Lindsay signed her name with a flourish, then moved the form to the "Done" stack. She rolled her eyes and sighed at the outrageous amount of paperwork that came with each and every case. Even for a simple B&E, she had to fill out forms for everything from the location of every piece of evidence to all the eyewitness accounts and beyond. In the end, each case required anywhere from 100 to 300 pieces of paper, most of which were eventually shredded anyway. "What a waste of trees," Lindsay thought.
Her reflections were interrupted by a soft knocking. She glanced up from the pile on her desk. Stella grinned at her from the doorway. "Paperwork," Stella observed, "The best part of the whole job, dont'cha think?" Lindsay merely raised her eyebrows in assent. "Well, good luck and have fun," Stella remarked dryly. "Yeah right," Lindsay smirked, and returned reluctantly to the mountain of paper demanding her attention. Several minutes later, another knock at the door startled her. This time, it was Danny. "Hey, Montana," he said in his distinctive New Yaaawwk accent, "what's shakin'?" Lindsay rolled her eyes at him. "That bad, huh. Hey, at least they can read your writing. I have to redo most of my forms 'cause they can't read my fine penmanship," he went on. This comment drew a chuckle from Lindsay, and she redirected her focus to the heap of forms with a somewhat lighter heart, even though she was getting annoyed by the interruptions.
Half an hour later, Lindsay was almost done with the paperwork when she heard a voice say, "Lindsay…" She started to snap, "What do you want!" and give her visitor a death glare when the words caught in her throat. Standing in the doorway to her office was a young woman. She was leaning heavily on the door jamb, and she was obviously in pain. Blood was dripping from a gaping hole in her abdomen, several gashes on her neck and arms, and, most horrifically, between her legs. Purple bruises were starting to form on her face and upper torso, and she was swaying as if she was drunk. In reality, she was going into shock and about to lose consciousness. "Holy crap," Lindsay gasped. It took her a few moments to recognize the bleeding woman in the door as Lindsay's younger sister Anna. "Um, here, you need to sit down. Here, sit in my chair," Lindsay instructed, by now in full crisis-response mode. "I'm going to go get help. Don't move, whatever you do. Okay, Anna?" Anna merely grunted, but Lindsay knew she understood.
Lindsay stepped out of the office and stopped. She took a deep breath, crossed herself, and said a quick prayer. Then she pulled out her cell phone and called Mac. The phone went straight to his voicemail. "Damn," she thought. "He must be in his office." She quickly strode down the hall toward Mac's workplace. She passed a lab, then stopped, doubled back, and approached Sheldon Hawkes. "Hawkes," she said fairly breathlessly, "come with me. I'm going to Mac's office and I need your help." Hawkes followed, mystified.
"Mac!" Lindsay burst into Mac's office with Hawkes on her heels. "This had better be important," he warned, extremely irritated that they had interrupted his musings over a recent case. "It is. Trust me, Mac, it is," Lindsay assured him. Her calmness was wearing off by the second now. "Okay," Mac sighed, "what's going on?" Lindsay took a deep breath and said quietly, "We have a situation in my office." Now Mac's pulse was racing. "What kind of situation?" He asked apprehensively. "I can't really explain it here. But I need you there to help out. I need Hawkes too," Lindsay said. Giving Lindsay a disgruntled frown, he followed her and Hawkes down the corridor to Lindsay's office. Neither of the men were prepared for the sight that met them when they walked through the door.
