Mac studied the brunette in an unseasonably long sleeved top fidgeting in the chair across his desk. When it came to hiring entry level techs in the lab, it was usually more about the person than the résumé – few people had experience before applying for one of these posts. The higher level techs tended to use them as floor sweepers and glass cleaners, those that toughed it out ended up with a good line in their job history to get them a higher level job in another lab. Very few stayed, preferring to take their licks and leave when a better position came up elsewhere.
There was something different about this one however. Her science scores where incredibly high, her written exam scores for English and math were comparable to some of the brightest people he already had, and she had graduated top of her class in forensics, with specialisms in digital forensics and genetic biochemistry. She already had some lab experience from the crime lab in Phoenix. She was definitely qualified for the job available, if anything, she was over-qualified. It was odd therefore, that she was in front of him after such a low level role when she could obviously get something better. He realised he'd been staring at her from the blush rising on her face and she dropped her green eyes almost as soon as he caught her gaze. The action immediately reminded him where he regularly saw that look of fierce hunger for justice combined with historic pain and fear. The man in question had proved time and time again his worth to the lab and it was on that basis that Mac considered taking a chance on this girl. Perhaps she and Adam would work well together? Mac's suspicions about Adam's upbringing were just that – suspicions. Adam had never said anything directly but he rapidly changed the subject whenever anything relating to his childhood was mentioned, and his nervous rambling, frequent self-depreciation and paranoia about his worth to the lab told a story to those that looked for it. Circumstantial evidence was all it amounted to, which was not what Mac liked to rely on. He kept waiting for the younger man to say something about what was obviously still bothering him, but so far, nothing. All he could do was try and be there for him if he needed it, but Adam still seemed nervous of his boss. Maybe the two of them could help each other, a pair of kindred spirits hurt by their past experiences. She was running from something; that much was clear to him.
The girl in the seat opposite had slumped down now, the longer the silence continued, apparently the more convinced she was that this interview had been a waste of time. She looked stunned when Mac cleared his throat and offered her the role.
As soon as he saw it, Mac knew the startled smile on her face was worth the deliberation over his decision. She'd stammered through thanking him about a dozen times before he managed to herd her out of his office and pass her off to Stella for a brief tour. Stella would make sure she ended up in the right place to fill out the forms for the background checks, to set a date for the psych eval and to get her set up on the computers. Mac had a moment's worry about the psych testing but dismissed it – if she wasn't able to pass it, she wasn't capable to work in the lab and that was the end of it. Rules had to be adhered to for the safety of all.
Nine months later, at the end of her probation period, Mac knew he had made the right choice. Hannah Rivers had slotted into the lab with barely a ripple. The expected minor hazing from her fellow junior techs seemed to slide off her without leaving a trace – she simply ignored them and got on with her work without any sign of distress and eventually they gave up. She was a quiet and dedicated worker, who while shy, was starting to open up a little. She didn't socialise with her peers from what he could see and spent much of her time at work. She pulled double shifts and came in on her days off to work though old cold cases and had come up with viable leads on several. The "unsolved" heap on the corner of his desk was slowly diminishing with her hard work. She had made some valuable breakthroughs on the active cases she was assigned to as well. She was making herself noticed, more than just another white coat dashing around the lab. It had been the angle she had suggested on the serial rapist case a month previous that had caught everyone else's attention – she had simply been dropping off another two cold case files for him to look over when she had come out with something in front of the team of CSIs sat in his office talking through what they had so far. The perp had been dubbed the "Ferry rapist" due to his targets all being attacked on their way to or from ferry docks across the city. She had scanned the screen in front of her and piped up.
"You could use a net," she said quietly.
Danny started to laugh but Mac hushed him up with a wave of his hand and nodded for her to continue. He knew she was good and wanted to give her the opportunity to tell them what she meant; to see if she had seen something they hadn't because they'd been looking at it too long.
"You know where he attacks them and he stays out of the cameras. But he must scout the locations to make sure no new cameras have gone up before he picks a victim. If you wrote an algorithm to scan his most likely routes in and out of those places and went back a few days before each attack, you might get a face. Or be able to work his movements backwards to an origin point."
Danny had been the first one to recover and had complimented her. The resulting smile was like the sun escaping cloud cover and dazzled everyone in the room. Adam had flushed furiously and muttered that he should have thought of that already. Hannah had dropped the files she was holding on the table and started to stammer an apology but Mac was having none of it.
"Good. Work with Adam and get started."
Hannah's idea had paid off: it took them a few hours to write and tweak the algorithm but once the details had been plugged into the computer, and examination of the CCTV footage from the streets the results it produced, the rest of the case had fallen together relatively easily. Nobody had forgotten that it was her idea that had lead them in the right direction and the CSIs started paying more attention to the quiet lab tech, trying to befriend her and coax her into their circle of friends. It was slow going, she was incredibly defensive of her personal space. She seemed especially wary of Adam, which made no sense in anyone's mind – he was about as gentle as a man could get and certainly no threat to anybody. She didn't drink, so declined offers for drinks after work and apparently didn't share any hobbies with the team, although that was established more by a process of elimination that anything else: they knew she didn't share Sid's fascination with autopsy history, Danny and Mac's interest in sports, or Adam's obsession with gaming. Lyndsey brought Lucy to meet her once, thinking she would put her at ease but the baby only made Hannah quite obviously uncomfortable. Lyndsey didn't bring Lucy to see her again. Flack seemed particularly unimpressed with the newbie's reticence and seemed to go out of his way to "buck her up" by telling jokes, most of which fell flat. Occasionally she would break out in the winning smile they recognised, usually when she was praised for something. Mac had a dark feeling that she'd had far too little praise in the past. Her psych eval had been quite telling, her intelligence and brilliance had shown through in spades, and she had led the tester through a merry dance of cheerful anecdotes about her time in the English private education system, her move to the US and the fun and games she'd had getting her residency and work permits. She had become an American citizen while studying forensics and she had been chirpy and upbeat about her time in New York and her new job in the lab. The tester had passed her but had added a small handwritten and therefore unofficial post-it note stuck to the bottom of the report where Mac's own signature would go. "Borderline – skilled in avoidance techniques." Mac thought she shared a past similar to Adam's, to a greater or lesser extent but it didn't appear to affect her work and she was slowly opening up to them. He let it lie, thinking she would go to Stella or a fellow tech if she needed to talk to someone.
Time went past and Hannah settled into their lives. She occasionally joined them in a bar, sipping her lemonade and sharing stories of her escapades while at boarding school in England. She would laugh with them but Mac could see she had tired circles under her eyes and still watched everyone, judging their mood, their body language, their tone of voice. Everyone had got used to it by then and consciously went out of their way to avoid startling her – she still flinched if surprised and Mac knew she had a scar on her arm from the last time someone had badly made her jump.
