Disclaimer: I obviously do not own CSI: NY. I just own my car, my laptop and my crazy muse who seems to want to write 4 different stories at a time. I also do own any characters that you do not recognize. You can borrow them if you ask permission first!
A/N: Okay. Thanks to everyone that read and reviewed! Here's the next chapter!! Many thanks to Aphina and Axellia for the beta. I don't own the chapter title either. That belongs Ceesau (go Carmine!). Please remember that you can vote for what you think the sex of Flack and Lindsay's baby is on my profile! It's tight right now!
Chapter 5.
How do you feel?
When Danny and Adam got back to the lab, they immediately started to process the evidence they had collected. Adam left his biological samples with Lindsay and went to the A/V lab to process the security footage that had just arrived from the security company.
Danny started processing the gunpowder and left all the blood samples with Lindsay. "How are you feeling, Montana?"
Lindsay smiled. "Like a beached whale. Luckily, I'm able to sit down a lot; my ankles have been swelling so much the last week. What was the scene like? I heard that you found a second body."
Danny shrugged. "Actually, Adam found the body in the ball pool of the kids' playground. I'm glad he did. Can you imagine what could have happened if he hadn't and a kid found him?"
Lindsay shuddered slightly. "Therapy for many, many years. Not many biological samples, though. What are you processing?"
"Gunpowder that I found in an empty box of meat in the freezer. Why would gunpowder be in the freezer?"
Lindsay smirked. "The Chinese used to use gunpowder to season meat when salt was scarce," she told him.
Danny stopped and looked at her in shock, before starting to laugh. "Really? Wow, that's just hilarious. How the hell do you know that?"
"Jeopardy. I was sick one week with the flu and all I did was watch it. What can I say; I'm a fount of useless knowledge."
Danny just shook his head as the mass spectrometer began to run the gunpowder for a chemical composition. Within moments, he had his answer. "Huh. This composition for gunpowder is not typically used in guns. It's used in fireworks; specifically fireworks that come from China."
Lindsay looked at him as her blood samples processed. "So maybe the box contained Chinese fireworks? But why would it be in the freezer of a fast food restaurant?"
"I don't know, but somehow I think it's connected to the dead bodies," he said as he glanced down at his phone which was starting to buzz. "That's Sid. Looks like he's done with the autopsies." Danny quickly logged his evidence and left for the morgue. He made a stop by the A/V lab to see if Adam wanted to come with him. "Adam, Sid has the autopsy results. Want to join me?"
Adam looked up from his computer screen. "Sure. I'm not finding anything so far in the footage from last night." He made a few keystrokes and then joined Danny.
Sid looked up as they walked into the room. "Ah, Mr. Messer and Mr. Ross, so good of you to join me."
Danny fought the urge to roll his eyes. "Whadda got for me, Sid?" he asked instead.
"Well," the coroner began while snapping his glasses into place. "What I have for you is a paradox of sorts. We'll start with your unknown man. Cause of death is obvious, GSW to the back." Sid lifted the body up to show the entrance wound. "The bullet exited through the chest, and left a great deal of damage behind."
Danny watched as Sid lowered the body back. "Do you have any idea of the caliber of bullet that would make that type of wound?"
Sid shook his head. "Definitely at least a .45 caliber, but maybe something more powerful. Did you recover a bullet?"
Danny and Adam looked at each other while shaking their heads. "No, I guess we are going back to the scene," Danny stated. "Damn, I'd better call Cory and let her know that I'm working late," he muttered as they turned to the body of Angela Cummings.
Sid turned walked around to the other body. "Ms. Cummings is where the paradox comes in. She was not strangled as I first determined at the scene, but her neck was broken, severing her spinal cord. However, that did not cause her death."
Adam looked confused. "Okay, she survived a broken neck, which should have caused her death, so what killed her?"
Sid sighed. "Unfortunately, I've seen this once before. Her heart was injected with liquid nitrogen, causing it to freeze instantaneously. Luckily for her, since her spinal cord was severed, she felt no pain."
"Jesus, that's horrible!" Danny exclaimed. "You're right, we saw this last year with the "Ice Queen". How did she come into contact with the nitrogen?"
"It was administered by a hypodermic needle to her heart. Someone really wanted to make sure this young woman was dead, gentlemen. I hope you can find out who did this."
Danny nodded as he and Adam left the morgue, with Danny dialing the phone to give Cory the bad news.
--
Cory was sitting at the dining room table, still feeling shock over all she had learned about the man who wanted to kill her mother. She started to gather all of the information back up, after taking pictures of it all, so that she could study the documents later, but her phone interrupted her. She picked it up, knowing that it was Danny since he had changed his ring tone to Uptown Girl by Billy Joel. "Hey, chere," she answered somberly.
"Hi, bella. I have to work late today," he said without preamble. "I'll try to get home as soon as possible."
Cory blew out a breath; she wanted to go over her discovery with him, but she understood the job. "No problem, I understand," she told him. "I'll catch up with you when you get home, but I may be in bed. I have to go in early tomorrow."
"Thanks. I love you," Danny responded, sensing something in her voice, but from her avoidance of any serious topics decided to let it drop. "I'll talk to you as soon as possible."
"I love you, too. Bye," Cory responded before setting her phone down. "Damn. Damn, damn, damn," she muttered.
--
Penelope Garcia was reviewing the two notes that Agent Reid had sent to the lab in confusion. She was used to looking at the worst humanity had to offer, but these notes just didn't seem right to her. Shaking her head, she dialed Morgan's number.
"Hey, baby girl. Whatcha got for me?" Morgan answered.
"Hey, tall, dark and sexy. I took a look at that evidence that you wanted me to and these notes are strange. I did get the lab results from Quantico, preliminary of course, and it looks like they were written by the same person. I'm emailing you the copies right now," she said as she hit the send button on her email.
"Thanks, baby girl. I'll take a look at it. We did find the girls alive and well, but the UnSub committed suicide. We should be back sometime tonight, so I'll go over it on the plane," he told her.
Garcia smiled. "Good, I'm glad to hear it. I'll see you tomorrow," she said knowing that he had to finish his paperwork with the locals. "Bye, sexy."
Morgan smiled. "Bye, baby girl."
--
Danny and Adam arrived back at the restaurant, trying to figure out where the bullet could have landed. "Did you find any trace of blood other than the drop?" Danny asked Adam.
Adam shook his head. "No, the area was clean. Actually," he said with a contemplative look on his face, "it was much cleaner than the other part of the restaurant. I found hundreds of fingerprints in the dining area, but very few in the kid's room. I wonder if someone cleaned it."
Danny looked thoughtful. "Possibility. From what I found out about their security system, it only focuses on the register and safe areas. So, we know that he was shot in the back, maybe trying to leave?"
Adam nodded. "Possible. There is a door to the street in the kid's area, so we should concentrate on that area when we search, right?"
Danny nodded as he parked the car. Both men got out of the car and made there way back to the closed restaurant. Adam had called the manager while they were driving, so the man could let them in. He was waiting by the door.
"I trust that you can clear this mess out so we can open for business tomorrow?" he asked in a sarcastic tone.
Danny just lifted an eyebrow. "Two people murdered on your premises and you're worried about when you are going to open for business?"
The man shrugged. "While I'm terrible saddened by the murder of Angela, life goes on and I have bills to pay," he said simply.
Danny just shrugged as they walked into the building. "Gotta love New Yorkers," he muttered. As they walked into the room, both men looked around, searching for a bullet hole. Danny peered around trying to imagine exactly what had taken place. He envisioned the unknown man running for the door and then jerking as the bullet entered his body. He walked towards the door, glancing around as he looked for the bullet hole, but finding nothing.
Adam started walking the floor, concentrating on the tables and walls and finally, he saw a bit of dust on the wall that separated the kid's room from the main dining area. Stooping down, he shined his flashlight on it. "I found the bullet," he said excitedly.
"Boom," Danny replied as he opened his case and got a pair of tweezers out. "Let's see if we can get it out and see what it is," he said as he began the extraction. Once done, he held up the bit of twisted metal to the light.
"Wow," Adam said. "That's the biggest bullet that I've ever seen. What is it?"
Danny furrowed his brow. "I'm not sure, but it looks like maybe an eleven or twelve millimeter. I'll really have to study it in the lab to be sure." He looked around. "Why is the bullet here? This means that he was running towards the dining room, not away and the shooter must have been behind him."
Adam shrugged. "I have no idea, but I think we really need to find out what happened here."
"Yeah," Danny responded. "Too many things are not making sense. It's not adding up." He quickly bagged the bullet and they began their trip back to the lab, for the second time that day.
When they got back to the lab, Adam went back to the A/V lab and Danny went to ballistics, so he could see if he could get anything off of the bullet. He studied it carefully, looking at the striations as he loaded it into IBIS.
"What are you looking at?" Lindsay asked from the doorway.
"The bullet that possibly killed our unknown male in the restaurant. I'm not exactly sure what it is."
Lindsay walked into the lab to study the bullet. "Hmm, it's definitely bigger than a .45, maybe a .458 or a .475."
Danny smirked. "You're close. It's a 12 millimeter, but it's a .480. I'm pretty sure that it's from a Ruger."
"That's one hell of a powerful gun," Lindsay said. "And it's not that common."
"I know. I just hope that there's a hit in IBIS soon. When I talked to Cory earlier, she was a little off. I think something might have happened, but she didn't seem to want to talk about it."
Lindsay looked a little concerned. "Maybe she just had a bad day at work."
Danny shook his head. "I think it's more than that."
Lindsay patted his arm gently. "Don't worry. She'll tell you and if she doesn't, her, Lydia, Taylor, Stella and I are going shopping on Saturday and we'll get it out of her."
Danny smiled as the computer beeped. "Damn. No matches in the database. I'm going to check in with Adam and then head home," he said in a somewhat dejected tone.
"Okay, good-night. I'm here until eleven, so I'll keep processing all the fingerprints for you."
"Thanks, Lindsay," he said he walked out. When he got to the lab, he looked at Adam, who looked puzzled. "What's that look for, Adam?"
Adam looked up. "The security tapes are blank for a two hour period, from two to four a.m."
Danny just sighed. "This is not my day. So I can conclude that since the tapes are blank that our victims where killed during that time."
"That's my thought, but here's the weird point. Angela Cummings left the store at midnight, which was an hour after closing."
Danny shrugged. "That's pretty normal. Usually takes them an hour to finish closing per the other manager."
"I know that, but if she left at midnight, how'd she end up back in the store?" Adam questioned.
Danny sighed. "I have no idea, but I'm going to head home. Maybe things will make more sense tomorrow."
Adam nodded as he turned back to the tapes, to study them some more.
AN: Okay. So here we go! Yeah!! I got 7 reviews for the last chapter!! Can y'all do it again?
katdydid13 - This story is going to be filled with twists and turns, so be prepared! Thanks!
Brown Eyed Girl - If you get lost at anypoint, just let me know b/c some of this is going to be coming from the previous stories! But I'm flattered that you like is so much that you are jumping around! :p Thanks!
Aphina - You know me and my twists! I love to write them (actually, Lexi loves to write them b/c she surprises me with the majority of them!) I feel for Adam. I so would have been puking if I had found the body. Ewwwwww. I am trying to show that they've picked up each other's habits...thanks for your help with that!
Axellia - OMG. You're caught up on this? Is the sun rising in the west now? (Joking!) I'm just amazed that you had time to get at least one of them caught up! You really do need a holiday. :( Anyway...Lindsay giving birth should be soon, so not much more waiting on that (oh, I love Morgan and Garcia's relationship too!) And you can still be a teacher b/c you get to send them home at the end of the day!! :p As per the diving...One of the GB guys was only 14! So, I don't think he was able to drink (on the other hand...the other GB 10m platform diver was kinda hot). Yes, they will meet the team, probably sooner rather than later and I can see some Hawkes jealousy here. I haven't heard it or seen the video...give me the name of the song and I'll YouTube it!
laplandgirl - Yeah, my muse has very twisted plot ideas. But I've learned to go with her so that I can finish a story! (lol) Yup. Aphina and I have been working on the Cory storyline in DI, so I think the next chapter she posts will have what I wrote in it! :P Thanks!
Maddy - No worries...With school starting and Gustav bearing down on us, I understand! I'm glad that I made you gasp. That was the intention! I know that Cory is not going to be happy with Alistair for some time, so there will be some upcoming drama about that! Thanks!
Soccer-Bitch - Thanks!