Inadmissible

Chapter Two

From the courthouse, Lexi went directly to her uncle's office for help with her quickly deteriorating case. Her uncle, Detective Mac Taylor, was in charge of the department that mishandled the now-excluded evidence. Lexi had never been particularly close to Mac, but she respected him and enjoyed seeing him at the occasional family gathering. Of course, after Lexi's aunt died almost four years ago Mac seldom made an appearance. She presumed it was simply too painful for him to spend time with the family.

Mac greeted Lexi with a big hug and a smile. "To what do I owe this honor?" he asked.

Lexi told him of this morning's unfortunate court ruling and how his own Danny Messer was to blame. Lexi expected Mac to vigorously defend his own. Instead, he eyed her solemnly for a moment before shaking his head and responding, "I'm not surprised."

Lexi raised an eyebrow.

Answering her unasked question, Mac continued, "I took a big chance when I hired Danny and that may have been a mistake. The kid has good intuition, but often ignores the evidence to follow a hunch and has problems understanding the chain of command."

Lexi just nodded. Mac was an ex-Marine. Chain of command was everything. Her guess was that Danny Messer's days were numbered. She told Mac she would need to speak to Danny and he pointed her in the direction of the lab.

Lexi entered the lab to find four CSIs hard at work processing evidence. Hopefully without screwing anything else up, she thought to herself. Though she was beyond furious about the loss of critical evidence in her case, she would have to bite her tongue and be civil to Danny because she needed his help.

"Excuse me, I'm looking for Danny Messer," Lexi announced as she entered the room.

A beautiful young Latina woman looked up from her work, rolled her eyes and nodded in the direction of a man hunched over a microscope, "Aren't they all?"

Lexi smiled and thanked the woman, then approached Danny. He was an attractive man approximately Lexi's own age with a golden tanned complexion and blonde highlights similar to her own.

"Are you Danny Messer?" she inquired.

He looked up, moving his glasses from their perch on top of his head down to their proper position on his nose, and gave her an appraising look. "Who's asking?" he wanted to know.

Lexi was completely unprepared for what she saw when Danny looked up. He was absolutely drop-dead gorgeous. His piercing blue eyes caused her to suck in her breath for a moment and his dazzling movie star smile was enough to bring any woman to her knees. This man was much too sexy to be working in a lab … but the white coat definitely worked for him.

Consciously remembering to breath again, Lexi answered, "I am. I'm Lexi Taylor, Mac's niece. I'm also an Assistant Deputy D.A. and am prosecuting a case you worked up involving one Stanley Jones. I need to talk to you about some evidence you processed."

"In that case, I'm your man," he smiled.

Upon hearing that she was related to Mac, the other CSIs introduced themselves. The beautiful Latina was Aidan. There was another woman, Stella, who resembled a classic Greek goddess and an attractive dark haired man named Don. They all seemed nice, particularly Aidan. There appeared to be some sort of chemistry between Danny and Aidan. Perhaps that's why he had botched her evidence. Too distracted by a beautiful colleague.

Turning her attention back to Danny, Lexi asked, "Is there some place we can talk?"

Looking down at his watch, Danny responded, "I'm off in a minute. Is this gonna take long? I'm starving."

A little irritated by his inference that food was more important than her case, Lexi said, "Then dinner is on me because, yes, this is going to take a very long time. You've got some explaining to do and I need to know everything about how you handled this case from start to finish. No detail left out."

"I do everything by the books," he shot back defensively.

"That's not what I hear," she glared at him.