"Wake up."
Lindsay sprung awake. She'd never heard Danny speak to her like that before. He'd always playfully drag the covers off of her, lightly hit her with a pillow and even in extreme cases, pour a glass of water over her. That's when it all came rushing back to her. She wasn't in her bed, or his bed. She was in an empty cold room, with no windows, and one wooden door. There was a vent in the ceiling, but it was smaller than her hand span.
"I said, wake UP!"
"What do you want?" Lindsay spoke.
"Why, Miss Monroe, you don't recognize me? I though you would have figured it out by now."
"How am I supposed to know who you are when I can't even see you?"
"Well, well. It seems that Ms. CSI isn't as great of an investigator as she would appear to be. Do I not sound familiar?"
"No."
"Do you remember all the people you put in jail?"
"I remember their faces. That's what I remember. You're obviously to coward to show-"
A hand came across Lindsay left cheek. She was knocked back into the wall, a few feet from where she was standing. She slowly sank into the floor. She couldn't see anything for a few seconds. Gingerly, she ran her hand around the area she felt pain, and was surprised when she felt something wet and sticky come into contact with her fingers.
"Maybe tomorrow we'll have better luck."
"Wait!" Lindsay cried.
But her calls fell on deaf ears. The door had already slammed. She heard one, two, three bolts slide into place, and then heavy footfalls walking away from the door. Once again, she was alone.
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Meanwhile, Danny was staring at the timer on a screen of one of the lab's computers. 14 hours, 38 minutes, 53 seconds. He sighed and ran a hand over his face.
Make that 39 minutes. Lindsay had been missing for a little under 15 hours, and he was tired. He was frustrated. Mac wouldn't let him examine evidence, because of conflict of interest. They were investigating his apartment, so he couldn't touch anything of either his or Lindsay's. All Danny would be able to do at this point was to review the security tapes, and try to identify someone who had looked out of place. But to him, they all looked suspicious. Each floor had 6 cameras, all working at the same time, so that there was never a blind spot. The problem was that there were 15 floors. Danny wanted to concentrate on his floor, but Mac said that all needed to be reviewed. So Danny got Adam's help. Danny was working the odd floors and the stairwells; Adam was doing the even floors and the lobby.
Danny had been at it for 12 hours. He could feel his eyeballs burning, his headache forming. He had already popped 6 ibuprofens. What he needed was a shower and some sleep. But he knew sleep wouldn't come to him. Lindsay was gone, he needed to find her.
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Lindsay was deep in thought. Her head was hurting, she could feel her eye was swelling, and her jaw was bruised. But all of that didn't matter. She was trying to place the voice. But as hard as she could, no-one in New York; no-one that she help put in jail in New York had an accent like that, nor had a voice that gravelly.
Suddenly, she heard the room door locks being unhitched. The room door opened, and in slid a tray with a piece of bread, a small bowl of stew and a glass of red liquid.
"You've got three minutes to eat that."
Lindsay sprung towards the tray. She could see the man guarding the door; he had a 12 gauge rifle in his hands, the safety was off. Her daddy used to have one of those guns, God bless him. He would show her how to load and cock it, but she never shot a round out of it.
"I see you eyeing my gun. Don't even think of trying to take it from me. I'll shoot you without any remorse for my actions. Even if you are a lady."
And with that, he took the tray, now empty, and walked through the door. Lindsay heard the bolts sliding back into place. Slowly, she slid back against the wall in a corner of the room, folding her legs to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. It was getting colder in the room. She was sure of it.
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"Danny? Danny…DANNY!!"
Danny woke with a start. "What? Stella? What's the matter? Lindsay? Did we find her?"
Stella smiled at Danny. He'd been working so hard, he fell asleep on the computers. He'd been over the tapes two times now. Lindsay had been missing for over 24 hours. Adam had just finished his second observations, now he had to compare his findings with Danny. "Adam is ready."
Danny heaved a sigh, and stretched. "Alright, let's go see what we got."
A few minutes later….
"Alright Adam, what have you got?"
"Well, cursory findings showed that most people came in and out of the building between the hours of 5 and 8 AM, and returned anywhere from 2 until 9 PM. There were, of course, those who left at other time periods, but they are on other floors and don't appear on your floor. Then there are those who visit and I had to track them to individual floors. 129 people visited between 8 AM and 2 PM, and 14 of those 129 came to the 9th floor." Adam looked at Danny, who motioned for him to continue. "There are 8 men, 4 women and 2 children."
"Remove the two children- Mrs. Glicker has her two youngest grandchildren with her. Two girls, twins, 3 years old."
"Can I take off the woman that accompanies them? She's only in the building for 4 minutes. Doesn't take a bag, doesn't talk to anyone, nothing. In and out quickly."
"Yea, take her off the list."
"That leaves us with 8 men and 3 women. All staying anywhere from 8 minutes to 5 hours."
"Alright- we need to figure out what times those people came in and how long they stayed for."
Stella smiled, and turned to leave the room. "I'll go make a pot of coffee."
