Inside Hannah Maison's apartment, Danny and Stella split up and searched each room. Danny walked through the bedroom very slowly. He stood by Hannah's vanity, opening the drawers one at a time. Nothing seemed odd or out of place to him, until he opened the middle drawer. It was full of jewelry, laid out neatly and organized. Danny snapped a photo of the missing section in the jewelry.
"Hey Stell, our vic Hannah's missin' a necklace." Danny called.
Stella walked into the bedroom. She stood next to Danny and examined the placement. "You think the perp took it as a souvenir?"
Danny thought back to the autopsy Sid had given. There was a photo of Hannah's neck, she had ligature marks in a specific pattern. "Hannah had a ligature pattern around her neck. I bet if we find this missin' necklace, we find the murder weapon."
"But what about Dina?" Stella asked.
"Yeah, Dina had ligature marks around her neck as well, only they were a different pattern." Danny answered.
"So our killer takes the murder weapons as souvenir's but leaves everything else?" Stella stated.
"Personally I don' wanna know why he's doin' this. I just wanna get 'em off the street for Lindsay's sake." Danny replied.
Stella nodded. "I hear you. Let's head over to Dina's apartment, maybe we'll find something over there as well."
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Mac and Lindsay sat in the lab, running a second round of test on the flowers. Lindsay was staring at the screen of the computer. The file sat in front of her on the desk. Lindsay reread the results of the recent test results; negative. Something wasn't right. She pulled out an autopsy photo of Dina's fingertips. Her index finger held a single puncture mark. Lindsay pulled out another photo of the flowers they had found at the apartments. She grabbed a magnifying glass and scanned over the photo slowly.
"Mac, I think I figured it out." Lindsay said.
Mac looked up from his screen. "What'd you find?"
"Take a look at the photo." Lindsay said.
Mac moved next to Lindsay and looked at the photos. His eyes followed the magnifying glass moving over the photo. He caught what she was saying. "Thorns."
"Sharp enough to prick your finger on, but subtle enough not to think of them." Lindsay said.
"Let's test them." Mac said.
Lindsay stood from the computer and grabbed one of the bouquets that had thorns on the stems. She carefully cut off several small pieced of the stems and placed them in a separate Petri dish. Mac took the dishes and began dousing them with chemicals.
Stella and Danny walked into the lab as Mac started processing them. Mac looked up from the table. "What did you find?"
"Our killer takes the murder weapons with him." Stella said.
"Both vics had ligature marks around their necks and both had missing necklaces from their jewelry boxes." Danny explained.
"You get a list of jewelry these women owned yet?" Mac asked.
Stella held out the list, "Right here. Dina's missing necklace is a Novica, Pearl and amethyst choker called, 'Fireside'. Costs ninety dollars. Hannah Maison's missing necklace is also a Nociva. It's sterling silver title, 'Promises'. This one racks up to two hundred and ninety dollars. Now this one is interesting, unlike 'Fireside', 'Promises' is completely still. It gives no movement when worn."
"What does the cost have to do with the victims?" Mac asked.
Stella turned to Danny. "Glad you asked Mac. These necklaces aren't cheep, which means these vics had money. From Dina's apartment, we could tell she had money. Hannah's apartment didn't give us any clues. We found that Hannah's business trip to Louisiana was for a new product promotion. Here's the kicker with Hannah, she works for Novica as a Jeweler. The new product, a sterling silver choker called 'Promises'."
"Hannah was promoting her murder weapon." Mac stated. "Do we know when she bought it?"
"Yeah and here's somthin' else. Hannah had the ability to get one free of charge, instead she actually paid for it. It was actually a gift for her niece's seventeenth birthday."
"so we have a tie between the murder weapons." Mac said.
"That ain't all we got Mac." Danny replied. He nodded to Stella.
"Dina Luis worked at drug research center. They were researching better ways of testing for date rape drugs. Her coworkers said she often took samples home so she wouldn't lose time on the research." Stella explained.
"We found three cases of every one of the drugs found in their systems. Even more, one case was half empty, needles included." Danny finished.
"So here's the question, who could have access to every connection we've found?" Mac asked.
Lindsay's computer beeped with the results. She turned in her chair and brought up the results. She smiled and turned around, "Thorns tested positive for the last two drugs. The guy soaked the stems in the drugs, which caused the flowers to absorb them."
"So the killer can control them easily." Mac said.
"That's not all. The medication Dina Luis was taking, was an antibiotic for her eyes. She was suffering from the four drugs and the side effects of her medication." Stella explained.
"Alright, we'll pick this up tomorrow. Lock everything up and head out." Mac said.
Slowly, everyone dispersed from the lab. Lindsay stayed behind, finishing up the results. She gathered all the papers into the file and stood from the computer. The halls were close to empty as she walked down to her office. Lindsay was surprised to still see the lights on in her office. Danny was sitting at his desk, doing nothing. He looked up as Lindsay entered the office.
"what are you still doing here?" Lindsay asked.
"Thought I'd walk you home. That is, if you don't mind?" Danny replied.
Lindsay set the file down on her desk. "Danny, I don't need an escort. I already have one."
"Yeah, but this one doesn't look so obvious." Danny replied. "Do we want the guy to know we have you watched?"
Lindsay shook her head and smiled. "Alright Danny, you can walk me home."
Danny smiled and stood form his desk. "Thank you."
They walked down the hall toward the elevator together. Danny peeked in Mac's office as they walked past. Mac looked up and nodded at Danny. The elevator doors opened. Danny let Lindsay walk in first and followed her. The doors closed, leaving them alone in the elevator.
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aw...ok i had to do somethin' kinda cheesy between them. but wait there's more!! i hope.
i own nothing.
NOTE: anything that sounds random is all caused to sleep deprivation. it's not my fault, but its my college's fualt.