D: I don't own CSI NY.
I would like to thank the few people that have been reviewing the story. Since, they're the only ones.
Thank you BlueEyedAuthor, sweetto moi and prophet144.
Also, the case from Vegas was part of the episode 'Revenge Is Best Served Cold.' (Over in CSI land) I didn't realize at the time, but the place is wrong. It's West Africa and it also happened to be the episode with Carmine Giovinazzo. I do not know how that happened. I just remembered Gil's case and not Cath's, which was the one Carmine was.
"Ow," he said. It was probably redundant. Getting kicked in the shoulder didn't help anyone. Given the fact no one would hear him because he was gagged didn't help either. Reed was listening to the sounds of the traffic beside him. He considered kicking the sides of the trunk whenever someone was close just to see if they could hear him and get him out. The only thing stopping him was he went through it an impulse like that and the killer had started carving the L2729 in his neck. He was only at the L and if it ever got to the 9, he would be in the back suffocating. He was pretty sure the carving was getting infected thanks to the rock and everything that was on it.
Mac will find me. Mac will find me. Mac will find me before it gets to that point. He kept reassuring himself. He breathed deeply to keep from hyperventilating and listened to what was going on outside.
"Hey, you seem kind of tired. Why don't I give you a lift?"
--
"No thanks," the woman said. She was holding herself against the bus sign and looked dead on her feet.
The Cabbie Killer saw her as the perfect victim. He wanted to start trying short term live victims so he could have some more fun. Reed's long term. That's different, though it has given some things to go by. "Come on. I'll give you a discount. At least twenty-five percent off. From what I can tell, you're on the other side of the city. I can get you to your place faster than having to transfer between three or more buses."
She contemplated the thought for a minute before she told him no. "I like meeting the people. Gives me creative ideas for my novel I plan to write."
"All right, how about thirty percent and I give you a detailed list of my life to put in your story?" He smiled with just the right amount of sincerity to make her cave in.
"All right." She got into the back. She set her purse down and pulled out a notebook out of it. Grabbing a pen, she marked down to the bottom of the page. "Okay, so what's your name?"
"Jason, Jason Logan Echolls. I was named after my mother's grandfather for the first name and my father's father for the middle name."He kept the charade up until halfway to the building. He then turned on the carbon monoxide in the back. After four seconds, he turned off the carbon monoxide.
"What the hell?" he muttered, noticing the leak into the cabin wasn't stopping. He looked around for a bit before finding one of the backup buildings and pulled in. He pulled her out of the back after turning off the engine. He immediately checked for a pulse. "Damn it," he hissed, not finding one. He went back to the opened door and pulled the latch for the trunk. He gathered her up in his arms and laid her next to Reed just moments after he moved out of the way.
Reed screamed at him through the gag. He was trying to glare at him, but he felt his eyes watering from the burning now coming with the carving on his neck. "Shh, it'll take a while, but we'll be back soon," he said, unconvincingly with comfort. He reached to stroke his hair, but Reed moved further into the trunk. "We'll have to deal with that when we get back." He slammed the trunk closed. Any major to the back of his neck caused it to hurt, so he rested his head against the thing protruding from the back seat and cried silent tears. Each tear held a prayer.
Let Mac find me.
Let Mac find me.
Let Mac find me.
--
"Everything's been processed. There's no other trace that we can go to try and trace him to his next place," Stella informed Mac. They were both standing in the main room where they had the most concentration of Cabbie Killer items. All known victims were listed on one of the screens. A rundown of possible vehicle matches was going on another.
"All right, I'm going to go over to Adam and see if he's got the area we traced down to before cross-referenced with the construction going on," he informed her. Stella came over to take over to watch Reed's blog. She saw the first line and pulled Mac back. "'Hello, and welcome to the first play by play of the Cabbie Killer at work.' What the hell is he playing at?" Mac yelled.
"I'll go to Adam and he'll start a run on the site. Hopefully, we can track him down. All right?" Stella asked Mac, moving toward the door. He could only nod as he brought up the blog on the main screen.
Stella walked down to the AV lab. "Adam, I need you to see if there's any possible way to trace Reed's blog back to a location."
"All right," he said, pulling up the blog and running a program on the postings. "His computer's directly linked into the site. It'll take me a few minutes, but," he pondered for a minute before going back to the previous map he had made from the cell phone call and the construction. While the cell phone was going off towers within the city, the laptop may have been going by wires, Adam hoped. He would be able to cross the wire maps with the phone map. He had a highlighted sliver of area.
"All right, you have two areas of construction within this area," Adam pointed out. "This is the only abandoned building by one of the sites."
"Adam, you are a God send." She kissed his forehead before running out of the lab. Adam turned back to the computer with a slight smile mixed with a little confusion.
"Adam brought up a location. An abandoned machine factory. Let's go, I've got the address," she told Mac. They both flew off calling several people on the way for backup and medics.
--
He lined the table with the tarp before going to the car by the back docking. Unfortunately for him, he picked a place that didn't have a drive in like the fish place. He pulled her out first, leaving Reed to adjust his eyes back to light. He set her on the stomach so he could get to the neck easier. He then set up the computer he had taken from Reed's apartment and set it up at the desk. He took the chair sitting far away and sat it by the desk.
He grabbed the rock and went back to the trunk. He grabbed the back of Reed's collar and held him, so his chest was on edge of the trunk lining and his neck was exposed. The L was red and swelling. "It looks beautiful. Let's add to it." He started carving the first two.
Reed screamed when the stone cut in. Tears kept rolling even after the killer was finished. He was lifted up and dragged over to the chair. His wrists and forearms were unbound and the tape was removed for him. The tape around the legs stayed along with the tape on his upper arms. He felt the blood drip down into his collar in the back.
He took off the tape around his mouth. "Turn on your computer and log in." It took a couple of minutes, but soon he was logged in. The desktop was a picture of Mac and the team with Reed by Danny and Flack getting pranked. "Oh, how sweet." He moved the computer next to him and got onto the internet. He brought up the news site and got to the login area. He moved it back to Reed and he finished putting in the necessary information.
"Let's start. Type in 'Hello and welcome to the first play by play of the Cabbie Killer at work.'" Reed complied. "Now, I'm going to start in a couple of minutes. I want you to tell me when you're going to post up a new item, so I can read it first. No helping Mac, got it?"
Reed nodded. Just when he's going over to her body, he asks, "You going to kill me?" The killer looks back at him. He looks back with the right amount of fear, nervousness and a small part of begging that makes him question himself.
I can't let him get to me. "We'll see."
--
"He's posting again. The killer's starting carving up her neck," Mac informed Stella. Mac wanted to keep up with the blog, so Stella was driving them to the factory. "Some of the comments are asking why is it taking so long for the next post if it's a play by play."
"Mac, it may mean we have more time to get to him before he gets done with the female victim. The killer may be looking over the blogs before he posts."
"What's our ETA?"
"Less than three. SWAT's going to wait for us. Medics are on their way."
--
He heard the screech of tires outside. Reed also heard them, but didn't put much hope into them. He finished the next post and was waiting for approval. "Very good. Maybe you'll be more useful than I thought." He stroked his hair and let one of his fingers move across the cuts in the back. The cuts got irritated, but Reed kept still. "Good boy, I'll be back." He went over to the body and wrapped her in the tarp. He started moving toward the other room when he heard a call of freeze.
--
Mac went down the corridor first. He was outfitted with a vest and his standard. Stella followed after him. Several SWAT personnel were going around the building and they had birds in the air in case he escaped. Flack was going around the other side with a couple SWAT behind him.
He was going down the main corridor when he saw a man emerging with a tarp in his arms. "Freeze!" he shouted. "NYPD."
The man dropped the tarp and bolted the other way. Mac followed after him and ran up a couple of stairs. Why do these places always have a bunch of hallways and corridors? They don't need the maze. Maybe it's for exercise. Mac's mind was going faster than his feet, but one thing kept driving him on.
The bastard took Reed. He's not getting away so easily.
They got to the top of a turret that used to house sand that was turned into silicon for the parts. The killer looked around him and saw Flack coming up one side. He turned to see Mac coming up the other. He saw a truck coming down the alleyway. He jumped.
"Shit!" Mac and Flack exclaimed when they saw him dive over. They figured he just tried to commit suicide. They didn't know about the truck until Mac got to the side.
"I'll see you again, Detective Taylor. Very soon. I want to complete Reed," he called out, jumping off the truck when it hit the sidewalk. He blended into the crowd.
"Get a description of him out to the wires," Mac ordered Flack. He headed down to the room where the killer had come from.
Reed jumped up when he saw him, wrapping his arms around him and crying into his shoulder. Stella was handling the tape that had been around Reed's arms and ankles. The medic that had been attending him came over to the two. She looked at Mac. "We need to get him to a hospital. Some of his wounds have become infected and a doctor will have to check it out to see how far it's progressed," she spoke in the calmest voice she could find.
"Okay, Reed," Mac whispered, trying to unwrap Reed's arms so he could speak to him face to face. He clung even tighter to Mac. Mac noticed his shaking and how it increased when he tried to get him to let go. "Okay, okay," he soothed, started to rub his back like you would with a crying child, "I'm not going anywhere." He turned his attention to Stella. "Do you have everything you need?"
"He won't let anyone by his neck."
"Okay, Hawkes and Lindsay were behind us. I'll send in Lindsay first to help you and Hawkes can get the remaining items from Reed. And me," he added as an afterthought when he thought about all the transfer Reed had passed onto him. He looked over to the medic that was still there. "How close can you get the bus to the doorframe? We'll need the least amount of area to avoid the media."
"My partner's about fifteen feet away. The sidewalk's blocking us."
"All right. Reed." His attention went back to his step-son. "We need to walk out of here. I'll still be near, but it's going to be hard to move like this," he tried to joke. He heard the closest thing he could qualify as a short laugh and felt a nod before Reed pulled away. He kept an arm around him. Reed leaned into him as they walked out.
Hawkes and Lindsay were already coming over. "Hawkes, I want you to ride with us and collect things from Reed and me. Lindsay, help Stella inside. If you need any more help, grab Danny out." Lindsay nodded as she went in. Reed climbed in first and was made to lie down on the stretcher while Mac sat across from him. Hawkes took the other side with the medic, who kept checking on the neck wound.
"Do you mind if I look?" Hawkes asked. The medic was surprised. "I used to be a doctor. Still have my credentials." She nodded and moved to the side as much as she could. He lifted Reed's hair to get a better look at the cuts. Reed grabbed Mac's hand. Mac responded by rubbing his arm to calm him a little bit. "The infection hasn't reached his blood stream yet. There's going to be trace within the wounds that will have to be cleaned out." Mac gave him a questioning look. "It looks like he used the same item that he used on his previous victims."
"It was a stone," a voice said. Mac looked down at Reed.
"A stone?" Reed nodded.
"Nothing else major. Minor dehydration and malnutrition. He'll be physically fine within a couple of days," Hawkes concluded, moving back to his original position to let the medic back.
"Reed, I want you to be honest with me. Is there anything else wrong?" Mac asked him.
"He kicked me in the shoulder a few times. There's nothing else."
"How does your neck feel?"
"It's burning; it itches." He would have continued, but at that moment, he felt incredibly sleepy. He closed his eyes to succumb to the tiredness.
Mac looked up at Hawkes. "Is it okay for him to be going to sleep with the infection?"
"It doesn't seem too deep. The doctor will have to wake him up to get his consent for the cleaning and the paperwork. Let him sleep for now, Mac. Looks like he needs it."
--
"Hey, Stel, where do you want me to work?" Lindsay asked Stella, coming into the room.
"His cab's over in the other room. Start going over for prints." Lindsay nodded and went into the other room.
Stella got through with the table and lifted a few good footprints off the floor. The last thing she needed to go over was the desk and the computer on it. She walked over and started dusting everything around it. She collected a few good prints and packaged the rock that was used for the neck carvings. Then, she turned her direction to the computer.
She kept a game face on as she dusted the frame and lifting prints on the front. She woke up the computer and ignored the background as well as she could to look at the battery power and decided to power off the computer for Adam to look at. She packed everything she got into a crate and brought it over to where Lindsay was working.
Lindsay was under the car looking at something. "What did you find, Linds?" she asked.
She brought herself out enough to look at Stella. "He was fixing his car. There's a hose that is connected to the main box that takes the carbon monoxide to what looks like the back seat. It looks like the thing was connected by a switch. It would close off the way out of the main pipe and funnel the exhaust to the back seat."
"Yeah, but if people knew what was going on, then they would try to get out."
"Maybe he rigged the locks on the doors also."
Stella nodded. "Let's get the back to the scene. Danny and you are going to go over this for trace."
"What are you going to do?"
"Find anything here that will help with the next place."
Sorry, I'm not done just yet. He's still has to get caught. Review, please. Even if it's to say that I'm a crazy sick person that shouldn't be doing this. (I'm going to continue though.) Please.