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ruining my record.”
    “Since this is a required visit, I don’t think that will be a problem. These sessions are confidential.” He glanced at a wall clock and stood up. “We’ll have to end here. Time’s up.”
    Lee also stood and followed him to the door.
    “Like I said, at least two days off is my recommendation,” Dr. Amos said. “You’re not sure what happened last night, but shots were fired in the line of duty. That doesn’t mean you’re not a little traumatized by how things went down. There could be a delayed response… maybe not. Give it a rest and let’s see, okay? And call me if you feel the need to. If anything changes.”
    Like if she dies, Lee thought to himself.
    He nodded politely. “Thanks, Dr. Amos,” he said, shaking the man’s hand.
    “No problem. You did all the right things, Lieutenant. Go home. Get some sleep.”
    Lee turned away with a brief nod of acceptance. He headed back to the reception desk, reviewing all the doctor’s questions about intent and control, reflexes and knee-jerk reactions. Shock, anger, doubt… guilt.
    “How did it go?”
    Lee blinked at Barbara, keeping his expression blank. She held a Styrofoam cup of coffee in one hand and the early edition of the daily paper in the other. There was something so routine about her appearance that Lee felt disoriented. For him the last twenty-four hours had been anything but routine. Barbara obviously had not created any personal baggage of the episode. Lee didn’t understand why it mattered to him.
    “Fine,” Lee responded succinctly. “This for me?” He took the cup of coffee from her and helped himself to a generous swallow. It was laced with too much sugar and he handed the cup back to her.
    “What did he say?” she persisted.
    “Probably the same things he said to you. You know… you were doing your job, this is what you’ve been trained for, et cetera, et cetera.”
    “Well, this is the third time I’ve had to go in, and I still don’t see the point,” Barbara said as they turned to leave. “I mean, what are the options when someone is trying to kill you? Stop and think about whether you’ll feel bad in the morning ’cause you took some asshole out?”
    Lee ran a hand restlessly over his bristled hair. They headed toward the elevators. “This was different, Barb. This was…” He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Something went wrong.”
    “Yeah. So what are you going to do?”
    “I don’t know. The captain’s probably going to—”
    “No, I mean right now.”
    “Go home, like the doc said.”
    Barbara finished the rest of her coffee and tossed the cup into a handy trash bin as they boarded the elevator. “I can’t. I’m too on.”
    “Well, the coffee certainly isn’t going to help.”
    “It’s too early for beer,” she quipped. “Look… let’s go get some breakfast and talk, okay? Then we gotta find Mario. Where the fuck is he?”
    They got off the elevator and continued toward the ER exit, where their car was parked in the emergency bay. Lee was only half listening to Barbara’s complaints. He slowed his steps and finally stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Barb, slow down. We can’t do anything for at least another twenty-four hours. We’ve got a blown cover for one of our guys, suspects loose, and a gunshot victim we can’t explain. Even if you don’t care about any of that, we can’t get our Glocks back until the ballistics report is in.”
    “We have to do something.”
    “You want to do something? Go home and have breakfast with your kid. Walk her to school and help her with her homework. Tell her you love her, and don’t ever encourage her to become a cop.”
    Lee stopped suddenly and patted his pockets. “You know, I think I left those department forms with the doc. I better go back.”
    “I’ll wait here.”
    “Don’t bother. I’ll hop a ride back to the station with one of the guys. I’ll check with you later.”
    Without giving Barbara a chance