Actually getting out of bed that morning had not been the pleasurable excursion that Danny had expected it to be. His head had reeled violently and the few steps from the bed to the chair had been exhausting. He slumped there with a blanket draped over his knees while the nurses changed his bedding and then he was faced with the inevitable trek back to bed. For several craven seconds, Danny contemplated insisting he felt well enough to stay where he was, but when the nurses turned back to help him, he realised that he was getting no choice in the matter. He was going back to bed, like it or not.

It was a relief to sink back onto the mattress. Danny lay there and closed his eyes, hoping to slip back into sleep, but no such relief was afforded to him. The phone which the nurses had just plugged in beside his bed rang and with a sigh, he reached for it, half expecting it to be Steve. "Hello?"

"You killed him!" hissed a hoarse voice. It was difficult to be sure if it was male or female. "You deserve to die for that." There was a harsh click as the call disconnected.

Stunned, Danny could barely believe that he'd heard the words. He had no doubt as to what the person had been referring to – Shem's death. The nurses had already been praising him to the heights for his 'heroic act' and had told him that he was front page news that day. Who was threatening him?

It wasn't the first threat Danny had had in the course of his career and he assumed it wouldn't be the last, but with his dominant arm out of commission, he felt incredibly vulnerable. Was there someone out in the hall standing watch over him? Normally, Danny would balk at such protection, but right at the moment, it seemed like a good thing. What a pity he didn't know the answer.

Fumbling with the phone, he clumsily dialled the number for Steve's private line at the Palace. It was answered after only two rings. "McGarrett."

"Steve…" Danny had to stop to draw a calming breath. His heart felt as though it was beating right out of his chest.

"What's wrong, Danno?" Steve asked, not liking the breathy sound of his friend's voice.

The comforting sound of Steve's voice allowed Danny to centre himself and calm down. "Steve, I just received a threatening phone call," he reported in a tone that sounded more like his normal tone.

"What?" The anger and indignation carried strongly over the phone line and provided Danny with the sense that he was safe and protected. He knew he was, but at that moment, injured, weak and vulnerable, he needed the reassurance. "What did they say?"

Feeling calmer knowing that Steve would deal with this, Danny reported the words. "I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman," he concluded. "It shook me up a bit," he apologised.

"Of course it did," Steve agreed. "Danno, I'll be right over. I'm going to get HPD to put a guard on your door while you're in hospital and route all calls to the nurse's station. We'll get to the bottom of this," he vowed.

"You don't need to come over," Danny protested. "I'm fine, Steve. I was just a bit shaken," he repeated. While seeing his friend would be great, Danny did not want to disrupt the work at the Palace. He knew that with him out, the workload would be increased for the other three detectives.

"I'll be over shortly," Steve compromised. He bid Danny goodbye and hung up. Moments later, he was dialling to HPD. "McGarrett here," he started. "I need a guard put on Dan Williams's room at the hospital at once. Nobody is to get in to see him apart from authorised medical staff and the Five-O detectives. Now, has Mrs Shem left the island?"

"She should have gone an hour ago, sir," reported the officer on the other end.

"Should have? Didn't somebody check to make sure she had gone?" Steve barked. "I ordered that someone kept their eye on her at all times until she left!"

"A unit took her to the airport," replied the officer nervously. "I haven't heard back from them, so I assume that she left all right."

"Thank you." McGarrett hung up and pressed the intercom. "Jenny, could you phone the airlines and make sure that Mrs Shem got on her flight?"

"Right away, Steve," Jenny replied. Steve started pacing, waiting impatiently. He was sure that he would learn that Mrs Shem had not caught her flight. Sure enough, within five minutes, Jenny popped her head around the door. "Steve, Mrs Shem didn't get on the flight." She looked troubled. "What's wrong?"

"Danno received a threatening phone call a short time ago," Steve told her. "Where are Chin and Kono?"

"Trying to find out who sold Shem that gun and ammo," the secretary reported.

"Get them back here, wikiwiki," he requested. He picked up the phone once more and dialled HPD. First, he checked that Danny's guard was in place and then he tore into the hapless duty sergeant for not double checking that Mrs Shem had left the island, then issued an APB for her. He knew that the sergeant would pass the message on to the patrol men that they had better toe the line exactly when doing a chore for Five-O in the future. Then he settled back to wait as patiently as he could for Chin and Kono to return so that he could brief them before going to see Danny.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I should have checked on that wahine myself," Chin growled.

"You had other things to do," Steve reminded him, "and HPD shouldn't need to be told to make sure that she got on the actual plane." He shook his head in disgust. "What have you got?"

"We found the place where Shem bought the gun and ammo," Kono reported. "A back-street dive down in the Hotel Street district. Shem gave a false name and the guy didn't ask for ID. He was doing a special offer on ammo – buy one get one free." He made a face.

Gun laws were tricky things. The shop owner had stayed within the bounds of the law – just – but that didn't make it any better. Guns were too easy to buy, especially with people like that, who only asked if the buyer was over 21. Of course, even with tighter gun controls in place, those who wanted to get a gun would manage it somehow.

Guessing the tenor of his boss's thoughts, Kono added, "I put the fear of God into him, Steve."

"Good," Steve nodded. "I'm going over to the hospital and I want you to help look for Mrs Shem. Better check on the widow, too." He collected nods from both detectives, promised he would pass on their best regards to Danny and then took himself off.

The press pack had gone from the steps of the Palace, but there were still cameras and reporters at the hospital and Steve had to push his way through them as they converged on his car. He issued a brusque 'no comment' as he passed and hoped that none of them had yet found out about the phone call to Danny.

Inside, he met with Bergman, who was indignant that Steve was preventing medical staff from doing their job. Steve quickly checked with the guard on Danny's door and before long, the uniformed man was aware of which members of staff were authorised to go inside and which weren't. The harried nurses agreed that they would monitor any calls to Danny's room and note down the callers' names if their duties permitted, but as Bergman pointed out acerbically, they weren't secretaries!

Ignoring that comment, Steve and Bergman went into Danny's room together. Danny had his eyes closed, but they opened readily and Steve could see that the younger man was tense. "How's it, Danno?" he asked.

"All right," Danny replied apologetically. "Steve, I'm sorry I bothered you…"

"You were right to bother me," Steve interrupted. "Mrs Shem did not get on her scheduled flight this morning and she was threatening your life yesterday. We're looking for her right now. I don't expect she would do anything, but we're monitoring your calls and there's a guard outside the room. I'm sorry I didn't think of that sooner, Danno."

"You need to relax, Danny," Bergman said. He took the injured man's pulse and then checked his blood pressure. "How's your pain?" The vital signs were too high for Bergman's liking, although he thought they were probably better than they had been earlier.

"I can feel it," Danny admitted reluctantly.

"You need to relax, aikane," Steve told him. "I won't let anything happen to you." He nodded to Bergman, who left the room for a moment to get Danny's medication. "Can you remember anything else from that call? Any sounds in the background?"

"Nothing," Danny replied after a moment's thought. "It was so short." He met Steve's eyes. "Do you think it was Shem's mother?"

"I don't know for sure, but we're looking into it," Steve confirmed. "After what she said out at the incident yesterday, I have to say that she is the prime suspect." He told Danny what Kono and Chin had told him about Mrs Shem's reaction to her son's body.

"Poor woman," Danny said softly. "It must be hard to realise that your son is a killer."

"Yeah," Steve agreed. "But Mrs Shem was a strange one; you thought so, too," he reminded his detective.

Grimacing, Danny recalled her repellent attitude. He had been particularly offended by her nastiness towards her daughter-in-law. The young woman who had married Shem had certainly got the short end of the deal. "She was weird," Danny agreed.

"You have to wonder if mental instability ran in that family," Steve mused. "It would be interesting to know about the father."

"Are you going to look into that?" Danny asked and Steve was pleased to see he was looking more relaxed now. Bergman came back in with a syringe and injected the contents into Danny's IV.

"Well, not today," Steve replied, knowing his friend would soon be sleeping again. By the time he woke up, Steve hoped to have found the person who had made the crank call and then Danny could recover in peace.

He waited until Danny slipped into slumber, then exited the room, making sure once more that the guard on duty knew not to let in anyone unauthorised, and caught up with Bergman at the nurse's station. "How soon can Danno go home?" he asked.

"I'd like to keep him here another couple of days," Bergman replied. "The nurses got him up briefly this morning and he was very dizzy. He lost a fair amount of blood yesterday and I would like him to make good some of the deficit before I let him go. I also want to make sure he isn't going to develop an infection. So far, everything looks fine, but you just never know." He fixed Steve with a stern glare. "So don't you go aiding and abetting an escape attempt!" he warned. "I won't keep him here a day longer than necessary. Do you know what happens to my nurses when Danny is in here? They spend half the day flirting with him!"

Laughing, Steve nodded his agreement. "All right, Doc," he smiled. "I won't let him escape until you say so, but the problems with the nurses are entirely yours to deal with!"

"Gee, thanks for nothing," the coroner grunted as Steve headed for the stairs.