Author's Notes: I was trying to have this chapter ready by Friday night but it just wasn't coming together right. So hopefully this will be okay; there's a little jumping around because the pieces are about to start to falling into place.

Disclaimer: Still not mine.

Blown Apart
Chapter 11

"You believe me?" Danny did a double take. Those weren't words you usually heard someone from Internal Affairs say out loud even if it was true.

Sawyers shrugged. "You're either a helluva liar or you're telling the truth. Since you aren't exhibiting any of the normal tells of a liar, I'm leaning towards the latter. Besides, you seem a little more sincere than Grayson did. The only thing I can't figure out is why Grayson would lie. Have you had any run-ins with him? Any idea why he would identify you as the person he saw go into Grant's room?"

Danny wracked his brain trying to think if he even knew the officer. 'I don't know the name. A whole new crop of rookies started about a month ago so I might not have even worked with him. So no, I don't know why he would point me out. It's starting to feel like the whole world is out to get me today. Does this mean I can go?"

Sawyers looked truly sad. "I'm sorry, Detective Messer. What I believe and what I can prove are two different things. Grayson won't be back until the morning for me to straighten things out. Until then, I officially have to take his identification seriously."

"You sure the calendar doesn't say 'Make Danny Messer Miserable Day'?" His phone rang and he glanced down, half afraid of who would be calling and what more could have gone wrong. It was his mother. He glanced at Detective Sawyers. "Can I? It's my ma and she's taking care of my daughter." At the detective's nod, he flipped open his phone. "Hey Ma, anything wrong?"

"No, I just have a very sleepy little girl who doesn't want to go to bed without saying goodnight to her parents."

"Can't have that, can we? Put her own." He could hear his mom call the little girl to the phone to talk to Daddy and then his daughter's most adorable voice filled his ears.

"Daddy? Where you and Mama?"

"Mama had a little accident at work today, Luce, and the doctors want to watch her tonight. We'll see you tomorrow though. You being a good girl for your grandparents?" She didn't answer but he could just picture her blonde head nodding up and down. She sometimes forgot that the person on the other line couldn't see her.

"Mama got bobos? She got bobo bamages? And kissies make bedder?"

He had to laugh. Hearing her voice right then was definitely a band-aid to his wounded spirit for the moment. "Yeah, Mama has a couple of bobos and she's got special bobo bandages and I've kissed them all better. She's sleeping right now or she'd tell you goodnight as well. We both love you, Lucy and we'll see you tomorrow. Be a good girl and go to sleep."

"You tell me story?" He could hear how sleepy she was and knew the tears would start soon - hers particularly but he knew if she did, he wouldn't be far behind. A knife dug into his heart. Any other time he would have told her a story over the phone knowing his mom would take the phone away when she fell asleep. But he couldn't do it in front of Sawyers. He sighed.

"I can't right now, Sweetheart, but Nonna will. She's got great stories that you've never even heard before. You go get in bed and let me talk to her a minute and I tell her to tell you deserve the best story ever, okay? I love you, Luce."

"Luv 'u too." Then his mom was back on the phone. "Daniel, Donnie called and told me about the trouble you're in."

Danny closed his eyes. The hits just kept coming, he thought. "I'll remember to thank him later. Don't worry about it, Ma. Everything will work out. So was my daughter saying goodnight just an excuse to check up on me?"

"I don't need to use my granddaughter for that. I just figured that hearing her voice right now might do you some good. Remind you what you had to lose if you don't keep your cool. I'll take her to preschool tomorrow. Need me to do anything else? Bake a cake, maybe?"

He laughed for the second time in spite of himself. His mother knew him well. "Nah, no need for that yet. Could you maybe swing by the apartment and pick up some clothes for Lindsay? She'll be released tomorrow and they made a mess of the ones she was wearing." His mom promised and then they both said goodbye. He closed his phone and saw that Sawyers was staring at him. Had she heard the quip about the cake and took it wrong? He rubbed at his eyes tiredly, waiting for another shoe to drop.

"Maybe I was wrong about you, Detective Messer. You must be a helluva liar if you can convincingly call your wife's injuries 'a couple of bobos' so you don't frighten your little girl. How old is she?"

"Two." What was she saying? She no longer believed him because he didn't want to scare Lucy with the knowledge of how close she came to losing her mommy?

"The terrific, terrible twos. I can tell how much you love both your wife and little girl. The only flight risk you pose is possibly breaking a land speed record trying to get back to them." She bit back a smile knowing she had him totally confused. "Get out of here."

Danny sat back, stunned for the umpteenth time this evening. "Seriously? But what about your proof?"

"You came in voluntarily. While I should hold you until I get to the bottom of this whole matter; I don't see where it will do any good. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to find you if I need you again."

Danny's whole face broke out in a grin. "Thanks, Detective Sawyers. You know, you're not so bad for IA."

Now she did let her smile show. "No sense ruining someone's reputation, now is it? As far as anyone else is concerned, I raked you over the coals and threatened at least a dozen times to take your badge - which I may still do before this is all over, don't forget."

He held up his hand as if making a pledge. "Worst experience of my life." He jumped up and raced to the door, half afraid she was going to change her mind. Sure enough her voice called his name as his hand turned the doorknob. He shoulders slumped.

"Let's try to stay out of the investigation, please, before something else happens."

Danny shook his head. "That's what I was trying to do after I left here the first time. You were the ones who drug me back here."

He was fairly sure he heard her chuckle as he left the room. He was only half surprised to see Mac leaning against the wall. Danny lifted an eyebrow. "They let you go too?"

Mac nodded. "Jamison said Officer Grayson identified you as the man he saw go into the room and that cleared me on suspicion of murder. I was torn between heading to the hospital, staying here with you, or tracking down Grayson to question him myself. I finally decided you might need me more here. I would have come in to watch the interview but Jamison wouldn't let me. Danny, I know you didn't murder him but did you go up there to threaten or question Grant? Is that why Grayson said it was you?"

It stung Danny a little to hear Mac ask that question even if it had followed an absolute declaration of belief in his innocence. He guess he would never totally escape some of his past mistakes. "I swear, Mac. I never stepped foot near that room. It took some doing but I convinced Detective Sawyers to let me go for the night. I'm heading back to the hospital to check on my wife. You going home?"

Mac shrugged still at a loss to explain the identification. "I seem to be creating a habit of leaving vehicles behind because of IA. My truck is still at the hospital. How about we share a cab there?"

Once the two men were in the cab, Mac looked at Danny still intent on figuring out what was going on. "I thought with the explosion that someone was targeting the lab but now with you implicated in the murder of Steve Grant, it looks like you might be the actual target. Can you think of anyone with a big enough beef against you to set all this up to get you in trouble?"

Danny had promised not to get involved in the investigation but considered Mac's question seriously. They would have to look into his grudge list eventually and it wouldn't hurt anything for him to mentally sort through the list. Every officer had a grudge list of people who could possibly want to harm them. "Mine's pretty short these days. Shane Casey would have been on the top but fortunately Lindsay made sure that he wasn't going to be able to pull another fast one and come back to haunt us. This is all too convoluted to be the work of Tanglewood. I can't think of anyone else that I've made mad enough to nearly kill my wife and then set me up for murder."

Mac took him at his word. "In the morning I'll ask Flack to run a check on anyone you might have put away that might have the ability to pull this off. I'll also have him look into this Grayson fellow to see what kind of beef he might have had with you."

Danny cocked an eyebrow at him. "You do remember you are on Administrative Leave don't you? Maybe you should ask Jo to put in that request. But yeah, that's a good idea cause I'm coming up blank."

The cab was pulled up in front of the hospital and the two men got out. Mac paid the cabbie and then turned to Danny. "While I'm at it, do you want me to get Jo to request a guard outside Lindsay's room tonight? Just for a precaution."

"No thanks. A guard outside the door didn't help protect Grant and it got me in a load of trouble. I'll take my chances with protecting Linds and myself on my own."

Mac smiled. "Fair enough. I'll call you in the morning to check on the two of you. Since I don't have to be at work, I'll be free to come back and pick the two of you up when she's released if you want me to. Try to get some rest."

Danny thanked him and entered the hospital. Not wanting a repeat of getting lost, he paid special attention to the elevators he got into and reached Lindsay's room without incident. She was lying in the bed sound asleep. He could tell by her swollen, puffy eyes that she had been crying sometime before she fell asleep. He only hoped Hawkes had still been there to help her through it. He took his shoes off and slipped into the bed next to her. He gathered her as close to him as he could trying not to disturb or hurt her. However, just like earlier when he climbed into bed with his sleeping wife, she seemed instantly aware of his presence. Her eyes blinked and half opened.

"Danny, that you?"

He had to chuckle, glad to be back with her. He kissed the top of her head. "I better be the only one slipping into bed with you. How are you feeling?"

"Pretty loopy. I think they drugged me again. I don't like drugs; they make me feel funny."

"As long as it makes the pain bearable that's okay. Go on back to sleep and by morning I bet those nasty ole drugs won't make you feel so loopy."

"Don't wanna go back to sleep. Keep having bad dreams. I'm back at the lab and can't get out. You come to find me but you keep getting arrested before you do. I just want this day to be over."

Danny glanced at his watch. "Only a couple more hours to go. It's okay to go back to sleep; I'll be here to protect you from them. Want me to tell you a story like we do Lucy?"

Lindsay nodded, nuzzling her head into the crook of his neck. "Tell me what happened at the station."

Unable to deny her request, Danny started to tell her about the interview. Before he could even get to the phone call from his mom, Lindsay was once more sound asleep. With another smile and kiss to her head, Danny closed his eyes and allowed his own exhaustion to take over and draw him to sleep.

- CSI: NY - CSI: NY - CSI: NY -

Adam had done exactly what he had promised Hawkes he would do. He'd taken one of his pain pills and gone to bed. He'd even slept for a couple of hours before he woke up with the man's face haunting his dreams. Unable to go back to sleep, Adam left his bedroom, grabbed a soda from the fridge and sat down at the computer. He pulled up his facial reconstruction program and studied what he had thus far put in. Eyes narrowed, he set to work adding the details that had plagued his sleep. The sun was just coming up when he clicked the last button adding the slight dent in the middle of his chin. Adam sat back and studied the face staring at him. He smiled and hit the print button. Once the paper spit out he picked it up and stared back at the face that had haunted his earlier dreams.

"Hello, Officer Mad Bomber."

- CSI: NY - CSI: NY - CSI: NY -

"So I don't know if Grayson is working with the murderer or just needs glasses or what." Danny finished feeling Lindsay in on what had happened the night before.

She had the bed fully raised so it was like she was sitting up in bed. She had been surprised to find Danny sleeping next to her when she had awoken. Danny had seemed alarmed when she admitted that she didn't remember talking to him the night before. But Martha had come in to check on them and bring some cute tops that would be easy for Lindsay to wear under the sling. When Lindsay didn't even remember seeing Martha after Danny had been taken in, the nurse had explained about the breakdown the night before and the heavy load of drugs they had given her to calm her down. Whatever they had drugged her with had completely knocked her out and had left her with no memory of the events of the evening after Hawkes had left the hospital. From the puffiness of her eyes and the scratchiness of her throat that usually accompanied a severe crying jab, she was a little grateful that she didn't remember. So he had to repeat everything he had told her the night before.

Lindsay shook her head. "I can't figure any of this out. I need a scorecard to keep up with who the target is. First Adam and I are the victims of a bombing at the lab. That makes the lab in general seem like the target. You and Mac think you figure out who did it and go after Grant. After you are forced to shoot him you discover he wasn't the one who planted the bombs and then Grant winds up dead. That makes him look like the target to me. Maybe instead of trying to figure out who is after revenge on you, we should look into who might have had a grudge against Steve Grant."

Danny rubbed his jaw tiredly. He hadn't slept as hard as Lindsay had. The events of the day had invaded his own dreams and he kept waking up in a cold sweat needing the reassurance of his wife in his arms. That combined with the little amount of space he had in the bed had not made for a restful night. "Maybe my brain just hasn't woken up yet but I don't get it. Everything points to it being someone after the lab or me. Seems like if Grant was the actual target, whoever is doin' it took an awful big chance that we would even suspect Grant."

"And while we are focusing on that, someone might be getting away with murder. Think about it Dan." Her eyes were almost dancing at the idea of being able to work the investigation from her hospital bed. "Instead of just being victims, maybe Mac and you were set up to be pawns and scapegoats in a very clever attempt to commit murder against Steve Grant. While we spend our time focused in one direction, he could be getting away with murder because we aren't even looking at any other possibilities."

- CSI: NY - CSI: NY - CSI: NY -

Jo Danville picked up her fourth mug of coffee since she'd woken from her nap on Mac's couch. As she drank, she silently cursed Mac for taking all the caffeinated coffee out of the lab. If there was ever a day she needed the full strength version it was today but she didn't want to take the time to run down the street to the nearest Starbucks. She picked up the report before her for what seemed like the hundredth time since it had arrived on the fax machine. It was a report of what the CSI team who had processed Grant's apartment and Grant himself after the initial shooting had put together. Though they had no obligation to share it with her, they understood her vested interest in the report and had agreed to share.

The uniform Mac had seen was an official NYPD uniform but the size was a little too big for Grant. The parts that appeared to be makings for a bomb had turned out to be pieces of a concussion gun used for shooting t-shirts into stands at concerts. Just like what Hawkes had discovered in the debris of the lab. Everything in the apartment pointed to Grant being involved in the explosion. Had it not been for Adam's absolute conviction that he was not the man in the uniform at the lab, it would have been an open and shut case.

The thing that puzzled Jo the most was the trace the CSI team had scrapped from Grant's fingernails at the hospital. They had discovered bits of red ink just under the nails. Toxicology had also discovered a trace amount of a powerful antipsychotic drug. She checked back over the report and saw that it was the same medication Grant was supposed to be taking since his release from the hospital but in far less quantities than it should be if he were taking the medication according to the prescription. The lab was still running tests on the prescription bottle they found in the apartment but it appeared that most of the pills had been substituted for sugar pills.

She frowned. Not taking his medication would explain a psychotic break that would cause him to try to blow up the lab and decide to shoot first when Mac and Danny arrived to question him, but why go to the trouble of putting the sugar pills in the medication bottle? And what was it about the ink under his fingernails? This case was just getting more puzzling as it went along.

- CSI: NY - CSI: NY - CSI: NY -

Detective Sawyers was back at the station by seven o'clock waiting for Officer Grayson to come in. Just in case he tried to go on patrol before seeing her, she informed the duty officer to send Grayson to her as soon as he checked in. When he arrived, he appeared just as nervous as he had the night before. She led him to an interrogation room and invited him to sit down. She pasted on her most reassuring smile and sat down opposite him.

"Thank you for coming in, Officer Grayson. I just have a few questions to ask you about what you saw last night. Detective Messer admitted to going into the room but swears he did not pull the plug on Steve Grant. Said he just went in to get a good look at the man that almost killed his wife."

A noticeable look of relief went over Grayson's face. That surprised Sawyers; if he was setting up Messer, wouldn't he have looked surprised to hear Messer admit to being there? "Yeah, well, I wouldn't be too keen on copping to murder either I guess. So what questions did you have?"

"Can you describe the clothes Detective Messer had on yesterday?"

"Khaki pants and a black turtleneck." There was no hesitation in his answer this time.

So he expected her to believe that even though she had seen Messer at two different times wearing the same black jeans and wine colored long sleeve t-shirt, he had completely changed clothes to go up to Grant's room to commit murder? A complete change of clothes he would never have had at the hospital? Grayso had seemed honest in his clothes description, though. Detective Sawyers thought back to all the answers he'd given her and his body language for each. The only time he'd stumbled over his answers and made her question his veracity was when he identified Messer as the man. Once she had read that the uniform in Grant's apartment had been official NYPD, she had started to suspect Grayson was in cahoots with Grant and maybe had even killed him himself and implicated Messer. Now she was beginning to wonder if something a little less sinister and a lot less connected was going on. Her eyes narrowed.

"You were standing just outside Grant's cubicle weren't you? You never stepped away to get a cup of coffee or to go to the bathroom?"

Again he shifted uncomfortably. "Only when Detective Flack came up. He was standing there and I figured it might be my only chance until I got off duty. He didn't say anything about; in fact, he looked a little relieved to have a little privacy."

"And that was the only time?" He didn't meet her eyes as he nodded. He was lying and she knew it. It was time to quit beating around the bush with him and get to the bottom of the situation. "I lied earlier when I said Messer admitted to being in the room; he denied it with every fiber in his being. But then I'm not the only liar in the room, am I? Messer wasn't anywhere near that room at all. Why don't you start telling the truth now and maybe just maybe you won't find yourself facing murder charges."