Disclaimer: Of course, I don't own any of CSI: NY...sadly. :) It's all CBS. I keep offering to take it from them, but for some reason, they don't think $10 is enough for the show. :)
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Lindsay Monroe's pager beeped and she put down the piece of evidence that she was holding. Looking down, she could see that it was from Mac. Meet me in my office ASAP. Puzzled, she put her supplies away and the evidence back in the locker. She went out the door and saw that both Stella and Hawkes were walking down the hallway in the direction of Mac's office also. Their faces were worried and slightly puzzled.
When they all reached the door together, Lindsay knew something was up. "Did Mac page you?" She asked her co-workers. They both nodded. "Something about a 911…he said that we needed to be in the office as soon as possible."
Lindsay's stomach did a flip-flop. Something was definitely up.
She opened the door and the three went in. "Mac?" Lindsay jumped slightly when her boss turned around- the expression on his face was as grim as Lindsay had never seen. Glancing around the office, she suddenly realized that all of her colleagues were here expect one- Danny.
"Mac, what is it? Why did you need us all here? And where's Danny? Shouldn't he be here also?"
At the mention of Danny's name, Mac's face turned slightly grayer, if possible. "Stella, Lindsay, Sheldon," He looked at each of them in turn and then spun around to look out the window. "Danny's missing." Stella gasped, Hawkes swore and Lindsay felt like her heart was now on the floor, maybe in pieces. "He was supposed to meet Flack for drinks last night and never showed. Don figured that it was just because something came up with Louie. This morning, when he didn't show up to work, Flack went to his apartment, and the place was a mess. There was obviously a struggle, and there was blood on the walls. The blood type matches Danny." Stella's face turned white. "But there wasn't a lot of it- he should still be alive. Until we find him, his case is our number one priority."
Stella nodded. "Of course. We just want him back."
Lindsay was sure that her face betrayed all emotion-it always did. If either Sheldon, Stella, or Mac had chosen that moment to glance at her, they would have seen unmasked fear, uncertainty, and concern. She couldn't understand- Danny had asked her if she wanted to do dinner last night, but she couldn't. Her parents were visiting for the week. She had just assumed that drinks with Flack had been an afterthought.
Her mind snapped back to the present. Mac was saying something. "…and besides that, we don't have anything. Stella, how about you and Lindsay start processing that?" Stella nodded her consent and pulled Lindsay by the arm out of the room.
"What are we doing?" Lindsay asked her co-worker, her mind still in a daze.
Stella smiled grimly. "There were a few prints, hairs and blood samples at the scene. Mac wants us to start on that. Hawkes and Mac are going back to Danny's place to see if they can see anything they missed before." Stella started to walk away as Lindsay nodded, but stopped when she realized that the younger CSI was no longer with her. "Lindsay, are you okay?"
Lindsay said yes, but the tears filling her eyes were betraying her emotions once again. They must read me like a book. She thought sarcastically.
Stella laid a hand on the blonde's arm. "What do you say that we take a break before we start working?" Lindsay nodded gratefully. Since transferring here, Stella had really become a close friend, and she always seemed to know exactly the right thing to say.
They walked into the break room and both grabbed a cup of coffee. Lindsay sat there, stirring for a second before speaking. "I just don't know…It's all happening so fast. Last night I was out to dinner with my parents and now, Danny's missing and it seems like there isn't anything I can do. I mean, Danny had asked me to dinner last night, and it seemed like something was finally going to happen between us, but I couldn't go…maybe if I had, then he would be here right now, calling me Montana and joking about a case. I just…" She trailed off and a single tear ran down her cheek.
"Lindsay, you can't blame yourself for what happened to Danny. Even if you had gone to dinner with, something still could have happened. You cannot, cannot beat yourself up over this." Stella's voice was slightly comforting, but it didn't stop the tears from flowing down Lindsay's face.
"I know, I know…but still. It's just so sudden I guess…" She wiped the tears off of her cheeks, embarrassed. "I understand that it isn't my fault, really I do. Thanks Stella."
The older woman nodded, and patted Lindsay's arm. "Are you ready to go and process?" Lindsay nodded, and they started down the hall to the lab.
Danny awoke, body aching, and he could feel something warm trickling down his forehead. He didn't know where he was, but the air was stale, and it was dark. As he tried to move, he realized that his hands and feet were bound. Not only that, but he realized that he was in a confined space. Putting the clues together, Danny finally figured out that it was mostly likely a trunk. Suddenly, there was a bump in what Danny assumed was a road and his head banged against the roof of the trunk.
He started to panic, but forced himself to be calm and look at things rationally. First, he tried to recall what had happened up to this point in time. He remembered getting off of his shift yesterday and riding the subway home. He had stopped by Mario's to get a takeout pizza, but ended up eating it there anyway- there was a Yankee's game on. After dinner, he had headed to his apartment. He remembered going inside and sitting down to watch TV. And then there was a struggle- there had been someone in his apartment. He remembered pulling out his gun but some one else hit his head from behind; that must be why his head hurt. Something was held over his mouth and he lost consciousness. After that, he couldn't recall anything until now, waking up in what he supposed was a car trunk.
Lindsay sighed- the evidence was getting them nowhere. The hairs in the apartment belonged to Danny, Louie Messer, and a couple in the family room even were Lindsay's. Stella questioned her about it, and she truthfully told her she had dropped off some dinner to Danny a week ago when he was sick.
The blood also belonged to Danny, although there was an unknown sample that wasn't in the system. And the prints were a dead-end too- they were Danny's, Lindsay's, Louie's, or another unknown contributor.
Lindsay had become nauseous when looking at the photos from the crime scene. There was so much blood- almost all of it Danny's- that she just wasn't sure if he was even still alive. Things just weren't looking up for him.
And if that wasn't bad enough, Stella kept giving her worried, concerned looks, especially when she sighed. She just wanted to go home, and pretend that none of this had ever happened.
Finally, after what seemed to be eternity, they had a breakthrough. "Lindsay!" Stella's face looked up in excitement from the computer she had been looking at. "Look at this."
Lindsay walked over to see what had gotten Stella so excited. "What?"
"Well, I was reconstructing the crime scene, trying to see something that I had maybe missed before." She pointed to the screen. "Danny's gun lay here, right?" Lindsay nodded. "And the chair was pointing that way, correct?" Again, Lindsay nodded. "And over here was the blood pattern on the wall." For the third time, Lindsay nodded her head. "Well, if you put it all together, you can see that there were two attackers." Lindsay's face must have shown here confusion because Stella continued. "The gun is on the floor over here- Danny would have been able to shoot one attacker. The chair is facing toward the bedroom, like somebody tripped on it going into the room. That means that the attacker drove Danny back. Then, in the bedroom, Danny's blood covers the wall opposite of where the chair is placing- the opposite way of how Danny is facing, I assume. By the blood splatter, someone must have hit him from behind. Somehow there were two people in that house."
"Okay…but how does that get us any farther in the case?" Lindsay questioned, still not really understanding. "That doesn't give us any more information then we had before."
"But that's where your wrong," Stella half-gloated. "We now know that there were three people in the apartment at the time- Danny, attacker one and attacker two. If Danny was facing the first attacker, and the second one hit him from behind, the second man must have been where Danny couldn't see him. Where in Danny's bedroom could he have hidden?"
Lindsay grinned for the first time that day. She was beginning to understand. "The closet!" She grabbed some photos and pointed it out to Stella. "You can get into Danny's bedroom from the kitchen and the main hallway- there are two entrances. The one from the kitchen goes into his bathroom and the main hallway goes into his room. The first attacked must have been driving Danny back into the bedroom so the second man could knock him out. He would have had to hide, and the closet was the perfect spot. Did we print the knob on the door at all?"
Stella shook her head. "No, but we'll have too."
It took the two women 20 minutes to reach the apartment. Lindsay sighed internally; she wished that she had been coming to his apartment under different circumstances. Ever since she had arrived, Lindsay's feelings for Danny had just kept escalating. What had begun as a simple crush was developing into something she couldn't really understand. When he had asked her to dinner the night before, she had been so excited- more excited then she had ever been about a guy. Something about Danny just made her feel alive.
Of course, his reputation as a ladies' man didn't do anything to ease her nerves, but she didn't really care. All she wanted was him- to hold him, to kiss him, to love him.
She blushed, just thinking of it, and Stella caught the color in her cheeks. "What in the world are you thinking about, Lindsay that could have turned you that color?"
Lindsay blushed harder. "Nothing."
Stella was about to say more, but they were at the apartment. Stella let them in and started toward the bedroom. Again, Lindsay couldn't help but wish that she was here with Danny and under different circumstances.
She dallied a bit in the main room, studying things about the place that she hadn't before. The way that he was so organized and tidy- how he kept his CDs and DVDs. She grinned- he was just as meticulous as her.
Finally, Stella called from the bedroom, breaking Lindsay out of her search. "Hey Lindsay! I got a print and a hair sample from the closet! I've just got to print the handle and we're done!"
Lindsay nodded, although Stella couldn't see her.
"Lindsay!" Stella's voice came through again.
"What?"
"I've got something."
Well, what do you think? Love it? Hate it? Want more? Well,I guess it really doesn't matter if you want more or not, because there will be more:)
Charlotte