Okay, this is the follow up. It starts about 6 weeks after the end of Ice in My Veins, Danny's back in work, he's recovered and is back at work I own none of the CBS properties, but I own anyone else because I conjured them from my imagination, Tia will be in it and I will be bringing in some new characters who I've been thinking of. Oh, this is set after the episode 'Tanglewood' but before any of the later episodes where Danny has really gotten in trouble. Warning, warning- the violence and swearing will be worse, and there will be mention of violence towards children and sexual abuse toward children this will not be for the faint hearted. I will do my best to handle this sensitively and I apologise for any upset caused. This story is inspired by a documentary I recently saw which followed up a very famous kidnapping case. It was very upsetting to watch and as a result I feel compelled to write this, I am dedicating this to my Sister who agrees with my opinions on what should be done to people who hurt children and to the millions of children who vanish around the world every week. We can only hope that they do not suffer.
Detective Danny Messer, CSI of New York City, sat opposite the crying woman, wishing he could say something, anything to help her calm down. She was weeping silently, her hands over her face as she shook.
"Miss Carter, what was Lily wearing when she and the nanny left for the park?" He asked the woman, his voice gentle and low.
"Um…a dress her favourite Princess Mia dress…it's purple and gold, and she had her white shoes on…with tights, and a thick jacket, a light blue one, with a hood, for the bad weather" The woman half whispered.
"Princess Mia?" Danny made it a question.
"It's a clothing line for little girls…it specialises in age appropriate clothes, none of that grown up stuff…I don't want my five year old dressed up like some slutty pop star, I buy all her clothes there, it's all…appropriate outfits, nothing that could…oh god, that could draw the wrong kind of attention" She said, her voice breaking.
"And what happened after the nanny came back here?" Danny asked, making a note to check out the store.
"She was…embarrassed, she said she had lost sight of Lily in the park and that she had assumed that she must have come back here because she had been feeling ill this morning…but Lily isn't that kind of kid, she's too timid, she would never try and walk back here on her own, never! I told Alicia that and we went back to the park to see if Lily was there…I thought she would just be waiting for us there, I've told her that if she gets lost she should stay where she is and I'll come find her. I said she should only move if she sees a policeman, and she should ask the policeman for help" the distraught woman began to sob "When she wasn't there I began running around looking for her but no one had seen her, she was gone!"
She reached over and gripped Danny's hand painfully tight "How can a little girl just vanish, I don't understand, where could she have gone!" she asked.
Danny didn't remove his hand from hers, despite the fact that she was squeezing his broken fingers on the edge of the plastic splint he wore. 6 weeks previously, Danny had been attacked at a crime sceneby an old enemy and had very nearly died of his injuries. One of the injuries had been a badly broken arm and broken fingers, and the plaster cast on his arm had only been removed two days ago. Now he wore a plastic splint but his fingers where still taped and his whole arm from finger tip to elbow was still bruised enough that the woman's grip hurt.
"Ma'am, its possible that one of your friends, or one of Lily's friends mom's took Lily home with them and just…forgot to call you!" he said, hoping he sounded sincere. "Just relax, we're gonna look for her but-"he remembered what he'd been trained to say in these situations, even thought he didn't believe word of it. " These situations always turn out to be some big misunderstanding, she's probably sittin in a friends house eating cookies" He smiled areassuring but sympathetic smile.
"Do you really think so?" she looked up, the hope in her eyes like a light.
Danny bit his own lip, hating the thoughts running through his head. He felt like a liar. "We'll see what turns up" he said, gently pulling his hand away.
He stood up, nodding to the uniformed officers who would be sitting with the woman while she waited for her own mother to turn up.
The woman walked over and sat down as Danny headed over to where the nanny sat near the open door, her arms wrapped around herself.
"Christine ,right?" he asked as he sat opposite her.
"Um, yeah" the woman replied.
"Can you tell me what happened, how you came to realise Lily was missing?" He didn't want to say 'how you lost Lily', because he suspected some one had taken the girl, and that the nanny felt guilty enough as it was.
"She was playing with some kids right near me, from the neighbourhood you know? And I was talking to Keisha, another nanny and Lily was coming back and forth to get her dolls and to get a snack and a drink…she was fine, and as sweet as ever, and then they all went to the climbing frame…then she was gone…I was watching her, I was! Keisha was talking and I was listening but I had my eyes on Lily and she climbed up to the slide on the frame, and, the slide comes down on the opposite side, I figured she was using the ladder on that side to climb back up so I didn't go around to see her…We could see all the other kids, and the park is enclosed, there's a guard and everything…I never thought for a second that someone might be able walk away with her, then when I couldn't find her I just assumed she had gotten out somehow and gone home, she was ill this morning any way, I guess I figured she had wanted her mom" Christine looked over at him.
"When you came home to see if she was here, what happened then?" Danny asked, writing everything down shorthand.
"Ella, miss Carter, she told me that Lily would never try to walk home on her own, and I said 'so she's not here?' and then we both ran back to the park thinking she would just be sitting there waiting for us but she wasn't there, so we looked all over, we asked if anyone had seen her but no one remembered seeing her, not one person! It was like she only existed for me and Ella. What do you think could have happened?" she met his eyes.
"It's likely one of her friends mothers or nanny's took her home, maybe after you left, thinking she's gotten lost" Danny repeated what he'd said to the mother. " you'll probably hear from her very soon"
The nanny looked up at him, and he could see in her eyes that she wasn't going to latch onto the false hope the way the mother had.
He held her gaze and she broke first, looking down at her own hands and sighing wearily.
"We will do every thing in our power to bring her back safely" he told her, keeping his voice low so that Ella, the mother, didn't over hear.
"Be honest with me…do you really think she's okay somewhere with some friend?" Christine looked up at him, her eyes clear and steely.
"Honestly? I think it's possible she's somewhere safe" Danny answered, respecting the woman's no nonsense approach.
"But?" she made it a question.
"But…I've been a cop for a long time and I know the statistics and I don't like lying to people so the truth is…I honestly don't know what I think. I know enough to be a pessimist and an optimist" he explained.
"Thank you for being honest" Christine said.
"Just don't say this to her" Danny nodded towards Ella "I told her what I first told you, and who knows, maybe if she prays hard enough it'll come true" he half shrugged.
Christine nodded "Some how I get the feeling that talking to me isn't going to rate high on Ella's list of priorities" she shook her head "how could I be so stupid!"
"It's not your fault" Danny told her.
That had been two days ago. Now Danny, and the recently transferred British detective Nicole De Rossi, stood over the tiny corpse of Lily Carter. She was flat on her back, her pale hands curled into fists, her face a gentle frown, as if she was having an unpleasant dream. Her dress was slightly soiled, but undamaged, her hair was tangled as if she had slept on it without combing it. Nicole tutted and shook her head. "What's wrong with people?" She asked no body in particular. Her accent wasn't the Shakespearean posh that Brits on TV and Movie's spoke with, there was a trace of a regional accent. Danny knew from their work together in the last two days that she was from Liverpool, home of the Beatles.
Nicole had glossy, dark brown hair and greyish blue eyes framed by long lashes. She had faint freckles scattered over her skin, making her look much younger than she really was. She wore black pants and boots with a soft purple polo neck sweater and a black jacket reaching to her knees, with a beret like woolly hat as her protection against the rain that had been falling all day. Lily had been found in an underground parking garage so the rain hadn't compromised the scene.
Danny wore his usual beige suit under a rain coat that was basically the male version of Nicole's. He had a hat on too, doctors orders due to the severe hypothermia he had suffered 6 weeks earlier. He nodded in agreement with Nicole's question, crouching down beside the tiny body.
He already had his gloves on, and Aiden had taken all the photo's of the body she thought she needed and was somewhere else in the lot photographing suspicious tire tracks.
Danny reached out and pushed a strand of blonde hair away from Lily's face. He noticed odd colouring around her nose and lips that seemed to indicate her having been smothered. Her wrists where bruised, thin purple bracelets running around her skin, probably from being tied up or restrained, and her elbows where grazed. Danny wondered if she had fallen before or after she was abducted.
Dr Sheldon Hawkes stood on the other side of the body from Danny and Nicole, writing notes in his clip board pad. "I guess you noticed all the redness around her mouth…I can't be sure without a full autopsy but I would say smothering is our M.O." He told Danny.
Danny nodded, using his tweezers to collect a stray strands of hair from off the girls dress. "Doc when you get her back to he lab, see if she has somethin' in her hands, rigor has 'em closed pretty tight but I think she's holdin something. But be gentle about it ya know?" He looked up at the reclusive M.E who nodded sadly.
"Where's your partner?" Danny turned to Nicole, who motioned to where Mike Keenan stood talking to the two uniforms who had arrived first at the scene, Tia Adewele and Murphy Rielly, two of the best uniforms in the city.
Tia, who happened to be one of Danny's best friends saw him looking at them and nodded by way of greeting.
Danny returned the nod as he began to gather his kit together. Mike said something to the uniforms and they moved away, heading for the entrance to the lot.
Mike walked over to where Nicole and Danny stood, studiously avoiding looking at Lily's corpse.
"They said they got the call from a security attendent when he opened up this mornin', the building above us is closed until six am, but the guard for this lot gets here at five to make sure nobody had snuck in, apparently couples sneak in here a lot, what with it being so romantic and all" Mike raised an eyebrow as he motioned around the grey on grey on grey parking lot.
"Wow, how sweet" Nicole deadpanned, rolling her eyes.
"He said she was lying right here when he found her, like she'd been posed under this particular light" Mike pointed up at the brightest light in the lot "Right in the centre…this guys tryna make a statement" he finished.
Danny nodded "Definitely, even lying like she is, he had to have posed her like she was sleeping"
Mike nodded. He had dark brown hair and high cheek bones with a slightly pouting mouth, and wore most of a suit, with a leather jacket instead of a suit jacket to match his charcoal pants. He always wore the jacket, no matter what the weather.
"Well, Doc, you take her back to the morgue, wait on her mother I.Ding her before you do your thing, I'm gonna get this stuff back to the lab and see about getting us some leads to follow" Danny told everyone. "Hey, Aiden!" He yelled as loud as he could.
"What!" came the reply.
"Me and the Doc and Nicole and Mike are going back to the lab, Tia and Murphy are staying here with you okay!" he called out.
"Fine, I won't be much longer" she yelled back.
Two paramedics stepped forward and helped Hawkes to move Lilys body into a body bag, then onto a stretcher. They placed her in the back of the ambulance and Danny headed for his jeep, Nicole and Mike heading for their car.
Danny called Ella Carter as soon as he got to the lab, telling her she needed to come down to the station house. As soon as he said it, he heard her begin to sob down the phone, asking him if they had found Lily. He couldn't tell her over the phone, so he just repeated his request.
As he clipped his phone shut, Mac Taylor, Danny's boss walked over to where Danny stood, leaning against the wall.
"Everything okay Danny?" the ex marine asked as Danny sighed heavily.
"We found Lily Carter, dead, I just had to ask her mother to come down to the station and when she gets here I'm gonna have to tell her we found a body that we're 99 percent sure is her daughters, but we need her to I.D it" he sighed again "We shouldn't have to ask parents to I.D five year olds, its just not right" he shrugged.
Mac regarded Danny. The younger detective had bags under his eyes, he looked pale, and drawn. The energy that usually poured off him in waves was depleted.
"How much sleep have you had?" Mac asked Danny as Danny rubbed his un splinted hand over his face.
"No where near enough" Danny admitted "But don't tell me to go home and rest Mac, just don't, I'm not gonna sleep while the guy who killed this little girl is still out there, I'm not, and Mac, no offence but if you try and order me off this case I'll knock you on your ass, I swear to God!" Danny looked Mac dead in the eye but he was halfsmiling as he said it.
Mac grinned back, putting a fatherly hand on Danny's shoulder "I wont order you off the case Danny but I will advise you to…maybe ask Aiden or Stella or…oh hey, even me, to take some of the weight off your shoulders? Because, believe it or not, we can do that!" Mac told him.
Danny pulled a mock surprised face "No, really!…thanks Mac but I'm fine, I am, now that we have her body, we have trace evidence, and I'm willing to bet this shit head's a repeat offender" Danny explained. " Actually, I meant to ask Hawkes…"he trailed off, turning away.
Hawkes carefully cut away Lily's dress, pulling a sheet over her almost as soon as he pulled the dress away. He put the dress in a paper evidence bag and labelled it for Danny. He noticed as he pulled the sheet up to her shoulders that her under wear was missing. He carefully moved her hair back, leaving her face clear and open. He felt like he should comb her hair, wash her face maybe, but he knew not to change anything until Danny gave the all clear. He wheeled the stretcher she lay on to the viewing room, trying to shake the feeling that he should put another sheet underneath her so that she wasn't cold lying on the metal bed.
The curtain was still pulled so Hawkes went to a small side door and opened it just enough to see Danny standing with Ella Carter. Danny glanced over and saw Hawkes, who nodded.
Danny turned back to Ella and said "Okay, you just tell me when you're ready and I'll pull back the curtain" he said softly.
Sheldon ducked back inside the door way and waited. A second later he heard a muffled 'ok' from the other side of the glass and the curtains slid apart.
There was a moment of silence, a longer moment than Sheldon has heard before. He wondered if they could have been wrong, if this little girl wasn't Lily Carter, then Ella screamed, a wordless, primal scream of pure anguish. Sheldon squeezed his eyes shut waiting for the scream to end but it went on and on, forming into words. "My baby! Oh my God my baby!" she shrieked, sobbing as she banged on the window.
Sheldon heard Danny trying to comfort the woman, yelling to be heard over her screams. The banging on the glass ceased and Sheldon heard the screaming fade into sobs.
He looked out of the door again and saw Danny sitting with the woman on the small couch, holding her as she cried, her head buried into his shoulder. He was staring straight ahead, an angry look on his face and Sheldon could almost hear the plots Danny was coming up with, ways to hurt the person who had hurt Lily.
An older woman stepped into view, took one look through the glass, then gripped Ella's shoulder. She looked enough like Ella that Sheldon figured her for the woman's mother. Ella turned to hug her mother and Danny used the opportunity to stand and pull the rope to close the curtains. He whispered something into the older woman's ear. The woman nodded and Danny handed her a folded sheet of paper. He stood aside while the woman sat beside her daughter and whispered in the younger woman's ear. Ella nodded and took the pen Danny offered her, signing the sheet of paper. Danny thanked her, taking the paper and stepped away quietly, heading for Sheldon.
The men stepped through the door, pulling it firmly shut. Even with it fully closed, they spoke in low, quiet voices. "I got the permission for an autopsy" Danny handed Hawkes the sheet "God that was bad, that poor woman…get this done quick Doc? I wanna catch this guy as quickly as I'm humanely able!"
Sheldon nodded. "Help me get her back to the morgue, I got her dress waiting there for you to take" Sheldon explained.
They moved the gurney back to the morgue, almost silently. When they reached the cooled room, Sheldon turned to Danny.
"So, any preliminary findings?" Danny asked.
"When I removed her dress I noticed her panties where gone" Sheldon told Danny.
Danny looked away, glaring at a spot on the opposite wall, chewing his lip angrily. He clenched his fist so tight that even Hawkes heard the joints pop and crack.
"Any out ward signs of rape?" Danny asked, his voice dangerously calm.
"I still have to examine her but I didn't see any bruises on her thigh's" Sheldon explained "but like I said, I still have to examine her"
Danny nodded, that tense nod he did when he was pissed off and wouldn't look at any one in case they became a target for his anger.
"Look Danny, you're exhausted, I'm probably gonna be here a while, and your evidence is still being processed, why don't you go get some sleep, in the faculty lounge or something? I'll page you when I have something" Sheldon said and Danny nodded, the tension draining out of him like water out of a glass.
"Yeah, I'll…I need sleep" he nodded.
He looked back down at Lily and shook his head. "We'll find him angel" he murmured to her, shaking his head again and turning away, he picked up he bag containing her dress he walked out of the morgue.
Stella Bonasera was examining Lily's dress, scouring the tiny gown with a large magnifying glass, her tweezers poised. She was three quarters of the way down having started at the collar and so far she had collected more hairs like the ones Danny had found, and some fibres that she couldn't really explain, but she thought might come from a carpet. She had also scraped away some kind of dirt off the part of the dress that she figured would be level with Lily's knees when she wore it, and was wondering if it was dirt from the play ground where the child had vanished, or from somewhere else. Had Lily fallen trying to escape?
"How goes it?" Aiden Burns asked as she carried a digital camera into the lab.
"Well the perp wasn't neat, this dress is covered in fibre's and hair's, but nothing unique, even the hair is you're basic non descript brown" Stella told the younger CSI.
"No roots attached?" Aiden asked, setting her camera down next to the computer.
"Yeah but they look kinda weird to me…we'll just have to see what Jane can do with them" Stella said, plucking another, larger fibre from the dress.
It looked like leather, white or cream "Ooh, maybe car interior?" she held the fibre up to the light.
Aiden looked over and nodded "Yeah, or off've a piece of furniture…either way it's a big enough piece that it'll be pretty hard to miss when we find this guys apartment or car"
"Yep" Stella nodded as she bagged the shred.
She returned to the dress but there was nothing new to find so she folded it carefully and put it back in the paper bag.
Aiden was sitting on a stool in front of the computer, running a tire track identification program. She had two sheets of paper, one on either side of her and was making notes of the cars that matched the tread, and ticking them off a list of cars that routinely used the lot, given to her by the security guard.
"Any luck with the treads?" Stella asked
"I've narrowed it down to three vehicles. We lucked out in that of the three tracks that don't fit, one of them is from a motorbike, and the other two sets of tracks are from pretty unique tires. You only find them on certain kinds of cars, none of which use that parking lot, but all together that's still 1500 cars in the city" she sighed.
"Well get the addresses of those 1500 cars and we'll play our own version of twenty questions, me and Danny did it on that case we had with the bike messenger" Stella told her.
"Huh?" Aiden frowned at her.
"We'll take a" Stella looked at her watch "short lunch break while we wait for the trace to come back and for Jane to work a miracle on these hairs, then when we know what the mud and fibres and everything come from we can out it into context, use it eliminate all of the addresses except the likely ones" Stella explained.
"Oh right" Aiden nodded.
They gathered up the bags Stella had filled and dropped the evidence in the appropriate labs before heading to the lounge. The techs told them that the initial evidence from the scene would be ready soon, so they hurried to the lounge to eat before they got beeped.
When they got there, they saw that they wheren't the only ones who had decided to take a break.
Nicole and Mike sat on one side of the table, reading through a file as they ate salads. Don Flack had his head in his hand as he idly flicked through the channels of the television, a half eaten Sub sitting in wrappings in front of him. Mac Taylor was sipping coffee from a mug in one hand, while he scanned the newspaper in his other hand. And Danny, who until this morning had been the only CSI working the case, who had only been home to shower and change clothes for two days straight, was curled up on the couch. Someone had thrown a blanket over him and he was curled up so tight that only the top of his head was visible.
Stella and Aiden both smiled, glad to see Danny finally getting some rest. They each retrieved their lunched from the fridge and settled down to eat.
"Did we ever turn up any witnesses at the park?" Nicole asked quietly, breaking to silence in the room.
"No body came forward even when we appealed, at least no body helpful. We had a few people tell us that they saw Lily at the playground, but all the times match what Christine the Nanny told us. No body remembers seeing her after Christine told us she first noticed her missing, which was at 11 am" Stella said around a mouthful of pasta salad "Which is really weird, I've been examining that dress for hours, it's pretty unique, I mean it's bright enough that you would remember seeing it even if only for a second…but no one can recall seeing her…"
"Didn't the mother say she had on a 'thick light blue jacket'?" Nicole asked "Did we ask if they saw the girl in the purple dress or the girl in the light blue jacket?"
Mike answered for Stella whose mouth was too full. "We asked for both but no body saw nothin'" He shook his head "It doesn't make any sense, kids don't just vanish into thin air then reappear dead" he stated.
"Maybe one of the other kids saw something?" Flack said, hitting the off button on the remote and turning back to face the table.
"We could do that, ask the kids, but most of em are as young or younger than our vic, I don't know how reliable their memories are gonna be" Mike said.
"Have their parents bring them in any way, just in case" Mac said, looking up from the paper "Sometimes kids see more than we realise, and god knows they remember it better"
Everyone nodded in agreement, except Danny who was still asleep.
A chorus of beeps filled the air as each detectives' pager went off. The group all reached for their belts, even Danny who pushed the cover off and sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes with one hand. "Looks like all our evidence is in" Mac stated.
"I was havin' such a bad dream" Danny murmured groggily as he poured himself a cup of coffee "but I couldn't wake up from it…Lily was askin me to help her and I couldn't move, it was like I was stuck in…tar or thick mud…God it was bad…,ugh " He shuddered, taking a long sip at his coffee. He pulled his pager off his belt and squinted at the number, put the pager down, put his glasses back on and looked at the pager again. "Its Hawkes, he's finished the autopsy" he said.
"I'll come with you…Can you three organise having the kids from the park come in? It saves us the time of having to drive to all their individual homes" Mac looked at Mike Nicole and Flack.
They nodded in response and began to quickly finish their lunches. Stella and Aiden put their unfinished food in the fridge and left, heading for the trace lab.
Danny removed his glasses again and ran the tap in the small sink, splashing cold water on his face and patting it dry with a paper towel. Once again he replaced his glasses and pulled on his suit jacket. He finished his coffee and he and Mac walked out, heading for the morgue.
"Hawkes said that the perp took Lily's underwear" Danny said as they walked. "He told me he would check for signs of rape or molestation" Danny's voice was very low and very calm.
Mac eyed the younger man warily. "You're gonna be okay on this right Danny?" he asked, keeping his voice neutral. He knew Danny well enough to b able to read his moods and body language, and right now, Danny was very unhappy.
Danny actually hesitated before he spoke again, considering his answer "Yes. Yeah, I'm gonna be okay, I just, I'm angry at the training!" he said.
Mac frowned "huh?"
"You know, they tell us to be optimistic, to keep the family of the victim optimistic, so we do, and it turns into liars. You should have seen the look in Ella carters eyes the other day when I had to tell her I thought Lily would be fine that she was probably with a friend somewhere. She looked so…hopeful…and today, when she saw the body…I saw something die inside her Mac, and it was my fault. I gave her false hope that I couldn't fulfil, and from now on that woman is never going to be hopeful again, she's never gonna trust anyone again because she'll know I lied to her" he ran a hand through his sleep tousled hair, flattening it rather than bother trying to style it at all "I'm not sayin I'm a saint, never told a lie in my life but lying to victims is fucked up, all the way up" he paused and took a deep breath and shook himself, as if ridding himself of his own negative thoughts. "Sorry Mac, venting" he shrugged.
Mac nodded "Don't worry about it, I know what you mean, I hate having to tell the family that the victim 'probably didn't suffer much' when I know that the last few hours of that persons life where probably the worst…I feel like the family deserves to know how much their loved one suffered so that they don't ever start to pity the killer if the lawyer tries to feed the jury some shpeel about…I don't know, a hard childhood. I mean I realise some people have it rough when they're a kid but not everyone who does is automatically a bad person" Mac looked pointedly at Danny who shrugged again and did the stare he often adopted when faced with something he didn't know how to respond to.
"Um, thanks" he said quietly.
Mac shrugged, mimicking Danny.
They reached the morgue and pushed through the doors into the sterile room, wrinkling their noses at the chemical odour that greeted them. "Never get used to that smell" Mac said, and Danny nodded in agreement.
They approached Lily's gurney where Hawkes stood making notes. The sheet had been pulled up to Lily's neck, and where it had been white earlier, it was now stained in the familiar Y pattern.
Lily's feet where depressingly far away from the end of the gurney, and she had that same fixed frown on her face.
"Hey Doc, what's the situation?" Danny asked.
Hawkes set his note pad down and pulled on a fresh set of gloves stepping up to the body, motioning to her as he spoke. "Well our preliminary guess was correct, she was smothered to death. Looking at the bruising around her nose and mouth, I would say our perp cupped his hand like this" he leant forward, cupping one gloved hand the way you would to scoop up water and placed his hand over Lily's nose and mouth. He tightened his hand, closing it over her face, and the shape of his hand fit the bruising almost perfectly "Except your killer had bigger hands than me" he pointed out. "The only thing I'm not sure about was whether her death was an accident or not. He may have been trying to keep her quiet…the reason I say this, is because of this bruise" he leaned across Lily and raised the sheet from the side nearest to Danny and Mac, only lifting enough to reveal her lower chest and stomach and her belly button. There was an angry purple bruise across her stomach, reaching all the way around. Sheldon turned away and came back holding one of the life sized dolls the CSI's used for crime scene reconstruction. This one was the same size as Lily.
Hawkes held the doll in front of his own body, so that 'she' had her back to him. He wrapped one hand around her stomach, placed the other in the cupped position over 'her' nose and mouth. "You see?" he asked. He hoisted the doll as if he where carrying it, moving backwards and forwards in the lab. The dolls weighted legs swung as he moved, the way a child might kick trying to escape. One of the dolls heels hit Hawkes's shin with a solid thud and he winced, handing the doll to Danny.
"That brings me to her injuries, mainly this one" he moved to Lily's feet and raised the sheet again. "Our princess was a kicker" he said, a trace of affection in his voice "God bless if she didn't kick that SOB hard enough she shattered her own heel" he raised her tiny foot just enough that they could see the swelling on her heel.
Hawkes pointed to an X-ray- it showed the shattered bone under the skin. "Good for you kid" Danny muttered.
"She had some bruises on her knees and the palm of her hands, grazes too, like she fell down. There was some kind of mud or foreign matter in some of the grazes so I swabbed it and sent it to trace- it could be from the playground but she might have fallen near the killers home, so just to be sure…"
Mac and Danny nodded in unison. "Tox came back on her blood…there where traces of a mild sedative, over the counter sleeping pill type stuff in her blood, so unless her mama gave her something, it could be how he got her out of the park without her raising a fuss" Hawkes continued ". I heard about a guy in Miami a couple years ago who sprayed liquid roofies onto cotton candy to drug a little girl at one of those, indoor park places? Its popping up all over the place now, they don't just give the kids candy, give em drugged candy…I didn't find any obvious signs of molestation or rape, no bruising or tearing…if he molested her, it wasn't violent. Considering the fact that he kept her underwear then I think it's likely he did molest her. I don't know, maybe this guys a repeat offender and knows how not to leave bruises" Hawkes shrugged helplessly.
"Thanks Sheldon" Ma c smiled at the young M.E.
"Oh, and I managed to get her hands open" Hawkes said suddenly.
He turned back to his small desk and picked up two baggies. One contained a chunk of reddish hair, big enough that who ever it had come off would have a large and noticeable bald patch. The other held a chain and pendant of some kind, in what looked to be cheap, low grade silver.
"And this little angel was scratcher too, I got a lot of skin from under her nails" He told them "sent it over to Jane in DNA" he smiled at them both as Mac took the baggies.
"That's great Doc," Danny smiled, genuinely for the first time in what seemed like months "Go Lily go" he looked down at the child. Then he frowned. "One thing bother me though…the bruises on her body and face are from him holding her like this right?" he held the doll the same way Hawkes had. "Why would he need to hold her like this? What was he doing, was he moving her? What if he was tryna take her some where and…got spooked maybe…we should put out a request for anybody who saw any guy with a kid fitting Lily's description around the area where she was found…if nobody comes forward then I don't think this would have been accidental…you hold somebody like this" He squeezed his hand even harder over the dolls face, so that his knuckles turned white "you know you're gonna hurt em…this guys smart enough that he molests her with out leavin a single bruise, then he goes and kills her accidentally? I'm not doubting your genius Doc, but that don't sit with me. She was posed at the scene, under that light like that…I think this had some deeper meaning" Danny told them.
"But why hold her so awkwardly? Mac asked. He took the doll from Danny and laid it on an empty gurney. As he leaned over it he looked back at Lily's body. "Cover her face for me will ya Shel? She doesn't need to see this" he asked.
Hawkes pulled the sheet over Lily's face and joined Danny watching Mac with the doll.
"Okay, we're all agreed that she was molested right?" Mac looked up at them both.
"A beautiful little girl like that, your average paedophiles dream" Danny mused "I hate sayin it but she was molested, there's no doubt in my mind" he finished, Hawkes nodding in agreement.
"Okay, so chances are he took her somewhere with a bed right?" Mac held his hands out motioning to the gurney, as if to say 'this is the bed' "and we know she scratched him and got a hold of that hair and necklace" he stood over the doll "Why hold her so awkwardly? Why not just…" he put his hand over the dolls nose and mouth while it lay flat, pushing down "I mean if he intentionally killed her, why make it so difficult by holding her in that awkward way? The bruising seems to indicate accidental death , there would be no other reason for him to hold her that way" Mac looked to Danny for his response.
Danny thought about it. He licked his bottom lip, biting it, a habitual gesture which Mac recognised as a sign that Danny was concentrating, considering the information he'd been given.
Danny walked back over to Lily and raised the sheet to look at her face, her frowning, troubled face.
"What if…" he started to say. He looked back at her face, then moved to see bruise on her stomach and her broken foot.
"If she kicked him that hard that she shattered her own foot, it would have hurt him wouldn't it. He would have a bruise" Danny stated. "So if your holding your hand over some ones mouth, just to keep 'em quiet, and they kick you that hard, you're gonna let go…or at least loosen your grip, I mean this guys got enough smarts that he got a shy five year girl out of a gated, guarded play ground with out any single person seeing him, he must be smart enough to know when he's suffocating a kid who's struggling against him. Why didn't he let go when she kicked him, why if it was an accident and he went through all that trouble to get her, why not try to resuscitate her? Doc did you find any signs that some one attempted CPR, cracked ribs, bruised chest?"
The M.E shook his head. Danny continued " So why would he leave her…and look at her face, she looks like she fell asleep watching a sad movie or somethin'" he paused "…she saw something. He was showing her somethin', that's why he held her so awkwardly" he picked up the doll, holding it in that first position. He held it close against his body, so that the his mouth was near the dolls ear "Check this out, I'm the perp, I've violated her, now I'm holding her…I'm showing her something bad, something that upsets her, and while she's watching it, she's dying…whatever I'm making her watch, it's the last thing she'll ever see. And I can talk to her like this, tell her… 'you'll never see your mommy again, you're goin straight to hell, I'm killing you and you cant stop me…'" he had lowered his voice to a creepy, low rasp, hunched his back over, twisted his face into a sneer " he probably gets half his thrill from killin' her like this. Not to mention, with him this close, she reaches back grabs that chain, that handful of hair, then as she dies, death grip sets in, or maybe he didn't even notice, maybe he got an adrenalin rush from killin her and didn't know she'd damn near scalped him" he explained, standing up straight and sitting the doll on the edge of the gurney.
"Someone pulls out that much of you hair, you notice" Sheldon frowned dubiously.
"Not if you got enough adrenalin pumpin" Danny told him "when I was running away from Vince and his brick wall of a buddy at those docks six weeks ago, I didn't always feel the pain, it was only when I actually stopped, when Mac and everybody got there and took Vince out and I knew I didn't need to run any more, that was when I started really hurtin" Danny held up his splinted wrist briefly.
"Yeah…" Sheldon started to agree, but still sounded uncertain.
"Look its up to you guys what you think happened, I just don't believe a guy smart enough to get this girl out of that park, could be stupid enough to accidentally smother her just cos he panicked" Danny looked around at them both.
Mac nodded "It's a pretty sound argument" he admitted "it makes a lot of sense when you lay it out like that"
Sheldon nodded "I gotta admit, the accident thing didn't feel right to me when I was thinking about it" he said. "Okay so it was intentional…what now?"
"Now you go back over all the cases you've had involving little girls like Lily and see if any of em have the same bruise pattern and M.O, this isn't this guys first time" Mac said.
Hawkes nodded slowly "I keep kids files separate from everybody else's, I'll go through em now and have any I find sent up to you.
Mac and Danny thanked him and left, taking the reconstruction doll with them. They went to one of the layout rooms and found Stella scouring Lily's dress almost manically while Aiden ran the names of the 1500 people who owned the cars with tires that matched the treads found in the lot through the computer, hoping for a hit, maybe a registered sex offender.
"What's up with Stell?" Mac asked as Danny set the doll down on the desk.
"Those hairs that Danny picked up at the scene, and the ones Stella got off've the dress before? They're fake, come of some generic brand wig!" Aiden explained. "We where hopin to get a big fat DNA hit but now, nadda" she told them.
"Well guess how amazing Lily was? She got a handful of the fuckers natural hair, a shit load of his skin under her nails, and his necklace!" Danny told her.
Stella looked up at the baggie of hair. "Lily got that?" she asked, glancing at the doll.
"Yeah, so not only will this guy be scratched up, he'll have big ole bald patch too" Danny replied, feeling better than he had for days. They finally had some concrete evidence, something that could connect Lily to the killer.
He explained to them his theory about how Lily had been killed, using the doll again, and the nodded in agreement.
"Definitely, her body was posed" Aiden stated as Nicole, Mike and Flack walked in.
Danny ran through his theory again for their sake and watched them while they considered it.
"Well what ever her was showing her, probably wasn't in that lot…unless somebody was leaving and he was trying to show that no one was helping her?" Nicole suggested as Mac took the hair samples to the DNA lab.
"Could be…or it could be he killed her somewhere else and leaving her where she was held some kind of…ritual significance, if that's the right word" Mike mused.
"So we need to check out the building above the lot then" Danny said "maybe try to get DNA samples off've people workin there… even just a history of the building…I know that its only four or five years old, but I cant remember what was there before…but where he left he was real specific, I bet you're right, she wasn't just posed, this M.O and that lot, there's definitely a deeper meanin that we're not seein'" he began plucking at one of the Velcro straps on his wrist splint, peeling it back then smoothing it down, over and over again until Nicole leaned over and placed one hand over his.
"Stop it, now" she said with a friendly smile.
"Sorry" Danny said simply, meeting Nicole's eyes and grinning that disarmingly bright, flirtatious grin of his.
She drew back, sitting back on the stool she had gravitated to as soon as she walked into the lab and glanced at Danny, who was rubbing his eyes under his glasses.
As she turned to ask Flack a question, she and everybody else missed Danny looking her way with a half smile, as he rubbed the back of his hand where she had touched him.
"Don, what time did we tell the parents to bring the children in?" Nicole asked.
"Now, give or take…we'll all get beeped when they start arriving" he told her, and as if it had been choreographed all six beepers chirped to life at once, seven including Mac who had just stepped in to the room.
They all headed for the lounge where the families waited nervously. Tia and Murphy stood near them, talking quietly to one another. Danny stood by the two uniforms a Don and Mac explained why they where there.
"Hey little brother, how's the case goin" Tia asked Danny quietly, dipping her head so that she could talk to him with out being noticed.
Tia was 6 feet 8 inches tall, a solid foot taller than Danny, and as black as pitch but some how, if she didn't want to be seen you could be damn sure she wouldn't be seen.
Murphy, Tia's six feet six inch partner moved around to Danny's left ,so that they flanked him, both towering over the blonde haired CSI.
"Well it looks like Lily kicked this S.O.B's ass" he told them "She had kin under her nails, hair in her hands, and she even got a hold o his necklace" he said.
"Good for her" Tia nodded, and Murphy agreed.
"So what's the situation here?" he asked, motioning to the large group of people who where still listening to Mac.
" We cant figure out how the guy got her out of the park…he might have drugged her, but we want to ask the kids who where there that day if they remember seeing anything unusual, any one they didn't recognise" he explained. "We already know he was wearing a wig, so we want to see if anyone remembers a guy with brown hair hanging around Lily"
"That's not gonna be easy" Tia said doubtfully.
"I know, but it's worth a shot…you'd be surprised the thing a kid can remember if you ask them the right questions" he told her.
Mac waved him back over and Danny low fived Tia as he walked to where Mac stood. "This is Danny Messer" Mac told the group, "That's Stella Bonasera, Aiden Burns" he pointed the detectives out s he spoke their names "That's Nicole De Rossi, Mike Keenan and Don Flack, as I've said, I'm Mac Taylor. We're going to break you guys up and talk to you all individually. I realise a lot of you have other places you need to be, so we'll make this as quick as possible, I also know you all want to help us find who did this to Lily. If all of the parents will fill out and sign this form, we can get started" he passed out the stacks of forms to the families.
As the parents filled out the forms, the seven detectives scanned the group. The children's ages ranged from three to at least eight or nine. The younger kids stayed close to their parents, obviously nervous in the dimly lit building. The older children where more confident, spreading further from their parents to try and explore. There was no prominent racial group amongst the families, and there was a definite familiarity between all of them. Near the very back of the group, the few nannies and babysitters sat huddled together, Christine amongst them looking drawn and faint. An African American woman sat next to her, one arm wrapped around Christine's shoulders, hugging her close.
Danny walked over to her, crouching in font of her as she looked at him.
"Hi" she whispered, her voice faint and hoarse. It was obvious she had been crying.
"How you doin'? he asked her quietly.
She shook her head. "I can't believe it. I keep thinking your boss is gonna stand up and say 'we found her' and just bring her out and she'll be fine and I can take her back to her mom" her voice was worryingly empty.
"Will all you be able to give statements?" Danny looked around at the other babysitters and nannies.
They nodded, huddling together as if they where afraid of something.
"Is something the matter?" Danny asked, standing.
"We're just a little nervous…something like this happens, it's us who are the first suspects. And then parents start wonderin' about whether or not they feel comfortable leavin' their kids with a nanny. We just feel…a little exposed" one of the women, a stocky, black haired woman said quietly to Danny, stepping away from Christine as she spoke, as if to spare the other woman's feelings.
"Any of you lost your jobs since Lily vanished?" Danny frowned.
"No, but some of us will" The woman told him.
"You sound like you know from experience?" Danny asked.
"I've been a nanny for fifteen years. Four years into a job a while back, a little boy disappeared from out side of school when his nanny was supposed to be pickin him up. The nanny in question, one time in her whole life, her slightly undesirable boyfriend turned up at her work and broke up with her on the step, said something about the kid in her care, about her caring more for the kid than for their relationship…the kid turns up an hour after they reported him missing, he had gone home with a class mate! The family still fired her. She couldn't get hired anywhere after that, not one family in the whole of New York wanted to hire her, even though nothing had even really happened" she shook her head "Can I smoke in here?" she asked.
"'Fraid not" Danny told her "But if you promise not to run away you can go outside for one-its gonna be a while before we get around to you guys, we want to talk to the kids as soon as possible"
"It can wait, I'll enjoy it more if I do" she shrugged and went back to sit with the other nannies.
Danny went back to stand at the front while Mac told him and the other detectives how to break up the groups. They each took a copy of the list of families they would be talking to and each called out the first name on the list. The relevant families came forward and the detectives led them to the interview rooms.
Okay, wow, this is longer than I thought it would be, I just got really into it.
I'm posting this now and I'll post the next bit as soon as I get it done, which wont be too far away because I'm really enjoying writing this. I know this is a lot slower paced than the original Ice in My Veins but I feel it's appropriate given the content. The next chapter will be faster paced. I haven't really done a lot of follow up from the end of 'Ice'. I had a lot of idea's, mostly set in the hospital while Danny recovered but as I said, I felt compelled to write this.
I plan to do some follow up for Danny's recovery in the next chapter but I'm not one to linger, I like to keep the story moving. If you really want follow up let me know, and I'll see if I can fit a flashback or something in!
Read and Review, love and hugs Noodles.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx