1Can I Lose My Mind Now?

Chapter 20. Arielle tells Flack her news, and with the worst possible timing. Thanks for the reviews, and R&R this one as usual.

"Can you believe this?" Arielle asked Aiden in the lab. "Danny's late. He's never late."

"I know. Sometimes I think he lives in the lab." Aiden looked up from her work and acknowledged her comment. "And he hasn't called you?"

"No. He could just have taken a day off. Lord knows he needs it," Arielle replied.

"Don't I know that."

Mac came in. "Danny's not here?" he asked.

Aiden and Arielle looked at each other. "Didn't you... know?" Aiden replied.

"No."

"We thought he took a day off." Arielle looked at him in question, and Mac stared just as blankly back.

"I don't know. I'll check." He left, and Arielle pulled out her cell phone.

"This is scaring me. Danny doesn't do this." She looked for his number and pressed SEND. The phone rang and rang. She hung up and tried again. No answer. "Weird. He's not answering. And he always answers his phone."

"That's not Danny. You don't think something's wrong, do you? Like something might have come up and he got caught up and forgot to tell anyone?"

"That's not Danny either."

Aiden saw the worried look on her colleague's face and started to look worried herself. She had been working with Danny for the longest time, and she knew him better than nearly everyone else. "Don't worry," she said nonetheless. "He'll be here. He'll be late, but he'll be here. Work is his life, and it's involving the Tanglewood Boys. He's got to hang tough."

"I hope so..." she trailed off, and went back to work.

She found Flack later, reading some files and going over another case. "Hey," she said.

"Hey," he replied, looking up. Okay, he seemed happy enough to see her.

"Um... I have something to tell you." She braced for his reaction.

"Okay, go ahead."

"I... I found out from my doctor that those tests I had run were switched with someone else's. I... I can actually have children." She took a breath and waited for a response.

"You're... that's... great, Arielle!" He sounded genuinely happy. "I'm... so happy for you."

She was confused. For me? She thought. "Um... for me?"

"Yeah. You'll make a beautiful family someday."

"Thanks... thank you, Don." She smiled, and continued, "See you later."

I can't believe he said that. He took me seriously. He thinks I don't want him anymore. I must have hurt him.

Those were the thoughts swarming in her head as she worked. She knew she should have been focusing, but she wasn't. She was too hurt to focus.

"Are you okay?" Aiden asked her, and she nodded, noticing she was a second away from ruining the evidence she was working on. "I got something. Alec Vetra's skin was underneath the vic's nails, the scratches on his arms. And his sperm was on the bedspread, so... that shows evidence that he raped her. But there's no evidence as of yet that he killed her."

"How's that possible?" she asked. "Do you think he might have gotten someone else to actually kill her?"

"I don't know."

This case was just getting more confusing and more unreal...

The next morning, she got another phone call.

"Williamson."

"You're NYPD, right?"

"Yes... and this is..."

"Listen. Stop working on this case. Right now."

"Who is this?" she asked, puzzled.

"Stop working on it. Leave the damn case alone. If you don't..."

"Who is this? I want to know who this is, right now."

"We're Tanglewood. We got nothing to do with whoever killed that girl."

"I don't believe you-"

"If you don't freeze this case, you're going to lose something very valuable."

Her blood ran cold. Danny. He hadn't been to the lab in almost two days. They had him.

"We're going to kill him," the voice said in her ear. "Freeze this case, or we'll kill him. And you'll hear it all. You'll regret it if you don't listen. And... no cops. Or it'll be worse."

She swayed on the spot, and nearly fell. Chad caught her, saying, "Whoa, what's wrong?" The phone fell on the floor, just the tone sounding.