Steve turned and slowly walked back into his office and toward his desk. He thought he felt a cold draft coming from the closed lanai door and it seemed as though some cold, invisible force was somehow impeding his progress. He forced himself forward and sat down at his desk.

He listened to the silence. His mind was playing an awful lot of tricks on him this strange night, he thought, as he looked down at the untouched paperwork. "Snap out of it!" he told himself sharply, as he started to reorganize the disheveled papers and pick up where he left off.

The silence was pierced suddenly and viciously by a terrible cry. Instinctively, Steve jumped to his feet. But where was the sound coming from? He listened more intently and realized that the single, horrible sound had softened to the rapid breathing and slight moaning of someone in pain, someone dying. "Danno?" he thought, not knowing why. The hairs on the back of Steve's neck stood up and the cold draft from the lanai door intensified. There was another moan. Yes, the sound was coming from behind him, from outside the lanai door. Steve turned quickly and bolted through the lanai door.

Instead of emerging out onto the balcony overlooking the street, Steve found himself in an HPD interrogation room. There, sitting sullenly at the table was a tall, gangly, redheaded kid. Facing him was a grim-faced Duke Lukela. Duke looked older than a few minutes ago and seemed worn and tired. The silence was thick. As Steve stood there, the silence continued and deepened. Steve noticed an item in an evidence bag sitting in the middle of the table between the kid and Duke. He was hesitant to move forward and get a better look at the item. Once again, he didn't know why.

Duke picked up the evidence bag and held it up so the young boy could see it. The boy did not look up. His gaze was fixed on the table. Duke finally spoke.

"What do you have to say about this?" Duke asked.

The boy did not answer.

"Tommy, look at me! How could you have done such a thing?" Duke tried again, his voice rising in volume with agitation.

Still no answer.

Steve's mind started to whirl. Tommy? Could this really be the Tommy from the orphan's home? The kid who was so excited about the surfing lessons? It wasn't possible. It had to be someone else.

Steve took a step closer and forced himself to look at the item in the evidence bag. It was a knife with a nasty-looking, curved blade. It had what looked like blood all over it. Steve stepped back abruptly as if he had been hit.

Duke put the knife down. "I guess there really isn't anything you can say", Duke said coldly, his voice now lacking emotion except for the slightest hint of contempt. "This is the weapon without a doubt and your fingerprints are all over it. Even if you had some sort of explanation, it would make no difference. Tonight you killed during the course of a robbery. In all probability, you will be tried as an adult and either sentenced to life in prison or death. I'm not sure which is worse; dying or spending the rest of your life in prison thinking about what you have done."

Duke pushed his chair back from the table in disgust, got up and left the room.

Tommy did not look up at Duke's departure but continued to sit there, unmoving, as if made of stone. Steve moved closer to the table again. "What have you done!" he shouted at the boy. There was no response. "Are you the little Tommy from the orphanage I saw earlier this evening?" Or was it earlier in time? Steve pounded his fists on the table in frustration realizing that the boy could not hear him. No one could hear him. His eyes were drawn to the knife. It was a cold hard thing. Who could tell him what was going on? How could he find out what had happened?

The cold air stirred again. Steve looked up from the table as the draft hit his face. A new door which Steve had not noticed before had appeared on the other side of the room. Steve was afraid for reasons he didn't understand, but he approached the door, nonetheless. There were funny sounds coming from the other side of the door. It sounded like a hospital. There was the beep of a heart monitor and the sounds of doctors and nurses working in urgency. The heart monitor sound was irregular as if they were having trouble stabilizing the patient. The sound changed from the irregular heart beat to a continuous single tone. Steve could stand it no longer and burst through the door.

The emergency room was empty except for two orderlies cleaning up. There was blood everywhere and on everything; sheets, gurney, discarded rubber gloves and surgical gowns. The heart monitor had been disconnected and there was no sign of the unfortunate patient.

The two orderlies talked as they worked. "What a mess" one said to the other.

"What a shame for something like this to happen on Christmas eve" was the reply.

"I haven't seen this much blood in a long time. Looks like they couldn't stop the bleeding. Do you know what happened?"

"I heard it was a knifing. An HPD officer interrupted a hold-up and was knifed by a young kid. Seems as though the officer knew the kid too."

"Would have thought that the cop would have been more careful especially, seeing that it was a known troublemaker."

"Well, apparently, the kid hadn't been in trouble before and had been close to the officer at one time."

"The unkindest cut of all, eh?"

"That's a terrible thing to say, but not far from the mark". Giggling the orderlies moved away.

Steve started to look frantically around the room for some clue as to the identity of the patient. Did no one grieve for this unfortunate loss of human life and for the young life wasted? Steve looked for items near the gurney, personal effects which might have provided a clue to the victim, but found none. Would no one tell him who the victim was? In frustration, he swept the surgical instruments sitting there off the table toward the wall.

The instruments never hit the wall; before that could occur, the room and all its contents faded to become a cold, dimly lit, stainless steel room. It was a vast room with no visible door. It was lined with endless rows of stainless steel cabinets with handles. The morgue, thought Steve with a shiver, but unlike any he had ever seen. At the far end, there were two small figures standing before one of the drawers. They were two grown men framed in light as though illuminated by a single invisible light bulb, but were so far away from Steve that they looked small. One wore a suit and the other wore a white coat. Steve started toward them. The drawer was pulled open, and upon the nod of the suited man a sheet was pulled back. Steve seemed only slightly nearer now than when he started. He picked up his pace and began to run. The suited man looked down at the body and slowly, reluctantly nodded his head.

Steve was near enough now to see that the man in the suit was an elderly, grey-haired Chinese gentleman. It was one of his men, Chin Ho Kelly, but much older and more worn than when Steve had last seen him earlier that evening. The sheet was replaced. Chin bowed his head hiding his watery eyes in his hand and wept.

"Chin!" Steve called out. But Chin could not hear him. Before Steve could reach them, the drawer was closed and they vanished. The light faded.

Steve came to a dead halt. There were so many drawers in front of him. Which drawer had they been looking in? The coldness had intensified and seemed almost to solidify behind him. Steve found himself being pushed toward the wall with the drawers. Or was the wall being pushed toward him? Steve had not physically moved an inch, but suddenly one of the stainless steel drawers was right in front of him. In fact, it was the only one visible now. The unseen coldness gripped his arm and raised it toward the drawer handle. Steve tried to resist but to no avail. It forced his hand to grasp the cold handle and pull. As the drawer opened Steve wanted to close his eyes but could not. He was pushed to the side of the drawer and forced to look down.

There was no sheet covering the body this time. Immediately visible, as the drawer opened, was a face, deathly pale with closed eyes. It was Danno as Steve knew it would be but had not wanted to admit to himself before now. He looked pale beyond death and his hair had grayed prematurely. His face was gaunt and drawn. Steve put his hand down and touched Dan's cheek. It was so cold, so dead.

Steve could stand no longer. He sat down hard on the cold steel floor, put his head in his hands and wept as he had never wept before. An intense pain seared through his body. Time seemed to stand still as his tears formed an endless river of sorrow.