CSI: NY

I'm sorry for the delay yet again.

My deepest thanks to chili-peppersChocoBettyfoxdvdRenLissa, and xbexyboox

Each of your reviews are highly appreciated.

So here's the following chapter. There's no story-telling session with Lindsay this time because the team is stuck with Lilith.

Please read and review.

Game of Insanity

Chapter Six

Featuring:

Insight about Lindsay's Envy Thoughts—Lilith Crawford Interrogation

Lindsay was alone once again.

It had been a few hours since Mac and Flack left. There it was – hours, but it felt like it had been five minutes ago. The time was incredibly slow. It was enjoying in all its glory watching her in complete misery, shifting about in bed despite the nurse's advice not to move too much.

She was getting restless.

There was nothing much to do other than just being in bed and rest. That was all she was required to do while she was there, donning just the pale blue scrubs that all patients were supposed to wear. She averted her eyes from the dull white wall to the window, pulling the covers further up. Even by looking outside there was nothing interesting to see. It was just another building of the hospital, branching out with people in blue scrubs, white coats and with a splash of other assortment of colors walking about. They looked like small little dots from her window. Just like those bite size candies – Skittles.

She frowned.

Skittles – she disliked it ever since she found out Danny had bought Irina one.

"So, Callahan, word has it that you missed your lunch?"

Lindsay was there, right beside Irina and he had not so much as glanced at her to acknowledge her presence. There wasn't a nod; wasn't a greeting; nothing.

"Flack missed his lunch so he's decided that since I was with him, he'd make me miss my lunch too," she had said, looking up at him.

Lindsay saw the look in his eyes. The way it gleamed down at the new colleague was different. It wasn't gleaming the way that it was when he looked down at her. Then he pulled out a packet of Wild Berry Skittles. The look on Irina's face was unreadable.

Lindsay, on the other hand, felt her face crammed.

As she continued looking out of the window, she realized speckles of water droplets hit the window pane. She listened to the thudding sound it made. It was slow at first and sort of therapeutic for her. Then it came hitting at the glass rapidly, sharply and aggressively that she was afraid the glass would break.

Then she frowned. The glass back in the lab—she had been standing on the other side, looking in on the inside, just watching, wondering how far they would take it. Their lips were moving, Danny becoming dangerously close to Irina as she bent over the table looking at evidence closely.

She felt her heart being pricked with thousands of needles as Irina stood back up straight, her back pressed to his chest. She fit in right there firmly, perfectly, and fittingly. It was as if she was meant to be in his arms.

The moment he placed both of his hands upon the table on either sides of her; trapping her in between it and him, Lindsay walked away and almost rammed herself into someone's chest. She looked up.

Flack was watching the two inside the room.

There was pain in his eyes. He looked offended and then, without so much as glancing down at her, he resumed on walking.

The rain was pouring heavily. As the lightning struck the earth, she had frowned yet again. The heavy rain flooded her head with a memory that had been forever etched into her mind.

"There's no way we're sharing an umbrella and not get wet," Flack pointed out as Irina, Danny and Lindsay stood by the entrance door of the building.

"I've got one with me," Danny said, "so we'll go in pairs."

Lindsay watched as his fingers wrapped around Irina's arm so firmly, so perfectly, so fittingly, and tugged her to walk out with him. It was as if he was just the right person to do that – to hold her hand, to guide her down the busy sidewalk.

Even in the blurriness of her vision due to her threatening tears, she could see Flack looking down at her. Perhaps, he was just seeing how she'd reacted to that, or making sure if she was okay.

But as she blinked back the tears, her vision had cleared up and she could see more of Flack clearly, she found out that she was wrong. His expression was unreadable as he looked down the direction Danny and Irina had gone. Then his expression changed. She didn't know how to describe it but the suitable word was offended.

Flack was offended, just like how he had seemed to be the last time.

Lindsay looked away from the window and somehow, it fixed on the tulips by the bedside table. The flower – Danny had forgotten her favorite kind of flower that day and he had settled on buying her sunflowers. How he could have mistaken her for liking sunflowers was a mystery to her.

But she knew one thing for sure.

Ever since Irina Callahan came, things were never the same. Danny had more of his attention on Irina instead of her. Every morning, Irina was the first person Danny greeted.

She was the second now.

"Hey," Flack had said to her one day, "I've always been the second, the third, maybe the tenth or maybe even the last person to greet you in the morning but I'll be the first now."

She knew he was joking. It was just a joke to make her feel better but she couldn't see past the offended look on his face and the pain in his eyes.

X

"Am I in trouble?"

That was the first thing that came out of Lilith Crawford's mouth the moment the detective entered the room – the detective whose name she couldn't remember. It was there in the back of her mind but the anxiousness overtaking her small frame was preventing her from identifying him.

Since the detective wasn't speaking to her just yet, she was beginning to get claustrophobic. Under the detective's intense gaze, her forehead had begun to form beads of sweat, and palms already wet. Her thin eyebrows were furrowed; her big and round green eyes were—literally—burning holes into the metal table before her. Unlacing her fingers, she brought a hand to her forehead and wiped the beaded sweat away.

"You did something wrong?"

She didn't answer. She didn't shrug. She didn't look up to meet his eyes. She stared down at the table, and her fingers were laced back together, placed stiffly upon her lap.

"How about we proceed while waiting for Detective Taylor?" he suggested. "I've got a few questions for you."

She wasn't going to say anything to the intimidating detective. It was something like Detective Flake…Fleck…Flock – whatever his name was. So she had decided to wait—anxiously—for Detective Taylor to come.

Quietly, without meeting his eyes, she spoke, "I'll wait for Detective Taylor."

Nervous, she was.

"I was at Timothy's grandmother's house," Lilith said as she watched the tall detective in front of her with reddened eyes. He looked up from his notebook briefly and nodded for her to go on. "We were…we were finishing up on our school project."

"Was Felicia there?"

She shook her head. "Everyone else was except her; she was late, like always."

"Okay, so by everyone else you mean Timothy, Dominique—"

"Vincent, and Monica," she finished for him.

"And you," he added.

"Yeah," she nodded, "and me."

"Do you know where they are now?"

As his eyes met hers, she looked away. "Aren't they home?"

"No and since you're the last one on the list, we came to you."

She brought a shaky hand to her face and wiped away the tears. "I last saw them all at Timothy's before I left. I was going home."

"What time was that?"

"Late twelve in the noon," she answered shakily. "You can ask my father. I was home by then."

"So you said that you were at Timothy's grandmother's house from ten to twelve today and you didn't find it strange that Felicia didn't turn up after two hours?"

She licked her lips and then pursed them together. "I…I tried calling her cell. She didn't answer any of my calls. I thought nothing of it. This was usual with her."

"You mean with her showing up late and not answering her calls?"

"Yeah," she nodded.

"Have you any idea how she ended up being in that warehouse or what she was doing there in the first place?"

"No, I don't."

"Are you sure?"

"Lilith Crawford," Mac called as he placed a manila folder and several evidence bags on the table. "Do you know why you're here?" Taking a seat from across her, he looked at her.

She was small for a sixteen year old. Her brown hair was straight, silky under the illumination of the light overhead. Her eyes were a vivid tone of green; vivacious two orbs, but he saw the wariness in them.

On top of it all, she had an elfin face. She had a delicate appearance.

Just like Felicia Fontane.

Those two looked very much alike.

"Lilith," Mac began as it was obvious she was not going to answer his previous question. "I have questions for you in regards to Felicia Fontane's murder. You told Detective Flack everything he needed to know—"

The name's Detective Flack, she took a mental note.

"—and that was great; that was a great help, Lilith, but," he slid the evidence bag containing her necklace over to her, "we found your necklace in the warehouse. You said you lost it, we believed you. You told us you've never been in that warehouse and we didn't question you any further, but you were in that warehouse, weren't you, Lilith?"

Her lips began to tremble. She lowered her head even more, squeezed her eyes shut as she placed both her palms atop the metal table, shaking. Then the tears came. Mac saw the first few droplets, landing on the metal surface and offered her a piece of tissue paper.

"Are you going to tell me and Detective Flack here exactly what happened?"