Laurie glared at the nurse, whose attitude she couldn't fathom.

She blanched when she caught sight of the woman's nametag: Jasmine Rakoczi. Despite the drugs still in her system, Laurie remembered it instantly as one of the names on Roger's list of people who had transferred from the night shift at St. Francis to the night shift of the Manhattan General!

"What's the matter?" Jazz questioned as she lowered the guardrail on the appropriate side. She couldn't help but notice Laurie's startled reaction. "Something amiss?"

Without waiting for an answer, Jazz pushed Laurie alongside the hospital bed. She grabbed the top edge of Laurie's blanket and whipped it off with a flick of her wrist, catching Laurie by surprise and exposing her to the world. She was clad only in a hospital Johnny, with her bare knees, lower legs, and feet sticking out. A bulge over the right lower part of her abdomen covered the dressing applied to her incision, and a surgical drain snaked out from under the edge of the gown and entered a plastic device that maintained a negative pressure. A streaking of blood was evident within the tubing.

"Okay," Jazz said dispassionately. "Scoot over there, and we'll get you nice and comfortable." She then went to the head of the bed and transferred Laurie's IV bottle to the pole on the hospital bed.

Laurie didn't move. The panic she'd felt from being taken from the PACU had ratcheted up a notch after seeing Jazz's nametag. She was paralyzed with fear. For all she knew, Jazz could be the serial killer.

"Come on, sister," Jazz said. She stepped back around to Laurie's side and looked down at her. "Let's move your butt over onto the bed."

Laurie stared back with the most defiant look she could manage. It was all she could think of doing.

"If you want to be uncooperative, I'll have to get Elizabeth down here, and we'll move you one way or the other. This isn't a negotiation."

"I want to speak to the charge nurse," Laurie blurted.

"Well, isn't that convenient," Jazz laughed. "You're already talking to her. I am the charge nurse. At least the acting charge nurse, which is the same thing."

Laurie's sense of desperation went up yet another notch. She felt progressively snared in a treacherous web of terrifying circumstance.

"Now, why don't you want to move?" Jazz questioned with obvious frustration. She extended her hand over Laurie to point out the room's amenities. "Check out that comfortable bed with all its controls. You can crank yourself into just about every position you can imagine and then some. You've got a TV, a pitcher for water with no water since you're still NPO, a call button for us slaves… all the comforts of home. What else can you ask for?"

Laurie's eyes involuntarily took in what Jazz described and did a double take. Sitting on the nightstand was a telephone! She questioned why she had not thought about it until that second. The orderly had even mentioned it. It would be her lifeline. Gritting her teeth, Laurie rose up on her elbows and began moving her backside over toward the hospital bed. Then she repositioned her legs and repeated the maneuver, inching herself across the divide.

"Very good," Jazz said. "I see you've decided to be cooperative. I'm pleased for both of us."

As soon as Laurie was in the hospital bed, Jazz moved across the suction device for Laurie's drain. She pulled up the cover that had been positioned across the foot of the bed and let it settle across Laurie's chest. She then took Laurie's blood pressure and pulse. As she did this, Laurie watched her intently. Jazz avoided eye contact.

"Okay," Jazz said, finally making eye contact as she lifted up the guardrail with a jolt. "Everything seems in order other than your pulse is a little on the high side. I'll mosey on back to the desk and go over your orders. I'm sure you have something ordered for pain on an as-needed basis. Are you in need, or are you fine at the moment?"

Laurie was amazed at the lack of normal human warmth in Jazz's voice and actions. Ostensibly, there wasn't anything specific that Laurie could complain about other than her requests being ignored, yet there was a worrisome detachment that seemed incredibly out of place, and as such, it added to her already considerable unease. There was something definitely strange about Jasmine Rakoczi.

"Cat got your tongue?" Jazz questioned with a wry smile. She spread her hands waist-height. "That's okay with me. You don't have to talk if you don't want to. Frankly, it makes my job that much easier if you don't. But if you change your mind, you've got your call button. Of course, when you get around to pressing it, I might be involved with someone a bit more communicative."

With a final smile that Laurie interpreted as brazenly indifferent, Jazz walked out of the room.

Being careful not to move too quickly, Laurie reached out over the bed's side rail and lifted the phone. The effort required her to tighten her abdominal muscles, which caused significant discomfort. Gritting her teeth in the face of the pain, she managed to move the phone from the night table to the bed. She put it next to her, and then struggled to remember Jack's cell phone number in the face of her anxiety and the drugs she'd had. It took her a moment, but then it reassuringly popped into her mind. She then snatched up the phone receiver and put it to her ear.

Laurie's heart skipped a beat. There was no dial tone! Frantically, she pressed the disconnect button, hoping for the familiar sound. There was nothing. The phone was dead. Just as frantically, she grabbed the nurse's call button and pressed it, not once but several times in a row.

Although getting an attending's opinion on Sobczyk's short segment of EKG tracing seemed like a great idea, Jack hadn't factored in the attending's availability. When Jack and Shirley got back to the cath room, Jack found out that Dr. Henry Wo was in the middle of his catheterization. Jack was forced to resort to additional caffeine-driven pacing in the corridor, punctuated by frequent glances at his watch. Shirley stood by stoically. If she was aware of Jack's restless agitation, she didn't mention it.

It wasn't until almost three A.M. that Henry came out of the room, snapped off his latex gloves, and removed his mask. He was a rotund Asian man with flawless skin and dark, closely cropped hair. He snapped up Jack's hand and pumped it enthusiastically as Shirley introduced them. Shirley mentioned the quandary about the short EKG segment, and Jack handed over the page from Sobczyk's chart with the tracing attached.

"I see, I see," Henry said, nodding his head and smiling as he glanced at the EGK strip. "Very interesting. Is this all we have?"

"I'm afraid so," Jack said. He recounted the brief story, as he knew it, concerning the failed resuscitation attempt. He added why he thought that even a guess on their part might be helpful.

"It's dangerous to say too much with so little," Henry said while again studying the tracing. He then looked up at Shirley. "Dr. Mayrand, perhaps you could tell us what you were thinking?"

Shirley reiterated what she had said to Jack about the various waves, intervals, and complexes while Henry continued to nod. When Shirley had finished, Henry asked her if she had any idea of what might have accounted for such alterations.

"The conduction system seems to be failing," Shirley said. "Perhaps that means the sodium pumps within the cells of the bundle of His are not functioning or perhaps overwhelmed, resulting in a deleterious alteration in membrane potentials."

Jack again gritted his teeth. He had a sudden urge to throw a tantrum. Shirley's short monologue painfully reminded him of the academic gibberish he'd endured in medical school. In the grip of coffee-enhanced anxiety, Jack had little tolerance for such didactic mumbo jumbo and was about to make his impatience known when Henry took the words out of his mouth.