Hi :) Thanks for all the reviews. I agree with what people have said, I really can't imagine the whole "Stella, I love you," "Mac, I love you too," "Now let's kiss this out!" thing happening for real - both characters are too complicated for that to work. But I'm bored of all the StellaAngst on here. I know my story is Stella's angst too, but she's not violently in love with him. I think Stella is way too strong not to go after him if she truly, truly feels like that. Okay, rant over - enjoy chapter 5!

It was an hour later when Mac finally caught up with her. He watched her for a minute, admiring the way her neck looked now that she had tied her hair up. 'Shake it off, Taylor.' He told himself, 'She might be a beautiful woman, but she needs your help.'

"Are you coming in, boss?" Stella's voice sounded strained, and she didn't turn around from whatever she was doing.

"How did you-" He stopped mid-sentence, as she silenced him with a wave of her left hand.

Walking up behind her, he looked at what she was doing, and smiled. Two-dozen cartons of ice-cream sat in front of her, a moon shaped dip in the top of each where she had taken a sample. You name it, it was there; Ben & Jerry's, Haagen-Dazs, Walls', and the cheap, 7/11 kind.

She explained slowly, biting her tongue in concentration. "They found something sticky around Jack's…the vic's…around his mouth," She managed, and Mac pretended to ignore her first-name reference to the toddler. "I was day-dreaming…this morning…about dinner, and I remembered…the little girl we looked after…6 months ago…we were waiting for her parents?" She tailed off for a second, waiting to see if Mac remembered. She needn't have worried.

"I remember. Emily, wasn't it?" He knew she was relying on him to fill in the gaps, but he surprised her – she hadn't realised he knew the name of the little girl.

"Yeah, that's the one. Anyway," Stella finished decanting the last spoon of ice-cream into the test-tube, and pushed it into the machine that would choke out a comparative analysis. Mac, meanwhile, watched what she was doing, and waited for her to finish explaining. "Emily was with us for about 3 hours, and of course I offered her something to eat. All she wanted was ice-cream, so-"

"So you went to the store and bought as many flavours with her as you could, then spent your lunch break making up new combinations. Of course I remember, Stel, how could I forget!" He was teasing her gently now, and she smiled appreciatively.

"So, when we worked out that the baby had been taken around 7 hours before his murder, I thought that he would have gotten hungry, and thought that maybe-"

"You thought that maybe one or more of his attackers had a 'human' side, and had given him something sweet to eat?" He finished, knowing that he was spot on.

"And it seems," Stella paused to rip up the results from the machine, "That a combination of Ben & Jerry's," She pulled a brown and purple carton forward, "Haagen-Dazs", a red and gold pot this time, "And your basic raspberry ripple", a large white box, "Did the trick for young Jack here." She finished with a grin on her face.

"Very good, Detective Bonasera. I'll be sure to tell the chief that your salary is well worth it. Where else would I be able to learn about an infant's ice-cream preferences?" Light-hearted Mac. Stella met his eyes, and thanks were written all over them. "Seriously, Stel," He turned his attention back to the case, but only after maintaining eye-contact for a second longer than necessary. "What does this have to do with the case?"

"We're building up a profile of our attackers. I don't know about you, but most adults who've come into contact with young children will tell you that even a small bowl of ice cream can be a bad idea for two-year-old boys, let alone a mixture of three different flavours, in what I would imagine to be large quantities. I'm going to see Sid now and ask him to re-check stomach contents," She added, still not finished. "But I would imagine our attackers are young and inexperienced. They would have wanted a quiet baby, and ice-cream is not the way to achieve that." She smiled up at him, and his resolve almost broke. All he wanted to do was kiss her better.

Let me know what you think! Chapter 6 up tonight or tomorrow morning depending on time.