Ch. 1
It was a beautiful Louisiana night. Strains of lilting jazz music floated on the air, the tail end of a complicated saxophone solo twisting before settling down into a smooth, soulful melody. The faint smell of the sea was tainted by inorganic stink of the oil from the BP gulf spill. Standing on the street corner under a burnt out street light, Detective Stella Bonasera sighed and ran her fingers through her curly hair. She had just gotten off of work, a 12-hour shift that somehow turned into a graveyard at the New Orleans Crime Lab. She loved her job, but being the head of a lab in New Orleans was more work than her old job in New York had been.
New Orleans had been a beautiful town before Katrina, but the storm had brought to light the extreme poverty of the underbelly of the city and equalized the social status citywide. There were still parts of the town missing, washed out to sea in the storm's fury, even after almost a decade. Everything was dirty, and floodwater residue contaminated any evidence that came into the lab. Shaking her head, Stella sighed again and turned toward her apartment. It was funny –even after living there for a little over two years, she still had trouble calling the small one bedroom apartment home. She knew she was being ridiculous, but she still felt like she was just visiting.
Stella missed New York. She missed the ever-moving pulse of the city, the crazy cab drivers that made driving a hazard to her health, the masses of people, the many different languages and dialects that had always surrounded her like an old, comfortable sweater, even the homeless people (although, if she thought about it, there was no shortage of homeless people here; she just preferred the New York homeless). Her heart gave a little tug when she thought of her old condo and another when she was reminded of her old lab. She missed all of them; Lindsay, Danny, Flack, Adam, Sid, Sheldon, Mac… her heart gave another tug when she thought of Mac, but she shook it off, along with the other pangs of homesickness. She left the city for a reason, and she didn't need to be caught up in all this silly sentimental stuff. She quickened her pace, trying to clear her head. She hadn't wanted to spend this much time with her thoughts, but the walk home from the lab forced it, especially when her iPod was dead.
She hurried to her apartment and let herself in, now lost in her mind. She opened her mailbox and a pale blue envelope fell out. She sighed impatiently, picked it up, and immediately threw it away. She knew what the envelope had in it; another letter from her ex, trying to explain how he made a mistake and how he deserved a second chance. She didn't care and she didn't want him back. He needed to understand that nearly getting her fired and doing the things that he'd done was not something that a letter could solve. She sat down on her couch, sorting through the rest of her mail, her mind 1,306 miles away. She checked her watch. It was almost 6 am. That meant it was nearly seven in New York. Her heart gave a little tug again, and she sighed. Thank god she had a day off. She ate a small plate of leftover takeout from the night before, showered, and collapsed into bed, exhausted and slightly homesick. Within minutes, she fell into an uneasy sleep interwoven with scenes of New York and her friends from the lab. But before she fell asleep, she remembered something that made her groan.
It was her birthday.
1,306 miles away, in New York City, Detective Mac Taylor was awoken by his cell phone buzzing near his ear. He grabbed it and answered it, fighting back a yawn.
"Taylor," he said into the phone, sitting up.
"Hey, Mac, we got a DOA in Central Park, looks like murder," a familiar voice greeted him.
"All right. I'm on my way," he said. He hung up as a woman snuggled up to him.
"What happened?" she asked. He shook his head.
"Body in Central Park. I got it, Jo."
"You sure?" Jo asked.
"Yeah, I got it. Take a day. You need it," he said, chuckling. "You've been working a lot lately. I'll cover for you."
"You sure? I'd hate to leave you guys in a lurch," Jo drawled, and Mac smiled.
"We'll take care of it," Mac reassured her. He got out of bed, yawning again, and started to get ready. Jo watched him sleepily. Mac shook his head.
"Go back to sleep," he said. She nodded and lay back down.
"Goodbye," she said in a half yawn. Mac grunted and headed out the door.
When he got to the crime scene, things were already in full swing. Detective Don Flack walked over to him where he stood.
"Hey," Flack said. Mac nodded in his direction, taking a sip of the coffee he had grabbed on the way to the crime scene.
"What've we got?" he asked, gesturing to the dead body on the ground around fifteen feet away.
"Female DOA, no ID as of yet, found by a jogger about an hour ago. Says he was jogging along when she stumbled out of the bushes covered in blood and grabbed on to him. Gave him quite a shock, apparently," Flack said with a smirk. "He's being treated by the paramedics now. Passed out after calling 911." The corners of Mac's mouth twitched in what might have been a smile, but Flack didn't get a chance to see because he then turned around and walked over to the body.
It wasn't a pretty sight. The woman had brown, curly hair and when alive, Mac supposed, had been very beautiful. She had a long, slender nose, defined cheekbones, and had an air of elegance about her even in death. Her vacant eyes were the color of the ocean. A knife was sticking out of her stomach, and she was covered in blood. She was lying in a small pool of blood, and her face was contorted into an expression of pain. Her clothes were smeared with dirt, and there were leaves and sticks in her hair. All of the exposed skin was covered in scratches. Mac pointed at several deeper cuts on her forearms.
"Defensive wounds," he noted, writing something down in his notebook. A young, good-looking African-American man kneeling down next to the body nodded. The sun reflected off of his badge, illuminating his volunteer Central Park Medical Unit nametag: Dr. Sheldon Hawkes, M.D.
"Looks like it," he agreed. "Also, note the bruising on her forearms and on her face." Mac looked a bit closer at her face. Sure enough, bruises were forming around her eyes. He also noticed a bruise forming on her left cheekbone.
"She got beat up pretty badly," he said. "Hey, Hawkes, did you notice anything else?" Dr. Hawkes nodded. Carefully, he moved her head so that her neck was exposed. On her neck was a reddish-blue spot.
"Hickey," Mac said with a smile.
"Yep," Hawkes said. "And it looks fresh, too."
"Think we can get DNA off of it?" Mac asked him. Hawkes shook his head.
"I don't know," he said. "We can certainly try, but maybe not."
"Try it," Mac said. "Whoever gave her that hickey might be connected." Hawkes nodded, and Mac started to process the scene. He looked around.
"Hey, Sheldon," Mac said again. "Where are Danny and Lindsay?"
"Danny is late; he had to drop Lucy off at day care, and he's running behind. And Lindsay's at a doctor's appointment. She's coming in later."
"Right," Mac said. He looked around again. "And where are Adam and Stella?"
Hawkes gave him a weird look. "Adam told you yesterday that he was going to be late today. Something about his forensics conference running behind. And Stella moved, Mac. Almost three years ago."
"I know." Mac sighed. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I asked you that."
Hawkes smiled. "I know. I miss her too." Mac said nothing, but the doctor noticed that something that looked like pain had spasmed across Mac's face. "Hey Mac, you okay?"
"Hmm?" Mac said, looking up at him. "What? Oh, yeah. I'm fine. I was just thinking. It's Stella's birthday today."
"Really?" Hawkes said. Mac nodded.
"I was going to call her later," Mac confessed. "I figured that she might not want to be woken up at six."
"Why don't you just Facebook her?" Hawkes asked.
"What?" Mac said, confused. Hawkes made a face.
"You don't have a Facebook, do you? Right. Uh, never mind. So I'm thinking that this isn't our primary crime scene. There's a trail indicating she came from off the beaten path," Hawkes said quickly to cover the awkward moment. Mac nodded in agreement.
"I'll ask Flack to set up a search perimeter," he said as he walked towards the bushes. He examined where the jogger had said the woman had come out. There were several broken branches, and a blood trail dripped haphazardly away from the shrub and to the body. Snapping several pictures of the trail and the beaten bush, he carefully stepped into the hole, following the blood drops. A few feet in, he noticed a piece of folded-up cardstock on the ground. After photographing it, he picked it up and opened it. A small picture fell out. He picked it up, and to his surprise, Stella was staring back at him. She was smiling and waving at the camera, and some guy had his arm around her waist. Mac blinked several times. Stella… was seeing someone? There was something not right about that.
"Hey, Hawkes," Mac called over his shoulder. "Come here a sec."
Hawkes shouldered his way through the bushes. "Yeah?"
"Come see this," Mac said. He showed him the photograph. Hawkes looked at it for a second.
"Wait, is that Stella?" Hawkes asked.
"Looks like it," Mac said dryly. Hawkes looked at Mac. There it was again—something like pain spasming across Mac's face. Feeling suddenly like he was intruding on something private, Hawkes looked back down at the photo.
"Who's the guy?" he asked Mac. Mac shook his head, a weird, stony look on his face.
"I don't know."
"Maybe you should call her today," Hawkes said. Mac nodded, then looked at his watch and shook his head.
"I'll wait until around ten her time. That's a more decent time."
Hawkes nodded his head in agreement. "What was the other thing?"
"What? Oh, uh, I don't know." Mac unfolded the cardstock.
"It's a postcard," he said. A faded picture of some New Orleans street corner, pre-Katrina, was on the back. He flipped it over.
"I can't read any of that," Hawkes said, disappointed. Mac smiled and put it into an evidence bag.
"We can figure it out at the lab," Mac said. Hawkes nodded, and then stopped.
"Hold on, I think I can read a little bit of that. Let me see." Mac shrugged and handed him the envelope. The doctor held up the postcard, tilting it back and forth.
"Can you get a name off it?" Mac asked. Hawkes shook his head.
"No, it's too degraded. I'll have to wait until after I get it back to the lab." Mac nodded, and Hawkes thought he saw disappointment in Mac's eyes. It was gone in a moment, though, so he figured he had just imagined it. He put the postcard back in the evidence bag and went back to processing the area around the body. Mac turned away from where he found the postcard, continuing to search for the path that their vic had taken, but his mind was elsewhere.
So Stella was seeing someone. Mac didn't have any issues with it; in fact, he was happy for her. He hadn't expected her to stay single forever, although the fact that she'd had to kill her last boyfriend had certainly slowed her desire to date. Mac figured that after she moved to New Orleans, she'd decided to get back into dating. It didn't bother him. He'd moved on after Claire died and Peyton moved back to England. Still, something bothered him with the way Stella had her arms around that guy. It was so… intimate.
Mac shook his head and focused on his work. After a few hours, he'd collected enough evidence to send back to the lab, and Hawkes had found primary crime scene, about fifty yards away in a little clearing slightly off the beaten path. Mac had been following the blood trail—which he had to admit was sketchy at best—when he heard Hawkes yell his name.
"Hey, Mac!" Hawkes called triumphantly. "I found what looks like our primary crime scene." Mac backed carefully out of the bushes and looked around.
"I don't see you, Hawkes. Where are you?" Mac called. Off the path, Hawkes answered.
"I'm over here. See that small hole in the bushes next to the path? Move the branches to the side and follow the path."
Mac did what he said and discovered a thin trail leading away from the path.
"I still can't see you," Mac said.
"Keep walking," Hawkes instructed. Mac followed the trail and after about a minute found himself in a small clearing with a grinning Hawkes.
"Come look at this, Mac," he said, snapping several pictures. Mac moved over to where Hawkes was standing, knelt down and studied the ground.
"Leaves and ground cover looks disturbed," Mac observed. "it looks like she was chased around this clearing."
"yup," Hawkes agreed. "I found blood droplets, too. and look at these," he said pointing toward a few very large footprints. "those are too big to belong to our vic."
Mac nodded and bent down to photograph the footprints. As he straightened up, he noticed something on the edge of the clearing. He walked over and took a closer look. It was a cell phone, or at least, what remained of one. the screen was cracked and stained with something. Three of the buttons were missing, as well as a large chunk of the casing. Mac surveyed the damaged phone.
"Whoa," someone behind him said. Mac turned around.
"Adam," he said, "just the person I wanted to see." Adam looked up at him, surprised.
"M-me?" Adam stammered. Mac nodded and handed him the cell phone.
"I need you to get this back to the lab and start working on it. See if you can get anything off it." As he handed the phone to Adam, he happened to look at his watch. It was almost eleven, nearly time to call Stella. Mac looked around. "Danny!" he finally called.
"Yeah, boss," Danny said, coming from behind him. Mac turned around.
"Danny, I need you to oversee things here for now. I need to go back to the lab and make a few phone calls. Can you make sure that all the evidence makes it back to the lab?"
"Yeah, sure, no problem," Danny said. he surveyed the scene quickly. "I got it, Mac," he said calmly. Mac nodded and left the crime scene. He needed to make that phone call, and soon. Abruptly, he remembered Stella and her boyfriend from the picture. He wrinkled his brow, concerned. How different was Stella going to be? He shrugged it off, forcing himself to notice every detail on the drive back to the lab to take his mind off Stella. The drive took less time than he'd expected, and he barely remembered getting on the elevator and the walk to his office. He sat down at his desk and sighed. He didn't want to be the bearer of bad news to Stella. His brow furrowed, he stared off into space, idly thinking of the things he had tell her. Presently, he noticed that he was tapping his foot anxiously against the floor and that his throat was dry. He was showing all the symptoms of being nervous, he realized. The idea was laughable; Mac wasn't a very nervous person. He snorted quietly to himself. He was being ridiculous. He dialed Stella's number off the top of his head and hesitated only a moment before hitting the call button. It rang four times, and with every ring Mac's heart beat a bit faster. He was just about to hang up when –
"Bonasera."