Chapter Ten: Sneaking Through the Evidence

Jordan dragged herself out of the locker room. It had been an incredibly long week. Trying to solve the plane crash case, keep that hidden from everyone else, and do her regular duties had all taken its toll. Not too mention all of the emotions swirling around her head.

Garret had joined the police captain in forbidding anyone from working the case, and he was sticking to his decision. He had told everyone that is was better that they just let it go as best as they could—and that anyone working on the case would be reprimanded.

Although they had argued, it fell on deaf ears. Garret's words were final, and he would not let anyone—least of all, Jordan—chew through the leash this time.

That was the last time anyone had spoken of the plane crash. Even when they were alone, Jordan and Woody avoided the subject. Woody was having an even harder time trying work on the case surreptitiously. The captain was keeping him extra busy, and Seely was protecting his information better than a bear protects her cubs.

In the end, though, none of that really mattered. From what Jordan had been able to get her hands on, nothing even remotely close to a lead had come up. All of the tests she had run came up blank, or merely confirmed what they already knew. Whoever had done this did not leave one shred of evidence.

Jordan was exhausted. Sleep was hard to come by…every night she had vivid memories of the plane going down and being stuck on the mountain. Sometimes, she would just get up and come to work. Most of the times, however, she would end up at Woody's apartment…knocking on his door at two in the morning. He'd let her in, hold her tight, and then she could get a little sleep.

Just as Jordan reached the elevator, it opened and the object of her musings stepped out.

"Hey," Woody said softly. She smiled at him, and he walked over and hugged her. "Long day?" he asked.

"Yeah," Jordan sighed. "You?"

"Yeah." He started rubbing her back. "Listen, why don't you just come over to my place now? Maybe that way you'll get a full night's sleep."

Jordan pulled away so she could see his face. "And so you won't be woken up in the middle of the night?" she asked with a smirk.

Woody chuckled. He gently stroked her cheek. "Nah…I'm usually still up anyway."

Jordan nodded and they both got in the elevator.

As the elevator began its decent, Jordan laid her head on Woody's shoulder. "Anything new?" she asked quietly.

Woody sighed. "No. Seely won't even talk to me at the moment…keeps heading the other direction every time he sees me."

"Can't you get his information some other way?" Jordan persisted. "I mean…even if you have to go over the same ground as he does…you might see something he didn't, and give us a lead."

Another sigh. "I don' know, Jordan. The captain is keeping close tabs on me…kind of like I'm some time bomb he expects could blow any minute."

Jordan just nodded. "I know…I just feel like there has to be something…to get everything moving in the right direction."

Woody kissed the top of her head. "I know, sweetheart. We'll find it…just keep looking."

The next morning, Jordan sat at a computer in Trace, feverishly typing and clicking. She was there extra early—the only other person in the morgue was Nigel, and he seemed oblivious to her presence. The night before, Jordan had thought of something right before she fell asleep. Woody had forced her to stay in bed, instead of running off to the morgue right away.

Whatever it was could wait a few hours for Jordan to get some sleep, he had said. Dutifully, Woody wrote down Jordan's thoughts so that they'd be ready in the morning. Unfortunately for Woody, that only minimally put it out of Jordan's mind. She spent the whole night tossing and turning.

Now, she was smiling smugly at the screen. "Gotcha," she muttered under her breath.

Spotting Matt Seely in the hallway having a conversation with Kate, Jordan quickly walked up to him with the printout in her hand. Kate noticed Jordan and hastily walked off.

Jordan didn't spare time to think about Kate's strange behavior, instead confronting an already-frazzled looking Seely.

"I found something," she said.

"Did you?" he smirked. "If it's money, then it's probably mine because I lost $50 on the game last night."

Jordan glared at him. "On the crash case," she amended irritably. "There was a soda can found in the cockpit—nearly undamaged. It had traces of the toxin in it, and prints. The prints had traces of the drug on them, too. I ran them against—"

"The pilot, copilot, and stewardesses and didn't find a match. Deductive reasoning would than have us infer that the prints are the killers'," Seely interrupted.

Jordan blinked and shook her head, bewildered. "How did you know?"

"Gee, I don't know…maybe because you're the fourth person to come and tell me this already!" Seely said, exasperated. "You know, if you're all going to break the rules and go on your own crusades—and do my job for me—you should at least talk to each other so I don't get the same information a hundred different times!"

"Detective Seely, could I have a word with you?"

Both heads turned around as Garret's voice rang out. Seely rolled his eyes. "I haven't done anything. You need to keep better control of your employees. You guaranteed that they would not be working the case."

Garret looked from him to Jordan. She tried to look innocent, but it wasn't working.

"What did they tell you?" he asked. Seely quickly relayed the new evidence, but stopped when he realized that Garret didn't look surprised by the information.

Seely's eyebrows scrunched together. "You already know all this, don't you?"

When Garret didn't deny it, Jordan turned on him. "You forced all of us off the case, and then kept working it yourself?" she asked accusingly.

Garret put his hands up. "Calm down, Jordan. Yes, I was working on the case. Apparently, so was everyone else. We might as well just deal with it instead of getting upset."

"Whatever, man," Seely countered. "This is my case, not yours. If I want help from the morgue, I'll get someone who wasn't stuck on that mountain to help me. Now, stay away from my business and let this cop do his job!"

Both of them tried to say something, but Seely held his hand up to cut them off. "No, and don't come to me again," he said. With that, the detective turned on his heel and stalked out of the morgue, leaving Garret and Jordan staring after him.