A/N: wow, three reviews for one chapter. I just hope I can keep writing well enough to keep that up :P Thanx guys!

FYI: I'm watching reruns of the first season at the same time as the beginning of the second season, so Lindsay is in the story - I've got nothing against Aiden - but Hawkes is still an ME. I haven't got used to that change yet. Hope that doesn't confuse anyone :D

oh, and btw, I like Flack really. It's a known fact that writers like to mess around with their favourite characters.

'What's so funny?' Mac asked as they stepped aside to allow the body to be taken away.

Stella grinned. 'Marcy lives in a sorority house. Flack's gonna have fun.' She sighed, 'if only I could be there to see his face.'

Mac stared at her. 'Where did this evil streak come from?' he asked, smiling in spite of himself.

Stella is dead, Flack thought to himself as he walked down the corridor towards Marcy's dorm room. Despite the late hour, many of the girls were awake; more specifically, standing in their doorways watching him as he went past, flirtatious grins on their faces that showed their approval of his 6'2" frame, dark hair and blue eyes.

He finally reached room 105 and knocked on the door, trying to ignore the girls watching him.

The door swung open and a tired-looking blonde with messy hair wearing a pair of shorts and a university sweatshirt looked at him.

'Miss Philips?' he asked, holding up his badge as she nodded. 'NYPD. I need to ask you a few questions.'

She held open the door for him to come inside, and looked at him worriedly as she closed it behind him. 'Did something happen? Is Marcy in some kind of trouble?'

'Marcy's dead,' he told her carefully, watching her reaction, 'she was murdered.'

The girl's eyes widened as she sat on the rumpled bed heavily, shaking her head. 'D-dead? Are you sure?'

'I'm sorry. I need to ask you a few things.' He said hesitantly, not wanting to push her as she seemed to be genuinely devastated.

The girl nodded.

'Do you have a number where I can reach her parents?'

She rattled off a series of numbers, 'their names are Charles and Susan,' she added.

'Okay. What about her husband?'

The girl's head shot up, looking confused. 'Husband?' she echoed.

'There was a wedding ring on her finger…'

Philips shook her head. 'I don't know anything about that. I don't actually know her very well – she has a busy schedule and she's involved in a lot of extra curricular activities – by the time she'd get here, I'm usually asleep.'

'When was the last time you saw her?'

'This morning. She was on the phone making an appointment to see someone. She seemed really excited about something.'

'Do you know who she was talking to? What time was the appointment?'

In answer she gestured across the room to the pad next to the telephone. 'She might have written it down. She never said anything to me – just said goodbye and went to class.'

The detective put the pad into an evidence bag, which he pocketed, and looked up. 'Do you know any of her friend's names? I'd like to talk to them.'

Philips shrugged. 'The only people she ever mentioned were Alyssa Daniels and Josh…something. I'm not sure if she's student here.'

Flack nodded as he noted it down. 'Thank you. I might need to talk to you again, and if you remember anything, call me.' He told her, handing her a card.

She glanced at the card.'Flack. Sure.'

'So she was killed somewhere else and dragged down here,' Mac remarked as they examined the area more closely.

'The killer could have just left her where she was.' Stella continued, 'But why go through all the trouble to bring her here?' she wondered aloud.

'And if she wasn't killed at the place where she was dragged from, why does the trail start here?' Mac added, looking around to check for tire tracks. There were none.

'Maybe she was still walking – or running,' the woman suggested, 'that was as far as she got.'

Mac nodded. 'He beats her up, intending to kill her, but she gets away and runs into the park – that was where he caught up with her. But that still doesn't explain why he dragged her here.'

'Trying to hide the body?' Stella suggested, 'there are a lot of trees here – it would have been harder for someone to see the body than if he left it out in the open like that.'

'The longer it takes for someone to find the body, the more time he has to get away.' He sighed, 'we're not going to find anything else tonight. Make sure the area's taped off and we'll come back to check again in the morning.'

'What's up doc?' Stella asked, walking into the medical examiner's office, where Hawkes was working on Marcy. 'Go on, make my night. Tell me she drowned.'

Hawkes looked at her with an amused smiled on his face. 'How come you're in such a good mood?'

The woman grinned slyly, raising her eyebrows.

Hawkes shook his head. 'She didn't drown, as I'm sure you already knew.'

'I never know what you're going to come up with.'

'She died from a severe beating and the shot,' the doctor began, 'it was the bullet that was fatal – shot at close range and it went through some of her vital organs. A through and through – she died instantly.'

'So we need to look for the bullet,' Stella noted, biting her lip. 'Okay.'

'The beating – no weapon was used, just some powerful punches,' he continued, indicating the dark bruises on her face and moving the sheet to reveal part of her arm. 'No signs of her trying to defend herself,' he added, lifting up her hand to show her perfectly manicured nails. 'But there are ligature marks on her wrists,' he demonstrated, showing her the burns.

'Looks like rope,' Stella remarked. 'Here's how this fits our theory,' she explained, 'the killer tied her up and beat her. She managed to escape and ran away – he chased her into the park, where he shot her and dragged her into the trees where she wouldn't be found.'

Hawkes nodded in agreement.

'Anything else?'

'I sent for a rape kit and her clothes are up in the lab,' he told her, pulling the victim's long dark hair back and carefully combing through it to remove the leaves and twigs that had been caught in it. 'Oh, and something that's probably irrelevant,' he gently pulled open her eye and shone a light on it.

'She wears contact lenses. Maybe you should find out what the problem was. You never know.' Stella joked, giving him a friendly slap on the back, 'thanks doc.' I wonder if Flack managed to escape yet.

He knew she wasn't being serious, but that didn't stop him from carefully removing the lenses for later testing.

Danny shook his head resignedly as Lindsay gave the receptionist at the hospital her number, asking them to call her and let her know if the child, who had been rushed into surgery, was going to be okay.

'What?' she asked as they walked out.

'You really like kids don't you, Montana?'

'Don't you even care if she gets out okay?' Lindsay spat out, beginning to get defensive, 'she was almost killed.'

'For all we know she could have brought it on herself.'

'She's ten!' Lindsay exclaimed in horror, 'are you that suspicious of everyone? Or do you just have no trust in the human race?'

'I'm just saying, we don't know the circumstances. Maybe she saw something she wasn't supposed to, maybe she got shot instead of somebody else and maybe – just maybe – she was mixed up in something and got in over her head.' Danny stopped walking and turned to face her, putting his hands on her shoulders and speaking in a level tone to try and calm his furious partner down. 'Okay?'

Lindsay took a deep settling breath. She nodded. 'Flack and his partner will just have to find out.'

'Yeah, where is Flack anyway? I expected him to come out to the scene,'

'Maybe he went with Mac and Stella. They got sent out just before us.'

Flack was still at the sorority house, tracking down Alyssa, who had been about to make her own call to the police station to tell them about Marcy's absence.

'She told me to call the police if she wasn't home by one o'clock,' the teary eyed redhead told him as she accepted the tissue he held out. 'I tried to ask her if she was in some kind of trouble, to help her, but she wouldn't tell me anything. Just that she had to go see…him.'

'Any idea who that is?' the detective asked.

The girl shook her head.

'Was it a friend?' he asked, thinking about the appointment her roommate said she had made. 'Her husband?' he hazarded, wondering if even her best friend knew she was married.

'She doesn't have a husband... I don't know. She got a call when we were walking back here after class and she just said she had to go and meet him. She seemed kind of upset while she was talking to him,' she added.

Flack nodded. Not the same person. 'Do you know Josh?'

'I met him a couple of times. He's a friend of Marcy's. An older guy.'

'So he's not a student. A teacher?'

'No. I think he said he was between jobs.'

'Do you think you could describe him to a sketch artist?'

The girl looked up, her eyes wide. 'You don't think he killed her?'

A/N: maybe he did, maybe he didn't. You'll just have to keep reading to find out, wont you? (laughs evilly)

Let me know what you think!