything had been missed. Emma's nurse went into the room to check on her, then left and returned with a doctor. Chin watched closely as five minutes passed, then ten. He set the tablet down on the chair and walked over to the room, peeking inside. Lily was leaning on the bed, gently stroking Emma's hand. Chin leaned against the doorjamb, "Doctor, any change?"

"She was conscious for about a minute, then fell back asleep. It's a good sign though, her responses were all within the normal range," the doctor replied, making a few notes on her tablet.

"That's great news! Does that mean she's out of the woods?"

"We'll have to do more tests to make sure, once she's fully awake, but it is a promising sign. I'll check back in an hour. You can sit with her if you like."

"I need to keep an eye on the hallway traffic, but I'll let a friend of hers know." Chin returned to his chair and his tablet, texting Steve what the doctor had said. Steve texted back immediately that he was on his way, and bringing the rest of the team with him to the hospital.

The bank of chairs that Chin and Kono had holed up in was a recess in a hallway of the ICU, steps from the room Emma had been put in after surgery. Though the recess had eight chairs, Chin's was the only one currently occupied. An army of coffee cups and snack wrappers littered the end tables, and Kono's bulletproof HPD vest was slung over the corner of a chair. A newspaper had been separated into five sections, each on five different chairs. It always intrigued the hospital staff how quickly cops could make a space their own when a friend was admitted.

This was a smaller gathering, as Emma wasn't part of HPD, but a stream of officers had been in and out of the hallway as the day went on. Now, it was down to two: the guard on Emma's room and Chin himself. And, of course, Emma. Carli. The cop, who was shot. He still couldn't believe how they had missed it. When he first found out, he had backtracked through every inch of Frasier's background. It was practically flawless, down to the name on her high school transcript.

But once he knew where to look, he saw the signs. Financial statement, like Steve had said, were too uniform. Taxes were perfect, but the IRS records were nonexistent. Drivers licenses recorded like clockwork, but not car registrations. He still couldn't figure out what had prompted her to leave LAPD without a word. He stared into Emma's room through the ajar doorway, coming up with scenarios that could have precipitated her flight. Just as his tired mind was juggling the likelihood of Emma being part of a gambling ring, Kono returned, leading Lou, Danny, and finally, Steve.

"Hey Chin." Danny said quietly, clapping him on the shoulder. The five stared at each other, then seemed to exhale concurrently.

Steve spoke up. "We can't find any risk on the island to Emma, so we'll be removing her formal HPD detail, but I'd like to keep her under observation until we hear definitively from LAPD or Emma herself that she's not in danger. I'll take over for the next couple of hours, then Danny can relieve me, then we'll figure it out from there."

"Anything back from LA?" Danny asked.

"Nothing. Carli Foster is even more of a mystery now than she was when she was Emma Frasier."

Chin nodded. "Lily is in there with her. The doctor was just in, he said she'd be waking up any minute now. We could get information sooner than expected."

Without another word, Steve left the group and went into Emma's room. Lily looked up, a peaceful look in her eyes. "Steven. So nice of you to come visit Emma."

He swallowed hard. "Lily, has anyone told you what happened?"

"Officer Kalakaua explained what happened, and Emma's identity." She took Emma's hand in her own. "I don't hold it against her. We all have run from something at some point in our lives. I'm glad she ended up with us, here."

"It seems like she had settled in okay here. I wonder if she'll stay." In the back of his mind, Steve wondered if she would pull through at all. The doctors were optimistic, but even their expert opinions couldn't assuage Steve's gut, which was inexplicably churning again.

"You will protect her, Steven. You are a good man and you will look out for her."

Her grandmotherly voice had Steve wanting to confess his sins. "Lily, you know…we didn't have to go arrest those men. It was my decision that got her shot."

"And now you have learned from your mistake," she said quietly. Steve tried to ascertain the emotions in her voice. "You will not do that again." She stood up, stretched, and cupped Steve's cheek in her hand. "It is time for me to return to my shop. You will keep her company." It wasn't a question, but a soft-spoken command, a gift of forgiveness.

"Thank you," he murmured. The old woman left with a smile on her face, leaving Steve alone with Emma.