Author's Note: I'd like to thank ChangingbacktoBellamort500, phnxgrl, Dee, was spratlurid quimby, RosePetel7, Olivia Joanne Rodrigues, Luvfanatic and Love for their reviews. Loving all the reviews; it's a great way to start off a new story. Luvfanatic: you might want to watch the episode before you get much farther in this, though it's not necessary to follow along. I just don't want to spoil anything for you. Love: I'm going to have to confess ignorance about what a snickers story is. Maybe you can clarify that for me.
This chapter starts with Finn and Mark in the elevator. Enjoy!
Chapter 2
Emergency lights had finally come on and now the elevator was bathed in dim lights. Finn was back on the phone trying to get dispatch to free them from the elevator so Mark could get to a hospital. He was still losing blood despite the scarf and pressure, which meant something important had been hit.
The operator was not being helpful. "I'm sorry, ma'am, there's a gunman in the building."
"I know there is a gunman. He just shot my friend! Okay? You need to get us out of the elevator now."
"We have to secure the area first. Stay with him."
Finn was trying very hard not to panic. "I am doing the best that I can, but if I do not get him to the hospital soon, he is going to bleed to death."
"They can't get in there until its clear, ma'am."
"I understand! Will you just hurry?!" Finn ended the call and tried to give their situation the best spin for Mark. "They said they can't fix the elevator until they get the gunman. Which I'm sure is gonna be really soon."
Mark was breathing heavily, still in obvious pain, though shock appeared to be starting to set in. "Kind of romantic. Here with you. Dim lighting. This whole bleeding from the stomach thing is kind of killing the mood, isn't it?"
Finn had to agree with that assessment. "Yeah. You're losing way too much blood." Finn grabbed the bottom of her purse and turned it upside down, dumping the contents on the floor. She grabbed the tampon she always kept in there for emergencies and tore the package open with her teeth.
Mark was eyeing her like she was nuts as she worked it out of the package with one hand. "A tampon?"
"Believe it or not, these things were really used in the 19th century to plug bullet holes."
Finn tore his shirt open to reveal the hole a ricocheting bullet had punched through the skin on his side. Without warning, she stuck the tampon in the hole and deployed the absorbing pad. Mark grimaced and groaned with the sudden increase of pain.
"I'm sorry." Finn hated that she was the one causing him pain, but hopefully it would save his life.
Mark tried to be nonchalant. "So…you know sports and history."
Finn shrugged. "It's just basic first aid."
Mark shook his head. "You're doing great."
"Really wish I had gone through with my choice to go to med school right about now." Finn chuckled, trying to lighten the mood a bit.
Mark groaned as she started taping a gauze pad over the wound. "I wish you did, too. Why didn't you?"
Finn tore open another package with her teeth and continued her treatment. "I took a lecture with this guy, Alec Jeffreys, on DNA fingerprinting, and that was it. I wanted to be a criminalist."
"I slept through a lot of lectures. Had a lot of fun, though." Mark was still breathing hard.
"Wish I knew you back then."
"Oh, come on, I'm still fun. Just wait till I get out of here."
Finn smiled; that was the attitude she wanted him to have. "I'll hold you to that. It's gonna be okay."
It felt like forever had passed before Finn's phone chimed with a text. At this point Mark was laying down, blood loss making him too weak to stay sitting anymore. She picked up the phone to see that Russell had texted to let them know the suspect had been taken down and they would soon be out of the elevator.
"They got him." She was excited. "They're gonna get us out of here. Mark, can you hear me? They're coming to get you right now."
Shock had taken a toll on Mark; he was barely conscious and his eyes were having a hard time focusing on anything for long. "Celine."
Finn was confused. "What?"
"Dion. Show later."
"Oh. Yeah. I guess I'm more of a U2 kind of girl." Mark's eyes closed and Finn kept talking to try and get his attention again. "You know, uh, I saw them in Ireland."
His eyes slowly opened again. "Haven't been."
"What? To a U2 concert?"
"To Ireland."
Finn could tell he was getting weaker, so she kept talking to distract him from the pain. "Oh, it was amazing. I, uh, was there on a Eurail pass, and I was hanging out at a bar in Dublin, and all the sudden U2 walked right in and they… started…"
Mark's eye had slid closed again and his head lolled to the side as he passed out. Finn felt for a pulse at his neck but couldn't find one. "No! Oh, God! Mark?" Finn started chest compressions to try and revive him. "Come on, Come on. You can do it. Breathe, breathe. Mark, breathe!" She started to panic because he wasn't responding. "Mark?!"
The lights in the elevator flickered again before the whole thing whirred back to life and the doors opened. Just outside, paramedics were standing by to help. Finn sighed in relief at the sight of them.
"He just crashed! I didn't get a pulse."
The paramedics moved in to continue the lifesaving efforts. "All right, we'll take it from here."
"You got him?"
"Yeah." Finn stood as one of the paramedics took over CPR. "Get a line in here!"
She stood in the corner of the elevator watching, hoping her friend would pull through. "Breathe, Mark."
Meanwhile...
Morgan had called Sara to give her an update on the progress of the case while the brunette processed the conference room. "Phoenix PD did a search of Lasky's house. Apparently he was obsessed with the man who murdered his wife and daughter three months ago. Uh, Luke Reaser."
Sara examined the bullet she'd just extracted from the wall. "Luke Reaser? I heard about that case. He raped them before he killed them, right? That was Lasky's family?"
"Yeah, that's enough to put anyone over the edge."
"Yeah, but Reaser was caught. He's awaiting trial. Why would Lasky go on a rampage today?"
"Because Reaser should've been put behind bars a long time ago. He raped and murdered a teenage girl back in 2012 in Texas. Set the place on fire in order to cover his tracks. The evidence wasn't strong enough to convict."
"So then he moves to Phoenix, where he murders Lasky's family. You know, Morgan, three of the CSI's that were killed today, they were from the crime lab in Dallas. Lasky must have blamed them for putting Reaser back on the street."
"They're not the only ones he was gunning for. Guess who testified for the defense."
Morgan told Sara that Lasky had sent several death threats via email to Dr. Snyder over a month prior to the conference. She also said that Phoenix PD had checked their records and confirmed Dr. Snyder had never reported Lasky's threats to them. Morgan had then ended the call by giving Sara the numbers to the Dallas crime lab and the PD near Dr. Snyder's home. Sara called the PD near Dr. Snyder's home first to inquire about the death threats. According to their records, Dr. Snyder had never reported a single threat to them, let alone one within the last two months.
Sara's next call was to the Dallas crime lab so she could ask them about the Reaser case. Because the information might help the Vegas PD catch the man who had killed three of their colleagues, the Dallas crime lab was more than eager to give Sara the low down. Dr. Snyder had managed to discredit the work a DNA analyst did on the case because he had accidentally reversed two numbers on a form. A simple mistake that had gone unnoticed was the reason Reaser had remained a free man and Lasky had become a killer.
Sara stormed toward Dr. Snyder in a controlled rage. Eleven people. Eleven people had been killed today by Lasky because this woman had helped a rapist walk by exploiting a clerical error and not reporting the death threats from the gunman. And now she was standing in the lobby talking on her phone about speaking to the press.
"Of course I'll talk to the press. We need to give WNE the exclusive, though. Now? I can take care of that."
Sara was speaking before she'd reached Dr. Snyder. "He was after you."
Dr. Snyder realized she wasn't going to be avoiding this encounter by being on the phone. "I'll call you back."
Sara waited for the phone to leave Dr. Snyder's ear and then continued. "The gunman, Jeff Lasky. Ring a bell?" Dr. Snyder looked confused. "What about Luke Reaser?" Dr. Snyder face showed that she recognized the name. "You helped put that son of a bitch back on the street, and then he went on to murder Lasky's family."
Dr. Snyder's face became contemptuous. She wasn't about to take the blame, no matter how rightly it was deserved. "If I remember correctly, the prosecution didn't have that much evidence against Reaser. And what they did have was mishandled."
Sara couldn't believe the stance of innocence this woman was taking. "No. No, no, no. I talked to the lab in Dallas. A DNA analyst transposed two numbers on a piece of paper. It was a simple mistake, Jane."
Dr. Snyder maintained her composure. "And someone in the lab should have caught it."
"A guilty man went free because of a typo."
Dr. Snyder's façade was starting to crack. "It was sloppy work." She switched back to the tactic of throwing blame away from her by focusing on the lab that had handled the Reaser case. "Who knows what other mistakes that lab made?"
Sara was momentarily speechless at her behavior. "You used to care about the truth."
Dr. Snyder got defensive. "Come on, Sara. We're not on the same side anymore. It's my job to poke holes in the science."
Sara decided to get under Dr. Snyder's skin by mocking her performance from before the shooting. "And put on a show for the jury, right?" Dr. Snyder scoffed. "Luke Reaser raped and killed Lasky's wife and five-year-old daughter. Slit their throats and then dumped their bodies in the trash. That's why Lasky went on this rampage." Sara couldn't contain her anger any longer. "Eleven people are dead because of you!"
Despite her disgust at what Reaser had done to Lasky's family, Dr. Snyder wasn't done trying to skirt the blame. "I didn't put the gun in Lasky's hand."
Sara wasn't going to let her deflect any more. "No, you kind of did. Lasky sent you emails. He sent you threats over a month ago. You didn't report it."
"I get threats all the time. News flash, Sara. I'm a woman of strong opinions. Some people," she gestured to Sara to make her point, "just don't like me."
Sara shook her head. "Uh-uh. None of this would have happened if you had just gone to the police, Jane. Why don't you put that in your press conference?"
Dr. Snyder looked both shaken and dismissive. It didn't matter what Sara said, she had learned long ago how to let the guilt of helping criminals escape justice slide off her conscience. The only thing that made this encounter sting was that Sara was right. If she had reported Lasky's threats, this shooting might not have happened today. She turned her back to Sara and walked away, determined not to let Sara's words sink any deeper than they already had.
Sara watched her leave with a look of revulsion barely concealed on her face. This woman would never take responsibility for what her negligence had done. And in the end, there was no crime she could be charged with. Sara's chiming phone forced her to move on.
She had received a text. "Body on 18th floor. Location cleared. You have the handle." Sara went back to the home screen on her phone and headed back to work.
A/N: So far the chapters haven't strayed too far from the episode. I've added what I think the characters are thinking/feeling based on what I saw in the episode, but that has been the only additions up to this point. That will start to change in the next chapter. Leave a comment below! Thanks!