Healey watched soberly as the departmental photographer captured every angle of the appalling sight in the pool of pale amber light. The lieutenant now safely evacuated, they could concentrate on the other victim of this night of terror. It was now their job to find out what happened, by who, and why.

They had to wait until the scene was completely recorded before they could examine the body more closely. Linda had been wearing a bright yellow shawl over an off-white sundress and sandals; the blood stains stood out starkly against the light colour and there were streaks of blood down her legs. They knew that her arms were secured behind her back but her fingers were all they could see below the shawl still neatly sitting across her shoulders.

Haseejian joined his partner, staring at the tragic young woman's body for a brief moment before nodding back over his shoulder. "The guys from the power company are working on the other lights. It might take another half hour, they think. They have to replace some wires and install new fuses but they're pretty sure they can get all the lights back on."

Still staring at their victim, Healey nodded. "Good," he whispered quietly.

"Do you think Steve knows?" the Armenian sergeant asked softly.

"What?" Healey's attention was far away.

"Steve. Do you think he knows about all this?" Haseejian gestured vaguely towards the pools of light, where the blood that stained the floor under the lieutenant was starkly visible.

Healey didn't answer.

The photographer nodded at the Forensics team and two members of the Coroner's office, who were standing by. They stepped forward as the photographer moved away.

Haseejian had been staring at the bloodstain, his brow deeply furrowed. When he heard his partner take a deep breath and step back from the edge of the pool of light, he mused, "So, Mike was lying on his back here, his head here," he pointed at the floor, "and the ribs on his right side were broken, which means whatever hit him came from this direction." He pointed to his own right.

"That's if he was hit here with… whatever it was," Healey offered, his attention now refocused.

"Oh, I don't think he went anywhere after taking a shot like that, do you?" Haseejian raised his eyebrows and Healey, after a beat, nodded. "Not with a collapsed lung." He looked around. "So what the hell hit him?"

One of the forensic techs, who had overheard their conversation, stood up and took a step towards them. "Um, I used to work in a garage like this when I was in college… you know, to make extra money." He turned to one of the uniformed officers nearby. "Can I borrow your flashlight?"

Frowning, the patrolman handed it over. The tech pointed it up at the ceiling and they all followed the beam. At almost ceiling height, its large pulley hanging straight down, was a block-and-tackle big enough to winch an engine out of any large truck. The beam followed the rope holding the block-and-tackle up, which looped through its own single groove pulley close to the ceiling, then down to a cleat about chest high attached to the far wall. They could tell from the position and the angle that the block-and-tackle would end up right where they standing when the rope was released.

The tech looked at the sergeants. "I think that would do it, don't you?"

Healey was staring at the large pulley dangling from the ceiling. "Jesus Christ…" he muttered under his breath. "That would do it, alright. No wonder he had broken ribs…"

Looking back at the ceiling, the tech shook his head slightly. "I don't think it came down from that high. The momentum would've killed him if it did. It was probably lowered quite a bit and then released." With a sadly sympathetic smile, he handed the flashlight back to the patrolman. "We'll dust the rope and the cleat but I'm pretty sure we won't get anything," he added with a soft shrug.

Both sergeants nodded. Haseejian took a deep breath, held it for a beat then let it out in a rush. He took a step closer to the coroner's assistant, who was studying the body. "What do you think?" he asked quietly.

The middle-aged man looked up. "Well, it looks like she was stabbed, not shot. You might want to start looking around for a knife."

Healey, frowning, started towards the back of the garage. "When are you guys gonna get these god damn lights on?!" he shouted in mounting anger and frustration.

# # # # #

The sun was starting to peak over the trees when, the tears having dried on his cheeks, he finally raised his head. He had to pull himself together, he knew. Linda was dead; that he knew he had to come to grips with, as hard as it was going to be. But Mike was still alive, as far as he was aware, and he knew he had to find his way back to The City, to his partner, and try to extricate himself from this horrific atrocity.

He had to make them understand this was not his own doing, that he could never kill his girlfriend, never shoot his best friend. He firmly believed those that knew him would know he could never do something like this but, as Nicole had pointed out rather smugly, all the evidence pointed towards his guilt.

As he struggled to his feet, feeling weak in spirit as well as heartsick, he left hand brushed against the side of his jacket and he froze momentarily before sweeping the front of his jacket back. His .38 was in the holster on his belt. He stared at it as if he couldn't believe his eyes; he couldn't remember seeing her put it back but she must have at some point. He almost reached to pull it out but stopped himself. He closed his eyes and sagged slightly. The only fingerprints on it would be his, he thought ruefully, shaking his head in defeat. But deciding better safe than sorry, grasping at straws, he decided to leave the revolver where it was.

He patted his pockets, feeling his badge and wallet, then reached around to the back of his belt and sighed loudly in frustration. His handcuffs were gone. He tried not to think where they would turn up, but he had a good idea and it didn't bode well.

Taking a deep breath, realizing that it had indeed started to warm up and his breath was no longer visible, he looked up and down the dirt road. Nicole had turned the car around and left the way she had come, and he knew they had turned off a paved road onto this one. That, it seemed logical, was the way to go if he hoped to stumble back to civilization.

Trying not to think about what he had just been through, what had happened to Linda and Mike, and what was facing him when he tried to return to the life he had known, he put one foot in front of the other on the deserted dirt road.

# # # # #

Haseejian was standing behind the chair, watching as the forensic techs were carefully studying Linda's clothes, looking for anything, like hairs or fibres, that they could recover to study back in the lab. Finally finished, one of the techs started to remove the shawl to expose her shoulders and arms. When the shawl was raised high enough to expose her wrists, the detective frowned. He turned his head slightly. "Dan!"

"Yeah," he heard Healey reply and the sound of quick footfalls on the concrete floor. When he felt his partner's presence, he pointed towards the chair. Linda's wrists were bound together, through the back of the chair, by a pair of police-issue handcuffs.

# # # # #

The sun was finally warming the sky and the air but the area around the garage still felt cold and depressing. Devitt shone his flashlight beam through the passenger side window of Linda's Corolla as he tried the handle again. He glanced over his shoulder at the small cluster of patrolmen nearby. "Hey, any of you guys got a Slim Jim?"

One of the uniformed cops shot a guilty look at his partner and raised his right hand. "I do." He opened the trunk of his cruiser and took out the long thin piece of metal.

Tying to hide his smirk, Devitt stepped back to let the young man access to the car door and within seconds the lock was popped. "Thanks," he muttered with a soft chuckle as he opened the door and leaned in, picking up the macrame handbag from the floor. He turned it upside down and dumped the contents on the passenger seat, picking up the wallet. He straightened up, opening it to look for the driver's license.

He stared at the photo, at the pretty young face looking back at him, and closed his eyes. There was at least one very difficult phone call that needed to be made, and he was going to be the one to make it.

# # # # #

Captain Olsen looked up at the wall clock for at least the twentieth time; he'd been waiting for over two hours already and nobody had come out to tell him anything. Conden had left an hour ago, making Olsen promise to call him as soon as he had any news, and other on-duty officers had stopped by to find out if there were any updates. It was still too early in the day for the reports on the shooting to have made the rounds both inside and outside the department.

He looked towards the Emergency Room entrance. A middle-aged doctor he thought he recognized was scanning the room, frowning. Olsen got to his feet and approached. "Are you looking for me?"

"Captain Olsen?" the doctor asked, a tinge of frustration in his voice.

The cop nodded. "Yeah. I'm here with Lieutenant -"

"Stone, yeah," the doctor finished quickly. "You a relative?"

"Ah, no, I'm his boss."

The doctor, whose nameplate said 'Lancaster', growled slightly, his eyes scanning the waiting room again. "Does he have any family here?"

Olsen shook his head. "No. He's a widower and his daughter is in university in Arizona. I'm gonna give her a call as soon as we finish here. I wanted to wait till I had something to tell her other than he was shot and he has a punctured lung."

The doctor's eyes snapped to the cop's face and he snorted. "For good's sake, don't tell her that. He doesn't have a punctured lung. It only partially collapsed. And the bullet luckily didn't do any major damage so we're going to leave it where it is for the time being. We'll keep the chest tube in for the next twenty-four hours to make sure his lung re-inflates properly then we'll take it out and send him to the OR to have the bullet removed." He paused, frowning. "We'll make sure you guys get it as soon as possible."

Olsen nodded. "Thanks."

Lancaster bobbed his head. "So, ah, the lieutenant'll be sedated for about the next 48 hours but you'll be able to talk to him after that and then we'll send him home to recover."

Olsen, who was staring intently at the doctor, trying to remember everything he was being told, managed to find a slight smile. "You mean he's going to be all right?"

Lancaster's stern features finally softened. "He's going to be all right," he confirmed with a nod, finding a smile of his own. He sighed quietly. "Sorry… it's been a rough night. There were a couple of shootings, a stabbing, two domestic assaults and a really bad car accident with multiple victims earlier tonight. We've all been run off our feet."

Olsen nodded with a soft snort. "I know what you mean."

"I bet you do." The doctor patted his arm. "Look, your lieutenant really is going to be fine. You can tell his daughter he's gonna have to take it easy for a few weeks after he gets out of here, but he'll be back at work before you know it, don't worry."

Olsen smiled softly to himself; finally a bright spot in an otherwise dark and devastating night.