~*~ Chapter 17 ~*~

"What the hell was that?" the guard yelled as the other turned the lights back on.

"I don't know, we better check it out." The two guards made there way down the corridor of jail cells.  One of the inmates started to yell out to the guards. "Hey…Guard

over here.  I think you've got a problem." 

The guards followed the shouts of the inmate right to Slimy Pete's cell. As they looked around they found slimy Pete's dead body lying on the floor in a pool of blood.

"Better call the commissioner."

"I'm already on it," the guard said as he walked toward the office. "Look around here to see what you can find."

The guard opened the cell and walked inside to look around for any clues of what happened being very careful as to not touch anything.  The only piece of evidence that he

could find was the broken glass of the cell window.

In the office, the other guard had finally gotten a hold of Mac.  "Commissioner, we have a situation here. You need to come to the station immediately.  You might want to call DA Baldwin, too," he said just before he hung up the phone and returned to the jail cell.

"Is the commissioner on his way?" the guard asked as the other approached.

"Yeah…Baldwin too…what did you find?"

"It looks like it was a sniper; from across the street. I called it into Taggert…he's sending a team over to scour those buildings."  The two guards left to finish their nightly duties while they awaited the arrival of Scott and Mac.  About 30 minutes later, Mac entered the police station with Scott right behind him.

"What is this about, Monroe?" Mac asked walking straight up to the guards.  Just as Taggert and his team came in with a high powered rifle and laser scope.

"Looks like we got a murder weapon," Taggert announced. "We found it on the third floor of the abandoned Taylor building across the street.  As soon as I have it tagged,

I'm going to send it down to forensics for a full analysis."

"Murder weapon? What's going on here?" Scott asked.

"Peter Lancaster was murdered in his cell tonight," the guard began to explain.

"How did that happen?" Scott yelled at the guard.

"Sniper."

"Sniper? From where?" Scott asked in disgust.

"Looks like the Taylor building. Detective Taggert can fill you in on the rest," the guard said as he retreated back to his post.

"Great. Just Great!" Scott said turning to Mac. "This was our only lead." Scott pauses for a second attempting to compose himself, instead he just smacks the wall hard with his hand. "Damn it!"

"Well let's just wait and see what forensics brings back to us. It may bring up another lead." Mac said slapping Scott's shoulder as he walked into his office. Scott simply nodded as he followed.

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Serena walked around the outside corner of the firehouse toward the kitchen door, trying to stay as quite as possible.  She tried to open the kitchen door only to find that it was locked.  She fished in her pockets for her keys but when she couldn't find them, she remembered that she had left the house without them. "It figures…trying to lock me out, eh Dad…well it's not gonna work," she said to herself as she moved the bench to the picnic table right below the kitchen counter window. 

Before climbing up on the bench, she got a small stick that she could use to pop the screen out of the window.  After getting the screen out she slid the window up and

hoisted herself up through it.  Once she got into the house, she closed the window and jumped off of the counter only to see Karen come out of the shadows.

"No need to sneak in, Dad's not here," Karen said to her walking to the refrigerator to get a couple drinks for her and Serena.

"Geez, Karen, you scared the crap out of me," she jumped when she finally saw her sister.

"Where were you anyway?" Karen asked.

"I went for a walk. I had to get out of here for a while."

"Serena, what is going on? You and Dad have been acting really strange…Are you in some kind of trouble?"

"Karen, I really don't need this from you too…" she said, becoming defensive. Karen handed a soda to Serena, and shot her a look. "Come on sis, level with me. You know you can't keep secrets from me."

"I'm sorry Kare…I" Serena paused for a second trying to think of an excuse to tell Karen rather then coming clean, but none presented itself. "I…. can't do this anymore…"

"Do what, Serena?"

"No, I'm not in trouble…it is more…Jessie."

"What do you mean? What kind of trouble is Jessie in? It must be pretty bad for you and Dad to go at each other over it."

Serena paused as she drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Karen, how much do you remember about the accident?"

"What am I supposed to remember? I cut my hand, you and Jessie drove me to the hospital, I got a real unique view of a tree and woke up a few days later in a hospital bed. Is there something else?"

Serena pulled out a chair, and sat down. She took a sip of her soda, trying to delay the inevitable for as long she as she could. Looking up at Karen, an expression of sorrow crossed the young woman's face. "Jessie wasn't quite herself that night when she got behind the wheel of the car." Serena paused again, wondering if this is really what she should be doing, but the guilt, and the anguish of the situation had been eating her up inside; she had to tell someone, and Karen would be the most understanding. "Jessie, was high."

Karen stumbled backwards as if someone had just smacked her in the face. Pulling out her chair, she sat as the memories, and the pain that she had gone through when she had her problem came rushing back. "High?? She was upstairs with you, how… when… where did it come from?"

"It was in my room, left over from the little party a couple of months ago." Serena looked down at the floor, to ashamed to look her sister in the face.

Karen's face drained of all expression as she talked. "Your room?? Serena are you…"

Karen didn't have to finish her thought Serena knew what she was thinking, the same thing that her father accused her of. "No… But daddy thinks I am. That's what the fight was about earlier, he didn't want you to find out."

Karen looked down at her soda, small drops of liquid could be seen through the can's opening popping out and landing silently on the cold can. "I can't believe that he thought he had to keep this from me. I thought…"

"Don't be mad with him," Serena interrupted. "With everything you've been through lately, he didn't want to put any more stress on you."

Karen nodded in understanding. "Well what about Jess, is she going to get help?"

"No she doesn't think she has a problem, Kare. She can't even see how much she has changed since this has happened, and I feel like it's to late for me to do any good."

Karen leaned forward towards Serena "It's never too late for a friend to help."

Serena cocked her head to the side and gave Karen a half smile. "Thanks sis…maybe I'll give her a call in the morning."

"You talk her into getting help, and I'll arrange the meeting. Okay?"

"I thought I heard voices down here…" Janelle interrupted walking into the kitchen.

"Oh…I'm sorry, we didn't mean to wake you." Karen replied.

"Think nothing of it…so…what are you two chatting about?" Janelle asked.

"Ah…you know…just doing a little catching up on the sister stuff." Karen said winking at Serena.

Serena and Karen both stood up from the table and Serena gave Karen a tight hug. "Goodnight, sis…I love you" she said before retreating to her bedroom.

Karen watched Serena leave then turned toward her own bedroom and let out a yawn, "I think it's time for me to get some sleep too; I need to get up early to go to the hospital to visit Nikki…Goodnight, Janelle," she said as she closed the bedroom door leaving Janelle alone in the kitchen.

Janelle stood in the kitchen for a minute before she decided to go back to bed. As she walked into the living room Scott came through the door and threw his keys onto the the table. "Rough night, huh?" Janelle asked approaching him.

"Huh? Oh…yeah. You could say that…" he replied running his fingers through his hair.

"Wanna talk about it?"

"Nah…there's really not much to say. It just looks like we lost our only lead to this case we're working on," he said as he scanned the living room. "Where are the girls? In bed?"

"Ah…yeah...they both just went to bed a few minutes ago. I'm going up to bed too. Are you coming?" she asked.

"I'll be up in a minute, I just want to get a drink of water." He said to her as she ascended the stairs to the bedroom. Scott walked into the kitchen and opened the door to check on Karen who was already sound asleep. He got a glass of water and headed toward his bedroom when the phone rang. He ran to it to pick it up on the first ring. "Hello?"

"Hey Scott…it's Mac. We just got the ballistics report. The bullet and rifle match. And the rifle matches the bullets that murdered those other two dealers."

"You mean the murders that Janelle witnessed?"

"That's what I mean…"

"This doesn't make sense Mac. If the rifle matches, then that means we didn't nab the right killer."

"Not necessarily, Scott. Janelle only saw and was able to ID one killer. There may have been two. And we never did have a murder weapon. We were lucky that we got a conviction with the evidence that we had."

"You think they might be looking for her?" Scott asked.

"At this point, no. I think they were more interested in keeping Pete Lancaster quiet."

"Well, I'm going to beef up security around here anyway, just in case. Keep me posted would'ya, Mac?" Scott said as he moved around the house to lock all of the doors and windows.

"You got it, Scott, Good night." Mac said hanging up.

With that, Scott turned off the lights and armed the security system before heading up to bed himself.