A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I'm very determined to finish this fic, although it might take a while, I definitely want to finish it, so not to worry! Please note that I'm not an American and I've never been to New York or the States, so some things might be a little inaccurate, don't hate me for that.

CHAPTER 2

11 AM, still no sign of Danny Messer at the CSI office in downtown New York. Lindsay was working on the unsolved case but clearly couldn't focus, even the slightly inexperienced Hawkes could see that. He had been watching the girl from the moment she left Mac's office with that weird expression on her face. The following hour he could clearly see her concentration slipping away every five minutes. Her gaze wasn't on the evidence and the pictures, most of the time it was on her hands or on the table a few inches in front of the file. She sighed, put the documents back in the file and got up, determined not to let everybody see how uncomfortable she was. She smiled at Hawkes before leaving the lab.

"Hey girl!" Lindsay sighed, this wasn't the time for Flack to make weird remarks about anything concerning her. "Hey Don" she said kindly, while continuing to walk. "Mac just asked me to help you with that old case, he wants us to go to the crime scene again." Flack said with a smile on his face. Lindsay suddenly stopped and looked at Flack with a surprised expression on her face. "But I should be working with Danny on that new case, he can be here any second now" she said in objection to Mac's decision. Flack put his hands in the air "Hey, it's not my decision" he said in defense "Messer's probably late again, and Mac probably wants him to work on it alone" Flack suggested. Lindsay thought about Flack's suggestion for a while and decided that it could be a possible move of Mac to punish Danny in this way for his misbehavior. She nodded in acceptance and looked at the tall detective "Your car or mine?" she said with a tiny smile. "Mine, definitely mine" Flack answered with a huge grin on his face "I'll show you some New York driving style." Lindsay smiled again and followed Flack to the lockers, where they put on their coats.

"So, do you ever go out here?" Lindsay asked with a sideward glance while she put on some warm gloves. Flack smiled but stayed quiet and didn't answer the question. "Come on" Lindsay said trying to force Flack to answer her question. "You've been telling me about going out and integrating in the city for weeks now. You're not going to tell me you don't go out now are you?" she said defiant. Flack looked up to the ceiling and chuckled "I'll tell you all about it when we're in the car, now move on Monroe."

New York traffic wasn't anything like Montana, Lindsay still had to adjust to her new environment and couldn't help but making remarks at all the unusual things she laid her eyes on, thereby entertaining Flack who knew New York traffic just a little to well. "OMG, look at that guy over there" Lindsay said with a childish enthusiasm "How high can your heels be when you're a transvestite." Flack chuckled, he wasn't even surprised to see sights like that, he knew all New Yorkers had some sort of crazy second life. "You still haven't seen half of it" he said with his eyes fixed on the road "we've had some really fucked up cases last year. I still can't believe what people are capable of, what their minds are capable of producing." He shivered for a moment and glanced sideward at Lindsay, "this case isn't any different" he said. Lindsay looked straight forward "You know, Montana isn't as easy as you guys might think it is" she snapped at the tall detective "I've seen some pretty bad things myself too." To avoid having an argument Flack decided to keep quiet, and the car filled with "Killing me Softly" from the Fugees which was playing on the local radio station.

After a quiet half an hour which was almost surreal they arrived at the old crime scene, in the middle of a deserted former industrial area. The cold wind was blowing firmly between the high buildings. "This place gives me the creeps" Lindsay said while grabbing her kit from the back of the car. "Well it ain't the Hilton, that's true" Flack said "but for criminals, it's paradise." Lindsay saw with one look at the buildings what Flack meant. If you wanted to kill, rape or abuse someone, you'd best do it here. No chance there will be unwanted witnesses, a scary atmosphere for your victim will add to the thrill and if you're really lucky your crime wouldn't even be found by the NYPD.

"Let's get it started" Lindsay said quasi happily, walking towards the backdoor of the building, Flack right behind her. "So were you here the last time they investigated this" Lindsay asked opening the door and taking a look inside. They entered a huge hall, which probably had been filled with machines half a decade earlier. "Yes, I was" Flack answered shivering to keep his body warm from the cold January wind "I remember Mac being obsessive about this case, wanting to solve it no matter what." "Look it's right over there" Flack said pointing at the other side of the hall where a medium-velocity blood spatter could still be seen. Walking towards the former crime scene Lindsay couldn't help but thinking what an awful place this must be to die in. "According to what I heard from Mac those days, the perp stabbed our vic twelve times with some sort of knife, and afterwards he shot him in the head." Lindsay looked at Flack in horror "you mean the guy was still alive after those twelve stabs?." Flack shrugged his shoulders "Dunno, we never found out. It's either that, or the perp really had some major issues with the vic."

Lindsay sighed and opened her kit removing her warm gloves and replacing them with the sterile cold ones used by the CSI's. "Looking at the pattern of the blood spatter on the wall, I'm thinking the victim was still standing when he got stabbed. Medium-velocity blood spatter is usually caused by stab wounds. I don't see any high-velocity blood spatter, so the perp shot the vic after he fell to the ground. He must have landed on the ground somewhere between the stabs and the shooting." She pointed at two clear dark patterns on the floor. "Here's the first pool of blood, probably from the stabs, and there's the second one, smaller, from the head wound."

Flack got the file from Lindsay's bag and started looking at the different pictures of the victim. "Yeah, you're right" he said, holding the pictures in front of Lindsay "But this doesn't make any sense" he added pointing at a fourth dark spot on the floor. "They couldn't do any DNA tests on the blood, somehow it was too old." Lindsay sighed, "Well, there's nothing here to investigate" she said closing her kit again "except for the blood spatters there's nothing here." She grabbed her tiny flash light just to be sure she didn't miss any obvious evidence. "We'd better get out of here if that's the case, I'm freezing" Flack said impatiently, already starting to walk to the door. "I'll be there in a minute" Lindsay said "You can wait in the car if you like." Flack gladly took this offer and quickly started walking to his car, where he turned up the heat with a sigh of relief. Lindsay followed several minutes after him, her frustration could clearly be seen on her face. "Let's get back to the office" she said grumpy "Danny'll be there right about now, so we can work on that other case." Flack grinned at her grumpy tone and started the car, ready to make the journey back to downtown Manhattan.

CSI – Crime Scene Investigation

Unsolved cases had always tormented the spare time of detective Mac Taylor. Wasting several hours on a daily basis working on the cases without moving forward didn't do much good to his night rest. He recently started to feel it, besides from the fact that his co-workers had already seen it weeks ago. "You look tired Mac" "When was the last time you slept" "Wow, someone needs some sleep", remarks that were almost a daily routine when his colleagues arrived at the office. Today was no exception to that, Mac had noticed Lindsay looking at his weary eyes and Stella had already made a remark about it at 9 AM. Mac looked at the cases in front of him, his gaze on a two year old case involving a poor Latino man from The Bronx. He stared at the evidence like he had done so many times, hoping that maybe some day he would get a prompting that would put a whole new light on the case. Mac sighed and put the file aside, looking at his watch he realized it was near lunch time. He got up, grabbed his coat, ready to go out for lunch when he remembered the slightly panicked Lindsay visiting his office earlier that morning. He realized he hadn't seen Danny arriving at the office yet, and sat back down grabbing his cell phone to hear what was going on. Dialing Danny's number Mac was considering several reasons why his talented CSI wasn't at the office yet and hadn't called in sick. Waiting for Danny to pick up the phone Mac could see through the glass walls of his office that both Flack and Lindsay had returned from their visit to the former crime scene. After waiting a while for Danny to answer his phone Mac got his voicemail "Fuck" he said in frustration, cutting the call.

Mac got up and walked quickly to Flack who was just heading for the lunchroom on the other side of the office. "Don, you have a minute?" Mac yelled at Flack. The dark haired detective stopped, turned and nodded looking curiously at Mac. "What's up" he said. "Do you know where Danny could be?" Mac asked directly looking straight at Don. Flack shook his head and took a bite from his sandwich "'s Ok I eat?" he asked with his mouth already half full. Mac nodded "Danny should've been here 3 hours ago. I can't seem to reach him on his cell and there's no reason why he would be this late and don't notify me." Flack nodded in agreement, "What do you want me to do?" he asked. Mac hesitated, it wasn't his style to check upon his staff the minute they didn't show up at work, but something made him feel uneasy about this situation. "Just stop by his house after lunch, see if he's there. Just to be sure." Flack nodded again "What if he ain't there?" he asked in return. "Let's assume that's not the case" Mac said encouraging "just check it, ok?" "I'm on it, Mac" Flack replied. "Great" Mac said relieved and he turned to go back to his office, have lunch there instead of outside, he suddenly didn't feel like going out anymore.

CSI – Crime Scene Investigation

It had to be near midday Danny thought, looking at the ray of light under his left eye and feeling the temperature rising a little. He never was the most observant CSI of his team, no way he could ever beat the overly observant Mac Taylor. That guy just had the eyes of a hawk and the ears of a fox, being able to see everything and connect the most illogical things with each other, and by doing that solving the most difficult cases. But even the most inexperienced person could feel that the pain and the cold Danny endured at the moment were caused by spending hours in the same position in freezing temperatures. Danny coughed raucously feeling his throat go soar each time he inhaled the icy air around him. His team hopefully already reported him missing, at least that's what Danny expected. He could only imagine what a shock they would get when they found out that he wasn't at home. What would they think, what would they do? How were they going to find him. If he relied on his hearing he could clearly conclude that he wasn't anywhere near the CSI office. Downtown Manhattan was always noisy, cars honking, people chatting, police sirens, but he hadn't heard anything here in the time he was awake. It was almost un-New York like quiet at the place he was kept. The only sounds he heard were muffled voices coming from a room near by, he assumed these people were the ones that had somehow captured him for some unknown reason. Danny shivered again. At least he still was in the northern part of the country, the cold hadn't reached many other states yet.

He had to find a way to clarify all this. It didn't make any sense, why he was here, why he hadn't heard what was going on yet. Something was terribly wrong. Danny's head was still painful but his mind was as clear as could be. His first thoughts were of the CSI in Las Vegas who had been buried alive a while ago. He considered that plot for a while, but couldn't figure out why someone would do something exactly like that to him. This was different from the case in Las Vegas. This was personal, they kept him close by, probably to enjoy the thrill of having control over a NY law enforcer, cuffed and blindfolded, or to use him for some purpose later on. Danny immediately felt the nausea coming back again. What were they going to do to him? He hadn't thought about it so far. He had been too busy figuring out how he got here and where this 'here' actually was that he hadn't considered the fact that he was probably kept here for a reason. Danny swallowed, tasting some blood that had come from a wound on his lip. Whatever that reason was, it wasn't anything he thought he wanted to know.

The cuffs around his wrists had already taken over his body temperature, which was now about one degree below the usual temperature, and the ropes around his ankles didn't hurt as much as they had done when he first woke up. He assumed they got numb from the cold and the tight ropes cutting of the blood running to his feet. There had to be some changes in his situation fast, or else he would suffer from dehydration and his low body temperature would probably cause unconsciousness in a matter of hours, followed by death not long afterwards.