A/N : tlh45 – your wish is my command :-) LOL Actually I had intended to publish the previous chapter yesterday but we had a power cut! So here is today's chapter and I will put you out of your misery tomorrow … promise!

Chapter 7

Don Flack Junior was having a deja -vu moment. "Quinn Morrison! NYPD!" Don Flack banged on the door as the uniformed officers glanced up and down the dingy hallway and gestured to the same nosy neighbour to go back inside. "Quinn Morrison open up!" .

"Whadd'ya want now Flack?" Morrison snarled from the other side of the door. "Haven't you got any other ex-cons to harass?" Don heard shuffling sounds from inside the apartment.

"Open up Morrison." Flack yelled but the only answer he received was an obscenity. "Oh sod it." Flack kicked the door in. He stormed down the corridor. The same mangy dog sat in the same mangy chair with the same mangy bone. It growled. Don hoped that was all it would do.

"What the hell …?" Morrison began. Don pushed him backwards and leaned over him pinning him into his chair.

"I have footage of you following Mac Taylor on Saturday afternoon. Now tell me where he is." Flack's eyes burned with animosity towards the man and his nose wrinkled at the unpleasant odour than emanated from his clothing.

Quinn Morrison stared into Don's eyes and knew he was in trouble. "I swear to you that I do not know where he is now ... okay so I followed him. Maggy told me to. She wanted to know how much he knew. He checked out that fancy boat of hers and then he just wandered around looking at buildings and building sites, marking them off on that damned map of his." He took a breath as Don urged him on. "I followed him back to Manhattan. I was exhausted. Five bloody hours I followed him and he only stopped once for coffee. I left him alive and well near the 42nd street bus terminal." Morrison looked away from Don unable to meet his eyes. He looked longingly at the bottle of whiskey. Don didn't move. He knew there was something else.

Morrison licked his lips. "Maggy sent some one else to take care of him after that."

Don's heart skipped a beat. "What do you mean by take care of him?"

"Follow him." A look of guilt passed over his face. "She swore she wasn't going to kill him. She said she just wanted to teach him a lesson..." His voice trailed away.

"Who did she send after him? … Quinn?" Don grabbed the man's face forcing him to look up at him.

"The Baxter boys."

"The Baxter boys? Shit!" Don stormed out, his phone already in his hand.

.

'CSI:NY – CSI:NY – CSI:NY – CSI:NY – CSI:NY'

.

The mood at the lab was sombre. Everyone looked haggard and exhausted. The office had started to empty at the end of the day but the lab techs that remained tip-toed around looking nervous and upset. Office rumours had spread like wild-fire. Everyone kept glancing at Mac's office as they walked by almost as if they were expecting him to magically reappear. No one could imagine the crime lab without him.

Jo sat with her head in her hands. Adam placed a mug of tea in front of her. She smiled at him. "Thanks Adam." She took a sip as her phone rang.

"Don? Tell me you have something." Jo listened for a while her brow furrowing as Don told her what Quinn had said. "Okay let me know." She hung up. "Adam? That list of buildings Mac got from the Buildings department. Can you put them up on a map?"

Adam nodded. "Already done." He crossed to the computer at the end of the conference table and brought up a map on centre screen. "There are thirty-two in the Tri-state area."

"Just give me the ones in Manhattan. Don said that Mac was last seen at the 42nd street bus terminal Saturday afternoon around 5pm." Jo stood up to look at the buildings. There were five in blue and two in green. "What's do the colours signify?"

"The blue ones are completed buildings with tenants and the green are active or future construction sites."

Lindsay stormed in. "Okay the white powder is a mix of sand, Portland cement, lime and a mix of synthetic acrylics. Once mixed with water it is commonly used in stucco work."

"Adam do any of those buildings have stucco work?" asked Jo. As Lindsay threw her a questioning look, Jo explained what Don had told her. "Maybe Mac was looking for a specific building to try and find evidence that Maggie killed Finbar. He seems to have covered half of New York."

Adam spun round. "None of the plans specifically mention stucco work. I mean. It's not something you find very often in modern buildings." He sighed but then suddenly sat up straighter as an idea came to him. "Wait I'll check the Landmarks Commission."

"What?"

"Maybe one of these new buildings is next to an old building that has to be preserved so if they damage it, they would need to use stucco to repair it." Adam typed furiously as Danny came in with Sheldon. "Yes got it!"

Jo and Lindsay sighed with relief. Adam pointed to a green spot on the map. "Henrik Greene has a new building slap bang in the middle of Hell's Kitchen right next to a landmarked building with a stucco work frieze. It's only three blocks from where..." His smile faded from his face as he looked at Sheldon.

Sheldon held up a plastic bag with Mac's crucifix. "It's definitely his blood and I matched a partial on it to a print Danny found at the boat and one we lifted from the faucet in Maggy Gunn's apartment."

"Okay. We have a possible location where we know Maggy has been recently. She had to have transferred trace from the site to the boat and the apartment. Adam call Don and give him the address and tell him we on our way." Jo made for the door shouting over her shoulder as she went, "...also find out anything you can about the Baxter brothers."

"Who are they?" Lindsay looked puzzled as she followed Jo.

"Muscle for hire." answered Danny. "All fists, no brains. Why are we interested in them?"

Jo stopped suddenly and wheeled around to face them. "Quinn Morrison spent Saturday afternoon following Mac. He said he left him alive and well near the 42nd street bus terminal as the Baxter brothers were there to take care of him. According to Quinn, Maggy said she had no intention of killing him. She just wanted … to teach him a lesson."

"Oh shit!" Danny looked very unhappy as Sheldon and Lindsay looked at him. "Sheldon, I think you should bring your medical bag."

Adam watched them leave. Suddenly he envied them. Most of the time he was happy to be left in the relative comfort of the lab and leave catching the bad guys to Mac and the others. This time he wished he was going too. He sighed as he turned back to the screen. What was it Jo said? "He seems to have covered half of New York." Why was he walking around looking at all of the buildings? He looked again at the information the Building departments planning supervisor said Mac asked for. He picked up a bunch of papers and then looked at one of the computer screens with the Greene Corporation's financials displayed on it. An idea came to mind. "Huh!" said Adam to himself. "Al Capone!"

.

'CSI:NY – CSI:NY – CSI:NY – CSI:NY – CSI:NY'

.

Don Flack pulled up his car outside the brownstone and jumped out. A young black detective, Brendan Miles waved to him from the side-walk. "They're not there. A neighbour said they went out about an hour ago on foot." Brendan pointed down the street with his radio handset. "I've got some uni's checking out the local haunts." As Don looked in the direction Brendan was indicating he saw a uniformed cop wave at them. They took off down the street at a jog. As they approached the young man, Don thought either he was getting older or the cops were getting younger. The fresh-faced kid looked as though he'd just stepped out of high-school. Don looked at his badge. O'Brien.

"We've spotted them in Rafferty's. Jackson is keeping a eye on them." O'Brien said excitedly as they set off down the street at a brisk pace. "They're sitting at the back on the right and it looks like they've have a few already. Reckon they've been fighting recently too. One of them's got a black eye. There are half a dozen civilians in there, three at the bar and three in the window so hopefully not a problem if they put up a fight." Don smiled to himself. The kid had succinctly provided all the information he needed to know without having to ask. He might look young but he was going to make a good cop. Don told him so and the kid beamed with pleasure.

O'Brien was right on all accounts. They put up a fight but it wasn't a problem. Four cops against two rather drunk street brawlers though the owner of Rafferty's wasn't too happy about the broken table and glasses.

Don Flack sat on Nate Baxter cuffing his hands behind his back. He hauled him to his feet and dumped him in a chair next to his brother. Officer Jackson rubbed his chin where Nate had decked him. He looked at Nate who sneered back. "I ain't done nuffin'!"

"That must mean that you have done something." Don grinned at Nate's look of total incomprehension and at the black eye he was sporting. "Mac Taylor. Where is he?" Don glared at the two brothers.

"Who?"

"Don't play games. The cop you attacked and kidnapped on Saturday afternoon. Where is he?" Don snarled.

"What?" Both brothers were so startled that they didn't even bother to deny it. "He was a cop?"

"We didn't know he was cop. She said he was her ex who had cheated on her."

"She just wanted to teach him a lesson."

"We didn't do anything."

"We just left him where she told us to."

"Honest we didn't know he was a cop."

Don and Brendan's heads bounced back and forth between the two brothers as they spilled their guts. Both were clearly panicked. "Where did you leave him?" asked Don. The brothers looked at one another. Don decided to turn up the pressure. He didn't have time for this. He looked at Brendan. "Okay for the time being book them for kidnapping, and assaulting a police officer."

Brendan immediately picked up on Don's tactic. "What about the murder charge?"

"Murder?" The Baxter boys looked at Don and Brendan in horror, their eyes almost popping out of their sockets,before looking at one another.

"In the alley near the old schoolhouse off Dyer."

"We didn't kill him, just roughed him up a bit."

"We just left him there. You gotta believe us. We didn't know he was a cop." Don didn't listen to the rest. He wheeled around and stormed out of the bar shouting to Brendan to book them and get everything they could about Maggy Gunn. Don swore to himself that he was going to get her if it was the last thing he ever did.

.

'CSI:NY – CSI:NY – CSI:NY – CSI:NY – CSI:NY'

.

Nicole Chang ran the brush once more through her customer's hair and reached for the hairspray. Covering her customer's face she added a light dusting of spray before handing her a mirror. Nicole was pleased with her work. It was her first big job without direct supervision. She smiled at her customer in the mirror and noted with pleasure that her supervisor was nodding to her in the background.

Her customer looked at the back of her now rich auburn hair cut into a fashionable asymmetric bob and nodded. She didn't smile back but reached down for her bag. She got up and went to the desk. Nicole's face fell at the lack of reaction from her client. She had put her heart and soul into the cut and colour. She ran to get the woman's coat. She helped her on with her coat noting that it was brand-new and then pulled the print-out of the bill from the printer. Expecting the woman to hand her a credit card she was surprised when a fistful of dollars was thrown onto the counter.

"Oh ..." Nicole stammered as she met the woman's piercing blue eyes. She shuddered. "I hope that you're satisfied ..." Her customer merely nodded and disappeared through the door in a waft of expensive perfume. Nicole watched her put on dark glasses despite the gloomy evening and stepped up to the kerb to hail a cab. Nicole turned to her supervisor. "She paid cash." She said dumbly. The supervisor took it and shrugged as she counted it.

Seeing the look of disappointment on her young trainee's face. "Don't fret. You're going to meet all sorts in this job. Anyway she must have liked it. She's left you a fifty dollar tip." Nicole shuddered again. She hoped the woman wouldn't be a repeat customer despite the generous tip.