AN: I don't own any of the CSI:NY Characters or any of the show's storylines that I may refer to from time to time, but the rest of the plot is mine.
4. In the lab
Mac and Hawkes headed down to Autopsy to Find Sid. He was leaning over the body on the table that had fallen from the fifth storey balcony and now looked a little worse for wear.
"What you got, Sid?" Mac stopped on the other side of the table.
"Well, he has suffered a large amount of blunt force trauma, definitely with something very hard although that was hardly what killed him. I sent DNA samples under his finger nails to the lab and I also know he hasn't eaten much in the last 24 hours, his stomach was practically empty."
Mac nodded and Sid continued, "He appears to have suffered sharp force trauma to his right temple and from the indentation, it looks like an item of footwear, a stiletto perhaps...That's all I've found so far...You know, there was a case I worked once where the victim was badly beaten-"
"Thanks, Sid, call if you get anything else," Mac hurried off and Hawkes shrugged at Sid as he followed his boss up the stairs.
"Oh well, you'll listen won't you?" Sid bent back over the body and quietly resumed his story as he finished his examination
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Danny entered the lab to find Lindsay working on some of the evidence they brought back from their scene. Lindsay took a sideways glance at him and noted his damp hair and clean clothes, thinking how good he looked in that blue shirt. This was a strange case. The dead guy had been covered in what appeared to be sores, blood spatter around the alley and a mystery substance had covered everything. Adam was busy processing the mystery substance and she was hoping to have answers soon, and without their "body" they had little to go on. "Hey Montana! What you got?" asked Danny coming to stand at her side and looking at the photos in front of her.
"Nothing, absolutely nothing." She replied disconsolately, then added. "Why wait until we're there to run?"
"I don't know" He answered. "Do we have the results yet of the blood?" Lindsay shook her head and continued studying the photos through a magnifying glass. She could feel Danny standing at her side, she could hear his breathing. She could almost hear his mind whirr as he processed the information they did know in the case. She hoped he would come up with something more than she had.
Adam entered, a scratch on his cheek, evidence of his encounter with the cat the night before. He carried a file which he handed to Danny. "Hey Adam, what's with the face, wild night with the girlfriend?" Danny asked. Adam turned a deep shade of red and touched the scratch.
"Ah, um that was the cat." He answered nervously.
"I thought you hated cats." Danny replied.
"I do, Stella and Laura's vic was found by the cat, guess who got to process it." Adam replied. "Do you want to know what I found?" He paused as Danny opened the file. "It was fake blood ... you know the kind they use in movies. None of the samples were real."
"What about the other samples we brought in?" Questioned Lindsay.
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In Mac's office he had been discussing options with Hawkes.
"I think we need to return to the crime scene to find the murder weapon. Did Angell get anything from the neighbours?"
"Nothing more than she told us last night. But, she is following up on a 911 hang up placed about an hour before we got the call, which came from a payphone down the street." Hawkes told Mac.
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Don found Laura in an empty interrogation room pacing up and down. He closed the door, then stood in front of her and stopped her pacing, his hands on her shoulders. He watched her falling apart in front of him, too upset to talk. He pulled her into his arms and held her tight as she sobbed into his chest. "Hey babe, its ok. We'll handle it. How did you find out?" he whispered into her ear. She looked up hesitantly, his blue eyes held hers, his arms still around her, protecting her, making her feel safe. Slowly she told him about the case and Stella's suspect. He never let her go. "You did the right thing" he told her when she finished. "I'll take over, go home." Laura opened her mouth to argue with him, but he silenced her with a kiss "I'll do this, call it a shift swap, I'll call you later."
"Don I can't let you do it, what if he knows about us, I don't want him coming after you too." She protested.
"Hey, it happened 3 years ago, I'll be fine, he probably doesn't even know about us." He tried to reassure her. The look in her eyes told him she wasn't convinced.
"You're forgetting all the publicity after we took down that Asian gang a couple of months ago, that photo they got of us?" she reminded him. "Don he's not stupid!"
"All criminals are stupid Kat, we just have to find their weakness, we'll get him, ... he won't get to you, I promise" he cupped her face in his hands and gently ran his thumbs across her cheeks drying her tears. She closed her eyes momentarily and he knew she'd given in to him. He pulled her back into his arms and hugged her. "we'll get him" he whispered into her ear before pulling back and guiding her out of the room.
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A few minutes later Don entered the lab where Stella was working. She looked up and smiled at him. "What are you doing here its your day off?" She asked.
"I just swapped with Laura. She's gone home." He answered. "What do you need?"
"Is Laura alright, she took off out of here like a rocket a while ago, something about taking herself off the case, what's wrong?"
"You know those cases that get to you? Your suspect is hers. She arrested him last time he went to jail." Don confided. "At the trial he threatened her. She still has nightmares about it."
