AUTHORS NOTE: So I'm here again with the second chapter of my latest case story! I'm slightly hoping that this chapter is slightly longer than the last one, fingers crossed, aye? I hope you're enjoying it!

DISCLAIMER: I only own the characters that you don't recognise of the little box :)

[The Body]

The four detectives arrived at the crime scene at different times. The boss arrived first as he'd gone straight from his office to the scene and was relieved to see that the case had been preserved perfectly by their team of CSI's. The yellow tape had been lifted by him by a uniformed officer when he walked across and saw that their M.E, a beautiful blonde woman, bent over the body. She smiled that smile of hers that didn't show happiness but the simple recognition of his presence. The only time they ever crossed paths was at this precise time, a dead body between them.

The blonde male detective was the next to arrive on the scene. He had just been snuggled up to his loving partner, a nightclub owner that was on the top ten list of all police stations but that had never stopped their romance from blossoming, when his mobile had rang and woke the pair of them up. The warm chuckle of his partner indicated that he knew why the mobile was ringing at such a ridiculous hour. The detective had simply answered with a gruff hello before agreeing that he'd be there. He gave his partner one quick kiss before climbing out of the bed and searching for his pants as he left the bedroom. He arrived on the scene and nodded his head at acknowledgement of the uniformed officer, his badge flashing before joining his boss, mumbling something about changing occupation.

The other two detectives followed suit, a little later because they'd stopped off at an all night coffee shop to buy coffees because they knew that the boss wouldn't want them on the case if they were intoxicated. They moved into the small area, both of them acknowledging the M.E. and the other half of their team.

"What do you have for us then?" Burke finally asked now that all his team was here. Gemma, the blonde M.E. stood up and looked over at the four of the detectives, the heel of her hand rubbing at her face as she looked over at the balding man that stood in front of her.

"From the preliminary check on our victim all I can tell you is that death was probably caused from the deep cut across her neck," she pointed it out to them even though that they could see it. "I'll obviously tell you more when we get her back to autopsy," Burke nodded his approval before turning to look at his three detectives.

Stuart, being the one that always found out the victim's information, held out the wallet that he'd been handed by a CSI in an evidence bag which they'd probably fished out of her oversized bag for them to look over. "Melanie Sykes, a nurse over at the hospital." He recited her address and Burke nodded his head at the information.

"Stuart, you can head over to the address and see if anyone's home." He turned round and looked over at the patrol car where a small woman was sat in the back seat with wide eyes, her puppy clenched tightly to her chest as if she was afraid of something. "Is that who found her?" Stuart nodded and Burke looked over at Jackie, who immediately nodded knowing that Burke would want her to talk to the witness because she was voted as the people person.

"What about me, Boss?" Robbie asked Burke causing to look over at the man before nodding his head.

"You're with me over at autopsy," Robbie bit back comments about always getting the fun jobs.

The female detective approached the car and smiled lightly as she opened their door so that she could look at their only witness. "Good morning, I'm detective Jackie Reid."

"Hi," the woman mumbled nervously holding out her hand and shaking Jackie's. Jackie decided not to focus on how formal that was for a woman that was scared out of her mind over something as serious as finding what was probably her first DB. "I'm Katie Jenkins."

"Katie, can you tell me what you were doing when you were out here this morning?"

"I was taking my morning jog with my dog, Patch," she held up the small dog before turning her attention back to Jackie and sighing. "I jog the same route every morning but this morning Patch got distracted and that's when I saw her..." She looked over at the woman and felt a tear falling down her cheek, "How could anyone do that to Mrs Stevens?" At that sentence, Jackie looked over at the woman.

"You know the victim?" She immediately winced at her harshness of calling the woman a victim but it didn't appear to bother Katie who just nodded her response.

"She and her husband live next door to me and my boyfriend, Tad. She's a lovely woman but she works such hectic hours but so does her husband, he's a doctor in the same hospital. Tonight was his night off, for the first one in months. He spent the evening in the flat with me and Patch." She explained before sighing. "He'll be devastated about this," she whispered raking her hand through her hair before wiping away her tears. "I'm sorry; I don't normally get so emotional."

"Katie, I need to ask one last question. Did you touch the body in anyway?" Katie looked up at Jackie before shaking her head.

"No, I wanted to. God you have no idea how much I wanted to shake her until she was awake but I knew from the blood loss that..." She stopped talking. "Patch nuzzled at her and got blood on his nose, the criminalists have already taken a swab of the blood to clear him." She smiled at the small joke causing the detective to smile as she looked at her.

Jackie looked over at the woman before turning to one of the uniformed officers, "can you please take Miss Jacobs home?" They nodded and before Jackie let her go home, she handed over a small card that had the bullpen's direct number on it. "If you remember see anything, please give this number a call and ask for me." The woman took hold of her card and nodded before mumbling a gentle thank you and climbing into the car.

She watched as the uniformed officer drove away with her in the car and sighed. How come it was always the nice, respectable people in the world that ended up slaughtered? She pulled her mobile out of her pocket and flicked open the cell. "Boss, I didn't get anything out of the witness. I'm going to head over to the hospital and speak to her colleagues to see if..." She stopped talking as she moved the phone away from her ear. "I hate it when he does that," she mumbled lightly."

Meanwhile over at the Stevens house, Stuart was standing at the front door. The rain had started to fall and the cold was running down his neck, starting to annoy him slightly. He knocked on the door but just before his last tap, the door opened to reveal a small crying man. "Detective, come in." Stuart stopped reaching for his badge and stared at the man in confusion before quickly accepting the offer to come in as well as the white towel the man was already holding in his hand.

"How did you know I was coming in?" Stuart asked drying the back of his neck, welcoming the warmth of the house.

"My wife phoned me," he whispered sadly sitting down on the couch before jumping back up. "Would you like anything to drink, Detective?" Stuart shook his head, indicating that the man could sit back down again.

"What do you mean your wife phoned you, Mr Stevens?" He asked pulling out his small notepad and looking at the man, thinking that this case was turning more in to an X File and no matter how much he loved the Americans', he couldn't be bothered to phone them in and start terrorising the people of Glasgow again with tales of the unexplained.

"She was being followed and she always believed that if she phoned me she'd be safe because no one would attack someone when they're on the phone because the other person would hear..." He laughed at the irony of her plan being wrong, his hand wiping over his face and Stuart guessed that he hadn't had much sleep that night.

"What did you hear, sir?"

"I hear my wife gasping against the phone, whimpering as someone attacked her. I heard the movement of someone attacking her and then the phone must have been dropped because it went silence before I heard a thud followed by heavy breathing a few minutes later. The phone call ended shortly after that." He said tears running down his face as he looked at Stuart. "Would it have been..."

"I don't know that, sir." Stuart looked over at the man. "Do you know of anyone would want to hurt your wife?"

"No." The man said honestly. "My wife was loved by anyone she met. It's why she was a good nurse. She could make anyone feel better even if they were about to die," He sighed as he ran his hand through his hair. "She's not got any enemies that I can think of." Stuart nodded his head as he wrote that down.

"I know this is going to be difficult but I have to ask. I need someone to identify their body as a..."

"I don't know if I could do that, lad." The old man answered gruffly and Stuart nodded slightly before looking away as he tapped at his notepad before spotting a photo of the old couple with a younger man, the smile on their faces showing that there was only one real relationship between them.

"How about your son..." Once again he was cut off by the guy.

"My son hasn't spoken to me or his mother since we threw him out three months again." Stuart had been writing that down when he stopped. He hated asking this wanting to know why they'd thrown him out because this could make the son a suspect but he knew the father would stand by him, no matter what.

"Why did you throw your son out?" Mr Stevens stood up, his hand rubbing at his chest in an awkward manner and Stuart realised that he was struggling with what he was about to say to him.

"My son was a frequent drug user," the old man explained softly. His hand shaking as he lifted the same photo that Stuart had been staring at. "He was stealing off us to feed his habit and then one day, a few months ago, he came home with this woman with a small boy behind..."

"Grandad?" A small voice said from behind them and Stuart looked over his shoulder, his eyes widening at the young boy that was a spit of the man in the photo and also of one person that Stuart hoped wasn't the answer to his question.

"It's okay, Ewan," Stuart groaned to himself at the name, "the detective was just here to talk to us about your grannie."

"Is grannie okay?" The old man started to cry so Stuart stood up and moved round to Ewan.

"Hello Ewan, my name is Stuart." The young boy said hello before Stuart explained to him what was happening to him and the young boy nodded before going back to his room where he waited for his grandad to come upstairs to him. "Mr Stevens, I have one last question for you?"

"Yes?"

"What was the name of your grandson's mother?"

"Oh something trashy... Emerald or it might have been Krystal? It was something like that. Why do you ask?" He asked and Stuart looked over at the man.

"That'll be something I have to get back to you on," he said before handing over a card with the bullpen's number on. "If you think of anything, please call me on this number." The man nodded before walking Stuart to the door.

"You know my grandson's mother?" He asked quickly and Stuart nodded his head.

"I think so."

"Do you know where she is? It's not that I want to get rid of Ewan but..."

"She passed away a few months ago, sir." The man's head fell and Stuart's heart sank. "I'm sorry." The man just squeezed Stuart's shoulder before moving outside and pulling his mobile phone out of his pocket. There were way too many suspects now if Krystal was involved.

TO BE CONTINUED...