Sorry for the cliffhanger at the end of the chapter, but you won't have to wait too long for another one :) Hope you like it!
Almost a week later, Spencer was released from the hospital. He had no idea who attacked him. He was struck down from behind and didn't remember what happened afterwards. The CSIs were still on the hunt for Rita's murderer and Spencer's attacker, but right now had no lead. Russell didn't tell anyone not working on the case but he didn't rule out the possibility that Spencer staged the attack to clear himself. Because he was not working the case, Greg was completely unaware of this theory.
"Hey, Sanders." Greg was approached by an officer in the parking lot again. It was officer Carney, the officer displaying aggressive behavior towards Greg when they were at Spencer's. Ever since Spencer was attacked, the bullying stopped. Greg still received some resentful looks, but they didn't do or say anything anymore. Officer Carney approaching him now was surprising for Greg. Most officers were avoiding him since the attack as much as they could.
"...Yeah?" he said, sounding rather exhausted. He feared the bullying would start again.
"Spencer wants to see you."
"...Is he already up for company?" Greg thought about it for a second. "Why didn't he call me?"
"He asked me to drive you, come on."
He rolled his eyes. "Didn't they teach you any manners in cop school?" he said mocking.
"...Now, will you?" officer Carney said, trying hard not to sound too aggressively.
"Tell him I'll come by later." Greg turned around to walk to his car. Carney stopped him by grabbing his arm. "He needs to see you now."
"I finally had a breakthrough on the foreign DNA that was found on the scarf." Robin, the DNA tech, walked into the break room where Russell, Nick and Catherine were sitting. "Since it was so little evidence to work with, it took me a lot more time than usual. I almost thought it wouldn't be enough for a profile, but after days of hard work, I found a match!" she said rather excited. "It doesn't make any sense at first, but I found a match with an old murder case."
"...Really?" Catherine asked interested.
She nodded. "But the DNA belongs to the victim. He was murdered five years ago." She handed the report to Russell.
"Taylor Danner, 17, shot in a gang-related shooting..." Russell read out loud. "How did his DNA wind up in our case? That's impossible. Did you double-check...?"
She interrupted him. "I checked it four times. No doubt it's a match. Question is, how?"
"A twin, maybe?" Nick asked confused.
"I checked his birth records, no twin. So how is it possible that a dead man leaves his DNA at a recent crime scene?"
"The way you're asking this questions makes me think you have the answer already." Nick smiled.
"I might have! See, it's impossible he left his DNA there, so I got to thinking. How's it possible we get a match after all?"
"Don't make this too thrilling, Robin," Catherine said.
"Sorry." She smiled. "Well, somebody must've switched the profiles!"
"...What?"
"Well, I thought this all didn't add up so I took a look at the profiles. They don't match."
"I'm confused," Nick said. He really was, as much as the others. "You just said they did."
"Well, Taylor Danner has two DNA profiles."
"That's impossible!"
"It is if someone changed the data for the DNA we found to make it look like his profile. See, this one's the real Taylor Danner's profile. Look at the first three marker. And this is also Danner's profile, matching the DNA found in Woodbine's murder case." She handed them two sheets with DNA profiles on it. They obviously didn't match.
"So you have an idea who did this?"
"It could be anybody who has access to the lab."
"Wait a minute," Russell chimed in. "You're saying one of us did this?"
She sighed. "There's not many other possibilities. I'm sorry."
"...Would a cop be able to do this?" Russell asked with Spencer in mind.
"If he had somebody's access code, yes. Only the lab rats and CSI's have those."
"Can we find out who logged in?"
"Archie's working on it. We'll be able to find out who logged into the system around the time the profile had been changed. It was a few hours after you found foreign DNA on the scarf she was murdered with. Follow me."
They all walked into the DNA lab, where Archie was sitting at the computer. He had a concerned look on his face.
"Did you find out who logged in?"
He nodded. "The profile was changed around 5p.m, give or take an hour. Robin said it was on the day you found DNA on the murder weapon?"
She nodded. "It was so little evidence, it took me days to make out a profile."
"Well..." He sighed. "Everybody who logged in had reason to do so. Everybody but one."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I'm not surprised Robin logged in. She's a DNA tech, she needs the access to the computer all the time. There's just one person who could've had reason to log in, but it's rather unlikely that..." His cell phone got a message.
"What are you talking about, man?" Nick asked, still confused.
Archie took a look on his cell phone. It was important information he was requesting earlier. He sighed again. "He didn't even work at that time."
"...Who?"
Archie gave them a worried look. "Greg."