It's Sharona's turn to be terrified. After several frightening and mysterious encounters with a blood-soaked man that no one else can see, she begins to doubt her own sanity, and Stottlemeyer advises Monk to give her time off to restore her nerves. Monk is left with an irritating substitute nurse whose philosophy is the opposite of Sharona's: everything from Monk's requests for wipes to the obsessively systematic organization of his refrigerator has to go. Wanting Sharona back again, Monk goes to the garage where Sharona first saw the blood-soaked man and finds a clue--the silver tip from the toe of a cowboy boot. Meanwhile Sharona, who is attending a night class in creative writing, apparently forgets to turn in an assignment and seems to be misplacing objects. But when her writing instructor's husband dies of a heart attack after eating tomato soup, Sharona recognizes the plot of her missing story and realizes that she's not crazy. All she and Monk have to do now is tie together the.