Disclaimer: see previous chapters

A/N: Wow, 20 chapters!!!! I'm proud of myself!! I have a couple more chapters waiting, but they still need some editing. So you'll just have to be a little more patient. Well, I could consider updating and editing faster... Oh and Myx Nyx thank you for the review, it's always nice to have a new revieuwer. And of course the others are welcome too!

Chapter 20

In the hospital I talk with the officer and the only relative of the old lady, her grandson. A young woman in a wheelchair is brought out in the hallway and Hank is on his knees next to it. It's obvious they know each other, I get a strange feeling... I'm a bit jealous, why hasn't he ever spoken about her? I head towards Hank while a nurse wheels the young woman away.

"Hey."

He looks at me and stands up. "Hey."

I try to lighten the mood "And the EMT award of the year goes to …" I sound a bit awkward, I'm trying to hide my suspicions and cheer him up.

He looks away, he's sad. Guess I didn't do a great job. "Not me. Death toll's now three. Could climb to four. Elaine…" he looks at me and sees I don't know who he is talking about. "The girl in the wheelchair … she's one of the lucky ones." Oh, he also knows her name. Maybe she's just someone he works with, that could explain why he knows her and why he's worried about her.

"You were amazing." I'm just going with the flow here. If I want him to know how I feel about him, it's best to show my appreciation, right?

"Eight years in the rig, first time I've actually been a part of the scene. I can't stop it going through my head."

I nod understandingly, maybe I should try a little harder "Yeah, you never know when your life's going to change."

Now he understands what I'm getting at, I expected him to be glad or relieved or something, but he looks nervous. He starts to move away from me "Listen, I ... I got to get out of here."

Okay, not what I was expecting… he might still be in shock. I grab his hand gently, trying to stop him and show him I'm genuine "You need a lift?"

He takes his hand back and moves away from me. "No, I drove." With that he walks away.

"Hank?" when he turns around to face me I continue "I'm really glad you're okay."

He smiles "Thanks." Then he turns and walks out of the hallway. I'm standing there dumbfounded, feeling like a fool. I chased him away. Good Sara, smooth!

I put all thoughts about Hank aside and go to the autopsy with Doc Robbins, nothing seems to indicate why she drove her car into the bar, there weren't any physical signs and so far there wasn't any evidence either. I take the GPS and try to figure out if something went wrong there or maybe I can find out anything that explains why she drove there. Still nothing. Greg comes in and tells me granny was high as a kite. I go back to Doc Robbins, but even if she was high that couldn't explain why she drove into a building. This is becoming frustrating. Maybe Catherine and Warrick are back with something solid.

I walk past one of the labs and see Catherine working in it. She stands in front of a monitor with tables on it. Must be the seating chart program from the bar. Each time she touches a chair, a picture of the patron pops up. I walk in but she's too busy, she doesn't even notice me.

"Hello."

She turns around briefly "Oh, hey." and then she goes back to what she was doing, explaining to me what she found out. "So, I got photos of the restaurant patrons off the DMV database and input the information per the restaurant seating chart and the police report." I'm trying to watch the monitor but I keep staring at her hand until I see a familiar face pop up. She turns to me and asks "Who's Elaine Alcott?"

This is weird, why does she think I know one Elaine Alcott… "Who?"

"Oh, well, she was seated with Hank. I just thought maybe that ..." she looks a bit confused.

"Oh." Now I understand why she thought I knew her. I lean in to the computer on the table in front of me and close the pop up box for Elaine and open the box for Hank. Trying to figure out who she is and why they were there together.

Catherine just continues "Anyway, um ... apparently, she told PD that she was returning from the ladies' room at the time of the impact."

I close Hank's box once more and open Elaine's. I recognize her face, that's the woman from the hospital the one in the wheelchair. "They must be friends. I saw him with her at the hospital."

"Okay." It's like she knows more then she's willing to let on. She notices my confused look and quickly looks down at her clipboard. "Um ... okay, so, we've got 36 people in the restaurant. Twelve worked for Sillmont Healthcare, a block away. Another ten were from the brokerage firm across the street, a couple of regulars, a few out-of-towners and restaurant employees."

What's going on? Why did she assume that I knew Elaine and why did she act kind of strange when I told her they must be friends. I want to ask her if she knows something I clearly don't but Warrick chooses this moment to walk into the lab informing us that Diane Lambert aka granny ran the light. He hands the photo to Catherine.

"Wow. She sped through that intersection - 52 miles per hour."

"That's more than twice the speed limit."

"Well, the tread marks tell us that her brakes did work, so it must've been something else that malfunctioned, causing her to accelerate." Warrick muses out loud.

"Gas pedal could've gotten stuck, or ... throttle plate could've jammed." I say.

Catherine gives me a knowing look "There's only one way to find out." she knows how much I like to work with cars, she also knows I'm as good as a car mechanic with them. But I also suspect she's sending me away because she knows I'm going to ask her about her behavior earlier and she doesn't want to talk about it.

While I'm standing up she hands me the file "I'm on it." And with that I leave.

I checked under the car, took an oil sample from under the hood, checked out the engine… I give up, this car is in perfect state. Warrick walks in and reports to me that the red light camera catches four times as many violators than any other camera in Vegas. This could explain that the intersection is a dangerous one. We decide to check it out.

The building has mirrored glass so maybe this could explain why this intersection is so dangerous, the sun shines pretty intense in Vegas, so it could have reflected of the building, obscuring Diane's visibility. We calculate the descend of the sun but we are still in the dark. The sun was still in the sky when the accident occurred but the sun was behind the trees at the time.

This is beginning to aggravate me! We have been working for hours and we still got nothing. I'm walking through the lab when I spot Catherine in one of the labs. She's working on a computer that duplicates the car crashing through the restaurant scenario. Looks interesting maybe she's onto something.

I was right, Catherine tells me Diane accelerated into the building. I got a hunch, so I walk straight to Doc Robbins to check her basic blood panel. Yes, finally I got lucky, her acetylcholine levels are low and her epinephrine was high. It's the same as for the Kamikaze pilots during WWII. This means she drove her car into Vegas with the intention of using it as a murder weapon.

I tell Catherine what I came up with while we make our way to the AV lab. It could be that someone in the bar was the intentional target. Catherine agrees with me, so we run the program again.

"Three out of five of the people sitting in the window work at Sillmont Healthcare. Maybe I should go talk to her." Elaine was one of them, so maybe she knows more.

Catherine turns to me and again she has this strange expression on her face, it's like she wants to tell me something…bad, but doesn't know how. She nods "Yeah, maybe you should."

I'm at Elaine's home, interviewing her. She doesn't know who Diane Lambert is, so she's going through a list to see if Diane is a policy holder. She grabs her laptop and sits down on her couch, I walk over to the couch and sit down next to her. I'm looking at the coffee table and become aware of a picture of her and a guy somewhere abroad. I give the picture a better look, it's Hank, unconsciously I reach out to the little frame and pick it up.

Elaine smiles "My boyfriend. Saved up my miles and took him to Hawaii last year. He's going to take me to Tahiti in a few weeks. I can't wait."

Her words register in my mind. Her boyfriend. I put the frame quickly back on the table, she continuous "Ms. Lambert isn't on my list. But if you want, I can go on the company database."

I have to get away from here… Her boyfriend, last year, Hawaii, … I didn't know he had a girlfriend, he never told me. That fucking sun of a bitch! He was trying to cheat on her with me and more importantly I almost let him! It feels like the room is suddenly too small and all oxygen is sucked out of me. I have to go outside, I need air. I try not to show her my discomfort, I don't want to explain what that asshole is doing to her. "Thank you. Um, I-I have to get back to the lab. Um, maybe you could call me." I hand her my business card.

"Okay." She gives me an awkward look, but I don't care.

Once outside I feel tears running down my cheeks. I want to scream, I want to hit something, I want to… I want to… I don't know. I feel like I'm 7 all over again, small, insignificant, vulnerable, scared, hurt, … How could I have trusted him?! He was using me, he tried to cheat on his girlfriend with me, what did he tell her every time we went out. How can she not know? I want to go back in and yell at her, tell her what kind of boyfriend Hank is, but I can't. I can't hurt her as much as I'm hurting right now. Nobody deserves to feel this kind of pain.

I close my eyes and see the face of my father laughing at me, I hear his voice telling me that I'm studpid and that nobody cares about me, that I'm only good to be used when necesarry then been thrown out like garbage, that's what I am. I shake my head to get rid of his voice, all color drains from my face and I feel a burning pain in my stomach. I bent over, open my mouth and let the pain out. I throw up until there's nothing left inside of me.

I calm myself down, dry my eyes and step into my car to head back to the lab.

Of course the question at the end of the previous chapter was a rhetorical one:-) The only logical answer is: NOOOO!