Alrighty, here's the rest of the story. I am sorry I disappeared off the face of the earth for a day or so. Farm business was calling. Plus I get a helper on Sundays now and no matter how tired and worn out I feel, it's hard to justify sitting back when you get free labor. After all, two people can accomplish a lot more than one. So we spent the day working the horses, cleaning the chicken house and clean Annabelle the cow's stall. And I had been procrastinating on cleaning it. It was awful. Now I get to sit by the fire place, curle up in a thick comforter, lick my wounds and write some more. Life is good!

At shortly after 2am, Mike walked down the hallway to the bullpen at a slow pace, feeling every muscle and sinew in his body ache. With his tired eyes burning, and his breaths sounding raspy, the smell of the fire had permeated his skin, hair and clothes, and now followed him back to the office.

Haley and Hassejian had parted ways with him when he vowed to ride in the back of the ambulance with Steve, barking orders to get Erin McMillan medical attention, and then bring her downtown for questioning and eventual arrest.

With his damaged black overcoat draped over his forearm, he slowly entered the glass walled vestibule, intent to head to his office, close the door, and spend the following minutes in the welcoming arms of solitude, recovering from the emotional rollercoaster that had been the previous few hours.

Instead, a stone-faced Rudy Olsen greeted him; Haley, Haseejian, Lessing and Tanner by his side, as the group of police officers held vigil over one of their own near the coffee machine.

"Mike…how's Keller?", Rudy's deep voice echoed through the bullpen the second he entered, all eyes on him.

"Still unconscious, but stable. Joe is keeping him in ICU overnight to make sure he…he keeps improving. Even pulled in some heart specialist from Oakland to check everything out. He feels confident that Steve's going to be alright."

"Talk about being at the right place at the right time.", Olsen mumbled before handing a full cup of coffee over to his Lieutenant, "That was some strong work by all of you guys. This situation had the potential to end a whole lot worse than it did. In a complete catastrophe, that is."

Still overcome by shock and sheer exhaustion, Mike accepted the hot beverage wordlessly, before walking into his office and hanging up his overcoat and cherished fedora, realizing for the first time that a hole was burnt into it as well.

They gave him a moment to get settled in and sit down at his desk, taking a raspy breath and subdue the trembling of his hands somewhat, before pooling into the small office and filling the room with tension once again.

"Without Keller around to tell us what really happened, what do you think led up to all this, Mike?", Rudy asked somberly, the rings under his eyes having doubled in the previous day.

"Hatred. Insanity perhaps? Some sort of family grudge.", the Lieutenant hypothesized and ran a hand through his hair, trying to ignore the smell of smoke and disinfectant on his dress shirt, "Fire Chief Gabriel said they found that body in Erin McMillan's apartment upstairs, burnt beyond recognition. They're sending it over to Bernie's office, as we speak. Hopefully we can make an ID on the dental records. My guess is that was David Forney. There was a bullet missing out of Steve's revolver, so it's possible that there was some sort of altercation, when Erin and David tried to kill him. He could have incapacitated Forney, as he was fighting for his life."

"I thought I heard a gunshot before the explosion, but I wasn't sure if it came from the apartment at the time.", Dan said somberly, his usually neat hair a disheveled mess now, "I should have checked on things sooner. I am sorry."

"Let's forget about all that feeling guilty nonsense…", Mike grunted and took a sip of coffee, his hand still shaking, "Have you been able to get anything out of McMillan yet?"

"Just one thing.", Norm explained, his dark brown eyes still harboring the same terror they all felt about what happened, "She said she only wants to talk to you, Lieutenant."