Dance now joined Michael O'Neil outside the room. Her shoulder brushed his. She felt an urge to take his arm. Didn't.

She stared at the injured detective, recalling his shy smile in Sandy Sandoval's office.

Crime scene boys love their toys… I heard that somewhere.

"He say anything since you've been here?" she asked.

"No. Been out the whole time."

Looking at the injuries, the bandages, Dance decided out was better. Much better.

They returned to the CCU waiting area, where some of Millar's family sat-his parents and an aunt and two uncles, if she'd gotten the introductions right. She doled out her heartfelt sympathy to the grim-faced family.

"Katie."

Dance turned to see a solid woman with short gray hair and large glasses. She wore a colorful overblouse, from which dangled one badge identifying her as E. Dance, RN, and another indicating that she was attached to the cardiac care unit.

"Hey, Mom."

O'Neil and Edie Dance smiled at each other.

"No change?" Dance asked.

"Not really."

"Has he said anything?"

"Nothing intelligible. Did you see our burn specialist, Dr. Olson?"

"No," her daughter replied. "Just got here. What's the word?"

"He's been awake a few more times. He moved a little, which surprised us. But he's on a morphine drip, so doped up he didn't make any sense when the nurse asked him some questions." Her eyes strayed to the patient in the glass-enclosed room. "I haven't seen an official prognosis, but there's hardly any skin under those bandages. I've never seen a burn case like that."

"It's that bad?"

"I'm afraid so. What's the situation with Pell?"

"Not many leads. He's in the area. We don't know why."

"You still want to have Dad's party tonight?" Edie asked.

"Sure. The kids're looking forward to it. I might have to do a hit-and-run, depending. But I still want to have it."

"You'll be there, Michael?"

"Plan to. Depending."

"I understand. Hope it works out, though."

Edie Dance's pager beeped. She glanced at it. "I've got to get to Cardiac. If I see Dr. Olson I'll ask him to stop by and brief you."

Her mother left. Dance glanced at O'Neil, who nodded. He showed a badge to the Critical Care nurse and she helped them both into gowns and masks. The two officers stepped inside. O'Neil stood while Dance pulled up a chair and scooted forward. "Juan, it's Kathryn. Can you hear me? Michael's here too."

"Hey, partner."

"Juan?"

Though the right eye, the uncovered one, didn't open, it seemed to Dance that the lid fluttered slightly.

"Can you hear me?"

Another flutter.

O'Neil said in a low comforting voice, "Juan, I know you're hurting. We're going to make sure you have the best treatment in the country."

Dance said, "We want this guy. We want him bad. He's in the area. He's still here."

The man's head moved.

"We need to know if you saw or heard anything that'll help us. We don't know what he's up to."

Another gesture of the head. It was subtle but Dance saw the swaddled chin move slightly.

"Did you see something? Nod if you saw or heard something."

Now, no motion.

"Juan," she began, "did you-"

"Hey!" a male voice shouted from the doorway. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Her first thought was that the man was a doctor and that her mother would be in trouble for letting Dance into the room unsupervised. But the speaker was a young, sturdy Latino man in a business suit. Juan's brother.

"Julio," O'Neil said.

The nurse ran up. "No, no, please close the door! You can't be inside without a mask."

He waved a stiff arm at her and continued speaking to Dance. "He's in that condition and you're questioning him?"

"I'm Kathryn Dance with the CBI. Your brother might know something helpful about the man who caused this."

"Well, he's not going to be very fucking helpful if you kill him."

"I'll call security if you don't close the door this minute," the nurse snapped.

Julio held his ground. Dance and O'Neil stepped out of the room and into the hallway, closing the door behind them. They took off the gowns and masks.

In the corridor the brother got right into her face. "I can't believe it. You have no respect-"

"Julio," Millar's father said, stepping toward his son. His stocky wife, her jet black hair disheveled, joined him.

Julio ignored everyone but Dance. "That's all you care about, right? He tells you what you want to know and then he can die?"

She remained calm, recognizing a young man out of control. She didn't take his anger personally. "We're very anxious to catch the man who did this to him."

"Son, please! You're embarrassing us." His mother touched his arm.

"Embarrassing you?" he mocked. Then turned to Dance again. "I asked around. I talked to some people. Oh, I know what happened. You sent him down into the fire."

"I'm sorry?"

"You sent him downstairs at the courthouse to the fire."

She felt O'Neil stiffening but he restrained himself. He knew Dance wouldn't let other people fight her battles. She leaned closer to Julio. "You're upset, we're all upset. Why don't we-"

"You picked him. Not Mikey here. Not one of your CBI people. The one Chicano cop-and you sent him."

"Julio," his father said sternly. "Don't say that."

"You want to know something about my brother? Hm? Do you know he wanted to get into CBI? But they didn't let him in. Because of who he was."

This was absurd. There was a high percentage of Latinos in all California law enforcement agencies, including the CBI. Her best friend in the bureau, Major Crimes agent Connie Ramirez, had more decorations than any agent in the history of the west-central office.

But his anger wasn't about ethnic representation in state government, of course. It was about fear for his brother's life. Dance had a lot of experience with anger; like denial and depression, it was one of the stress response states exhibited by deceitful subjects. When somebody's throwing a tantrum, the best approach is simply to let him tire himself out. Intense rage can be sustained only for a short period.

"He wasn't good enough to get a job with you, but he was good enough to send to get burned up."

"Julio, please," his mother implored. "He's just upset. Don't listen to him."

"Don't do that, Mama! You let them get away with shit every time you say things like that."

Tears slipped down the woman's powdered cheeks, leaving fleshy trails.

The young man turned back to Dance. "It was Latino Boy you sent, it was the chulo."

"That's enough," his father barked, taking his son's arm.

The young man pulled away. "I'm calling the papers. I'm going to call KHSP. They'll get a reporter here and they'll find out what you did. It'll be on all the news."

"Julio-" O'Neil began.

"No, you be quiet, you Judas. You two worked together. And you let her sacrifice him." He pulled out his mobile phone. "I'm calling them. Now. You're going to be so fucked."

Dance said, "Can I talk to you for a moment, just us?"

"Oh, now you're scared."

The agent stepped aside.

Ready for battle, Julio faced her, holding the phone like a knife, and leaned into Dance's personal proxemic zone.

Fine with her. She didn't move an inch, looked into his eyes. "I'm very sorry for your brother, and I know how upsetting this is to you. But I won't be threatened."

The man gave a bitter laugh. "You're just like-"

"Listen to me," she said calmly. "We don't know for sure what happened but we do know that a prisoner disarmed your brother. He had the suspect at gunpoint, then he lost control of his weapon and of the situation."

"You're saying it was his fault?" Julio asked, eyes wide.

"Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. Not my fault, not Michael's fault. Your brother's. It didn't make him a bad cop. But he was at fault. And if you turn this into a public issue, that fact is going to come out in the press."