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: For some reason, this was a really hard chapter to write! I hope it's ok…Please, please, pleasing R&R!!

Chapter 16.

Information Overload

Cory sat at a small café, thinking over the previous seven years. Where did everything go wrong? How could Liz do that? What would cause a good agent to go down that path?

Cory mulled over these questions with her coffee, but her mind kept wandering back to Danny. She kept trying to not think about him, but it was not working. Why do I keep thinking about him? Cory clapped her hand to her forehead as the answer became clear. I like him. He's not someone that I can push away. God! I feel so guilty about brushing him off when he tried to kiss me. I'm such a dunce! I shouldn't let Ortiz rule my life. By doing that, I'm giving him what he wants. I need to talk to Danny. Apologize and let him know the danger.

Cory felt some of her conflicting emotions recede with her decision. Happier than she had been in weeks, she left the café and went back to the office.

--

Cory was tired. She'd been working 80 hours a week for the past two weeks trying to process all of the evidence. She was discouraged that she had not had the time to try to talk to Danny.

When she got home on Wednesday night, she just sat on her couch, too exhausted to move. When she heard her phone ring, she barely had the energy to answer her phone. "Reid."

"Hey, Cory."

"Hi, Lindsay. How've you been?"

"I've been good. How've you been? I called a couple of times, but I always get your voicemail."

"Sorry about that. I've been working 80 hours a week trying to process all the evidence. Listen. I want to apologize to Danny for bolting on him when he tried to kiss me. What do you think?"

"Why?"

"I've come to some realizations about my life." Cory answered the question a little evasively. "I really don't want to talk about the reasons. I just need to get some time to call him. I want to tell him this in person."

"Go for it. I think that you guys would make a great couple!"

Cory grinned wryly. "Where have I heard that before?"

Lindsay laughed. "Hey. I'm just repeating the most excellent advice that I received from a good friend."

"Thanks, Linds. I'll do that. Hey. Do you want to go out on Friday? Maybe a girl's night out?"

"Sounds like fun. Where are we going? Ray's?"

"I thought we'd try something a little different. What about a club? Say, Trance?"

"Trance? That's like the hottest club right now! How are we going to get in?"

Cory smiled. "Just leave that to me. Do you think we can get Stella to come?"

"I think so. She's been talking about needing to let off some steam recently. I'll ask her and let you know. I'll let you go. Sounds like with as much as you've been working, you need you're sleep."

"Night, Linds."

--

Cory woke up early the next day, feeling a little better after sleeping for eight hours.

When she got to work she found three more disks with information on it. Sighing, she put the first disk in her computer. Looking over the data, she realized that this was an accounting record from the sale of all the weapons. Raising her eyebrows in surprise, she dove into auditing the information to see what she could find.

A couple of hours later, Cory got up and stretched. She had filled four sheets of paper with possible notes about which transactions she wanted to investigate deeper.

She heard a knock at her door and turned away from the window that she was looking out of. "Travis. What can I do for you?"

"I was just seeing how it was going."

Cory smiled faintly. "It's going. There is so much data from the computers that we seized that I think that I'm investigating even when I sleep! I wake up with these great ideas about what to look at next and some of those hunches have turned up some…interesting information."

"Like what?"

"Well for one thing, there are massive amount of deposits and transfers to offshore accounts. From just glancing at them, it's possible that they might be from either drug cartels or even possible terrorist groups. I think that they are from drug cartels." Cory shrugged.

Travis nodded his head. "Sounds like you have everything under control. I'll let you get back to work." Travis waved good-bye to her as he turned to leave her office.

--

A couple of hours later, Cory threw her pen down in frustration. She had spent much of the afternoon trying to get more information in regards to the offshore accounts that Mala Suerte had received deposits from. Unfortunately, getting information out of offshore banks was as hard as to breaking into Fort Knox. Cory knew that it could be done; she just had to be patient.

Deciding that she needed advice, she called Agent Michael. "Agent Michaels? It's Agent Reid. I have a question. Is there a way to look at the major drug cartels to see if any have had a significant amount of money going out recently?"

"You might want to get with the drug smuggling unit to see if they've noticed anything."

"I'll do that. Thanks."

Cory hung up with him and started to call other agents.

A couple of hours had passed and Cory felt like she had accomplished a great deal. She had leads for where some of the money that Mala Suerte had received came from. Working closing with the drug smuggling unit, they had identified three possible sources of the deposits.

Feeling relief for the first time in two weeks, she decided to go to the crime lab to see if Lindsay wanted to go out to dinner.

--

Lindsay was bored. She had finished her case, an easy one that was ruled a suicide, and now she was doing the paperwork. Paperwork sucks. There's just so much of it! Lindsay shook her head in disgust. She knew that she should be grateful that nothing big had happened to require her to go into the field, but all the same she hated paperwork. Her heart jumped when she heard her phone ring. "Monroe."

"Hey, baby. Busy?"

Lindsay's face lit up at the sound of Flack's voice. "No, just catching up on some paperwork."

"Listen. You want to go to dinner and a movie? Just you and me?"

"Our first date?" Lindsay's heart started racing in happiness. Due to her heavy workload the last couple of weeks, they had not been able to actual go out on a date.

"That's the idea. How 'bout 7? We can go see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie."

"Sounds great!" Lindsay looked up as Cory walked in. "I gotta go. I'll see you at seven."

Cory saw the smile on Lindsay face and surmised that she had been talking to Flack. "How are things with y'all?"

"Good. We have our first 'date' tonight. I'm so excited. Oh, God. What am I going to wear?"

Cory laughed at the clichéd question that came out of Lindsay's mouth. "I don't know. I was coming to see if you wanted to go to dinner with me, but hell…How 'bout I help you pick out what you're going to wear instead."

Lindsay looked relieved. "Really? That would be so much fun."

Both women turned around as Danny walked into the room. He smiled at both of them. "Hey, Montana. Feebie. What cha doin' here?"

"Just stopped by to see Lindsay." Cory turned back to Lindsay, trying to suppress how giddy his smile made her feel. "Linds. Did you talk to Stella about tomorrow?"

Lindsay nodded. "She said yes and said that if you could actually get us in, it would be a miracle. But she said it was just what she needed after the last couple of weeks."

Danny, who'd be eavesdropping, looked up in confusion. "Get you in where? And am I invited?"

Cory turned around. "Trance. And no, you're not. This is a girl's night out thing. No men allowed."

"Aw…if you're going to Trace there will be a ton of men there."

"That's the point. I want to meet new men."

"I'm crushed that you don't want me there." Danny was teasing Cory and he was loving the way it made him feel.

Cory on the other hand was close to her breaking point. She just wanted to break down and confess everything to Danny.

Lindsay looked like she was at Wimbledon with the conversation flowing between the two. She decided to break it up. "Hey. Did you forget I'm in the room?"

Cory felt a blush start. "No. So are you ready to go? We need to pick something out that will make Flack drool on your date."

Lindsay grabbed her bag and both women walked out of the room, leaving a confused Danny scratching his head.

--

Cory was looking in Lindsay's closet as she took a shower. Lindsay had told her that Flack was taking her to dinner and a movie. She picked out several outfits for her to try on and waited for her to finish her shower.

Lindsay got out of the shower feeling both excited and relaxed. She wanted to be sexy enough tonight to blow Flack's mind. She put her hair up in a towel and walked into her bedroom.

Cory looked up as Lindsay walked in. "Hey. I'm not exactly sure what you are going for, looks wise, so I picked a couple of different outfits out. Do you want to be casual-sexy or dressy-sexy?"

Lindsay pursed her lips as she thought about the answer. "Dressy-sexy."

Cory nodded and walked over to the bed, where she had laid out the dresses and skirts. "Since it's hot outside, but will be cold in the theater, I came up with a couple of different options. Try this one on first." Cory handed her a long green skirt of light material and a short sleeved pale green shirt that would hug her figure.

Lindsay tried it on, realizing that she had never worn the skirt before. She looked in the mirror and shook her head no. "It's not dressy enough."

"I thought so too. Here. Try on this lavender skirt and white shirt." The two women talked animatedly while Lindsay kept trying on the different outfits. Finally, she decided on a pale blue dress that had spaghetti straps and came to mid-thigh. She had on a matching pair of high-heeled strappy sandals, deciding for forgo the hose since it was so hot outside.

"Now for hair and make-up," Cory said. "I think you should wear your hair straight and go very natural with the make-up."

"Sounds good."

The two women spent the next 45 minutes putting the together the finishing touches. When they were done, Cory looked admiringly at Lindsay. "Wow. Linds, you look great!"

Cory heard the knock at the door while Lindsay was putting on her jewelry. "I'll get it."

When she opened the door she took a long look at Flack. He was dressed in a dark suit with a blue tie that brought out his eyes. He was carrying a bunch of wildflowers. He looked confused at Cory. "Where's Lindsay?"

Cory smiled at him. "Wow. Flack. You look great. She's just finishing getting ready." Cory got a gleam in her eyes and made her voice sound all serious. "Now. Since she doesn't have any family in town, as a close friend I feel it's my obligation to ask you what your intentions are." She tried to give him a glare, but ended up laughing instead.

Flack just rolled his eyes and then began to stare over Cory's shoulder. "Wow. Linds. You look…Wow."

Lindsay smiled as Cory made a hasty retreat out the door. "Have fun! And don't do anything that I wouldn't do!"

Flack remembered the flowers in his hand and stepped forward to give them to her.

Lindsay, in the meantime, was pleased to see the look of shock and desire that came to Flack's eyes as he looked her over. She put the flowers in water and grabbed a wrap as they walked out the door.

--

As Flack and Lindsay walked back to her apartment, she snuggled into his arms. "I had a really good time tonight. That was a great movie."

Flack looked down at her. "So did I. I'm glad that I finally told you how I feel." He stopped as he realized that they were in front of her building. "I guess this is goodnight." He looked down again and got lost in her warm brown gaze. Slowly he lowered his head and captured her lips with his. He felt her sigh in happiness against his lips and deepened the kiss, drawing her body closer to his so that there was no room between them.

Lindsay lost herself in the kiss. The part of her brain that was still thinking was jumping up and down in happiness. She put her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him, not wanting to let him go.

As the need for oxygen made itself known, the couple slowly broke apart. Both were trembling at the desire that was flooding their veins.

"God, Linds. I should go. I don't want to rush this." Flack's voice was trembling with the desire he still felt.

"I understand. I want to take this slow, too." Quickly she leaned in and brushed her lips to his in a final kiss. When they broke apart again, she turned and walked into her building, feeling like she was walking on air.

kasmith101-yup...a few cuddles in this chapter, but it's still going to be a while before danny and cory cuddle! y'all have to live vicariously through flack and lindsay for now!

screaming-poetically-it's always the bf! what did you think of the kiss? i like the smut, too...i'm just horrible at writing it! are you going to pair colby up with an OC? I know that Danny is a little off kilter, but I think that he knew on some level that it was Cory that got shot, but he's going to get better soon!

chili-peppers-the best ever? (blushing, furiously) thanks! yeah, lindsay was mad just because she had to pry the info out of her! hope you liked this one, too!

pnkrckprncess-i don't think cory would have confronted her for a while if she hadn't been killed. cory is very passionate about catching ortiz...ok, she obsessed with it (for good reasons that y'all find out in a few chapters)...so i think that she might have gotten violent if she had confronted her at this point. plus, the agency had more access to her bank records once she was dead b/c they didn't have to worry about tipping her off! soon (shaking my fist at my muse in defiance) i will try to get some danny/cory fluff in!

bluenose-to quote cory "I've had a...rough day!" she is the master of an understatement! i'm not sure how danny's going to react yet, since cory's going to have to tell him about the picture (which i know he's gong to be very unhappy about that!)--i wnated to update this yesterday, but life intruded (so i'm typing on my parents computer before church to try to get this up for y'all!)

axellia- thanks for smacking danny upside the head! he needs a little more of that! he's clueless and the mixed signals that cory keeps giving him are not helping one bit! ya know...i never actually thought about liz feeding them that info...but my muse does still like danny intact and whole and has no plans at this time to hurt him in the near future (i can vouch up to chapter 20, which i finished writing yesterday)... :)