A.N. Still don't own anything.
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Lindsay carefully peeled the trace off the shirt and held the tape up to the light. It was reflective, just as she'd thought. "Adam," she called, sticking the tape to its backing.
Adam glanced at her and excused himself from the conversation he was having with one of the other lab techs. Crossing the room, he looked at her quizzically. "What's up, Lindsay?"
"Could you run this?"
"Sure." He studied it as he took it from her. "Any bets?"
She smirked at him. "I'm gonna go with glitter glue."
"What?" he asked laughing.
"Glue with glitter in it. Kids use it all the time for art projects."
"Cleverly named stuff." Adam looked back at the trace, turning it slightly from side to side. "It does reflect light," he murmured, already wandering away.
"Thanks, Adam," she called to his back.
He muttered something, but was too far away for her to make it out and his attention definitely wasn't on her anyway. Hiding a smile, Lindsay began packing the shirt away. She'd run every possible test on it and the only thing she'd come up with was that reflective trace. Why was evidence so finicky?
Her phone vibrated in her pocket as she put the lid back on the evidence box, and she stripped her gloves to pull it out. When she saw Mac's name on her screen, she chewed her lip for a second before flipping the phone open.
"Hey Mac," she answered, trying to hide the nervous flutter in her voice.
"Probation's over, Lindsay. Get down to 125 Richmond."
"Got it," she said, jotting the number down with a shaking hand. "Wait. Where is that?"
"Outskirts of Queens," Mac explained. She could hear Danny talking to someone in the background and his voice was echoing, like they were in a warehouse or another cavernous room. "Get here as fast as you can. And bring extra swabs."
Lindsay closed the phone and leapt into motion. Hurrying towards Adam, she was already pulling off her lab coat. "Hey, could you give those results to Stella when you're done? I gotta go."
"Everything okay?" he asked as she practically sprinted for the door.
Turning, she pushed open the door with her back. "Everything's great."
She grinned and almost laughed at Adam's baffled expression. She couldn't blame him. She'd been trudging around the lab with a dismal attitude for the past month and a half. Happy Lindsay was no longer a familiar sight for Adam.
The trip to Queens was torturous. Part of her kept thinking that if she didn't get there soon enough, Mac would call in someone else and put her back on probation indefinitely. Her leg bounced spastically while she wove—slow as molasses—through the traffic.
Finally, she was at the address and she frowned at the warehouse. It was what she'd expected, but there was a large horse trailer out in front. Who would have a horse in Queens?
She flashed her badge at the cops standing guard at the crime scene tape and ducked under as they lifted it. Moving through the open door, she blinked in surprise. The inside of the warehouse looked like that of any vet's office. Cages lined one wall and there was a glass-walled room off to her right that looked like an operating room.
Through the large sliding door on the far wall, she saw Danny lift his camera and snap off a photo then disappear as he stepped out of the frame of the doorway. Gripping her kit more tightly, she crossed the room, barely glancing at the dogs and cats in the cages to her left.
When she got to the doorway, she ground to a halt. "What the—"
Danny—taking pictures of the lacerations on the horse's side—glanced over his shoulder at her, but Mac didn't even look up from the hoof he was currently swabbing. "Glove up," he told her.
Setting her kit down, she pulled on a pair of gloves and stepped carefully up to the horse. Danny moved behind her, almost brushing her back, and murmured in her ear, "I thought you'd feel right at home."
"Thanks for thinking of me," Lindsay muttered, still marveling over the horse's presence in what seemed to be a cavernous holding room.
"Don't mention it."
Shaking her head, she waited as Mac came back around the horse. "Could you take a few swabs of her mouth, please?"
"Sure." Grabbing a handful of swabs, Lindsay moved to hold the mare's head, getting a first look at her face. Lindsay stared at the mare for a moment, taking in the pale birthmarks on the brown of her face.
"Something wrong?" Mac asked, noticing her frozen expression.
It took a moment to get her voice to work. "This is Lady Fingers."
"Excuse me?" Mac stepped up next to her and eyed the mare warily.
"That's her name. Because of these," Lindsay explained, pointing out the long, narrow marks on either cheek.
Danny came up on her other side. "How do you know that?"
"She just won the Derby and the Preakness."
"As in Kentucky Derby?" Mac asked evenly.
When she nodded, Mac and Danny shifted uneasily. "How did a horse who just won a race in Kentucky get to an alley in New York?" Danny asked Mac.
"Maryland," Lindsay corrected. "The Preakness is in Maryland. And the Belmont—"
"The what-ness?" Danny interrupted, shaking his head.
Lady Fingers fidgeted anxiously, and Lindsay murmured to her softly before finally answering Danny's question. "The Preakness. It's the second race in the Triple Crown. The Belmont Stakes is the third, and it's held in Elmont. Lady Fingers here has a shot at winning."
"The Triple Crown?" Danny looked over Lindsay's head at Mac. "Are you getting any of this?"
Mac was quiet for a minute. "First we finish processing. Then we get Lady Fingers somewhere safe. If she's as famous as you say, maybe she was the intended target."
Lindsay smirked when Danny stared after Mac as he stepped away and flipped open his cell. Mac was too far away to be audible, so Danny circled the horse and raised the camera again.
"All Montana girls know this much about horse racing?" he asked, his eyes sliding to her and then back to Lady's side.
Lindsay shot him a smile. "Not a huge sport in Montana. I only know about it because of Connor."
Why did she even open her mouth sometimes? Danny's face was calm, but noticeably cooler and she wanted to sigh. Carefully, she swabbed the inside of Lady's lips.
"He a betting man?"
Lindsay blinked, swab frozen in her hand. There was no rancor in Danny's voice, but he'd met Connor. Did he really think Mr. Do No Evil frequented the tracks with a nasty gambling habit?
"No, his family raises race horses," Lindsay explained.
"So you spent a lot of time with them?"
"Their thoroughbreds?" she asked in surprise. "No, that farm isn't in Montana. It's somewhere out here, actually."
"Somewhere?" Danny repeated casually as he crouched to document the horse's front legs.
Shrugging, Lindsay swabbed along Lady's tongue. The horse danced in annoyance. "Sorry," she murmured to the mare, gently patting her cheek. "Connor didn't play a big role in the training, so he didn't visit the farm much, and I didn't pay all that much attention when he talked about it."
Danny grunted and snapped another picture. "All right, I got every bit of this horse that's photographable."
Mac walked back up to them. "Let's finish up. They're on their way to pick up the horse."
Danny set down his camera while Lindsay brushed a swab across Lady's front teeth. The back would be a bit trickier.
"Danny, help me get these hooves printed," Mac said, leaning back down to touch Lady's back leg. She lifted it agreeably and Danny rolled the ink over it.
When they were done, Lindsay gave Lady a soothing pat on the cheek, which made the horse visibly relax after all the strenuous attention she'd been receiving. Mac eyed her as they all stripped off their gloves and carefully packed away the evidence they'd collected.
"You're good with horses," he commented.
She turned her head with a confused smile. "I grew up around them."
Danny met her eyes questioningly as Mac bent down to pick up his kit, but she could only shrug. Mac already knew that, so why was he asking? He didn't say anything else, leading Danny and Lindsay back out of the warehouse and sending them on ahead to the trucks when a man stepped out of the shadows to speak to him.
"Who's that?" Lindsay asked, glancing back.
"The vet who owns this place. Apparently, Mac's worked with him before," Danny explained, opening the back of the SUV and packing his kit in.
Lindsay caught his underlying meaning. "You've never seen him?"
Taking her kit out of her hands, Danny's gaze drifted up to hers and to the men again before he turned to secure the evidence. He didn't answer. The look he'd given her was enough.
"So, where exactly did you find this horse?" she asked, hands naturally finding her hips.
Danny's body relaxed and he closed the door, turning to perch himself on the back bumper with a smirk. "In an alley off Hudson. The DB was lying in front of the horse and she had her back to the wall of the alley. Don't know why she didn't run away. She just stood there, even when the guy who found 'em both walked into the alley."
"Any id on the body yet?"
"Nah. Just sent the body with the ME an hour ago. We got the horse out first and Hawkes is with the crime scene."
"Mac chose to stay with the horse?" Surprise had her glancing back at her boss again.
"Not the first time," Danny said calmly. When she frowned at him, he just smiled smugly and crossed his arms over his chest.
Shaking her head, she turned to walk to the other SUV. "I'll see you back at the lab," she said over her shoulder, hearing him chuckle as she pulled open the door.
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"Okay, here's what we got off the body," Mac said as the team gathered in the reconstruction room. "A couple trace samples still being processed and these two scraps of paper."
Everyone pressed a little closer as Mac slid the more crumpled looking piece of paper to the middle of the table. "It's a list," Stella murmured, trying to read it upside down. "Lady Fingers, Tricky Nick, and Gung Ho Charlie."
"Those horse names?" Danny asked, glancing sideways at Lindsay.
"It's a trifecta."
Everyone turned to look at her, and she leaned closer to the scrap. "I'd have to check, but all three of these horses probably ran in the Derby and Preakness."
"A trifecta," Mac repeated, gaze locked on her face.
"It's a type of bet. You pick which horses will place first, second and third and the order they'll place in," she explained, ticking off on her fingers.
"Sounds difficult."
"Try nearly impossible," Lindsay scoffed, not looking up from the paper. "This looks like a receipt for the bet, but the track name's been torn off the stub. It looks worn," she added on a murmur.
"Could this be for the Belmont?" Mac asked, eyeing her.
Lindsay frowned. "I don't know. I don't know when the betting starts for a race. It might have started as early as the day the Preakness ended."
"So this bet could have been placed weeks ago," Mac surmised, turning his gaze back to the ticket. "Adam, could you pull up the order of the winning horses at the Derby and Preakness?"
The younger man nodded, typing quickly on the computer. "Here we go," he said a second later, displaying the list on the wall screen.
"First was Lady Fingers, second Tricky Nick—"
"Third Gung Ho Charlie," Mac interrupted Stella.
"So this was a solid bet, then," Stella said, looking excited at the discovery.
Lindsay shook her head; something was bothering her. "It's a strange bet to make on the Belmont, though."
"Why's that?" Danny asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
She looked up to meet his eye. "The odds on winning a trifecta bet at a Triple Crown race would be astronomical. So why bet on Lady Fingers?"
"Well, everyone knows she's going to win," Stella pointed out.
"Exactly," Lindsay said. "These horses took the top three places at both the Derby and the Preakness. If you placed this bet, your odds would be even money at the Belmont."
"So why bother?" Stella asked, her eyes turning to Mac, who shook his head.
In the ensuing silence, Lindsay felt her body tense as a thought occurred to her. "What if…"
Turning to her, Mac tilted his head. "Go on."
"It might be nothing but…what if this wasn't a bet for the Belmont?" Her eyes flicked nervously through the other pairs in the room before landing back on his. "What if it was for the Derby?"
"And he won," Mac said, straightening.
"God, that would be…" Lindsay shook her head, trying to calculate. "That could have been millions. Lady Fingers was never expected to win. She was the underdog."
"But why wouldn't the guy have cashed it?" Danny asked, bracing his arms with his hands against the table. "Why keep it in his pocket?"
Lindsay shook her head. "I don't know."
"What about this other one?" Mac asked, pointing to the second ticket stub. It had a serial number scribbled at the top in nearly incomprehensible chicken scratch.
Lindsay shrugged. "Another trifecta, but it's not from a track, I don't think."
"So, two trifecta bets. One predicts the exact order and the other has a mystery horse in third."
"No, he took Lady Fingers off," Lindsay murmured, her eyes darting between the two scraps then up to the wall screen.
Mac turned to her again. "What?"
"Look," she said, pulling the scraps next to each other. "They're different paper samples, right? So, two different bets, placed with two different people. This one's worn, this one's crisp. The one without Lady Fingers is a new bet. The guy bumped up the other two horses and put another horse in third. The one that came in fourth at the Preakness," she added, pointing up at the screen.
Stella rubbed her temple. "But why would he bet against Lady Fingers? She's slated to win."
"Maybe he knew Lady Fingers wasn't going to win the Belmont," Mac said seriously, staring into a middle distance.
"Still no id on the body?" Danny asked, looking at Stella.
"Hawkes ran the prints, but no hits in AFIS."
"Danny, Lindsay, I want you to go talk to Lady Fingers's owner, J.J. McCullen. He's on his way to the precinct now," Mac told him, seeming to shake himself out of his thoughts.
Lindsay raised her eyebrow. "How'd you get him to agree to that?"
"Told him I wouldn't give him his horse back until the investigation was over. He seems to want to speed things up a bit," Mac answered with a smirk.
"With less than a week til the Belmont? Probably in his best interests," Lindsay agreed, taking one last look at the scraps before turning to Danny.
"You ready, Montana?" he asked, adjusting his glasses. She nodded and they both stripped their gloves and lab coats off.
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"Our DB's name is Russel Styles. He's been McCullen's jockey for the past five years," Danny told Mac as they walked down the hallway.
Mac nodded. "He have any idea who would want Styles dead?"
Shrugging, Danny flipped open his notebook. "Said the guy pretty much kept to himself. No enemies that McCullen knew about."
"Did McCullen know anything about his jockey's gambling habit?"
"He didn't seem to. He was surprised when we mentioned it, but pretty calm. Said it was pretty common. He did mention, however, that Styles loved Lady Fingers, and he couldn't imagine the guy would bet against her."
"Keep digging," Mac said as they rounded the corner. Danny nodded and started to turn away. "Danny."
Stopping abruptly, he moved back to Mac's side with a concerned expression. Mac's tone was definitely fishy. "What's up?"
Mac stepped closer, and Danny felt his eyes slide around the hallway, automatically looking for eavesdroppers. "How's Lindsay doing?"
Danny felt his muscles freeze. He knew what Mac was asking; he wanted to know if she was up to handling caseloads. "She's doing fine."
"Good." Mac clapped his back as he walked away. "Keep me posted on the background check."
"Will do," Danny muttered, head down as he strode away.
For half a second, he'd wanted to tell Mac about the circles under Lindsay's eyes and what they had to mean. But it wasn't his place, and just thinking about doing it made him feel uncomfortable, like he'd betrayed her somehow.
"Danny."
Glancing up, he found Stella standing in front of him. "What's up?"
"You okay?" she asked, tilting her head to the side.
He tried to even out his expression. "Yeah, yeah. You got something?"
She eyed him suspiciously for a moment then turned to walk down the hallway. "Guess who owed money at several tracks?"
"Our friend Styles?"
"Bingo."
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Lindsay shook her head. "I really don't think McCullen had anything to do with it."
"He had motive," Danny argued. "His jockey was going to sabotage his chance at five million dollars in prize money."
"Then why leave the horse at the scene? And why do such a crappy job of covering your tracks? McCullen easily has millions in the bank. Why the do it yourself job?"
"What? You don't think McCullen did it because he would have hired a hit on the guy?" His tone was wry and he felt Lindsay tensing in anger next to him, but she kept her tone calm.
"My point is, if he was trying to protect his chances of winning the Triple Crown, why leave the horse at the scene of the crime?"
Danny shrugged. "Maybe he thought it would run home."
"Horses aren't dogs, Danny. They don't remember where their barn is when they're hundreds of miles from home."
"I'm just saying, we can't rule out McCullen because the guy left the horse behind."
"I'm just saying this isn't the equine version of Homeward Bound," she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest.
He blinked at her. "You watched that?"
Dropping her head in her hands, she took a minute to get her temper back under control. She had to get out of here. Danny had been on edge all day and it was starting to color every word that passed between them. The tension that had been building was affecting her brain—probably just due to her weariness—but it was making working with him difficult.
When she raised her head, she sighed and looked at her watch. "Let's go home, get some sleep and come back to it fresh tomorrow."
"We're not done." There was a brittleness to Danny's voice that hadn't been there before the silence, and Lindsay felt herself jerk in surprise.
"We can't do anything else until we run down some of these leads, Danny. It's almost midnight, none of the tracks are open right now," she pointed out, her face and tone carefully neutral.
Seeing the frustration in his face, she wanted to sigh again. Obviously the tension was getting to him, too. She wished fervently that she could think of a way to disarm the moment, but her mind was blank.
Some of what she was feeling must have shown on her face because his gaze dropped and he suddenly just looked exhausted. "See you in the morning, Lindsay," he said, swiveling his chair to face the computer.
Nodding, she started gathering her things, watching him as she slid her jacket on. "What about you?" she asked when he made no move to get up.
"I'm gonna work some more."
She bit her tongue before asking him what he thought he was going to work on. All their leads were useless until the tracks opened in the morning. Stifling another sigh, she turned to go. She wanted to tell him to get some rest, but she didn't have the right and she knew he'd just shut down more if she pressed the issue.
"Good night, Danny." Her voice was no more than a murmur.
As she walked down the hallway, the vaguely sore feeling in her chest grew until a heaviness settled there, making it hard to breathe. At the elevator, she pushed the button several times, none too gently.
Since her return to New York, the situation with Danny had felt more awkward than ever and she wasn't sure why. Maybe it was the fact that she hadn't slept in at least a week; the dreams would come back every time she closed her eyes.
The strange thing, considering the tension building between them, was that she never really felt calm until Danny was near her. She couldn't quite erase the images from the nightmares until she saw him, alive, breathing, not bleeding.
Things had been going so well in Montana. She felt as though the barrier between them had fallen almost completely. But, now, back in New York, in the harsh light of reality, those walls were rising again, each day cementing a new brick.
She hated it.
And she knew it was mostly her fault, that he'd only put the space between them because she'd asked him to, but what she'd told Danny was true; she needed to be alone to sort out the residual fall-out from all of the turmoil she'd felt in the last ten years. If she let Danny do that for her—and she knew she only had to say the words—she wasn't sure she'd ever be strong enough on her own.
She never meant to close him out completely.
Rubbing her forehead, Lindsay pushed out the doors of the precinct and stopped just outside. Her feet wouldn't move towards the subway, but she didn't want to go back inside, either. She was stuck.
Someone pushed the door open behind her, and she whirled, heart fluttering in the vicinity of her throat. Detective Angell paused as she saw Lindsay standing there and her eyebrows twitched a little.
Lindsay tried to keep the disappointment off her face. "Hi," she said in greeting.
The other woman nodded and smiled politely. She was even more beautiful up close, and Lindsay could feel her own frumpiness level skyrocketing. Determined not to feel threatened by this woman's beauty, Lindsay stepped forward.
"I don't think we've met yet." She smiled widely. "I'm Lindsay Monroe, part of Mac's team."
"I know who you are." The words were a surprise, but Angell smiled back at her. "Jennifer Angell. Detective," she added, pointing at the building beside them.
The woman was friendly enough, but Lindsay was getting a strange vibe of reservation coming from her. Ignoring it, Lindsay nodded and shook the woman's hand.
"Nice to meet you."
"Same."
They stood awkwardly for a moment then Angell backed away. "Well, good night."
"Night."
Angell started to walk away, but stopped when she glanced over her shoulder. Lindsay looked at her curiously as the other woman came back up to her. "Look," the detective said. "Are you waiting for Messer? Cuz I saw him head out the other door with Flack right before I left."
"Oh," Lindsay said, startled. "No, I'm not waiting. I—" She paused. "I'm not sure what I'm still doing here, honestly. But thank you."
Finally, her feet started working again and Lindsay hurriedly set off for the subway entrance. She could feel Angell's eyes on her back and a bit of resentment flared inside her. Did everyone know about she and Danny? Really? Every single detective and officer they worked with?
And if Angell knew about Lindsay and Danny's…whatever they had, why the hell was she hitting on him so blatantly?
As she slid through the closing doors of the subway car, Lindsay sighed. It wasn't fair to be mad about that. She'd only seen Angell hit on Danny once, nearly two weeks ago. And Danny flirted with everyone; sometimes it seemed like it was the only way he knew how to interact with women. As much as she hated the fact, it was none of her business.
It was late enough that the car was nearly empty and she slid into a seat gratefully. As the car jerked forward, Lindsay squeezed her eyes shut, trying to put any thoughts of Danny and other women out of her mind. He was free to do whatever he wanted. Whoever he wanted for that matter.
But it still made her chest ache.
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A.N. Next chapter will be up in a couple of days!