Sabrina strode through the hospital lobby and, after a brief moment of indecisive pacing, headed towards the front desk. There was an older woman sitting behind it, busily worrying over the pages of some kind of typed correspondence, her brows knitted in concentration behind her thick bifocal frames. Realizing after a second or two that the old woman wasn't going to notice her, Sabrina gently cleared her throat. She hated to interrupt, but she was on a time limit.

The old woman jumped and looked around, blinking as if she'd come out of a trance, until her watery blue eyes locked on Sabrina leaning over the counter.

She smiled at her and folded her gnarled hands in front of her on the counter. "Yes, dear?" the old woman greeted her.

Sabrina smiled politely. "Hi! Hi, there. Listen, I hate to bother you, but would you happen to have a phone book I could borrow for a second?"

The old woman's face lit up. "Why, yes I do!" she said, and then spun around in her chair to start rooting through the drawers of her desk. Sabrina waited patiently for what felt like forever before the woman popped back up and handed her a thick Los Angeles area phone book. She accepted it with whispered thanks and then hurried off to the nearest chair she could find.

Twenty tedious minutes later, Sabrina had put together a list of eleven different surveying companies in the Los Angeles area and their accompanying phone numbers. She rubbed her tired eyes and then, on a whim, flipped through the book once more, this time jotting down all of the names and numbers of the eight different Stones listed within its pages. It was doubtful Irene Stone called Los Angeles her home, but with little else to go on while she waited for some information from Bosley, it seemed longshots were the only kind of shots she had.

The list completed, she shut the book, tapping its surface thoughtfully with her pencil and committing the next several minutes to thinking hard about any other use the book could be to her and their case before grudgingly admitting to herself that there was truly was nothing else. Deciding she had enough to keep her busy for now anyway, she tucked the notepad under her arm, returned the phone book and, both because she needed privacy and she was out of pocket change, hurried outside to her car.

Luckily for her, Max had managed to find a parking spot not too far away from the emergency room exit and she was able to spot her car without wasting any time at all. The familiar orange Pinto in sight, Sabrina broke into a light jog across the parking lot and hurriedly keyed open the door and climbed inside.

It was mid-afternoon now and the interior of the Pinto was very warm. Sabrina settled back in her seat for a moment, enjoying the momentary seclusion and warmth after being stuck inside the chilly hospital all day. Something felt off though. Sabrina struggled a few seconds more to get comfortable before realizing that Max had adjusted the seat to his height. She fussed over the seat adjustments before finally, settling back comfortably in her car.

The peace and quiet was most welcome and the urge to fall asleep right here and now was suddenly overwhelming. Later, though. She had work to do. Yawning, Sabrina dug out the note pad she'd scribbled the phone numbers, switched on her mobile phone and pulled the receiver to her cheek.

Over an hour later, a disappointed and frustrated Sabrina laid her mobile phone back down in its cradle and slumped back into her seat, the list of numbers crumpled dejectedly in one hand. She'd called each and every one of the eleven surveying companies in the Los Angeles area, dealt with customer service ranging from awful to excellent, and had come to the decision that while the companies themselves may all be different, they did have one thing in common: Not one of the eleven companies she'd contacted had an employee by either the first or last name of Gunther on their payrolls.

It wasn't a surprise that the man had lied to her friends, but his lie opened up a whole other can of worms. Was he lying to impress Jill, who had no doubt been flirting with him? To harmlessly evade? Or was he a part of all of this?

Sabrina mulled over a few scenarios in her head and decided that, whoever this Gunther character was, she needed to know more about him. And Irene Stone.

Especially Irene Stone.

Just as she'd thought, the Stones listed in the book hadn't been useful either. Whoever Irene Stone was, if that was even her real name, she wasn't a local.

Again, not a surprise.

Sabrina had just decided to speak to the operator and obtain the phone numbers of every Stone in the Bay Area when her mobile phone rang. Hoping it was Bosley with some real information to go on, she hurriedly snatched it up.

"Bos?" she greeted hopefully.

The loud hacking on the other line wasn't much of an answer but it confirmed her guess just the same. She waited patiently for Bosley to control his coughing fit, reminding herself that she, Kelly, and Jill really needed to do something nice for him after this was all over.

"Sabrina. Sorry." Bosley gasped finally. "Got a little something for you."

"Good. That's a little something more than I have right now."

She heard paperwork shuffling about as Bosley dug through something on his desk. "I found a few Irene Stones around the Bridge Grove area, but I think one of these might be our girl. I've got an Irene Fleischer Stone, age fifty eight, last known address in Oakland and get this…"

"What?" Sabrina answered eagerly.

"She worked at Alameda Hospital in Oakland from 68' up until the middle of last year." Bosley continued, his tone excited even through its stuffiness. "She was a registered nurse and-"

"Was?"

"Yeah, was. That's what I thought too. Charlie got ahold of her police record and it seems she had her license revoked-"

Sabrina felt a mixture of excitement and nausea churn her stomach. "Revoked? Why?" she asked quickly.

Bosley sniffled indignantly. "If you'll let me finish, I'll tell you." he huffed. "She had her license revoked for stealing medical supplies. She'd been doing it quite awhile. None of the supplies were ever recovered."

"Wow." Sabrina muttered after taking a moment to process. "Sounds like we've got our girl. Did she do any time?"

She had to wait nearly a minute for her answer while Bosley suffered another bout of congested sounding coughing on the other line. When he finally came back, there was even more excitement in his gravelly voice. "No, this is the best part. She was released on bond and just vanished before they could get her to trial. No one's seen her since."

Sabrina's brows raised in disbelief. "Well, I bet we've got a couple of hitchhikers up there that will disagree to that fact. Do you have a picture of her?"

"Do I have a picture of her?" Bosley echoed piteously. "Of course I do. Swing by, Charlie sent us one. You can show the girls and have them confirm if it's her."

"You're a lifesaver, Bos."

"I know it."

Chuckling to herself, Sabrina keyed her Pinto's engine to life, threw it into gear with her free hand and began navigating her way out of the parking lot. "I'll be right over but listen, I've got a pretty good feeling about this. Dig up anything you can on her. Maybe we can find the rest of those creeps through her. "

"Uh huh. Way ahead of you." Came Bosley's reply. He cleared his throat and Sabrina knew instantly what he was going to say. "So, you figure out what Jill and Kelly were keeping from us?"

Sabrina felt her face redden. Of course he'd noticed their strange behavior, he was no idiot. "Oh, so you noticed, huh?"

"I noticed."

"Then… boy, do I have a story for you when I get there."

Bosley groaned. "Can't wait. See you soon. Be careful."

"Will do." Sabrina answered wearily. "Bye, Bos." She hung up the phone and devoted both hands to steering her car out of the parking lot and into the ever increasing mid-afternoon traffic. It wasn't as bad as rush hour but it would still take over twenty minutes to get to the office. Which was just as well, because it would probably take about that much time to figure out just what kind of story to present to Bosley when she got there.

Kelly stared quietly at the ceiling in her and Jill's shared room. It was quiet in the room, so quiet she could hear the bustle of activity in the hallway and smatterings of conversation between the two officers stationed just outside the door. She shifted uncomfortably in bed and the squeaking of the thin mattress seemed very loud in her ears.

Guiltily, Kelly let her eyes drift over to where Jill was laying. Her blonde friend's jaw was still set angrily, her eyes staring moodily in front of her and, not wanting another sample of Jill's rarely exposed temper, decided not to make another attempt at conversation.

She deserved every bit of Jill's foul mood, she knew she did. Jill and Sabrina both had been her biggest source of support during both the breakup with Alan and the subsequent discovery of her pregnancy. And instead of letting them know what a horrible person she was, she'd chosen to lie and make Alan the horrible one, to sweep away the details as she usually did and to pretend avoidance would fix all her problems.

Well that had worked out just great for everyone, Kelly thought glumly. How could she have been stupid enough to think she and Alan would never again cross paths? Not only had it blown up in her face, but it had done so in front of him, Max, Sabrina and Kris. And it was only a matter of time before the situation was made even worse.

It was a mixed blessing when the conversation outside stalled a bit and the door squeaked softly open, interrupting Kelly from her troubling thoughts. A brief respite from Jill's betrayed anger would have been most welcome had her rescuers not been Kris and Max.

Kelly, muttering under her breath, sat herself up as her little blonde friend poked her head into the room, Max crowded right behind her. At least Kris's presence might perk up Jill's mood, Kelly hoped.

"Knock, knock." Kris called timidly into the room, looking around as if she wasn't sure she was allowed inside.

Her behavior was a little confusing and Kelly would have questioned it with amusement had her earlier guess not proved immediately correct.

"Kris?" Jill's excited voice called out from her bed.

"Jill! You're awake!" Kris squealed back in delight. Leaving Max to catch the door, the younger Munroe skipped over to her sister and threw her arms around her in an overjoyed hug.

"What are you doing here?" Jill laughed, squirming out of her little sister's grip.

Kris looked immediately guilty as she pulled away. "I… uh- Max called me. Said you and Kelly had been in an accident so I rushed right over."

"Oh." Jill replied, giving her sister a curious look. "You didn't have to do that. We're okay. What about school? Are you gonna get in trouble for ditching?"

"No." Kris said quickly, her smile returning. "No, one of my friends is taking notes for me, it'll be fine. I've never had an absence this whole semester. A day or two isn't going to kill me."

Jill stared at her for a moment, obviously alerted to the fact that something was amiss, but decided not to comment on it. "Well, if you're sure." She said doubtfully. "When did you get in?"

Kris grinned at her, shooting Kelly and Max, who had wandered over and seated himself beside Kelly's bed, a pleading look. "A little while ago. Bill was here so me and Max made ourselves scarce for that, didn't we Max?" He gave a mumbled affirmative as she plopped herself down on Jill's bed. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay, I promise." Jill replied slowly, the look on her face one that made Kris start to sweat. "Just a little out of it." She fixed Kelly with a glare. "Kelly's fine too. We're both fine. And the baby. The baby is fine too."

"I'm glad." Kris started. The younger blonde smiled sympathetically at Kelly. She'd been the recipient before of that same withering glare she'd just seen Jill shoot Kelly and she had a pretty good idea of what was earning Kelly her sister's wrath. No good bringing it up though, that was for them to sort out. She patted her sister's arm. "It's good to see you awake. All this…" She wrinkled her nose. "-stuff you're hooked up to had me a little worried."

Jill scoffed. "Please. I'm indestructible."

While the Munroe's giggled with each other, Max had settled himself uncomfortably on the chair beside Kelly's bed and, instead of talking to her, had instead chosen to become extremely interested in what Jill and Kris were doing across the room. Kelly did the same until the tension was simply too much for her to bear.

"Good thing she got a change of clothes." Kelly whispered awkwardly.

Her acknowledgment had the young man flustered. "Oh… yeah. We got lucky. There were some of Jill's clothes in a bag in Sabrina's trunk."

Kelly nodded. "Yeah. We do that. Keep clothes in each other's cars. You know, in case of emergency."

"Good thing."

For the first time since they'd arrived, Max saw Kelly regard him with something other than annoyance. "I'm sorry you're stuck here."

"Hmm? Oh, it's not a problem."

"You don't have to be, you know. No one would blame you if you called your brother to come pick you up. Really, we wouldn't mind. You can use our phone."

Max chuckled nervously. Judging by the sincere look on her face, Kelly really did feel guilty and wasn't just trying to get rid of him. He hoped.

"No, I mean… what else am I gonna do?" Max joked. He eyed Kelly nervously and was relieved when her lips curled into a soft smile. Seeing it made his heart swell. Kelly's smile. If she only knew what he'd do to see her smile like that, to make her smile. Her seemingly good mood lifted his spirits for a brief moment and then, to his dismay, she turned her head and fell silent again. Max thought for a moment, toyed with the idea of bringing up Alan, then decided he didn't want to know and joined in Kelly's silence.

They watched the sisters catch up a little bit longer before Kris finally decided to move into the chair. Hiding her grimace of pain from Jill, she carefully lowered herself onto her sore leg and took a seat on the bedside chair, inadvertently causing a crumpled wad of paper to roll off of the chair and onto the floor by her feet.

"Such a slob, Jill." Kris teased, bending down to pick it up. On its way to being tossed into the trashcan, something about the loosely crumpled wad of paper piqued her interest. Instead of letting it fly, she instead opened it up and spread it out in her lap, revealing the crude symbol Kelly had sketched out earlier. "What's this? You giving art lessons?"

Jill, unaware that Kris was just as involved as they were, sent a warning glance over at Kelly before grabbing it out of her sister's hands. "It's nothing. Kelly drew it."

"I can tell." Kris giggled.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kelly piped up.

Kris grinned at her. "Nothing. Just that… you know-"

"You're a lousy artist." Jill finished for her.

Kelly only shrugged. She did have a point. "Yeah, well. Among other things, huh?"

"Hey, lemme see that. That looks familiar." Kris said suddenly, reaching for the wrinkled sheet of paper. "That's weird, Where did you see this? I saw something like this earlier."

Jill gave a derisive little laugh. "Trust me. You didn't."

"No, I did." Kris insisted. "Last night. On someone's shirt."

Kelly sat up suddenly, looking somewhat alarmed. "Whose shirt, Kris?"

"What? Why?"

"You really saw that logo?" Jill interrupted excitedly. "Like in San Francisco? Where was it? Was it a company logo?" She turned to Kelly excitedly. "Kelly, maybe we can track down that guy that picked us up!"

All the attention her sister and friend were suddenly giving her had Kris alarmed as well. "Why? What's the big deal?" she asked nervously.

"Are you sure you saw that exact symbol?" Kelly asked, ignoring her question and puzzling Jill by not sharing in her excitement.

Kris stared at the drawing on her lap and frowned. "Well, mostly-" she answered hesitantly. She grabbed up a pencil from the table by Jill's bed and sketched out a much more precise drawing beside Kelly's crude one. "It looked more like that though."

Across the room, Kelly felt the blood drain from her face. "More like what, Kris? Show me."

Jill laughed, trying and failing to make sense of this situation. "Kelly, what's with you? What's going on?"

But no one was looking at her anymore. Kris's worried blue eyes were now fixed on Kelly. "I have seen this before." Kris said slowly. "Why did you draw it?"

"Where did you see it?" Kelly asked quickly.

Exasperated with the fact that she'd get none of her questions answered until she'd answered all of Kelly's, Kris hurried over to her with the sheet of paper, leaning over Max to spread it out on Kelly's stomach. "When I was on my way to the hospital." Her eyes widened in horror and she shot Jill a guilty look. But, she quickly realized, by the sheerest of dumb luck, her careless flub had revealed nothing. "Sorry, Jill. It's just that Max told me that you guys had been in an accident so… I stopped to get gas on the way to L.A. and I saw a guy there with this logo-" She tapped a finger on the upper left side of her chest to indicate its placement. "-right here on his shirt."

"A guy." Kelly echoed dumbly, meeting Jill's gaze. "A guy with that logo on his shirt, Jill."

Jill didn't need it to be broken down for her. "What did he look like?" she asked urgently.

Kris shrugged. "Bout Max's height. Blonde hair. Beard. Kinda cute."

"Did you see what he was driving?"

"Yeah. A white pickup truck." Came Kris's nervous reply. "Why? What's wrong?"

Jill and Kelly exchanged a worried look and the tension in the room became so suffocating that Max was compelled to break his silence.

"What is wrong?" he asked, now a bit nervous himself.

"Plenty is wrong." Kelly muttered back. "Did you talk to him, Kris?"

"Well, yeah. I had just found your car and I was looking around and he pulls up and asks if I need a ride. I guess he couldn't see my car in the dark. Anyway, I-"

"What? Kelly's car?" Jill suddenly cut in. "You said you were at a gas station."

Kris could have kicked herself. "I… I was." She muttered feebly.

Jill pushed herself up in bed, her features angry and scared. "No, no, no. No one else is going to lie to me today. Were you at the gas station or at Kelly's car cause I was there when it wrecked and if it was right in front of a fucking gas station, then we wouldn't be in a hospital right now!"

Kris started to reply and then came up short.

"Just tell her, Kris." Kelly sighed.

"Tell me what?!"

A few beats went by and finally Kelly gave in to the pleading look on her younger friend's face. "Sabrina and Max came looking for us after you called. Bri called Kris because Kris could get there quicker-"

Jill looked horrified. "What?!" she cried. "She called Kris- Max, you let Sabrina call my sister to go looking for me?!"

The sudden acknowledgment made Max's face go pale. "Whoa, no, I did- I mean she didn't exactly ask my permission."

"I can't believe you two!" Jill carried on.

Max looked indignant. Kelly might have him tongue tied but his old friend certainly did not. "What?! We were hours away and Kris was so much closer and-"

"She was all by herself, Max! What if something had happened to her?!"

"Something was already happening to you!"

"I'm not a little kid, Jill!" Kris's voice cut in.

"Can we do this later?!"

Max, Jill, and Kris's arguing paused to stare mutely at Kelly, who had finally run out of patience listening to them bicker. There were more important matters to tend to and it was mind blowing how quickly their collective attention had managed to shift onto something so trivial in the midst of their newest revelation. "Kris, can you please answer my question? What did he say?" Kelly repeated wearily.

Kris tore her eyes away from her sister. Later. "He wanted to give me a ride and then he got closer and I guess he either saw my car or my uni-…versity tag, and he acted real nervous, like he couldn't get out of there quick enough."

"Jill, that has to be the same guy that drove us to the hospital." Kelly said quickly. "He picked us up by the car and said he was headed back to L.A.. What was he doing back there?"

Kris cocked her head. "He did? When I asked him if he knew where the hospital was, he said there wasn't one. He also didn't mention picking up anybody by your car. He acted like he thought it must have been mine."

There was a beat of silence before Kelly reached over and gave Max a gentle tap on the arm. "Max," she started slowly. "Hand me the phone, please."