Chapter Thirty-One

Emily

He pulls me up against him and our tongues tangle for dominance. Picking me up, he hold me up by my naked thighs and doesn't motion for me to wrap my legs around his waist. He lays me gently on the mattress and pushes himself into me fully. He moves slowly at first but gets a bit faster. He takes my hand and sucks the pads of each and everyone of my fingers individually, running his teeth over them then letting them go. It goes straight between my legs and I moan everytime.

"Oh Donnie, oh Don. I'm- I'm there. Oh I'm right there." I shout out my release as does he. He pulls out of me and lays next to me.

"That was something we both needed," he says.

"I promise I won't put myself in risky situations like that, okay? At least not while I'm pregnant with any child of ours."

Don smiles. "Em, thank you. It really means a lot to hear you say that."

"Donnie, I love you and if you want me to be more careful I will, but if going out and talking to people outside of the lab or the precinct bothers you, then tough. You can come with me, if you so please."

"Of course. I have to look out for my wife. You're the best thing that has ever happened to me and this kid is the perfect topping on this dessert of a marriage." I smile.

"Don't think I didn't catch the joke." I smile. Let's just say, there was a lot of dirty talk and whipped cream on our wedding night.


"Monsieur," I start. I ask him in french what happened.

"That's the sexiest thing I've ever heard," Don murmurs walking past me.

"Okay, guy why don't you explain to me why you thought it was a good idea to pull out a loaded gun on a crowded train. Yeah, yeah, hang on. Do me a favor. Tell it to that, would you?"

"One minute the man was sitting there, the next he was dead." I hear the translator say.

"Thanks." I need to teach Don some sort of language.

I listen for the french man's response and I get some pretty good information out of him. When I'm finished speaking to the french people from the train, I walk into the train car to see Mac and Danny and Stella bent over the body.

"Small caliber gunshot wound to the abdomen. Not much bigger than a 25."

"Yep, minimal blood loss, no exit wound," Danny tells Mac.

"Well, that's because the bullet was definitely fired from the outside," Stella says.

"Come on, now. A shooter out there to hit a guy in here on a moving train? Lebron James couldn't hit that shot," Danny says.

"There's always that, uh, last second half-court shot that somehow makes it in," I say walking up.

"Question is: Who fired it?" Mac asks.

"All right. What do you need me to do?"

"At the moment, nothing. You should just keep doing what you're doing now," Mac tells me.

"All right. I'll go help Don." I walk out of the train car and I see Don climb into his car and I walk a little bit faster to catch up with him. He starts the car and he sees me and doesn't take off yet. I climb in and I buckle up as he pulls away from the curb.

"So what are you doing in the car with me? Did Mac tell you to come with me?"

"Kind of. He told me to keep doing what I was doing and what I was doing was helping you. Therefore, I'm going to keep helping you. I don't think I'm needed in the lab."


My phone beeps a couple of hours later on our way to the crime lab. I dig it out.

'What do you think of the name Louie?' Danny texts me.

'What if it's a girl?'

'It's not. Trust me. I know this. What about Clemenza?'

"Don what do you think of the name Clemenza?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?"

'No. God no. Terrible name.'

'Alfonse?'

'Danny stop with the name game. Or just get better names. Don and I haven't even come up with a name for our kid yet.'

'Cause you two are LAME!'

"Danny just called us lame," I tell Don. He laughs.

"Why?"

"Because he is trying to figure out what to name his and Lindsay's kid and he doesn't understand that it could be a girl, which you and I know for a fact that it is a girl. But still I told him that you and I haven't picked out a name yet and he called us lame."

"Danny is just trying to figure out the best name for his kid. What he doesn't know won't hurt him."

My phone beeps again.

'Danny won't stop telling me all of these baby boy names. When should I tell him it's a girl?'

"Lindsay just texted me. Said, 'Danny won't stop telling me all of these baby boy names. When should I tell him it's a girl?'."

"Tell her to wait until the end of this case. It'll be funny to see his all of his hard work not work because it's the wrong gender." I laugh.

'End of the case Linds. I'll let you know when we arrest the guy.'

'Thank you!'

"Speaking of," I say. "What are we going to name our kid?"

"It's still between Cameron and Thomas, right?" I nod. "Let's just take the plunge. What name do you like better with the middle name, Taylor."

"Taylor? Why Taylor?"

"I thought we could have a little tribute to Mac since he has been a huge part of your life since your dad died. What was your dad's name anyway?"

"Taylor. Thats why they became friends. Because they bonded over their mutual name."

"Then which do you like better Em, Cameron Taylor Flack or Thomas Taylor Flack?"

"Thomas Taylor Flack."

"Then Thomas it is." I smile widely at Don.

We arrive at the lab. When we get off the elevator I'm smiling so widely, I swear my face is going to break in half.

"Don Flack," Mac says. We both turn and we walk over. "Just the guy I needed to see. You and Emily should go out to talk to these people." I nod as Don takes the file. We head out.


When we get to where we are going, colors are flying everywhere, getting on Don and I and I kind of love it but it also makes us seem very unprofessional if we are covered in color when we are talking to someone. We walk into Agra Imports.

"Namaste," the girl says.

"How you doing? You the owner of Agra Imports?" Don asks.

"Third generation. Leila Vara. How can I help you?"

"Maybe you can tell us about your property dispute with Amos Delaware and the Montiquan Indian Nation," I say as I see out of the corner of my eye Don staring at me. I realize just then that he hasn't seen me in the field in so months so this is weird for him.

"That matter has been resolved."

"I guess death has a way of doing that," Don murmurs.

"I'm sorry?"

"We believe Chief Delaware was murdered and you might be able to tell us something about it," I say.

"Hai Bhagwaan. I knew nothing about it," She seems genuinally shocked.

"You named him in a lawsuit over the land seized from you by the state."

"I did, indeed. It may not seem like much to you and that judge in Albany, but that property was given to me by my grandfather. He used to run this very business there. But I am not an immigrant like he was. I am an American citizen born in this city and I know what my rights are."

"Do they include gutting Amos Delaware with a piece of baleen?" Don asks.

"You import that, to don't you?" I ask.

"In certain pieces of ceremonial art, yes. I can assure you I no longer had any grievance with Mr. Deleware."

"That's not what the suit says."

"No, you don't understand. He gave the land back. He came in here two days ago and he said that he needed to talk. He said that by gaining the land, that his tribe had lost its integrity, that he'd have an attorney draw up the papers and he'd give it back. He even apologized. And when he walked out the door, I'm telling you, he seemed almost relieved."

"All the same, we're going to have to confiscate every piece of baleen that you're selling in the store," I say.

"Look, you can take everything that you want, but you're gonna have to take my word along with it. I was angry at a lot of people over what happened to my family's property, but I believe deeply in karma, and somehow, I think that man did, too." We nod and walk out.

"Think she's lying?" I ask Don.

"Well, he did die before he gave her the deed back, but it's up to our friends back at the lab to keep her motive alive. What do you say? Want to head back?"

"Sure, but mind if we go a less colorful route this time?" I ask. He looks back to the mess of color and chuckes.

"No problem. Oh, heads up. Come here. You've got some shmutz on you." He wipes it off of my belly and the baby kicks.

"Oh." Then blue color attacks Don's face.

"Hey!" I laugh.

"Yeah. You, too," I say wiping it off of his face.

"NYPD blue." We smile and head back to the car. We are about to get in and the baby starts kicking up a storm.

"Oh man," I say.

"What?"

"Thomas, he's kicking really hard today." I take hold of Don's wrist and I put his hand on my belly to feel the kicks.

"Oh man he is." Don bends down onto one knee and he holds my stomach. "Thomas." This makes the baby kick harder.

"All right, either he loves the name or he hates it," I say.

Don smiles. "Thomas, it's daddy. Do you wanna stop kicking mommy? She's all ready in a lot of pain and she doesn't need any more son." I see a bunch of people staring and smiling at us. "Mommy loves you. I love you." He kisses my belly and stands up again. I place a hand on my belly and I smile.

"Thank you babe."


The next morning, Don and I are heading to Stella's office when we catch wind of what Adam is discussing and Don looks interested.

"Turns out to be ash wood. But not just any ash wood- Irish ash wood from Ireland. So once I paired it to the shape and size of his leg contusion, I started thinking, you know, it might have been caused by a caman like this."

"Used by a cretin like this," Don says as I hand Stella the file we were giving he. "It's Finn Wexford, captain of the Queens Hurling Club and proud recipient of an A-misdemeanor for cruelty to animals."

"What does this mean to us?"

"Well, apparently, Mr. Wexford didn't like stray dogs leaving messes on his practice field, so, like any good boy from the Old Country, he stuffed nails inside of hamburger meat and took care of the problem," I say. Stella is disgusted.

"But that was last year. This year, he got his practice field taken away when the Montiquans reclaimed their land."


Don and I leave to go talk to Mr. Wexford. It's a strange conversation.

They say something in a different language and I'm not that stunned that I don't know what it is.

"Shíl mé go smelled mé ar na póilíní."

"Sin deacracht boladh tú, mo chara. What do you think, you're the only one whose grandpa taught him a little Irish?" Oh my God. Don's Irish is so hot.

"You're interrupting a game." The player's Irish accent is strong. I walk over to the trash bin because I see wooden sticks coming out of the top and I search around while listening to Don's conversation.

"Yeah. I'm surprised to see that. Didn't the chief of the Montiquan Nation tell you that you needed to find a new practice field?"

"He doesn't belong."

"I think he got that message loud and clear."

"Meaning?"

"He's dead. Don't pretend like you don't know."

"Okay, look, the guy already came by here once telling us we had to find a new place to play. Then he shows up again. I tell him we aren't going anywhere. It gets heated."

"Why should we believe you?" I ask.

"I really don't care what you believe, sissy." He says to me. Does mama need to use her mom voice again. I chuckle and roll my eyes.

"Well, you damn well better," I say. "Because I believe that you wanted to make sure he wouldn't change his mind, and so you gave him the stray dog treatment. Am I right? What'd you do? Take him out for lunch, and add a little extra kick into his corned beef and cabbage?"

"What are you accusing me of?"

"What are you denying?" Don asks. The player 'pfts' and shoves Don's shoulder and Don uses his training and moves out of the way, dragging him to the car.

"Okay, now that you've harassed an officer," I start, getting my cuffs out. "Why don't we head back to our playing field downtown? Sound good to you, Don?" I ask tossing him the cuffs.

"Mo pléisiúir," He says as he shoves the kid into the backseat.


I go back to the lab with the broken stick and I piece it back together with Adam's help. He runs and gets the splinters while I put it together and clamp it down. I match the splinters to the wood and I smile.

"We did it Adam!" I high five him. I use the finger print dust to find multiple prints, most of which Adam helps me get off. I run the clearest ones through AFIS and I get a hit to Finn Wexford, the Irish man Don and I spoke to. "Okay, Adam, I'm going to tell Stella about this." He nods.

"Hey, before you go, how are you?"

"Just fine Adam. I know the explosion has had you freaked the past couple of weeks. I'm fine, you're fine, Thomas is fine."

"Thomas?"

"Oh yeah, Don and I decided on a name finally."

"Danny and Lindsay are going through that process right now."

"I know. Danny called Don and I lame because we didn't have Thomas' name picked out right away. But this is a surprise, so sh. I know you'll keep our secrets." Adam smiles. I walk out of the lab and I find Stella. "Hey Stel. Heard Mac found your Moby Dick. He told me over dinner a couple nights ago."

"Yeah he did. Took everything I had not to tell him." I nod. "Any how, update on the case?"

"Yes. The splinters are a match to the caman and Wexford's prints are all over them. But priors aside, we can't connect him in any way to the baleen that killed Chief Delaware."

"And none of the items that you and Flack took from Leila Vara match what Hawkes and Sid found in Delaware's gut." The iPad I'm holding beeps at me.

"Hold on a second. This might help. According to carbon dating, our murder weapon is over 300 years old."


A few hours and many pit stops into the bathroom later, Stella calls Mac, Sheldon, and I in to talk about what she found. "Gentlemen and Emily, I give you the Wolfkiller. Centuries ago, the Montiquans carved and folded sharp strips of baleen, tied them up tightly with catgut cord, and tucked them into chunks of raw meat. Then they deftly scattered their murder weapons in the wilderness of Manhattan to kill wolves, wild boar and bears."

"Not to mention Indian Chiefs," Hawkes says.

"Somebody obviously blew the dust off this one and put a new spin on it."

"Hmm," Stella agrees.

"Let's get a list from the Bureau of Indian Affairs of all living members of the Montiquan Nation," Mac says to me. I write it down.

"You think Chief Delaware might have actually been killed by one of his own?" I ask.

"Well, I can tell you this much. Whoever took this weapon from his room not only knew how to use it, but who they were using it on."

"Sounds like a pretty painful betrayal," I say.

"Maybe the Montiquans weren't such a peaceful tribe after all."


I get the information that Mac and Stella want and I catch them as I come out of a lab. "Hey, okay, according to the BIA, there's a handful of Montiquan tribal members still living in Oklahoma. But right now, y'all need to slow down." They do "Aside from Chief Delaware, there's only one registered member in the New York City area. That's a Liam Connover." I tell them. Stella looks at me, recognizing the name.

"Connover? That's the name of the I.T. guy. The one that was trying to take the computer out of Chief Delaware's room."

"So, what didn't he want you to see?" Mac asks. Stella shrugs. We all walk into the lab where Danny and Adam are.

"Welcome to the real Montiquan Nation Cultural Center."

"An online gambling site?" I ask.

"That's what's going on inside our warehouse," Mac says.

" ," Stella reads.

"And the telecom company confirmed that high speed fiber optic lines were installed at the warehouse. And the industrial cooling unit is consistent with what it would take to maintain ideal temps for server storage."

"So, we did a little packet sniffing," Adam says.

"Packet sniffing?" Stella asks.

"What our little bearded friend from the Tech Republic is trying to say is that we use a subpoena to, uh, analyze the data between the servers and the network users. It's basically like bugging a phone except we digitally figured out what was going on inside the warehouse without actually going in," Danny explains.

"According to this log in window, this site is currently hosting this around the world."

"I thought it was against the law to run online gambling operations in the U.S." I point out.

"It is, but some Native American tribes have started taking advantage of their sovereign land status to build sites like this instead of expensive brick and mortar casinos." Mac tells me.

"Sounds like some grey legal ground," Adam says.

"Yeah, not only that, but from what we've learned about him, Chief Delaware was all about preserving the integrity of his tribe. It just doesn't seem like he would front something like this."

"But why not? Even if running a gambling operation was hard for him to swallow at first, in this day and age, it can go a long way to promoting pride and especially prosperity for all kinds of Native Americans," I point out. "I'm not saying I'm for it, but if that's how he chose to make his money to put dinner on the table at night, then so be it."

"How's he able to bankroll something like this?" Adam asks.

"Well, according to the telecom company, he didn't. A firm called LCV paid for it," Danny says handing Stella the file.

"Liam Connover Ventures. Oh, we gotta find out where this guy is now."

"I think he's right there," Mac says pointing to the big screen with a game up. "Adam, run an IP address on this player, LCV. Then, tell me: Why in the world would he fold on a full house unless he's cheating?"


I finish up at the lab and I have my sister come meet me at the precinct for dinner in thirty minutes. I walk with Mac to the precinct and I sit with Don until he has to leave.

"Don, be safe." He nods. "I love you."

"I love you too." He walks the two feet he is away from me, wearing his white button down with the sleeves rolled up, his pale pink tie that I put on him this morning and the blue kevlar vest that he must put on before entering a possibly dangerous place, and he kisses my forehead.

He turns and I slap his ass as he walks away. He turns back and smirks then keeps walking.

"You know you could get written up for that," Mac says in my ear.

"Boss wasn't around. I'm off the clock, I think I'm good." Mac rolls his eyes and then kisses my cheek. "Be safe Mac."

"I will. Tell you sister I said hi." I nod. I sit in Don's chair and I read the newspaper that is sitting under the stack of unneat files he has littering his desk. It's one that I've read before so I put it down and I reorganize his desk while waiting. I make a stack of finished, then reference, then unfinished. It's something that I've done ever since we met. I know him well and he always thanks me for it and always seems to appreciate it, even if I get it wrong sometimes.

"Are you doing the same thing you did to dad everytime you visited him at work?" I hear Anna say behind me. I chuckle.

"Maybe. I've been doing this since I met him."

"Where is he?"

"Arresting some poor bastard. Let's go to dinner before I start worrying and then not stop worrying until I see him again."

"Actually I brought dinner. It's dark and I don't really want to walk around with you at night. You're pregnant and I'm a shit fighter. That's why I became a doctor instead." I nod. I sit in his chair again and Anna pulls up a chair. "So what kind of stuff have you been doing since he left?"

"Reorganizing. I don't even know why."

"Yes you do."

"You're probably right. It's probably because this place was a mess and I had to clean it."


Anna and I eat while I look at different case files that Don has been going through, one of which is the JD Rodgers case file.

"Emily, what is that?" Anna asks.

"JD's case file," I tell her. "I'm curious as to why he was looking at it."

"Maybe something reminded him of it and he wanted to make sure something was in it that he thought he forgot. I don't know. You know how dad did that all the time." I shrug. Maybe. I look up as Don walks in with the perp in hand. I smile as I watch him completely bypass the middle of the precinct as he goes around the tables to keep the man away from me. I smile.

"Thomas."

"What?" Anna asks confused.

"We named the baby Thomas. His name is going to be Thomas Taylor Flack." I bite my lip, nervous that she's going to critize me.

"Taylor? Like dad and Mac?" I nod. "Oh Emily, that's so great." I nod.

"Don thought of it. We were going to go with Cameron but that just wasn't what we wanted." I look up as Don walks over.

"Hey," he says.

"Hi. You calling it a night?" I ask.

"Yeah, I just want to run a couple of these files over to the lab, first." He walks around me. "I see you reorganized."

"Yeah, sorry. I didn't know that there were important ones on here."

"It's just fine. I know exactly where they are because you put them in the unfinished pile." He smiles and he thinks I don't notice it but he takes the JD Rodgers case file too. "Anyway, you got something in mind for when we leave?"

My eyes light up. "As a matter of fact, I do." I pick up the device that he was using earlier to decipher what people where saying and I set it so it'll translate the French I speak into it. "Passez a mon côté du lit plus tard et je vous montrerez le sens veritable des relations internationales." I hand it back to him and Anna looks at him.

"Don, that was dirty," she says.

He hits play as I turn to walk away to go to the bathroom. "Stop by my side of the bed later and I'll show you the true meaning of international relations." I turn and I see him smiling.

"Oh la-la," he mouths to me. I walk into the bathroom and I am smiling.

When I walk out, Don is waiting for me, same with Anna.

"What's up guys?"

"Wanna go make fun of Danny with us?" Don asks excited. I laugh.

"Of course." He takes my hand and we all walk to the crime lab.


"You can't do that, man," Adam says as Don, Anna, and I laugh at Danny's suggestion.

"What's so funny?" Danny asks. "What's wrong with Cosmo?"

"I mean, it's great, you know if you're a superhero," Adam says. We all chuckle.

"No, what you need is a tough TV cop name."

"Yeah," Anna and I say at the same time.

"All right, Seattle number one and Seattle number two, stop with the freaky same-time-speech thing." I laugh.

"How about Crockett?" I hit Don's arm for that one.

"What's wrong with Tubbs?" Anna asks.

"Hey, don't tell me we're still playing the name game," Mac says walking in with Stella.

"It's a process," Danny says.

"Yeah, we've gone from Tom, Dick, and Harry to John, Paul, George, and Ringo." Danny's phone rings.

"Why don't you throw Mac into the mix?" Adam starts laughing.

"Yeah Mac." Then he glares. "Yeah, it's a great name," Adam says getting nervous. "I like your name." Don smiles and wraps his arm around my waist.

"Nah, Mac's no good," Danny says. Did Lindsay finally tell him? "That was Lindsay."

"She all right?" Stella asks.

"Yeah, she's fine and so is the baby girl in her belly." I smile. Lots of ooh's and congrats get tossed around. "Looks like you two will be needing this book more than me," Danny says sliding the book to us.

"Actually, not to steal your thunder of finding out that you're getting a baby girl and you just wasted all this time searching for a boy's name, but we've already picked out our name."

"And?" Danny asks excited.

"Thomas Taylor Flack."

"Ahh, so my future godson is going to be a Tom?" Danny asks.

"Ha! Who said you were the godfather?" I ask. "We still have two months to decide this."

"Oh man, I better be. Lindsay was discussing the two of you being the godparents for our kid."

"We will keep that in mind Danny. Just know that you'll most likely be the godfather and Lindsay the godmother."

"What about me, your sister?" Anna asks, feigning hurt.

"You live across the country, no. We are picking people that live here in New York." She nods. I lean against Don.

"All right, the wife is getting tired from being on her feet all day. Plus the baby."

"You mean the thing that makes me look fat?" I ask Don.

"You don't look fat Em. You're gorgeous. I can still wrap my arms all the way around you, what seems like twice." I shrug. "Okay. My wife is tired. We best get goin'. See you tomorrow."

"Hey, take the day off you two," Mac says.

"Really?" I ask.

"Yeah, spend some time with your sister before she leaves to go home to her little ruggrats." I laugh and nod.


Don carries me into the apartment and then to our room. "Night Anna," I shout.

"Night guys." Don puts me down on the bed and then jumps over me and lands on the other side and then pulls me in for some cuddles.

"So uh, I'm visiting your side of the bed tonight." He tells me.

"Good." I turn over and I press my lips to his.