I’m okay. I think.
   Thank you, Lord. You sure you’re okay?
   We gave up trying to explain Tim’s weird ability to pop into my mind. There’s a flash of blue, the smell of ozone, and he’s talking. Inside my head. No one else can hear him. Now he was talking in my head while my face was mashed into his chest.
   I opened my eyes.
   “I’m okay,” I said aloud.
   Tim got an arm around my shoulders and helped me sit up.
   “I’m okay, Tim” I said, mentally checking my parts for bullet holes.
   John Kincaid, the detective, had stopped at the man on the floor, crouching beside him long enough to take away the little black gun and put it on the table. He kept his own gun pointed at Chris, who stood in the gap that used to be my back door.
   Chris seemed surprised to be there, his eyes vacant. His right hand drooped with the weight of a silver pistol.
   “Put it down, very carefully,” John ordered in a cold, official voice.
   Chris bent and placed his pistol on the floor, then stood up, hands in the air. He blinked and shook his head a couple of times like a swimmer coming out of the water.
   “Back up, hands on the wall,” John ordered, moving to retrieve the gun and lay it up on the counter. Chris turned and put both hands on the wall.
   All this time the guy on the floor was bleeding.