AN: Huge thanks to everyone who's reviewed so far - you guys make my day:)Here's the next chapter - thanks again to my beta/gamma team of Boleyn, Elainhe, and Audrina. You guys rock.

Chapter 1

Danny was already at the crime scene when Lindsay and Flack arrived. Lindsay quickly noted that Danny looked equally as worn out as Flack did – obviously it had been a rough night for the both of them. Given Flack's reaction to her teasing in the car, though, she opted to let a comment directed at Danny slide.

"So what have we got?" she asked, putting down her kit and scanning the room. "This is the scene?" she said in disbelief. The place looked like it hadn't been touched. There wasn't a chair overturned, not a picture frame out of line. "Flack, you told me the scene was gruesome. This does not qualify as gruesome."

"Thanks, I hadn't noticed. If I didn't know better, I'd say that no one even lived here," commented Flack.

"Yeah, that's what I thought too," said Danny, standing up. "The victim's in the bedroom. Emma Mezzolo, thirty-one. She's a teacher at an elementary school a few blocks from here. A coworker found her after the super let her in. I don't know the whole story, though."

"Okay," said Flack, pulling out his notebook. "I'll start interviewing the neighbours, and I'll let you two do your thing in here." With that, he turned and headed towards the swarm of people who had gathered outside the victim's apartment.

"Body's on the bed," said Danny, motioning for her to follow. "It is pretty gruesome. Definitely been there awhile."

She followed Danny into the bedroom and gasped as she looked around. The scene before Lindsay horrified her. 'Gruesome' didn't even begin to describe this. Emma lay on her bed, face up and eyes wide open, a single gunshot wound in her forehead. The bedding around her head was soaked with blood, indication of a through-and-through. She was wearing only a white t-shirt that was no longer white. Blood stained the shirt in a line from the collar down to about where her navel would be.

And given the stench coming from the woman, she had definitely been there for awhile.

"Good god," whispered Lindsay, forcing her eyes away from the victim and scanning the rest of the room. Similar to the rest of the apartment, the room looked untouched. "What I don't understand," she said, "is how this woman was murdered so brutally, and yet the rest of the apartment is immaculate."

"Tell me about it," Danny said, facing her. "I've processed most of this room already…" his voice trailed.

"Well at least that saves me from working in this stink. And?" Lindsay prodded.

"Nothing," Danny said, frustrated. "No prints, no trace, no anything. It's like she did this to herself, cleaned up, then lay down in the bed." He rubbed his hands over his face. "Oh, and to add to it, the bullet was a through-and-through."

"Yeah, I gathered that by the amount of blood," said Lindsay, opening her kit and snapping on a pair of gloves. She walked to the body and lifted up the white shirt. Underneath was a superficial slice, going from about the victim's collarbone down to just past her navel. Lindsay wasn't sure at first glance if it was pre- or post-mortem. For Emma's sake, she hoped it was the latter.

"But the kicker? Bullet's not there."

"What?"

"Bullet isn't there. The guy must have retrieved it. The hole is in the mattress, but there's no bullet in the hole."

"Wonderful. Can't get a hit on the gun with no bullet," said Lindsay. "Well, hopefully he was a bit sloppier in the common room." Not that it looks like we'll be that lucky, she added mentally, pulling out her print dust.

The room was nearly processed when Flack came back in, looking completely frustrated.

"I have nothing useful from the neighbours," he said, flipping back through his notes. "She kept to herself a lot, no boyfriend to speak of, lived a very quiet life."

Lindsay nodded as she listened – she had figured that much from the victim's apartment. The pictures were not of friends or boyfriends, but of children, most of whom were in classrooms. Lindsay assumed that the pictures were all of her students.

"I talked to a coworker who's here, though," Flack continued. "Mezzolo never no-showed for work without calling, so her absence this morning was extremely out of character. Angie Turcotte, the coworker, called Mezzolo's place earlier, but there was no answer. When the same thing happened at lunch, Turcotte came over after the school day ended. She got the super to let her in, and this is what she found. According to her, she didn't touch or move anything, just came in, saw the body, ran out, and called 911."

"Makes sense," said Danny, looking around. "She didn't move anything, as there are no prints anywhere, not even the vic's. The guy must have wiped the whole place down before he left."

"This isn't good," breathed Lindsay. "We've got no prints, no trace, no anything to go on. How are we supposed to process nothing?"

"Yeah, I see that," said Danny, looking around again. "I'm going to do another sweep over the bedroom, why don't you take a look in the kitchen?" He turned and walked into the bedroom without giving her a chance to reply.

Lindsay looked at Flack, who just shrugged. "Are you guys done with the body? The crew is here to take it to Hammerback."

"Yeah," said Danny and Lindsay at the same time. Flack motioned for his team to come in and collect the body, while Danny disappeared back into the bedroom. He's acting very strange today, Lindsay noted as she made her way into the kitchen. Part of her wanted to question him about it, but the more rational part of her told her to just let it go. She sighed again as she opened up her kit.

Of course, the kitchen was just as immaculate as the rest of the house. Still, she dusted and processed anyway, hoping to find something, anything, that could at least give them a lead. But after two full sweeps, she came up empty-handed.

She threw her equipment back into her kit and slammed it shut, frustrated. She hated cases like this.

Danny came out of the bedroom just as Lindsay left the kitchen. The look on his face, though, didn't require any questions. He wasn't able to find anything, either.

"Come on," said Danny, avoiding eye contact with her. "Hopefully Hammerback will have something useful for us."

"She's been dead three days," said Hammerback, pulling back the sheet that covered the body.

"Three?" said Lindsay. "That means that she was killed shortly after coming home from work on Friday."

Hammerback nodded in agreement. "Cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head, as you probably guessed. Bullet went clear through the skull, exiting out the back. Fairly clean wound tract. I'll have to open her up to see if there's any fragments, but at first glance, it doesn't look promising."

"Naturally," said Danny sarcastically. "Add that to the oodles of evidence we've already got."

Lindsay rolled her eyes. Danny could be a shit when he was frustrated. "What about the wound on her torso?"

"Ah yes," said Hammerback. "Definitely inflicted before she died. Not deep enough to kill her, but definitely enough to make her weak. As you can tell, the wound is only about a quarter-inch deep, but because of the sheer size she lost a significant amount of blood."

Lindsay looked away. This woman was tortured in her own apartment, killed, and then left there for three days. For three days, no one knew she was dead. The thought irked Lindsay.

"Hello? Lindsay?" came Danny's voice, interrupting her thoughts.

"Yeah, sorry, what?"

"I said we should go look into her background, see if there's anything usable there, since everything else seems to be a dead end."

"I'll let you know if I come up with anything," said Hammerback as Lindsay followed Danny out of the morgue. She gave a quick glance over her shoulder at Emma lying on the table as Hammerback prepared to open her up. She turned and ran to catch up with Danny.

The image of a woman lying dead and unknown in her apartment for three days was not going to easily be erased from her mind.