DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN CSI:NY OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS. I DO HOWEVER OWN SAMANTHA FLACK AND BABY KIERAN

Living Daylight

"As I walk along these streets
I see a man that walks alone
Distant echo of peoples feet
He has no place to call his own
A shot rings out from a roof over head
A crack head asks for change nearby
An old man lies in an alleyway dead
A little girl lost just stands there and cries
What would you do, if it was you
Would you take everything for granted like you do?
A boy just 13 on the corner for sale
Swallows his pride for another hit
Overpopulation there's no room in jail
But most of you don't give a shit
That your daughters are porno stars
and Your sons sell death to kids
You're so lost in your little worlds
Your little worlds you'll never fix."
-Open Your Eyes, Staind

A/N: THE CRIME CONTINUES…

Kieran's bubbly, contagious giggling drifting out into the hallway of the apartment building. Along with the Christmas carols playing on the kitchen radio and the sound of his grandmother's soft voice and the rattling of dishes as she prepared breakfast. It was a massive relief to Flack, as he toed off his shoes by the side of the door, to hear his son doing something else other than whining and crying. Those seemed to be the only forms of communication he'd been indulging in lately and it had quickly become aggravating. It wasn't Kieran's fault of course. The kid couldn't talk and couldn't just come right out and say hey, I feel like shit here. Only way he could get his point across was excessive wailing and the yanking at his ears and that nerve grating whining he seemed to be such a huge fan of.

Flack himself felt like a first class bastard for not being able to handle his son's crabby moods better. His temper flared easily and there were many times he just dropped Kieran in his crib and shut the door to block out the screaming just so he could walk into the other room and gather himself before he snapped. And other times when he'd just plop the kid in Sam's lap and say 'do something with your son' and walk out for some fresh air and to save his sanity.

So that giggling and the babbling were music to Flack's ears as he slipped the key into the lock and unlocked the door and let himself into the apartment. Dropping his keys on the hall table and hanging his winter coat in the hall closet before journeying into the kitchen.

"DAH-DEEEEE!" Kieran shrieked in pure joy and happiness at the familiar face that suddenly appeared in the room. He clapped his little hands together and blew kisses and commenced kicking and rocking so energetically that he nearly moved the high chair, breaks on, across the linoleum floor.

"You're home early," Patricia said, accepting a kiss on the cheek from her oldest son as she prepared French Toast. "When Samantha called earlier I got the impression you two wouldn't be home for quite a while."

"I thought I'd pop in to see if he's sent you to the nut house yet," Flack commented, slipping out of his suit jacket and draping it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs.

He unbuttoned the cuffs on his shirt and rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. The first rule to interacting with Kieran was to accept the fact that things would get messy. And judging by what looked like chocolate pudding smeared across his son's face, Flack wasn't taking any chances.

"Dah-dee," Kieran gushed, beaming brightly, showing off the dimples in his cheeks. Turning his messy face up for a kiss.

Flack pressed his lips to the top of his son's head. "Can't kiss ya, sorry, buddy. Daddy's sick."

"And you'll get sicker if you don't take some time off and get some more rest," Patricia informed him.

"You're starting to sound like my wife," he complained. "I took her well meaning advice and doped myself up on Tylenol Cold and Flu. Whatever I have will break soon."

"Before or after it turns into pneumonia?" his mother asked.

Flack ignored her. "What's your grandma been feeding you?" he asked his son, grabbing a wipe from the travel package on the table and cleaning off Kieran's face. "You shoving chocolate into him this early, grandma?"

"My lips are sealed."

"Good thing I came home and not Sam. She sees you feeding him chocolate pudding this early in the morning and she's having a meltdown. And who eats pudding at this time of the day?"

"It's what he wanted," Patricia reasoned.

"And he just happened to learn how to say chocolate pudding over night?" Flack teased. He pulled a chair over and sat down in front of the high chair. "I think you grandma just likes to spoil you and doesn't know how to say no to you," he said to Kieran, running a hand over his son's recently shorn hair.

"It's a grandmother's right to spoil their grandchildren," Patricia declared, pouring a cup of coffee from the fresh pot she brewed herself and setting it down on the table where he could reach it. "And can I help it if he's my favourite? He's my baby's baby."

"Your baby? Chris is the youngest, remember?"

"No matter. You were my first. I went through sheer hell to get you into this world, Donnie. And regardless if you're a married man with your own children or if your thirty or sixty or eighty, you'll always be my baby," she kissed his cheek softly and smiled and went back to the stove.

"Dah-dee," Kieran said and picked up a frosted Cheerio. Several were scattered on the high chair tray. Dry Cheerios, of any kind, being his favourite snack. "Dis," the baby held the tiny piece of cereal out to his father.

"No thanks, buddy," Flack said. "You eat it. It's yours."

"Dis!" Kieran insisted.

"I don't want it," Flack told him gently. "You eat it."

"DIS!!" Kieran bellowed, thrusting his hand out as far as he could.

"Hey!" Flack spoke sternly. "Enough! No attitude! You're starting to sound like your mother!"

Kieran's eyes narrowed and he frowned and stared long and hard at his father.

Flack just stared back. Eyebrows arched, a 'don't push your luck, kid' look on his face. A battle of the wills ensuing between father and son. Kieran was an expert at stare downs. He had his mother's strong will and determination. And both of his parents' unbelievable stubbornness. And despite his strong objection to his son ever getting into police work, Flack could see the little guy across the table in interrogation one day, staring down the perps. And winning.

"For God sakes, Donnie," Patricia complained, cutting a piece of French toast into small manageable pieces and setting them on Kieran's favourite plastic Baby Einstein plate. Which she than sat in the fridge to cool the food down. "Just eat the damn Cheerio."

"I can't let him win, mom. I can't give in. I do it now, he's going to be walking all over me when he's a teenager."

"That's just ridiculous," his mother snorted. "Who told you that?"

"That parenting expert slash social worker Sam and I went to see a because Kieran was having those rocking and biting and pulling his own hair issues. He said that Kieran was just a baby and already proving he ran the house."

"What a load of crap," Patricia declared. "He's a baby. He's totally dependant on his parents. He isn't potty trained so he needs you to change his diapers, he still needs to be fed if he's eating something that needs a fork or a spoon, he can't communicate his wants and needs verbally. Of course he somewhat runs the house. So give me, and him, a break and eat the cheerio."

Flack sighed.

Kieran had one eyebrow arched and his head cocked to the side. As if thinking, I've got you where I want you, old man. Now show me I'm the king of this castle.

Flack reluctantly took the Cheerio and popped it into his mouth.

Kieran offered up a smile and a wink.

"Just like your mother," Flack mumbled.

"Mom-mee," Kieran chirped, and picked up his sippy cup and took a swig of the milk inside.

"Doesn't he remind you of Sam?" Flack asked his mother.

"In some respects," she replied, taking Kieran's breakfast from the fridge and setting it down in front of him. "He has a lot of her in him. He's bubbly and sociable and laughs and smiles a lot. Just like his mother. But in other ways he's just like you. He's temperamental and stubborn as all hell. And the mouth on him," she shook her head. "Just like you as baby. All your life actually."

Flack grinned and sipped his coffee. "I think he gets most of his attitude from his mother. Trust me, she's full of attitude and bitchiness when she wants to be. Other times, she's sweet and demure and lovable. And he's just like it."

"In all fairness, he's a mix of both of you," Patricia said, fixing her own plate of food. "But looks wise…he's all you, Donnie."

Flack just smiled and nodded. Keeping a close eye on Kieran as he scooped up pieces of the French toast and popped them into his mouth.

"Hungry?" she asked. "I can make you some."

"Sam and I ate a couple of hours ago," he replied. "Thanks, though, mom. And I'm sorry she had to call you so late last night."

"It was no problem," Patricia assured her son. "I'm just glad I'm close enough by that I can help on short notice. And see him as much as I do. You know he's my precious little man, Donnie."

"I know, mom. You tell me and Sam every day."

"And I will keep telling you. I love your niece and nephew and you know that. But Kieran…" she sighed and smiled across the table at her grandson. "He's extra special to me. Holds a bigger piece of my heart. Probably because he does remind me so much of you. And because I honestly never thought I'd see the day when you got married and had children of your own."

"That makes two of us," Flack said. "And I know you and dad had all but given up hope of me giving you guys grand kids and a daughter in law."

"Not everyone is meant to be married. We just figured you weren't the type to want a steady commitment and a wife and children."

"It wasn't that I wasn't the type," he told her. "I just…I don't know. I wasn't mature enough I guess and the women I was meeting and dating, if you can call it dating, just weren't the type you bring home to mom and dad and pledge forever to. To be honest, I don't even think I was mature enough for all of that when I first met Sam. I mean, I knew pretty fast into it that I wanted to marry her, but I'd never intended on things as moving as quick as they did. A baby on the way and married by the end of the year."

"I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason," Patricia told him. "And that adorable, innocent sweet creature right there is that reason. He wouldn't be here if you hadn't have met Sam that day and made the life choices you did."

Flack nodded slowly. "I never thought of it that way," he said.

"And I know you haven't always had the best relationship with your father and when you told us that day he…"

"I don't want to talk about that, mom. That's all water under the bridge now."

"Just hear me out. I know your father was a bastard to you all of your life and I should have done more to protect you and your brother, but Kieran was what brought the two of you back into each others lives. Your father adores him. His grandson means the world to him."

"I know," Flack said. "And I know being around Kieran and spending time with him is his way of attempting to make up for things in the past. I know all of that mom. But it doesn't change what happened when I was kid or even as I got older. I mean, I can forgive him. But I'll never forget."

"No one ever said you even had to forgive him," she told her son. "But isn't it nice to know that he's in your son's life in ways he was never in yours?"

"It is…absolutely. But how'd we ever get onto talking about dad in the first place?"

"Because you remind me so much of him."

Flack sighed heavily.

"I don't mean in name and looks and disposition. I mean in the way you are with your son. When you were this age…your father was over the moon to have a name sake. He used to get on his knees every night when I was pregnant with you and beg and plead to have a son. It was the be all and end all as far as he was concerned. And when you were born…he was so good with you, Donnie. He'd change diapers and rock you and feed you and care for you when you were sick and I thought I was going mad. And when you got to the age Kieran is now, the two of you would always sit together every morning for breakfast. It was the special time together that you're father craved so much. And you're what got him through many a long, trying day."

Flack didn't have the heart to add, "Until he alcohol became his best friend." Instead he kept his mouth shut and sipped his coffee and kept a close, watchful eye on his son.

"There was a point in time that you're father did love you," Patricia said.

"I don't want to talk about me and dad," Flack told her, suddenly feeling emotional over the image of his old man caring for him as a baby and being clean and sober enough to be a decent human being. There was still a lot of pain there. Pain and anger and bitterness. He wondered if it would ever go away completely.

"You're a good man, Donnie," his mother told him. "You're a great husband and a wonderful father and you should be proud of yourself. Because in the grand scheme of things, when it's your time to go, you're not going to be judged by what kind of cop you were. The measure of a man is the lives he touched and the people he loves and those who love him. And you're got an enormous supply of both."

"It's hard, mom," he admitted. "Balancing everything. Finding time for Sam and Kieran. I'm not home as much as I should be and sometimes I think I could be doing a hell of a lot more for both of them. Yet she never asks for more. She never asks for things she knows I can't give."

"Because she loves you," Patricia said. "No matter what. And I know for a fact that you adore her."

He smiled and nodded. "She's got me right where she wants me," he admitted. "Wrapped around her little finger. And you know what? I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. This is my safe place. Being home with her and Kieran and…"

He was interrupted by Kieran flinging a piece of soggy French toast across the room and directly into his grandmother's coffee cup. That broke the seriousness and the heaviness in the room and both adults laughed and Flack reached out to run a hand over his son's hair.

He wasn't the perfect father in the world. He was the first to admit it. But when his son smiled brightly and his blue eyes danced and his nose crinkled, Flack knew that creating that life in front of him was the smartest, and most perfect, thing he had ever done.

Danny Messer slept soundly. His glasses pushed up onto the top of his head as he sprawled out on the cramped couch in the crime lab's bullpen area. He'd gone in there two hours before to simply sit down with a coffee and rest his eyes. It had been quarter after five in the morning when he and Carmen had finally completed the processing of David Arruda's BMW. They had inspected the thing front to back and top to bottom. Pulling out seats and ripping them open and tearing open door panels and the floor boards in a frenzied search to locate either the five grand or the narcotics they had suspected were bought with it. Flack had called to say that Natalie Cormier said no drug deal had gone down and that the shooters had run off with the green. Than followed that up with the declaration that the girl was a complete nut case and most certainly full of shit from start to finish.

On with the search, Danny had said after he'd hung up the phone. It had been a valiant effort but it had been futile. There was no sign of the cash or even the slightest hint that drugs of any kind had been either done, or stashed in the car. So armed with prints to be run and trace samples of what Danny suspected was saliva on both the inside and outside of the driver's side window and confirmed GSR on the back of both the driver and passenger seats, he and Carmen had headed upstairs to change and to begin the long haul of running the appropriate forensic tests. He'd popped his various samples into the GC/MS and ran the blood and saliva down to DNA. Running into Sam who had just returned from the hospital with what she had collected from Natalie's rape kit.

He hadn't been the least bit surprised when Sam had told him that there was no way that Natalie had been sexually assaulted. Or that Flack had come to the conclusion that the beating the young woman had received was nothing more than a ruse to throw the cops off of the true story. From what little play by play of the interview Flack had given him over the phone, Danny had already come to the conclusion that the supposed victim was more than likely behind the horrific deaths of her boyfriend and best friend. And unfortunately, it was a scenario Danny had heard many times before and knew he would hear again.

So while Carmen worked in the lay out room looking at Natalie's clothes and their samples were being processed, Danny had taken the opportunity to take a little bit of a break. He needed to get some fuel in the tank and get off his feet and close his eyes for a few minutes. Only a few had turned into a hundred and twenty. And if it wasn't for Carmen running into the room and slapping him off the head with a case folder, he most likely would have kept right on sleeping.

"Rise and shine sleepy head," Carmen chirped. "We've got results."

"What?" Danny asked, in a complete daze from being woken up so suddenly.

He opened his eyes and blinked several times, looking around the room and getting his bearings and wits about him. He had forgotten where he was. In his state of exhaustion and comfort, his mind had tricked himself into thinking he was warm and snug in his own bed. He groaned in disappointment when he realized he was actually at work and that he'd be unable to complete the rather lovely siesta he'd been in the middle of.

"Messer!" Carmen bellowed from above him.

He startled and sprang up into a sitting position. "Alright…alright…keep your pants on… I'm awake already…what time is it?"

"Quarter to eight. We got results," Carmen shoved the folder in his hands.

"For what?" he asked, yawning noisily as he fumbled with the glasses on his head. "GC/MS?"

"DNA."

"Get outta here," Danny said, slipping his glasses onto his face. "Hell must have frozen over to get them back this soon. Quickest I've seen ever is six hours. And that's pushing it."

"Mac lit a fire under their ass to get them ASAP."

"Let's see what we got here," Danny flipped open the folder. "This is the results from Natalie's rape kit? Why you handing this to me? This is Sam's baby."

"Because there was two separate sperm samples collected during the exam," Carmen explained. "One as you can see is from her boyfriend, David Arruda. Which isn't surprising. But the second sample is newer than the first. David's was degraded. DNA estimated the time of the deposit was between at least ten hours ago."

Danny checked his watch. "That puts her having sex with her boyfriend an hour and a half before the call to nine one one went through. When did they say the second was made?"

"Roughly four to six hours."

"Well we know she was just making her way into the ER about four and a bit ago," Danny said. "So it's safe to assume that she had sex somewhere around twelve thirty, one-ish."

"But Sam is a hundred percent certain that Natalie wasn't murdered."

"So she had consensual, albeit rough sex with one of the shooters," Danny concluded.

"Exactly!" Carmen exclaimed. "And here's the best part…"

"I hate how you do that to me. Tease me. Hold out on me like that."

Carmen opened the folder in her hands. "The donor for that sample isn't in CODIS. But his father is."

"Getting warmer," Danny said. "What's his old man in the system for?"

Carmen smiled broadly and held the folder out for Danny to read the rap sheet.

"Brooklyn know about this?" Danny inquired, already rising to his feet.

"Not yet."

He grinned and snatched the file out of her hands. "Race ya to ballistics," he said, and took off for the door.

"Grow up, Messer!" Carmen called after him. Than took the opportunity to sit and rest her own eyes.

"Don't shoot!" Danny cried in way of greeting as he hurried into ballistics, where Samantha, her sweater long gone and now wearing a simple black t-shirt, was standing on a step stool and using a long handled net to fish a bullet from the firing tank.

"You've already missed all the fun," Sam told him, scooping up her recently fired bullet and jumping down from the stool. "Took me a bit but I just found a match for the first kind of bullet pulled from our victim's bodies. I was able to determine first off, that there were two separate guns used in the shootings. There were nine millimetres and tens taken from both vics and the SUV."

Danny walked over to the work station where she had a handgun from the ballistics locker sitting, along with a round she had test fired and a bullet from the crime scene. "Whose this bad boy here?" he asked, nodding down at the small black and metallic semi automatic weapon.

"It's a SIG-Sauer Pro SP 2009," she replied, carrying a small handgun and her retrieved bullet over to the table, both of which she sat down alongside evidence taken from the scene.

"Never heard of that one. Give me the tutorial, Brooklyn. I know how much it makes you all warm and tingly to shoot things and talk shop."

"It's a semi-automatic," she told him, picking it up and turning it over in her tiny hands. "I haven't seen too many of them, but I did speak at a conference in San Francisco once when I worked for Phoenix PD and the top ballistics expert in the country was there and had one of these on display. It was made in 1998 and is originally from Germany and Switzerland. Not a common weapon in North America to say the least. Mostly it's just collectors with these things."

"Looks like a nine," Danny commented.

"It is. But you can use cartridges for both a forty calibre Smith and Wesson and three fifty seven SIG in them. Detachable magazine holds fifteen rounds for a nine millimetre, and twelve rounds for the others."

"It's a small but nasty bastard," Danny concluded. "And the second?"

"Just checking right now…" Sam said, as she moved to a microscope to compare her test round to the second type of bullet pulled from the victims. "I've test fired seven different weapons already…I am hoping this is a match or I am all out of options. And something tells me that that isn't what Mac wants to hear right about now."

"So where's the hubby?" Danny asked, sitting down on the stool next to her. "Crawl away to die somewhere?"

"He went home to check on Kieran and his mom," Sam replied, peering into the microscope and adjusting the lens. "You know, in case Kieran drove her to either drink or jump off the balcony."

"Come on, he's not that bad."

"Oh yes…he is," Sam said. "Okay…here we go…" she set the two bullets side by side and stepped back from the microscope and pressed enter on the computer keyboard in front of her. "Keep your fingers crossed."

"Don't you just love not having to do the actual work anymore?" Danny asked, as he sat down on the stool alongside of where she stood. "Just put it in there and let the computer go to town?"

"I don't know. I kind of liked the whole checking things for myself scenario."

"Only you would," Danny teased her, as she yawned noisily and sat down beside him and rested her head on his shoulder. "Wimp," he said.

"I've barely slept in the last four days. Kieran with his issues and Don coughing up a lung every five to ten minutes. He's been guzzling cold medication and he's still not feeling even remotely better. And he's a damn suck when he gets sick. Get me another blanket, fix my blanket, fluff my pillow, make me something to eat, get me a drink. It goes on and on and on. It's like having a second kid."

"Yeah….but I bet he likes you playing nurse if ya catch my drift."

"Sure he does. But I had to draw the line at wearing some kind of perverted costume. I mean, isn't owning a French Maid outfit enough?"

Danny smirked. "For most men it would be. I'd kill for Erica to own something like that."

"When would she wear it? You two are too busy fighting all the time to enjoy normal sex let alone anything kinky."

Danny sighed. "Sad but true. Are you serious? You own a French Maid outfit?"

"Are you kidding me?" Sam laughed. "No. I clean the house in old sweatpants and a t-shirt or a tank top and a baseball cap on my head. When I clean the house that is. Which trust me, does not happen as often as it should. I can just hear my mother now when she walks in the door next week. She's going to blow a gasket when she sees my place."

"It's not that messy," he assured her. "I've seen a hell of a lot worse. And you guys work some crazy hours and you got a mini Osama running around. Can't blame ya if the place is a bit unruly and disorganized."

"Don calls it organized clutter. Trust me, there's nothing organized about it. I need a maid to come in and clean the place up, and Super Nanny to come and straighten my child out."

"Wanna go and grab some breakfast after this?" Danny asked. "My treat?"

She yawned loudly once more. "I already ate."

"You bitch. When?"

"Don and I had something to eat after I dropped my stuff off at DNA."

"Just something to eat or did you two sneak off and find an available supply closet somewhere?"

She gasped dramatically and feigned offence. "We do not indulge ourselves in such things at work," she informed her friend.

Danny snorted and arched an eyebrow.

"Okay…so maybe once or twice. Hell, it's not like we're the only ones. But now, none of that went on. There's no time for stuff like that today."

"Always time for stuff like that," Danny told her.

"Maybe…but seeing as we're trying to achieve actually achieve something and I'm not ovulating at this particular point in time."

Danny grimaced. "Way too much info. And are you telling me that the only two you do get busy is for the sole purpose of making a baby?"

"No…I didn't say that. There are times we just do it for the sheer fun of it."

"No sense doing it if it's a chore," Danny declared.

Sam sighed heavily. "What's taking this thing so long? I'd have the results quicker doing a manual comparison."

"Wait for it….wait for it…." Danny said, watching the screen before them as the system compared the two bullets. The two images merged together and there was a loud beep, followed by the words POSITIVE MATCH flashing on the screen.

"Fucking A!" Sam cried, and breathed a huge sigh of relief, as the printer next to the computer spat out the results.

"Nice job. Brooklyn. So what are we looking at?"

"Straight up ten millimetre from a forty calibre Smith and Wesson. The easiest damn one and it's the last one I checked," she said, hanging her head in mock shame.

"Happens to the best of us," Danny told her. "Only thing that matters is that you figured it out."

"It's just a small piece of the puzzle," Sam said with a sigh. "I think I'm going to…"

She was cut off mid sentence by a loud chirp from the computer. Both she and Danny looked over to see that not only had the scan matched up the striation on the bullets, it had also brought up a hit in the NYPD data base.

"You're kidding me," Sam said, as she moved closer to the computer screen. "What kind of blind luck is that?"

"Shoulda just scanned the bullet from the scene and saved yourself a whole lot of aggravation," Danny observed, leaning forward to read the information displayed on the monitor.

"I never imagined I'd hit on a prior," Sam said, glaring at him. "And that's what I get for doing things ass backwards."

Danny opened his lips to speak. Sam reached out and clamped her hand over his mouth.

"Spare me some perv comment, Messer," she said.

"I'll be good," he mumbled against her palm.

She removed her hand. "Check this out," she said. "A case to case hit. An unsolved home invasion that killed two people in Brooklyn six years ago. Two weeks prior, a forty calibre Smith and Wesson, along with several other weapons including a Sig Pro SP 2009 was stolen from Harrison's Guns on Vine Street. It's an unsolved as well. The owner apparently went in to open shop in the morning and found one of the safes had been busted into."

"Whose the owner?" Danny asked curiously.

Sam scrolled down the screen. "Paul Browning."

"Wait a second," Danny flipped open the case folder in his hands. His eyes scanned the information before him. "How's this for even more blind luck?" he asked. "DNA came back from Natalie's rape kit. There were two donors. One was the boyfriend David Arruda, and the other was an unknown."

"Whose swimmers hit the mark first?" Sam asked.

"David's sample was degraded. So she slept with this other jackass after the killings. But get a load of this. His father was in CODIS. Busted fifteen years ago for possession of an illegal firearm. And guess who his old man is…" he held out the folder for Sam to see.

"Paul Browning? Are you serious?"

"Boom!" Danny exclaimed. "What I don't get is this that this guy was arrested for an illegal firearm and he now owns a gun shop? How majorly messed up is that? That's like calling in a plumber and him taking a massive dump in your toilet."

Sam snickered. "Maybe daddy knows where we can track down his little boy," she said.

"I'm already dialling, Flack," Danny told her. "Can you get me the last known address and number for Mr Lock, Stock and Four Smoking Barrels there?"

She scrolled back up the screen and highlighted the information for him.

"Flack," Danny spoke into the phone. "Sorry to break up daddy time, but your old lady just got two positive matches on the types of bullets used and one of them was a case to case hit from six years ago…home invasion homicide in Brooklyn…best part of this is that these guns were stolen from a gun shop two weeks prior to the crime…hang on, I'm getting to the good stuff…the owner of said gun shop was in CODIS for illegal possession of a fire arm. DNA from the rape kit shows that Natalie had sex with two men. Her boyfriend and an unknown who is the biological son of this gun shop guy….no kidding…Merry Christmas huh?…..Paul Browning, 1699 Fairfield Street, Queens….want me to meet ya there?….all right…Ciao."

Danny pressed end on his phone and stood up. "Flack's gonna meet me there. Told me to give ya a big hug and a kiss, but seeing as that could be misconstrued as sexual harassment or someone might see and think we're having an affair, I'll let him give it to ya himself later."

"That's fine," she said, standing up as well and stretching noisily. "His hugs and kisses are better anyway."

"You wound me, Brooklyn," Danny declared. "Call if anything comes up on those tapes or that bank card."

She gave him a thumbs up sign over her shoulder.

Flack had called ahead to Paul Browning. The drive to Queens was a long, arduous one. Snow was falling heavily and making it nearly impossible to see even a few feet ahead of you. The winds were strong, rattling the windows of his squad car as he travelled at a snails pace in bumper to bumper traffic on the Queensboro Bridge. What normally should have been a twenty minute trip had quickly exploded into a nearly hour one, and when Flack pulled up in front of a modest two and a half storey grey brick home, Danny was just killing the ignition on the Avalanche several feet away.

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas," Danny sang merrily as the two men met at the foot of the two car drive. "Sorry I had to mess up your time with the monster."

"It's okay," Flack said, shoving his hands in his pockets as they trudged through the snow, head down to keep the biting wind off of his face. "I sat with him while he had his breakfast and we played for a bit. It was nice to go home and take a breather for a bit."

"He doing alright?" Danny asked. "With his ears and all that?"

"Infection is still hanging around but he's getting there. I think Sam and I are going to go with that operation to get the tubes put in. Would save the kid a whole lot of grief. So what we know about this guy?"

"Just what I told you. In the system for illegal possession of a fire arm fifteen years ago. Owns a gun shop in Manhattan and six years ago, called the cops and reported a break-in at his store. All kinds of shit was taken. Including some relatively rare collectors items. One of those guns, Brooklyn traced back to a unsolved home invasion, slash homicide that happened two weeks after these guns were stolen."

"And it's his son that had sex with Little Miss Innocent after her boyfriend was brutally murdered?"

"Biological son," Danny confirmed, as they climbed the front porch steps.

They stopped on the middle step to kick snow off of their shoes. Danny had on heavy, warm boots to go with his gloves and scarf and knit cap. Flack was wearing simple black dress shoes and no hat or gloves.

"And ya wonder why you're sick," Danny said, as they headed onto the covered porch.

"Shut up," Flack grumbled, coughing noisily before pressing down on the door bell.

They heard heavy footsteps approaching the door. Followed by the scraping noise of someone pulling back the covering of the peep hole so said person could see just who it was on their porch. Flack took off his badge and laid it over the small hole. Knowing full well that there was no way in hell anyone could see it properly at that close of a distance.

"Who is it?" a muffled voice asked.

"NYPD, Mr Browning," Flack responded. "We spoke nearly an hour ago on the phone."

There was the dull click of a dead bolt being opened and the finally the door was yanked open to reveal a short, slight man in his early forties. He had rapidly balding thin, wiry blond hair and beady dark eyes and was wearing a pair of faded blue jeans and a green and black plaid hunting jacket over a thermal shirt. Exactly what Flack had been expecting from a guy who'd gushed over the phone about the right to bear arms and spending the weeks in the bush up in Canada for shits and giggles.

"Took ya guys long enough," Browning complained. Not making a move to motion them inside.

"Well in case you haven't noticed, it's like Armageddon out here with all this snow," Danny told him. "Can we come or do you want to chat out here in paradise?"

Browning frowned, than stepped back as he held the door open farther and jerked his head in the direction of the interior of his home.

"Much appreciated," Danny said, as he and Flack stepped into the front foyer of the home.

"You guys mind taking your shoes off?" Browning asked, leaving them standing in the foyer as he headed down the narrow hallway towards the back of the house.

"As a matter of fact we do," Danny told him. Remembering the time Lindsay had removed her boots outside of an apartment they were going into to interview someone.

He couldn't recall the woman's name. But remembered the case well. The murdered doctor at the doll hospital and the little girl that had squealed to her doll, Secret Sophie, that her mother, a school teacher, had been making out with one of her students. It had been one of the most bizarre cases he'd ever worked on. Mostly because this mature, supposedly professional and sophisticated woman had sat in front of him and declared her love for a teenage boy.

"We gotta leave him on in case we have to high tail it out of here on a call," Danny explained, as he and Flack journeyed down the hall to where Browning was in the kitchen, pouring steaming coffee into massive china mugs.

"Gonna stick around to clean my floors?" Browning asked, setting the coffees down on the kitchen table.

"We'll call in a maid and you can send us the bill," Flack replied, shrugging out of his winter coat and draping it over the back of a chair before sitting down.

Danny took a seat beside him. Browning across from them.

"So what's this about?" Browning asked.

"Your son is in a fair bit of trouble," Flack told him.

"Which one?" the man inquired, sipping coffee and seeming neither interested or surprised.

"How many you have?" Danny responded with a question of his own.

"Two. Dylan and Nathan. I've raised them since they were just little kids. On my own. After their mother decided the family life wasn't for her and took off."

"How old are they now?" Flack asked, taking notes.

"Dylan is 21, Nathan is 19. I haven't spoken to them in a few months."

"Why not?" inquired Danny.

"We had a falling out when I found out my boys were into some illegal activity."

Flack arched an eyebrow. "Such as?"

"Dealing drugs. Running books. I wasn't going to let them live in my house doing that shit and I kicked them out."

"Where are they living now?" Flack inquired.

"Staten Island."

The homicide detective nodded as he jotted that down. Something more to tie the victims to the alleged perpetrators.

"So what did they do?" Browning asked. "Knock over a corner store?"

"We have evidence that one of your sons was involved in a murder," Flack told him. "Two murders, actually. We found him through you. His DNA was recovered and because yours was in the system for the time you did fifteen years ago, that led us here."

"Amazing what damn technology can do these days," Browning commented.

"You seem neither upset or surprised that one of your sons, and maybe even both, were possibly involved in such a terrible crime," Danny told him.

"You wouldn't be either if you grew up with those two. Always getting into fights and spending time in juvy for petty crimes. Gun collecting. That was the huge passion they shared."

"Do they still?" Flack asked.

"When they left they had at least three dozen a piece."

Danny whistled. "That's quite the haul. I wonder how many are illegal or stolen? I guess ATF will find that out when they raid the place."

"You have a lot of guns, Mister Browning?" inquired Flack. "You take your work home with you?"

"I have a few fire arms," he admitted. "Hunting rifles mostly. And I have a license and papers for all of them. Am I going to get my stolen ones back?"

"That's highly unlikely," Danny told him. "You know, considering they were used in the commission of a felony. Like two counts of murder two."

"We need your sons' address," Flack told the man across from him. "And I picture of them would be nice. In case I have to put an APB out for them."

"25675 Crestwood, Apartment 5C," Browning rattled off as pushed away from the table and journeyed into the dining room.

Flack's phone, tucked in the pocket of his suit coat, vibrated against him. He paused in his writing to pull it out and check the caller ID. Adam. He decided to let it go to voice mail.

"Here's a couple," Browning said as he came back into the kitchen, armed with photographs. "Taken at a family function just before they moved out. Nathan is the normal looking one. Dylan is the one with the weird haircut and make up. Make up on a guy. Can you believe that?"

"Unfortunately I can," Danny said, as Flack took the pictures and studied them. He saw the way his best friend's eyes widened in recognition. "You know him?"

Flack nodded. "He's the bartender at Neon Green. Sam and I talked to him when we went there."

"Been working there since he became of age," Browning told the detective. "That's how he met his girlfriend. Some blond rich bitch. Can't remember her name but she really rubbed me the wrong way."

"You wouldn't have a picture of her would you?" Flack asked.

Browning nodded and disappeared once again.

Flack's phone vibrated once more. Adam. Again. Once more he let it go to voice mail.

"That's her," the older man said, as he came back in, holding out another photo.

Flack took it. A smirk crossing his face.

"Natalie," he said simply.

Thanks to everyone who is reading and reviewing! Even the lurkers for just checking this story out! I appreciate each and every one of you. Reviews are welcome. Positive only, please. But the more the merrier!!

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