Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of CSI:NY, they belong to Anthony E. Zuiker and CBS.

Author's Note: (crawls back out from under bed) Wow, I'm still in one piece. Huh, that wasn't so bad. :) Haha, my LaughOutLoud Award for Reviews goes to Kiwi-Messer this time around. Made me laugh. Loved it.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Are you awake enough to drive?"

Lindsay nodded. "Yeah. I want to keep going. Go ahead and crash. There was a sign back there, Mountain Spring, ninety miles. But since I don't know when this plow in front of us is gonna pull off, it's gonna be slow going."

Flack settled into the Avalanche's passenger seat. "All right. Wake me up if you need a break."

"I've got coffee, I'll be fine," Lindsay replied. A few moments later, Flack closed his eyes and started to snore. She turned on the radio to a classic rock station-Danny's favorite.

Lindsay looked ahead at the orange snowplow in front of her. They'd been following it for about five miles, and they were the longest five miles...

Danny. Are you out there somewhere? On the side of the road? Or did you get lucky, like Flack said, and are sitting in some warm hospital room right now watching football? Tears filled her eyes and she furiously blinked them away. She looked at her cell phone. She was tempted to turn it on and check for service, but she knew there would be at least fifteen missed calls and voicemails from Mac Taylor. She vaguely wondered if she'd have a job after they found Danny.

If we find Danny...Stop it, Montana, she chided herself, and then blinked. Since when do I start referring to myself as Montana? she wondered. Then she smiled. No, I'm okay with that.

Hold on, Danny, we're coming.

Danny was wide awake. He lay in the guest bedroom upstairs with his hands behind his head, staring up at the ceiling. I'm such an idiot, he thought. What was I thinking? Kissing her? Circumstances, that's all it was. Hell... He closed his eyes and shook his head. Deep down, he really didn't feel anything for Cady Holliday. She was a wonderful person. He thought her kid was great. But there was someone waiting for him back in the city, he was sure of that now. And she had a name. Lindsay. Montana. His memory was completely intact now. He remembered he had been on his way home from a training seminar. He remembered the black pickup behind him.

His mind drifted back to the casefiles he had read while in Mountain Spring. Two highway robberies in the past four months. And then one a year before. He sat up in bed. Something had just occured to him. Was Jack Holliday the first vic? he wondered to himself.

Then he heard it. Downstairs. The sound of footsteps.

Cady up for a midnight snack? Jay sleepwalking? He wasn't sure, but he felt that it was none of the above. He got up quietly, and in his bare feet and jeans stepped out into the upstairs hallway. He looked in on Jason, who was out cold in his bed, a Power Ranger nightlight glowing beside him. Danny stepped into the room, pulling the covers closer to Jason's chin. He ran a hand through Jay's hair.

Danny closed the boy's door and moved on down the hall to Cady's room. Her door was open a crack. She was asleep, too, one hand gripping the pillow on the empty side of the bed. He felt a pang of sadness for her. I am such an idiot. He thought about waking her up, but decided she might be safer upstairs. Last thing I want to do is put her in any more compromising situations, he thought grimly.

He closed her door and made his way down the back stairs that led into the kitchen. Someone was definitely in the house. He could hear someone down in the kitchen. Danny thought about his approach. A. Take the guy by surprise in the kitchen. B. Get the .38 from the living room. He decided to leave the gun out of it for now. If he could get whoever it was from behind nice and quiet, there was less chance of something very bad happening.

He hopped off the stair to the floor. Whoever it was, they were in the dining room. Danny could go through the kitchen. He quietly stole through Cady's kitchen, listening for the guy in the very next room.

Then the light flipped on. Danny whirled around.

"Danny?" a sleepy Jason Holliday asked.

Oh no. "Jason, go back upstairs, go to your mom's room and-oof-" For the second time in two days, Danny would wake up with a killer headache the next morning. He collapsed to the kitchen floor, out cold.

Jason Holliday looked down at Danny's unconscious form on the floor, then to the man who had just hit him from behind. Then, he turned and started up the stairs. "Momma!" he yelled, right before he was grabbed from behind.

"Keep it quiet, kid," a voice hissed in his ear. "Now. Let's go find your momma, huh?"