"Gentlemen?"

Paul turned his head in the direction of the voice and saw Stephanie's doctor approaching him again, "Hello doctor uh..."

"Clarke," she clarified. "I'm going to be assigned to your wife until she's well enough to leave us, so we're going to see a lot of each other over the coming weeks. You can have a nurse send for me at any time and I'll come as soon as I can."

Weeks? Paul thought, Steph is going to be in here for weeks? Oh God. "I'm Paul and this is Vince, Stephanie's dad."

The doctor gave a small smile and Vince nodded slightly as Paul noticed again that what stood out about this woman was her brilliant blue eyes which always looked so full of compassion. He wondered how people could do a job that meant dealing with things like this every day. She interrupted his wandering mind by saying, "If you'd like to follow me you can see Stephanie now." Paul and Vince rose and followed the doctor across the waiting room towards a set of double doors as she continued, "As I said earlier she is sedated and will need to remain so for at least forty eight hours, so we're looking at a best case scenario of waking her Wednesday night, but I must stress that that is a best case. It depends on how the swelling in her brain reduces between now and then."

As they walked through the double doors they entered a long, silent hallway with doors evenly spaced along either side and once again that strong hospital smell hit Paul he asked, "But it will reduce and she will wake up, right?"

"Yes, she will wake when we reduce the sedation but you need to be aware that when she does she will be in a lot of pain despite what we are giving her and she will almost certainly be very scared and confused, so when the time comes to reduce the sedation I'll need a family member with her at all times."

"I'll be there doctor," Paul assured her. "Don't worry about that."

The doctor stopped outside a door and Paul realised that Stephanie was behind it as her name was on the little whiteboard beside the door. He couldn't see her yet as the blinds on the inside of the window next to the door were closed. All he wanted to do was see her and talk to her. He realised the doctor was half way through a sentence that he hadn't listened to so he said, "Sorry, what?"

"I said when you go in you will see that Stephanie has a lot of bandaging on her head and she's connected to a few machines and lines. Don't worry as most of it is precautionary and we can remove some of the machines soon. She's breathing unaided which is very good."

Breathing unaided is considered good? Paul thought. My God, how bad is she?"

The doctor opened the door and Paul rushed in behind her. "Can she hear me if I talk to her?"

"I don't know but I'd like to think so," Doctor Clarke smiled. "Talking to her can't do any harm."

Paul sat down next to Stephanie in the cheap plastic chair that had been placed ready for him and took her hand. It felt warm, just like it usually did. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Apart from the bandaging around her head she just looked like she was asleep. Paul felt a lump in his throat again. "Steph I'm here. I love you so much and you're going to be okay. Your dad's here too."

Vince leaned over and kissed Stephanie too. "I love you princess. Mom and Shane are on the way."

"Did you check on her for uh..." Paul voice trailed off. He couldn't bring himself to ask the doctor the question that he wanted to ask and he also found himself unable to look away from Stephanie.

The reply he heard confirmed that the doctor understood perfectly well what he was trying to ask. "Yes I did and I'm happy to say that there was no evidence of penetration and no bodily fluids."

Paul squeezed Stephanie's hand tightly as relief hit him, "She wasn't raped?"

"No Paul she wasn't. It's not my place to comment really but I'd guess that he got scared away by someone, luckily."

Seeing for himself that his daughter was alive seemed to have switched Vince back on. "They're going to catch the bastard Steph," he assured her. "Don't worry, he won't get away with doing this to you."

If he could have heard a conversation that was happening elsewhere he might have had a different opinion. The two police officers assigned to the case sat watching the only piece of CCTV footage that they had that showed anything of the outside of the arena. It was from the camera covering the exit doors into the parking lot and it showed Stephanie walking purposefully as she left the building. Officer Williams rewound the footage and watched it over again. "Come on Stephanie, where are you going?" She asked the screen.

"To get her brains bashed in," her partner chirped. "The question isn't where she's going it's who she's going out there to meet with."

"She looks pissed off to me, someone made her angry."

He laughed, "Not as angry as she made him. Definitely the husband."

Irritated that he somehow found this amusing she said, "I thought you told me not to assume things? You said not to even assume that this was a man?"

"You're right, you actually did learn something then. I already told you though, I like the husband for this."

"Why are we still on this case?" She asked, turning to look at him. "You saw how much money these people are worth, surely we should be throwing more resources into this?"

"Throwing resources into what? What have we actually got? A pool of blood in a parking lot, a phone with only one set of prints on it which are obviously going to be hers and CCTV footage of a woman walking out of a building. Hardly going to interest the FBI is it?"

"Don't forget the last call she received."

He clicked his fingers, "Right, she got a call from a number that she didn't have saved and it's the only call that number has ever made which almost certainly means that whoever was smart enough to do that also destroyed the phone straight away. Also don't forget that the hospital called and said that they had originally suspected rape but there was no fluid found, so you can forget that too."

"So what do we do?" She sighed.

"Tomorrow we talk to the family again. You found out that there's a mother and a brother, so they will most likely be there by then. Other than that if she doesn't know who did this when she wakes up we're done."

Paul had actually managed to sleep. He and Vince had taken the doctors advice and returned to their hotel. She had pointed out that they would need to be there when Stephanie awoke, not when she was sedated, so they would be best to keep up with their sleep if possible. Paul walked down the hallway towards Stephanie's room feeling a little refreshed. Be positive, he told himself, she's going to wake up tomorrow and she's going to remember me and the girls and she's going to know who the animal is that did this. Then the cops are going to catch him, lock him up and throw away the key.

The sight that greeted him as he walked into Stephanie's room surprised him. "Shane? What are you doing here this early? Where's Linda?"

Shane turned, saw Paul and then got up. He walked over to Paul and they hugged as Shane said, "I just got here. I flew in from L.A, I was on business there. Don't you remember me telling you the other day?" Actually, Paul didn't remember that but Shane had continued, "I got the earliest flight that I could. Mom will be here as soon as she can. Tell me what they've told you, I've not seen a doctor yet."

Paul ran through everything that he'd been told and then they both sat and talked to Stephanie, unsure if it was serving any purpose, but hoping that it was.

"Right, they're all in there. You talk to the brother and I'll talk to the mother. I want another crack at the husband too," Officer Henry said to his partner as he looked through the window into Stephanie's room.

The two officers walked into the room and introduced themselves to Shane and Linda. They asked them both step out of the room and Officer Williams led Shane further down the hallway so that they could talk privately. "Let's start with something simple. Where were you last night, around the time of your sisters attack?"

Shane bristled at the question but tried to answer calmly, "In my hotel room, in L.A."

"Can anyone confirm that for me sir?" She asked.

"No, I was on business. I spend a lot of nights alone in hotel rooms on business trips."

Williams raised an eyebrow, "You flew in here this morning?"

"Yes I did. I'm sure you can check that with the airline."

"We'll do that sir. Your number was the second to last to call Stephanie last night, can you tell me what you talked about?"

Shane started to lose his cool, "It's a crime to call my sister now? Are you trying to make out that I did this? Who do you..."

"Sir, calm down please. Everyone in your family will be asked the same questions. Tell me what you talked about?"

Shane tried to control himself, "Nothing really, just general chat. We hadn't talked for a few days but Steph was busy at the arena so we didn't talk for long."

"Stephanie didn't mention a disagreement with anyone or any problems at home?"

"No she didn't," Shane growled. "And what do you mean problems at home? You think Paul may have done this?"

"I don't think anything sir, I'm asking you questions is all. So, you have no idea who would want to attack your sister?"

"Of course not," Shane insisted. "Steph doesn't have enemies, everyone loves her."

"Thank you sir, you can go back to your family now."

Officer Williams saw that her partner had also finished with Linda, and was now talking to Paul instead. She waited a while for him to finish and eventually he walked over to join her. "I told you the husband," he announced smugly.

"What do you mean?"

"Conveniently he was 'looking for his wife' when she was attacked and he was doing it alone. There's also an ex girlfriend we need to have questioned but I'm telling you it was this guy."

Officer Williams had been putting together a theory of her own and she asked, "How long does it take to drive from here to L.A?"

"What?" He looked at her quizzically.

"You heard. How long?"

He thought about it for a moment, "Five, six hours maybe. Why?"

"Interesting," was all he got in reply.

Stephanie's attacker was aware of her condition but then so was anyone else who cared to find out as Vince had pulled himself together enough to have a message put on WWE's website and consequently the story was now on the TV news channels too.

Her condition isn't life threatening, she's going to wake up! God damn it! She's going to remember what happened! All you had to do was listen to my side of the story you stupid, stupid bitch!