"Father Jimmy?"

"Yes. She spoke to him on the phone just after Janet left, then told us he'd be paying her a visit."

He didn't know what to make of that. Probably shouldn't even try to read anything into it. The kid could simply be frightened. No surprise there either, considering all she'd just been through, And since she and Jimmy were friends, it would be only natural she call him.

Still, he didn't exactly trust Jimmy these days. And come to think of it, he could be considered someone who saw a lot of her at work. Maybe Janet's suspicion of his being secretly in love with J.S. hadn't been off the mark. But then he saw a lot of everyone in ER, constantly dropping by the way he did.

"Did you want to know anything else, Dr. Garnet?" the nurse said, pulling him out of his thoughts.

"No. Just keep a close eye on her."

He cut the connection, got up, and began to pace, unable to sit still any longer.

"Can I go now?" he asked Detective Lazar.

"We need your prints," she said. "It won't be long."

11:15 p.m.

Jane Simmons started awake. Her nurse must have turned off the night-light because she found herself in darkness. It took a few seconds to realize someone stood in the shadows at the end of the bed.

"Jimmy?" she whispered.

"Hey, J.S.," he answered, very softly. "Sorry to be so late, but I had business to take care of. And I was just going to leave. You obviously need to sleep."

"Come here." She held out her hand to him. "What I need is that we talk."

He came out of the shadow and sat on the side of the bed. She could see his face in the green glow from her monitors. His hair looked shiny, as if recently wet. But the unnatural color of the illumination highlighted every fold and hollow above his mask, rendering him gaunt, and the laugh lines around his eyes, normally so ready to deepen with his smile, splayed toward his temples like claws.

"Oh, no." The words escaped her as involuntary and inaudible as a sharply drawn breath. In that instant she knew that disaster had struck and somehow this mess involved him. Simultaneous flashes of pity, sorrow, fear, and love packed themselves into a single heartbeat, and a plummeting sensation filled her chest. The reflex to help him came as natural as her urge to put her arms around him, even without knowing what he'd done, or why. That she could learn later. For now it felt right just to reach up and pull him toward her, the instinct to protect him overwhelming all other emotions. "Have you told anyone?" she asked, not sure where even that rudimentary piece of information would lead. Whether he had or not, she'd no idea what to do. Absently she noticed the dampness of his shirt under her palms.

At first he widened his eyes in a feeble pretense of not knowing what she meant. "Told anyone what-"

"Don't lie to me, Jimmy. It's too late for that."

His eyes sank back into their hollows. "No," he said, his voice barely audible. "But how did you guess-"

She silenced him with a finger to his lips.

In Grand Forks she'd hung out with her share of bad boys. It complemented her choice to dress and act hard. Some, she had heard over the years, had gone on to be bad men. Some had fared better, especially the ones who hadn't gotten caught. She'd helped a few of them in that regard, taking charge when they'd been scared shitless of being picked up for this or that petty larceny, helping them forge an ironclad story, even claiming to have been with one or two of them when she hadn't.

So she'd had some practice in getting men out of trouble. And in forcing them to level with her. "No, you won't lie to me, or no, you haven't told anybody about whatever mess it is you're in?" Even in a whisper, her question sounded more like a command.

He took a breath, then let it escape slowly from his pursed lips. It sounded as if he were deflating. "The latter."

She felt a glimmer of relief. There would be time. She'd hear the details of what he'd done, then they could decide on a plan.

Never once did she think to be afraid of him.

Chapter 17

Rain pelted on metal.

Her head hurt.

She also heard the rush of running water.

Cold seeped through her, insinuating itself deep into her bones, and icy liquid crept up her chest.

Her eyes flew open.

But everything remained black.

She couldn't remember what had happened.

Then a contraction seized her belly and cut her in two.

Oh, my God, I'm in labor.

Janet doubled over with a cry, vaguely aware she lay on her side in a cramped space with a hard irregular surface. Where am I? How did I get here? Why can't I see? But the brutal agony in her belly cut off all her questions.

She couldn't breathe, not even scream. The pain smothered her, shrank her world until all she sensed were the impossible forces at work in her womb.

My baby, she thought, forcing herself to count off the seconds, to think rationally, to mentally catalog the primitive thrust of the uterine muscles into their physiological stages, as if her ability to name what racked her could exert mastery over its hold, deaden its grip, and break its power. After a full minute, the contraction released, dropping her back into the darkness and cold, as flickers of memory tried to tell what had happened.

A crash?

And Thomas!

Where was he?

They'd been in her car together, coming back from St. Paul's.

He'd offered to drive again, promised to go much slower this time, and apologized for speeding on the trip in. "Finding J.S.'s name in the cluster search really shook me," she remembered him saying.

But the recollection remained shrouded in a haze, and her thinking came in slow, disjointed fragments. She couldn't see the time on her watch or even tell if it still worked. How long had she been in labor, let alone unconscious?

She tried to feel around her. Her hands found knobs and dials that felt like parts in the dashboard of her car, but twisted, and arranged vertically, as if tipped sideways. Everywhere were fragments of broken glass spread thick as confetti.

And water. She lay in half a foot of it.

Her brain continued to work at half speed.

Obviously they'd crashed.

But where?

She recalled pulling out from the parking lot. The rain had seemed less, but a few blocks away they found parts of the downtown core to be in complete darkness, including the expressway. The beam of their headlights barely penetrated the murk.

The storm must have come back at full force, she thought, judging by the constant din on whatever remained of her car. But water also seemed to be gushing around her. If only she could see.

"Thomas!"

No answer.

What had happened to him?

She felt above her to where the driver's seat should be. Free ends of a seat belt trailed toward her, and her fingers found the gearshift, the leather upholstery, but no Thomas.

Had he been thrown clear?

"Thomas!" She screamed louder then before.

Even if he was conscious and able to hear, the roar from the storm and whatever that rushing water might be would drown her out.

She tried to move her legs. Sore yet functional, though cramped in the crumpled shell of her car. By now she'd realized it had rolled on its side, but not all the way over. Otherwise she would have been crushed or had her neck broken, the windshield and flimsy convertible top offering no protection to a car flipped upside down. And she hadn't been able to buckle up. God, she could easily have died.

And the baby. God, what had happened to her baby? If her stomach had hit the dashboard or been compressed by the rollover, he might be injured. Reflexively she palpated her own abdomen. It hurt only slightly, not nearly as much as her head, and had no focal areas of tenderness that might mean contusions or damage to the fetus. But she had to find help, make it to a hospital where they could monitor him, check him with ultrasound, get him safely out and treat any injuries to him. A month premature, he'd need special care anyway.