Disclaimer I own very little, especially not CSI NY. Wish I did though.

Notes Third chapter: thank you very much for the reviews for the previous chapters, please continue - still love to know what you think - all very welcome, and always replied to. Thank you also to everyone who has this on alert.

Many thanks to sarramaks and Blue Shadowdancer for their very helpful thoughts on this, as well as notesofwimsey for advice.

Warning Sorry, a lot of swearing in this; violent characters, violent words and actions.

Lost Letters: Chapter 3

"Danny! Danny! What the hell did you think you were doing?" Mac skidded to his knees beside the younger man, frantic, hollow with shock. His brain was still struggling desperately to catch up with what had just happened. In minutes a closed crime scene had become brutally re-opened; one of his team stretched out, seriously injured on the concrete and another snatched away. Danny, Stella, gone. In minutes. Less; in the unreality of the event it had taken only seconds to reduce a team of three to only one man standing.

"Danny! Talk to me, can you hear me?" His fingers fumbled desperately for a pulse, pressed hard into Danny's neck; he finally found it, although it fluttered weakly. His chest was lifting slightly, and Mac found himself releasing the breath he had not even realised was imprisoned. He was alive. "Danny, you've got to hang in there, okay? Hang in there."

Mac kept one hand on Danny's chest, needing the evidence of his life, the other was on his radio. Feet came pounding towards him, and Angell was standing over them both, already shouting the communications that Mac knew should be coming from his own mouth, but had somehow been too slow to form into words.

"10 13 Officer down, EMS needed now; APB out on vehicle licence plate number 475 EPI, black SUV, officer MIA; Repeat, this is Detective Angell, backup needed at scene. We have an officer down and an officer missing, possible hostage situation, copy all units." Disjointed voices answered her. She sent more information into the static hissing radio, before clipping it back onto her belt. Brisk directions to the uniforms, already light on their toes and ready, followed. Two squad cars wailed away, bouncing over the kerb in their haste, the sound fading rapidly into the distance.

She squatted beside him, hand on his shoulder, "How is he? You got a pulse?"

"Faint. He's breathing. We have to get him out of here. We have to find Stella; there was a shot…" A shot and then silence. But Mac threw barricades up against the possibilities that were flooding him, knowing he had to focus. His team, his responsibility.

"I know. Mac, it's okay. Keep with Danny, I've got a bus on its way, and I've got patrol cars out after Stella. They won't get far; we'll get a trace on the vehicle no problem. She have her cell with her?" Angell's hand was tighter, turning him to face her.

He found a lump of words lodged in his throat. All he could see was Danny and the car breaking over him, flinging him back onto the concrete; the car that had disappeared taking Stella with it. All he could hear was the sound of the impact dinning in his head, vying with the reverberation of the gunfire; that one shot, and the sound it had stopped. Stella's voice. It was making it increasingly difficult to understand Angell's voice. Shapes of sounds twisted, and words unravelled themselves into broken chains of letters. He caught a few words that he could distinguish and repeated them, "Her cell?"

Angell asked him again, the urgency mended some of the muddle, "Yes, Mac, listen, her cell. Did Stella have her cell with her?"

"I, yes, I think so. Should have. But…"

"Call it, if she has, we'll try getting a signal."

Mac fumbled for his own cell, Danny's face tugging his eyes away from her again. The flush of the sun was draining away from him leaving chalky white skin. Blood shone on his lips. One arm was flung out to the side, fingers clenched and scraped; and his right leg was twisted at the wrong angle, almost bent double underneath him. The crimson fingers of more blood creeping out from under his matted hair began to steal into Mac; and as the shock began to clear from his mind, something else replaced it. Anger. Pure white, flash-fire anger. He recognised it, and drew it in. Held it, nurtured it and let tendrils of it grow, wind and burn into his brain. He knew with an absolute, searing certainty that he would find whoever was responsible, and he would not let himself forgive them.

He hit Stella's number; looked up at Angell, and noted with no emotion that she drew back a fraction from whatever she saw in his eyes.

"Mac?"

The ring of two phones shrilled through the blistering air; one calling, one answering. In silence, he rose to his feet and walked, forced steady steps, ram-rod straight bearing, across to the sound. In silence he picked up Stella's cell with a still-gloved hand and switched it off. And in silence he walked back to Angell.

He felt her hand again on his shoulder, "Mac, we'll find her."

He knew they would. There was no other option.

………………………………...

21st August

…Not a lot happening, still hot as hell here, seems like it's never going to be cool again. And of course, the air-con decides to screw up today, great. Mrs Adams offered me use of her apartment whilst they tried to fix mine though, so I took her up on that, and we ate a bowl of strawberry Jell-O and ice-cream. I saw some of what she keeps squirreled away in her closets too - boxes and boxes of letters. She showed me some of them, but didn't let me read them, yet. She said they were from someone she lost touch with years ago. I have my own ideas…

………………………………...

The eyes of the man driving whipped from side to side; his head also in constant motion; snapping round front to back; flicking every few seconds up to the mirror then through the side windows; round to the rear window, then back through the windscreen. His hands were white-knuckle tight around the wheel, his back rigid at a right angle. Every glimpse he caught from the corner of his vision was that of a threat and a pursuer. Sirens were whining somewhere; either in his head, or behind him, he couldn't be certain. Adrenaline sent super-charged wires shrieking through his nerves, and his blood roller-coastered along every vein and artery. So much so that his heartbeat seemed to have become one continuous bass drum thud. It was beginning to go wrong, no, already had gone wrong. The moment they returned to the scene it had started to go wrong. They were running out of time so fast the seconds had started to tick backwards. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and spat out bloody saliva before gingerly probing around a loosened tooth with his tongue, swearing as he touched the source of raw pain.

"You okay, man?" His companion in the back seat, as wild-eyed as himself, demanded, arching forward with his hands braced against the seats.

"Yeah." He snarled, anger fighting fear, and shot a murderous glance at the silent occupant of the passenger seat, "Bitch got a punch in first, I got a tooth working loose."

The other man scrubbed his face with his shirt violently, trying to wipe away some of the sweat that was bleeding from his hairline, and then glared at him, "We should've left her there. Why didn't you just throw her out the fucking door, man? Chrissakes, Rich, we got a freakin' cop with us now…"

Rich glanced to the side again and felt contempt ride over some of his fear. He gave a snort, "Not a lot she can do about it at the moment."

"She's a cop! One of their own; they're going to hunt us down and hit us with everything they got. What the fuck were you thinking?"

"What was I thinking?" He hit the other man with a look of disbelief, "Dude, this is as much your problem as mine, don't fucking blame me. It happened, we'll deal with it."

"How we going to do that, huh? You're so full of ideas, you tell me."

Rich ground his teeth, and then swore again as agony skewered through his jaw. Damn the woman. Damn his idiot partner. Always him. Always him who had to be answering the questions, making the plans. Jake was going to have to begin making himself useful, before he too became a dead weight.

He spoke between clenched muscles, "She still alive? Check her out, tell me."

Jake, with an irritated grunt, pushed himself forward to look more closely at the woman slumped next to Rich; her eyes were closed, head lolling against the door. A livid bruise was visible on her forehead, with a thin laceration in the centre oozing beads of blood. Hesitantly, unexpectedly apprehensive, he stretched out his hand and shook her shoulder; but there was no response other than her arm falling over the edge of the seat, "Don't know, man. She ain't moving…"

As he glanced over, it jumped back to Rich vividly the moment they had seized the car, and encountered the female detective who had tried to stop them: unseen until almost the last moment, he had managed to grapple hold of the back of her hair and slam her head onto the wheel, intending at that point just to drag her out of the car so they could drive it away; but she had fought back, and swung the punch to his jaw that was causing him so much pain now.

They braked abruptly at a red light queue: Rich spewed out more curses, and banged the steering wheel; Jake jolted forward and his hand hit the seat as he tried to keep his balance. But he jerked it back immediately on feeling the slippery warmth of blood on his palm, and wiped it frantically with a noise of disgust on the upholstery.

Rich caught his action, and his lips peeled back in a wolfish smile, "Blood on your hands, dude? Get used to it. There'll be a lot more of it before we're done." He laughed mirthlessly at the younger man, and shook his head. The blood was on his hands too. It was his instinctive reaction after the detective's fist had connected with his jaw; hit back. So he did, still not taking her down, and then the moment he saw her reaching for her piece he had automatically pulled his own out and fired. That had stopped her, and silenced her.

He returned his attention to the roads and other vehicles as the lights changed. Another glance in the rear-view mirror still showed no pursuers. Yet. They could do this, they were almost safe. Fear dropped another notch. Just one problem to deal with. He darted another savage glance at Jake, who was staring, seemingly fixated, at his hand, still smeared red. Or maybe two problems.

Rich grinned and swerved the wheel maliciously, causing his companion to break his trance and clutch hold of the door momentarily, cursing with fury.

"Fucking watch you're going, last thing we want to do is prang the car!" Jake yelled, righting himself.

Rich gave him no answer, so he smacked the window and spat out, "Screw you, asshole."

With nothing else to do in the continuing silence, Jake turned his eyes again to the woman in the front. She still showed no signs of life. Drop by drop now, blood slid from off the seat down her fingertips, hitting the floor and adding to a silently darkening and increasing stain. Across her light-coloured top, a scarlet blood-rose unfurled, and frayed at the edges as it soaked into the material.

The implications hit him then; he punched the back of the seat and exclaimed, "Shit. I think you've killed her, man. That wasn't what was supposed to happen, we're not cop-killers. We only needed the evidence."

Easing his tongue tenderly round his mouth again, pressing the edges of his jaw to test how much it hurt, Rich decided darkly that his teeth felt as if they had been rattled almost out of their sockets. The woman had socked him with a fist of iron, and he heard Jake's words with satisfaction, "Who says we're not? Serve her right anyhow. Lucky my jaw ain't broken, the punch she gave me. So we killed her. Big deal."

Jake spluttered out, "We? Man, you're the one who shot her, I ain't taking the fall for that. And if we're driving round with a dead cop in the car, I call that a freaking big deal of trouble." Jake threw himself back, raked his hands down his face, and stared at the roof of the car, "Ah, hell. Fucking great. Add that to the one we ran over who didn't look like he'd be getting up any time soon, that's one long stretch in Sing-Sing. I'm telling you, Rich, I am not going down for this, and I'm not driving round with her much longer, we got to get rid of her."

"We're not going to be driving round much longer dude. They'll have a trace out on us already, surprised we ain't seen anyone yet. We get our asses to safety and we destroy everything. Once we got that done, we head back to TJ's. And let me tell you, the plan is neither of us going down."

"So what is the plan? What we going to do, huh? You think TJ's going to be happy about this?" Jake leaned forward again, arms hanging down over the seats and Rich's lips thinned as he looked at him in the mirror. Taking the younger man along with him, was something he was regretting. He was proving to be a burden rather than an asset, panicking when they returned to the scene, and slowing them down; it was his fault they had not got away cleanly. His, and the woman's. If she hadn't struggled, he wouldn't have had to have done what he did.

At that moment Rich felt the barely contained anger boiling acidly in his stomach, bubble over, and he seethed, "You want a plan, huh? You give me one, dude. I'm only driving the freaking car!"

"Yeah? Well, try driving it in a straight line before we start getting conspicuous. Think you can manage that?" Jake blew out in uncharacteristic anger at his friend.

Nerves. Or weakness. Rich knew him capable of both. And knew that he had to assert his power again.

He spat again out of the side of his mouth, and smashed his hand onto the dashboard, "Shut the hell up, before I do to you what I did to her, got it?"

He remembered the rush of adrenaline kicking in at the scene, and recalled the sequence of events in a Technicolor montage; heaving her body across, scrambling into the driver's seat himself; the shouts and bullets of the two men pursuing; screaming for Jake to get in the back before they screeched away; more shots fired at them; the man leaping in front of the car to stop them. But he hadn't stopped, couldn't stop, didn't want to stop, and after slewing around on the concrete after the impact, he had wrestled back control of the steering and driven on with no other thought.

It was the moment they made their first mistake. The moment he had not pulled the woman out of the car. Jake was right, although there was no way in hell he was going to tell him that; they should have left her at the scene. Instead, here they were now; left with her still to deal with, as well as the car and the evidence. However, he realised, and a smile crawled over his features, a body was easy enough to dispose of along with a car and a trunk full of evidence. There were ways and places.

Jake was sulking in the back: one arm flung along the edge of the window; legs spread wide; other hand drumming rhythms on the denim covering his thin legs whilst his head nodded along to it. For now, Rich decided reluctantly, he still needed him, if they were going to pull this off.

"Hey," Rich called back to him, calmer now, "Crack a smile, dude. I figured out a plan. How does a little ride back out of town grab you?"

"Yeah?" Sulking seemed to be forgotten suddenly, as Jake turned his head from the passing streets, and leant his elbows on his knees, "What you got in mind? We need someplace out the way."

Rich gave a short laugh, "Got just the place. I'm seeing a nice patch of waste ground back up in Harlem, maybe some deep water, maybe something else. What you say to that, huh? You with me?"

He waited for Jake's eager agreement, and was not disappointed.

"Oh yeah. Sounds good, man, yeah. Get over there, get rid of everything. Then we tell TJ. Think he'll be happy about this?"

They could not afford for TJ to be unhappy, Rich knew to his previous cost. This had to work. But his reply to Jake did not elaborate on this, and was a brief, "Yeah, you got it."

Face closing over, muscles and skin unfolding, straightening out and shutting his thoughts away, Rich stepped hard on the gas. The car growled as it leaped forwards through the light afternoon traffic. Weaving in and out it left no trace; and no one seemed to notice just another black SUV on the streets.

I apologise for the swearing and violence, but I wanted to portray the two characters as realistically as possible. Please review and let me know what you think, feedback much appreciated. Lily x