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 Boomtown Rats.

Chapter 19.

I Don't Like Mondays

Cory was panting, sweat pouring down her face when she heard the phone ring. Looking down at her watch, she realized that she had been running for close to an hour and checking the distance on the treadmill, she was happy to see that she had gone almost five miles. Wiping her face with her sleeve, she answered the phone. "Reid."

"Cory? I've got something," Danny told her.

"Really? What?" Cory asked in between breaths.

"Black powder on the guns."

Cory almost dropped her phone, her mind immediately going to the fireworks case she was working on. "What? How the hell did they get their hands on smuggled weapons?"

"I don't know, but that's what I found. Mac and Stella are finishing up with the fingerprints and it looks like Flack's coming back with his notes."

Cory looked down at herself. "Okay. Let me hit the shower and I'll be up there in a few minutes," she said as she hung up the phone to hit the shower. Good to her word, ten minutes later, she was out of the shower and pulling her wet hair back into a bun to keep it from dripping. She quickly made her way back to the lab to find a group of people waiting on her.

She walked in and smiled at the group before turning to Danny with a raised eyebrow. "So, black powder? Was it a match?" she asked referring to the black powder they had found at a previous crime scene.

Danny nodded. "Perfect match."

Cory turned to Flack, Angell and Lydia. "Okay, so tell me about these kids."

With a nod to the other two, Lydia began. "Okay, you already know a lot about Preston Lords III, but I'll go over everything again. His grandfather, Preston Lords Sr. made it big in the import/export trade in the late fifties, early sixties. Needless to say that family is a pillar of the community. Our kid grew up with the proverbial silver spoon. Pampered, but good natured. Tended to look out for those less fortunate than him. The family and staff had nothing but nice things to say. There was no indication that he was not the perfect little rich kid."

Cory nodded. "The headmaster told me about his extracurricular activities, so nothing unusual there. No fights with him family? Bad breakup?"

Lydia shook her head. "Nope. He has been dating the same girl since his freshman year and they were even planning on going to the same college together."

Cory looked at Flack who began, "My girl, Laquandra Harring, also seemed to be the perfect student. Straight A's, member of the National Honors Society and was getting a free ride to Stanford next year. A free ride that she definitely needed since her parents can barely afford to pay the rent. As for extracurricular activities, she was in the band, volunteered at a homeless shelter and was part of the students "Leadership of Tomorrow" club."

Mac picked up right where Flack left off. "William Cooper, a.k.a. Big Bill, was on the football team, but also a straight A student. He was from a middle class family and a tutor for those kids on the sports team that weren't making the grade. He had a full ride to University of Southern California on a football scholarship next year. From what his friends told me, he was just using the scholarship to go to college. He didn't plan on turning pro, but wanted to go to law school and eventually go into politics."

Cory leant on a table, her face pensive as she thought over what they had found out. "All right, so the only commonalities that these students have are that they were all seniors, popular, active in trying to improve their communities and had a ton of extracurricular activities." She paused, her right index finger tapping her lips. "What could cause these students to shoot up their school? It doesn't make sense. How do they know each other? It's not like they travel in the same social circles. You got blue blood, middle class and low class."

Mac pursed his lips. "They were all leaders in there schools. Maybe they met in a leadership seminar," he wondered.

Flack, Angell and Lydia looked at each other. "Let's get a list of the seminars they attended and see if we can find anything that matches," Flack instructed. Angell and Lydia nodded as the three of them turned to leave.

Cory thought about something as Lydia was leaving. "Hey, Lyd? Any word from Morgan?"

Lydia nodded. "Yeah, he's in Seattle right now, but he said that he'd review the case evidence once they are done with their case and see if he can shed any light onto motives for our shooters."

"Okay, thanks," Cory replied.

Mac looked at Cory after they left. "So, this is obviously connected to the smuggling case. Do you have any more info on that?"

Cory shook her head. "Nope. After my initial raids, there's been nothing. I think that they've moved their operations, but I don't have any solid leads. I'll keep working that angle, though."

Mac nodded as Adam walked into the room. "What do you have, Adam?" he asked.

Adam sighed wearily. "Nothing. I've combed through all of their computers, but I don't show any interaction between them."

"Chat rooms? Nothing?" Cory queried.

Adam shook his head. "Not that I've found yet, but all three of their browser histories have been wiped clean. It's gonna take some time to reconstruct it."

Mac looked at the tired young man. "Why don't you go home and come back tomorrow after you've had some rest?"

"You sure, boss?" Adam asked with surprise.

Mac nodded. "Yeah. I think that should go for all of us. We need some fresh eyes."

Cory smiled, knowing that Mac's order was meant for her, too. She looked at Mac as Adam left the room. "All right. I caught your hint, I'll go home, but only if you take your own advice."

Mac nodded. "I was just about to grab, Stella."

Cory grinned and looked at Danny, "You ready to go?"

Danny just cocked an eyebrow. "Since Mac is making us? Yeah. Wanna stop by Frankie's?"

Cory thought for a moment and then realized she hadn't eaten since breakfast. "Sure, I'm starving. Let's go." Wrapping his arm around her shoulders for comfort, Danny and her left.

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When Danny and Cory got to Frankie's, they sat at their normal table, but Danny chose to sit next to her and kept his arm around her. "Why don't you tell me what happened?" he asked softly, knowing that her distress from earlier was unusual.

Cory sighed as she looked down at the white tablecloth. "For months I've been getting anonymous notes about a possible school shooting. They referenced Columbine and the tower shooting at UT Austin. I warned the superintendent that there could be violence, but he said there was nothing that he could so." She looked up at him, tears shining in her eyes. "I could have stopped this, Danny. I should have. And because I didn't, fifty people died. Fifty children!"

Danny tightened his arm around her, sensing how much she was blaming herself. "How could you have stopped this? Did the notes say specifically when the shooting was going to take place?" She shook her head. "Did they say who the shooters were?" Again, she shook her head. "Was there evidence on or in the notes that could have warned you to the magnitude?" She shook her head again. "Then stop beating yourself up. You could not have prevented this. I'm willing to bet that you did everything in your power, even bringing in someone to profile the shooter based on the notes. You couldn't have done anything else, bella."

"But—" she began before Danny put a finger on her lips.

"But, nothing. You are not responsible. End of story," he said forcefully.

Cory finally sighed as she laid her head on his shoulder. "Fine. My head knows that, but you're not going to be able to convince my heart of that. I just need to find out why all of this is connected to me. Why was I the one getting the notes, ya know?" She shook her head again. "Plus, something that Preston said is bothering me."

"What?" Danny probed.

"He said that he'd wondered if I was going to be the one he got. What the hell did he mean by that?"

Danny shrugged. "I don't know, bella, but I do think that you are right. This was too organized and I just don't think that these kids were capable of that. Someone else is behind this."

Cory just bit her lip as their waiter, Marco, came to take their order. "I guess we'll just see where the evidence leads us," she said in resignation and the forcefully made herself forget about the day.

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The following day, Cory decided to go into her office first, to give Adam some time to go over the computers. She woke up at five and reluctantly pulled herself out of Danny's arms. As she took her shower, she went over the weapons smuggling case in her head, frustrated at the lack of evidence that she had in that case.

When she finally got to the office, Starbucks in hand, she decided to comb back through her initial findings to see if she could discover anything that she had missed. She walked through the quiet department, unsurprised to see Lydia sitting at her desk as well. "I think we may have had the same thought," she said to the other woman as she perched on her desk. "Find anything we missed?"

Lydia looked up. "Not a damn thing. The only thing I can think to do is to re-interview all the employees at Port Authority. See who might have a motive for getting some cash on the side."

"But, our initial interviews didn't yield anything," Cory countered. "What if we do background checks on all the employees. Maybe see if one of them has any connection to our shooters."

"I already did that," Lydia replied as she pulled three sheets of paper from the pile on her desk. "Turns out that there are three. Each having a connection to one of the shooters," she said with a smirk. "First, Alejo Espino. His wife, Margarita Espino works for the Lords as a housekeeper. He works at the Brooklyn Port Authority Marine Terminal in Red Hook as a fork lift driver."

Cory raised her eyebrow at that as she skimmed over the papers that Lydia had handed her. "Likely suspect, then."

"Next, we have Tang Lan. He was a homeless person whom Laquandra helped out in the homeless shelter. She was listed as a reference for him on his employment application. He works at JFK as a baggage handler."

"Really? Okay, another likely suspect."

"And finally, Nnamdi Boateng. He lives in the same building as William Cooper and is from Ghana. He works at Howland Hook Marine Terminal in Staten Island as a baggage handler."

Cory looked at Lydia in amazement. "Did you go home last night?"

Lydia laughed. "For a couple of hours, but my mind wouldn't stop whirling, so I got here about three a.m.," she admitted.

Cory shook her head in amazement. "Okay, you are going home early today. Actually, now that things are fairly slow, I order you to at least take a nap or something. I have a feeling that once Adam gets the browser histories reconstructed, we will be really busy."

Lydia smothered a yawn. "Fine, I'll go take a nap, but call me if anything changes."

"Don't worry, I will," Cory promised her as she took the files into her office to instigate a deeper background check into the three suspects.

AN: Okay. So things are starting to heat up here. I can tell you that things are going to get more complicated before everything works itself out. Please review and let me know what y'all are thinking of this! Between this storyline and the one that's about to start, y'all are in for a lot of action and drama. :p

Soccer - Did you have fun ice skating? I'm sure that was a relief after packing for so long!

Maddy - It's going to be a few chapters, plus the storyline that was inspired by a NOLA ghost story is coming up within a chapter or so. I'm wondering if you'll be able to figure it out! I'll pretend that you didn't tell me it was the stairs and that you broke it rescuing a small child from a runaway float! lol.

Nienna - Yeah. I actually pulled this storyline from a random shuffle fic that I wrote and the song that was playing was Side of a Bullet by Nickleback. This storyline has been in the works for a while. I know what you mean with how they deal with something like this. I certainly couldn't do it. There will be several things going on for a while, so it may take a bit before things really come together! Thanks!!