Author: krisdae
Pairing: None
Rating: PG-13
Beta: As always,a big thanks to marvinetta for being a wonderful, fast beta. You rock!
Summary: The latest "Urban Legend" hits close to home when Amita is attacked. Can Charlie and Don find out the truth?
Disclaimer: Sadly I own nothing that revolves around the world of Numb3rs.
Feedback: Please! bats eyes
Warning: This story does contain situations involving possible date rape. Although not depicted in detail, this may bother some.

A/N: A big thanks to corporea, my wonderful roommie (the doctor) who helped me with some of the details in this part.

Urban Legends

Chapter Four

Don and Terry walked into the hospital. They had gotten the name of the physician who had seen Amita the day before and decided he may be the best resource for their questions.

Dr. Reeves was a short man with smile lines and a firm handshake. He ushered Don and Terry into his office and closed the door.

"Now, agents. What can I do to help you?"

"Doctor, you saw a young girl by the name of Amita Ramanujan yesterday."

Dr. Reeves frowned slightly, "Yes. The young woman came in to be checked for signs of rape. Are you here to talk about her case?"

"Yes. Now, we were told that you didn't find anything in her system?"

"There was nothing found in the screen of her blood or urine that would indicate incapacitation. And from the information she gave me, it would have been within the time limits of most drugs to still have residual traces in her system."

"So there were no drugs involved."

"I didn't exactly say that."

Don exchanged a glance with Terry. "Are you saying there might have been something?" Terry asked.

"There are certain chemicals commonly used for date rape. There are others that can have similar effects. And of course, there's always the influence of alcohol. These are the things we test for." Dr. Reeves paused a moment before continuing. "I usually wouldn't suggest anything else, but I've heard that there have been more than one of these cases in the last couple of months. It's quite possible that something else was used."

"If that's a possibility, then why didn't you test for it?" asked Terry.

"We didn't know what to test for."

"Wait," said Don holding up his hand. "You can't just test for everything and see what's there? What if it's a new drug?"

Dr. Reeves sat back in his chair. "Agent, it's not that simple. To find anything in someone's system, we have to know what we're testing for. We can't just plug blood into some machine and have it tell us exactly what's been pumped into it.

"And if it's some sort of new drug, how would we be able to figure out what to test for? How do we know if we need to be looking for something in the blood stream or in the urine? A new drug may stay in the blood for a long time before breaking down or be in the blood for a matter of minutes."

"Is there any way we can figure out what to test for?" asked Terry.

"It's possible that if I had enough blood from someone recently attacked I could do some other scans. I could at least test for some chemicals that aren't usually tested for in rape cases. But it would have to be within a few hours of being ingested into their system."

"That rules out Amita, then," Don said. "It's been at least 36 hours."

Dr. Reeves shook his head. "I'm sorry that I can't help you further. I will keep an ear open for similar cases in the future and see if they would be willing to speak with you and have their blood tested more extensively. Other than that, I'm afraid there isn't much I can do."

Don was rereading the files from that morning when David returned to the office. "All right, I checked out the reports made on rape since last August. There have been almost 100 cases reported since then. I narrowed it down to CalSci and ended up with 13 cases."

"13?" asked Don. "Since August?"

"And those are only the reported ones," commented Terry.

David continued, "I then dismissed the ones that were violent rapes to focus on the date rape cases. Of those cases, there were 2 that seemed to fit to our pattern." He handed the files to Don as he explained. "These two attacks were reported by women who were at a club and ended up being victimized. One was at XTC and she didn't bother going to the hospital after talking with the police."

"Why not?" asked Terry.

"Probably because she got the brush off. Looking at her file, she really didn't have much of a case."

"What about the other one?" inquired Don.

"She was at our club, Forbidden Sights. She did go to the doctor, but there wasn't anything found in her system."

"That's becoming a trend," Terry said.

"Okay," said Don. "I'm going to take this information to Charlie. He might be able to figure out what the pattern is. Five is too many cases to be a coincidence, but there doesn't seem to be an obvious pattern either. Terry, why don't you fill David in on our visit with Dr. Reeves."

Terry nodded as Don grabbed his jacket and headed for the door, grabbing the latest files on his way.

Charlie was working at the table when he heard Don come in. "Hello?"

"In here, Don."

Don came in and put a folder on the table. Charlie looked from the folder to Don's face. "You found something."

"I think so. But, we're not sure just what yet."

Don began to explain their findings while Charlie looked through the files. His mind began processing and calculating even before he had finished looking through the first case. By the time Don was done with his explanation, Charlie already had half a sheet of notations down. He barely realized when Don left.

Charlie looked over the cases several times feeling like something was missing. It just didn't fit right. How come he couldn't see what it was? He began to flip through each case again, trying to find the piece he was missing.

"How's it going, buddy?" Don asked him as he took a seat at the table.

Charlie looked up, startled to realize it had been several hours since he'd started to work. He blinked, trying to pull himself back to the present. "I'm not sure what I'm looking for, Don. There's not enough information to see a pattern. I need more information."

"There isn't any right now, Charlie. These five attacks are the only ones we know about."

Charlie threw his pencil down. "Then I don't know how to help, Don. I feel like there's something here that I'm missing. Something I'm just not seeing, but I don't know what it is. There has to be because otherwise there's nothing to link the victims." Charlie got up and began to pace.

"There's no reason, looking at this data, to believe that there is anything similar about these attacks."

"What do you mean? All these women were drugged with something and then taken advantage of."

"But, there's no evidence. Two of the girls never even went to the doctor, so we really don't know the state of their blood results. And you can't base commonality on an unknown. The only thing that links these victims is the fact that they're CalSci students and that doesn't really tell us much since that was the parameter you looked into."

"What about the club? Forbidden Sights? That's a commonality."

"But, not a good enough one. First, victim 2, Carol, she was attacked at XTC."

"What about the others?"

"Don, Forbidden Sights is a popular club. It's probably the most popular club for CalSci students."

"Which makes it a logical point for someone to be attacking students there."

Charlie stopped his pacing and stared at Don. "You've read these reports, Don. The attackers have been different every time."

"So what are you saying, Charlie? That there isn't any case? Do you want me to drop it?"

"No! Of course not. I'm just saying that there has to be more here than we're seeing. Maybe something else that these girls all have in common. I'm just going to have to look a little harder."

"Well, you try and find out what the victims all have in common and I'll try and track down this unknown drug." Don put his hand on Charlie's shoulder. "Hey, we'll figure out what's going on. I'm starting to believe that there isn't anything the two of us can't solve together."