Carlos could not believe morning had come so soon. His dreams had been short and nasty, despite his inability to sleep for longer than an hour. He felt raw and exposed from his lack of sleep, and he slapped his alarm clock angrily.

He somehow managed to scrape off his whiskers without cutting himself, and by the time he stepped out of his shower, he was feeling a little more awake. The smell of coffee met his nostrils.

He found Danae in his kitchen, awkwardly using her left hand to pour a steaming mug of liquid caffeine for him. He accepted it with a grunt that passed for a thank you and leaned against the counter next to her.

"How did you..."

"I heard your alarm. And I'm paid to find microscopic evidence. Coffee was pretty easy."

"You didn't have to."

"I wanted to. Besides, I need a favor."

Carlos laughed, then, and Danae smiled in return. "Ok what favor?"

"Call me in sick?" she said, giving him his portable phone. "No-one's going to believe me when I say I'm recovering from a gunshot wound. Pretend you're someone important. Drop names."

Her blue eyes danced as she held out the phone, and Carlos didn't doubt that her boss wouldn't believe her getting shot. Danae had a short fuse and a quick wit, and he doubted she could be serious if she tried, even about her own brush with death.

Carlos took the phone. "How about I drop Ryan's name? I think he has a crush on you..."

Danae stuck her tongue out at him and headed back to his couch, where she had spent the night. Carlos made the call, and as soon as he hung up, it rang.

"Carlos." It was Kim. "We need to get cracking on this Thompson case. I have a lead, but you said no field work by myself, so I'm coming to pick you up."

"I guess that's fine."

Kim was as good as her word, arriving some minutes later. Carlos opened his door, a finger on his lips to shush her.

"Are you bugged?" she mouthed.

"Danae's sleeping," he whispered, gesturing behind him.

"She stayed here?" Kim was shocked. She knew Carlos was a philanderer but this was a new low even for him! "On the couch?" She was confused. She stood on tip toe to catch a glimpse.

"Would you rather it had been my bed?" he hissed. "Besides, she wanted the couch. Something about propping her arm up."

"Is she ok to stay here alone?" Kim asked.

"I'll be fine for about four and a half hours," Danae said. She hadn't opened her eyes to respond.

"Four and a half hours?" Kim asked.

"That's when the pain meds wear off. I won't call anyone, I won't email anyone, I won't go by the windows, I promise."

Carlos closed his mouth. He'd just been about to say something like that. Instead he grabbed his jacket and ushered Kim out the door.

"You like her, don't you?" Kim accused out in the hallway.

"What?"

"Look at your little smirk! You do!"

"No, Kim. She's a client."

"That's right she's a client!" Kim repeated emphatically, poking him with an index finger to drive home the point.

Carlos arched an eyebrow and a bigger, more mischievous smile crossed his face. "Besides, I'm going on a date with Trent's doctor this week."

Kim laughed. Carlos would never change, no matter how hard she tried. "You're so disgusting."

"I...am so underdressed," Kim sighed when they arrived at their destination. She stood dumbly alongside Carlos in front of an upscale hotel. "I feel like my underwear should be made of diamonds!"

"What you lack in style, you make up with personality!" Carlos said, straightening his broad shoulders. "At least, that's what Mama Sandoval always says." He took Kim's arm and looped it through his own, and they entered.

"Can I help you?" the clerk asked them haughtily as they approached.

Carlos was against stereotyping in all its forms because stereotypes were the basis for ignorance. But even so, he couldn't help but marvel at how clichéd this man behind the desk was. Average height and genetically thin (Carlos would bet everything he owned the man had never lifted weights or run in his life and ate nothing but cheese and wine every day) with thinning, well kept hair, a proud nose, and a permanent sneer.

"I'm new in town," Kim drawled, opting for a New England accent.

Carlos looked at the clerk's nametag. Lord, he was even named Jacques! Could he be more French?

"Perhaps Madame would be more comfortable in a hotel with a better view of the tourist attractions downtown?"

"You don't know who she is?" Carlos stepped forward.

"I'm afraid not, Monsieur," the clerk turned his measuring gaze toward Carlos.

"I can't believe this!" Carlos threw his arms up in the air. Setting his jaw and getting himself under control, he continued. "This is Senator Thompson's cousin," he said in a low conspiratorial tone. "A favorite of Mrs. Thompson."

"My apologies, Monsieur, Madame!" There was a flurry of typing. "I can get a room for you in a half an hour. In the mean time, perhaps Madame would like to retire to our lounge?"

"Madame would," Kim said firmly.

Jacques led them down a corridor and unlocked the door to the guest lounge with a swipe of his card. "There is a social group meeting just now, but they should be no problem," he told them as he pulled out a chair for Kim.

Kim waited for Jacques to leave before dropping her guise of frustration. "We are so amazing!" she gushed quietly. "The way we just waltzed in here!"

"We only have twenty minutes," Carlos warned her.

"He said thirty," Kim said.

"We need to be gone by the time he comes back. Is that our group?"

"Yeah. Apparently Mrs. Thompson takes breakfast with them every week. Dallas' very own rich and famous."

"Same ploy, then," he told her. "You introduce yourself as new money. I'm going to get pictures of everyone."

"How? We didn't bring a camera. Besides, isn't that a little obvious?"

Carlos grinned. "Camera phone." He held up his cell.

Trent couldn't wait any longer. The hospital had discharged him and made several follow up appointments. Rather than wait for Carlos and Kim to finish their surveillance, which they had all agreed was more important since they had a very limited time frame, Trent decided to catch a cab home. His mother was at work and his three younger siblings at school, so the house was empty when he got there. He went through it room by room, looking for anything out of place.

While there was a lot out of place in Tyler and Tandy's rooms, nothing seemed suspicious. Trent had been sharing a room in his mother's house with his brother under the presumption that if he was around nothing bad would happen again, or if it did, at least he'd be around to deal with it, unlike last time. His father's death had been a wake-up call. But now...what if he had brought this thing to his home? What if whoever did this to him had followed him back to the very place he was trying to protect? Maybe his mother was right and it was time to find his own place.

All of this, the empty house, the guilt, was frustratingly familiar, like when he tried to remember what had happened the day he was attacked. But there was nothing but fog there...

He shook his head and sat down in the carpeted hallway upstairs. So much memory in this house...

Memory seized, hard, pouring out of him.

Thunder was dead. Trent had just come home. Katie had taken his siblings to see family in Ft. Worth for the weekend. Everyone needed a break from the tragedy. The house was empty and confusing: why weren't you there for your father's last days, Trent? Pride? A petty argument?

A knock at the door had brought Trent out of his numbness. As soon as he had opened the door, he had been pulled into a fierce hug.

"Trent I'm so sorry," she had said through her sobs. "I came as soon as I could get away from work." She had pulled away, then, to take a look at her old friend. "How are you holding up, kid?"

Despite being the youngest in their group of friends while growing up, she had always called everyone "kid." Trent had smiled at that, was going to tell her that everyone was dealing, but as soon as he had opened his mouth, the tears came.

She had held him and cried, too. Thunder had been like a second father to her.

What had happened next, and how it had happened, Trent couldn't remember exactly, but he remembered how good she felt, how calm she made him feel. She was gone in the morning when he woke up; the only trace she left was a note on her pillow and a million questions in his mind. They hadn't been "just friends" for a long time. But what were they now?

Trent shook his head and wondered why he thought of Margo at a time like this. Why couldn't he remember anything relevant to his attacker?

"You!" Butch McMann pointed one giant, sausage-sized finger at Carlos as the younger man entered the bar under Thunder Investigations. "I've got a bone to pick with you!" Kim, Danae, and Trent moved away from Carlos, sensing they didn't want to be near the bone-picking when it happened.

"What'd he do now?" Kim asked, sitting at the bar. "Also, Thunder Investigations assumes no monetary responsibility, whatever it is."

"My baby girl, my BABY GIRL! He talked her into becoming a cop, for God's sake!"

"I didn't...I didn't talk her into it, Butch, I swear! She asked me if I thought she could make it as a cop, and I told her the truth! Besides, I figured you'd be proud of her. She passed basic training requirements."

Butch's eyes seemed ready to pop from his face. "She what?"

"Can I get a beer before you explode all over the bar?" Trent asked.

"I told her everything, Butch," Carlos said, daring to sit at the bar as the bigger man turned his back to them to get Trent a mug. "You know I wouldn't steer her wrong."

"Besides," Trent said as he accepted the glass from Butch, "You are proud of her."

"Yeah, only if she doesn't get herself killed," Butch conceded with a sigh. "I'll be damned if I see her shot up by an idiot on the street!"

"Being a cop runs in the family, Butch," Kim said brightly. "Besides, this might be good for her sense of control. After everything that's happened in the last year with her fiancé and her mother, it's good that she's getting back on her feet."

"You always did see the silver lining," Butch said with a slight smile. He turned his focus to Danae; her new face at not escaped him. "What can I get you, darling?"

"Oh, no I'm not drinking, thanks," she blushed.

"Cola?"

"Water," she said as though making a compromise.

"Danae, this is Butch McMann," Carlos said, taking his own beer. "If Butch can't set you up, you're hopeless."

Butch chuckled and slid Danae's water to her. "New in town?" She nodded. "And shot up already? Most people can go years before they get that pleasure." That got a laugh from her. "And you," Butch turned toward Trent. "You look like you've seen a ghost!"

Trent smiled into his mug. "Sort of. I can't remember anything about yesterday. If my car hadn't been found, I don't think I could even tell you where I was when it happened!"

"Well that happens when you have amnesia," Butch said wryly, leaning his heavy frame on the bar.

"Yeah, but...This is going to sound really crazy, but when I was going through the house today, and all I could think about was Margo Jones."

"Who?" Kim asked.

"She was a good friend of ours back in the day," Carlos answered. "Joined the FBI a few years back, right?" Trent nodded. "Wonder what she's doing now," he mused.

"I haven't heard form her since her going away party," Trent frowned. It seemed like he had heard from her recently, though! Surely he would have remembered talking to her, since there was so much he needed to say…

"The brain is an amazing organ," Danae said quietly. "Some people think we don't forget anything we experience, that our entire lives are hidden somewhere in our brains but we store unimportant things, or things we don't understand, so deeply we can't access them consciously."

"Other people—scientists—believe that memory is a construct formed by repetition of how things unrolled," a female voice came from behind the group.

"Dr. Chase!" Carlos smiled broadly. "Trent you already know. This is Kim, Butch, and Danae."

"Vivian," she introduced herself. "I'm sorry, you were saying?" she sat down between Carlos and Danae, very obviously trying to separate them. Trent watched the whole thing unravel with mild curiosity. He would have questioned further why it seemed like Dr. Vivian Chase disliked Danae Launey on a very personal level even though they had just met, but he had other things on his mind. Or rather, not on his mind…

Danae regarded Vivian coolly for the briefest of seconds, then turned her attention back to Trent. "It's just that the mind has a way of telling you things if you just listen to it, Trent."