Ch. 4

" I started with the pants, at the cuffs, and worked my way up," Lindsay was saying as she laid out each article of clothing on the stainless steel table. There was a pair of stained and dirt-caked jeans, a white T-shirt, a plaid button shirt, a jean jacket, and a heavy black coat, plus socks and a pair of brand-new Nikes that looked pricey.

Lindsay looked over at Danny and gave him a brief smile. " It took me three hours just to get to the knee. This guy apparently got around before he died."

Danny moved in front of the T-shirt. " Yeah, or was dragged around as part of his beating." The T-shirt was as bad off as the jeans, peppered with dirt, blood, and who knew what else. In fact not a single scrap of the man's clothes was dirt-free. It was a practical buffet of evidence spread out on the table. By picking it apart, they would be able to determine just where the man had been before he died.

After laying out the clothes, Lindsay next set out the tools for processing – tweezers, small scissors, plastic bags, tape, and so on. Danny looked at each tool as though he were about to perform delicate surgery.

How the hell am I supposed to do this? Glad as he was to be back in the lab, his time spent away made him feel like a stranger – or a rookie. He knew what it was he was supposed to be doing, he just didn't know how to do it with one arm.

He started off simple by studying the shirt mottled with flecks of a substance too dark to be blood or dirt. Leaning in closer, he picked up a faint odor both unpleasant and vaguely familiar.

" Were these clothes always reeking?" he asked. Lindsay, snipping a small square from the jeans, nodded.

" Yeah." She turned her head to look at him. " Body oder, right?"

Danny leaned in closer to the shirt and sniffed. " There's that." He moved to the coat and lifted the sleeve toward his face. " It's different here though. Not B.O. but just as nasty."

Curiosity plain as a flashlight in the dark on her face, Lindsay stepped over by Danny and leaned in as well. " Kind of the same smell the pants have too. I'm still waiting for results on the stuff I took from the jeans yesterday."

Danny flipped the coat over to the back and the large, grease-like stain spread from shoulders to hem. He sniffed at it and grimaced in disgust.

" Smells kind of like fish. But... I don't know, there's something else. I can't smell it because the other scent's too strong."

Lindsay grabbed the scissors and began cutting a small square of stained fabric from the coat as Danny held it down with his one hand. She dropped the fabric into a sack, labeled it with a pen, then set it aside.

" So where's the rest of the gang?" Danny asked, reaching out to pick up one of the shoes. " Any new cases with them?" The tracks were packed with dirt. He held the shoe while Lindsay scraped the dirt with a scalpel into a plastic baggy.

" Well, Sheldon just finished up that case you and Stella started. You know, the one with that kid who was shot? The one..." She looked at him apologetically, twitching a nervous smile. " Well, um, you know the one."

Danny nodded in understanding. " I know the one. Hawkes filled me in on some of the progress when he visited. It was the kid's own brother, right? Not gangs or racists?"

Lindsay nodded sadly. " Yeah. The older brother had schizophrenia, and the younger brother was just trying to take care of him. I guess they didn't have the money for medication when the older brother went off and attacked the younger brother. Took the cops forever to find the guy. He'd been about to hang himself in some hotel room because of what he did."

" That's freakin' harsh," Danny said.

" Yeah, that's what I said. Well, not exactly in those words. Something like it though. Anyways, since there aren't any immediate cases I think Mac's having Sheldon look into your case for anything new..."

Danny's head shot up in alarm. " Mine?"

Lindsay closed up the baggy and set it with the others, then looked at Danny. " Yeah, your hit and run."

Danny relaxed though he had not realized he'd tensed up. He had registered Lindsay's words wrong. A bad sign since it indicated a lack of proper concentration.

" It's still open?" he casually asked. Lindsay gave him an odd look.

" Of course. As long as there aren't any immediate cases, Mac likes to have one of us look into it, see if we can't find something new. Stella was on it hard for a long time until she hit a dead end. She kept at it, then this Gerrard case came along and Mac made her stop." Lindsay went back to picking apart the jeans and its abstract patchwork of grime.

Danny was taken back, shocked, and made uncomfortable by a sudden onrush of guilt. Stella tearing into a hit and run like it was a murder, Mac managing to keep the case open... it wasn't that long ago that Danny had asked why no one had had his back. Yeah, he'd been scared at the time, but it had been a stupid thought, a mindless attitude to take.

Of course they had his back. But he didn't deserve it.

" You okay, Danny?" Lindsay asked. Danny flicked his eyes in her direction, breaking from his reverie.

" Yeah, great. Did they find anything? I mean did Stella find out anything?"

Lindsay pursed her lips in another expression of apology. " Not yet. Seems there wasn't much to go on."

Danny turned back to the coat. " I pretty much guessed that."

" Didn't Stella tell you this already?" Lindsay asked. " I thought she was keeping you informed?"

Danny shrugged. " Kind of hard to stay informed when you're too sick to know what day it is. That and I didn't really think to ask. To tell you the truth, the moment that car hit me was the moment I stopped thinking 'hey, a car just hit me, I hope we catch the bastard who was drivin' it'. It didn't really matter at the time. It still doesn't."

Lindsay sighed, shaking her head as she flipped the jeans over to pick at the other side. " Messer, you are a hard man to peg. I thought for sure that once you came back you'd be breathing down everyone's neck about who the guy was that hit you."

Danny took the tweezers to pick up what looked to be a hair from the coat. " It doesn't matter anymore," he mumbled without realizing it.

" What?"

Danny shook his head. " Nothin'."

CSINY

Danny wasn't feeling too hungry, but went for lunch all the same to placate Mac and be allowed to stay. He had forgotten to bring anything sack-lunch wise, so headed for the nearest food joint just a block up the street. It was a pizza place, not exactly an appealing choice when all Danny wanted was something small. But they had pasta dishes, so Danny went for a spaghetti and meatball with a bread stick. He doubted he would eat it all, yet even half eaten it would make a better meal than anything he could get from the vending machines.

The pizza place was small, with only four booths, but comfortably warm. There was a small crowd, but people seemed to take notice of Danny's bound arm and avoided bumping into him. He wasn't looking forward at having to head back out into the knife-sharp cold that was even worse than it had been this morning. After the girl behind the counter handed him his order, he turned, taking a deep breath to steel himself against the cold.

Danny stepped outside and winced when a breeze bit his face. He joined a small throng waiting to cross the street, and stiffened when the light changed for them to go. Crossing the street was even more of a challenge than getting near it while still on the curb. He kept his head down, walking fast, and did not look up again until he was on the other side. When he did look up, he nearly dropped his sack of food.

A man was leaning nonchalantly against the post supporting the streetlights. He was taller by several inches than Danny, with a heavier build and a slightly thick neck indicative of someone who was mostly hard muscle and little fat. His dark hair was combed back but with strands of it falling loose and framing his forehead. He was wearing a dark gray Armani coat buttoned up to his neck, and a gray scarf. His hands were in his pockets, maybe holding something, maybe hiding something, but it was not why Danny stopped and retensed.

Danny knew the guy and his self-assured, lop-sided grin that seemed forever plastered to his face. The heat of anger shot up Danny's spine to go raging through his brain, but all he could do was stand there and stare bullets at the man whose stance oozed indifference.

Finally, Danny snapped himself from his infuriated stupor and stalked straight up to the man. " What the hell do you want, Jack? Huh? What, you come here to make sure my dad keeps his end of the deal?"

Danny was standing inches from Jack, a dangerous spot if Jack was holding a gun. He could easily grab Danny by the collar, pull him forward, and shoot with the sound being muffled by their coats. But Danny knew good and well that it was not Jack's intention to shoot anyone.

Jack's grin broadened. " Didn't think you'd recognize me, Messer. What's it been, ten years? You were going to college..."

" Quinn!" Danny snapped. " I asked you a question. Quit jerkin' me and answer it!"

Jack pulled his black-gloved hands from his pockets and held them up as though showing Danny that he wasn't armed.

" Whoa! Easy there, Messer. I just want to talk, that's all. Catch up on a few things... How've you been, Danny?" Jack lightly flicked Danny's sling. " Not good, huh? How'd that happen? Bullet, bad take down, or did you just slip in someone's blood?"

" You tell me?" Danny shot back. " It just might be your handy work."

Jack's lips turned down in a thoughtful frown, then the smirk returned. " Can't say. Probably not."

Danny narrowed his eyes furiously. " Probably not! You messin' with me, Jack? Look, you got what you wanted. My dad's backing off. You really want to rock that boat right now? You plannin' something you might regret?"

Jack shook his head, sucking his teeth. " When did you get to be such a freakin' paranoid, Danny? You really think that's why I'm here, to start somethin'. You hurt me, Danny." Jack lowered his tone. " Your really hurt me."

Danny studied Jack over, but the smirk was distracting him. The man was so much like a snake – not in the cliché terms of being slimy and a creep, though Danny would never dispute the creep part. With Jack it was more along the lines of him being cold-blooded, methodical, and difficult to read. As a kid, Danny had had a pet snake, a corn snake, and as far as snakes went, it had made a good pet. It had never bitten Danny or got out of its cage. But there had been times when it had made Danny hesitate about picking it up and handling it. Sometimes, it would be laying there, then jerk back as though about to strike. Other times, it would already be in the position to strike. As long as Danny had kept it fed, it had never attacked him, but even up to its death Danny had never fully trusted that snake.

Jack was more like the snakes found in the wild. Just approaching him as Danny had done was a danger in itself. Danny had learned that the hard way in the past, and even though they weren't kids anymore Danny's heart started hammering away out of lingering, habitual fear.

" Danny," Jack went on to say, " this is just a casual encounter since your pop and my pop are, once again, having to do business with eachother. Now, you've been around, know how we play things, and you're right, there's no need for hostilities. I'm just checkin' up, makein' sure your old man brought you up to speed on the situation. Not like it's a big deal or anything, what with your dad playin' by the rules and all. Plus, you know, we're playin' by the rules too. The thing is Danny – and this you need to keep in mind – people tend to get a little too comfortable when nothin' goes down. They think ' hey, it's cool, no bad's happened, I'm off the hook' right? Wrong, they're not. So, yeah, sometimes reminders are needed. That's why I'm here, as a reminder, nothin' more than that." Jack then winked. "You tell your dad, and he'll get the message. Cool?"

Danny's jaw tensed to the point that his teeth hurt, as did opening his mouth to speak. " Stay the hell away from me and my dad, then we'll be cool."

He made to brush past Jack, but Jack's hand shot out, grabbing Danny by the bicep of his injured arm. The sudden pull sent a white-hot flash of pain ripping through Danny's shoulder and down the right side of his ribcage. He dropped his sack, doubled over with a hissing intake of air, and grabbed Jack's wrist to try and yank it off. Jack's grip was firm as iron.

" It ain't that easy, Danny, you know that," Jack breathed in a low, dangerous undertone. He released Danny, and gave him a light pat in the middle of his back. " You need to get a little more meat on your bones, Messer. You're gettin' kind of sparse."

Danny straightened as much as he could, closing his eyes against the lingering throb in his arm. " Screw you."

Jack chuckled in good-humor. He then picked up the sack with the pasta and placed it back in Danny's hand. " See ya around, Messer. Say hi to your dad for me."

With that said, Jack sauntered off to be swallowed up in the crowds returning from lunch. Danny straightened more, wrapping his good arm still holding his sack around his side. There was still a slight twinge, but nothing he hadn't gotten used to.

He had more important matters to worry about. Quinn never made empty threats, or outright threats to begin with. With Jack, it started with innuendos, then ended with the bad.

" Bastard," Danny growled, and hurried back to headquarters, his appetite lost.