Back in New York

Chapter 10

Coming Together

. . . . .

It was with trepidation that Lanie walked into her parents' backyard. Danny was still in jail, so the extent of her knowledge, despite how excited Javier had been when he'd left her a few days before. They hadn't spoken since. She doubted this particular get-together was going to be full of the usual insanity.

"Auntie Lain!"

Oh, MacKenzie was going to get a phenomenal Christmas present. Lanie had been worried she'd been blacklisted in the family since Danny was still in jail and she'd been unable to help him out. "Hey, MK."

"Auntie Lain," the six-year-old began as Lanie lifted her and perched the child on her hip. "Do you have a friend named Have-er?"

"Javier?" Lanie questioned, smiling when MacKenzie nodded fervently. "I do."

"He was here!" the little girl exclaimed gleefully. "Twice! I like him."

"Did you say hi?" Lanie asked, moving further into the yard.

"Uh huh. Both times. And he let me sit in his car when they found the gun."

Lanie froze. "Gun?" she repeated. "In Danny's room?"

"Yup," MacKenzie replied seriously. "Mommy cried."

Yeah, I bet, Lanie thought to herself, seeking Evelyn's head in the crowd. But MacKenzie seemed to have other ideas as she patted Lanie's shoulder with as much urgency as a six-year-old could muster.

"I saw him, Auntie Lain."

"Saw who, Princess?"

"The guy who put the gun in Danny's room!"

For the second time since arriving, MacKenzie had made Lanie freeze, her blood running chilled in her veins. "Did you tell your mom?" she asked. "Did you tell Javier?"

MacKenzie shook her head. "You're the only one I told."

The ME looked around, settling on the stairs as the nearest place she could sit. She shifted MacKenzie into her lap. "You're sure," she said, even though she knew children were never good witnesses. If this could just point them in the right direction… "You saw someone, that wasn't Danny, hiding a gun in Danny's room."

MacKenzie nodded. "I was hiding," she explained. "'Cause Danny's always scaring me so I wanted to scare him and I was hiding inna closet. Then there was a boy there and he wasn't Danny, Auntie Lain, 'cause I know Danny and I'd'a scared him if it was Danny. But it wasn't. And he put the gun in Danny's drawer and I stayed hidden 'cause he was scary. Really mean, like the ones when Danny got hurted."

Lanie let the grammar go. It wasn't important in this instance, even though Evelyn and her husband were trying with everything to teach her the right way to speak.

"In the hospital?" she asked to clarify. Since it had been a gang shooting, there had been a number of gang members in the waiting room with them. Even then, MacKenzie had been whimpering scared of them.

"Uh huh. So I stayed hid, 'cause he was scary." Though MacKenzie had been four, it had been a terrifying and traumatic experience for her. Lanie wasn't all that surprised that pieces were still in the little girl's memory.

"He left the gun?"

MacKenzie nodded. "Inna drawer. Where Have-er and the other policeman found it."

"And you remember what he looks like?"

"Mean. Scary."

Lanie sighed. It was so close. "You're sure it wasn't Danny? You're sure you didn't know him?"

"Auntie Lain!" MacKenzie said with as much exasperation as her little body could hold. "It couldn'ta been Danny. He was already gone!"

"What do you mean, Daniel Keating isn't a match?"

Javier did his utmost to hide his relief and glee when the lab tech delivered the news, not just to him and Ryan, but Captain Montgomery and the ADA.

Jeffery "Drum" Drummond was stick thin with adult acne and a real passion for forensics. "We found prints on the gun and DNA on the slide. While the DNA is male, neither it, nor the fingerprints are a match to Daniel Keating."

"Ballistics?" the ADA demanded.

"Now that's a match," Drum answered, flipping a nearby folder open. "This is the gun that did all the killing."

The ADA swore a blue streak at the tech, then rounded on the detectives. They knew, up until that point, the case had been a slam dunk. There had been nothing to give even the slightest hint that Daniel Keating was innocent and now… It was illogical for the gun to have prints on it that weren't Keating's unless Keating had no idea it was there. If Danny was involved in a gang, he would be smarter than to have the gun in his house and he'd originally tested negative for gunshot residue when they brought him in. Not to mention that there was no reason for Danny to wipe down the gun and not the rest of the apartment their victim had been found in. They hadn't found bloody clothes in his room, in the laundry or in the garbage either and their victim had been shot execution style at close range. There was no way Danny would have gotten away without getting splashed. They'd check his hands to make sure that there was no mark from the gun slide, but now, Javier was getting excited at the idea that they could be releasing Daniel Keating shortly.

But the ADA was seething. "Do you have a plan B, Detectives?"

"Actually," Javier began, exchanging a look with Ryan. They'd talked about the gang connection as soon as Lanie had mentioned it.

Ryan grinned widely. "We do."

"Ogle my ass one more time Petland and you'll be the next one I'm carving up in my morgue."

Javier's head shot up from the incident report he was browsing at Lanie's short, clipped tone. Protectiveness washed through him at the idea of someone else looking at his girl but the fire in her eyes as she made her way towards him forced him to tamp it down. Granted, she looked fantastic in short jean shorts and a simple purple t-shirt but she also looked almost murderous. Was it wrong that he thought she looked hot?

"I had an interesting talk with MK today," she said conversationally as she perched on his desk.

"About?" If she wasn't going to bother with preliminaries, neither was he.

Lanie smirked and Javier was reminded that the ME only looked docile and tiny "About the mean, scary guy that planted the gun in Danny's room after you and Ryan took him into custody."

"After?" Javier's brow arched as he slid his chair over until his leg brushed hers. When he was sure Danny was totally cleared of all charges, he was going to go take a night off to just touch her. It was sappy, yes, and he'd never admit it out loud but their voluntary separation over the duration of the case was starting to take a toll on him like he hadn't anticipated. He needed to clear the kid and soon, so he could get back to building his relationship with the good doctor.

He reached over, tapping the open file on his desk. "We've been looking at the incident report for Danny's shooting," he said. "We haven't found a match on any of the prints or DNA, but that just means the guy's not in the system yet."

"We're thinking it's an initiation," Ryan piped up for the first time. "Rookie wants to prove himself to the big boss, so he shoots a guy to prove his loyalty."

"DA's just filing the paperwork to release Danny," Javier revealed. "Think you could stick around? We figured we'd ask him who would want to frame him and who would want our vic dead?"

Lanie grinned, and Javier mirrored the look. He was surprised when the ME leaned down to press a quick kiss to his cheek. "Just let me call Evelyn. I'm supposed to be at the family barbeque."

Javier couldn't stop himself from watching her ass as she walked away.

"And you call me whipped," Ryan quipped with a laugh.

"Dude," Javier said with a smirk, feeling things starting to look up. "You still take the cake on that one."

It's shorter than I'd wanted, which is unfortunate. It's also a building block chapter which is probably not what you wanted. But here it is!

I promise to add fluff when I get back from the cottage! I have four pretty new notebooks so there's no way that I can give you an excuse for not having new stuff when I come back!

And now that you've read this, you should go read Rick and Kate's fight in Hamptons. You may enjoy that too.