"Chelsea!" the young woman opened the door, her face a mask of hope and fear intertmingled, her eyes wide, shiny with unshed tears.
She looked like the victim, but with a slight tan, and light brown hair. She still wore her pyjamas from the night before, a simple t-shirt and sweat pants ensemble, and had scraped her hair back into a ponytail that left her attractive face clear and open. She was tall and curvaceous like the vic, with that same, athleticism to her body, as if she worked out, looked after herself. She looked a little older than the victim, around 25.
She saw Danny, her eyes flicking from his eyes to the badge on his hip, back to his grim face. The minute spark of hope in her eyes dimmed and died and she took a step back away from the door, shaking her head slowly.
"Please…" she whispered as the tears began to fall from her eyes, rolling down her cheeks. Her lower lip was quivering as she feebly motioned for Danny and his partner to come in.
Detective Nox Miles was taller than Danny, a little over 6 feet, lean but muscular. He had black hair, pale skin and black eyes and wore all black, at all times. Today's variation was jeans, boots and a long sleeves t-shirt under a black jacket. He had transferred from Boston two months before Flack had gotten hurt, wanting a change of scenery after a near fatal encounter with a suspect. He still carried a scar from that encounter, a long curling line of slightly whiter skin that started on his back, travelling up, over the collar of his shirt, looping around toward his throat before slashing back suddenly and disappearing under his hair.
No one in the NYPD was entirely sure what the story behind the scar was. He had been working with the CSI's, in Flacks place, for a little over a month.
He was a good cop, Danny had grudgingly admitted to himself, and he understood the CSI's history with Flack, how badly they had been affected by what had happened to him. He had even taken the time, Danny had been told, to visit Flack in hospital when Flack was awake, asking the other detective if he was okay with Nox taking his place until Flack could come back to work.
They walked into the small apartment, following the young woman to the tiny kitchen.
She sat down heavily at the table.
"Ma'am…you called to report your sister missing?" Nox sat opposite the young woman at the tiny table.
Nicole Harper nodded silently, like a child reluctant to talk to an adult.
"Could you tell us, is this woman your sister?" Nox took a Polaroid picture of the girl from the green house from his pocket, laying it on the table in front of Nicole.
She reached out, her hand shaking and picked up the photograph.
With a wrenching sob she lay the picture down, covering her mouth with one hand. Danny walked further into the kitchen and picked up one of a handful of glasses from the draining board, running her a glass of water.
He set it down beside and she grabbed it but didn't sip, simply holding it in her hand as if that was enough.
Nicole had called only a half hour before, giving a detailed description of her sister, explaining that she had gone out and never come home. The a case wouldn't not have been linked to Danny's case had Chelsea, the victim, not had the distinctive hair and tattoo's that she did.
Nox and Danny gave Nicole a few minutes to cry, standing quietly by as she touched the photo again, stroking the image of her sisters face.
"What happened to her?" She finally asked, whispering to keep her voice in control.
"That's what we're going to find out" Nox said "Can you tell us anything about her movements last night, where she might have been…we are aware she was out at around 3am…was that normal for her?" his accent came straight out of South Boston.
Nicole took a breath, and it was actually possible to read, in her face, the way she set her shoulders, that she knew she had to compose herself, understood that she had to be calm to help her sister.
"Um…she goes out all night…she doesn't sleep that well, since she was little, she would take sleeping pills when she wanted to get some real sleep" Nicole started to say.
Out of the corner of his eye, Nox noticed that Danny had looked up when Nicole mentioned Chelsea's trouble sleeping.
Nicole had closed her eyes as she continued "She was used to getting by on not a lot of rest, she did most of her work at night, she was uh, a proof reader for some publishing company, a little one…she would usually be done by midnight though…uh…for about three or four months she had been going out…I didn't know where at first, she would go out when she was done with her work, stay out for hours…she was always, always back by 7am though"
"Why 7am?" Nox asked her.
"I get up for work at 7am…she always made sure to be back as I was getting up, so I would know she was okay" she said and had to fight not to break down again "Chelsea was into the Goth lifestyle, you know? With lots of black and all the pierrcings and tattoos" Nicole shook her head "I think she used to go clubs, Goth clubs but I don't know where…I'm sure she met people though, friends" She continued.
"How do you know?" Nox asked.
"Well for starters, she wasn't stupid enough to go out on her own" Nicole said pointedly "And sometimes she would seem to be planning on staying in and she would get an email and suddenly be going out…I never knew who she was meeting…we had different friends, she was nice to mine but didn't like them, they didn't like her and just ignored her…I stopped letting them come over if they wouldn't treat her right…I never even knew her friends when we where at school" she shook her head "Is that right? Is it okay that I was her sister and I loved her and we spent time together but…but we led totally separate lives outside?" she looked up at them both with tears in her eyes, seeming to be seeking some sort of comfort.
"Miss, I have a brother with a criminal record" Danny said quietly with a sad, sympathetic smile "There's nothing wrong with you and your sister being different" he assured her.
She nodded slowly "Last night" she said it firmly, as if forcing her self to get back on track "She left at about one, one thirty, os I guess it was this morning…I remember because I was half dozing watching a film and I heard the door close and checked the clock…there wasn't anything unusual about it" she shook her head.
Nox, noting everything the girl said in a note book he had taken from his pocket, underlined the last about 'nothing unusual' "Had there been any indication lately that something might be wrong? Did she seem concerned that she was being…followed or watched?" he asked
"She…she seemed sort of weirded out a few months back…I only remember because she seemed to be like, drunk, but she's not a drinker" she frowned slightly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear "She was worried but wouldn't say what about…then the last few months, she seemed to be sleeping a little better…I asked her what was behind it, if she was taking her sleeping pills but she said no, she said she'd found some sort of therapist but, wouldn't talk about him, just that she only met him at night, which…seemed odd to me…why meet an insomnia therapist in the early ours of the morning?" she looked up at them both, her blue eyes seeming almost too bright behind more unshed tears.
"Have there been any other incidents when Chelsea seemed drunk? If she's not a drinker it could indicate some one gave her something" Nox explained.
"There where a few times yeah…nothing as bad as that first time, and she didn't seem as freaked out but, she did seem a little out of it when she would come back in the mornings" Nicole sipped her water.
"Did she sleep those times?" Danny asked.
"How do you mean?" Nicole frowned.
"The times when Chelsea seemed…drunk…did she sleep that day or that night?" Danny had an edge in his voice, not cruel or aggressive, more like he had thought of something important.
"Yeah…the first time she slept all day, she went out at night but slept all day till nine pm…usually, if she does sleep she'll get a couple hours between when she comes in at seven and when she goes to work at one, but that day she came in, she had her…her bug out and I told her to lay down and she let me put her to bed and she just conked out…I called her work and told them she was sick, even got myself the day off to take care of her…I guess I figured she had been drinking, or had taken something…I woke her a couple times in the day, just to be sure I could, and she seemed fine, sleepy but fine, she woke up and could tell me her name, the president, where we were" she shrugged "like I said, I guessed she'd gotten drunk for the first time…that night she was totally fine, we had dinner, she went out at midnight…apart from the drunkenness and the sleep, it was typical Chelsea, she would go out if her legs where broken" she gave a sad smile and laugh that died even before they began.
"Did Chelsea have any boyfriends or girlfriends? Any one she might have been very close too?" Nox asked the question as blankly as he could, not wanting to send the message that Chelsea may have been raped.
Nicole shook her head, her eyes fixed on a spot on the floor "Like I said, I didn't know her friends" she said, tears beginning to flow down her cheeks again.
"Would it be okay if we uh…if we had a look around Chelsea's bedroom? To see of there's any clue about where she was going at night?"
"Of course…I need to call our parents" she whispered.
"Ma'am if you'd like we can make that call for you" Nox told her.
"No…I should do it, they need to hear it from me" Nicole shook her head but her eyes where grateful "Her room is at the end, on the left" She pointed down a short corridor leading off from the den area.
Danny and Nox walked down the corridor, entering Chelsea's bedroom. Some what unexpectedly, the walls where not black. Chelsea had painted her walls a deep red. There where dozens of posters, art works, mostly for bands, only half of which Danny could recognise, almost all heavy, heavy metal, the types of groups who dressed up as zombies on stage and where sometimes banned from performing in certain states. The posters where all framed in neat, black frames, and arranged aesthetically. She had black curtains, a black desk and chair, computer, bed sheets. But the red walls made the decoration seem more artistic. Her bed was pushed against the window, arranged so Chelsea could sit on it with her back to the walls as well, almost like having a couch in her room. Her shelves and small cupboard where neat, clean, but not quite as obsessively as Danny's.
"Some how I figured she'd be messier" Nox shrugged.
"When you don't sleep you find ways to spend your time…tidying your room is one way to do it…but you can tell she hasn't been in here as much, its tidy but it isn't like…insanely tidy" Danny had donned rubber gloves and pointed out the small pile of laundry in a basket beside the door, the pile of papers on the end of her desk, clearly having been simply set down rather than arranged.
Nox gave Danny a look, but didn't say anything.
Danny walked further into the room. "Where you gonna start?" Nox asked, his accent turning 'start' into 'staht'.
"The bed, to check if she did have any one close" Danny said, not wasting any words.
Nox slipped on his own pair of gloves and moved to the desk as Danny carefully went over the top of Chelsea's bed with a UV light, before moving the sheets back to check beneath. He didn't find anything, so moved over to her desk, helping Nox go through the papers there.
"Looks like stuff from her publishers" Nox indicated several sheets that where obviously part of a bigger story "Some notes she's made on the stuff she reads…nothing significant really" she shrugged.
"She got emails right?" Danny asked.
Nox nodded and turned on the computer, waiting while it loaded up. When it had, they connected to the internet. "She's got her messenger account set to automatically log her in, so no password" Nox gave a nod "Lucky for us"
He looked at Danny, expecting an answer of some kind but Danny just tapped the keys, accessing Chelsea's email in box and reading the screen.
"Got emails from some one called LibNoc" he clicked on the most recent one "Looks like she was on a mailing list with a bunch of people, who…she met up with last night 'Two am, the den near GC, Guide will be there'" he read aloud quietly.
"Hm" Nox frowned "GC…Grand Central" he stated.
"I was about to suggest that…there's a few all night bars near Grand Central this could mean…or diners…we need more information I think" he scrolled through more of the emails, noting down the other email addresses in the group.
Nox put in a call to the lab, explaining that a computer tech would need to head to the apartment and gather up Chelsea's computer for a complete analysis of her files to see if there was anything else on there, while Danny, Mac and himself worked the immediately accessible evidence.
"Another on at GC…wait, this one gives some directions, says a new member joined so here's the directions from some where near the park…I guess they where expected to walk" he shrugged.
"Why?" Nox frowned again as he shut off his cell phone.
"Some people like the thought of walking around in the middle of the night…kinda makes you feel like you're the only person left" Danny muttered, not seeming to realise he had spoken.
Again, Nox gave him a thoughtful look, but said nothing "So could we follow these to this… 'den'" he asked.
"Probably" Danny nodded.
"Anything else in this room seem…I don't know, like something we should be lookin at?" Nox asked.
"Nothin jumps out" Danny shrugged.
Nox scanned the room again, looking for anything that seemed like it might hold some clue or hint about where Chelsea had been going, what she might have been doing.
Danny was right. The room was nothing more or less than a young woman's bedroom.
"I don't like being in a vics room after their dead…seems like an unnecessary invasion" Nox shrugged.
"Our whole job is about invading peoples privacy, even if it is for a good cause" Danny seemed to agree "It's worse when it's some one you know" he walked across the room to a pin board covered in photo's, leaning closer to them.
Nox was nodding "I cant deny that…had a case back home where one of our techs was killed in his hallway, right outside the door, turned out to just be some stupid drunken fight that escalated…but we had to search his place…he had pictures of us, other techs…it felt wrong bein in there" he pressed his lips together angrily.
"Like you're betrayin em some how…like by being in there you're proving that you couldn't protect em from the bad things" Danny, again, didn't seem to realise he was talking.
Nox let it slide as Danny pulled one small photo down from the clip board "The little one" he stated "This is the other girl I saw last night" he passed the small photo to Nox.
It was black and white, showing the girl Danny had already described in what looked like a subway car, her face mildly surprised as if she hadn't realised she was being photographed.
"Could you tell what train that was, what route?" Nox pointed to the slightly blurred image behind the girl. She was standing in the otherwise car, leaning against the pole, and the map and route label where on the wall behind her.
"Maybe" Danny gave a half shrug "I'll let a tech take a look" he lipped the photo into his kit, along with the list of email addresses.
"I'm thinking we should find 'the den'" Nox nodded to himself.
"I'm thinking you're right" Danny agreed.
They waited for the computer tech who worked quickly and quietly to take the computer away.
Nicole watched them, her face pale, her eyes a little wide, a little too bright.
"When will your parents arrive?" Nox asked her gently.
"Tomorrow" she said, her voice hollow.
"Is there any where you can go until then?" Nox dipped his head and met her eye, forcing her to look at him "Just so you're not alone"
"Uh…my friend Allie, she's gonna pick me up any minute" Nicole nodded to a haphazardly packed overnight bag.
"Good…this is my cell, call if you remember anything you think could be important, or just of you need to talk" Nox handed her a business card, giving her a sad smile "We're so sorry for your loss" he finished as a red haired young woman knocked on the open door.
Nicole saw her and began sobbing as the girl rushed passed Danny and Nox and grabbed her, pulling her into a hug.
"I'm Allie Sims" the woman told Nox "Nicole's staying with me tonight" she seemed almost angry at the cops.
They took her number and left the apartment, telling the tech to explain where they where going to Mac.
As they drove toward Grand Central station, Nox, who drove, coughed as if clearing his throat "So you uh…you get a lot of sleep Messer?" he asked.
Danny, staring out of the window with eyes that where seeing anything but the rain soaked streets they travelled barely reacted to the question.
Nox continued "Cos you look like shit, no offence, and you saw these girls at three am, you seemed to know a lot about insomnia…everything okay with you?"
"Fine" Danny muttered, the response automatic.
"Is it cos of your brother and your friends?" Nox asked bluntly.
Danny blinked and turned to glare at Nox "I don't think you can ask that" he said, his voice flat.
"Really? Because I know about you Messer, I've been 'warned' about you" Nox made damn sure he put disdain into his voice at the last, to make sure Danny understood he had not taken the warnings to heart.
"Yeah?" Danny raised an eye brow but Nox knew he had caught the tone.
"Yeah…you're, if what I've been told is to be believed, a mob spy sent in to tamper with evidence and set other mob guys free, you kill other cops when it suits you, you're in cahoots with a guy named Sonny Sassone and are behind your brother still being in hospital and you risk cases for a game of hand ball. But you're a mean shortstop" he added the last with a smirk.
"They think I hurt my brother?" Danny asked quietly.
Nox frowned "Not that you hurt him physically but they think you and Sassone got more goin on than you tell people"
"They think I was behind my brother bein as sick as he is…who, what are their names?" Danny didn't look angry. He looked sad and tired.
"You don't seem that pissed" Nox noted.
"I'm beyond bein angry. I'm just sick of needing to prove myself to some of these fuckin idiots" Danny slumped in his seat.
"I didn't tell you to upset you" Nox said "I mean according to those same guys, Stella murders her boyfriend on a regular basis, Lindsay lives on a diet of insects and that Sheldon Guy became an ME because he had a Frankenstein complex, then moved up to CSI to get laid" he shrugged as he pulled the car over to the side walk "People are gossips is what I'm trying to say…all the crap I've been told about you, I've never once seen any hint of it in you…all I've seen is that you're killing yourself over stuff you cant help" he raised an eye brow at Danny who shook his head.
He frowned "They said all that crap, and they still mentioned I'm a ball player?" he asked.
"Oh it's the only reason they tolerate you, you keep winning em the soft ball games" Nox stated.
Danny gave a ghost of a smile and climbed out of the car, into the rain.
The 'den' seemed to be a tiny, independent coffee house, just across the street from Grand Central, sandwiched between a clothing store and a restaurant.
"An insomniac meets her friends in a coffee house" Nox noted as they walked through the doors.
The place was half full with coffee drinkers, sitting on couches, armchairs, bean bags, sipping coffee from mismatched mugs, talking to one another about what ever.
No one seemed too concerned by the cops' presence so Danny and Nox headed to the counter that ran the length of the back wall.
A guy in his forties, tall, muscular, with dyed black hair, grown to his waist and pulled back in a braid, wearing a floor length coat with heavy boots and presumably, all black clothes beneath, leaned against the counter, watching the detectives approach.
A young woman behind the counter smiled brightly at them "Welcome to Harry's, what can I get you?" she asked them.
"We're with the NYPD, we're tryna retrace the steps of a girl who was murdered this morning, we think she might have been in here some time in the early hours of this morning, possibly with a group? Calling them selves LibNoc?" Danny explained.
The older Goth guy shoved Danny aside so suddenly that Danny had no chance to brace himself and slammed into Nox hard enough to almost knock him off his feet, against the counter.
The man took off running and Danny immediately gave chase as Nox picked himself up and followed.
The guy ran through the tiny coffee shop, out through the door into the rain, charging up the street as startled New Yorkers hustled to get out of his way, yelling angrily after him.
Danny darted around the people where the guy had simply slammed through them, yelling at the guy to stop.
"NYPD!" Danny barked, feeling a rush of adrenaline as he ran.
The guy ahead of him seemed to decide a straight run wouldn't work and booked left suddenly, darting into the road. The weather had brought most of the traffic to a standstill and the guy weaved between cars as Danny snapped after him, navigating the cars with much more ease. As the guy reached the other side, Danny stepped up onto a car's hood, yelling at people to clear away as he rushed across the hood and off the other side, tackling his guy from behind and taking him to the ground.
They hit the floor hard and the guy had twisted at the last second, so Danny took most of the impact on his ribs, grunting painfully as he tried to roll the guy so he could cuff him.
But the guy was huge and had other plans, fighting the roll and some how managing to twist, bringing up one muscular arm and grabbing at the side of Danny's head, shoving him hard enough that Danny, still kneeling on the ground, slammed into the bank of news paper stands he had narrowly missed hitting with his tackle. The window of the stand cracked and Danny, dazed, froze against it, feeling something warm above his ear almost immediately. The guy tried to get up and run and it was a mistake as Nox came in with a sliding tackle from behind as Danny, snapped back to the real world simultaneously tangled his legs in the runners.
The guy fell forward, flat on his face and Nox lunged forward, grabbing his arms and yanking them back painfully to snap on the cuffs.
"You okay?" Nox shot a look at Danny as the smaller man pressed a hand to the side of his head.
"he dinged me a little" Danny raised his hand to show the bloody cut above his ear, groaning as he clutched his ribs with his other arm.
"You got a name , hairy?" Nox snapped, pulling the guy to his feet angrily.
"Ben Marr" the guy sneered "But that's all I'm sayin"
"You assaulted an officer Ben, in front of a helluva lotta witnesses" Nox smirked "You don't gotta say shit, you're already goin to prison"
"I didn't know he was a cop and I didn't mean to hurt him" Marr protested.
"You did. And, you did" Nox shook his head "What's LibNoc that it made you run?"
"I said I'm not saying anything" Ben scoffed.
"Messer you pressing charges?" Nox reached down a hand to Danny, to help him up.
Danny gripped Nox's arm and stood painfully, hissing at the pain in his ribs again "Yeah I am" he stated "I'd drop em I if I knew what LibNoc was though, and what happened to Chelsea Harper…oh well" he turned and began to walk back toward the car as Nox escorted Ben along with them.
"Wait, wait wait, I…I might say something" Ben growled angrily.
"Oh that's good of you Ben" Nox grinned brightly, "Aint it Messer?" he looked over at Danny and his smile died as he saw the blood now trickling down Danny's neck, the rain making it run faster than it normally would.
"Whoah, Messer" Nox dragged Ben to catch up with Danny, pulling Danny's hand away to look at the cut "We oughta get you to a hospital" he stated.
"Just call EMS,I don't wanna leave what could be our crime scene" Danny shook his head.
"You sure?" Nox asked.
"Yeah!" Danny pressed his hand back against the cut, huddling in on himself, hugging his ribs.
He was visibly shivering, even though the air was still relatively warm and Nox placed a hand on his shoulder, escorting him back toward the jeep.
Danny was hissing between his teeth again as the reached the jeep and Nox shoved Ben in the back, calling for EMS and for Mac while Danny stood in the rain, alone, in pain, but silent.
