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move,” Olivia said, “maybe we can get a chopper up and spot his car.”
    “That’s the idea,” Steve said.
    LaShonda abruptly snapped her phone shut and stomped over to the two detectives.
    “How much longer do I have to stick around here?” LaShonda said irritably, her hands on her wide hips. “We haven’t had dinner yet.”
    “We’ll get you and the kids some burgers in a few minutes,” Steve said, then introduced himself and Olivia to her.
    “I know who she is,” LaShonda said, glaring at Olivia. “I told you before I don’t know where Teeg is. Ask one of his sluts.”
    “I’ve been talking to his sluts,” Olivia said. “They send their regards. You want to tell us what happened here?”
    “What’s it look like to you?” LaShonda asked. “Teeg tried to smoke me.”
    “Why did he want to do that?” Steve asked.
    “Because I threw his sorry ass out of the house for partying with sluts,” LaShonda said. “And then I told him he couldn’t see his kids until he started paying me some support.”
    “Was that your boyfriend you were just talking to?” Steve motioned to her phone.
    “Teeg isn’t my man no more and never will be again,” LaShonda said. “Nobody shoots at me and gets back into my bed.”
    “I have the same policy,” Steve said. “Did he call you or did you call him?”
    “He called me. He said he was gonna come after me again and he wasn’t going to miss this time. I laughed at him. I told him he can’t even hit the toilet when he aims his—”
    Steve interrupted her before she could finish that lovely thought, but he got the image anyway. “Could I see your phone, please?”
    She gave it to him. Steve flipped it open and scrolled through the menu to see if he could find the number of the last call received. He could.
    He turned the phone towards Olivia so she could see the number on the screen.
    “We call this police work,” he said.
    “Impressive,” Olivia said. “You’ve been watching Law and Order , haven’t you?”
    “I have to do something while I’m shining my Viking helmet.”

CHAPTER SIX
    Mark got back to Community General shortly after eleven p.m. No one was expecting to see him there, least of all Jesse, who was reviewing Corinne’s X-rays and CT scans with Ramin Akhavan, the radiologist.
    “What are you doing here?” Jesse asked Mark.
    “I couldn’t sleep,” Mark said.
    It wasn’t exactly a lie. On the drive down from Sunrise Valley, alone in the car, all he could think about was Carter Sweeney. Mark knew that if he went back to his empty beach house in Malibu and tried to go to bed, he’d be up all night, churning over the events of the day and the nightmares of the past. So he chose distraction. And the absence of a homicide to solve left the hospital as his only salvation from his thoughts.
    “So you get up, get dressed, and drive to work,” Ramin said. “Haven’t you heard of the Internet? Television? A good book?”
    “I’m a people person,” Mark said.
    “That’s what chat rooms are for,” Ramin said. “You don’t even have to get dressed.”
    The idea of sitting naked at a computer talking to strangers didn’t strike Mark as very appealing under any circumstances.
    “How is it going tonight?” Mark asked Jesse.
    “It was slow until this patient came in,” Jesse said, referring to the X-rays. “Her name is Corinne Adams. She fell down a flight of stairs at UCLA.”
    One glance at the X-rays and CT scans showed Mark what Jesse was dealing with, but he didn’t say anything. He’d let Ramin go through the formality of explaining the results. He knew how much experts enjoyed the opportunity to show their expertise.
    “What’s the prognosis?” Mark asked Ramin.
    “Not good. As you can see, she has a skull fracture here.” Ramin pointed to a long crack on the left side of the head. “And massive bleeding.”
    “I don’t see a subdural hematoma,” Jesse said.
    “All the bleeding is inside the brain,” Ramin