Well, here you go. The next chapter! But don't worry, I haven't revealed all yet...but if you want another chapter you are going to have to review!
Disclaimer: Do I really have to go over this again? I really don't own any of the show or characters...
I just want to say thanks for all the support that that I've gotten with this story- all the reviews are so nice. But I really have to "dedicate" this chapter to PhyscoBlonde4eva. She was the one that BEGGED me to put out another chapter!
They were back at the lab, running the newest print through the system. Lindsay was trying not to get her hopes up, but it was hard. Finally, after what seemed to be eternity the system ran out of prints and Lindsay's hopes dashed to the ground. Tears of anger threatened to well up in her eyes, but she forced them back; now wasn't the time to be emotional.
"Stella…" An idea hit her. "You got something off of the handle besides a print, right?"
Stella smiled and nodded. "I almost forgot! There was a substance on the door and I wasn't sure what it was. I sent it to trace, and the last that I heard, they had kicked it over to DNA. Do you want to head over there now?"
Lindsay beamed. "Of course- it might get us a new lead."
As they were walking over, the two caught up with Mac and Hawkes. Stella filled them in on what they had found- apparently, the two men had left Danny's place just minutes before they arrived. Neither Mac nor Hawkes had thought about checking the closet handle and congratulated the woman on doing so. The four CSIs walked to DNA together, hoping for some miracle that would lead them in the right direction.
The car stopped, and Danny hit his head on the roof of the trunk. He hissed in pain, but soon became quiet as he heard footsteps coming around the back of the car. Pretending to be unconscious still, he relaxed his head and waited for a moment to attack.
The trunk lifted and Danny opened his eyes a tiny bit- he wanted to see who had taken him. A bald man with dark brown eyes stared down at him menacingly. The man's eyes were set close together, over a pointed nose. His lips were this and pale- in short, he look terrifying and made Danny's skin crawl. All of a sudden, another man appeared behind the first one, and Danny's was surprised to see that he looked almost exactly the same; it was easy to see that they were brothers. However, the first man had brown eyes, the second attacker had more hazel eyes, although they were just as horrible looking. His nose was not as pointed as the first man's, but his eyes were just as close together. His lips were almost non-existent, and the part of the flesh that Danny could see was white. After noticing this about the man's face, Danny could also see that he had long black hair that was tied into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. After seeing his attackers, Danny almost wished that he had kept his eyes shut.
Danny was jarred out of his thoughts when one of the men roughly pulled him from the trunk. He had kept his eyes open in tiny slits, and could see that he was in a warehouse of some kind: there were concrete walls and a concrete floor, with a metal garage door that it seemed they had just driver through. He realized that everything was still clear, and almost laughed; his glasses- though cracked and banged up- were still on his face.
They shoved him to the ground and pulled something else from the trunk that Danny hadn't noticed. It looked like a grocery bag, but Danny wasn't really sure he wanted to know what was in it. They pulled him over to a wall and tied him to a bar that was sticking out of it. One of the men reached into the bag and pulled something out, something that looked like ice water. Not really wanting to be cold on top of being in pain, he moaned and pretended to wake up. Opening his eyes fully for the first time since being in the trunk, he cringed at light that was assaulting his senses.
"He's awake." One of the men, the one with the hair, said aloud, though Danny wasn't sure if it was to his brother or to him. However, the first thing that Danny noticed was that this man's voice was just as horrible as everything else about it.
The tone of his voice was menacing, which paired with the deepness in which he spoke. But that wasn't what gave Danny shivers- it was the fact that there was no emotion in his voice at all. It was cold and unfeeling, hard and steely. Danny felt as though he was talking to a block of ice.
"It's about time." The bald man answered his brother. This man's voice was higher than his brothers. It was just as frightening, if not more. Danny cringed, and immediately regretted it- it showed his captors that he was afraid. He hoped they hadn't noticed his shiver, but was sadly mistaken.
"Is little Danny boy scared?" The bald man asked in a mocking voice? "Look at me and tell me you're scared!" He suddenly demanded of Danny. Danny looked up at him, but did not say anything. "Tell me you are scared!" The bald man was shouting, and somehow the phrase seemed eerily familiar to Danny. He decided not to dwell on it, and rather just focus on being calm. "Tell me now!"
Danny just continued to look at the bald man. Out of the corner of his eye, Danny could see the other man reaching into the paper bag and pulling something out that looked like a metal baseball bat.
"You should have said it…" The man with the dark hair told Danny in a threatening voice. He pulled back the baseball bat and started to beat Danny with it.
Danny tried to remain conscious, but the pain was too much for him and he quickly slipped into darkness.
Stella could help but smile- the four CSIs had just left the DNA lab with some of the best news all day. The substance found on the handle of the closet door turned out to be spit. When the techs ran the DNA through the system, they didn't get a direct match, but rather a 70 match to a Ryan Diker; this meant they were looking for Diker's siblings.
Lindsay had run ahead to pull the file on Diker, leaving Stella, Mac, and Hawkes to talk. "Mac, do you really think that we'll find him alive?" Stella asked in a hushed tone. She didn't want to seem pessimistic, but the evidence and amount of blood wasn't pointing in the right direction.
Mac's face hardened. "Of course we will. We have to." Neither Stella nor Hawkes decided to ask him to clarify. Both just nodded and the three settled into somber silence. They were startled out there thoughts when Lindsay stuck her head out the door and waved them over.
As soon as they walked in, Lindsay started talking. "I got the file and started looking it over right away. A year ago, Danny investigated the murder of Libby Anthony. She worked as a waitress over on 5th and met Diker there one night. Diker took a liking to Anthony and started to stalk her. But then when Diker found out that Anthony had gotten engaged to her boyfriend of two years, he lost it. He had become obsessed with her and he thought that she belonged to him. One night, he followed her home and strangled her. Her boyfriend alerted the police two days later when she missed a rehearsal dinner for the wedding. After Danny processed the scene, he brought the body to the morgue and did all the regular stuff. Then came the big break in the case- Sheldon here," Lindsay took a breath and looked at Hawkes. "Well, do you remember?"
The former coroner nodded. "Yeah…I fingerprinted her neck, seeing if I could get anything and found prints on her neck. Diker had something on his hands before he strangled Libby and I was able to pull his prints off of her neck."
Lindsay bobbed her head in consent. "Exactly. Diker was in the system for an assault charge earlier in the year, so Danny and Flack made the arrest. Danny testified at the case and was the key witness that convicted him. The trial ended about two months ago and then last week his sentencing was decided- Diker was sentenced to life in prison." She paused for a second and then went on. "Like I said before, Danny was the key witness in the case and his was the testimony that ended up swaying the jury to convict Diker of being guilty. The day that the judge read Diker's sentence, his brothers were in the courtroom and started getting violent; they made threats to Danny's life and the judge's life. If the DNA came back to one of the brothers, then they must have decided that it was time to carry out their threats." Lindsay finished with a sigh- Danny's prospects of still being alive were now slim to none. Those two men were obviously violent and had wanted everyone that cared about Danny to share the same pain that they had about losing their brother.
After the baseball bat had come a whip. Not a fuzzy black one like girls carried around on Halloween…no, this whip looked like it had come out from one of the old western movies. The leather was cracked and faded, but that didn't ease the sting of the tip as it hit Danny's skin.
After the bald man had tired with the whip, the man with the hair brought another item out of the bag- a gun. Danny's heart stopped at the sight of it. However, the men didn't intend on shooting him- yet. Instead, they beat him with the butt of it. Danny almost wished that they would just shoot him instead and put him out of his misery. Almost.
His thoughts kept returning to Lindsay, and all the things that he had never gotten to say to her. Even through the pain and suffering, he thought of the that blonde bombshell, that one girl- no woman- who did something to him that no one of the opposite gender had done to him before. When they touched, his skin felt like they were on fire, and when their eyes met, he felt as though she could see right into him; see all his fears, his hopes, his longings, his desires.
As the pain intensified, Danny had one last conscious thought: I'll never get to tell her that I love her.
Mac put down a piece of paper and looked up at the rest of his team. "Ryan Diker has two brothers- they're twins actually; Ian and Craig Diker. After Lindsay informed us of what they said at the courtroom, I checked into their background a little further. Two days ago. Ian rented a car at a local shop for the week. I figured that I could head over there and get some more information about the twins. Sheldon, I want you to go over to Ian's apartment and see what you can find. Stella, I want you and Lindsay to go to Craig's apartment and do the same. Is everybody clear on that?" The other three nodded, and with that final word, they each left to do their jobs.
Mac drove to the rental shop in somber silence. He knew that the longer Danny was missing, the less likely chance they had of finding him alive. If Lindsay was right and those two maniacs really had taken Danny, then…well, Mac didn't even what to think about what they could be doing to him.
Danny was somewhat like a son to the older man. Even after some of the things that Danny had, and even though sometimes Mac could be extremely disappointed with him, he was still one of the best CSIs on the team. He may have seemed like a "bad-boy" to everyone, even somewhat of a ladies man, but once you got to know him, he was caring and gentle. Although, those traits were never something that Danny would own up to being. Mac smiled- if he had ever had a son, he imagined that Danny would be like him. Reckless and wild, but still strong and compassionate.
As soon as Mac flashed his badge to the receptionist at the rental shop, she had let him through the door into the sales office. He found out who had rented the car out to Ian and went and spoke with him.
"Mr. McDougal, I spoke with your receptionist and she told me that you recently rented out a Sudan to an Ian Diker." Mac questioned the sales man.
"Please, call me Sam." The man had a beer belly, was bald and slightly on the hefty side, but there was something about him that made him personable. He wasn't like a regular salesman, but rather was like an old buddy that you went fishing with every weekend. "But yeah, this man, Mr. Diker, came in on Monday, looking for a car. He didn't really care about the style, make, or dealer, just wanted something quick. Said something about needing to transport something." Mac suppressed a shiver- he could have been talking about Danny's body. "Kinda gave me the creeps though. Had long black hair that he pulled back into a ponytail, eyes that were set close together, thin nose and lips, and a deep voice. Let's just say he wasn't someone that you would want to associate yourself with often."
Mac nodded, listening. "Do you think that you could describe this man to a sketch artist?" He hoped that this Sam McDougal would be able to and the NYPD would be able to put a broadcast out on him. It might lead them to Danny quicker if someone spotted this man- or his brother, for that matter.
Sam nodded. "Sure…"
After the gun had been put away, a metal rod had been taken out of the bag, almost a pipe or something. Danny swam in and out of consciousness, the pain almost mind numbing. He resigned himself to his fate, and prepared to close his eyes for one last time.
Heehee, here we go! Another chapter...but don't worry, there will be more to come! Hope you enjoyed it...tell me what I did right or wrong and if you have any great ideas, you can tell them to me!
Charlotte