"Bullshit," Blake said. "It's an isolated incident, and we have it under control."

"Did you hold the crime scene?" Dalton asked.

"We got there late." Gaines looked down at his toast, yellowed with yolk.

"You found a jar with alkali residue thirty yards from the ER entrance, and you didn't hold the scene?"

"We preserved the evidence," Blake said. "And combed the area for more. We found two cigarette butts nearby-lab pegged 'em as Marlboros-but they'd been ground to nothing."

"No prints on the jar?" Yale asked.

Blake shook his head. "Smooth gloves. Probably latex."

"According to your report, the cigarette butts were found near a waist-high footlight off the sidewalk that curves down to the ER entrance. If he was smoking, that meant he was waiting there for some time. He might not have been wearing gloves while he waited, not wanting to look suspicious. The top of the light is aluminum. Given it's waist high, he very well could have leaned on it as he waited. Did you print it?"

Blake ran his tongue along the inside of his bottom lip. "No."

"So let's go print it now," Gaines said. "It's off the sidewalk in the shrubs, not like people go back there and handle it all the time."

Yale's face stretched tight in a flash of a smile. "The sprinklers at Zone Six of the Medical Center run at five-fifteen in the morning, something I would have assumed you'd know, given your tremendous UCLA expertise. Unfortunately, I didn't read your report until eight-thirty." He tapped the table with a forefinger. "That's why you hold a crime scene." He leaned back and crossed his arms, raising wrinkles in the shoulders of his blazer. "Sorry, boys. This one comes down from the Captain. We're taking it over."

"Don't worry," Dalton said. "I'm sure there's some interesting campus cases you can work on. Harassing e-mails, late library books, a good date rape or two."

"Have the evidence sent to our labs," Yale said. He threw a crumpled twenty on the table and rose. "Breakfast's on the West LA Detective Bureau this morning."

Chapter 7

THE iridescent fish caught the glimmer of the sun even through the store window. Separated in bowls sitting side by side on a table in a window display, the two Siamese fighting fish swam tight, excited circles. Every few seconds, they darted back to face each other through the glass, like compass needles pulled north.

Clyde pressed his face against the outside of the window. The fish were all the more ferocious for their elegance. Long, flowing fins, scales shimmering red and blue, they drifted, tensed, drifted, Samurai warriors fighting in loose robes.

The cheap cardboard sign folded name tag-style on the table beside them read BETTA SPLENDENS. KEEP SEPARATED.

The bells on the door jangled as a gaunt man with wispy hair and round spectacles exited. He pulled a full ring of keys from his pocket and locked the dead bolt.

"What're you doing?" Keeping his forehead pressed to the glass, Clyde rolled his head so he could see the store owner.

"Closing up for lunch."

"I want those fish." His puffy finger pressed into the glass, pointing.

"Be back in twenty minutes."

"I want them now."

The store owner smiled curtly, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with a knuckle. "I'll be back in twenty minutes. I'll be happy to help you then."

The store owner was a few steps around the corner when the loud crash startled him. He nearly lost his footing, one hand spreading wide across his chest. It took him a minute to catch his breath, the pale skin beating above his temple. He hesitated before taking small tentative steps back around the corner.

He gasped. The store window had been smashed, and bits of glass were scattered through the display area. The man who'd stood out front was gone. A few curious pedestrians threw the store owner glances from across the street as he neared the window fearfully.

A brick, pulled from the loose walkway of the arts and crafts shop next door, had been hurled through the window, smashing one of the fish bowls. The other lay on its side, water dripping off the table.

The two magnificent fish flopped among the shards of wet glass on the tabletop. The blood leaking from the blue one's gills rouged its scales. It paused between movements, gills fluttering.

The vermilion betta flipped itself off the table's edge, landing in an open bag of teal aquarium rocks. It wiggled a few times more, then lay still, its streamers limp like wet toilet paper.

Chapter 8

SANDRA Yee, the most animated of the ER residents, flashed David dueling thumbs-up as he walked down Hallway Two to the Central Work Area. She was literally bouncing in her white Reeboks. The fact that she was only 5'2"; made her excitement all the more endearing.

"I caught a big-ass triple a on a fifty-five-year-old. Surgery just swept him upstairs." She bent gracefully in an operatic bow.

"Abdominal aortic aneurysm? Good catch. Probably saved his life." David squeezed her shoulder, and she put her arm across his lower back.