As quickly as the scuffle started, it ended. Stephen's eyes rolled up inside his head, and his body went limp, his head flopping onto his chest.

Jazz detached herself. She was furious. "You bastard!" she murmured through clenched teeth. She checked her arm. Several of the scratches were bleeding. She felt like punching the guy, but she held herself in check since she knew the guy was already dead. She snatched up the syringe and then got down on her hands and knees to find the damn needle cap that she'd been holding in her teeth and had dropped when she'd cried out. She quickly gave up. Instead, she merely bent the needle around 180° before putting the empty syringe back in her jacket pocket. She couldn't believe what had happened. Since she had started dispatching patients, this was the first one to pull off such a stunt.

After slowing the IV back to where it was when she'd first come in and replacing her stethoscope around her neck, Jazz quickly went to the door. She glanced up and down the corridor. Thankfully, apparently no one had heard Stephen's cry, since the corridor remained as quiet as a morgue. She gingerly straightened the sleeve of her jacket over the scratches on her forearm, glanced back once more at Stephen to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything, then stepped out into the hallway.

Wasting no time, she retraced her steps back to the fire door. Once on the other side she leaned her back up against the door. She was a bit unnerved by the unexpected complication, but she quickly collected herself. She reasoned that she had to expect problems once in a while, despite her planning. She then examined her forearm in the better light. She had three gouges on the volar surface of her forearm from Stephen's nails, with trailing linear scratches about three inches long extending down toward her wrist. Two of them were oozing blood. She shook her head, thinking that Stephen certainly had it coming to him.

Jazz warily replaced her sleeve and checked her watch. It was three-twenty, and she had one more sanction to accomplish. She knew it was an opportune time, because the nurse assigned to Rowena was on break with her and wouldn't be back for another ten minutes. But she couldn't dillydally. Walking rapidly, Jazz returned to the main elevators and went back up to her floor.

There was only one person at the nurses' station. It was Charlotte Baker, a pixieish nurse's aide. She was busy writing nurse's notes. Jazz glanced in the utility room and the drug room, the Dutch door of which was open on the top. Both were empty.

"Where's our fearless leader?" Jazz questioned. She looked down the corridor in both directions. She didn't see anyone.

"I believe Ms. Chapman is down in room 602, helping with a catheterization," Charlotte said without looking up. "But I'm not entirely sure. I've been holding down the fort here for fifteen minutes or so."

Jazz nodded and looked down toward 602. That room was situated in the opposite direction from Rowena's room. Sensing that the time would not get any better, she pushed away from the counter that overlooked the nurses' station, made sure Charlotte was not paying her any attention, and headed toward 617. Once again, her pulse quickened as she anticipated action, only this time the thrill was tinged with anxiety after her experience with Stephen Lewis. A mild ache from the scratches on her forearm was a reminder that she couldn't control all the variables.

A patient caught a glimpse of Jazz as she hurried past his door, and he called out to her, but she ignored it. Checking her watch, she figured she had six minutes before anyone was scheduled to return from their lunch break, including the nurse assigned to Rowena, but since no one was ever early, she had a bit of a buffer. Six minutes was plenty of time.

The stage was similar to what she'd found in Stephen's room, but without the carpet, fancy drapes, upholstered furniture, and fine art, and the only light was a nightlight. The bathroom door was ajar, but the lights were off. Rowena Sobczyk was asleep in the bed with both feet bandaged from a bilateral hallux valgus repair. She was on her back and snoring slightly. Jazz looked down at the woman. Although she was twenty-six, she appeared much younger, with tiny features and a mop of dark, unruly hair splayed out against the white pillow.

Jazz opened the IV to run freely, then bent over to check for any swelling. There was none, so all was set. She pulled out the full syringe and, holding it in her right hand, lifted the IV port with her left. Just as she'd done in Stephen's room, she used her teeth to remove the needle cap. Immediately, she inserted the needle into the port and then repositioned her hand with her thumb over the syringe's plunger. After taking a breath and holding it, she smoothly depressed the plunger.

Rowena stirred, writhing her upper body. Jazz removed the syringe, and as she did so, she heard footsteps out in the hall on the composite flooring. Her intuition immediately flashed a warning as the sound of the footfalls made her think of Susan's clodhopper nursing shoes. She glanced briefly at the half-open door to the hall, then back at Rowena, who was now clutching at her arm with the IV and making gurgling noises.

In a panic, Jazz dropped both the syringe and the needle cap into her pocket and backed up from the patient. For a second, she thought about hiding in the bathroom in case Susan heard the noises, but then discarded the idea as it might make a bad situation worse. Instead, she started for the door, thinking the best defense was offense.

Confirming her worst fears, Jazz literally ran into Susan coming into the room just after Susan had stepped over the threshold.

Susan took a step back, acting indignant and looking up at Jazz with the same challenging expression she had had earlier. " Charlotte said you'd come down here. What the hell are you doing? This is June's patient."

"I was passing in the hall, and she called out."

Susan bent around Jazz, who was trying to fill the doorway, and squinted into the half-light of the room. "What was the matter?"

"I guess she was dreaming?"

"She looks like she is moving around. And the IV is running full tilt!"

"Really?" Jazz questioned. Susan pushed by, forcing Jazz to step aside.

Susan slowed down the IV as she bent over Rowena. "My God," she said. Then, turning to Jazz, she shouted: "Hit the lights! We've got a code here!"

Jazz did as she was told while Susan sounded the alarm. Susan then directed Jazz to help get the opposite-side bed rails down. Seconds later, the code was announced over the hospital PA system.

"She's got a thready pulse, or she did!" Susan barked. She had her fingers pressed into Rowena's neck to feel her carotid artery. She let go and climbed up to kneel on the bed. "We've got to start CPR. You breathe, and I'll do the compressions."

With great reluctance, Jazz pinched Rowena's nostrils shut and placed her mouth over Rowena's. She blew in and inflated the lungs. There was little resistance, suggesting to her that the patient was essentially flaccid. She was the only one who knew that at this stage, trying to resuscitate Rowena was a joke.

Charlotte and another nurse named Harriet arrived and managed to get an EKG hooked up and going. Susan was continuing the compressions, and Jazz, for appearances' sake, continued with the breathing.

"We have some electrical activity," Harriet said. "But it looks like strange complexes to me."

At that point, the resident cardiopulmonary resuscitation team arrived and quickly took over. Jazz was pushed to the side as Rowena was expertly intubated and started on pure oxygen. Drug orders were barked out, and the drugs were given. Arterial blood was drawn and sent off to the lab for a stat report on blood gases. The strange complexes as noted by Harriet at the outset had quickly disappeared. The EKG traced a straight line, and the residents began to lose their enthusiasm. Rowena wasn't responding to anything.