A/N: This was probably the first time I had to REALLY do some research for a fic. If you happen to come upon this and are taking up a career as a doctor, I'm sorry if there are any mistakes on the medication dosage and effects and whatnot. I'm just a simple 'shipper, hoping to finally update her main WIP...
Food had a remarkable way of disappearing from Stella's refrigerator. It was because of this that she had to take a walk down the street a few bocks to restock her food supply. Unfortunately, that meant leaving Mac alone – something she was reluctant to do.
"Stella, you'll be no longer than half an hour," Mac insisted. "I'll be fine."
"Okay…" She still sounded unsure, but she complied anyway. "Call my cell if anything happens. I'll have it turned on."
She turned to the door and stopped momentarily when Mac said, "Yes, mother dearest."
Playing along, she countered, "Now, you take your medicine like a good little boy. We can't have you lying unconscious on the floor when I get back."
"Will you go already?"
Casting him one more smile, Stella stepped over the threshold and into the hallway, shutting the door behind her.
Half an hour later, just as Mac had perceived… Stella's own words came back to bite her in the ass. She came home to an unconscious Mac lying spread-eagle on her ceramic kitchen tile.
Everything after that discovery passed in a blur…
"What is your emergency?"
"My friend is lying on the floor; he's out cold…"
It was hard to keep a steady voice.
"Miss, please step away!"
"Get some oxygen in him, now!"
The EMTs carried him out on a stretcher. She didn't follow. What she did was lean against the counter, her words echoing with quiet rage.
"I'll catch you, you bastard."
The interrogation room door swung open and shut in one motion, allowing enough time for one certain CSI though.
"Okay. I want a who and a why, and I want them now."
Across from a very pissed off Stella sat Dr. Peter Cunningham, eyes bloodshot and hands shaky.
"What? I don't even know why the hell I'm here!"
Through clenched teeth, Stella barked, "Mac Taylor is back at New York Downtown Hospital tonight because his prescription medication, the medication you gave him, was filled to the brim with Tri-Barbs. For Mac, one of those pills could have caused severe nervous system failure. Of all the people in the world, I'd expect you to know that, having access to his medical files and being able to note that it isn't used for pain medication and he's allergic to it."
Cunningham looked mostly confused, but his eyes suggested otherwise. "Ms. Bonasera, I…"
"Have an explanation? Wonderful! Let's hear it."
Cunningham was shaking head to toe now. Stella tapped her fingers impatiently on the table. The clock ticked. Footfalls echoed from the hallway.
"Listen," Stella said, "I don't like having my time wasted. You probably don't either. You can sit there like a church mouse and not cooperate with us, but that mean's you'll be taking a walk and put in a little cell where we'll hold you until you do tell us something. It's your choice, Doc."
"Okay, okay!" Cunningham blurted. "I personally filled the bottle because Taylor was still alive, but I didn't originally want him dead! I'm only a pawn in this whole thing, I swear!"
It was this moment that Flack chose to step in. He held a piece of paper folded in thirds and handed it to Stella. She opened it, scanned it, and smiled. Then she pushed it in front of Cunningham. "This is a warrant to search you home. Funny…I didn't think a doctor of your status would have so many complaints on your record." Stella got up and walked around in back on Cunningham and whispered in his ear, "Is there anything else you'd like to share? Trust me, you'll be worse off if you don't."
Cunningham sat blank faced a second and not even turning his head, he growled, "I won't expose my friend. That's not the kind of person I am."
Flack swore he saw her nostrils flare, a rare sight.
"Take him to lock-up," Stella said sharply to the officer at the door.
The officer revealed a pair of handcuffs and approached Cunningham. Meanwhile, Stella treaded out the door, Flack following close behind her.
"We'll find out who's behind this, Stel," Flack said as they went down the passage.
"This is the kind of thing that really gets me off. The arrogant assholes who like to think the know everything."
"Stella," Flack said in a low voice, stopping her, "is there any chance you want to solve this case – not for Mac – but for yourself?"
Stella froze mid-step. "I swore to Mac I would find who did this to him. My own validations and feelings do not enter into it."
Flack eyed her. "Well, it's looking to me like you want to lead this one to impress Mac. Like you haven't already impacted him a lot…"
If looks could kill, Flack would have been dead and buried by then. Thank God that at that very moment, Stella's cellphone rang. She glared at Flack one last time and then opened the phone and walked in the opposite direction down the hall.
"Bonasera."
"This is Stella Bonasera, correct?"
Stella knew the voice. It was the receptionist from New York Downtown Hospital. "Yes, that's me. Do you know the condition of my colleague?"
"Yes, Ms. Bonasera. Mr. Taylor is fine and ready to be released…again."
"Can you please see to it that his medication is checked thoroughly?"
"Of course. I'll get right on it."
Stella's eyes lit up. "Thank you. I'll be right over."
"We've got to stop making these trips," Stella joked in the car later on, Mac sitting next to her.
"I must be pretty popular around here."
They reached a stoplight and the car came to a halt.
"Hey, listen," Stella grabbed his attention again, "I have to get back to the lab ASAP, so when we get home, I'll walk you up and then I have to leave, okay?"
Mac nodded a little too solemnly.
Stella observed him carefully. She couldn't even hope to imagine what he was going through emotionally. Of course, she couldn't remember the last time she'd been in and out of the hospital so much. The pain must be killing him.
"You okay?" Stella asked timidly.
He nodded again, not saying anything.
Acting only for sake of the moment, Stella slowly reached over the consol and took Mac's hand, lacing her fingers with his. She gave him a squeeze and a smile, and then the light changed green.
The strange thing was…they didn't let go of each other for the whole trip.
He was once again limping into her apartment, now a full day after his first hospital journey. Stella halted and let Mac find his way to a chair, while she looked around and saw a blinking light on her answering machine.
"I have a message," Stella mumbled to herself, walking over and pressing the PLAY button. The message began to engage.
"Hey, Stella, it's Aiden. Flack and I are heading over to Cunningham's place to instigate the search warrant. It's in Brooklyn; 2308 West 67th Street. It's by a baseball field and a place called the Danish Athletic Club, if you need some landmarks. Meet us there." There was a long pause, and then: "Tell Mac we all miss him and hope he gets better soon." Click.
"You hear that, Mac?" Stella called out.
"Uh-huh," Mac replied.
"Nice to know the guys are still thinking about you," Stella said. She adjusted the strap on her purse. "I've got to go. Take of yourself, alright?"
"Sure. See you later, Stel."
"Damn it, what was up with that construction on the Brooklyn Bridge?" Stella sounded a bit peeved.
"No clue," Aiden replied, directing Stella into the apartment, "Did you have to take the Verrazano-Narrows off Staten Island?"
"Yeah. The view was nice, though."
Aiden nodded. "Fort Wadsworth. I totally agree."
The women reached a flight of stairs and ascended it. At the top, they made a left into the living room.
"Okay, we're going to run over this place with a fine-toothed comb. I'll take the office, the bedroom, and the bathroom. You get everything else."
Torches in hand and donning latex gloves, Stella and Aiden took to their rooms and got to work.
Within fifteen minutes, Aiden struck gold. Buried in the drawer of a mahogany desk in the living room was an article referring to a case Stella and Mac had worked months ago – the shooting of a mounted police officer in Central Park. It mentioned Mac numerous times, and Aiden didn't have to think twice as to why Cunningham had it.
Now thinking she was hot on the trail of some good evidence, Aiden searched through the rest of the desk, but found nothing else of relevance to the case. She moved to the phone, complete with caller ID, and flipped through the contacts. The same two numbers continued to appear, which Aiden knew there was definitely something wrong with.
Aiden called Stella into the living room. "There are only two numbers on his caller ID, dating back to over a month ago," Aiden said, "and I also found this article on the Officer Blue case a while back."
Stella raised her eyebrows. "Well, we already know he's involved. We just haven't found any evidence that will tell us who else is involved."
Aiden cocked her head. They went silent for a moment. "Phone records," she finally said, shrugging.
Stella nodded. "Can you get back to the lab and pull them up?"
"Oh, come on, Stella, I drove out of my way to only be here, like, half an hour?"
"Aiden, I'm the lead on this case." Stella handed her an occupied evidence bag. "I found this under a loose floorboard in the Doc's bedroom. It's a drug for sure, but this guy's a doctor – it could be anything. Take it back to the lab, send it to Trace, and then pull up Cunningham's phone records."
Aiden pursed her puffy lips in mild agitation and turned on her heel heading towards the door. Stella put on a rather self-satisfied expression and continued to search though the apartment.
An hour later, Stella let out an exasperated groan and slammed her flashlight down on a table, receiving startled looks from the nearby officers. She had gone thorough every room, every drawer, every crevice and had found nothing more than what she had given to Aiden.
Why did I send her back to the lab?
Stella recalled Flack's words when they had talked earlier. Though Flack was going door-to-door and questioning neighbors about Cunningham, she could practically feel him standing over her shoulder and mocking her for taking so long to listen to him. She waved the image away quickly.
Stella groaned again and peered around. Bathroom: check. Bedroom: check. Kitchen: check. Office: check. Living room…
Wait. The office. How could I have overlooked that?
Stella revisited the office, and mentally smacking herself in the head, sat down in front of Cunningham's computer, a brand new Windows XP Home Edition. It was already powered on as well as connected to the Internet. Stella decided to snoop around in his e-mail filing cabinet.
She found a great variation of mail saved on AOL: a healthy dose of spam, subscription notifications, updates from the hospital…but the mail that interested her most was the mail from one sender. There was more of it there than anything else. Stella began with the oldest and read every one.
The first few were of no interest to her, but when she opened the fourth message, things turned in a whole different direction. It said:
"He's pissing me off again. That Taylor has got to go. How can you help?"
Stella's blood boiled, but she went on, opening another one.
"Now that sounds like an excellent idea. I'll make JP tell me his weaknesses, which I'm sure are many. I'll get back to you."
Scanning through all the e-mails at record pace, Stella's eyes searched for a name, a phone number, anything that would lead to the identity of this mysterious contact. She came up empty-handed.
Clicking on another message, dated about five days before Mac's assault, Stella read through it. Then, she froze after reading the last few sentences.
"His weakness is Stella Bonasera, huh? I know her. She may be of use if anything should go wrong."
Eyes widening, Stella fumbled for her cellphone and dialed Aiden. When the distinct Brooklyn accent picked up, she put it on speaker phone and laid it on the computer counter.
"Stella?"
"Aiden, this is getting serious."
"Damn right! You first – what else did you find?"
"I'm on Cunningham's computer as we speak. His last twenty-one e-mails are to only one address."
"Does the address give away any identity?"
"Possibly. It has the letters "RCM" in it, which could be…initials, and "266", which could be…anything, really. They've been contacting each other for weeks, and guess what?"
"Do I want to know?"
"Probably. I'm mentioned in one of the messages."
"Damn. This SOB is good."
"Apparently, he knows me."
"Do you know anyone capable of this kind of crime?"
That's just it. I don't. Now, what do you have?"
"Something freaky. I tried to reach Cunningham's phone records, but they're locked."
Stella raised an eyebrow. "Locked?"
"Yeah. I need a six-figure password to get in."
"Aiden the only people who are allowed to lock records are NYPD employees!"
"I know, I know – it's freaking the hell out of me, and I'd bet good money that all the other information as to who Cunningham's been contacting is locked away, too." She paused, then resumed with, "Any guesses for the password?"
Stella sighed. "It could be any combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. It would take a miracle for us to crack it."
"A miracle's what we need right now. Start running things by me."
"Let's think first; we need six figures. What would…" Stella trailed off.
"Stella? Hello?"
The pieces came together. "Type in 'Taylor'."
"You think they'd have something so obvious?"
"Just try it, please?"
There was a soft clacking, a beep, and then: "Bingo! Stella, you're a genius."
"Tell me something I don't know. What do you see?"
"Holy crap."
"What? What is it?"
"One name I don't recognize – Douglas Walker? But the other is…is Jane Parsons."
TBC
