Getting off on the fifth floor, Laurie walked quickly down to her office. The door was ajar. Riva was there but on the phone. Laurie hung up her coat and sat down. Centered on her blotter were a series of Post-it notes in Riva's crisp handwriting. Three said merely "Jack came in." Two said "Calvin came in," followed by several exclamation points. The final one said to call Cheryl Meyers.

Hastily, Laurie opened the drawer where she kept the material from her potential serial-killer series and pulled out the McGillin and Morgan folders. From each she took the partially completed death certificates, then reached for a pen. The first certificate was McGillin's, and she positioned the pen over the place on the form where she had to indicate the manner of death. But she hesitated as a mental battle raged between her responsibility of duty as ordered by a superior and her sense of ethics. For her, it was akin to a soldier being ordered to do something that wasn't right, for which he could be held responsible. The only saving grace was that in Laurie's situation, it was not an irrevocable act, and it could be changed. With a sigh, she completed both forms.

At that point, Riva hung up her phone and spun around. "Where have you been? I've tried your cell phone a dozen times."

"I was over at the Manhattan General," Laurie said. She opened her bag, felt around for her phone, took it out, and checked the LCD screen. "Well, that's the explanation why I didn't get your call. I can't seem to remember to turn the blasted thing on. I'm sorry."

"Calvin's been in here twice. I wrote two notes so you'd get the message if you came in when I wasn't here. To say the least, he's not very happy you disappeared."

"I know what it's about," Laurie said as she held up the two death certificates. "This is what he was looking for, so all should be okay."

"I hope so. He was fit to be tied."

"I see Jack stopped by as well."

"That's the understatement of the year. He was here twenty times. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration. But even he got a little sarcastic with his comments toward the end."

Laurie inwardly groaned. After the effort she'd expended getting Jack to agree to have dinner that night, she hoped her absence hadn't frustrated him enough that he'd call off their date. "Did Jack say what he wanted?"

"No! Just that he was looking for you. As for the last message from Cheryl, she said it wasn't important, but for you to give her a call."

Laurie got up, clutching the two death certificates. "Thanks for being a messenger service. I owe you."

"It wasn't a problem," Riva said. "But out of curiosity, what were you doing over at the Manhattan General for so long?"

"Actually, I spent more time in the taxis than I did at the hospital. But I went over there because I had an idea that might help with my supposed serial-killer series."

"What is it?"

"I'll tell you later. Right now, I'm going to take these death certificates down to Calvin in person to smooth the waters."

"What should I say to Jack if he happens to come by yet again?"

"Tell him I'll be stopping by his office after I see Calvin."

Laurie retraced her steps to the elevator, feeling a twinge of guilt about not sharing her most current problem with Riva. Yet short of the OB office, she knew she didn't want to tell anyone that she was pregnant until she'd told Jack. Of course, she knew that if sharing it with Jack turned out to be as bad as it could possibly be, she might not be sharing it with anyone else.

As the elevator descended, Laurie glanced at the now-completed death certificates. Even though they could be changed, and in her estimation probably would, it still bothered her that she'd been forced to compromise her professionalism by filling them out as she had. It seemed to her that kowtowing to the needs of bureaucracy was not only ethically repugnant but also a disservice to the memory of the victims.

Once in administration, Laurie had to sit on the couch to wait. Calvin's door was closed, and his secretary, Connie Egan, told her the deputy chief was closeted with a police captain. Laurie wondered if it was Michael O'Rourke, Lou's immediate boss, who was an in-law to the Manhattan General mugging victim. While she waited, she thought about what she was going to say to Jack. If he'd been looking for her as hard as Riva had suggested, it was inevitable he'd ask where she'd been. If he were as jealous as Lou suggested, it was not going to help if he learned that Laurie had gone over to see Roger immediately after getting Jack to commit to having dinner. Yet Laurie promised herself that she wasn't going to fall into the trap of lying.

Thinking about Jack reminded her that she'd not made a dinner reservation. Since it was now afternoon, she knew it was an appropriate time. She eyed the phone on the side table next to where she was sitting. With no one paying her any heed, Laurie called Riva to get the number from her address book on her desk, and then put in the call. As she expected, the restaurant was heavily booked, and Laurie had to settle for a five-forty-five reservation.

Calvin's door opened and a bulky, quintessentially Irish-appearing police officer in his dress blues emerged. He shook hands with Calvin, nodded to Connie and even Laurie, put on his hat, and left. As Laurie's eyes turned back to Calvin, she found herself transfixed by his stare.

"Get in here!" Calvin barked.

Laurie got to her feet and sheepishly passed him to stand inside his office. Calvin shut his door, came over to Laurie, and snatched the papers from her hands. He leaned his backside against his desk while he checked the certificates. Satisfied, he tossed them onto his desk.

"It's about time," Calvin said. "Where the hell have you been? I gave you a paper day to do paperwork, not to go gallivanting around."

"I made what I thought was going to be a quick visit to the Manhattan General Hospital. Unfortunately, the traffic didn't cooperate, and it turned into a much longer errand than I'd expected."

Calvin eyed Laurie suspiciously. "And what were you doing over there, if I may ask?"

"I was talking with the gentleman I mentioned yesterday, the chief of the medical staff."

"You're not going to do anything that will turn out to be an embarrassment to the department, I trust."

"Not that I can imagine. I gave him the information about the Queens cases. It's in his hands to do whatever he thinks is appropriate."

"I don't want to hear you're overstepping your bounds like you've done in the past."

"As I said yesterday, I've learned my lesson." Laurie knew she was again being less than forthright.

"I should hope so. Now get your butt upstairs and sign out the rest of your cases or you'll be out pounding the pavement for alternative employment."

Laurie nodded respectfully and left Calvin's office. She was relieved. She had expected the worst, but the visit turned out to be surprisingly tame. She wondered if Calvin was mellowing.

While she was on the first floor, Laurie poked her head into the forensic investigators' office to see if she could save herself a call. She found Cheryl busy at her desk and asked her what was on her mind.

"I just wanted to let you know that I called Saint Francis and changed the chart request to urgent."

"Shucks! When I saw your message, I was hoping maybe you'd gotten them already."

Cheryl laughed. "Overnight hospital-chart service? That'll be the day! We'll be lucky to see them in a couple of weeks, even with the urgent classification."

Laurie went back to the front elevator, and as she waited, she wondered if it would be helpful if Roger intervened as far as the charts were concerned. In the back of her mind, she had the sense that somewhere in the charts from either St. Francis or the Manhattan General, there would be some hidden piece of information that would be the keystone of the mystery.