"I swear, if that guy pees in the street one more time…." She trailed off ominously. After watching several months' worth of footage, they had gotten nowhere.
"Maybe you should take a break?" Sheldon suggested hitting pause on the video with the remote control. Lindsay jumped up, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. She slowly hummed an exhale.
Seeing Hawke's curious look she gave a half smile, "Yoga, got into it when I was pregnant."
"Does it help?" He asked, tilting his head skeptically.
"I'd like to think so," She bent toward the monitor, "Adam rarely goes out of his apartment, did you notice that? Over 5 months we've only caught him on camera, how many times?"
"Maybe 15-16 times." They start the tape again; it was slowed since Adam was in the shot. He seemed jumpy or agitated. Wearing a dark hoodie, hunched – it was hard to tell it was him. It was only because they knew his gait.
He walked across the street, entered the convenience store – it was several minutes passed and he was darting out, holding several boxes of unhealthy hostess snacks and box of red bull. Lindsay couldn't help but smile, it was comforting to see someone who was so consistent but she felt a pang of loss thinking about Adam.
"I think it's a wonder of the world on how Adam isn't 500 pounds." Hawkes commented.
Lindsay laughed but sobered quickly, "Why aren't we getting any of the footage about the window, it should have happened by now?"
Hawkes twirled a pen around his finger, deep in thought, "I don't know – and you notice there are a lot of gaps in some of these tapes."
"Did you miss any?"
Hawkes shook his head, "No, I'm sure I grabbed them all." Neat stacks of already screened tapes were lined up on a metal shelf. Though there were many there it did not account for the sizable amount still in the trash bags.
Lindsay picked one up and dug through the bag, looking for the next date. She flipped a few over but then suddenly noticed something. They were all labeled nearly the same way except for a few. She pulled out the tape and saw that it an innocuous label that said "Birthday party".
"Something tells me there isn't any cake in this video." She remarked and handed it over to Hawkes. Hawkes looked at the bold sharpie lettering and smiled.
He popped the previous tape from the VCR and inserted the new one. The fast forwarded through some white noise, and Lindsay lightly smacked Hawkes arm and pointed at the screen.
"There, there! Stop."
The tape slowed to see Adam approaching the store; his hands were shoved deep in his pockets. Shivering from the chilly air, it was hard to see when the snow kept on whizzing in front of the camera.
Right when he set foot on the pavement, four men materialized from the alleyway. Adam took a step back, holding his hands up. It was hard to discern their faces, two of them wore masks. One was holding a baseball bat.
The tallest one out of the group stepped forward pushing Adam and speaking very emphatically. Adam shook his head as if refusing something. The man pulled a bag out of his pocket and shoved it into Adam's hands. Adam again shook his head attempting to give it back to the man.
He accidentally dropped it and it poured on to the wet floor. Adam froze like a deer caught in headlights. One of them punched him in the face and he fell to the ground. He took a few hits to the stomach and back before the beating subsided. Apparently the taller one raised his hands to stop it. His lackey immediately listened. The one with the base ball bat slammed it into the window. It shattered to the floor.
They quickly ran off, leaving Adam still huddled on the ground. Barry Jackson stormed out of his store and started yelling at Adam. Adam shakily stood up, obviously still disoriented. He nodded a couple times and pulled out his wallet. He pulled all the cash from his wallet and gave it to the man.
Barry seemed to calm down but pointed dangerously at the young lab tech. Adam hung his head and waved it off. They separated, and Adam dejectedly walked back to his apartment. They paused the video.
"I'm a CSI, how did I not know something was wrong?" Lindsay muttered her eyes red-rimmed with unshed tears.
"I'm a doctor; I should have seen signs of injuries." Hawkes felt disgusted, these men were monsters. Adam took all this, for what reason?
"Why didn't he say something?" Lindsay's brow furrowed. He phone rang breaking her out of her contemplation. She gave Hawkes an apologetic look and took her phone out to the hallway.
"Hi Danny." She answered hoping to smother the emotions that she felt just a few minutes before. Danny thankfully was too enraged to notice.
He was ranting heavily about Brenda, "I mean can you believe it. She's got a rap sheet as long as the Brooklyn Bridge and she goes seducing Adam."
"They may really love each other."
Danny scoffed, "Not likely. Adam is a goody two shoes, this girl is up to no good. I don't trust her."
"Danny, you love your brother don't you?"
"Of course, what the hell does that have to do with anything?"
"Well, as far as I know – he wasn't perfect. But he still had qualities that you loved."
There was a tense silence; Lindsay could hear him breathing on the other end.
"Don't compare my brother to that girl, I bet you anything that she the root of all this." He grumbled.
Lindsay sighed, he could be so damn stubborn, "Danny, if you go speaking your mind like this around Adam, you could really hurt the guy if he really loves her. You know how much he respects your opinion."
"Yeah, and my opinion is dump the trash, he could do way better."
Lindsay briefly knocked the phone against her forehead, "Look, I know that you really care for Adam, and you don't want him to get hurt anymore, but is this really about Brenda?"
There was a long silence, "I don't know." He said quietly, his voice shaking a little.
"Danny." She said softly – feeling her heart break.
"Listen, I gotta go. See you at home. Love you." He said quickly.
"Love you." She managed to throw out before he hung up. She looked up at the ceiling, the gray specks spattered about like stars. She would get to the bottom of this. Danny needed to speak honestly about how these problems with Adam are affecting him. Otherwise he might go postal on a complete stranger. Angry Danny is a reckless Danny; everyone knew that, especially Lindsay.
Flack seemed to know all too well, he eyed his friend appraisingly, "You sure this is a good idea? I don't think you should be interrogating this guy with me."
Danny had look of practiced nonchalance, as he clapped his hands, "Yeah, don't worry about me."
Flack couldn't help it, he knew what it look like when someone was teetering on the edge. He gave Danny a long look, feeling his impatience he stopped.
"Fine, but please keep it together. " Flack opened the door to see Mike Trager sitting with his hands crossed over his chest.
He was wiry, with long legs and brown spiked hair. His lean body looked almost complete devoid of muscle. He had a light silver frame for the glasses that leaned at the tip of his nose. He was known to periodically push them up. His eyes were a murky brown. The sullen look on his face made him look like he was a teenager instead of his late twenties.
He was either hopped up on something or was extremely nervous, his leg bounced up and down like a jackhammer.
"He looks like a killer to you Danny?" Flack questioned in a loud voice. Danny cracked a smiled, "I don' know, looks a little puny." He answers in a loud voice.
Mike frown grew deeper, and slouched a little further in the hard metal seat, "Just cut to the chase." He snapped.
Flack shook his head, "We got some people pointing their finger at you, saying you're the bad guy."
Danny's eyes glinted, "We can pin stuff on you that'll keep you locked up for a long time."
Mike sputtered, "Like Hell you do! I didn't do anything wrong."
Flack raised an eyebrow and leaned back on his chair, "Is that so? Barry Jackson seems to think differently."
Mike paled, "He didn't say anything." He said calling their bluff. Danny slapped down a few surveillance photos of Adam being beaten up by four guys.
"Your equipment recorded this. Barry gave it to us." Danny replied ominously. Mike nervously itched his arms, whenever he felt nervous it was like bugs crawling all over his skin. He was told that it was a strange manifestation of an anxiety attack.
"So what, I don't even watch those videos. They're just out there for security."
Danny pointed directly at a marked figure holding the baseball bat, "This guys seems to match your height and build."
"Or lack of build." Flack quipped.
Mike's face turned a deep shade of red as he continued to itch his arms with renewed vigor. Flack and Danny watched on with disgust.
"That doesn't prove anything." He said in an almost questioning tone.
"Those shoes look like the ones you're wearing now." The observant CSI pointed out, "Maybe we can test them in a lab." He said knowing full well they wouldn't be able to do anything with that. Mike didn't know that.
The nerdy man started itching his arms so hard that he began to draw blood, flack grabbed his hand, "Do we need to restrain you?" Mike suddenly broke down.
"Alright, alright – I'll tell you what I know but I need to be promised full immunity."
"We'll see if the information warrants it." Flack answered cautiously. Mike looked hesitant but began.
"I work for Jack Miller; He's kind of the big shot of the community." Mike bit his lip, "He wanted more control of the area, so he decided that we – uh keep a watch out via camera. It wasn't my idea."
"Stop defending yourself and get on with it." Danny demanded.
"Uh- right, we started catching a-a lot of trouble with one of the tenants. Adam, he wasn't easy to control. He didn't take any of our bribes."
Danny muttered something angrily but Flack gave him a look. Mike started once more, "Anyways, Jack felt if one guy didn't follow the rules, the rest wouldn't. He asked a group of us to scare him. We didn't intend to do much damage."
He gave them the most apologetic look that he could muster, but the stony faced cops gave him no reassurance, "So we broke the window, just to get the message through."
"What message was that?" Flack asked.
"I don't know, that ball is in Jack's court." Mike muttered. Flack frowned and got up. He jerked the door open and dragged a glaring Danny out.
"What about our deal?" Mike yelled out.
"We're working on it." Flack yelled back in a tone that did not recommend any trust.
"We're not done in there." Danny burst out when the door was closed to the room. Flack just continued to walk to his desk.
"He's hiding something; we need to ride him a little longer to get it out!" Danny waved his hand with anger.
Flack sighed, "He's not going to be able to give us all the information we need. Jack will. I don't feel like giving that piece of scum immunity. We're better of interrogating the top." Flack reasoned.
Danny huffed but acquiesced, "So what's next? Bring him in?"
"No it's late, we'll do it tomorrow. You need to get some rest."
Danny pulled a face, "The last think I feel like doing is sleeping. I want to pay this Jack guy a visit."
"Once I get the paperwork in we'll do it first thing in the morning."
Danny groaned, "You and your paperwork!"
AN: A little over halfway through the story. Hopefully I can keep a steady pace on this one. Please review, it really makes my day. (Thanks Frozen Heart for you always thoughtful reviews)