"I know how you feel." He smiled at her gently: "I feel the same way when I talk to mechanics about my car."

They left the house at precisely 6:18 P.M.

**********

In his laboratory in the Rosslyn medical building, Klein ran a number of tests. First he analyzed protein content.

Normal.

Then a count of blood cells.

"Too many red," Klein explained, "means bleeding. And too many white would mean infection."

He was looking in particular for a fungus infection that was often the cause of chronic bizarre behavior. And again drew a blank.

At the last, Klein tested the fluid's sugar content.

"How come?" Chris asked him intently.

"Well, now, the spinal sugar," he told her, "should measure two-thirds of the amount of blood sugar. Anything significantly under that ratio would mean a disease in which the bacteria eat the sugar in the spinal fluid. And if so, it could account for her symptoms." But he failed to find it.

Chris shook her head and folded her arms. "Here we are again, folks," she murmured bleakly.

For a while Klein brooded. Then at last he turned and looked to Chris. "Do you keep any drugs in your house?" he asked her.

"Huh?"

"Amphetamines? LSD?"

"Gee, no. Look, I'd tell you. No, there's nothing like that."

He nodded and stared at his shoes, then looked up and said, "Well--- I guess that it's time we consulted a psychiatrist, Mrs. MacNeil."

**********

She was back in the house at exactly 7:21 P.M., and at the door she called, "Sharon?" Sharon wasn't there.

Chris went upstairs to Regan's bedroom. Still heavily asleep. Not a ruffle in her covers. Chris noticed that the window was open wide. An odor of urine. Sharon must've opened it to air out the room; she thought. She closed it. Where did she go?

Chris returned downstairs just as Willie came in.

"Hi ya, Willie. Any fun today?"

"Shopping. Movies."

"Where's Karl?"

Willie made a gesture of dismissal. "He lets me see the Beatles this time. By myself." "Good work."

Willie held up her fingers in a V. The time was 7:35.

At 8:01, while Chris was in the study talking to her agent on the phone, Sharon walked through the door with several packages, and then flopped in a chair and waited.

"Where've you been?" asked Chris when she'd finished.

"Oh, didn't he tell you?"

"Oh, didn't who tell me?"

"Burke. Isn't he here? Where is he?"

"He was here?"

"You mean he wasn't when you got home?" "Listen,

start all over," said Chris.

"Oh, that nut," Sharon chided with a headshake. "I couldn't get the druggist to deliver, so when Burke came around, I thought, fine, he can stay here with Regan while I go get the Thorazine." She shrugged. "I should have known."

'Yeah, you should've. And so what did you buy?"

"Well, since I thought I had the time, I went and bought a rubber drawsheet for her bed." She displayed it.

"Did you eat?"

"No, I thought I'd fix a sandwich. Would you like one?"

"Good idea. Let's go and eat."

"What happened with the tests?" Sharon asked as they walked slowly to the kitchen.

"Not a thing. All negative. I'm going to have to get her a shrink," Chris answered dully.

**********

After sandwiches and coffee, Sharon showed Chris how to give an injection.

"The two main things," she explained, "are to make sure that there aren't any air bubbles, and then you make sure that you haven't hit a vein. See, you aspirate a little, like this"--- she was demonstrating--- "and see if there's blood in the syringe."

For a time, Chris practiced the procedure on a grapefruit, and seemed to grow proficient. Then at 9:28, the front doorbell rang. Willie answered. It was Karl. As he passed through the kitchen, en route to his room, he nodded a good evening and remarked he'd forgotten to take his key.

"I can't believe it," Chris said to Sharon. "That's the first time he's ever admitted a mistake."

They passed the evening watching television in the study.

At 11:46, Chris answered the phone. The young director of the second unit, He sounded grave.

"Have you heard the news yet, Chris?"