Another short chapter after a long one…hope you enjoy!

Chapter Six: The Author of the Article

"Dead?" Lindsay asked in a shaky voice. "How can we be dead?"

Danny shrugged, though he knew that Lindsay wouldn't be able to see him, since she was on the phone. Instead of staying quiet and waiting for her to say something more, he said, "The newspaper clearly states that both you and I (Daniel Messer and Lindsay Monroe) died at Mount Sinai Hospital. It could have been a mistake…" He knew it couldn't have been a mistake; something told him it wasn't a mistake. They had been trapped in the hallway of Mac's office in the fire, and the last thing he remembered was saying, "Don't worry," to Lindsay and passing out. Help might have gotten them out of the crime lab, but they had probably had already died from being burned or breathing in too much smoke. But the way they had died hadn't been explained in the newspaper. There was another thing they had to find out…

"We can't be dead," Lindsay said, sounding like she was trying to reassure both herself and Danny. "I mean, there's no way this is heaven..."

Danny agreed with that. Heaven couldn't be like this, but then again, he could be wrong. He shook his head. "Maybe someone from the New York Times knows about this fire, like maybe Adam could work there, since we already know where everyone else works."

"Maybe," Lindsay replied, though she didn't sound convinced. "But Adam? Do you really think he, out of all the others, would know about the fire? And why would he want us to confess the secret to everyone?"

Danny looked back down at the newspaper. The date of the paper was Tuesday, June 24, 2008, and Lindsay had given him this paper on Wednesday. She couldn't have bought it today… "Lindsay, when and where did you buy this newspaper?"

"On Tuesday," she said, answering when she had bought it. "And I didn't buy the newspaper. It got delivered to my apartment, in my mailbox, but I thought it was unusual for the mail to arrive on Tuesday…"

"It doesn't make sense," Danny said, more to himself than to Lindsay. "Everyone would know about this fire if this newspaper made it out to the public…you said it was delivered to your apartment?"

"Yes."

"And that was the only thing you got in the mail?"

"Yes."

"Then someone somehow got a hold of the newspaper that would have originally been published after Monday, after the fire. So that means someone else does know about this fire." Danny wondered who else would have known about the fire and if the same person who delivered the newspaper to Lindsay's apartment was the same person who wrote the article. He looked back at the article to see who had written it and then… "Lindsay!"

"What?"

"Aiden, she wrote this article!" he exclaimed, feeling so overjoyed that he did a dance.

"Aiden?" questioned Lindsay.

"Don't you remember?" asked Danny, pausing in the middle of his dance. "Aiden Burn, who used to work as a CSI investigator before she was fired and later killed by DJ Pratt?"

"Yes, I remember her. But the thing is, she's dead. She was dead way before the fire even happened. She couldn't have written the article the day after the fire if she was already dead."

"Well, it says her name in the print right under the title of the article," said Danny, looking at the newspaper. "But don't you understand? Here, none of our friends worked as CSI investigators and they all have different jobs. That means that Aiden never worked as a CSI, she never tampered with evidence, she never got fired, and she didn't get killed by DJ Pratt."

"But that still doesn't make sense. How would she know and why would she only make one copy of that newspaper?"

"I guess we'll have to question her," said Danny, throwing the newspaper on the end table next to his bed. "It's the only way we'll be able to find out how she knew about the fire."

"But how are we going to get to talk to her?"

Danny thought about this. He didn't really know how he would be able to contact Aiden, but instead of confessing that he didn't know, he said, "Don't worry, I have an idea," and the next moment, he ended the call. Getting Aiden alone to talk to her might be a hard thing to do, but he guessed it would be easier than having to talk with Mac, knowing that Stella would have him carried away by security in a heartbeat. He still wondered why Stella had acted the way she did, but he didn't let it bother him, for he had many other things to think about. He figured he would have to go to the actual building and ask to speak to Aiden Burn. But since he was looking for a job, maybe he could apply for one there…

He hurried to turn his computer back on, and went to the official New York Times website, a place he hadn't thought about looking at before. But the news on the website didn't match up to what was on the newspaper. Confused more than ever, he stumbled off to bed, hoping that talking with Aiden would clear things up. As he turned off the lights and closed his eyes, he wondered, could Aiden possibly know about the fire that hit the crime lab only a few days ago?