"Hey Montana" Danny greeted as he entered the lab behind her and the mere sound of his voice made her smile broadly.

"Danny, what are you doing here?" She asked as she turned around to meet him. It was a long two weeks recovery period after that day he was held hostage in the warehouse, she was with him almost every night as soon as she got off work. He grumbled a bit, complained about not being a baby, not needing her to take care of him, but she knew he secretly enjoyed the attention. Technically, he wasn't supposed to be back at work until the next morning.

He took a look around to check they were alone and lowered his voice as he came into the lab, stopping merely inches from her body "I woke up all by my lonesome… made a few calls, they told me you're here, I figured I'd come in and keep you company…"

She smiled again "Three weeks and you already can't live without me Messer…"

"You got it Montana… just don't go spreading it around, don't want you ruining my reputation" He teased back and gave her a small swat across her ass. She laughed and gave him a little shove to put some distance between them - No one knew about them at the lab yet and even though it felt wrong to lie to her friends and colleagues it also gave their relationship an extra air of excitement. She kinda liked that the two of them had their own little secret.

"So what have you got?" he asked, getting them back to the case.

"They found a dead body in an ally downtown, only she wasn't really dead" She filled him in. "She's in the hospital now."

He nodded then gestured with his head to the evidence lying on the lab table "And this?"

"We found a gun in her hand, It's a Smith and Weston revolver 45 caliber and there are two bullets missing in the chamber. The serial number has been filed off and there are two sets of prints on the handle but no hits in CODIS so far"

"So we've got a big fat nothing so far" Danny concluded.

"Not from the gun" She replied and he could tell from her tone that she saved the juicy details to last "I found a receipt in the front pocket of her jeans in the clothes Stella sent over from the hospital…"

She showed him a small piece for paper stained in blood that was already sitting under a protective glass. The blood was masking most of the writing on the small piece of paper - making it impossible to read where it was from. He stayed by Lindsey as she took the glass and placed it under the special lamp then waited while she fiddled with the different light spectrums in order to try and bring out the writing underneath the blood.

Finally enough of the letters were made visible for them to read.

"Well, it's not a credit card receipt" Lindsey said, slightly disappointed.

"But it's from the NYU book store" Danny read the heading at the top of the receipt "So maybe our vic is a student?"

The next day - NYU campus

"Excuse me" Flack walked in to the campus book store and flashed his badge to the two students working the cash register before pulling out the picture Stella took of the victim in the hospital last night "I was wondering if you know this girl?"

"Sure." The young boy quickly nodded "That's Jessie. I mean, Jessica Bancroft. Everybody knows her, why? Is she in some kind of trouble?"

"She was attacked last night" Flack replied as he wrote the name down in his notebook. "What did you mean when you said that everyone knew her?"

"Jessie is kind of popular around here, she's a nice person though, not really stuck up like a lot of other popular girls, she's a good student too, top of her class…"

"You seem to know a lot about her" Flack raised an eyebrow at the young guy "You two good friends?"

"Not really but like I said, she's a nice girl and a good student which means she comes in here a lot to buy books, we talked a few times…" The guy gave Flack a slightly embarrassed smile "Plus, she's kinda hot…I made it a point to talk to her when she came in"

"Do you know of anyone who might want to hurt her?" Flack asked his finale question

"Not really" The boy shook his head "I mean, I knew her, but I didn't really know her if you know what I mean… She did come in here with her roommate a few times… her name was Alison something…"

"Hey Stella do you have anything?" Mac asked as he came into the lab and saw Stella hard at work in front of the computer screen.

"Our vic had traces of GSR on her hand"

"So maybe she did shoot herself in the stomach" Mac theorized

"But the pattern of GSR residue was strange, so I did a little reconstruction of the crime scene here on the computer" She indicated at the screen and Mac leaned in to get a better look "I put in the diameters of the ally, the position of our vic when we found her and the location of the bullet we found in the wall…" She pressed the enter key and let the simulation run as she explained "I tried this simulation a hundred different ways. The only way for that bullet to end up in the wall at that angel and the GSR to end up in that pattern on her hand is if she fired that gun when she was already lying on the ground"

"So she's on the ground, bleeding to death, and she fires another shot at the wall?" Mac frowned

"Or maybe she was trying to shoot at her attacker and missed…"

"She didn't miss entirely" Hawks said from the doorway having heard the last exchange. He smiled at their confused looks and walked in handing Mac a page of results. "I found microscopic traces of blood on the bullet we found in the wall. DNA does not match our victim. Now there wasn't a lot of blood on the bullet so I'm thinking who ever she was aiming at, she must have grazed him"

"Any hits in CODIS?" Stella asked even though she could already guess the answer on her own.

"Nothing. Whoever this is, he isn't in the system" Hawks shook his head and all Stella could do was sighing in frustration.

"So Alison, you didn't notice your roommate was missing?" Flack asked the roommate, Alison Bates, once she let them into the apartment. The girl had been hesitant at first but after he and Danny showed he their badges and told her that her roommate had been found in an ally and sent to the hospital she started tearing up and allowed them in.

"I just thought she was pulling an all nighter in the library or maybe even met up with a guy. Sometimes she didn't come home all night…it happened before…I didn't think…"

Flack took the opportunity when the girl stopped to dab her eyes with a Kleenex to ask another question "Can you think of anyone who might want to hurt her?"

"No!" the girl was adamant "Everyone liked Jessie! She never hurt anyone!"

Flack exchanged a look with Danny, knowing that the next question would be a hard one, hoping maybe Danny would step up and ask it for him. Danny shrugged and Flack took a deep breath before turning back to the young girl "Alison, do you think Jessie would hurt herself? Was she depressed lately? Did she ever talk about suicide?"

"No…" She trailed off for a second and Flack could tell that his question had hit a spot

"Are you sure?"

"Look, lately, Jessie had been acting a little strange. Like she was preoccupied or something. I tried to get her to talk to me but she said she just had to figure out a few things. Something was bothering her but there was no way she would hurt herself! She wasn't the type! She was fun, she loved school, she had tons of friends - she'd never try to kill herself"

Danny interjected and asked for permission to go over Jessie's room. Once she pointed him to a room at the end of the small hallway he nodded at Flack and went over to take a look.

"Alison do you know how we can contact Jessie's family? Next of kin?"

"There's only her father, but I wouldn't hold my breath" Alison replied with obvious disdain "He's some hotshot business man, he's always traveling. He and Jessie haven't even talked in over a year…"