A Trip to see the Devil

Summery: Flack takes Angell for a visit to the Captain.

Disclaimer: I do not own CSI NY

A/N: Sorry, this is really late. We had a bad lighting strike and it took out my computer, my modem and router! Luckily my dad's computer was not harmed so that is what I have been typing on. Though I did have to take my hard disk out of my computer and put it into my dad's one. But oh well, at least I have these to write even if I can't post them on the internet as often as you guys would like. Well, enjoy reading!

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They all stood in a circle in Angell's living room. Their expressions were all the same. The same cold, blank, worried faces painted with the horrifying feeling that someone might be out to get her.

It was only a theory at most. There was no solid evidence to back up Danny's assumptions but it seem liable. In a panic of the moment, it was absolutely possible for the shooter to mistake Angell and their vic but then to kill the victim and go through Angell's apartment didn't seem understandable especially if she saw him run out the back of the Laundromat herself.

But the thing that worried everyone the most was, what if Danny's theory was correct? What happens if the shooter went down to the Laundromat with the intention of killing Angell? Was there someone out there now, watching her? Waiting for the right moment to strike again? All they could do was follow the evidence and hope that something might lead them to Angell's safety.

'Hey,' came a small voice from behind the group. Turning it was Angell, dressed smartly in jeans and a jacket carrying a duffle bag full of clothes. She looked quiet and not like her cheery little self. It was obvious she hadn't spent time getting herself ready but then most people would think she didn't need anything like make up to make herself look good. As they watched her walk forward towards them, they could see there was something vulnerable about her, something helpless.

'You're going to be okay! Alright?' Stella said comforting Angell as she reached them. She nodded silently and watched the blank faces of her friends. To her they were all just worried; they all just wanted her to feel safe and to be taken away from all the mess that was created around her. But to them, they knew something she didn't. They knew about her potential killer and how unsafe she would be no matter how near she was to a precinct. In sympathy for her, they all chose not to tell her. She'd already had a rough day so it for her own good - for her own safety. They didn't want her to worry any more than she already had.

Flack reached out to grab her bag and briskly touched her hand. Their eye shot up meeting each other as a spark of electricity sent little waves of butterflies to shoot up their arm. They both wondered how much more of this they could handle. How they were meant to stay together, in the same apartment, without feeling that slight bit uncomfortable. But Angell didn't really care right now. Maybe tomorrow something like that would start bothering her but right now, all she wanted was a nice, long car journey before arriving at her destination where she could rest in a nice, comfy bed and forget everything that had happened.

Flack walked Angell to his silver sedan parked outside her apartment building. There, there were hundred of people milling about. Officers tried to calm crowds, CSIs tried to do their jobs, residences wanted to get back into their apartments. It was already coming to the early evening and even the roads outside were packed with cars. As Angell walked onto the curb she looked back up at the building towering over her. There, in a small window to the left, she could see Ms. Croft looking out at the commotion below. She looked more angry than concerned when her eyes caught Angell's while she was pulling her curtains shut. Angell felt sad, maybe even a little sorry for her. She wasn't used to this much attention. She was probably annoyed by the amount of CSIs and detectives that called up to her apartment asking for statements on what she heard; what she saw. She knew nothing from what Angell could make out. She probably had no idea what happened. Or then again, maybe she did.

Flack had loaded Angell's bag into the boot of his car and was about to get into the driver's side. Looking over the top of the car he watched as Angell craned her neck up to peer through what looked like her bedroom window.

'Don't worry, Jess, they'll find who did it,' Flack tried to give a comforting smile but besides the wind picking up speed there was hordes of noise coming from the crowded streets.

Getting into the car Angell sat silently in the passenger seat as Flack got the car running. It was warm in the car, a change from the suddenly plummeting temperature outside. The wind was definitely picking up and they wouldn't be surprised if it even rained that evening. They sat for a moment longer; Flack had started the car but hadn't moved it.

'Jess,' he called out quietly brining her back from her own thoughts. 'I have to take you to the station first.' He knew her reaction would be like this, blank cold and frightened the same as it had been for hours.

'Why?' she asked, 'I gave my statement already.'

'The Captain called,' Flack dreaded saying the words and Angell dreaded hearing them. The Captain wasn't the friendliest of guys and was normally, constantly, hounding Flack and Angell to get more work down. Over loading them with cases was his favourite thing to do. He hated giving days off to his 'best' detectives, as he put it, and Flack knew he'd ask Angell to come into work the next day careless of what she had been through. 'He just wants to take a more formal statement. That's it.'

'That's never it,' she said. Flack looked at her sympathetically; he knew this couldn't be easy. The Captain was most probably doing this to spit her because according to him Angell has recently almost compromised a case. He took her off it saying she was a danger to the investigation and placed Flack as head. Angell hadn't hated Flack for it but she despised the Captain.

The rest of the journey was in silence. Angell stared out at the passing rain clouds as Flack kept his eye on the traffic. She watched the clouds pass like she watched her life past. One cloud after the other, one year after the other, she was wasting her life doing nothing.

It wasn't long until they reached the precinct. Angell got out herself not bothering to wait for Flack and walked straight in through the doors. She stopped though; the moment she walked in. Everyone's eyes were on her. Everyone in the precinct was looking at Angell. They had stopped what they were doing and just stared at her. Maybe it was Angell's paranoia, brought on by the day's events, but she was certain people were even whispering to each other. Flack entered the doors behind her and stood, surveying the crowds of gawking police officers. Clearing his throat it was as if they were all pulled rapidly out of a daydream. They suddenly became busy, bustling about the floor, chatting to people, making phone calls; all the normal things you would have imagine a police officers to do in a station.

Angell took a deep breath and waited another moment to watch everyone. Why had they done that? What had the Captain told them to make them stare at her like that? She wanted to believe she didn't care. She just wanted to get this over and done with before retreating home for a nice, long sleep so that she could wake up tomorrow and face the faces that, she knew, thought she was weak and vulnerable.

'Angell!' came a bellowing voice from a secluded office at the corner of the precinct. 'How are you? Alright? Not hurt or anything?' she knew the Captain was mocking her. That's what he did, make his staff feel insecure and small around him but she held her ground strong. She knew how to face someone like this – they had worked together for the past 6 months. She could still remember the first few weeks he'd been there though. Everyone in the precinct just wanted to walk up to him and punch his face in. But besides the fact that they all knew better, someone did. Not literally punch his face in but stand up to him. Tell him how much he didn't like his ways of policing. The Captain was from Washington – the other side of the states. Obviously, they seem to have different laws. The Captain just couldn't adapt to these new ones; or he just didn't want to.

'I'm fine. Thank you,' she replied to him, 'never been better.'

'Oh good,' he said not noticing her sarcastic tone of voice. 'Now, come. We must record you're statement as soon as possible so we do not keep Detective Flack waiting.' His smile was irritating. The sort that made you want to cringe. It reminded Angell, explicitly, of ones evil villains tried putting on when pretending to being nice. It never worked she remember telling herself; it just made them less likeable.

Angell followed the Captain to a small interrogation room just off the main area of the precinct. Angell sat opposite the Captain facing the stained black windows she normally stood behind.

It was different and definitely an experience she thought she would never have to go through. She hadn't committed a crime but she was still here being interviewed by someone she worked with. All of this just made her feel displaced. It was almost as if all of this was a bad dream and she'd wake up in a moment and realized she was still the detective she'd trained to be and that it was her interrogating someone and not vice versa.

'For the record, please state your name,' the Captain had hit the record button on the machine.

'Detective Jessica Angell,' she said.

'Can you please retell the accounts of your morning before and up to the shooting and burglary at your apartment that took place at 1.40 pm today?'

Angell took a deep breath and started, 'It was my day off so I had decided to do some cleaning. My apartment hadn't been tending to in weeks so I used the opportunity to get things sorted. At around 11.50 I had finished with my apartment and headed down to the Laundromat in the basement. I hadn't been there more that 10 or 15 minutes before an elderly lady from the floor below me asked if I could help her with taking some items up to her apartment. I wasn't heartless enough to say no so I followed her up,' Angell paused for a moment, watching the Captain occasionally look down at a notepad he had in front of him. He was taking notes.

'I was in her apartment for maybe 20 minutes before I realized my clothes would have been done in the washer by then. I left her apartment, stood in the hall for a moment and then I heard a scream. Following that I heard the shots. I contemplated what to do for a moment before I rushed up to my apartment and grabbed my gun. I went back down and saw the body. The assailant was still standing over her but the moment he saw me he ran. I was - '

'Let me stop you there,' the Captain said. Leaning in he looked at Angell with a smile. 'What did he look like?'

Angell couldn't help thinking how crazy this all was. He was just taunting her. It was as if retelling it was his way of committing that little bit of torture on her.

'I didn't see his face,' Angell replied bluntly back.

'No?' he asked raising an eyebrow at her. 'Maybe what he was wearing?'

'Black track suite bottoms and a black hoodie. The hood was covering his face.'

'Height? Weight?'

'5' 10. Maybe a little taller. I wouldn't be able to guess his weight but he was medium build.'

'Age? Come on, Angell, you know how this works you tell me everything you know.'

'I can't tell you what his age was but I can tell you he was pretty damn fast runner! Maybe you're looking for someone on a track team,' this time Angell made her sarcasm intentional. She wanted him to hear it.

'I don't like how you're speaking to me, Detective.'

'I don't like the questions you are asking me, Captain.'

'Angell,' he said trying to act serious but wasn't achieving it well. This felt like a reenactment of her high school years when she used to get sent to the headmasters office for nothing at all except for the fact that she was the only girl who had the courage to stand up against teachers.

'Sorry,' she said back. In her heart she was telling herself how much she didn't believe that.

'Carry on,' he said.

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Angell walked out of the interrogation room and leaned with her head against the wall. Repetitively knocking it against the wall softly she cursed the last three quarters of an hour she spent in that room.

'Angell?' Flack said from his spot on the hard, wooden benches. Angell slid her self across the wall so she was facing him. Lethargically, she lifted herself from the wall and took three steps before landing in the chair next to Flack.

'What happened in there?' he lifted his arm and placed it around her shoulders allowing her head to rest neatly against his.

'He made me say my statement all over again. This time with every little single bit of detail. I mean wasn't that what I saw doing for the past few hours to other detectives and CSIs,' Angell gave out a huge sigh and shut her eyes for a moment. 'I can't take this Don. I'm the detective I am meant to be the one doing all that to the witness.'

'Sometimes I guess we all have to look at the world from the other side of the tape,' he, too, gave a sigh and stared into dark corners of the waiting room.

Angell thought back to the interview. The Captain had been hard on her; making her answer question he already knew the answers to, forcing her to cough up every little bit of detail. She didn't mind persistent detectives but there was something about his way of being persistent that really made her struggle to keep her hand down and away from punching him in the face.

'God I hate him,' she said after moments of silence.

'Why?'

'He's an asshole?' her statement was more of a question. She knew why she hated him she just couldn't find the right words to express it.

'Oh, come on. He's not that bad.'

'Yes he is Don. He's horrible.'

'Why do you have a grudge against him anyway? Why don't you tell me?'

Because I don't want to. Not yet, Don. Not yet.

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A/N: Strangely enough I don't really like this chapter… I don't know why there is something about it… Maybe the long windedness or the over use of dialogue… Or maybe the fact that it doesn't reveal much about the characters. Or that my writing, to me, is just really bad. Also you know, I don't really like the name I have given to this story. I mean it worked while it was still a one shot but now I've developed a story line around it I don't really think it works well. So you know, if ANYONE out there can think of a great name for my story - do tell me! Thanks!