Getting Too Close
Chapter 7
(A/N): Took a while, but here it is! Enjoy. And I'm sorry for any errors or mistakes - I wrote this rather quickly.
"Issue out a warrant for Bryan Price's arrest," Mac instructed Flack. "We have more than enough evidence to convict him now."
Flack nodded. "I'll have my guys on the lookout for him."
CSI:NY CSI:NY CSI:NY
Danny let out a string of four letter curse words. He'd heard her over the phone. He'd heard them both. Every word before she hung up. And Danny hoped to all seven layers of hell that she had been the one to hang up.
How could they have been so stupid? How could he have been so stupid?
"Should have been the one to drop her off," he growled to himself.
Danny ran through the halls of the lab, zigzagging his way through a bunch of investigators and technicians.
"Mac! Mac!"
His boss looked up, agitated and curious as to why one his top CSIs was running amuck through the corridors of the lab.
Stella, who was with him, cocked an eyebrow at Danny's behavior before turning to her partner.
"Remember," she said, slight smile in her eyes. "You handpicked him."
Mac simply sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "What is it Danny?"
"We need to get to Lindsay's apartment, fast," he said, finally halting to a stop with panic written across his face. "And we better bring back up, too."
Mac and Stella froze, looking at Danny in disbelief.
"What are you talking about, Danny?" Stella asked, a horrible sinking feeling settling in the pit of her stomach.
"I think we might have hostage situation."
CSI:NY CSI:NY CSI:NY
Lindsay hung up, no questions asked, and set down her cell.
"Move over there," Bryan directed his gun toward her couch.
Hands still raised , Lindsay quickly made her way over to her sofa and sat down.
Willing every horrible thought of 'what ifs' to go away, she decided to speak up.
"Bryan…" she began, proud that her voice didn't even crack. "What are you doing here? Why are you here?"
Gun still pointed at her, Bryan shuffled about her living room anxiously - almost manically. "I need you to understand."
She licked her lips fretfully. "Understand what?"
Emotional blue eyes looked everywhere but her face. Lindsay could sense the fear that was emanated from him, but at the same time, she saw the core fortitude to get his point across.
"Talk to me, Bryan," she coaxed. "You said so yourself that I would understand."
It was a situation Lindsay thought would never happen. Sure, she knew guns came with the territory of being a CSI, but she never expected to be at the receiving end, let alone a hostage situation.
His arms were shaking uncontrollably, and Lindsay knew without a doubt that this predicament was not premeditated. Bryan had come here on a whim, and he was smart enough to know that in order to get her attention but still keep her quiet, he needed to do something drastic.
Of course, drastic to Lindsay was going straight to her - gun free - and confessing. Drastic to him was pointing an automatic weapon to her head and threatening her life.
"Bryan," Lindsay tried again. "Why don't you put the gun down and we can talk about this rationally."
"Rationally?" he mocked, taking a threatening step toward her. "You want to talk about rational? Just how rational is it when you pin the blame on me, thinking I killed my own little brother?"
She couldn't calm down her fast beating heart, no matter how hard she tried. And Bryan's exclamation did little to help her.
"Bryan, please," she begged, her eyes still trained on the gun just a foot away from her head. "You can get your point across without making any regrets."
He shook his head wildly. "Too late."
Lindsay gulped. "What do you mean 'too late'? What have you done?"
"You know what I've done," Bryan seethed.
CSI:NY CSI:NY CSI:NY
Danny had his sirens blaring, but still couldn't push past 40 miles per hour because of New York traffic. He glanced in his rearview mirror, and saw about half a dozen cop cars shadowing him. He, himself, was following Mac and Stella in their SUV.
But it just wasn't fast enough.
"Damn New York traffic," he cursed, swerving out of the way when a red convertible refused to pull over to the right side and wait.
"Danny," his transmitter crackled.
He picked it up in surprise and switched the volume on higher. "Yeah, Flack?"
"You didn't learn to drive in Jersey, Messer," Flack reproached, who was in the SUV behind him. "Calm down. We'll get there in time."
Danny let out a heavy sigh.
CSI:NY CSI:NY CSI:NY
"You need to talk to me Bryan."
Lindsay was getting desperate.
"You want to talk?" his mood went from dangerous to frantic. "Fine. Let's talk."
Lindsay could feel herself getting smaller when he looked her in the eye. His blue orbs were wild.
"Let's talk about how screwed up my parents were," Bryan sneered. "And how they were willing to sacrifice their own son to get what they wanted."
A frown quickly formed in Lindsay's lips. "Your parents?"
"You searched our house, didn't you? You must have found the insurance documents."
Shock enveloped Lindsay when a light bulb went off in her head. A deluge of evidence filled her. Insurance documents. Jake Price's blood on the bartender. The business card with the directions.
"So then, her really was…" Lindsay's mouth went dry. "Jake Price w-was…"
"Murdered by my parents," Bryan finished for her.
A twisted, sick feeling settled in her, and Lindsay couldn't stop the tears from forming.
"Oh, god," she let out in a hoarse whisper.
By now, Bryan's arms were lowered to his sides, the gun practically ignored.
"They hired Joshua Ford to kill my little brother," he continued, his face stoic and emotionless as he stared at the coffee table. "He was worth 1.5 million dollars."
Lindsay knew this. She knew all of this. The connections were made clear in Mac's office when the team pulled together all their evidence. But actually hearing it from him made it reality. The only thing missing was the motivation.
"…Why?"
Bryan looked up. "Why?" he repeated, no longer impassive but angry as he brought up his right hand to pint his gun once again at Lindsay. "Because they owed money. My dad wasn't just a liar. He was a gambler. And he was in serious debt. So, what did he decide to do? He decided his ass was worth more than his five year old son's."
Lindsay gulped. "That's why you killed him. When you found out what happened, you killed Joshua Ford out of revenge."
"A life for a life," Bryan's nostrils flared. "It wasn't revenge. It was justice."
CSI:NY CSI:NY CSI:NY
Squad cars completely surrounded Lindsay's apartment building.
Danny barely batted an eye as he jumped from his SUV and ran up to the structure, gun already free from his holster.
"Danny!" Mac called, running after him.
He swiveled around, hearing his boss' aggravated voice.
"Never," Mac chewed out. "Never go in without back up."
Flack pulled up to Lindsay's apartment building and quickly made his way to Mac. "We've got the whole street covered, along with all the exits," he said, adjusted his bullet proof vest. "I've got a helicopter circling, too, just in case."
Mac nodded in understanding. "Alright. We can't announce that we're here because Price did not declare this to be a hostage situation. He didn't give us any demands or even make himself known to us that he's here, so we need to go in quietly."
He took out his gun. "Lindsay lives on the fourth floor. I'll take the front entrance. Danny and Flack, you circle to the back. Stella, you're with me."
Splitting up, the two teams went there separate ways.
CSI:NY CSI:NY CSI:NY
Danny and Flack crept around the building to find the fire escape. Pulling down the ladder, Flack signaled the two men in blue that were trailing them to follow in his lead.
Danny made his way up silently, but inside, it was a battlefield. His heart was pounding erratically, and sweat had already begun to form on ridge of his brow.
"I think the blinds to her window are slightly open," Flack muttered, arching over the railing of the third floor to look up into her apartment.
"I see two figures, Messer," Flack continued, crawling up the last few steps.
He held his arm out, gently pushing Danny back down.
"What is it?" Danny asked anxiously.
"If we go up any higher, Price will be able to see us," he explained. "The window's a little open, too."
"So if he doesn't see us, he'll hear us," Danny concluded, frustrated.
"Mac," Flack turned his the channel of his radio to their boss' number.
"What's your position?" Mac's baritone voice sputtered over the intercom.
"We're on the floor below Lindsay's," Flack whispered into his head set, leaning over the railing once again. "I can make them both out. Lindsay's on the couch, her back to us and the window. Price is standing, pacing back and forth…damn."
" 'Damn'?" Danny repeated, confused, deciding to look up over the railing too. " 'Damn' what?"
"I can confirm there's a gun, Mac," Flack said, a bit apprehensive. "It's pointed straight at her."
A pause. "Alright," came Mac's voice. "Get up to her floor, surround her window. Make sure you're not seen."
They did just that, with the two officers following them left to wait on the third floor for lack of space.
Danny could see the back of Lindsay's head through the small cracks of the blind, the dark caramel color of her hair moving from side to side as she followed Price's moving figure. She was just a few feet away from him, and he couldn't do anything to tell her he was there, right behind her.
"When are you going in, Mac?" Danny asked in a low voice fretfully, turning on his own head set.
"Right about…now."
"NYPD!" Mac blared, loud knocking followed "Open up!"
Lindsay bounded form her seat immediately.
And a series of gunshots soon resulted.
"Shots fired!" Flack yelled into his intercom and to the officers on the floor below them. "Shots fired! Move in!"
(A/N): Yes! And update! Someone pop open the champagne!