"No."

At least Murphy wasn't asking for explanations or demanding that Timmie share her reactions with him. Hell, he hadn't even told her that what she'd done was the right thing to do.

Probably why she'd asked him to be here instead of her friends. The last thing she needed right now was sympathy and understanding.

Murphy didn't look in the least sympathetic. He looked avid. "555-1230. Ring any bells?"

Timmie rubbed hard at her tired eyes. "Yeah. It's a hospital extension. Not a big surprise, I guess."

Almost a relief, really. She'd sure rather it be the hospital than quite a few of the private numbers she knew in town. Murphy reached around her to pick up the old black phone. "I take it you don't know just which hospital extension?"

Timmie grabbed the phone right out of his hand. "How about I do this?" she asked with a tight little smile. "I think it's safer."

Murphy almost slipped and let a flash of compassion through that wry expression. Timmie turned away just in time to miss it.

"Go right ahead," he said, his voice brisk and businesslike. "Just remember. I can find out myself whenever I want."

"I know you can, Murphy," she said, dialing the switchboard. "I just like to know first. It's a fault of mine."

"Then I guess that means we can't live together," Murphy said easily. "We'd always be fighting for the paper in the morning."

"God, Murphy," she protested. "Don't even suggest it. I have enough on my mind right now without you insulting me."

He chuckled. Timmie wanted to thank him. She didn't. She waited for the night operator to pick up. An ancient, Marlboro-puffing, Southern lady with the basal metabolism of a land tortoise, the operator had been known to take six rings to pick up the red phone that only called in code blues.

"The voice was familiar," Murphy was saying to himself.

"This is Memorial Medical Center," the sixty-year-old voice drawled in Timmie's other ear. "How may I direct your call?"

"Ginny?" Timmie asked at three times the speed. "This is Timmie Leary from the ER, and I can't find my listings. What extension is 1230?"

"Timmie?" Ginny echoed, delighted. "How are you, honey? How's your daddy? I got over to see him t'other day. He's just so sweet."

"He's fine, Ginny," Timmie said, twitching with the delay. Ginny always did this to her, like automatic doors opening too slowly. "What's the number?"

"Well, I can connect you, sugar," she offered, "but it wouldn't do you any good. Nobody's up there this time of night."

Nobody who wanted to be noticed anyway. "Where is it?" Timmie asked anyway.

"Well, I figured you might know, your daddy being in and all."

"It's late. I forgot."

"It's Dr. Raymond's office, honey. Why don't you call back tomorrow? I heard he was out of town tonight anyway."

Timmie white-knuckled the phone, trying to maintain her composure. "Thanks. I'll do that."

She hung up to find Murphy watching her with quite a bit less objectivity than he had had a minute before. "So, you don't have to call your friend after all?" he asked.

"It's not him," she insisted.

"Was it his office?"

"Yes."

"How many people would have the keys?"

Timmie snorted. "This is a hospital we're talking about," she reminded him. "Not a bank. Half the administrative staff, most of housekeeping, and all of security. Where would you like to start?"

"Do you think we need to make sure nobody's trying to get to Joe after all?"

Timmie frowned. "I don't know. If the offer is to kill him, would the threat be to kill him, too?"

"If you didn't want him dead."

This was way too complicated. And Timmie wasn't about to give Murphy all the truth just because he'd kept his mouth shut. So she dialed the phone and got her dad's night nurse.

"Hi, Timmie," the nurse chirped. "We've been trying to get you all day. Everything okay?"

"Fine. How about my dad?" she asked, shoving the guilt aside for a more convenient time.

"Well, that's it. We talked to Dr. Raymond, and he changed your dad's Prozac dose. I think it's going to make a world of difference. He's already not nearly as afraid now. And the best part is, he's been asleep since nine. How about that?"

Timmie squeezed her eyes shut. "Yeah, how about that? Has anybody been by to see him tonight?"

"Good heavens, no. Nobody comes in here late at night."

"I need a favor, Cathy," she said, praying she was asking the right person. "I need to make sure you don't let anybody in that room but me till I get there and talk to you. Not even Dr. Raymond."

There was a polite pause of disbelief. "This doesn't have to do with what might be happening over on five, does it?"

"Yes."

"He wouldn't do that."

"I know. But it's safer for him if he isn't even considered, ya know?"

"Sure."

She didn't. Timmie could hear it in her voice. But Cathy would stand guard anyway, over both her father and her father's doctor.

"Okay," Timmie said, hanging up. "What next?"

"Call Raymond. See if he's home."

Timmie did notice that at least Murphy wasn't calling Alex golden boy anymore. She should thank him for that, anyway. She spun around as if Murphy's suggestion didn't scare the hell out of her. "Nope. I've been in the house all day. Let's go check on Dad."

"I suppose you want me to drive."

"Only if you want to find out what's going on."

"There's one other thing you might want to know before going over there," he said, not moving, his expression not quite as flippant as Timmie might have expected. It pretty much stopped her.

"The results on Alice Hampton's blood tests," he said.

Timmie guessed she should have known. "So spill it," she said. "I can tell you're dying to tell me."

"Barb said that the old lady's dij level was way high. That mean anything to you?"

At least he had Timmie thinking back along the lines of problem solving. Much less traumatic than responsibility and remorse. "Digitoxin," she said. "It's the generic name for Digoxin, which is a heart medication she was on. Great stuff for old hearts, but lethal as hell if you get too much. It's from the foxglove plant, which is one of the most toxic poisons around."

"Well, Barb thinks that's what probably killed her. Since she evidently wasn't sick first, Barb thinks she got it fast."

And since Alice had had only oral Digoxin in her locked nurse server, the dose she'd gotten had obviously either been deliberately pulled from stock and shoved in by Gladys fifteen or twenty minutes before the cardiac arrest, or substituted for one of the IV push medications Alice already had stocked in her nurse server, which meant that Gladys would have given it without realizing it.

Which led to two conclusions. If Gladys hadn't intentionally killed Alice, which from her reaction, Timmie didn't think she had, then anybody in the hospital with a key to the nurse server could have substituted those drugs any time in the days preceding old Alice's death. The field was wide open.

And if the killer thought nobody'd notice, maybe he or she had left fingerprints on the vials that sat in the evidence box Timmie had upstairs this very minute.