Disclaimer: I obviously do not own CSI: NY
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 to Bowling for Soup!!
Chapter 7.
Where to Begin
Cory was sitting at her desk, trying to work and keep the thought of Alistair's betrayal out of her mind, when the phone rang. "Reid?" she answered curtly.
"Good morning, bella," Danny said.
Cory sighed. "Good morning."
Danny sensed that either Cory was deep into some investigation or that something had really upset her. "Are you okay?" he asked.
"I've been better," she replied. "Found out that my InterPol contact lied to me and he actually knows the man that tried to kill Mom. And now he's not taking my calls."
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Danny said for lack of anything else.
Cory smiled. "Not your fault, Danny, but somehow I don't think that's why your calling."
Danny laughed. "Naw, I actually have a question for you. Do you know who is working on the weapons smuggling through fireworks case?"
Cory shook her head in shock. "Actually, I just got that case this morning, why?"
"I think my case might be involved."
Cory leant back in her chair, twirling her pen between her fingers. "Give me the low down."
"Manager at a fast good restaurant was killed. Neck broken, then her heart was injected with liquid nitrogen. Then we find another dead body, this one with a GSW to the back and killed by a .480 Ruger. Turns out there was a box in the freezer that contained gunpowder that was traced back to Chinese fireworks, specifically ones that were reported missing by Port Authority," Danny explained.
"Well, that's certainly interesting. Can you email the case details? I really haven't even had a chance to go over the case file. Did you find the gun?"
"Nope."
"Okay. Give me a day or so and I'll let you know what I have. I have to get with the person who was investigating it before and see what they found," Cory replied, her mind finally moving away from Alistair and on to more work related things.
Danny smiled, knowing that he had distracted her from what she had found out that morning. "No prob. Are you getting off early tonight?"
"You dump this on me and think that I'm getting off early?" Cory teased as she laughed. "Dream on, Messer. I think I should be home by eight at the latest."
Danny laughed, too. "Okay. I love you."
"I love you, too," Cory said before hanging up and pulling the case file towards her. She began to immerse herself in the facts of the case.
An hour later, she was done and rubbing her eyes. Okay, so I've got an obvious leak at Port Authority. That's gotta be it, how else do these thieves know exactly where the fireworks are being stored? And, now we have to find out how they are being transported out of the city. She thought a bit more about what Danny had told her. Hm. What if they weapons are being transported out of the city by deliveries to some stores? They get stored in the freezer, where there is no danger of the fireworks igniting and then they are picked up.
She had just started to make notes when a knock on her door interrupted her. "Hey Cory," Lydia said as she walked in. "I heard back from Derek on the notes."
Cory looked up and smiled at the younger woman as she walked into her office. "What'd he say?"
Lydia sighed as she sat down. "Not much. He got the preliminary results from the lab and he said that they do think that they were written by the same person. But he agreed with us that something was off. Most specifically, why are the notes being sent to you?"
Cory nodded. "I understand and I wish I knew, but that's going to have to take a back seat for a while. We have a new case. Possible weapons smuggling using fireworks. First, we have to find out why Agent Fitzhugh gave up the case."
"Oh, do tell me more," Lydia said as settled back in her chair so Cory could bring her up to speed.
--
Danny was sitting at his desk, grabbing a quick bite for lunch when Adam rushed in excitedly.
"I think I found something!" he exclaimed.
Danny looked at him and nodded as he stood up. "What?"
"I found some irregularities with deliveries, so I called up the store manager, who told me that all food deliveries are made during the morning hours, so he can log them. But over the last couple of months, there have been deliveries that were made late at night, after the store closed and all the other employees had left. Just a few boxes of what looked like meat," he reported as they walked to the A/V lab.
Danny raised an eyebrow. "So, turns out that our victim wasn't collateral damage. She had to be a part of the equation, but we didn't find anything irregular about her bank accounts."
Adam shrugged. "Can't tell you about that, but I think we might find some answers to that in her apartment." He motioned to the screen as he hit the play button again.
Danny watched as a little after midnight, Angela Cummings opened the back door to the store and let a man in with a dolly that had boxes stacked on it. Danny paused the playback and enlarged the shot of the boxes. "They looked exactly like the boxes of meat in the freezer."
Adam nodded. "Here's the kicker. All these deliveries were made the same night that the security company had scheduled the maintenance."
Danny stood up. "Okay. We need to get an employee list from the company that shows who exactly knew when the maintenance was going to happen." He turned to walk out. "Why don't you get that and I'm going to grab Angell and get into Angela Cummings' apartment and see what I find there."
--
Thirty minutes later, Danny and Angell were walking into the dead woman's apartment. "Wow," Angell said in shock. "This is filthy!"
Danny chuckled, looking around at the boxes and trash that littered the surfaces. "It's not so bad. It could be as bad as the cockroach guy," he said with a shudder. He looked around and stared at the stack of mail on the table by the door. He picked the envelopes up and sorted through them. "I see statements from three banks here. And two of them don't have her name on them."
Angell looked on. "Maybe she's getting the mail for a friend?" she queried, trying to work out all the angles.
Danny shrugged. "I don't know, but before I open the ones that don't have her name on them, I should at least have proof that they are for her." Sighing he put the mail down and then walked farther into the apartment. He glanced around, looking for anything that was out of place before deciding to walk into the bedroom, which was decidedly cleaner.
He began opening the drawers to the dresser and on the third drawer, found what he was looking for. "Boom!" he said as he found a host of different driver's licenses. One from New York in her name, but he found five more from different states that had different names on them. He took pictures of everything before bagging it.
After done with that, he looked around again, knowing that with an operation this smooth, she had to be getting instructions from somewhere. He finally spied a laptop in the living room, buried under the empty boxes of pizza and grabbed that for evidence. Once fairly sure that he had as much evidence as possible, he walked out of the apartment, where Angell was concluding her interview of neighbors.
She smiled as he walked up, his arms laden with evidence. "Same thing as before when I interviewed them. She was a nice quiet tenant who never gave anyone trouble. Half the people that I talked to didn't even know what she looked like."
Danny shrugged. "I think I might have found some things to help us, so maybe this wasn't a wasted trip?"
Angell laughed. "It's never a wasted trip with you along, Messer. You're bound to make things interesting."
--
Back at the lab, Adam was going over the list of names that he'd been given by the security company of the people who had access to the dates of the backups. One name stuck out for him. Dorian Driscoll. He hadn't shown up to work in two days. He quickly typed the name into the New York stated DMV database to see if he could get a picture and a few minutes later, he had the answer to who the unknown victim was.
He picked up his phone and quickly called Danny.
"Messer."
"Danny, I know who our victim was. Dorian Driscoll; he was a programmer with the security company. He was in charge of scheduling the updates. In fact, it was his idea to have them random."
"Really? Well, I found multiple ID's for Angela in different names for five different states. Can you run her phone records to see if any numbers pop up regularly?" Danny responded.
"No problem. I'll get the cell and landline records from the company," Adam said. "But, if this operation was as smooth as we think, it's quite possible that they were using disposable cell phones."
Danny sighed. "I know, but I want all angles covered. Once we get that, I'll send everything over to Cory, so she can add it to whatever the FBI has right now." He pursed his lips for a moment. "The only thing that is bothering me is the lack of a gun. If this was a professional hit, then why don't we have any record of the bullet in IBIS?"
Adam shrugged as he made the request for the telephone records. "Maybe it's a new gun. But, I'll get to work on the phone records and hopefully I'll have something by the time you get back."
"Okay. I should be back in about an hour, depending on traffic."
Adam grimaced as he hung up the phone, noticing that it was already afternoon. He sighed a bit and then pulled out his phone, calling the woman he was just starting to date. "Hey Allison, it's Adam. Look, I'm going to have to cancel for dinner tonight because I'm going to be stuck at the lab. Give me a call when you get this message and maybe we can reschedule it," he said with disappointment in his voice. They had only been out on one date, but he knew that he really liked her. Sighing he put the phone back in his pocket and turned back to the computer screen, hoping to find something to put this case to bed.
AN: Okay. So I'm a bad author for not posting this earlier. Anyway, my muse is away and running with a plotline for this story that won't happen for about 10 chapters or so and I can't get her to leave it alone long enough to actually write the next chapter. Stupid, stubborn dragons. Anyway. I have the next chapter written and am just waiting on my beta and if my muse decides to show her claws to get the first part of the next chapter written, then I should be back on track! Please go and vote for what sex you think Flack and Lindsay's baby will be! I have written the birth (let's be on the safe side and say about 13 or 14 chapters away) but I'd love to see what y'all think!
Soccer - I can grant your wish as long as my muse comes back. He'll be in for a couple of chapters at least. :p
Lapland - I actually haven't decided if he is or if he isn't yet. But he just might be! Trust me...the chills are coming! I haven't read any of yours...I'm having enough trouble keeping up with the stories that I'm reading right now, so I just can't get into anything else right now! Bumfuzzles is a nice Texas slang word...I just that and discombobulated all the time! I do have major plans for Alistair and let's just say there are a few more twists coming up with him...but that's a while away. It doesn't matter if it's OOC or not, it's your story! I go back and forth with Kendall, sometimes I like her and sometimes I don't. :s
Firecracker - Thanks for the review! I love Adam and the more I write him, the more I love him. He'll be playing a bigger part in this story than the others. I do try to show my logic, so I'm glad that it was easy to follow. Hope you enjoyed this chapter as well!
BEG - No worries...my life is...um...complicated at the moment. Is the bf back yet? Have you finally gotten rid of the flu? As per Spencer and Cory, i don't know yet. maybe, maybe not. My muse is still on the proverbial fence about it, but it will be worked out at some point. :D Kendall is just very strange. Sometimes I get her, but most of the time I don't...that's why I usually use her as a foil for the other characters. She seems really snooty to me sometimes, like she like to one up everyone. That'll probably show up in my story. Sorry for the long wait!