Vacation

Chapter 8

"Papa, Papa guess what Mommy just told me?" Lizzie announced as she bounded into the lounge and jumped onto Jackson's knee.

"What did Mommy just say Princess?" Jackson questioned as Lizzie curled up into his chest.

"Mommy said that she's staying for 2 weeks." She motioned with her fingers mimicing Lindsay from earlier on. "Then she said that I get to go live with her in New York"

"Hey Dizzie Lizzie. How ya been." Danny greeted the little girl trying to stop her from spilling Lindsay's secret before she even had the chance to explain it to everyone.

"Danny" Lizzie squealed as she scrambled over Jackson's lap and jumped into Danny's waiting arms and wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed.

"Hey Lizzie. How ya been? Been chasing any chickens lately?" Danny asked repeating his earlier question. Loosening her grip on his neck she leaned back to look Danny in the eye.

"No I haven't been chasing any of the chicken lately." Lizzie said as she pouted and put on her 'i'm so innocent' smile on her face.

"Right, course, I believe ya." Danny said looking at her skeptically.

"Danny"

"Yes Sweetie"

"Will you and Mommy be at Mommy's house in New York when I go there." Lizzie asked whilst running her fingers over his 2 day old stubble.

"Maybe. Do you want me to be there."

"Ofcourse." She answered almost immediately.

As they chatted Mac, Don and Hawkes watched the interaction between Danny and Lizzie closely. All 3 of them were in shock as they had never seen Danny act this way around a child before and anytime they had seen him with a child he had been quite scared and frightened of what a child could do, but now her looked completely in his element with this little girl that appeared out of no where. He looked like he was just talking as he would to his own child.

As they listened to their conversation it became pretty clear who Lizzie's Mom was as she looked like a minature replica of her all they way down to the hand gestures she made when she talked. When they heard Lizzie's answer to Danny's question, they all turned and looked expectantly at Danny, wondering exactly what his answer would be, if he was going to try and weedle his way out of the conversation, but they were pleasently surprised by his answer.

"Well then I guess your stuck with me." Danny answered, which made Lizzie throw her arms around his neck and squeeze tightly again.

All 3 men turned and to look at Danny like he was the Lockness monster, with shock written across every feature on their faces. After some semblence of control over his emotions, Mac craned his neck to to try and gauge Jackson's reaction to Danny's admission, when he caught a glimpse of Jackson's face all he found was a huge grin set in place on his age worn face.

"Ugh Danny. Who exactly is this? She looks really familiar." Hawkes asked the question hoping to get some answers to the questions that were rapily forming in his oversized brain.

"This little lady here is Lizzie." He said. Looking over to Jackson for permission to carry on. When got a slight inclination of the head did he continue. "She's Lindsay's 7 year old daughter"

"Wow." Whispered Don as he stared continualy at the young girl sitting serenly on Danny's lap as they carried on their conversation oblivious to the other people surrounding them.

Leaning over Don held out his hand and introduced himself. "Hi i'm Don Flack and I work with your Mommy and Danny." He extended his hand into Lizzie's reaching zone. Lizzie just cuddled up further into Danny and tuened to whisper into his ear. "Is he the 1 who fell down the stairs and spilled coffee all over his brand new suit."

"Yeah he is kiddo." Danny whispered back.

"Hi" Lizzie mumbled from where she had curled herself into Danny's chest.

"Okay I guess you are shy then." Don asked in a soothing voice trying to coax the shy little girl into talking to him.

Lifting her head from Dannys chest to look at Don to give him the glare he had only ever seen grace Lindsay's feature's when interviewing a suspect they knew was guilty, but they couldn't place at th scence during the time of the murder and yet they knew without a doubt that he did it.

"Don she's abit shy when meeting new people, it takes a few days to get comfortable around you but when she does get ready to be pranked." Lindsay said as she walked into the lounge and was followed by Stella and Beth.

After seating herself next to Danny so she could be in contact with her daughter. All the occupants turned to look at trio seated on the sofa. "So Lindsay." Mac started but couldn't find the words to continue.

"You wnat to know, why I didn't tell you I had a daughter?" Lindsay asked as if reading each of the mens minds.

"Before I came to New York, I was married to a guy named Austin, we dated throughout our senior year at high school then throughout my time at college. right after I finished college and gotmy diploma we got married. Then 6 months later I found out i was prgnant." Pausing to let this new information sink and allow the 3 men to process it. " What really got me though was the fact that I was pregnant with twins. I don't anything could match that feeling." She said as she drifted off once again, remembering times when things seemed alot simpler to her.

"When the twins were about 5 months old, there was this one night where no matter what I did Todd just didn't want to settle, where as Lizzie dropped straight off as usual. So instead of risking Todd waking her up I asked Austin to take him for a drive in the car and to pick up a few things from the grocery store. I failed to notice that Austin had been drinking and only when he had pulled out of the drive way did i notice the 8 empty beer bottles littered around the coffee table. About 20 minutes later my pager went off saying there was a road traffic accident and Austin and Todd had been involved. When I got to the scence I was told that Austin had run a red light and because of that a lorry had collided with the back end of the car. The lorry collided with the side where Todd was strapped into his carseat. Paramedics said that Todd died upon impact." Lindsay recounted as she reduced herself to sobbing into her mothers shoulder, who had moved next to Lindsay some time during her monologue.

Knowing that her daughter didn't ahve the strength to finished this painful story twice in the space of an hour Beth finished explaining for her. "Austin got charged with drunk driving and manslaughter. They said he got 15yrs, but that was not unless he gets out for good behaviour."

"Lizzie doesn't know that Austin is the readin that she doesn't have her brother here to play with her. She thinks that Austin left when she was a baby and that Todd died in his sleep." Jackson clarified.

Once Lindsay had regained control again, she gathered up Lizzie from Danny's chest where she had fallen asleep listening to her mothers voice, soothing her into the land of dreams. Standing up Lindsay walked out of the lounge and up the stairs and inti Lizzie's room where she placed Lizzie back into her bed. Tucked her in and just watched her for a few minutes beofre placing a delicate kiss on her forehead and leavind her daughter to sleep on in thge land of dreams.