As he drifted awake, Danny was aware of voices arguing. He was still lying more or less on his face and he knew, from the sickening pain in his shoulder, that he would be unable to get up unassisted. With his eyes still shut, he forced himself to listen to the voices. He identified them immediately as Sue and Scott.
"I don't understand why you want to kill him at the bunker," Scott was arguing, his tone perilously close to whining. "It should be enough that he's dead."
"You never understood, did you, Scott?" Sue sniped back. "You don't understand all that much, do you? Why would you be willing to help me kill someone?"
"I love you," Scott protested. "I want to make you happy. I want you to marry me."
"Marry?" Sue screamed. "I already married one boy and look what happened! You're no better than he was! I want a man to look after me!"
"I'll look after you, darlin'," he cried.
"You can't even look after yourself," she returned scathingly. "I got you that job at the restaurant; I gave you somewhere to live; I thought up this plan."
"I'll do better," the young man whimpered. "Honest, Sue." He sounded close to tears. "I love you enough to risk going to prison for you."
"More fool you," she retorted. "You're as crazy as Bill was!"
"Don't say that!" Scott was angry now and Danny risked cracking his eyes open a little to peer at the couple through his lashes. Scott's face was suffused with colour and his eyes were bulging. "I'm not crazy!" he bellowed. "I'm not and don't you say I am!"
For a moment, Sue cringed away from him, but then she drew herself up and was right back in his face. "You are crazy, Scott," she hissed venomously. "If you hadn't escaped from that institution back on the mainland, you'd still be locked up, because you're crazier than a snake!"
"Don't say that!" Scott backed away from her, his arms wrapping around his body protectively. "Don't say that!"
"You're no use to me now, Scotty," Sue purred, her tone suddenly loving and kind. Scott stopped moving, obviously having difficulty assimilating the words with the tone.
The gunshot was startling and Danny flinched, wincing in pain from the movement. For a long moment, he had no idea what had happened, and then Scott moaned softly and collapsed to his knees. "Sue," he breathed and she fired again, hitting him in the head.
Over the years, Danny had seen some horrific things in his police career, but that moment was probably the worst he had ever endured. Shock caused him to vomit where he lay and he knew that it was a sight he would never forget. He could feel his body shaking.
To compound his horror, Sue appeared to be unmoved by the atrocity she had just perpetrated. Casually lowering the gun, she stepped over Scott and looked down at Danny in disgust. "Get to your feet, cop," she ordered and when he didn't move, she grabbed his left arm and pulled.
Just a few minutes before, Danny would have taken oath that he was unable to get to his feet without help. Now, he used a surge of adrenalin to propel himself off the ground and, heedless of the gun in Sue's hand, he launched himself at his captor and head-butted her viciously in the face.
The gun dropped form Sue's hand as she screamed in anguish and rage, her hands flying to her face. The gun went off as it hit the ground, the bullet disappearing into the undergrowth. Danny kicked the gun away and slid down the few feet of dusty track to the shoulder of the road. His feet hit the asphalt with jarring forced and he stumbled and fell to his knees. Behind him, he could hear Sue Shem shrieking and sobbing from the pain of her broken nose and the sounds drove him to regain his feet once more and stumble away, back towards Honolulu and safety.
"Come back!" the crazed woman cried, her voice distorted and nasal. "Come back so I can kill you!"
Panting raggedly, Danny tried to increase his speed, but putting one foot in front of the other was becoming harder with every stumbling step. The world was oddly sepia coloured and seemed to be expanding and contracting in a most alarming manner. Dimly, Danny knew he was almost certainly going to pass out very soon.
There was a sudden screeching of brakes and Danny was buffeted by the displaced air of a car speeding past too close. He gulped in air. Had he wandered further onto the road than he thought? He blinked sharply, trying to bring the world into sharper focus, but it didn't work.
Another car sound intruded, but Danny realised that it sounded wrong. He stumbled to a stop and braced himself for who-knew-what as the car reversed towards him.
It was only when Steve spring from the car that Danny realised that help had arrived. "Danno!" Steve exclaimed in horror and darted over to grasp his friend's arm firmly.
"Steve?" Danny squinted upwards to confirm that it really was his friend. "Steve… Mrs Shem… She's just… up there. Dangerous," he concluded as his knees buckled.
Reluctant to leave Danny, Steve nevertheless had to make sure the deranged woman was taken into custody. He surrendered Danny's care to Kono and he and Chin went on foot along the road, guns drawn. The shouting and sobbing alerted them to her position and they approached cautiously, prepared for anything.
"Come back so I can kill you," she pleaded as Steve slowly stepped into eye contact with her. Sue's face was covered in blood and her hair was wild, tangled into the bushes behind her. The gun lay a short distance from her and Steve kept her covered what Chin took control of the weapon. When it was secure, Steve holstered his own gun and stepped up to her, easily capturing her wrists and gently handcuffing her hands behind her. Sue barely seemed aware of him.
"I think that's Scott Donaldson," Chin told Steve, looking rather green around the gills, "but we'll need to wait for official confirmation from the autopsy to be sure."
"Better get a team out here," Steve suggested. He glanced briefly at the pitiful remains and noted the clothes fitted the description of what Scott Donaldson had been wearing. Swallowing down the urge to vomit as he added another to the unwanted memories, Steve allowed Chin to take charge of Sue and hurried back to where Danny was now sitting in the car, Kono crouched by his side. Danny had his eyes closed, but he opened them as Steve approached.
"Did you…?" Danny didn't complete the question but he had no need to; Steve knew what he meant.
"I got her," Steve assured his friend. He gestured behind him and Danny half-nodded. His eyes closed and Steve took the opportunity to examine Danny more closely. His friend was pale and splattered with blood and grime. He crouched down by Danny as Kono stepped aside and mouthed "Ambulance?" Kono nodded. "Danno, is any of this blood yours?" he asked gently.
"Dunno," Danny admitted. "Don't think so."
"His hands were tied with this, boss," Kono offered quietly, holding out the duct tape distastefully.
By now, Chin stood nearby with Mrs Shem, who was still crying. He apparently shared Steve's unspoken reluctance to place the woman in the car while Danny was sitting in it. Chin moved slightly to look at the younger man and Mrs Shem's eyes fell on the injured man. "You!" she cried. "It's all your fault! I thought when you brought Bill down I would get my sunshine, rainbows and happily ever after, but you killed him!" She wiped her face on her should, smearing blood everywhere. "Bill would've been all right if you'd just talked him down."
It hardly seemed possible, but Danny paled even further. He shuddered. Steve put a comforting hand on Danny's leg and squeezed supportively, noting in passing that the knees were torn out of Danny's pants. "You did what you had to do," he reminded Danny in a low voice. "Even if we had managed to talk Shem down – and you know we tried – he would never have been all right. She would never have had her sunshine, rainbows and happily ever after."
After a long moment, Danny's eyes opened again. "I know," he admitted, which was a relief to Steve – Danny could take on guilt that was not his to bear. "Besides," the injured man added, "Hawaii has lots of sunshine and rainbows. She just needs to look around."