A/N: I'm really sorry for the delay. This was supposed to be out last Monday, but I was in North Carolina for a week for a wedding. Silly me I assumed when the guy from Best Buy said my wireless internet could be used anywhere, I believed him. It didn't work so I couldn't post. Anyways, I have two more chapters that have been written and will be up sometime tomorrow, they just need to be spellcecked, so once that's done, they'll be up.
Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it ain't mine, if you don't is is.
Chapter 4: The Morning After, Part One
Don grimaced at the pain in his left arm as he reached to grab his gun from his ankle holster. Danni was checking on the other victims as Don held his gun on Martinez, though the gang member was unlikely to go anywhere. When Danni turned around to talk to him, she froze, her eyes on the gun.
"You got a permit to carry that thing?" she asked as she slowly raised her gun to point it at Flack.
"Whoa there!" Don said, holding his hands in surrender. "Yeah I've got a permit to carry a gun; it's called a badge. It's in my back pocket; you can take it out if you wanna see it."
"Which side?" she asked stepping closer, keeping her gun trained on him.
"Right side," he said shifting to his left so she could reach it. He groaned at the pain that shot into his shoulder as he rolled to the side. He felt her reach into his pocket and pull out his badge. She stepped away as she flipped the leather wallet open to see the badge inside. Her eyebrows rose in surprise as she looked at it.
"NYPD? What division?" she asked as she lowered the gun and flipped his badge holder closed and held it out for him.
"I'm with the CSI unit of Homicide." Don grunted as he stood up. "Detective Don Flack at your service." Don grabbed his badge and shoved it into his pocket before hitting the safety on his gun and sticking it back into the holster.
"You're shitting me; CSI seriously?" she asked him.
"Uh, yeah, seriously. Why?"
"I work in the LAPD CSI team. Wow, that's kind of weird, two CSIs ending up together in a club. I—freeze asshole!" Danni said moving quickly towards Martinez who was trying to stand up. "I said freeze!" Martinez shot her a dirty glare and managed to get his feet under him as he started to get up. Not bothering to shoot him again, she placed a solid roundhouse kick to his shoulder that dropped him like a sack of potatoes. Martinez howled in pain at the impact and rolled on the floor before curling into a fetal position. Don smirked; the little bastard had been cocky when Don had last interviewed him in relation to a rape-homicide and seeing the bastard taken down was enjoyable.
Both Don and Danni looked up at the sound of the front door being kicked in by several LAPD officers. "Over here fellas! Here's one of our perps." Danni called out as she waved one of the officers over. The guy pulled out his handcuffs and proceeded to cuff Martinez who screamed as his arms were pulled behind him.
"He's going to need some medical attention, but don't let him out of your sight, he had an accomplice tonight." Danni said to the officer, Officer Goodwin, who Dannie apparently knew. Goodwin nodded and then hauled Martinez over towards the club entrance as other officers cleared the club to make sure that the other shooter was gone. Some of the injured people were being escorted out of the club while the remaining officers checked for pulses on the prone bodies.
"Danni!" Don and Danni turned towards the voice, which belonged to a suited man who was picking his way across the dance floor. "Damn woman, tonight was supposed to be your day off. Can't you manage to stay out of trouble for one fuckin' night?" The man was tall, around Don's height and had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a tan that spoke of hours in the sun. Once he'd finally reached them, he pulled Danni into a hug.
"Hi Jimmy. Don meet my partner Detective James Clemens. Jimmy, this is my date Detective Don Flack of the NYPD." Jimmy reached his hand out to shake his hand but Don gave him a shaky grin.
"I would shake your hand, but mine's kinda bloody, and I wouldn't wanna ruin your suit." Don said with a grin. Jimmy laughed and waved it off. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out his pocket notebook.
"Alright you two, I need to know what happened in here." Jimmy said pulling out a pen.
"First, let me tell you who the guy is." Don said, before Danni could reply. Both of them gave him a surprised look.
"You know who our shooter is?" Dannie asked him.
"Yeah, his name's Juan Martinez, he's a gang banger outta New York. He's got multiple open homicide cases connected to him, but skipped town before we could book him. I've gotta tell you, my boss is gonna want to extradite him to New York so we can get him on those other charges."
"Do you think he followed you here?" Jimmy asked, still writing down what Don had told him.
"Unlikely. He's been gone for months. I just got here yesterday afternoon. It's probably just coincidence."
"Any idea why he might have chosen to shoot you?" Danni asked him.
"Well, for starters I know who he is and could get him sent to prison if I reported his whereabouts."
"For starters? Is there another reason why he'd want to shot you?" Jimmy said, looking up from his pocket notebook. Don rubbed the back of his neck as he thought about what to say.
"Well, let's just say I mighta roughed him up a bit when I was brought him in for questioning. He might've shot me just 'cause he's still pissed off at me." Jimmy smirked at that. Danni was frowning at his arm which was still bleeding heavily.
"Jimmy, why don't we finish this later, Don needs to see a doctor and since I'm involved in the shooting you know IAB is going to ride my ass over what happened anyway. I'll fill you in once we get back to the station."
"Sounds good, I'll call Angie, give her a heads up about IAB and let her know we need to contact NYPD. See you two soon," Jimmy said before walking over to talk to some of the club patrons who'd stuck around after the shooting.
"C'mon big guy, let's see if we can't get your arm looked at. I can't believe you didn't say anything earlier, I knew you were shot but I figured it must not be bad since you weren't making a big deal out of it. But Don, you're bleeding like hell!"
"Believe it or not, I've had much worse. Besides, I understand what you guys have to do, since I do it too. I figured, hey why not help out since I already had some info you guys don't have and it'll make your life easier." Don grinned at her as she led him out the door over to one of the ambulances parked nearby. He stood by as she argued with one of the ambulance technicians about getting him taken care of first.
"He's a cop and we need to get him back to the station immediately. So cut the crap and take him first." Danni said with a scowl. With a glare the guy motioned Don over and told him to take off his jacket. Danni had to help get the jacket off since his blood had caused it to stick to his skin. He smiled slightly as she fussed over him.
"Damn, that was my favorite jacket." Don said, and was relieved to see her smile. The tech cut off the sleeve of Don's shirt so he could get a better look at Don's arm.
"Well, it looks like the bullet exited your arm so we won't have to worry about removing it. I'm going to clean it and wrap it for now. I recommend going to a doctor in the next twenty-four hours so you can be given some antibiotics and to double check it isn't infected." Don nodded as the guy explained and then yelped as cold antibacterial cream was rubbed on his arm. While the technician took care of his arm, Danni was speaking to someone on the phone.
"Yes, Angie, I understand… I promise I'll hand over my gun as soon as we get to the station… Don, I mean Detective Flack, is getting checked out for his bullet wound and then I'm going to bring him in…Do you want me to ask him?...Okay, just a sec." Danni turned to him. "Don, what your supervisor's name? And do you have a number my boss can reach him at?"
"It's Detective Mac Taylor, and his number is 585-555-9473. I was kinda hoping I could be the one to call him, if that's okay with your boss."
"Angie, the name is Detective Mac Taylor. Don was hoping he could be the one to call…Okay, I'll tell him… Yeah I'll see you soon…'K, bye." Danni flipped her phone shut and turned towards Don. "She says it's fine if you call your boss, just as long as you do it at the station. Once you're done telling him what's going on, she needs to talk to him about handling the case."
"Okay, that sounds fine, are we headin' there now?"
"In just a second. Excuse me?" Danni said to the tech that was now helping a bleeding woman. "Can you make sure any bullets pulled from our victims are sent to the crime lab?" The guy nodded to her without looking up from the woman's cut hand. "Let's go Don."
Once back at the station, Don and Danni were separated into different rooms in order to give their statement. Don was interviewed by one of the CSIs, Christian Jenkins, or as he was called in the lab, Cee. Cee was nice but asked a lot of questions, so the interview took nearly an hour. By the time it was done, Don was starving and ready for bed. Glancing at his watch he realized it was nearly four in the morning.
"Hey handsome!" Don turned around to see a haggard looking Danni emerge from her own interview room followed by Jimmy and a woman Danni introduced as Detective Angela Fleet, Danni's boss and the head of the CSI lab.
"Hey yourself. Is there anyplace I can get some food around here? I'm starved."
"I was just coming to get you; we've got some food in the break room, and Jimmy's going to give you pair of sweats to wear since you're clothes are pretty trashed." At this statement Don looked down and realized he had on half of a blood stained shirt, bloody and dirty pants and his black shoes were no longer shiny. Add to that his bandaged arm and he looked a sorry sight.
"Hey this way Don; I'll get you some sweats while Danni fixes up some food." Jimmy said, motioning Don to follow. Jimmy led him into the men's locker room and opened up one of the long lockers to pull out a pair of grey and blue LAPD sweats. "You can use the showers to get some of the blood off if you want. I'm going to find out if anyone has some shoes you can borrow."
Don was relieved to finally get his bloodstained and now very stiff clothing off and instantly felt himself relax under the hot spray of the shower. After a few minutes he turned the water off and gave himself a quick towel dry before pulling on the sweats Jimmy had given him. He was almost out the door of the locker room when Jimmy came back in and handed him a pair of tennis shoes. He watched silently as Don pulled them on, not bothering to tie the laces, since stretching hurt his arm.
"You ready?" Jimmy asked, holding open the door. At Don's nod he continued, "We've got some doughnuts." When he saw Don's look he laughed, "I know, I know, not exactly the breakfast of champions, but it is four in the morning." Don followed Jimmy into a break room when Danni lay sprawled on a couch while munching on a doughnut. She smiled sleepily at him as he came in.
Fifteen minutes, four doughnuts, and two cups of coffee later Don emerged from the break room behind a yawning Danni.
"Okay, so Angie wants you to use the phone in her office to call your boss. Angie figures if you put it on speaker phone, we can all hear what your boss has to say. Then when you're done talking to him, she can discuss the investigation with him."
"Sounds good, let's get this over with." Don sat in a chair opposite Angie as she got the phone set up. A few seconds later Don heard the phone ringing over the speakerphone followed by the click of the phone being answered.
"Taylor."
"Uh, hey Mac."
"Flack, you're on vacation. You shouldn't be calling me on your vacation."
"Uh, about that…well, my vacation seems to have ended a little earlier than planned Mac."
"You need to explain that comment Flack."
"I was kinda involved in a shooting. Mac, I got shot by Juan Martinez."
"What!"
