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Brass turned at the sound of the voice to see a middle aged woman with shoulder length blonde hair, and quite beautiful Reid concluded. "Catherine," Brass looked surprised.

"I tried your cell Jim, but it was turned off. I knew you must be at the hospital."

Brass turned back to Reid, "This is Catherine Willows from the crime lab," he gestured toward her, "Catherine, Mr. Reid's son, Spencer."

She had the type of beauty you'd expect to see in a Las Vegas chorus line, rather than on a woman with a badge who studied the, more often than not, grizzly remnants of crimes for a living. Her blue eyes were direct and Reid had no doubt that very little surprised this woman. Catherine stepped forward and offered her hand, "Greg tells me you're an FBI agent."

Now this was something Reid usually chose to keep to himself when meeting people, unless it were in the line of duty or absolutely necessary. He liked to study people's reactions when they found out. It gave him a bit of a read on them. He hadn't missed the look that had passed between Stokes and Sanders earlier that had said, "A fed, this guy could be a pain in the ass." Now he watched Brass after the revelation. His eyes opened wide for a moment in surprise, then narrowed as he appeared to be sizing him up and finally the captain gave him a slight smirk that said, "Touché."

"You said something about a theory," Reid said.

Catherine was silent for a moment, not sure whether laying things out for this man was good or not. Something told her it was better if he knew. Then he wouldn't be on their asses for information and he'd know they were on the job. "Lou, Sara and I caught what appeared to be a mugging gone bad in an alley last night; black woman, watch and wallet gone, shot in the head with a .22. Bobby hasn't been able to match it to anything in the system."

"Why do you think it's connected to my dad?"

"Because she had William Reid's business card in her pocket," Catherine stated.

"Who was she?" Brass asked.

"Prints identified her as Lou-Anne McDaniels. She'd been arrested in the past for prostitution and heroin possession. But she was clean as a whistle now and has been for at least the last few months. Do you know anything about your dad's dealings with this woman?"

"No," Reid shook his head. "As I was telling Captain Brass, my father and I have been estranged for years. I know nothing about his life." Reid took a moment and glanced over at his father, wondering if he heard them. He supposed he was hoping to see that the sound of Lou-Anne McDaniels' name registered with him and his heart rate would increase, or he'd move a finger… something to let him know that there was activity going on in there.

"Maybe if we call his law firm," Brass suggested, "they can tell us if she was a client of his and what it was about."

"Sara tried," Catherine informed them, "but they refused to confirm or deny that she was a client, citing privilege."

"Great, okay, well let's see if we can approach this from some other angle." The pair turned from Reid. "We'll let you know if we come up with anything."

Yeah, Reid thought, you do that. "I have to leave for a few minutes," he told Pamela, William's day nurse after Brass and Willows had left. "I'll be back shortly to talk with Dr. Sutton."

Pamela nodded as he headed for the ICU exit. He took the elevator to the main floor and out the front door to some benches. He pulled his phone out, sat and hit speed dial.

"Sweetcheeks," Garcia said excitedly, "is everything okay?"

"There's no change Garcia, but I need you to do something for me."

"Anything, you know that."

"Cross reference my dad and a woman named Lou-Anne McDaniels." He waited as he heard Garcia's fingers on the keys.

"She was arrested numerous times for prostitution and heroin possession," she told him.

"Yeah, I know that. Was my dad her lawyer on any court appearances?"

"No nothing there, legal aid. She had a court appearance yesterday in family court. She was petitioning to get to see her daughter who'd been removed from her care by DCFS."

"Was my dad involved?"

"No, sor… just a minute, yes; her appearance yesterday was continued because she didn't have a lawyer, but someone stepped up pro bono and William Reid has been designated attorney of record and asked for a continuance to familiarize himself with the case. The court gave him a week."

As the goddess herself would say, Reid thought, yahtzee! "To give Lou Anne McDaniels visitation someone would have to look into the daughter's living conditions now and how McDaniels would fit in with it. And I'll bet someone didn't want anyone looking into the daughter. With McDaniels and my dad both out of the way, no one likely would. Do we know where the dau…?"

"Given into the care of Wes and Tina Dinsdale of 1459 Parker Boulevard; her name is Rachael and she's eight years old."

"Thanks Garcia, you're the greatest.

"Don't you ever forget it. Reid, take care of yourself and your dad, okay."

"I will Garcia, thanks again." He closed his phone and wondered what reception he'd get from Captain Brass and the crime lab people when he gave them this. He could imagine them thinking here's the fed horning in on our case.

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"Anything on William Reid's computer?" Nick asked Archie.

"Well, he's got lots of stuff on his computer, but nothing regarding the McDaniels woman and nothing, as far as I can see, that would make somebody attempt to murder him," Archie said as Jim and Catherine entered the lab. "Most of his stuff is about his son."

"Agent Reid told us he and his father were estranged," Catherine said, doubt entering her voice.

"They may have been estranged," Archie remarked. "But the guy kept up on everything the kid did. You do realize that the son is some kind of wunderkind. He got his first doctorate at sixteen with a thesis entitled 'Identifying non-obvious relationship factors using cluster weighted modeling and geographic regression'."

"I have absolutely no idea what that even means," Sara said.

"He's got three doctorates, joined the FBI at 22, has been published in many scientific and criminal publications and has done some pretty heroic things like going into a train unarmed to face a psychopath holding a bunch of hostages with two guns."

"He looks so skinny and harmless," Greg said.

"So do you," Sara laughed. "I guess he's got a pair. I gotta meet this guy." She said as Nick's cell rang.

He pulled it from his pocket and spoke. "You just got your chance. He's at the front desk."