It wasn't Kelly. The caved-in cheek, the skewed nose, the swollen forehead, the misshapen skull, the bulging eye, the matted blond hair, the glass-slashed skin on her face and shoulders, the huge, crudely sutured incision running from the base of her throat down between her breasts and on downward, no, that couldn't be Kelly, it couldn't be Kelly, but it was, oh dear God it was!

Kara turned away, reeling as the floor began to tilt beneath her feet.

"You gonna be sick, lady?" the attendant said.

Kara waved her hand back at him. Shut up! Just shut up!

" 'Cause if you are," he continued, "there's a bathroom right over there."

She couldn't focus her eyes so she didn't know where "over there" was. The icy room had somehow become very hot and her skin was drenched with perspiration. She felt her knees turning to liquid, sagging.

Suddenly an arm was around her waist, lifting her.

"I've got you," Rob's voice said at her side.

He guided her through a door into a smelly little room lit by a naked 60-watt bulb and outfitted with a dirty sink, a dirtier toilet, and a mop in a bucket. He steadied her as she leaned over the bowl and lost the weak Penn Station coffee she'd had for breakfast. When the retching finally stopped, he handed her a paper towel. She wiped her face and mouth and then sagged against the wall.

Kelly is dead. My dear, dear Kelly is dead!

She felt Rob's arm go around her shoulders but she shrugged him off. She could handle this. She could have used someone to hold on to now, just for a moment, but she had to be strong, had to stand on her own. She searched for her voice and finally found it.

"Could you give me a couple of minutes, Rob?"

"Sure. I'll be right outside."

Once she was alone, the sobs began, echoing up from an empty pit that had opened inside her, quaking through her chest, making her whole body heave.