Sadness…Something that Sid Hammerback felt every time he would have to do an autopsy on a young kid, and something he would never get used to. He stood there a moment staring at the pale, young girl and with a slight sigh, he connected his glasses together and began to work on her. First, he slowly removed each article of clothing, being careful not to let any evidence get away from him. After slowly gripping the bullet out of her fresh wound and placing it aside, he then carefully washed her long flowing hair and then moved on to her body, making sure to especially be careful around the gunshot wound that claimed her short life.

After about an hour of examining her and cleaning her up, something suddenly caught his eye towards the back of her neck. He slowly moved her head slightly to the left and brushed her hair away from it as he leaned in with his magnify glass and looked at what he saw closely. It looked like a number tattooed on her skin and upon closer inspection, he determined it was a tattoo of a hundred dollar bill. Confused, he grabbed a camera and captured the image, soon hearing footsteps coming towards him as he finished.

"What do you have for me, Sid?" Mac asked, as he approached him.

"Well, the official COD is that gunshot wound on her abdomen there," Sid informed him, pointing to it.

Mac nodded silently, still saddened by what happened and more determined than anything to catch whoever had done this. "Okay, anything else?"

"Uh yes, here's your bullet," he replied, handing him a round plastic container with the bullet inside. "And I saved the best for last."

Mac grinned. "You always do."

Mac then followed Sid over by the top half of her body and curiously looked on as he brushed her hair aside and handed Mac the magnify glass. "You see that black mark on the back of her neck?"

Mac leaned down and closely examined where Sid was pointing. "It's a tattoo of a hundred dollar bill. That's odd."

Sid nodded. "That's what I thought."

"Alright, well we'll look into it. Thanks, Sid."

"No problem."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Test after test, the CSI crew were busy at work, trying to figure out who took away this young girl's life. As Lindsay and Danny closely examined her clothes, Mac was on the other side of the lab trying to figure out the make of the bullet, and Adam was in his computer lab looking at the image of the hundred dollar bill on the back of her neck, trying to see if it had any clues that could lead them to something.

"I found something," Lindsay said, holding up an orange fiber with the tweezers.

"Hm an orange fiber on a black skirt. I'd say she was celebrating Halloween a little early," Danny stated.

Rolling her eyes slightly, Lindsay grinned. "Very funny. I'm going to go try and figure out what this came from."

"Alright but hurry back, my sweet little pumpkin."

"If you're lucky, my pasty ghost."

"Pasty? Since when am I pasty?"

Lindsay replied with a quick smile over her shoulder as she walked away, leaving Danny to shake his head and continue examining Lisa's clothes for any other clues they might be able to find.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Yeah, I'm sorry, I just can't leave until this is solved, I mean she was only fifteen…No, I promise, as soon as I close the case then you and I will be heading to that beach…Okay, I'll call you later. Bye."

As he tapped the end button on his phone, Mac sat back in his chair for a moment, thinking about Christine. So many of their conversations ended with a quick 'Bye', but he wanted more than that. He wanted to tell her how he felt, but couldn't get that nagging, guilty feeling out of his head that it wasn't right. He knew when he spoke to Claire as he was fighting for his life, that she approved of her and when she was alive they always told each other that if anything ever happened to either one of them that they wanted the other to love again. An idea so simple at the time because neither of them thought they would ever lose each other.

Looking up at the ceiling, he sighed. "What do I do, Claire?"

"Do you always make it a habit of talking to yourself?"

Mac's head sprung forward, only to see Jo standing in the doorway. "No, not always. Sometimes I like to talk to the voices in my head."

Grinning, Jo sat down. "So how are you doing?"

"I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

"Well, no offense, but you've seemed different lately."

Mac raised his eyebrows. "Different? Different how?"

"Well just you know, a bit distant, and a bit confused."

"Jo, thank you for worrying, but I'm fine. Really."

"Come on, Mac. We're best friends. You can tell me anything, you know that. Now I'm a mom with mom instincts and I know that there's something you're not telling me. Now spill."

Mac stared at her for a moment, proceeding to lean forward in his chair. He had only known Jo for two and a half years, but he somehow felt like he had known her for longer. She seemed to have a way of telling people what they needed to hear and being there for them at the same time, something that Mac respected and the main reason why they remained such good friends.

"Alright. Well you know that me and Christine have been going together for awhile now, right?"

"Yeah, and I'm still waiting to hear wedding bells," she replied.

Smiling, Mac continued. "Yeah, well, first we need to get to the next step of our relationship."

"Which is…?"

Hesitating, Mac spoke slowly. "Well, we haven't exactly told each other uh,-

"What? That you love each other?"

Without a word, Mac nodded.

"Well Mac, what are you waiting for? I mean you've been going out with each other for eight months now!"

"It's not that easy, Jo."

"I don't know, it seems pretty easy to me."

"Yeah but there are…issues. I can't explain it."

Jo watched as she saw Mac's eyes looking at the direction of a small picture of Claire that sat on top of his desk, making everything suddenly come to light. "Mac, how long has it been since you lost your wife?"

A bit taken aback by the unexpected question, Mac looked up at her and cleared his throat before answering. "Jo, you know perfectly well how long it's been."

"I know, I just want you to say it."

"Why?"

"Just indulge me a bit. Now come on, how long?"

Hesitating for a brief moment, Mac answered. "Eleven years. Why?"

"That's quite some time."

"If you say so. To me, it'll always be like it just happened yesterday."

"It's like that for everyone who lost someone on that day, Mac. But as hard as it is, I know people have moved on and you're no exception. You can't just be single for the rest of your life because you feel like you're betraying Claire. She loved you so much that she would want you to be happy and to move on with your life. Now I know you have feelings for Christine, I've seen the way you look at her. And I know she has feelings for you, too. I mean who else would stay by someone's side for six months while recovering from being shot? Especially after only knowing you for a couple months at the time?"

Mac sat there a minute as he took in Jo's words, soon realizing that she was right. Why was he doing this to himself? He did deserve to be happy. He hadn't dated very many women after Claire passed, but of the women he did date, Christine made him feel something he hadn't felt since he had been with Claire. Alive.

"You're right. I just haven't felt this way about anyone since Claire, and I guess not only was I feeling guilty, I was scared of getting too close to someone and then losing them again."

"Yeah but as the old saying goes, 'It's better to have loved and lost than-"

"-to never have loved at all. I know. I think I'm going to tell her how I feel the next time I see her."

With a sly smile, Jo playfully squeezed Mac's cheek. "Look at you. Our little Mac Taylor is gonna take the plunge."

"Alright, Miss Nosy," Mac replied with a laugh. "You fixed me up, are you happy now?"

"Almost."

"What do you mean almost?"

"I still think there's something else you're not telling me," she stated as she gave him a subtle glare.

Mac shrugged his shoulders. "There's nothing else to tell."

"Mm hm."

Nervousness crept up on Mac, as he tried to hide his emotions as best as he could. He knew he had been acting a bit off as he dealt with this brain disorder, but still couldn't bring himself to tell anyone about it yet. "Jo, I'm fine, really. Let's just focus on trying to find out who killed Lisa Adams."

"Alright, if you say so. So what did you find out about the bullet?"

"Well it was from a .38 special. The problem is that there were no prints on it and we still don't have a clue as to where the primary crime scene was."

"Well I have one step closer to being able to find that out," Lindsay said, as she entered Mac's office.

"I'm all ears," Mac replied.

"Well the orange fiber I found on Lisa's skirt was made up of poplin, polyester and cotton," she said, handing her findings to Mac.

Studying the screen on the tablet, Mac got a sudden look of confusion on his face. "Okay, so what does that tell us?"

"Well those three things are very common materials in clothes such as scrubs or possibly in this case, orange prison jumpsuits."

"Huh. So our killer could be an escaped inmate?" Jo wondered out loud.

"Possibly, or a doctor or nurse," Mac suggested.

"Well that doesn't bring us any closer to finding who did it," Jo pointed out.

"No, but it's a start. We've solved crimes with less before, so we'll solve this one."

Their attention was soon directed towards Mac's office door as they saw Danny enter with a noticeable sadness written on his face. "Uh, hey, Lisa's parents are here to identify her body."

His heart dropping to his stomach, Mac nodded. "Okay. I'll be right there."

"I'll come with you," Jo offered

Lindsay and Danny watched as Mac and Jo made their way towards the morgue, soon following with a sigh from Lindsay.

"You okay over there?" Danny asked.

"Yeah, I just can't imagine having to go through something like that. I mean what if that was Lucy? I would probably go insane."

This time it was Danny's turn to sigh, as he put a comforting arm around his wife and replied. "You and me both. Which makes it all that more logical that we enjoy the time we do have with her, and pray that she'll stay safe."

"Yeah well unfortunately this job makes me more afraid with each passing day."

"I know. That's why we need to do everything we can to figure out who did this to Lisa and why, so her parents can have a shred of piece, and we can put one more killer behind bars where they belong."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Cold, dark, depressing…These are the words that ran through Mac's head as he and Jo approached the morgue. As they rounded a corner, they soon stopped in their tracks when they saw a man and a woman standing by the window that looked into the morgue itself. They both seemed to be in a daze as they stared at the window with empty eyes, which had tears flowing freely down their faces. One of the worst moments a parent can go through and it was happening to them.

"Mr. and Mrs. Adams? I'm Detective Mac Taylor and this Detective Jo Danville," he told them.

Still clinging onto one another, they both turned their heads briefly to look at Mac and Jo. Mr. Adams nodded as he wiped his tear-stained eyes and then looked back towards the window.

"Is that our daughter in there? Is that our Lisa?"

"We're pretty certain, but we need you to confirm that for us," Jo replied.

"Let's just get this over with. I don't think I can handle waiting much longer," Mrs. Adams stated, wiping a tear that had fallen freely down her cheek.

"Okay. You ready?"

Without a word, they both nodded, prompting Jo to nod towards Sid. Slowly, Sid removed the white sheet from Lisa's face, soon resulting in the couple collapsing to the ground screaming in agony and pain.

Trying to hold back their own tears, Jo and Mac looked with sadness at the scene before them, neither of them understanding how anyone would be cruel enough to take the life of this young, innocent girl and bring a family to its knees.

After a few minutes, their screams soon turned silent, as they both sat and held one another with looks of numbness on their faces. Mac then slowly approached them, having to ask the questions that needed to be asked.

"Uh, Mr. and Mrs. Adams, I know this is a very hard time for you, but I need to ask you some questions so we can find out what happened to your daughter."

Mr. Adams nodded. "Go ahead."

"Did Lisa have any enemies that you knew of? Maybe someone who harassed her at school or outside of school?"

"No," Mrs. Adams replied as she shook her head. "No one that we knew of."

"How about her family? Anyone she didn't get along with?"

"You think someone in our family could have done this?!" Mrs. Adams asked with sudden rage filling her voice.

"Well we have to explore all possibilities, Mrs. Adams," Mac pointed out.

Suddenly from out of nowhere, Mrs. Adam's hand came up and made contact with Mac's face, nearly making him fall backwards. As Jo held on to Mac, her eyes then met with Mrs. Adams, showing something different than sympathy.

"Mrs. Adams, I understand that you're upset, but we're just trying to get to the bottom of your daughter's murder. Now since you're upset we'll let this little incident go, but the next time I see you assault an officer of the law then I won't hesitate to throw the handcuffs on you, got it?"

Her eyes welling up with fresh tears, Mrs. Adams nodded as she looked down at her hands. "I know, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. I don't know what came over me. Please forgive me."

Rubbing his reddened face, Mac replied. "It's fine, don't worry about it."

A few seconds later, Mac heard the sudden ring of his phone in his pants pocket. He pulled it out with his other hand and tapped the answer button as he made his way around the corner for some relative privacy.

"Taylor…Oh no, where?…Alright, we'll be right there."

"What's going on?" Jo asked as she approached him.

"We have another homicide. Flack needs us there right away."

Jo sighed. "This day just keeps getting better and better."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

More flashing lights, more yellow tape…more blood. The same scene over and over was now starting to become a nightmare for Mac as he made his way out of his car and approached the scene ahead of him.

As he looked down at the victim, he got a sickening feeling in his stomach as he saw another young person sprawled out on the ground below him. This time it was a teenage boy, who looked around the same age as Lisa. He had short, brown hair and had jeans and a t-shirt on along with expensive looking sneakers on his feet. Why? Mac asked himself. Such a waste.

"So what have got here?" Jo asked, interrupting his thoughts.

"The kid's name is Matt Watson, age sixteen. He too, lives here in Manhattan with his parents and he too was shot in the abdomen," Flack informed them.

Mac stood there silent for a minute. "Looks like we have a serial killer on our hands."