just one of those days...
Warning: decryption of murder!
It had just been one of those days… where nothing goes as planned. Lindsay had been late for work when she had to drive Jack to preschool and Lucy to school alone since Danny was at a forensic convention in Las Vegas. She had been stuck in traffic for almost 45 minutes and Mac had called her. It had been an unusually busy night for a Thursday night in New York City. When she finally got to the lab Adam had been grumpy after an argument with his girlfriend and Hawkes was assisting Peyton in Autopsy because of the large body load so the team was down 2 men. A really bad morning to be late. The day hadn't gone any better. Mac was working on a case with Adam and the rest of the team, Jo, Lindsay, and Quinn worked solo on different cases. By 2 pm Lindsay had to leave to go pick up her kids. But she still had an open case so she brought the kids back to the lab and placed them in the conference room with Lucy's iPad so they would disturb anyone. Lindsay informs Lucy that if they need anything she should find Mac or someone else in the lab. Everyone in the lab knew to keep an eye on the two kids whenever they walked by the conference room. In that room, they were the most overwatched kids in New York City.
Lucy and Jack had been sitting in the conference room for about a half an hour when Jack stood up and walked towards the door.
"you can't leave Jack. Mommy said we should stay here."
"potty" the little 2-year old boy explains to his sister.
"Okay," Lucy says a little annoyed with her younger brother. She stands up and walks towards the door.
"stay here." She orders him before she leaves the conference room to go find her mom. Lucy has been in the lab many times both with Mac and her parents. She knows where to unusually find her parents or Mac. Lucy walks around alone. Normally civilians aren't allowed to do that but everyone in the lab has known Lucy pretty much since she was born. So they don't pay much attention when she walks around. She is probably just looking for her parents or Mac.
Lucy looks into the trace lab where Lindsay normally are working. But she is not there right now. So Lucy continues her search. After around 5 minutes of search, she reaches the lab where physical experiments are often performed. She sees Mac standing in the room with his back to her. A woman is standing in front of him. Lucy can't where what they are talking about. She stands about 20 feet away from the glass wall to the experiment room when she sees the woman attacking Mac. They start fighting and after a little while the woman has a knife and she stabs Mac in the chest and he falls to the ground. He is laying still. The woman is kneeling down next to him. She picks up the knife.
Lucy is terrified. A young female lab tech that Lucy has met before walks by Lucy.
"hello, Lucy." The lab tech greets and walks by. why isn't she doing anything? Didn't she see what happened to Mac? Tears starting to fall down Lucy's face. The woman who attacked Mac stands up and looks straight at Lucy. Lucy remembers when a man hurt her mom. Their mom told her that if she saw something scary and there where nobody she could talk to then she should run and find a safe place to hide until the police found her. All Lucy can think is to run and find a safe place to hide so the woman who hurt Mac can't find her. Lucy forgets about her brother and why she was looking for her mom. She needs to get away from the bad woman who hurt Mac. So Jack must take care of himself.
Same time inside the experiment room.Mac is helping detective Shelby performing a reconstruction of a fight between a couple that turned deadly. The evidence doesn't match the suspect's story so she needs Macs help to reconstruct the crime. Quinn is wearing a white jumpsuit so she can compare the blood spatter on the suit to the blood spatter on the suspect's clothing. Mac is wearing a white t-shirt and a grey cardigan. Mac is standing with his back to the door that leads towards the rest of the lab.
"okay. So we are talking get into an argument." Mac refuses the beginning of the suspect's story.
"yes. I accuse you of cheating. You deny it. I get angry. I try to walk away. You grab my wrist." Mac and Quinn are reenacting the crime while Quinn reads the suspect's statement.
"We struggle. You try to stop me. I pull a knife out of my pocket and I stab you in the chest." Quinn has a plastic knife where the blade can disappear into the handle. She places it on Mac's chest. Mac put his hands on the knife and pretends to fall to the ground in pain. He is laying still while Quinn continues.
"so the suspects claims that she tried to perform CPR on the victim and she says she had lost her phone so she searched the victim's pockets for his phone. Claiming that's how his blood got inside his pockets. She checked his pulse after she dialed 911 but realized he had stopped breathing. So she left the scene. Claiming she couldn't bear to see her beloved boyfriends dead body." Quinn stands up and walks across the room.
"Yeah, nothing says love like stabbing someone to death," Mac says stands up. He has what looks like blood on his t-shirt from the bag with theater blood that was stashed under his t-shirt.
About 30 minutes later Hawkes walks out of the elevator with Flack and walks towards Macs office when Hawkes catch a glimpse of Jack crying the conference room and screaming for his mom. Somehow he has managed to take off his pants, socks, and shoes. He still has his bodystocking and diaper on. Hawkes and Flack run over to him. Hawkes takes the little boy into his arms."hey little man what's with you?" Hawkes asks.
"mommy." The little boy cries. His face is red and wet from crying and yelling for his mom.
"where is your sister, Jack?" Don asks suspiciously. Normally Lucy is always with Jack. He knows that neither Danny or Lindsay would never ever leave their son alone. Flack looks around in the hallway behind the conference room. Sometimes Lucy likes to sit out there and enjoy the view of the city.
"Flack. His diaper is wetted all the way through."
"that is your department. Not min." Flack says.
"something is not right. Lindsay would never leave Jack alone." Hawkes says concerned.
"and where is little miss Lucy."
"luce find mommy. Jackki stay." Jack explains. Still crying a bit.
"Lucy when to find their mom but Lindsay is in the garage."
"but Mac is here in the lab. She would have gone to him." Hawkes says. "let's go find Mac." Hawkes says to the little boy who has stopped crying by the comfort of Hawkes. They walk into the experiment lab and finds Mac and Quinn but no Lucy.
"Hey, guys," Mac says and then sees Jack.
"we got a godfather job here, Mac," Hawkes says and hands Jack over to Mac.
"Hey, Jack. Where are your socks, shoes, and pants?" Mac asks.
"it is in the conference room. But where is Lucy?" Flack says. Mac look concerned by that question.
"she should be in the conference room with Jack.
"no. she is not. We found him, crying and screaming alone in the conference room. No lucy. He said that Lucy went to find his mom." Flack says.
"she would have found me instead," Mac says wondering why Lucy didn't come to him.
"I saw the girl earlier." Quinn suddenly says looking up from her case file notes.
"where?" Flack asks impatiently when Quinn doesn't elaborate right away.
"she was standing right out there." Quinn points towards the spot where she saw Lucy standing.
"what was she doing?" Mac asks.
"I don't know. She was looking at what we were doing I guess."
"Dammit," Mac says.
"no no Maggi," Jack says. He has already learned that 'dammit' is a bad word.
"what Mac?" Hawkes asks.
"she watched us reconstruction a homicide."
"let me guess. You were the victim?" Flack asks Mac. Mac nods. They all know what this means.
"and you did not think about that an 8-year-old girl was standing and watching a reconstruction of a murder?" Flack asks Quinn.
"that kid shouldn't even be in the lab in the first place so no, detective. I didn't think about letting a murder get away because of a kid." Quinn says.
Both Flack and Hawkes are about to get back on Quinn for that.
"stop." Mac says. "all of you. Number 1 priority now is to find Lucy. Gather all lechs and tell them to search the entire lab for her. She is told if she gets scared to find a place to hide until the police find her."
"she thinks she saw a murder. So the police would show up." Flack says.
"yes. Gather everyone and let's find her." Mac says. While Hawkes and Flack gather all the lab techs Mac walks to the conference room and get Jack changed. When Mac is done all the employees of the lab is gathered in front of Mac's office.
"listen up. Lucy Messer thinks she saw a murder in the experiment lab earlier. she got scared and she went into hiding. The is told by her parents: if she gets scared she should go and hide until the police find her. She is in the lab. We need to find her. She is a scared little girl. Find her."
Everyone starts looking for her. For hours Lindsay is terrified sitting in Mac's office with her boy while everyone else is looking for Lucy. Efter 2 hours of search Quinn walks to the locker room. She notices a noise coming from a locker. She opens the locker and Lucy are sitting all curled up in the locker.
"Hey," Quinn says. "I found her," Quinn yells loud to inform the rest of the team. Lucy realizes it is the woman who hurt andLucy starts screaming as loud as she possibly can. Hawkes, Flack, and Jo come running down in the locker.
"it is okay Lucy," Jo says and helps the little girl out of the locker and takes her into her arms.
"she a murder." Lucy says once she feels safe again. "she hurt Mac. She is Evil."
"Lucy, listen to me. Her name is Quinn Shelby. She works for Mac…"
"no, she murdered Mac." Lucy interrupts jo.
"Lucy Listen to me." Jo is speaking with a calm voice to try to calm Lucy down. "Lucy what you saw was a reconstruction of a murder. Mac is not dead. It was just an acting." Lucy is crying.
"Mac is okay?" Lucy asks. Jo removes a few tears from Lucy's face.
"yes sweety. Mac is fine. He is in his office with your mom and brother."
"oh no. Jackie. I need to find mommy." Lucy says and tries to get out of Jo's arms.
"Lucy. Mac already helped your brother." Hawkes says. Lucy stops moving and looks up at Hawkes.
"He did"? Hawkes nods. "year. Brother is playing with Mac in Mac's office."
"Mommy is going to be mad at me," Lucy says ashamed while she walks out of the locker room holding Jo and Hawkes hands.
"why do you think that Lucy?" JO asks.
"because I was supposed to go find Mac so he could help Jack go potty but I got scared so I didn't get help to Jack."
"listen honey you mom won't get mad at you for that. She will understand why you got scared." Jo says. A tiny little smile creeps up on Lucy's face and then they walk to Macs office where Lindsay is in tears of happiness for seeing her daughter again.
"Oh, Lucy. Sweety. I was so worried."
"I'm okay, mommy." Lucy says hugging her mom. " is Jack okay?"
Lindsay and Lucy look down at Jack sitting on the floor playing with his favorite toy police car.
"he is fine Lucy," Lindsay says