Usual disclaimers...apart from originals...I own no-one, unfortunately.
Thanks so much for the reviews...It means a lot...
3...Into the Fire...
Don stretched sleepily, turning over slowly, reluctantly forcing himself to take a look at the clock on the nightstand through his one open eye. Having registered the time, he shook himself awake and dragged himself out of bed and into the shower for the second time that day, chuckling to himself that this shower would only take a few minutes. After quickly making use of the gushing water to wash away the remains of sleep from his body, he wrapped a towel around his torso before heading over to the kitchen and fixing himself something to eat. He then scurried around, cussing, as he once again began the hunt for the ever elusive remote control. Where that damn thing ever got to, when he could've sworn he left in the same place was one of life's puzzling mysteries. Giving up a silent prayer on finding the elusive device, he settled down in front of the tv to catch up on the sports results. As he picked up his cell and turned on the volume, he opened an earlier text message from Joe, asking him to pick up some wine from Morgans around the corner as he'd been stuck on the train back from Manhattan and had a few other things to do before he'd be home. Don smiled, he knew Joe indulged his 'wine snobbery' as he called it and left the buying to him, although, Joe was the one who'd taught him everything he now knew about the beverage.
"I'll just have five more minutes," he thought, dropping his cell back on the coffee table and stretching his long legs out the length of the sofa, "then I'll get my ass into gear."
He mentally ticked off all the things he had to do with what was left of the day and sighed as he slouched back into the familiar comfort of the leather, relishing his five minutes.
Having made it back to the lab, Danny was busy writing up evidence dockets, whilst Stella, who'd been hastily re-assigned to their case paced the layout room, deep in concentration as she tackled the intricate task of processing what she hadn't sent to the lab. Sheldon was hastily wrapping up the straightforwards home invasion from earlier, more than capable of finishing up on his own. He would then transfer his attentions to the major case and start to process the jeep, which was now, unfortunately, bogged down in traffic, but was as always, expected imminently.
"I blame you for all this, Montana," drawled Danny, eyes fixed in a playful glare as he spotted Lindsey approaching his desk at the start of her shift, pointing his pen at her and pretending to fire. "Never, ever, joke about a quiet day," he stressed, raising an eyebrow to prove his point. Lindsey rolled her eyes and made a face in return before heading over to Mac's office for her assignment.
"Lindsey, run by Adam's lab 'now' and pick up some results for me." Mac shouted, hardly even looking up from his desk where he was hastily stacking up all the cold cases he'd been trawling through that morning.
"Hello to you too, Mac," Lindsey countered, recoiling slightly at the tone in his voice. "Was it something I said? although I'm sure I haven't actually said anything yet," she added, a bewildered look settling on her face.
"Lindsey," he paused, gathering himself and looking up, "I'm sorry, that came out a little different than I meant it," Mac explained, dumping the last of the files back into the cabinet before holding up his hands in apology.
"Have we got a live one?" she asked, gingerly.
"I think we've got a ticking clock, a missing person and not a whole lot of reason yet."
"Okay, enough said, I'm on it," she replied, beating a hasty retreat.
"Wait, I'll walk down with you and fill you in on the way, bring you up to speed, so to speak," Mac relented a little. "Besides, I need to get the garage ready for the rest of the evidence arriving anyway."
Danny had finished all the paperwork he could do for the moment so was flitting around, helping, or hindering, in some cases, where he could. There had been no answer at the address registered to the driver of the wrecked vehicle, but then again, had they really expected there to be, judging from the witness reports. But still, something about the name bothered Danny, something in the very back of his brain that he couldn't quite fish out. He busied himself on the DMV database and pulled up a copy of the drivers license for Finley Marshall.
Finley Marshall, female, caucasian, five feet five inches tall, age twenty three, brunette, green eyes...
Danny racked his brains, again and again, he coulda sworn knew the name and the face, but couldn't for the life of him remember from where. He sighed again in sheer frustration and wiped at his glasses.
"Think, goddammit!!! come on Messer," he chided himself. "A chick this fine, you'da been all over her at one time."
"Whoa, now that's a babe," whistled Officer Davy, surprising the deep in thought, CSI making him almost jump out of his skin.
"Hey, you wanna say somethin' before you sneak up on people," snapped Danny, albeit trying to diffuse his comment and remain friendly. Seriously though, he was rattled, he hated being snuck up on and seeing as the last time ended up with him being pistol whipped, he was more than a little wary nowadays.
Danny composed himself. "What can I do for you, Officer?" he asked.
"I located the dealership that sold the jeep."
"And?" pushed Danny, thinking just how easy they all had it when Flack was on call. Flack with his uncanny ability to know just what they all needed, and when.
"And unfortunately, all the paperwork for the day's business had been locked away in the safe, manager had some sort of an emergency and left for home," Davy added, shaking his head.
"Is that it?"
"Nope, I'm not emptyhanded. I got the assistant to pull the security footage, two cameras running, one inside, one out. I got 'em both," he grinned, placing two vcr tapes on the desk.
"Hallelujah," sighed Danny.
"You'll keep me in the loop?" Davy quizzed with a sarcastic smile.
"Of course, as soon as we know anything," Danny recited the well known spiel.
"You'll be in touch, right?" Davy sniggered, rolling his eyes skywards.
"Adam..Adam...Adam...I bring you gifts..."
"No more gifts, Danny, please, I'm about up to here," he pointed at the ceiling, looking ripe to explode, "with gifts."
"What've you got, Danny?" Mac interrupted, creeping out of the shadows and just appearing, as only Mac could.
"Videotapes from the security cameras at the dealership the jeep was purchased from," he answered, placing the tapes into Mac's hands and earning himself a heartfelt psychic 'thankyou' from Adam.
"You got time to sit in on these?" Mac questioned of Danny.
"Sure, there's something I gotta tell you though. The R/O, Finley Marshall, I'm sure I know her from somewhere, but, I just can't place her."
Mac eyed Danny, "Do we have a conflict of interest here?"
"No, no, Mac, nothing like that, I promise," Danny answered, shaking his head furiously, "honestly."
"Okay, I'll trust you on that, come on, we've got a lot to get through," Mac stated.
"You want inside, or out?" Mac offered, only to be met by Danny's shrug of the shoulders.
"Okay, outside then, that way it's not me who has to sift through the traffic and pedestrians and such," he added with a wry grin.
Mac and Danny then settled themselves down in the AV lab, buoyed up by vats of coffee and donuts, graciously accepted from Hawkes, who for some reason, seemed to have bought for the entire lab.
"Hey, Hawkes!" shouted Danny, "not that I'm complainin' or anythin', but donuts?"
"What can I say, Danny, the new girl in the coffee shop has the hots for me," Hawkes winked in reply.
Danny shook his head and laughed before switching back to serious mode, studying every bit of the tape now playing in front of him.
"Well that's strange!" thought Stella, as she came out of DNA. She stood still for a moment, mentally double checking, before turning on her heels to find Adam to back up her results.
"Okay, thanks for letting me know, I'll be right down," said Mac, returning his cellphone to his pocket.
"That the garage?" Danny questioned.
"Yes, the jeep's finally arrived and Hawkes isn't quite through with his case yet," Mac stated, "I'm going to head off down there and get a good look at it."
"And you want me to carry on the good work here, am I right?" Danny nodded his head.
"You're right," Mac grinned.
"Okay, okay, just make sure you endorse the disability claim when I go blind, a'right," Danny added, pinching the bridge of his nose before once again rubbing his eyes and cleaning his glasses.
"Deal."
"Adam, can you double check these blood results from the possible kidnap case," she pleaded, furrowing her brow in confusion, "from all accounts we're dealing with a female vic and these just don't add up."
"Stella, I'm a little bit snowed under here," he groaned, peeking at her from over the top of a microscope.
"Pleeeeeease," she begged again, "next lunch is on me," she grinned.
"Okay, okay, great piece of bribary, Stella," he paused. "Listen, I'll bring em to you as soon as I've had a chance to go through them, okay."
"Thanks, Adam," she whispered, before blowing him a kiss and heading back to the layout room.
As Danny studied the footage from the car dealership, he noticed one thing. People sure did like to window shop. For every four that went in only one was serious about buying. He reckoned the salesman on their commission based salaries must get mighty pissed off on days like today. He zeroed in, suddenly puzzled at seeing one particular customer, freezing the frame and noting the time before getting back to studying the video once again. A little while later he almost jumped out of his chair.
"Shit, shit, shit," he cursed under his breath, banging his good fist on the counter as the target vehicle appeared from the back of the building. "They must have a service entrance around the back."
He carefully picked at the footage of the jeep leaving the dealership, struggling with the odd angle to see who was in the drivers seat, cussing at the fact that it was going to take time to make a positive ID. Time that they guessed Finley Marshall didn't have.
Mac was now going over the jeep with his proverbial 'fine toothcomb' and was rather surprised at the amount of blood patterns and spatter he was finding. Without the rain and bad light to hamper his observations, he was now drawing the conclusion that whoever was in the jeep had received a severe beating before being cut out of the heavily bloodstained seatbelt webbing. He carefully printed the steering wheel and passed his findings to Hawkes who'd just arrived to help.
"You want me to run these, Mac?"
"Please, there's at least two different sets as far as I can tell," Mac explained. "Oh, and can you drop the other bag off with Adam," Mac added, pointing to the bench and the clear plastic evidence bag.
"A pendant, huh?" Sheldon remarked, holding the bag up to the light and examining it. "Quite a distinctive pattern, I'd say it's been custom made."
"I'd say you're right, it looks pretty high end, had to have been yanked off with some force to break that thickness of chain," added Mac. "Put it under the scope and see if you can find a jewellers mark, logo, anything, okay?"
"You got it, I'll let you know if I get anything."
Meanwhile in the A/V lab, Danny stood up with a sickening jolt and backed away from the screen, completely un-nerved by what he was seeing. He froze the image of the jeep's driver almost in a daze and hit the print button. He picked up the photograph in disbelief almost reeling as he remembered exactly where he knew Finley Marshall from. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the others gathering in Adam's lab. Taking a deep breath and composing himself he followed.
The repeated beeps of the various machines were almost deafening, as all the evidence fell into plain view. Stunned looks were exchanged between the co-workers. Lindsey once again picked up a dna result that came back to an 'internal control sample'. A very male 'internal control sample'. Hawkes flashed up the owner of the prominent set of fingerprints, once again the same 'internal control sample.' He then pulled up the address.
Mac and Stella looked first at each other and then turned as Danny cleared his throat at the back of the room.
"Isn't that address?" quizzed Mac.
"Yeah," interrupted Danny, cutting Mac off in mid sentence and slumping miserably down in a chair, throwing the picture down on the desk before running his hands through his hair and attempting to find his voice.
Lindsey picked up the photograph Danny had thrown on the desk. It was grainy, blurred, but put it up against the results and against the picture now on screen of the victim from the internal register and there wasn't much doubt.
"Oh my god, Danny."
"Ya got that right, Montana," he croaked wearily, turning around and looking Mac squarely in the face.
"You better buckle up for this one, guys."
Once again, thanx for taking the time to review...I don't have a beta, so any mistakes are completely my own ...blush... and I do apologise.