A/N: Sorry for the cliffhanger, honestly, I'm not doing it on purpose. :) Hope you like that chapter, I tried my best.

2)

December 15th

The day began quite usual, in short: Don's phone rang at exactly 3:15 am.

"Damn," he whispered, rubbing his eyes.

"Don Flack."

"Hope I didn't wake you up?," he heard a familiar dark voice, tongue-in-cheek. He instantly saw Jess in his mind's eye. Sarcastic smile, cute little dimples, playful eyes.

"Why, no! What kinda weirdos sleep at three in the morning?," he countered, restraining laughter.

"Listen, we got a dead body at 103rd, Broadway. That's all I know so far, I'm on my way there myself."

"Okay, I'll be there in a second."

That night was exceptionally cold and a frosty wind still intensified the low temperatures. It was about 3:25 when he arrived at the crime scene situated in a quarter completely strange to him.

Jessica, at the moment talking to a young police officer who made the impression of wishing eagerly to be somewhere very far away waved to him indicating she'd come over in a second.

Don remembered the first time he had seen a dead person, being confronted with the sight of cold white skin, a distorted face, a view frozen at the moment of death.

He flashed the young cop an encouraging look, he himself fighting the temptation of escaping the gloom that surrounded him, that particular nameless atmosphere merely created by death.

"Hey. You look awake," Jess greeted him.

"Thank you. You look good too."

"I also hate that time of the day. It's dark, it's cold," Jess said and turned up the collar of her coat to protect herself against the wind.

"You're so right, Jess."

"Without exception, Don."

"Well." He cleared his throat. "Now, what happened exactly?"

"As far as I know we received the call of a quite hysterical woman about half an hour ago. She found the body on her way home from her sister's birthday party. Obviously she was pretty messed up after the discovery, she's being interrogated at the police department."

Don had phoned Mac immediately after Jess' call. Until he and the rest of the team would arrive it was his job to question and then get rid of the curious onlookers who had formed a crowd behind the barrier tape.

After all these years those sensationalists still disgusted him, and Jessica's disapproving glance told him she thought just the same. To him the fascination of death was completely incomprehensible, he didn't have a clue why they were attracted by things he sickened at.

Finally he forced himself to walk over to the lifeless body of a middle-aged man lying in the middle of the street.

He glimpsed at him, by experience avoiding to look into his dead and motionless eyes.

It took Don some moments to figure out what was wrong about the position of the body, but suddenly he realised that both arms and feet were twisted in an unnatural way.

"Arms and legs broken. That's awful," Jessica said, looking down at the victim.

He nodded.

"Damn painful, not the cause of death though."

"Nope," Jessica agreed. "But thankfully it's not our job to find that out." She looked straight at Don, giving his outfit an appraising look. After staring at the flashy green tie he was wearing for a few more seconds she just turned around and then went off towards the young officer who was interrogating a woman.

"That tie's a gift from my aunt Sara," Don yelled after her, but couldn't help smirking.

"Hey, Flack! What's up?," he suddenly heard Lindsay's voice behind his back. With her case in one and the camera in the other hand she walked up to him. The moment she looked at him she burst out laughing.

"Hey, hold it for a second!"

"Cool down, I just … love your outfit." She smiled at him and then kneeled down next to the victim.

"Poor guy. Both arms and legs broken," she murmured.

"Ouch."

"You name it."

Then she pointed at the victim's throat.

"Strangulation marks?"

"Exactly. Plus three bullet wounds at the back," she added, after she had turned over the body.

"Wow. Someone wanted to play it safe, huh? We got no name, no address, no ID, nothing. We've checked last nights reports of missing people – no match. He's about 30, maybe 35, but that's just a guess."

Lindsay opened the case and took out a pair of gloves and forceps.

"Anybody seen anything?," she asked, checking the man's clothes.

"Of course, the witnesses are beating a path to my door."

She laughed. "Seriously."

"Nobody saw or heard anything. Anyway, where's Danny? Wasn't he supposed to be on duty today?"

"I guess he'll come along with Mac, I walked here, I live just round the corner. Well, there they are."

A big black Hummer had stopped just behind the police line, Mac, Danny and Stella got out of the car.

"I'm sorry guys, we got just one dead body to share between the five of us," Flack shouted, smiling roguishly.

They were all surprised at the fact that obviously the whole team had been got up at 3 in the morning.

"What's going on here?"

"I know as much as you do," Mac replied.

Danny kneeled down next do Lindsay and took the camera out of her hands.

"You okay?," he asked as he had immediately noticed a slight difference in her.

"Uhm, yes, it's just …"

She was staring at the victim's face, closely examining his features.

"Somehow it seems to me that I know this guy. I've seen him before. And that tattoo … "

Lindsay started biting her lips, searching her mind for those blue eyes, that Chinese sign on his wrist, but she simply couldn't recall the memory associated with him.

However, memories don't drop away.

Not that kind of memory.