A/N: Disclaimer - all original CSI: NY characters are owned by CBS. All others are my own creation.

This story basically takes place in the A/U of sorts of 'Lost and Found' where Mac ends up adopting Devon. I guess I consider it an A/U as the premise of that story and this is basically in current time but obviously in a completely different direction than the show. This story occurs 2.5 years after the epilogue of 'Lost and Found'.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy it!


Chapter 1

"Hey, Adam," Mac called.

"Yo, boss," Adam replied without taking his pen from his mouth and looking up from his current project.

Mac took a brief second to shoot Adam a humoring look at the casual slang of his tech's response, "Want to come process a body that was found in a building scheduled for demolition this morning?"

Adam's eyes lit up and he dropped the pen out of his mouth, catching it in one hand and almost throwing it on the table as he hurried to save the progress he'd made on the audio reconstruction he'd been working on. "Boss, you have no idea how much I'd love to get out of here right now!"

Mac smiled, "I think I have some sort of an idea," he said, having jumped at the opportunity to get out of the office as well. "You ready?"

"Yep!" Adam said. "Can I just grab my jacket real quick?"

"No, Adam, you have to deal with it if you don't have it handy. We gotta get going," Mac replied with a perfectly serious and straight face.

Adam looked suddenly crestfallen. "Oh. Okay," he said, moving a bit slower and joining Mac at the elevator.

Mac shook his head in amusement feeling like smacking Adam upside the head. "I'm kidding!" he said, "Go get your jacket. Our victim isn't exactly going anywhere."

"I knew that," Adam said with a half-nervous chuckle, "I'll be right back." He dove off down the hallway.

xxxxx

The sun was out, but the early April air was still cool, barely breaking 50 degrees. Mac adjusted his sunglasses as he stepped out of his truck, grabbing his case and looking up at the building where their dead body was currently lying. There was nothing special about it: typical run-down fourteen story New York apartment building sitting in a row of similar complexes with a scattering of bodegas, liquor stores and other rather shady looking small businesses. Adam right behind his shoulder, Mac ducked under the police tape that cordoned off the building. He registered the notice for demolition that was displayed in the front door and that was also in the adjoining apartment buildings.

"Some sort of neighborhood reconstruction project or something," a voice drawled in a very strong Brooklyn accent.

Mac looked behind him to see the scene detective duck under the tape as well to join him.

"Detective Vanessa Morrow," she introduced herself, shaking Mac's hand and gesturing up and down the street to the multiple notices.

"Detective Mac Taylor, and this is Adam Ross," Mac replied to Morrow's greeting.

"Nice to meet you," Adam said.

"Of course what they never seem to understand is that it takes more than a nice new set of buildings to change a neighborhood," Detective Morrow continued after flashing a warm smile at Adam.

"Gotta start somewhere though, right?" Mac answered in a tone that nevertheless indicated his agreement with her sentiment. This neighborhood was typical of most socio-economically depressed neighborhoods that was fairly well entrenched in its place amongst several low-level gangs. It was going to take a hell of a lot more effort and money to turn it around than just a few new buildings with shiny fronts.

Vanessa snorted.

"So fill me in," Mac said, gesturing for her to lead the way to their dead victim.

"Well, demo was scheduled for ten this morning, and when the crew were doing their final sweeps of the buildings, they found our guy. Obviously they canceled the demo and called us." Vanessa led them over to the stairs. "Electricity has already been cut," she said in response to Adam's questioning look as they walked straight past the elevators. "And it's only the second floor," she added with a wink in his direction.

Adam blushed.

"Any idea who the victim is?" Mac inquired as they climbed the steps of the cheap, concrete steel and linoleum building.

Vanessa flipped open her notebook. "Male, 21 years old, name of Wesley Parrot…"

From behind Mac, Adam burst out laughing. "No way!" he said, "Wesley Parrot? What parent names their kid 'Wesley', especially if his last name is already 'Parrot'?"

Mac just looked over his shoulder at Adam who immediately tried to straighten his face.

"Sorry, boss," he said as contritely as possible.

Mac gave him a small smile and turned his attention back to a grinning Detective Marrow.

"Hey, I had the exact same thought," she said, glancing back at Adam, "Let's see, what else…?" she turned a page in her small notebook as they reached the door to the second story and made their way down the echoing hall. "Money and cards were still in his wallet, as was a student ID for NYU."

"Obvious cause of death?" Mac asked as Vanessa ushered them into the end apartment.

"Beat with a baseball bat," she announced, offering Mac and Adam the actual crime scene with a flourish.

It seemed almost too good to be true, but sure enough, there was a baseball bat lying only a couple feet from the victim and covered in blood.

"Our killer certainly didn't go out of his way to hide his tracks all that much," Mac observed looking around.

"Nope," Vanessa said, "Even without all that fancy-shmancy CSI training I can tell that."

Mac shot her a look.

Vanessa turned to Adam. "Does he do that a lot?" she asked in a low voice.

"What?" Adam replied.

"Just look at someone like that?"

Adam nodded, "Yeah, he kinda does."

"Spooky," she said.

Adam fought to hold back laughter.

"Are you two quite finished back there?" Mac asked.

"Yes, boss," Adam said hurriedly.

"Well then get to work collecting trace and fingerprints unless you want to take the chance of having to rely on a burrito that's been sitting in an oven warmer thing for three days from the bodega on the corner for dinner."

Adam made a face. "I'd rather go back on that lemon water diet," he said.

Mac gestured to the crime scene in general and arched one eyebrow, "Then get to work."

Vanessa gave Adam a sympathetic pat on the arm before addressing Mac. "I'm going to finish interviewing people in the area," she said, voice and demeanor back to business, "Kid's obviously not from around here but maybe someone saw him. I'll be back in a little bit, catch up with anything you might have found."

"We'll be here," Mac said.

xxxx

It was a fairly straight-forward crime scene in the sense that whoever the killer was certainly hadn't tried to hide any evidence, and within two hours, Mac and Adam had pretty much the whole thing processed and Mac had a very clear picture of what had gone down. Who had done it and why was still a mystery, but he no doubts there wouldn't be that much trouble tracking down their perp.

"Adam?"

Adam looked up from where he was finishing collecting a print from the inside of the apartment door handle.

"You about finished?"

Adam folded the clear sticky plastic onto itself and slipped it into a mini envelope. "Last one," he told Mac.

"Ok, start bringing the tagged evidence down. I'll be behind you in a few minutes."

Adam nodded, packed up his camera, case and filled his remaining hand with as much of their acquired evidence as he could carry including the bloody baseball bat. He passed Detective Morrow who was coming back up to the apartment on his way out and she shot him a smile that left him so distracted he nearly ran into the stairwell door. He crossed the street and put his load into the back seat of Mac's truck when someone approached him.

"Any idea when you guys are going to be done and out of there?" the man asked.

Adam looked him up and down, not especially appreciating the annoyed and peremptory tone of voice of the individual. "And uh, who are you?" he asked.

"Tom Cartwright," the man said like Adam should have already known, "The operations manager for the demolition. We're on a rather stringent timeline that is going to be hell to reschedule if we can't bring these down today."

Now Adam was definitely put off at callous and cavalier tone Cartwright spoke with. "Yeah, well, Mr. Cartwright, the victim that was in that building could barely buy his own drinks and now he's dead. We're almost finished processing," he said decidedly coolly, "But it's still an active crime scene and an open case so I can't tell you when you'll get to have your buildings back. Now if you'll excuse me…" Adam turned and finished stashing his case under the passenger seat.

The next thing he knew was the most tremendous noise and he was suddenly thrown onto the backseat and almost out the other side of the truck by the shockwave of the building behind him, exploding.

For a few seconds he had no idea where he was.

His vision winked in and out, hazy, confused.

There was no further sound except a tremendous ringing in his ears as he blinked and tried to bring the back of the seat that he was now staring at into focus.

He slowly pushed himself up as his vision and comprehension inched back.

He leaned against the outside of the truck and stared. Stared at the apartment building opposite him which was now settling heavily over the blown-out back corner. On the ground next to him was Tom Cartwright, unconscious, knocked out from his head being slammed against the bed of the truck. Adam turned his still spinning gaze back to the unsteady apartment building and the non-existent space where their crime scene had been.

Their crime scene where he had left Mac and Vanessa.

He waited, half expecting to see them stagger out the front door at any moment. But as the approaching sirens from the responding fire and police vehicles finally got close enough for his damaged hearing to detect, the front door remained stubbornly closed and unmoving.