Note: Smoking is bad. I am not advocating it.
Also, thanks kcatlin for her help.
"When did you last see them?"
"This morning."
"Is there anyone who might want to hurt your girlfriend?"
"I don't know, I guess."
"You guess?"
"She's a cop. She makes people mad."
"How long have they been gone?"
"I don't know."
"I mean, when was the last time you contacted them?"
"She called me, a half hour before I got home. Told me to get dinner."
"Is there any way she left of her own accord?"
"I told you already, she can't. She just had the baby. She can barely walk."
"Sir, please stay calm."
"I'd stay calmer if you'd quit telling me that," Danny snorted. He stood from his spot on the couch and tried to head back into the bedroom. He stood behind the 'crime scene' tape and watched Mac and Sheldon dust the room for prints.
"Find anything?" he asked hoarsely. His eyes travelled over the mussed sheets, the broken lamp, the overturned chair.
"No, Danny, not in the past three minutes."
Danny ran his hand through his hair and sat on the couch again. He rested his head in his hands and closed his eyes. Had there been anything in her voice? Had she been speaking in code? He thought back over what she'd said, trying to pull each word out and turn it over in his mind. Hey honey, just checking in. She'd sounded calm, but tired. She'd asked for sushi. Low sodium soy sauce. Diet coke. She'd said please and he'd heard the smile in her voice because she knew he would do it.
He gave a small groan. Officer Phillips patted his shoulder awkwardly. "We'll find her," he promised.
Mac came out of the bedroom holding a tiny piece of rubber between a pair of tweezers. "Danny, can I see you for a second?"
Danny leaped up and jogged over to him.
"Do either of you have a shoe sole that matches this color of rubber?"
"I don't think so, lemme check," he said quickly, and went into the closet, his head light. He quickly looked at his own shoes, then Lindsay's. "Nope. No light brown rubber."
Mac smiled. "There's a little bit of trace on it, I'll go over to the lab and check it out. Sheldon? You OK for now?"
Hawkes nodded and continued carefully dusting the headboard of the bed.
"I gotta get outta here," Danny mumbled. He walked out of the apartment after Mac. Mac waved him goodbye from the lower level. Danny jogged to the newspaper stand and bought a pack of cigarettes.
Lighting one, he thought of how Lindsay would kill him if she knew he was smoking. Let her kill me, so long as she's safe now. I don't fuckin' care anymore. Just let them be OK.
He took a long draw of the cigarette, letting the smoke fill his lungs. He breathed it out and coughed. When was the last time I coughed while smoking? When I was ten? It took him a moment to realize that he wasn't coughing because of the smoke, rather because he was sobbing his eyes out on a street corner, completely unaware until the cold wind dried the tears coursing down his cheeks.
"Hawkes, you got anything?" Stella asked as she stepped into trace.
"I don't know," he said slowly, watching the mass spectrometer work.
"What's in there?"
"I smelled something sweet and chemical on the pillow. I wasn't sure what it was, but I thought …"
"Chloroform?"
Sheldon nodded. The machine beeped, and displayed methyl trichloride. Sheldon winced. "Yep. Chloroform. This is bad."
"Someone took her," Stella reasoned. "It's what we expected."
"It's bad, Stel. They've had her for nearly two hours now." He stared back down the microscope, his voice sounding too strained and too weak. "Danny's going crazy, the trace on the shoe was inconclusive, and she's been drugged – her body's not in top form, and she has a two week old baby with her."
"Sheldon."
He looked up.
"Stop." Stella's eyes were glistening. "We can't do this now. Just analyze the chloroform. See if there's anything distinctive about the chemical makeup. Just work. We'll find them if we work."
He smiled weakly. "I'm sorry. I'll work on it."
She clapped his shoulder. "I'm going to get a start on the fingerprints from the window. Run them by Lindsay and Danny's reference prints."
"Fucking fuck. Fucking fucker. You stupid fucking fucker!" Stella screamed. She hit the computer and sat back roughly in her chair.
"No hits, I take it?" Sheldon asked from the doorway.
Stella whipped around, and saw that it was him. "Oh, hey. No, nothing."
Hawkes sighed and put his arm on the table, leaning heavily on it. "This is hard," he muttered, "I don't like it."
"We'll get her."
"Danny can't last long," Sheldon said gently.
"I know," Stella responded, "I know."
Danny showed up at the lab, eyes dark, and headed into Mac's office. Mac was on the phone, talking to someone. Danny tapped the table, getting his attention.
"And you say this woman has dark hair? How dark?"
Danny eyed Mac carefully.
Mac listened intently to the caller, then frowned. "That's the wrong color. We'll send someone over to look at her anyways…. Yes, thank you, too. Goodbye." He hung up the phone.
"What …" Danny started.
"It was a hospital right outside the city. They had a Jane Doe with a bullet wound. She'd just given birth. Dark hair. They said it was almost black, though. I just want to be sure. I sent over a picture, and I'll send an officer who knows Lindsay to check."
"Anything else?" Danny rasped.
"Hawkes confirmed that there were traces of chloroform on Lindsay's pillow. There was a partial print on the bassinet that didn't match you or Lindsay, and several prints on the window that don't match you guys either. No hits in CODIS."
"And? What else?" Danny prompted.
"Trace from the rubber was inconclusive."
Danny shoved away from the desk and put his hands on his head, thinking. "I … we could … did you call her mother?"
Mac nodded. "And a few of her friends in Montana, too. They haven't heard from her."
"What about her friends in New York? That guy from her old building … Mick something …"
"Danny, it's a waste of time. We should be looking for people who have something against her."
"She could be fine. Maybe she went out."
"She just had a baby; the room was a mess; Danny, there's no way –"
"What if she's fine!" Danny shouted. His voice echoed through the room. "She could be fine! Stop acting like she's dead!"
"Danny …"
"NO! I hate this. The chloroform could be something else. The mass spec could be wrong. The prints might be friends of ours. Employees at the store where we bought them. Maybe we're wrong. She might be getting some coffee, out to lunch with the baby – Mac, she could be fine! So stop telling me we have to look for prints and suspects, because she could be …" he swallowed, trying to wet his parched mouth. "She could be…" his voice failed him. He sat down, blinking back tears.
"We'll find her, Danny," Mac said softly.
Danny moaned and sobbed into his hands. He felt like a wuss, like a helpless little kid. He thought of the baby's tiny little fingers, of Lindsay's soft hair, her eyes, and focused hard on an image of the two of them, burning it into his brain.