Disclaimer: Not for profit, though a little profit wouldn't exactly be amiss, here.
Author's Note: Thanks so much to everyone who reads and reviews. Special thanks to moyeh, whose review I was unable to reply to offline.
On with the chapter…
As soon as the video feed went dark Danny began to panic.
"Oh, god, Lindsay? Lindsay, can you hear me?"
Danny whipped out his cell and hit the speed dial frantically. He got up and paced.
"Taylor," the voice came through.
"Mac? The feed's gone. The screen went dark. We lost audio a few minutes ago and now the video's gone too."
Mac stopped walking and thought for a minute as he digested the news Danny had delivered.
"Did you lose audio on both ends at the same time?"
Danny shook his head.
"Naw, hers was gone first. She could still hear me until just now. Then all of a sudden everything just went dark on the screen."
Mac pinched the bridge of his nose and waved Stella over as he gave his response.
"We'll check the power company and see where the disturbance calls are coming in for interrupted power. This could be the break we've been waiting for."
Danny nodded and waited for his orders. Stella held her phone up to Mac and once she received his approval went about calling the power company. Mac switched his focus back to Danny.
"Danny? As soon as we get a hit on the possible brownout location I want you to start calling all the hospitals in the area. If Lindsay manages to get out somehow then she's going to need to be treated for possible hypothermia. As soon as I call you back get the word out that we're looking for a kidnapped NYPD officer with possible exposure."
"Okay, I can do that. In the meantime, what should I do?"
Mac thought for a minute. He knew Danny was going stir crazy already, having lost the only link they had to Lindsay, and what he was about to tell him was not going to make him happy.
"I need you to stay there, let me know if and when the feed is re-established. If it comes back up you'll be the first one to see if Lindsay is there or not. Once we get the information from the power company we'll start canvassing the neighborhood."
"I want to help look for her," Danny interrupted.
"I know you do, Danny, but I really need you there. If Lindsay is still trapped then we'll need you to tell her to make noise for us to find her. And if she's not there, we need you to keep an eye on any possible suspects who might make an appearance. Also, we need someone to be the liaison with the hospital, when it gets to that part. Someone needs to be there with Lindsay to get her statement. Would you rather I sent someone else to be with Lindsay at the hospital?"
Danny didn't even need to think about it.
"No, no. I wanna be there, Mac."
"Okay then. I know it's tough but just hang tight, jot down the details so far, how long you were talking, at about what time the power went out, the details we'll need to help with the timeline. I'll call you as soon as we get a lead on her."
As Mac hung up the phone Stella came back over.
"It looks like we can thank Mrs. Juanita DeGuerraz for this break. Apparently there was a power outage that has dared to interrupt her viewing of America's Most Wanted, and she voiced a very vocal complaint from her apartment on East 65th Street. The company told me a ten-block grid from about East 64th and Rebecca up to East 74th and Calhoun had an interruption of power about six minutes ago."
"Great. Call Flack, have him round up some uni's to help. I'll call Hawkes, have him get the car. We'll call Danny on the way; have him start calling the hospitals in the area."
They hurried to place the calls and get down to the parking garage as quickly as possible.
Danny walked back and forth in front of the laptop, willing it to come on. His phone rang and he nearly jumped.
"Messer," he all but barked out.
"Danny, we're on our way to start the search. Here's the grid you need to find hospitals around," Mac spoke without preamble and Danny wrote down the details then hung up. He ran out of the room to find a detailed street map and he wrote down the names of half a dozen hospitals he needed to call.
He went back into the room with the laptop and he began to call the hospitals. As soon as he was finished he went back to staring at the screen. He flinched when the image flickered back to life, and his heart sped up as he realized that Lindsay was no longer in the room. He called Mac.
"Mac, Lindsay's gone. I called the hospitals and gave them the info, but the screen doesn't show anything except that the door's open and the room's empty."
Mac sighed and tried to remain optimistic, although he knew the chances were better that Lindsay's captors had come back and had removed her from the room than that she had caught a break and had somehow managed to escape.
"Okay, Danny. I want you to stay put. Now that we know she's not there we're going to assume she made it out and is on her way to a hospital. So I need you there to field any calls that come in and get us the information as soon as you get it, all right?"
He held his breath, waiting for Danny to argue with him, so he was surprised when Danny agreed without a fight.
"Yeah, I can do that. This waitin's drivin' me nuts, though, you know?"
Mac nodded.
"I understand. Listen, why don't you go ahead and get everything ready to go to the hospital. Check that your recorder has extra batteries, stuff like that."
Danny cracked a grin.
"Yeah, I get it…keep myself busy. Well I better go let you get back to your stuff."
After he hung up Danny sat back in his chair and sighed. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes before reaching for a pen and the report he was going to have to start filling in sometime.
He jotted down all the relevant information, thankful that there wasn't a portion of the report that asked him to detail exactly what he and Montana had been talking about before the feed went down.
Boy wouldn't that be fun to explain to Mac?
Lindsay's eyelids fluttered open and she immediately shut them against the glare of the lights. There was an oxygen mask over her face and people were talking all around her. She tried to pull the mask off but a hand clamped down on her own.
"She's conscious," a voice said and Lindsay tried to speak but coughed instead.
"Miss?" a different voice asked. "You're at Angel of Mercy Hospital. Do you remember what happened?"
Lindsay nodded and opened her eyes slowly. An elderly nurse with a warm smile patted her hand.
"We need to contact the police," she began and Lindsay nodded her head vigorously and whispered Danny's name.
"You know an officer?" the woman asked and Lindsay nodded. The woman removed the oxygen mask. "Okay, tell me their name and then I'll put this back on."
"Danny Messer."
When the phone rang Danny pounced on it.
"Crime Lab, Messer," he clipped out in a tense tone.
"Detective Messer?" an unknown voice asked.
"Speaking."
"This is Sophia Bates from Angel of Mercy Hospital. We have—" she began, only to have Danny jump in.
"You have Lindsay?" he asked as he jumped out of his chair, not caring how pathetically desperate he sounded.
"Lindsay?" the voice asked.
"Yeah. Lindsay. Detective Lindsay Monroe. She's my partner. She got kidnapped earlier and we've been looking for her. It's possible she has exposure or hypothermia."
"Can you describe her for me, detective?"
"She's about 5'3", 120, shoulder length brown wavy hair, brown eyes. Cute country accent."
The nurse chuckled and Danny blushed. Montana would kill him dead after hearing that description.
"Well detective we have someone here that matches that description, although the only thing I heard her say was your name so I can't say for sure about the accent," she teased. "Would you mind coming down to identify her?"
"I'm on my way," he announced and hung up and collapsed back in the chair, suddenly shaky. They found her. She was alive. He grabbed his cell phone, checked to make sure he had everything he needed to take Lindsay's statement and then he all but ran out of the room. He called Mac as he raced down the stairs.
"Mac, it's Danny. Angel of Mercy called…I'm going over to see if someone who was just brought in is Lindsay. Whoever it is asked that I be called so I'm assumin' it's her, and the nurse said she fit my description of her."
"That's great, Danny. We'll meet you over there."