A/N: Hope you are all continuing to enjoy this fic. There is some foul language so please be prepared.
DISCLAIMER: I can only dream about owning any of it (except the bad guys!)
Mac and Danny both headed across the room to grab for the telephone receiver but they were both too late; the machine hung up just as Danny pushed the talk button. "Hello? HELLO? FUCK," Danny yelled throwing the receiver across the room, "The bastard hung up." Mac watched the receiver smash into and dent the far wall of the living room before he walked over and put a hand on Danny's shoulder, "We are going to get this guy Danny." His lips compressed into a thin, tight line as he tried to calm his hotheaded colleague, "Right now we need to finish processing the scene and find the most miniscule detail to nail him."
Danny clenched his jaw and stared hard at the remains of the telephone receiver lying on the floor as though it were going to leap to life with that asshole's voice. He took a few minutes to collect himself as he hung his head to remove his glasses and wipe a hand over his tired eyes. He replaced his glasses, took a deep calming breath, looked at Mac and nodded. His priorities firmly in place again he moved to restart his thorough search of the room while Mac updated the rest of the team.
A few minutes later Mac and a team member moved the body to further search for evidence when his attention was drawn to an item that was partially hidden under the body; a bloody ace of clubs.
Back at the lab, Lindsay sat with Stella going over phone records. They were concentrating heavily on the numbers that couldn't be identified as family, friends, and previous co-workers. Many were telemarketers, a few had been cell phone numbers of family and friends that Lindsay hadn't been aware of, that only left five calls to her home that were unaccounted for. Of the five, three were from one number while the other two were from a different number.
The two detectives were just starting on the cell phone records when Mac and Danny walked into the lab. Both men looked vaguely disturbed and were hauling a mountain of evidence; neither man would meet Lindsay's eyes as they walked through the glass hallway to an empty lab. Lindsay risked a quick glance at Stella, but her eyes were following after the men with a slightly sick look on her face.
"Stell, what's going on?" Lindsay questioned.
Looking at her but not meeting her eyes Stella casually responded, "I don't know Linds, maybe it was a rough scene."
Lindsay knew when someone was lying. Her voice firmed as she rephrased her question, "Stella. I asked you an honest question, now give me an honest answer. What's going on?"
Stella's eyes widened at Lindsay's questioning of her integrity. Stella hated hiding the truth from Lindsay, but she knew now wasn't the time or place, Mac would let her know when the time was right. Her eyes softened as she answered Lindsay, "It really was a bad scene, Linds. Mac will come and tell us about it when he's ready. Okay?" 'There,' she thought, 'That was a partial truth without revealing any details.'
Slightly mollified but still not sure she'd been told the complete truth Lindsay just sighed and nodded.
Using the same color-coding for the cell phone records, Stella and Lindsay quickly moved through the stack of incoming and outgoing calls. Multiple numbers appeared on both home and cell records eliminating about half the calls. Another large portion belonged to co-workers here at the lab; these calls were highlighted in pink. About twenty-five numbers were all that remained to identify when Mac entered their lab around 4:30pm. The grim expression on his face was their first clue that things had not gone well with the scene he had attended. A few minutes later Danny joined them.
Mac was just pulling up a stool when Danny grabbed a seat and moved to sit closely beside Lindsay. "Lindsay, there's been a development regarding your stalker."
She glanced quickly around the table noting that neither Stella nor Danny were even looking at her or Mac, they were both staring at their laps. She became uneasy as she met Mac's eyes again and asked the same question for the third time that day, "What's going on?"
Detective Flack had stayed on the scene after Danny and Mac had left. He had canvassed the entire forth floor, personally talked to both of Lindsay's friends in apartments 702 and 203, checked the building for surveillance video feed, and finally talked at length with the officers set to keep an eye on Danny and Lindsay.
The only person he hadn't been able to speak with was Wanda Sykes in apartment 409; she was at work, which is where he was headed at this very moment. She worked at a small diner around the corner from the building so he walked to the location and entered moving to the front counter.
Flashing his badge to the hostess he asked, "Is Wanda Sykes in." At the nod from the hostess he continued, "I'd like to talk to her regarding an official police matter." Again the hostess just nodded blankly and pointed him to a booth in the back as she moved off to find Wanda. He had just gotten seated when a beautiful redhead came out of the kitchen and headed his direction.
"I'm Wanda, how can I help you?" He offered his hand in the direction of the seat across from him and she sat to join him.
"I'm here to ask you a few quick questions regarding your neighbor, Stephanie Abrams." She nodded her acceptance and he continued. "I'm sorry to report that we found Miss Abrams dead on her kitchen floor this morning and just wanted to know if you'd seen anything strange before heading into work today."
The pretty redhead gasped and her eyes widened in shock as she searched her mind quickly for anything that may help the good-looking detective. "Well, I actually got called in last night because the overnight girl didn't show up and now I'm stuck pulling a double, but nothing strange I can think of. Well, there was that strange car out front, though," she mentioned with a puzzled look on her face.
Don had been scratching her answer into his notepad and paused for a moment to encourage her to continue, "Any little detail you remember, no matter how small you may think it is, could be of the utmost importance," he threw in his charming smile just for good measure.
Wanda grinned back and filled him in on what she thought was suspicious, "There was a really big car, like a Lincoln or something, sitting outside last night with two strange looking gentleman just sitting there. There was a driver and a guy in the back. I guess the passenger might have been the guy I passed as I left the building," she shrugged.
Don immediately perked up, "Did you recognize this person."
"No, but he looked like he was entering the building with a key as I arrived at the door, so I just left him in after I went out. People move in and out all the time, I guessed he was just a tenant I hadn't met yet."
"Can you tell me what he looked like?"
"Sure, he was rather good-looking. His hair was longer, slicked down and curly in the back. He had a long beard-type thing."
"Full beard or goatee?"
"Neither, the lip thing…"
"You mean a patch?"
"Yeah that's it! Really long, like almost touching his chest, but his eyes were weird."
"Weird how?"
"Like he was thinking bad things as he looked at me. Really creeped me out."
"Anything else, color of his eyes, height, anything?"
"He was taller than me, maybe 5'10" or so, eyes were really dark, as was the hair, and he had a card in his hands."
"Like a business card?"
"No, a playing card, an ace of clubs I think."
