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

Notes Eighth chapter: thank you so much for all reviews, please continue - I still love to know what you think; even if you don't like anything in the story, please do tell me as it helps me think about how I write. I welcome all feedback, and will always reply. Thank you also to everyone who has this on alert.

Thanks to Mouse, Michelle and Fat Kat for your reviews, sorry I couldn't send a review reply. Thank you to sarramaks for reading and suggestions

Very slight spoilers for 'Heroes'

Lost Letters: Chapter 8

A chrysanthemum cloud of flame bloomed high into the already over-heated air; scattering petals of fiery debris which drifted down to land over the bleached white earth, wobbling in the heat. They fell to nothing but ghosts of themselves, leaving only smudges on the two figures in the landscape: one crouched with its head in its hands next to the other one, who lay unmoving on the ground.

The sun burned on as it sailed across the sky; the fire flower drooped and died; the two figures disappeared.

Then the stillness was shattered by a whirring, buzzing roar as a police helicopter dipped low and the eyes inside saw the smouldering remains of what they had been searching for. A hand pressed a radio to lips and the message passed through the air, "All units please respond…"

………………………………...

"Gentlemen." Sid greeted Adam and Hawkes as heartily as he could, as they trudged over the remains of the grass towards him. He was crouched uncomfortably by the water-logged body of a young man, trying to rid himself of the needles of dead grass that were tormenting him, and finding their way into every crevice of shirt, trousers and skin. He hated this time of year; the cold simplicity of December suited him far more. December scenes also brought forth far fewer crowds of onlookers. At present he felt surrounded; by eyes hidden by sunglasses, faces hidden by caps and hats, and by individuals hidden by a crowd.

He looked at both men as they reached him, and read their faces clearly. His own fell, "You've heard no more? No more news on how Danny is at least?"

"Nothing." Hawkes set down his kit heavily whilst Adam hovered behind him.

Sid sighed and suddenly felt weary and old. The news had grieved him far more than he wanted to reveal: the others were clearly struggling with their own feelings without having to take on his as well. But he felt shaken to his soul. Danny was the one who always brought a spark of life and humour to the morgue; vitality crackling from the tips of his hair to the heels of his shoes; never short of a grin and a joke, or a curse when needed. Sid would raise his eyebrows and smile at his humour, even if it wasn't always what he would call funny himself.

And then there was Stella. If Danny was the spark, then she was the fire; and his smile never failed when she walked through the doors. If the team of people he knew as a family and as friends lost either of them…

He simply could not imagine that.

Hawkes's voice faded in, and he shook the thoughts out of his mind for the present. They could only do the job in front of them, and keep hope as their signal-fire.

There was no preamble, "What can you tell us, Sid?"

He motioned them to come closer, and pointed to the bullet hole in the centre of the man's forehead, "Well, I'm almost certain that COD was not drowning, contrary to him being pulled out of the lake an hour ago. I'd say the gunshot wound to the head was what killed him - at this stage it doesn't appear to be post-mortem. And the usual signs of death by drowning are not present on first examination - I suspect I'll confirm that when I open him up."

Sid noticed that Adam kept a little way back from the body, but he decided not to push him to move any nearer; the distress from events was clear on his face. Hawkes's also; the usual placidity in his countenance was painfully absent. Sid sighed and turned back to the task in hand, "Our vic also appears to have suffered a fairly violent beating, probably not long before his death judging by the appearance of the lacerations. See here… and here." Numerous abrasions and cuts were clearly visible; the man wore a short sleeved T-shirt which clung in wet wrinkles to a lean chest and exposed a scraggy neck and arms. He was in his mid-twenties at most.

Sid continued without irony, "I'm guessing he upset someone."

"Upset them enough to kill him." Hawkes frowned.

"The position of the bullet hole is the same as I saw on the young woman's body that was Mac's scene this morning." Sid was making connections himself, and Hawkes was right beside him.

"Coincidence, or possibly the same killer? We'll know more when we can get the bullets compared."

Adam spoke up suddenly, "What… what do you want me to do?"

Hawkes gave him a glance, "Take the periphery, Adam. Check out around the shore, see if you can find any trace of anything to tell us where he went in, and who was around."

But Adam hesitated and Sid watched him shift from one foot to the other, "You've probably both noticed, I'm sure, and I'm probably telling you what you already know, but…"

"Let's hear it, Adam." Hawkes's voice was a touch impatient, Sid decided, but he made no comment. A beetle crawled along his forearm, tickling excruciatingly and he blew it off onto the grass, watching it scuttle away through the brown stalks and vanish.

Adam pointed to the dead man, "There's something in his fingers, between his thumb and index finger. Look, just… just a scrap of something. You'd hardly notice, but… but I always look at people's hands…"

Sid smiled at him, and at Hawkes's raised eyebrow. Two pairs of glasses were engaged and Adam visibly held his breath as Hawkes gently prised open the cold, wet fingers.

"We hadn't yet noticed, Adam, so it's a good thing you were here to do so." A little chink of light pierced his heart as Sid saw the pleasure on Adam's face. So few words but so much difference.

Hawkes tweezered the sodden scrap of paper into a bag and looked up, "Good job, Adam. We need you out in the field more often."

The smile lit his face as Adam ducked his head and answered, "I'll go check out the perimeter."

He hurried off towards the shore, and the two doctors continued to examine the body, Hawkes glancing now and again over at Adam, visible only as the rustling and shaking of willow branches, and audible through the crunch of twigs and undergrowth.

"He's doing a good job." Sid stated as Hawkes looked over again, his forehead creased.

The younger man sighed, "I know, and I'll tell him that, I'm just… on edge."

"We all are." He could say no more, and they returned to the body and its secrets.

After a couple of hours, there was little to show for the painstaking search all three had undertaken: the fragment of paper in the dead man's fingers; a footprint in the clay by the lake; a piece of fabric caught on a broken branch; and a triangle of coloured paper nestling in a bed of willow leaves, with a few letters visible on one side. Adam had passed it to Hawkes with a smile that grew with a compliment for work well done.

Sid was almost ready to go. He had done all he could at the scene, and the body was zipped into the black bag, its identity covered up. The crowd had dispersed, and the scene was closing down. Crime-scene tape sagged, barely visible against the blanched grass, and the sun was striking his eyes as it sank below the skyline.

Black body bags were not the thing, Sid had decided many years ago, for high temperatures; certainly not for the broiling heat of a New York summer. Neither was the temperature the thing for him, but at least in a short time he would be returning to the morgue and its air-conditioning, which rendered the outside temperature a matter of no concern. He was already longing for its cool, sea-breeze calm atmosphere. His wish though, was that he could go back there to find Danny and Stella safely returned to them. For that, he would gladly suffer the discomfort of the weather for any length of time.

The heat was becoming too much for him; he could feel his glasses sliding off his nose, the plastic hot and slippery, their cord chafing his neck; and he could feel his shirt sticking to his back like a wet rag. He gazed out over the lake, shielding his eyes from the molten gold of the surface, and let his thoughts glide. Danny and Stella; he wished they were beside him now to see the beauty he saw.

It was suddenly almost irresistible, the urge he had to peel off his outer garments and plunge into the depths, away from the nightmare they were surrounded in. He loved to swim, and to feel the water surround and hold him; to float on his back and fall into the reveries of his life, that this would be what death was; peaceful, serene, elemental. This would be what he returned to when he died…

But not today. The reality was that he had seen too many deaths. Too many that should not have happened; and he did not want to add Danny or Stella to that list. Not today. Not ever.

"Sid!"

He jumped. Hawkes had his head tilted to one side, "You okay? We lost you there for a moment."

He unclipped his glasses, "A moment's thought, Sheldon, that's all. I'm ready to take our vic back."

Hawkes nodded, "We'll see you back there…"

And then the radio on his belt squawked out the words that brought the chill of December into all their bones, "… We have a 1053, possibly involving missing vehicle. Police chopper has sighted a burnt-out vehicle in Harlem. All units stand by…"

………………………………...

The horizon rose up to meet the sun, and draw it back down below the city. The light faded to cream, to yellow, and then to the orange of the city's artificial night, when the skyscrapers transformed themselves into charcoal braziers filled with human embers.

Lindsay stood and stared for a moment, breathing in the late evening air with all its smells of cooling asphalt, concoctions of food preparations, and the unmistakeable odour of un-emptied dumpsters behind the delicatessen they were beside.

Mac was still treading a restless circle of the scene even though they both knew there was nothing more to find. Defeat was something neither of them was willing to accept despite the little they had found: the half a shoe print and a few drops of blood scraped from the ground.

The whole time they had been at the scene she had tried, tried so hard, not to look too often at the rusting stain of blood where she knew Danny had fallen. Glass and plastic shards from the impact lay around the site, glinting in the shafts of sunset spreading themselves over the ground. Danny. Fallen. The words reverberated around her head. Fallen and still not risen.

Danny, what were you thinking? You stupid, stupid, brave, stupid man, Danny…

Suddenly, she could stand it no longer, her fists were clenched, her stomach was heaving with sick, shivering fear. If she stood for much more time she would lose control and the tears that were battering against the fragile shell around her would tear through. Because she did not know. She did not know how Danny was, or if he would recover; and she did not know where and how Stella was; or even if she was alive. The last text she had received from Flack half an hour earlier had told her no better or no worse news on Danny: he was still in the OR, and his family had just arrived. Flack was speaking to them, and then he was leaving the hospital. There was nothing more known about Stella.

Not for the first time that day she cast up her eyes, letting the falling sun brand her vision, and whispered a prayer.

Dear God, if you're listening, please be listening, please, oh please, oh please…

Her new radio, fully charged and checked for any of the faults her previous one had let everyone down with, stopped her plea. Mac was striding over to her, fear and hope in his eyes as the words came through. Words from a voice that had lost its human timbre through the frequency translation

"… Repeat; vehicle found, waste ground behind 118th street. All units please respond…"

………………………………...

The helicopter pilot hovered as close and as low as possible above the scene. Low enough for the river water to be blasted outwards in a rose bowl shape as he shifted the machine over when the first patrol cars began to sweep into the site. The cars stopped in all positions, resembling toys zooming in haphazardly and screeching to a dead halt. People spilled out of them and gathered like iron filings round the smoking wreckage, but with an invisible boundary repelling them. The Fire Department trucks followed, then a black SUV.

He was close enough to see the figures that burst forth from it: a man who came running to the circle and stopped dead, and a woman close behind him who stopped a few feet away, frozen; their shock and disbelief clear even from the altitude he watched from. Another man, and a woman close on his heels ran over; there were gestures, touches, arms moving, pushing, holding. Holding back as the fire-fighters pushed their way through and white foam, a strange snow in summer, blanketed the wreckage. The pilot almost heard the hush that fell as the final flames died and their spectres dissipated into the atmosphere.

………………………………...

16th August

…Poor Joshua. Though really I don't know if I should feel sorry for him, as I suspect he's responsible whether he meant to be or not. He came up today for his usual second breakfast (yesterday it even turned out to be his third) and I saw he'd left a trail of feathers behind him. So I followed it, with him trailing behind, letting me know just what he thought of me, and I found that he'd caught a blackbird and hidden it behind the bookcase in the hallway. It was still alive, despite Joshua's best attempts, and I managed to rescue it and take it back into my apartment. But it was too badly hurt and even though I tried to help it, the poor thing died in my hands. There was nothing else I could do, so I gave it the best burial I could…

………………………………...

"You don't need to say anything, Don."

It was not Mac in front of him anymore; he realised that the instant he looked into his eyes. It was a man created from the Marine, from the Detective and from the CSI. There was nothing human in there, nothing with any feelings or emotions. Mac Taylor had not lost it; he was lost. Within the carefully assembled construction standing there looking at him with dead eyes. And Flack knew that if the body within the burnt out car really was Stella, then he was lost for ever, along with a part of every one of them.

"Mac…"

"It's not her."

"Mac, I don't want it to be either, you know that, you know that I want that more than anything, but we got to accept that it might be…" He groaned and pushed his fists into his eyes, "Oh shit. Shit…"

Lindsay was standing alone, away from the car, silent tears coursing down her cheeks. Angell was close to Flack, watching the dialogue with Mac uneasily.

Mac stopped a few meters from it and stooped down, "She got out. It's not her." He held something up in his gloved hand, "Stella's badge. Outside the car."

He moved on and pointed at the patch of blood by what had been the car's back door. There was no inflexion of emotion in his voice. Just his arguments, "Blood outside the car. This is what I think: there were two men, Don, and I think one of them, for whatever reason, killed the other and put his body in the car, and burnt the evidence. That's the explanation. I don't think this is her blood, and I don't think that's her body. I want this analysed, but I'm telling you, it's not her inside."

"Mac…" He could only repeat his name, feeling numb. It was too much for Flack to comprehend; the death of another member of Mac's team.

Please, not again, not again, not after Aiden, not again…

Mac was walking away again from the car, his finger moving along a line of marks on the ground, and dark drops of what he knew to be blood, "Here. Someone was dragged along, leaving a trail of blood. I want this analysed as well, but I'm telling you, that's Stella's. She got out, somehow, probably with help, meaning she's hurt and we have to look for her here."

Flack's voice was almost drowned as he said what he had to then, "If she did, there's still the chance whoever did this, found another way… Mac, I don't want to do this to you, but I have to look at all options… Mac, the river, she might…"

The man's gaze fixed blankly on him again, "Do what you have to do in that respect, Don. But I'm following what the evidence is telling me. She got out and we have to find her. And we don't have much time. We can't wait for autopsy to tell me that isn't her inside that car; there's a chance, and we're taking it now. I want this area searched. Do you understand me?" Eyes that held less life than the moon above them, held Flack in thrall.

He forgave Mac there and then for anything that should not have been said. There was no other answer he could give in the circumstances. For Stella's sake, and everyone else alongside her. He barely paused, "Understood, Mac. I'm on it."

Flack charged away, shouting into his radio as he ran, leaving Mac a ghost in the waning light.

No-one saw the man who watched and hid. And no-one saw the pale gleam of moonlight reflected from the tiny object half-buried in the near distance. An object that had swung in an ear and reflected the sunlight, as its owner stood at a crime scene only hours before.

Sorry to be a little slow in updating. Hope you enjoyed this, but even if not, please review and tell me so I can improve it. Thank you very much, Lily x