A RELATIVE DIAGNOSIS

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Title: A Relative Diagnosis
Author: Nonny
E-Mail: nonny_a@hotmail.com
Rating: PG

Summary: A new nurse at Community General makes a startling claim that seriously disrupts life for Mark and Steve

Disclaimer: "Diagnosis Murder" and the characters in it are owned by CBS and Viacom and are merely being borrowed here for recreational, non-profit purposes.

Feedback: I greatly appreciate feedback!

NOTE: The mention of events involving Robin Westlin refer to a first-season episode entitled "The Restless Remains".

A RELATIVE DIAGNOSIS

"So where's Mark?" asked Dr. Jesse Travis as he sat at a table at BBQ Bob's with Amanda Bentley and Steve Sloan. "I thought he was meeting us here."

"I thought he was coming with you guys," replied Steve.

"He left before us," Amanda said. "He said he was going to run a quick errand on his way over."

Just then, the door opened, and Dr. Mark Sloan came in, accompanied by a young woman in her mid-twenties.

"Hi, guys! Sorry I'm late," Mark said as he came over to his friends' table. "My car broke down on the way and I'd have been stranded if Marcie here hadn't come by and rescued me." He smiled at the young woman and glanced around the table. "Marcie, you know Dr. Travis and Dr. Bentley, don't you? And this is my son, Steve."

The gang all murmured greetings, and Jesse remarked, "You're the new OR nurse, aren't you?"

"That's right. I only started about a month ago."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Marcie," said Steve, as Mark pulled another chair over from a neighboring table. "Won't you join us?"

"Oh, I wouldn't want to intrude," Marcie demurred.

"Nonsense," insisted Mark. "We'd love to have you. Besides, if it hadn't been for you, I probably would still be starving on the side of the road right now. The battery in my cell phone seems to have died," he explained to the others. "I couldn't even call road service!"

Marcie allowed herself to be persuaded, and took the seat Mark was holding for her. During dinner, the gang asked Marcie about herself. It turned out that her mother had worked as a nurse at Community General before Marcie was born.

"She used to talk about you a lot, Dr. Sloan," Marcie said.

"What was her name?" Mark asked.

"Jennifer Stevens," Marcie replied looking at him.

Mark thought about it a moment. "I remember her now. She was right out of nursing school when she came to work at Community General."

"That's right. I figured you'd remember her," Marcie said. Steve, watching her, felt that there was something odd about the way she said that, but dismissed the fleeting impression.

"How is your mom?" asked Mark. "Is she still working as a nurse?"

"Actually, Mom died last year," Marcie replied.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Mark replied sympathetically. "Do you have any other family out here?"

"Well, none that I know. But after all I heard about Community General from my mom, I figure working there will be kind of like being among family!"

The rest of the evening was filled with the usual shop talk and friendly banter. As Marcie prepared to leave, Mark thanked her again for her 'rescue'.

"She seems like a nice kid," Mark observed after she left.

"A bit ditsy," Steve commented.

"She certainly seemed to be interested in you two," Jesse kidded. "I think we've got a new member of the Sloan fan club!"

Steve and Mark laughed at him, and the evening broke up as Mark and Amanda left, and Jesse and Steve stayed to close down the restaurant.

The next morning, Mark was in his office when Marcie knocked on the door and entered.

"Good morning, Marcie," Mark said with a smile.

"Hi, Dr. Sloan. I just wanted to thank you for dinner last night and tell you what a good time I had."

"Well, I'm glad you enjoyed it. It was the least I could do," Mark replied.

"The ribs were really great. I think it's terrific that you and your son own a restaurant together."

"Well, Steve and Jesse are the real operational partners, actually. They do a good job of it - I'm more of a 'silent partner'," Mark replied.

"You know, my Mom told me a lot about you," Marcie said. "She always told me how special you were."

Mark raised an eyebrow. "Well, that was very nice of her," he said, slightly embarrassed, "but I wouldn't say I was anything special."

"Oh yes you are," Marcie replied, an undercurrent of something in her tone that was beginning to make Mark feel slightly uncomfortable. "You're my father."

The discomfort turned to shock, and Mark stared at her, dumbfounded. "Excuse me?" he asked blankly.

Marcie smiled happily at him. "I know this must come as a shock," she said. "Mom told me that you never knew she was pregnant. She loved you so much that she didn't want to cause any trouble with your wife or your career, so she decided to just go away and raise me on her own. She even named me after you - she said 'Marcie' was as close as she could get to 'Mark' for a girl…"

Mark pulled himself out of his stupifaction and interrupted her. "Now wait a minute! I don't know where you got this idea, but I am not your father!"

Marcie interrupted in turn. "It's okay," she said reassuringly. "I know this is awfully sudden for you, and like I said, I know you didn't know about it. I'm not planning on making any trouble for you or anything. I just thought we should get to know each other now…"

"Look, Marcie," interrupted Mark again, "there's nothing to make trouble about! I'm sorry if you've been misinformed, or misunderstood something, but I am not your father!"

At that moment, Mark's beeper went off, and as he reached down to turn it off, Marcie continued talking, completing disregarding his words.

"I know you've got a lot to do," she said as if Mark hadn't spoken at all. "And I'm sure you need some time to get used to all this. But you'll see - it'll all turn out to be great!" And she turned and walked out before he could respond.

After she left, Mark just sat there, staring at the door as if in a trance, until the insistent buzz of his beeper reclaimed his attention.

Chapter 2

Later that afternoon, Steve Sloan was working at his desk at the police station when Marcie came in to see him. He looked up as she approached and smiled.

"Hi, Marcie," he said in surprise. "What brings you down here?"

She smiled back at him. "Hi, Steve. I was hoping you'd still be here. You don't look like you're unhappy about the news, so I guess it's okay with you, huh?"

Steve looked at her in confusion. "What news?" he asked.

Marcie opened her eyes wide. "You mean your dad didn't tell you yet?" she asked, surprised.

"Tell me what?"

Marcie looked slightly flustered. "Oh dear," she said, "This is a bit embarrassing. I figured for sure he'd have told you by now."

"Told me what?" Steve repeated.

Marcie looked around to see if anyone was nearby and said, "Well, I guess there's no reason I shouldn't tell you myself. After all, maybe it'll make it easier for him. Maybe he just hasn't been sure how to bring it up."

"Bring what up?" Steve asked in frustration.

Marcie gave him a deprecating smile and said simply "That I'm your sister."

Steve stared at her. "My what?"

Marcie laughed lightly. "Your sister, silly. Well, I guess I should say your half-sister, really. It came as something of a shock to your dad, too - well, I guess I should say our dad, shouldn't I? - when I told him this morning." She looked at Steve, who was still staring at her in shock, and rambled on. "The thing is, he didn't know about me either. My mom went away before she found out she was pregnant, and she never told him."

Steve pulled himself together. "You're saying that your mother and my father had an affair, what, about twenty-some years ago - you are aware that he was a married man at the time? - and you're just coming forward now to claim that he's your father?"

"Twenty five years ago," Marcie specified. "Mom knew he was married, that's why she didn't want to make any trouble for him. That, and she said she knew he had a great career in front of him. And I'm not planning on making any trouble either. It's just that now that I'm here in L.A. and working right at Community General it seems like we should all get to know each other. After all, you're the only family I have now." She smiled at him happily. "I always wanted a big brother."

"You said you told this story to my dad this morning," Steve said, still trying to get his thoughts in order. "What did he say? Are you telling me he admitted this?" he asked incredulously.

"Well, like I said, he was pretty shocked," Marcie replied. "After all, Mom had never told him about me. I figured he would need some time to get adjusted to the idea. In fact," she continued. "That's why I came here. I realized it was probably unreasonable not to expect you to want some proof, so I brought this."

Steve took the paper she held out to him. He stared, thunderstruck, at an official birth certificate for one Marcie Stevens, listing Jennifer Stevens as the mother, and Mark Sloan as the father.

Chapter 3

An hour later, Steve walked into the beach house. Mark heard him enter and came out from the kitchen.

"Hi, Steve. Dinner's almost ready - I was running a bit late today, so it's a going to be a little longer before it's done."

"I'm not very hungry anyway," Steve said grimly.

His father looked at him with concern. "Is something wrong?" he asked.

"Why don't you tell me," Steve replied in a hard tone. Mark looked at him in confusion. "I had a visitor at the station a little while ago," Steve continued. As Mark just looked at him, waiting, he elaborated. "Marcie Stevens." The look on Mark's face changed from confusion to consternation.

"What did she say?"

"She said you're her father," Steve said flatly. "She came by to give me this." He held out the birth certificate. Mark took it gingerly. He glanced at it warily and stood transfixed.

"That's impossible!" he exclaimed.

"Not according to the county municipal records," Steve declared hardly. Mark looked up at him, his face still showing the shock. "I pulled up the county birth and death registry on the computer - it's all there, properly recorded at the time. It's not a fake." He knew his tone was accusatory, but he couldn't help it.

"Then it's got to be some kind of mistake!" Mark exclaimed. "You can't believe I'm really Marcie's father - for one thing, 25 years ago your mother was alive!"

Steve looked at him, pain and anger showing in his face. "I know."

Mark's eyes widened as he read the accusation and the sense of betrayal in his son's eyes. A flare of anger warred with a sense of hurt, and he replied quietly but sternly, "Steve, I loved your mother very much. I never cheated on her; I never wanted to. I don't know how my name got on that birth certificate, but I am not, and could not be Marcie's father." The anger died down, to be replaced by a feeling of dejection. It had never occurred to him that Steve would doubt him. "If it'll make you feel any better," he added, trying to keep his voice level, "I can take a paternity test."

Steve never took his eyes off his father's face, and he saw the emotions reflected there as clearly as Mark had seen his. The hurt in Mark's eyes was more convincing to him than anything else. The world, which had seemed so topsy turvy, righted itself. Whatever the evidence of that birth certificate indicated, he didn't believe it. What it really came down to was the type of man his father was. And he not only wasn't the type to cheat on his wife, he most certainly wasn't the type to repudiate a child he had fathered, no matter how embarrassing the situation or how big a mistake he had made. Steve drew a deep breath, and his face softened.

"I'm sorry, Dad," he apologized. "Finding out that birth certificate wasn't a fake sort of threw me. You don't need to take any tests on my account." He met his father's eyes straightly, wanting to erase the hurt he had caused, to let him know that the trust between them still held as firmly as ever.

Mark looked back at him and relaxed. "I was going to tell you about it tonight," he explained. "It just didn't seem like something we could discuss over the phone. It never occurred to me that Marcie would go see you before that." He looked down at the paper in his hand. "I can see how this could shake you up. It's certainly shaken me up! It's a pretty damning piece of evidence."

"Well, evidence has been wrong before," Steve replied. "What we have to do now is figure out how to convince Marcie."

"Maybe I will have to take that paternity test," Mark said. "I don't know how I'm going to explain all this to Marcie."

Steve saw the worry in his father's face and placed a hand on his arm. "Why don't we have that dinner first, Dad, and then we can figure out what to do."

Mark's head came up with a jerk. "The dinner!" he exclaimed and dashed into the kitchen to rescue it from the stove. Steve grinned and followed him in.

Chapter 4

Over the next two days, the Marcie situation seemed to go from bad to worse. She continued to ignore anything Mark said, insisting that he just had to "get used to the idea" and that "everything would work out fine". She refused to undergo a paternity test, declaring that they didn't need anything like that when she had her mother's word and a legal birth certificate. Even worse, from Mark's point of view, was the fact that she took to showing up wherever he was likely to be - bringing him cups of coffee in the morning, coming up to him in the cafeteria at lunch time, even getting herself assigned as OR nurse when he had an operation scheduled. That last action Mark vowed to prevent in the future, even if he had to speak to the nursing supervisor. He was reluctant to bring this whole thing out in public, as much for Marcie's sake as his own, but he wasn't going to stand for his patients being put at risk by him being distracted during surgery.

Things came to a head one evening when Steve arrived home from work. He had managed to leave work a bit earlier than usual, and was looking forward to relaxing. He opened the door to the beach house and sniffed at the aroma of cooking.

"Dad?" he called out as he turned toward the kitchen. "I didn't think you'd be home this early…" He stopped as he entered the kitchen and saw Marcie standing at the stove.

"Hi, Steve!" she chirped happily. "I thought it might be nice for you two bachelor types to have a real home-cooked meal for a change! I'm considered to be quite a good cook, so…"

"How did you get in here?" Steve demanded angrily.

"I found the spare key and let myself in," Marcie replied. "I thought it would be a nice surprise for you and Dad to find dinner all made when you got home."

"He is not your dad, and you don't belong in this house," Steve stated firmly. "You're trespassing. Now get out."

"Don't be silly! I've got mushrooms sautéing and a roast in the oven - I can't leave now! Besides, if Dad wants me to stay, I can," she replied.

Steve knew how frustrated his father had been in his efforts to convince Marcie that they were not related. He now lost his patience and decided that it was time to stop trying a soft and reasonable approach and just make it patently clear that her presence would no longer be tolerated. He was determined that even if she managed to ignore what his father had said to her, she wasn't going to be able to ignore him.

"Look, I'm going to tell you this just one more time," he said, taking her by the arm and moving her toward the front door. "Mark Sloan is NOT your father, I am NOT your brother - half or otherwise, and you are NOT welcome in this house. Now get out of here, and stay away from my father!" He propelled her firmly through the front door, and closed and locked it behind her.

He stayed by the window watching, until he saw her get in her car and drive away. He turned back into the kitchen, went to the stove, removed the pan of mushrooms, and dumped the entire contents into the garbage. He was just removing the roast from the oven, when he heard the front door open. The roasting pan still in his hands, he glanced quickly into the hall to see Mark coming in.

"Smells good," Mark said, as he turned toward the kitchen. "Since when did you start doing this kind of cooking?" he asked in surprise.

"I haven't," Steve replied shortly, dumping the roast in the garbage as well. Mark stared at him with his mouth open. "Marcie was here."

Mark looked at him in surprise, opened his mouth to speak, shut it, and finally said, "How did she get in?"

"Apparently she found the spare key you keep hidden. I think it's time to have the locks changed, Dad." Steve said grimly.

"I guess so," Mark agreed. "I'll call the locksmith first thing in the morning." He looked back at the pots in the sink and the food in the garbage. "Maybe we should go out to eat," he suggested.

"I'm not leaving this house unattended until those locks are changed," Steve declared seriously. "I don't like the way things are going."

"You think she'll come back?"

"It's possible. I wasn't any too polite when I evicted her; I'm not sure how she'll react."

Mark met his gaze in concern. "I'm not sure how wise that was, Steve. I think Marcie may be seriously unbalanced."

"I'm sure she is," Steve agreed. "And I don't like the idea of her hanging around you as much as she's been."

Mark looked at him gravely. "Maybe we should find an all-night locksmith."

Chapter 5

The next day, after making sure that the locksmith had arrived to work on the locks, Steve went in to the police station. He was still feeling uneasy about the situation with Marcie. He decided to institute a quiet background check on her to see if she had a history of mental illness or violence. By the end of the day, he had discovered that both Marcie and her mother did, indeed, have a history of receiving psychological counseling. While that, in itself, didn't necessarily indicate a problem, taken in conjunction with her current, stalker-like behavior, it certainly increased Steve's uneasiness.

He wondered how Amanda was making out with her "assignment". In the interests of finding out why Marcie's mother had apparently been so determined to make it look like Mark was Marcie's father, Mark and Steve had asked Amanda to talk to the woman who had been the nursing supervisor when Jennifer Stevens had worked at Community General.

By this time, it was about the time his father usually left for home. Steve had talked to Mark earlier and discovered that Marcie had not shown up for her shift at the hospital. The more Steve thought about it, the stronger his feeling became that she was up to something - probably something involving his father, in which case it was certain to be something he wouldn't like. He decided to pick his father up at the hospital and make sure that he got home all right and that there were no surprises waiting for him.

However, when he got to the hospital, he discovered that his father had already left.

"He left almost an hour ago, Steve," said Jesse. "He's probably home by now."

"And everything was quiet here today? No more surprises, no sign of Marcie?" Steve asked.

"No, not a peep. Like Mark told you, she didn't show up for her shift at all today."

"You know, Steve," said Amanda, who could see that something was bothering him, "if you think there's something wrong, why don't you call him?"

"I already tried his cell phone, but it was turned off," replied Steve.

"Maybe his battery ran out," Jesse suggested. "It's happened before. Why don't you try him at home? Even if he's not there yet, you can leave him a message to call you."

"I did that too", Steve responded. He looked at Jesse and Amanda, trying to fight off the uneasiness that continued to plague him.

"Maybe he got stuck in traffic," suggested Jesse. "Or had to run an errand."

"Probably," Steve replied. He looked over at Amanda, trying to focus his attention on something else. "Amanda, were you able to get any information about Jennifer Stevens from the nursing supervisor?"

"Yes, Nancy remembered her quite well," Amanda responded. "Apparently Jennifer Stevens was a rather naïve girl, with no family around, and Nancy sort of 'adopted' her. Nancy said she used to worry about her because she was always making up 'fantasies' about things."

"Like the one about my father and her?"

"Yeah, Nancy said that she really liked Mark." Amanda grinned suddenly. "Actually, she said Jennifer sort of hero-worshipped him."

Steve raised his eyebrows.

"Apparently," Amanda elaborated, "Mark was one of the few doctors in those days who treated the nurses like professionals. How did Nancy put it? 'He treated everybody with respect from the hospital administrators to the janitors.'" Amanda smiled reminiscently. "According to Nancy, 'that was pretty heady stuff for an insecure kid more used to being treated as a glorified scullery maid by most of the doctors.'"

"Did she say if there was any gossip about Jennifer and Dad?"

Amanda shook her head. "No, she said she was sure there wasn't. You know how hospital gossip is - if there's the slightest hint of anything going on, everybody knows about it, no matter how hard you try to keep it secret. And apparently Jennifer used to tell Nancy just about everything that was going on in her life. In fact, she said that shortly before Jennifer left, she was seeing someone else, although Nancy didn't know exactly who it was. But I gather that Nancy got the impression that the guy wasn't treating her all that well."

"So if she was seeing someone who wasn't exactly a sterling character, and he got her pregnant but didn't marry her…" mused Steve out loud.

"Then maybe she decided to cook up a 'better' father for her baby," suggested Jesse.

"From what Nancy told me, that would be right in keeping for Jennifer," Amanda confirmed. "She seems to have cooked up all sorts of imaginary 'scenarios'."

"But wouldn't she have had to come up with some sort of proof of paternity when she filled out the application for the birth certificate?" Jesse asked.

"Not necessarily," Amanda replied. "Depending on the circumstances, they don't necessarily question the information on the form. And she went away to an area where no one would know Mark or have reason to question the name of the father."

"So there was nothing to prevent her from just putting Dad's name on the birth certificate, and then filling her daughter's head with stories about the wonderful father she had," Steve observed disgustedly.

"Well, she certainly picked a good one," Jesse quipped. Amanda smiled, and Steve just glared at him.

"Thanks for the information, Amanda," he said. "At least we have a better idea of what's behind all this."

"No problem. I just hope it helps."

Steve nodded. As he turned to go, his cell phone rang. Hoping it was his father, he quickly flipped it open. "Sloan."

Amanda and Jesse watched hopefully, waiting to hear if it was Mark.

"Hi, Cheryl, what's up?" they heard Steve say as he started to continue walking. They were about to turn away, disappointed that it wasn't Mark, when they saw Steve jerk to a halt. Looking at him, they saw that he had turned pale.

"Was he in it?" he asked hoarsely. Jesse and Amanda exchanged alarmed looks and anxiously listened to the one-sided conversation. "Where?….I'm on my way." Steve hung up and closed his eyes for a moment, obviously trying to collect himself, before turning to face his friends.

"Steve, what is it?" asked Amanda, putting her hand on her obviously shaken friend's arm.

"That was Cheryl," Steve said, fighting to keep his voice level. He drew a ragged breath. "The highway patrol just found Dad's car in flames at the bottom of a ravine off PCH."

Amanda and Jesse stared at him, the horror in their eyes reflecting his. "Is he … could he have gotten out?" asked Jesse hesitantly.

"The car was already engulfed by the time they got there," Steve responded, his eyes bleak. "They said it looked like the driver was still inside..." There was a stunned silence. "I'm on my way up there," he declared, turning and making rapidly for the exit.

Chapter 6

Steve's car skidded to a halt at the side of the road, behind a black-and-white police car. He jumped out and ran to the edge of the drop, looking down at where a couple of firefighters were still spraying water on the burned-out wreckage of his father's convertible. As his gaze swept the scene, desperately searching for any sign of hope that his father had somehow survived this conflagration, he saw two people bringing up a body bag on a stokes stretcher. Hope died, and a wave of grief swept over him. Almost mechanically, he moved to meet the stretcher. As if compelled, he reached out to unzip the body bag. One of the highway patrol men, who knew him, approached and put a restraining hand on his arm.

"Don't, Lieutenant."

Steve looked at him. "You're going to need an ID," he said.

The officer looked back at him sympathetically. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant," he said gravely. "But there's not enough left for that. I'm afraid official identification is going to be a matter for the medical examiner and the dental records."

Steve stared at the officer as the implications of that remark sank in. He couldn't just turn away. If this was his father, he had to look, even if there was nothing to identify. He shook his head and said "Thanks, Marsden, but…" He turned back to the body bag. Recognizing that there was nothing else to be said, the patrol man just stepped back and gave Steve some space as he opened the bag and looked down at the charred remains.

As a homicide detective, Steve had seen more than one corpse burnt beyond recognition. You never got used to it, but you learned to deal with it with detachment if you were going to survive in the field. But this time it was different; this time the blackened remains before him had once been his father - the man who was closer to him than anyone else. Steve felt his gorge rise, and turned away, battling the sickness and grief.

He moved away from the stretcher and stood apart from the activity for a few moments, trying to compose himself. He looked over at Officer Marsden, who was talking to one of the firefighters who had come up from spraying the wreckage. As he watched, Marsden turned and came towards Steve.

"The firemen found this in the wreckage," he said, still with that sympathetic gravity, holding out something wrapped in a large cloth.

Steve took the bundle and looked down at it. He saw the blackened face of a watch and the remains of a cell phone. Steve picked up the watch face and turned it over. Rubbing off the black residue, he saw the faint letters M.S. etched on it. He looked back up at Marsden. "It's Dad's," he acknowledged. He looked back at the men loading the body bag into the coroner's wagon. "Have them take him to Community General," he said, in a rough voice that sounded unlike his own. "They're part of the ME's office; they can do the identification there." Marsden nodded and moved off to give the instructions to the driver.

Steve looked around the scene and tried to pull himself together. There was nothing further he could do now, as a son, to help his father; but he was still a cop, and he could at least find out what had happened. "Tell me what you've found so far," he asked Marsden when he returned.

"Well, there's not much to go on, actually. The guard rail's down here - it hasn't been replaced yet since an accident a couple of days ago - so the car just went straight down the ravine. But there were no skid marks, no sign of swerving, nothing to indicate that any attempt was made to stop the car."

"As if it were driven straight over the edge," Steve concluded.

Marsden nodded. "Of course it's possible that he lost control of the car suddenly for some reason and didn't have time to react."

"Maybe," said Steve skeptically. "Or maybe he was already unconscious when the car went over."

"He could have had a heart attack or something," Marsden suggested doubtfully.

"Just at one of the only stretches around here where the guard rail is missing?" asked Steve. "And drove straight through the one gap in the railing without leaving any signs of swerving or braking? That's a bit more coincidence than I'm willing to swallow." Especially given what's been going on lately, he thought to himself. "Look, I know there's not much chance of there being anything useful left, but I'd like to have the car checked to see if there's any sign of tampering."

"Sure, Lieutenant," Marsden responded. "I'll let you know as soon as we get a report."

"Thanks."

Steve looked over to see that the coroner's wagon was getting ready to leave. He decided he'd better get back to Community General to warn Amanda before they arrived.

Chapter 7

It felt weird to be walking through the corridors of Community General on his way to the path lab. Although he had come here many times when his father wasn't around, it nonetheless seemed emptier somehow. He walked up to the pathology lab and mentally squared his shoulders as he entered.

Amanda looked up from her desk at her friend, reading in his face the answer to the question she didn't want to ask.

"Oh, Steve," she whispered, tears in her eyes. She got up and walked over to him. "I'm so sorry." They hugged, sharing grief and comfort.

Steve pulled back after a moment and looked down at her. "Amanda…" he started, and paused, not knowing how she was going to feel about this. She looked up at him questioningly, her eyes wet. "I told them to bring him here," he continued, watching to see how she was taking it. "They're going to need a dental comparison to make an official ID." He saw the fleeting spasm of distress that passed across her face - she knew even better than he did what kind of remains that implied - and added, "You don't have to be the one to do it. I just thought…" he hesitated for a moment, his throat feeling suddenly tighter, "…it just didn't feel right having him go to the county morgue."

Amanda gently squeezed his arm. "You did the right thing, Steve. This is where he belongs. And of course I'll do the autopsy." Her own throat felt tight. "It's probably the last thing I can do for him - how can I not do it?"

The door to the path lab opened at that point, and the people from the coroner's office wheeled in a gurney with the body bag on it. As Amanda and Steve stared at it silently, Jesse came in, eyes anxious.

"I just saw them bringing that down here - somebody said… that's not…" He looked at his friends' faces and read confirmation of his fears. "Oh God," he said softly. "Steve, I'm so sorry."

"Not as sorry as Marcie Stevens is going to be if I find out she had anything to do with this," Steve replied grimly.

"You think she caused him to crash?" asked Jesse.

"I don't think he crashed at all." Steve's voice was hard. "There were no skid marks, no signs of swerving, and the car just 'happened' to drive straight through one of the only spots where the guard rail was missing."

"You think the car was tampered with?"

"Maybe. Or maybe the car was simply pushed over the edge with Dad already unconscious - or dead."

"If that's the case, it's going to be hard to prove," said Amanda unhappily. "The fire will have destroyed any evidence."

"I know," said Steve.

"So what are you going to do?' Jesse asked.

"I'm going to go find Marcie and see what I can shake out of her," Steve declared, and stalked out the door, leaving his friends staring after him.

Chapter 8

Steve knocked on the door of Marcie's apartment. Getting no response, he called out to her to let him in, but received no reply. The manager of the apartment was going by, and went up to Steve.

"Is there a problem here?" he asked.

Steve looked at him and considered his options. Without a search warrant, for which he had, as yet, no real grounds, he couldn't demand entry as a cop. He settled for a slight prevarication.

"Marcie never showed up for work today," Steve explained. "Some of us were worried about her." Or at least worried about what she might be doing he added silently.

A conversation ensued, during which the manager, who seemed to be the sociable type, came to the conclusion that Steve was one of the unspecified "family" that Marcie claimed to have out here. Steve reflected that this was one time that Marcie's delusion was coming in handy, since the manager had no hesitation in letting in the family that Marcie had apparently talked so much about.

Once inside the apartment, Steve started searching for any indication of whether Marcie had departed for good or any signs that she had been responsible for his father's "accident". The first thing he noticed, as he looked around and opened drawers, was that there were pictures and news clippings about his father -- some including Steve as well -- all over the place. There were even a couple of scrap books that contained photos and clippings about his father from about 25 years ago. Presumably these were maintained by Marcie's mother, and had probably served to feed Marcie's delusion that Mark was her father.

As he looked, Steve realized that many of the photographs had been taken recently, presumably by Marcie herself, including many featuring the deck of the beach house - obviously taken from a distance with a telephoto lens. His face set in grim lines as he realized that Marcie must have been stalking his father since she first came out to L.A. As he looked through the pictures, he came across one that caused him to pause. Through some stroke of luck, Marcie had caught Mark flashing that mischievous grin that invited you to laugh with him at something he had just done or said. It was an expression that Steve had privately always found irresistible, even now causing the corners of his mouth to curve upward slightly in response, even as it caused his heart to ache with the thought that never again would he see it light up his father's face. He reached out to touch the photo lightly, then turned away, more than ever determined to find something that would help him prove that Marcie was responsible for his father's death.

In the course of his search, he found an empty, discarded drug bottle behind the garbage can under the sink. Presumably Marcie had meant to toss it in the garbage, but had missed. He picked up the bottle with his handkerchief and placed it in a plastic bag, intending to bring it to the lab to be tested. The only other thing he found that he felt might be relevant was an old photo album containing pictures of Marcie and her mother. He decided to bring that with him to look over more carefully, in the hopes that it might provide some clue as to where Marcie might have gone. That she had obviously gone somewhere with the intention of staying a while was indicated by the absence of toothbrush, hair brush and toiletries, as well as a sense that the closets and drawers seemed somewhat emptier than he would expect. The fact that so much remained, however, certainly seemed to indicate that she planned on eventually returning. Steve found this puzzling, and determined to put a watch on the apartment to try to catch her on her return.

Having completed his search, Steve turned to leave, giving a last glance around at the pictures of his father before he closed the door behind him.

Outside the apartment, Steve considered his options. The drug bottle was probably his best bet for getting justification to put out a pick-up order on Marcie, so he decided to go back to the hospital and see if Jesse or Amanda was still there to give him some information about the type of drug it had contained. He returned to the path lab to find that Amanda was just getting ready to leave. She looked up as he entered the lab.

"Steve? Did you find Marcie?" she asked.

"No, she seems to have taken off," Steve said. "I did find this, however," he added, holding out the drug bottle. "I thought maybe you could tell me what it is and what it's used for." Amanda took it and looked over the label.

"It's a type of anesthesia, similar to Versed," she said. "It's used to put patients to sleep before some types of surgical procedures."

"Not something she would normally have just lying around the house," Steve observed.

"Definitely not," Amanda confirmed. "She shouldn't have had access to it at all!"

"And she could have knocked someone out with this with no problem?"

"Absolutely. In fact, it's extremely fast acting. If she managed to take him by surprise and inject him with it, it would have rendered him unconscious within seconds."

"So now I should have enough to get an official search warrant and issue a pick-up order," Steve said with grim satisfaction. He looked at Amanda hesitantly, his face suddenly looking sadder and more vulnerable.

"Did you get a chance to…?"

Amanda looked back at him soberly.

"No, Steve," she said gently. "The dentist's office was closed already. They won't be back in until Monday morning. I'm sorry."

Steve nodded and left to head over to the police station to initiate the search for Marcie.

Chapter 9

The following morning, Steve woke up early. He had returned home from the station late the night before, having dropped off the drug bottle at the lab, gotten approval for a pick-up order for Marcie, initiated a watch on her apartment, and started a more thorough background check on her and her mother, in the hopes of finding some clue to her possible current whereabouts. He had managed to get himself sufficiently exhausted that he had fallen straight into bed on his return.

But now it was day, and he was waking up to what felt like a desolately empty house. As he walked through the house into the kitchen, his father's absence ached in him like a physical wound. Every room was permeated with memories and associations with his father. He found himself thankful, for once, to be hurrying out. He wondered fleetingly how long it would be before he stopped expecting to hear his father's voice every time he walked in the door, stopped automatically sniffing for the aroma of coffee brewing as he came upstairs in the morning.

He shoved these thoughts to the back of his mind, and decided to head over to the hospital to talk to the nurses and staff who might have gotten friendly with Marcie. Maybe one of them would remember something Marcie had said that would give them an idea of where she might have gone.

As he entered the hospital, Steve saw Jesse at the nurse's station. He went over to ask him if he knew who might have been friendly with Marcie. As they were talking, Steve's pager beeped. Checking it, he discovered that it was Amanda who was paging him. He and Jesse headed down to the path lab to see her.

As they walked into the lab, they saw that Amanda was obviously in the middle of an autopsy, bending over the charred remains of a body. She looked up as they entered, an air of surpressed excitement about her.

"Steve! I'm glad you're here. Listen, didn't Mark have a couple of wisdom teeth removed several years ago?"

Steve looked at her blankly, trying to avoid looking at the remains on the table. "Yeah. Did you get the dental records already? Isn't it in there?"

"No, I haven't been able to get hold of the records yet - Dr. Johnson's office is still closed. But I couldn't stand the thought of not doing anything until Monday, so I decided to check out a few preliminaries. And I remembered that time, back when I was still a resident, when you and Dolores took Mark for his root canal because you said he had such a crazy reaction to the nitrous oxide the previous time when he had his wisdom teeth removed. Right?"

Steve nodded. "Right."

"That must have been some reaction," interjected Jesse, "if you remembered Mark having a tooth pulled almost 10 years ago!"

"It wasn't that long ago," Amanda replied. "And it was actually all the business about Robin Westlin's body disappearing that made it stick in my mind."

"What does a disappearing body have to do with Mark's teeth?" asked Jesse, confused.

"Never mind that now," Amanda said impatiently. "The point is that I remembered that Mark had at least one wisdom tooth removed."

Jesse opened his mouth to follow up on this intriguing tangent, but shut it again when he saw Steve frowning him down.

"We'll tell you all about it some other time, Jess." Steve said. "Go on, Amanda."

"Well," Amanda said significantly, "this body has all four wisdom teeth in place!"

Steve and Jesse stared at her in shock. "Then - it can't be Mark!" Jesse exclaimed.

Amanda grinned at him. "That's right. And if Mark wasn't in the car …"

"Then he's probably still alive!" Jesse's face lit up, and they all shared a moment of relief and joy. Steve felt like he was caught in an emotional whirlpool. With the sudden surge of relief and renewed hope, came renewed anxiety and uncertainty. While his father hadn't been killed in the car crash, he was still undeniably missing; and they had no idea where he was or what condition he was in.

"If Dad wasn't in the car," he asked, "where is he? And who is that?"

They pondered those questions for a moment.

"You don't think it could be Marcie, do you?" asked Jesse tentatively.

Amanda shook her head positively. "No, it's definitely a man," she pronounced.

"Then who is he and how did he get in Mark's car?"

"I don't know who he is, but I'm betting Marcie put him there," declared Steve grimly. The others looked at him questioningly. "I still think Marcie's behind this. I'll bet she kidnapped Dad and planted somebody else in his car to throw us off the track."

"That makes some sense," Jesse mused. "If we thought Mark was dead, we wouldn't keep looking for him."

"But she must have known we'd check the dental records," objected Amanda.

"Maybe," Steve said. "Right now, I wouldn't vouch for what passes for thought in that disturbed mind of hers. Maybe she just wanted to slow down the search - remember, by rights, we shouldn't have had access to the dental records until Monday morning. If you hadn't remembered about Dad's wisdom teeth being removed, we wouldn't have found out that wasn't him for another couple of days."

"So what do we do now?" asked Jesse.

"What I was going to do anyway - find Marcie," Steve replied with grim determination. "Only now, we're looking for someplace she might have taken Dad."

"Where are you going to look?" Amanda asked.

"I'm going to start by talking to the nurses who knew Marcie."

"I can help with that," Jesse volunteered.

"And I'll finish the autopsy on this guy and see if I find anything that would tell us who he is and where he came from," said Amanda.

Steve nodded, and they all went off to work on their respective tasks, with a new sense of hope and determination.

Chapter 10

A couple of hours later, the three friends met again to compare results. Amanda hadn't been able to discover much about the corpse, except that, judging by the condition of the teeth, whoever it was hadn't been to the dentist lately.

"It may have been a homeless person, or indigent," she suggested.

"Any way of telling what he died of?" asked Steve.

"Not really. About all I can tell for sure is that there's no sign of cranial fracture or anything like that. But there's not enough left to even tell whether it was the fire that killed him or if he was already dead when the car crashed."

"How about you, Jess, any luck with her friends?"

As they discussed the little they had been able to glean from the other nurses, one lead appeared. It seemed that one of the nurses had been talking about spending a vacation with her family up near Big Bear, and Marcie had volunteered the information that she and her mother used to go to a cabin in that area when she was younger. Steve remembered seeing pictures of Marcie and her mother at a cabin in one of the photo albums he had taken from Marcie's apartment. There had been pictures from several different years, all at the same cabin. He decided to get the pictures and see if there were any details that they could make out that would help in identifying the precise location.

Now that it seemed probable that his father was still alive, and most likely being held captive by Marcie, Steve felt an increased sense of urgency. He wasn't sure what Marcie's purpose was in holding his father, or what she would do with him if he didn't cooperate with whatever that purpose was. It was not unknown for stalkers to attempt to force the objects of their obsession to "love" them, or for them to ultimately kill their victims when they failed to fulfill the stalker's fantasy. Steve knew that if he didn't find his father soon, there was a good chance he might yet end up dead. And he didn't even want to think about having to go through that again.

Back at the police station, Steve contacted the Big Bear police force. He faxed them copies of the pictures, and asked for their cooperation in locating the cabin. He also faxed them pictures of Marcie and his father, along with a description and license plate number of Marcie's car. In searching through the pictures from Marcie's albums, Steve found some details that enabled them to narrow the search down to a couple of areas. Steve decided to go up and check them out personally.

After checking in with the local police station, Steve discovered that they had had a report that a car fitting the description of Marcie's had stopped at a gas station near one of the likely locations for the cabin. Steve and the local police captain mapped out the location of several cabins in that area and decided to send a couple of officers to check them out. Steve decided to try the most likely himself, and sent the other officers to look into the remaining ones.

As he headed up the dirt road to the cabin he felt was the most promising possibility, Steve felt the knot of tension growing in his stomach. If they weren't at one of these cabins - if Marcie had taken Mark somewhere else all together - the odds against him getting his father back alive were greatly increased. He clung grimly to the hope that they were on the right track - that he would find his father, and that Mark would manage to keep Marcie from going off the deep end long enough for him to do so. He parked his car off the road and out of direct sight of the cabin, and went in on foot.

Chapter 11

Steve approached the cabin cautiously. He scouted around and saw no sign of a vehicle, although there were tire tracks in the dirt drive. Carefully he crept up and peeked through one of the front windows. He was looking at the main living space. There was no one in sight, but there were definite signs of habitation - some magazines and what looked like scrap books, an empty glass on a low table, a throw blanket carelessly tossed on the couch. As quietly as he could, Steve snuck around the house, checking other windows. In the back of the house, he peered into what was obviously a bedroom window, and froze. Lying on the bed on the far side of the room was his father. Relief flooded through him - he had found his father, and he was still alive.

Steve scratched lightly on the window. Getting no response, he scratched a little louder. Just as he was starting to fear that his father might not be just asleep, he saw Mark's head turn toward the window. Mark recognized his son and cast a quick glance toward the bedroom door. He got off the bed and came toward Steve, stopping a few feet short of the window. It was then that Steve saw the chain that tethered him to the iron bedframe. Anger darkened his face, but he kept his eyes on his father, mouthing "Is she there?"

Mark shook his head and made beckoning motions. Steve brought up his gun, reversed it, and used the butt to smash the window. Still using the gun, he swept the shards of glass out of the frame, reached up to unlock the window, opened it, and climbed in. Once inside, he moved quickly to his father's side.

"I am very glad to see you!" said Mark.

"The feeling's mutual," returned Steve, gripping his arms momentarily and looking him over. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, and I'll be even better when we get out of here."

"Where's Marcie?" Steve asked, moving toward the bed.

"She went into town to get some more supplies," Mark responded. "She'll be back soon, so we'd better hurry."

Steve nodded, checking out the chain. "My sentiments exactly." He tugged hard at the point where the chain was fastened to the bedframe, but failed to feel any give. A glance at the lock was sufficient to determine that it wouldn't smash easily.

"I think you could separate the links from this ankle cuff with a couple of pliers," Mark suggested.

Steve knelt beside him and checked out the cuff. "I'll grab a couple out of the car," he said. He quickly climbed back out and ran to the car, and retrieved two pairs of pliers from the tool kit in the trunk. He raced back to the bedroom and knelt beside his father, trying to pry apart the chain links. By the way his father winced whenever the cuff pulled against his leg as Steve worked, he could tell that the shackle must have caused some bad bruising. He felt anger flare within him again, but he suppressed it - the imperative thing now was to get his father out of here.

"You know," he said, keeping his tone light, "Marcie may not know it, but she's pretty lucky that you're not her father."

Mark raised his eyebrows. "Oh? And why is that?"

"Well," said Steve as he continued to pry at the links, which were stronger than he had suspected, "as I remember it, you used to come down pretty hard on Carol and me if you thought we were being disrespectful. And we never tried to chain you to anything!"

"You're right," agreed Mark solemnly. "She is definitely lacking in proper filial respect." He squatted down to see how Steve was doing.

"I think I've got it," Steve announced, giving a final tug. Just then, Mark saw movement out of the corner of his eye and looked up to see Marcie, lamp in hand, right behind his son.

"Steve!" he cried. But it was too late. As Steve's head jerked around, Marcie brought the lamp base crashing down on him. He pitched forward and lay still.

Mark watched in horror as Marcie knocked Steve unconscious. He tried to grab Steve's gun, which lay on the floor on the other side of his son's recumbent form, but Marcie scooped it up first and backed away. He froze as she pointed the weapon, not at him, but at Steve.

"Marcie…" he said quietly, getting slowly to his feet, "put the gun down."

"No! He's ruined everything!" she screamed. "He's the reason you don't want me! If I get rid of him, then we can be happy together."

Mark moved cautiously, slowly advancing toward Marcie, while unobtrusively moving between her and his son's prone body. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Steve stir, but he was afraid to look away from Marcie long enough to check.

"Hurting Steve won't accomplish anything, Marcie. You don't really want to hurt him."

"Yes I do!" Marcie was starting to cry. "It's all his fault. If you didn't have him, you would love me!"

Steve returned to consciousness to the sound of Marcie's ranting. He opened his eyes and looked cautiously around. He saw Marcie pointing his gun at him, while his father moved slowly toward her. He heard his father's voice - calm, rational, soothing - the tone he often used with distraught patients.

"…You don't really want to hurt anybody, Marcie. This has never been about hurting anyone…"

As Steve started to raise himself up, Marcie stepped back and to the side to have a clear view, and aimed the gun directly at him.

"Don't move!" she ordered. "You stay there! You're the one who poisoned his mind against me! You won't let him love me!"

Steve froze as his father took a quick step forward, causing the gun to momentarily swerve towards him.

"No, Marcie, this has nothing to do with Steve," Mark declared, trying to keep her attention on himself, forcing himself to keep his voice calm and unthreatening, despite his fear for his son's safety. "This is between you and me. But you don't want to hurt me either, do you? You didn't come to L.A. to hurt anyone, remember? You've avoided hurting anyone so far..."

Steve's hand went involuntarily to the back of his head, and he thought his dad might be stretching that point a bit. He watched as his father resumed his advance towards Marcie, holding her attention with a soothing, almost hypnotic flow of words. The tone was having the desired effect - Marcie seemed to be focusing on Mark, calming down, responding to the doctor's apparently calm and confident manner. Only Steve, who knew his father so well, could hear the edge of fear that underlay that tone, and knew the effort it was taking for his father to maintain it. He noticed that Mark's course towards the distraught woman was taking a slightly oblique angle, and caught his breath as he realized that his father was positioning himself between his son and the gun. There was nothing Steve could do about it, however, without risking the disruption of that precarious balance Mark was maintaining with Marcie.

"Come on now, Marcie," Mark gently urged. "We can work this out together. Everything's going to be all right. Just give me the gun…"

As Steve watched the drama progress, every nerve on edge, he heard a sound that made his blood chill - the sound of someone approaching the house. He groaned inwardly, as he realized his backup had arrived. Not yet! Not yet! he shouted mentally, willing the officers to refrain from making any move.

Just as Mark approached within arm's distance of Marcie, and she allowed the gun to waver, a shout rang out: "Police! Open up!" The fragile calm Mark had worked so hard to establish shattered; Marcie lost control and screamed "NO! You lied!" Simultaneously, Steve launched himself in a desperate attempt to tackle Marcie, the front door crashed open, Mark took the final step directly in front of her, and the gun went off.

Steve crashed to the floor on top of Marcie, as the officers burst into the room. He rolled off the hysterically weeping woman, snatching up his gun where it had fallen. He pulled her to her feet and thrust her at an advancing officer, snapping out, "Here, take care of her," as he turned quickly back to where his father lay curled up on the floor.

Steve dropped to one knee beside Mark. "Dad?" he queried desperately. Mark looked up at him, sweat beading his face, his hands clamped hard over his side.

"I'll be all right," he said, his voice laced with pain. "I don't think it hit anything vital."

"Get a medichopper out here - now!" Steve ordered, seeing the blood seeping rapidly around his father's hands. He glanced quickly around the room. He leaned over and grabbed the pillow off the bed, yanking off the pillowcase. He tore the case into pieces, wadded one segment up, and pressed it against the wound in his father's side. As Mark placed his own hand over the pad and applied pressure, Steve gently lifted his father's head and slid the pillow under it. He looked down at his father's face to see a glint of humor showing through the pain in his eyes.

"We'll turn you into a good medic yet," Mark said. "All that hanging around hospitals and doctors must be rubbing off on you."

"So how come hanging around cops all these years hasn't taught you not to walk in front of a deranged person with a gun?" Steve retorted, with little to be heard in his voice except exasperation. But his hands were very gentle as he used another strip of the pillowcase to carefully wipe his father's face, and one hand lingered comfortingly on his father's shoulder.

"I guess I'm a slow learner," Mark responded with a faint smile. He turned serious then. "She didn't mean to shoot, Steve," he said, his voice weakening. "She was putting the gun down…"

"I know, Dad," Steve replied, responding to the underlying concern in his father's voice. "Don't worry, we'll get her a psych evaluation and see that she's taken care of."

Mark nodded and relaxed, his eyes closing. The pressure of his hand on the bandage slipped, and Steve put his own hand over it to control the bleeding, desperately listening for the sounds of the approaching helicopter.

"Hang on, Dad," he said urgently. "The chopper's coming." Mark's eyes fluttered open in response, and he smiled weakly. Steve kept as much pressure on the wound as he could, as he waited for the medics to come and load his father into the helicopter that would rush him to the hospital. Come on, he mentally urged them. I'm not going to lose him now - not when I've just got him back!

Chapter 12

A couple of hours later, Steve and Amanda were sitting in the doctor's lounge in Community General, waiting for Mark to get out of surgery.

"I can't believe Marcie actually shot him," Amanda said after Steve had filled her in on what had happened.

"She didn't really mean to," Steve replied wearily. "Actually, it was me she wanted dead. She seemed to think that Dad would turn to her if I were out of the way."

Amanda looked at him in astonishment.

"She really must be nuts if she thought that!" exclaimed Jesse, entering the room at that moment. Steve and Amanda both turned to look at him, their eyes anxiously questioning.

"Mark's going to be just fine," Jesse assured them with a smile. "We patched him up and pumped a couple of quarts of blood into him, and he's doing great. By morning we'll probably have to sedate him to keep him from doing rounds."

Steve breathed a sigh of relief, and Amanda smiled.

Jesse looked appraisingly at Steve. "Actually, you look almost worse than he does," he observed. "Why don't you go on home. Between the anesthesia and the painkillers, your dad's going to get a good night's sleep - you might as well do the same."

"Go on, Steve," urged Amanda. "I doubt that you've gotten a decent night's sleep in the past few days."

Steve knew that his friends were right. Now that the crisis was over, and the need for immediate action was past, the adrenaline that had carried him along had drained out of him, leaving him exhausted.

"Okay," he agreed. "But I'd like to see him for a minute first."

"Sure," said Jesse. "I'll take you up."

In Mark's room, Steve stood by the side of the bed, looking down at his father, feeling an overwhelming sense of relief and thankfulness. It was still painfully fresh in his mind that, just a few short days ago, he had thought he would never see his dad again. He reached out and gently touched his father's arm. Mark's eyelids fluttered.

"Dad?" Steve said softly.

His father's eyes opened.

"Hey," Steve said with a smile. "Welcome back."

Mark smiled back at him faintly. "Steve." He looked around, a slightly puzzled expression on his face.

"You're back at Community General," Steve told him. "Jesse says you're going to be fine. Everything's all right."

Mark gazed back at him as he remembered what had happened. "Marcie?" he asked, his voice still slightly hoarse from the anesthesia.

"She's been referred to a psych unit," Steve assured him. "She'll be all right. It's all over, Dad."

Mark smiled again, and nodded, his eyelids drooping.

"Sleep well, Dad," Steve murmured softly, his hand sliding up to gently rub his father's shoulder. He looked down at him for a moment longer, as Mark drifted back to sleep. Then he quietly left to go home.

Chapter 13

The next day, Steve, Amanda and Jesse all gathered in Mark's room.

"So, how's the patient?" Amanda asked Jesse as she entered.

"Oh, he's fine," Jesse replied lightly. "The bullet just hit the fleshy part of the side - no major damage done."

"First time I've ever been grateful for those extra couple of inches around my middle," Mark quipped with a grin. They all grinned back at him.

"Maybe you ought to quit trying to lose them," suggested Steve, smiling affectionately at his father.

"Yeah, they could come in handy the next time somebody tries to put a bullet in you!" chimed in Jesse.

"I think we should just try to avoid that situation," Steve suggested dryly, as he and Amanda threw Jesse dour looks.

"Marcie didn't really mean to shoot me," Mark said, sobering.

"So, just what was Marcie planning on doing with you, anyway?" Jesse asked Mark.

"She seemed to think that all we needed was time alone together for me to 'admit' that I was her father and for us to develop a 'relationship'," Mark replied. "She really believed I was her father," he added sadly. "I can't understand why Jenny would have done that to her."

"Apparently, both mother and daughter were prone to fantasizing," Steve replied.

"When I talked to Nancy, Jenny's nursing supervisor, she said that Jenny had become involved with a rather unsavory character," Amanda added. "She said Jenny probably didn't want Marcie to know what kind of man her real father was, so she decided to use you as a substitute. Since she wasn't planning on coming back here, she probably never thought of the possible consequences."

"Why pick on me?" Mark wondered.

"Hey, she wouldn't be the first person to think you'd make a better dad that the real one," Jesse said lightly. They all looked at him. He added with a grin, "But hopefully Marcie'll be the last to try to kill Steve to get you to herself!"

Amanda and Steve grimaced at him, but Mark said seriously, "I don't think she really wanted to kill anyone. She just didn't know how to handle it when her fantasy came undone."

"What about the body in your car?" Steve reminded him. "She doesn't seem to have had any qualms about killing him. Or didn't you know about that?"

"Actually, she didn't kill him," Mark replied. "She told me about that when we were up at the cabin. I told her that you would find me before long," he said, flashing a quick look at his son, "and she told me what she'd done with the car. Apparently, she was a witness to a hit-and-run involving a street person, and instead of reporting the death, she just appropriated the body. I think that's really when she got the whole idea of kidnapping me and staging the 'accident'. Before then, I think she hadn't gone beyond fantasizing; but when she actually had a body, she decided to plant it in my car and set it on fire so it would be assumed to be me. She figured if you thought I was dead, you wouldn't look for me." He paused, his gaze meeting Steve's, silently acknowledging what he knew that must have meant for his son. They were all silent for a moment.

"Well, at least now she can get the help she needs," Amanda commented. "Steve made sure they checked her into a secure psych unit."

"Not at Community General, I might add," said Steve. They all smiled at that. "I think we'll all feel more comfortable if Marcie stays as far away from you as possible."

Mark nodded. Then, shaking off the serious mood, he looked over at Jesse. "So, when do I get out of here, Doc?"

"I think we'll just keep you for a day or two to make sure everything's healing okay," Jesse replied.

Mark grimaced. "Come on, Jesse. I'm perfectly capable of telling if everything's healing okay. I can also change the dressing myself and get plenty of rest at home."

"Well, we should still keep you here for today. Besides," he added, looking around mischievously, "I'm not letting you out of here until somebody tells me all about Robin Westlin's disappearing body and what it has to do with your teeth!"

END