Disclaimer: I am not Anthony Zuiker, Ann Donahue or Carol Mendelsohn. All the characters of CSI: NY are not mine…I'm just borrowing them for a little bit. I promise that I will put them back, exactly the way I found them when I'm done….Oh, Cory Reid is mine and I will take credit for anything she does. :)

A/N: Here you go….So this chapter is a little dark and is still a little of a cliffhanger, but not as bad as last chapter. My muse decided that it was getting too fluffy for her so expect the next couple of chapters to be equally dark!! Please, Please, Please review and let me know what you think!

Chapter 10.

Distance

Cory sat on the floor for two hours before she got herself back together. She left the pictures and the note on the floor and went into the bathroom to wash her face with cold water. Why does he do this to me? Why?! Her mind shut down.

After she finished washing her face, she went back to the entry hall and picked up the pictures and notes and put them into a plastic bag. She put the bag into her purse and left her apartment to go to the lab.

--

Mac looked up when Cory entered his office. "What are you doing here? Was there a break in the Ortiz case?"

Cory nodded no somberly. "I need a favor."

Mac looked at her with questions in his eyes. "Okay. As long as it's nothing illegal."

Cory took a deep breath. "It's nothing illegal, just something I don't like to think about." Cory withdrew the plastic bag from her purse. She held it nervously. "I guess I should let you know a little more about why I'm on this case. Ortiz is obsessed with me. To the point of stalking, even though I can't prove it. I think that the reason I haven't been able to prove it is because of the mole in the agency. I want you to test this for me." She handed over the bag to Mac.

Mac gestured to take this to the lab. Cory stopped him. "I don't want anyone else to know about this. This isn't something I like to think about, much less admit to anyone."

Mac nodded his head in agreement. "I can see that. We'll go to a lab that is empty and keep everyone out."

That coaxed a small smile out of Cory. "Thanks, Mac."

Mac and Cory walked into an empty lab. Mac put on gloves and opened the bag. "Did you handle this without gloves?"

"Yeah. I didn't even think about it when I saw it. It's been so long since he's left anything for me and I'd forgotten about him doing that."

Mac looked at the pictures. "This is Danny?"

Cory nodded. "He came by last night to talk with Lindsay and me. We fell asleep and he left again this morning. This was on my welcome mat when I got home."

Mac nodded and pulled out the fingerprinting powder. Quickly he dusted the pictures for prints and lifted a couple. Then he ran a cotton swab on the pictures and note for DNA comparison.

He moved to a scanner and scanned in the prints he had lifted. Quickly he ran them through AFIS. All the prints came back to match Cory. Cory sighed in frustration. She knew Ortiz well enough to think that he would be as careless as to leave fingerprints on anything he sent to her, but she had hoped that he'd made a mistake.

Mac looked at her. "Don't worry. If there's something to find we'll find it. What about this note? What does he mean that you are his?"

"In his twisted brain he believes that I belong to him. It used to be worse. He had started to threaten anyone I was seen with, so I stopped dating. The pictures and notes stopped showing up. What bugs me is that he is obviously still keeping an eye on me. I'm not even dating Danny!"

"Appearances. Danny shows up at your apartment in the early hours of the morning and doesn't leave until after sunrise? Sounds like he's doing more than keeping an eye on you. He is stalking you."

"I know. But I can't prove it!!"

"Look. I'll run the swabs for DNA and see if I can get something on it. That's going to take a while, so why don't you go home? You look like you could use the sleep."

Cory rolled her eyes a little. He sounded like her dad. "Yes, Mac. I'll go home, but I can't promise to sleep. All I can promise is to try." Cory turned to leave. "Oh and Mac? Thanks."

Cory went home and went to bed immediately. She lay in bed, unable to sleep for several hours before finally drifting off.

Cory and Danny were sitting at a restaurant. Their first date. Cory was unexpectedly happy to finally admit her feelings for Danny. She had finally broken down and at Lindsay's urging had accepted his offer for dinner. They were at a little Italian restaurant in Little Italy eating cannoli and drinking espresso.

Suddenly a gunshot rang out through the night and Cory watched in horror as a hole appeared in Danny's head. She looked down at herself and realized that she was covered in blood. "Oh, God. Danny!! Danny!! No!!" Cory drew Danny's cooling body to hers, sobbing openly. She jumped in surprise as a hard hand clapped down on her shoulder, dragging her away. She looked up. Carlos Ortiz.

"You should have heeded the warning, bitch. I told you that you were mine and no one else would be able to touch you," he snarled. "It's your fault that he's dead. Him and everyone else."

Ortiz dragged her to a waiting car and once inside he started tearing at her clothes.

With a start, Cory woke up screaming. As she clamored awake, she realized that it was just a nightmare and tried to slow her rapidly beating heart. She drew her knees up to her chest and laid her forehead on them, trying to focus.

I know what I have to do. I have to push Danny away. I can't let him get close to me. Everyone who does ends up dead. I'm just going to have to…I have no choice.

Cory looked at the clock and realized it was 5 am. Shrugging her shoulders she got out of bed, knowing that she would not go back to sleep. She went into her living room, deciding to listen to some music and read. She went to her CD collection and selected the soundtrack to XXX. As Rammstein came over the speakers, she picked up a new book by Mercedes Lackey and settled down to read.

As the morning light began to filter into the living room, Cory lifted her bleary eyes. With a sigh she started to get ready for work.

--

Cory walked into the building, tired and cranky. She was not in the mood to put up with anyone's attitudes today. So when Andrew began to tease her, like normal, she snapped at him.

Grumbling she walked into her office, muttering under her breath about the general rudeness of New Yorkers. The logical side of her brain protested at this, but the rest of her brain ignored the protests. Needless to say, she'd had better days and it was only 9am.

After she logged on to her computer and brought up her email, she noticed an email from Travis. He was requesting a meeting with her. She replied back that yes she could meet with him for a business lunch and starting pulling up all her files on Ortiz.

It was almost lunchtime and Cory felt like she had actually accomplished something. She had remembered about the Martinez brothers being involved in owning the warehouse where the slaves were kept. She had requested the files from Lydia, who was the SAIC.

There was a knock at her door. She looked up. "Hi, Lydia. Are those the Martinez files?"

Lydia nodded her head. "Yes. This is all of the info I've collected on them in the last year. What do you need it for?"

Cory gestured for Lydia to sit down. "I was investigating a human slave ring with the NYPD recently; the girls identified members of Mala Suerte as the men who kept them captive. The NYPD asked me to try to track the ownership of the warehouse where the girls were kept. It turns out it was owned by the Martinez brothers."

"Really? I haven't really looked into all of their property ownerships yet. I've been concentrating on the businesses. If there wasn't an active business there, it was off my radar."

"Well, you might want to put those back on your radar. I know I have. Hopefully these files will give me what I need to nail Ortiz. If I can tie him to the warehouse, I can bring him down for the kidnapping of those girls. Then give me five minutes with him and I'll break him down to finally put him away" Cory said with a lot of force.

"Whoa. Back down girl. You'll get him. Listen. I've got to go, just get me the files back as soon as possible."

"Thanks, Lydia. I'm sorry for being so grumpy!"

"See ya later, Cory."

As Lydia walked out of her office, Travis walked in. "You ready for lunch?"

"Let me grab my coat."

Cory and Travis walked to a nearby café for lunch. "So, Travis. What did you want to talk about?"

"I have some ideas for our next target. I think it should be Mi Casa."

"That's the restaurant where most of the top members hang out. Do we have evidence to connect it to anything?"

"Not much, but there has been some drug activity recently. I'm hoping that it will be enough for the judge to sign the warrant." Travis broke off when the waitress came up to take their orders. Once she was done, Travis picked up where he left off. "So, I'm going to Judge Davis tomorrow to see if he'll sign the warrant."

"Are you sure we have what we need? There have been no indications with the data that there is significant illegal activity there." Cory paused, unsure of how to say what she meant. "If we hit this and there is nothing there, it's only going to tip the scales to Ortiz. He's just going to get craftier and harder to track. We really need to make sure that we are making the right moves."

"Cory. I see your point, but I have a gut feeling. I know this is the right thing to do."

"Fine, Travis. You have the ultimate authority on it anyway. But for the record, I'm not happy with this plan."

Both became silent when the waitress brought their food out. Silently, they finished lunch and went back to the office.

--

In a non-descript apartment in Spanish Harlem, a meeting wasn't going to well.

"Amigo. Where's the merchandise?" A shady looking Hispanic man was looking at a younger gentleman. "You know we have to get all of the merchandise to Ortiz or it's our heads."

"I know, De La Cruz. But…" The younger man trailed off at the glare from the other man.

"But, nothing. Get the merchandise."

With obvious reluctance, the younger man went into the bathroom. When he came out, he was covered in blood, with bloody capsules in one hand. "Here. All the merchandise, except for the one that burst. What do we do about the mess?"

The older man looked at him. "¿es usted estúpido? We get rid of the evidence that we were here! Make sure it's done." With that, De La Cruz started to leave the apartment. "Oh and Valdez?" He waited to make sure he had the younger man's attention. "If you get caught, you never heard of me. I was never here. Remember what happened to your brother."

The young man nodded and turned to started to erase the trace that the two men were there. He went into the bathroom, looked at the dead woman in the bathtub and tried not to be sick. It was the first time he had killed someone. He hadn't expected it to be so messy.

He wiped all of the surfaces that he had touched down with a clean towel. With that done, he picked up the knife he had used to cut open her stomach and left the apartment. Four blocks away, he stopped behind an office building where he had left some clean clothes. After he changed, he dumped his clothes, the towel and the knife in a dumpster behind the office building and began the long walk home, not realizing that he had not fully cleaned the apartment like he was told or that someone had seen him leave.

--

Unfortunately for the nervous man, he had not been thorough enough. In an adjacent apartment, an old woman had heard the men come into the apartment in the early evening. She knew that the apartment was vacant so her curiosity got the best of her. She put her ear up to the paper thin wall, but with her hearing as bad as it was, was unable to make out the words.

She heard the door open and made her own way to the door to look out the peephole. She was too late to see anything, but her patience was rewarded when a few minutes later a young man came out of the apartment, covered in blood.

With a gasp she made her way to the phone and dialed 911.

screaming-poetically--thank you! coming from the uber fm radio author that has got to be a great compliment! i actually feel a little sorry for danny...my muse is being so mean to him right now!

kasmith101-normally i'm a D/L'er too...that's orginally how the story started but my muse had other ideas! i'm glad you had the free time to read it all at once! i do post every 2-3 days so the wait shouldn't be too long.

tylerhiltongroupie53-i totally agree. danny is a major player! i do what i can do with the fm radio! let's just say you'll see a lot more happy fm radio than you will Danny-Cory for a while.

chili-peppers-are you welsh? if so, what's welsh for thank you? (merci beaucoup!-i can say it in french!)

pnkrckprncss-my heart sank as i wrote it and i have at least an idea of what's going to happen! i can't imagine what y'all were thinking! all i know is my best friend (who is also my beta) called me a b--h when she read it, cuz she had to wait 4 days for the next chapter!