DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN CSI:NY OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS. I DO HOWEVER OWN SAMANTHA FLACK AND THE FLACK TWINS.
SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL OF THOSE ADDING ME TO ALERTS AND FAVS!
Who's the daddy?
"Passion or coincidence once prompted you to say
"Pride will tear us both apart"
Well now pride's gone out the window, cross the rooftops run away
left me in the vacuum of my heart
What is happening to me?
Crazy, some'd say
Where is my friend when I need you most?
Gone away."
-Ordinary World, Duran Duran
A cup of steaming earl grey tea in her right hand and a basket of dirty laundry tucked under left arm and balancing precariously under her hip, Samantha slowly made her way down the carpeted stairs leading to the family room. Holding her breath as she took each step gingerly, scolding herself for being so lazy and not making two trips as opposed to risking either falling on her ass, or having the tea splash over the side of her mug and subsequently scald her hand.
She breathed a sigh of relief as her feet made contact with the family room floor, then paused in her steps, her eyes widening at the disaster that she had once called her tidy, if not slightly cluttered basement. Her husband often called it organized chaos. Overflowing toy boxes, Rubbermaid totes filled to the brim with arts and craft supplies, cables and wires and various controllers belonging to the Nintendo Wii and the Xbox 360 lying in front of the television along with empty video game boxes. And now, to add to the insanity, all of the furniture had been rearranged. The coffee table had been shoved up against the far wall and the longest part of the sectional sofa removed and then arranged so that it faced the smaller one, leaving a two foot wide space between the two. All the cushions were off the couches and placed around them as if acting like retaining walls. Two queen sized sheets -brand new ones that she'd purchased at the Pottery Barn during her shopping excursion with the girls and had been meaning to wash before use - were draped over the furniture. Shielding residents of the makeshift fort from outside, evil forces.
Jesus Christ, she thought, sighing heavily as she sat her mug of tea on top of the entertainment unit before disposing of the laundry basket in the adjoining utility room. Save for the unmistakable snoring of Wiener as he lay somewhere within the fort and the soft hum of the furnace, the basement was void of any noise. She crept to the fort and hunching down, lifted the edge of one of the blankets and peered inside. A smile creeping across her face at the sight that greeted her. Amanda and Kallison, curled up together on the largest part of the sofa, their foreheads and noses touching, each with an arm draped over the other, blond hair mixed with black. Clad in their Cinderella and Belle dresses an matching shoes and plastic, 'jewel' encrusted tiaras that Adam had brought back for them from Disney World.
Her husband lay on his back in between the two pieces of furniture, eyes closed and his chest rising and falling with each steady breath he took. Kellan tucked tightly under his left arm as she lay on her side with her face pressed into his side and a tiny hand resting on her chest. She still wore her Snow White outfit that her uncle had bought for her. The shoes and the tiara discarded in a heap alongside of her but her Minnie Mouse ears with her name embroidered on the front of them in glittering pink thread, remained securely on her head.
"Must be nice," Sam mumbled and dropped the edge of the sheet, her knees cracking noisily as she straightened up and prepared to leave her family to their peaceful slumbers.
Until a hand shot out from under the blanket and took a hold of her ankle. Biting back a shriek of surprise that threatened to erupt, she yanked her foot out of the hand holding her captive and jumped backwards. Stumbling slightly and nearly falling on her ass as the back of her legs collided with one of the tote boxes that had been shoved aside during the building of the fort.
Flack lifted the sheet and smirked at her. "Wet your pants?" he asked.
"You are so damn lucky I didn't haul off and boot you in the face!" she replied in a harsh whisper.
"Is it my fault you're so damn skittish? Who did you think was grabbing you? The Bogeyman?"
"I thought you were asleep! Do you know how many times you've done that to me since we've met? Pretended to be asleep and then grabbing a hold of me and scaring the shit out of me?" she asked, a hand over her pounding heart.
"At least a dozen times," Flack replied. "And you've fallen for it every damn time."
"You know, you're lucky you're so cute and I love you as much as I do. Or you would have been turfed to the couch or the garage a long time ago."
"Yeah? Well I hate to break it to you, babe. But let me fill you in on one of man's deepest, darkest secrets. We actually don't mind sleeping on the couch. It's like camping."
"Really? Well I'll tell you what, Donnie. I'll buy you a pup tent, a Coleman stove and one of them little outdoor potties and you can camp in the backyard all you want."
His eyes narrowed as he regarded her serious expression. "You wouldn't."
"Don't tempt me," she warned.
He waved off her threat and chuckled. "You'd never boot me out of bed. You know why? Because you've already confessed a long time ago that you can't sleep alone…"
"So I'll let Wiener curl up on your side or let the girls sleep with me."
"…and you when you wake up all hot and bothered in the morning, I'm always ready and raring to go. I am an easy target. I never protest and I never say no. I just let you have your way with me. And face it, you couldn't survive twenty four hours without the…"
"Please do not even finish that sentence," she pleaded. "I can use my imagination, thank you. Why do you always have to be so arrogant?"
"Because that's just me," he told her, as he carefully peeled Kellan off of him. "It's one of the many things about me that you fell hopelessly in love with."
She snorted and snagged her mug of tea off of the entertainment unit.
Flack picked his daughter's tiny, fragile body up into his strong arms. Cradling her gently, he pushed himself up onto his knees and 'walked' over to the empty couch and softly laid Kellan down on it. He carefully removed the Minnie Mouse ears from the top of her head and sat them alongside of her face where she'd see them the moment she woke up. Murmuring in her sleep, the five year old rolled over onto her side and nestled her face into the back of the couch. Flack stayed in a kneeling position alongside of her, stroking her hair and rubbing her back and talking to her in a quiet, soothing voice, encouraging her to keep sleeping.
When she settled once again, he crawled out of the fort and slowly and gingerly got to his feet.
"My fucking back," he complained through gritted teeth, a hand on the small of his back. "I am getting way too old to be getting down on my hands and knees like this. I seriously don't know how much longer I can keep doing this. One day you're going to literally have to pick me up off of the floor."
"You're only thirty nine," Sam argued. "That's not old."
"Sammie…I'm not thirty nine yet."
"Seventeen more days," she rolled her eyes. "My mistake. And you say I'm in rough shape."
"Hey…you weren't the one blown up in a building eleven years ago."
"When are you just going to admit that all your years of smoking and eating crappy food and drinking so much are starting to catch up to you?" she asked, sipping her tea. "Don't blame everything on the bombing when you yourself openly admitted to me when we got married that you had stopped feeling residual pain from that all together."
"Can't you just feel sorry for me once?" he asked. "Can't you just be like 'baby, why don't you lie down and let me rub your back for you?'. Can't you just let me sit down and have you cater to my every whim? Is there something wrong with that?"
"Poor baby," she in response, flashing a dramatic pout. "I guess asking you to shovel the front walk and our part of the sidewalk and toss some salt on the ice is out of the question."
"You're such a slave driver. Give me at least half an hour to find a way to put my spine back into my body. Can you do that?"
"I suppose…" she said with a heavy, dramatic sigh. "But just so you know, I decided to be nice to you for a change and give you an entire day off. No laundry, no cooking, no shovelling snow. In fact, I enlisted that Portuguese kid from three doors down to clear all the snow away and put salt down."
"How much you give him? A few bucks?" Flack asked, a grimace on his face as he massaged the small of his back.
Sam laughed. "Don't be so cheap. I coughed up two twenties."
Her husband's eyes went wide. "Forty bucks? Forty bucks to do a job that probably only took him twenty minutes? If that? It's not like he had a driveway to clear! A couple feet of sidewalk and a tiny front walk and a few stairs. Forty bucks for that?"
"He's a really nice kid," Sam reasoned.
"I'm a really nice guy. Had I known you were going to toss around money like that I would have shovelled the damn snow for that kind of cash."
"Please…we all know it's your duty to do shit like that for free," she said.
"Well I'm going to start charging for my time," he teased. "Especially the energy and time I put out in the bedroom. That's a lot of hard work, you know. I could start charging by the hour and making a killing off of you."
She stared at him over the rim of her mug. "Don't flatter yourself," she said.
"Quit being such a bitch to me, Tinks," he told her, and reaching out, laid a hand on the back of her neck and pressed his lips to her forehead. "Face it, you know you could never live without me. That you'd be miserable and alone and pine away for me for the rest of your days."
She smiled broadly.
"And you always know you could never afford the things I can do for you," he added with a chuckle.
She laughed at that and shoved him away from her. "You're at your nasty best today. Did you take your asshole pills this morning or something?"
"I'm just joking with you. Don't be so sensitive," he curled an arm around her waist and pulling her into him, kissed her long and soft. "You're getting to be a softie in your old age."
She arched an eyebrow. "Come again? My old age?"
"Well you are three years older then me. And I'm going to be thirty-nine so that puts you at a ripe old age of forty-two once we hit April twenty-fourth."
"You're cruising for a bruising today, Donald," she said, wriggling out of his embrace and walking over to the easy chair that had been shoved into the corner. Pulling it into the middle of the room, she settled herself down into it and took a long sip of her tea. "Keep it up with the smart ass comments."
"I'm just making an observation. It's a turn on being with an older woman. I've got my own Mrs Robinson."
She narrowed her eyes and glared at him.
"You should be ashamed of yourself going after a younger guy like me," he teased her, stretching until his back cracked noisily and then heading for the utility room. "Hook up with someone so naïve and defenceless and then corrupting him and warping him into your personal sex slave."
"You wish," she snorted. "Only one doing any corrupting was you."
"Keep telling yourself that," he laughed. "Everyone knows you're a cradle robber."
"No, they don't," Sam said. "And you know why that is, Donnie? Because you may be younger, but you have almost more grey hair then my father so therefore you look twice as old as I do. So when I'm fifty and I still look thirty, you'll be forty-seven but looking like you're eighty."
"You're harsh, babe. I thought you said you liked the grey hair. 'Cause it reminds you of Richard Gere in Pretty Woman."
"I was humouring you," she informed him, as she heard the lid of the washer being flipped open, followed by the soft rustle of clothing as they were tossed inside the machine. The lid was closed and she heard the beeping as the cycle was set, the click that indicated the lid was securely locked, and then the water rushing into the washer. And I never even had to ask, she thought with a smile.
"Sure you were," Flack said. "When are you going to admit it, babe? You actually do love me."
"Never," she said and gave an evil laugh "I will never admit it."
There was a loud scraping noise in the next room as he dug around in the freezer.
"Here…" he tossed a caramel and almond Hagen Daz ice cream bar into her lap as he joined her in the family room. "Don't ever say I don't do nice things for you."
"Thank you, baby. And thank you for putting the laundry in the washer."
"I aim to please," he said, and leaning over the chair, his own ice cream bar in his hand, gave her a gentle kiss. "Where's Adam?" he asked, snagging the remote control off of the top of the entertainment unit before settling himself on the floor at his wife's feet and flicking the television on.
"He's upstairs having a nap," Sam replied, peeling open the plastic around her ice cream.
"Moping, you mean."
"That too. He said he needed some time to himself. Sort things out in his head. Paisley's really done a number on him."
"She's an evil bitch," Flack declared, finding ultimate fighting on the Spike channel before turning the volume down to a low roar and tearing into his own ice cream. "I told you from day one that I didn't like her. That there was something about her that just rubbed me the wrong way. I distinctly remember telling you that the whole sweet, Mary Sunshine thing she had going on was nothing but a fake. But did you listen to me? No. Not like that's anything new, but still."
"She was a damn better choice at the damn then your sister."
"True. I don't wish Melanie on anyone. I wouldn't want my worst enemy touching her with a ten foot pole. But why in the hell did you ever convince him to go back to Paisley after Mel screwed him over like she did? Why didn't you just leave him alone instead of hooking him back up with freak girl?"
"Freak girl," Sam laughed. "You're cruel."
"The girl was messed up. Why was I the only one to notice how insane she actually was?"
"Maybe because you're a detective and you're trained to notice things about people? Do you not make your living analyzing situations and putting pieces of puzzles together? You've always been very intuitive, Donnie. More then anyone else I've ever known. If you thought she was so messed up, why didn't you say something?"
"'Cause Adam is a big boy and they seemed happy. It wasn't any of my business. But something should have told you she was bad news if she cheated on him the first time around."
"Lots of people cheat and don't do it again. And before you get defensive, that was not a personal shot at you."
"Once a cheater always a cheater," Flack concluded. "Wait a second…I just made myself sound really bad there."
"Let's just agree that we won't paint all men and all women with the same brush. Some people cheat and don't do it again, some people make infidelity a hobby. You never did it again and I know you never will. And we don't know for sure that that is why Paisley went Wicked Witch of the West on him. All we know is that she said some mean and uncalled for things. And all you need to know is that if, when she gets back to the city and her body shows up as a floater in the East River, I had nothing to do with it."
"You know, there's about ninety-nine different ways to kill someone that will never be traced back to us. And I know some pretty damn good places we could dump her. Where no one would ever, ever find her."
"Hmmm…you're thinking a little too nice. I was thinking more along the lines of cutting her apart with a chainsaw and encasing her bodies in cement and scattering them along the shores of Battery Park."
"Simpler and cleaner it is, less likely we are to get caught," he told her as he leaned back against her legs. "I think we should just do a mob style hit on her and be done with it."
"You know people. Get one of the Venetti's to off her. Hide her in that old meat packing warehouse they owned. The one where Suspect X kept Katie Mann."
"Should we chain her up like that too? Go medieval on her ass?"
"We should," Sam laughed. "You know…it's a good thing we can joke like this and know that we won't ever implicate each other if Paisley does show up in a dumpster somewhere."
"I personally think that someone should kick the shit out of her." Flack said. "We'll get Lindsay to do it. She never liked her anyway. And when DL hear about what Freak Girl did to Adam…"
"DL. I can't believe we have a nickname for our best friends."
"They call us SamFlackie. Calling them DL is only fair. But you know that Lindsay is going to go all momma bear protective when you tell her about Paisley. You know her huge soft spot for Adam. She hears about what happened, and she'll be the one dumping the bitch in the East River. Did you guys have a talk?"
Sam nodded.
"And…"
"And…" she sighed. "He's pretty devastated by what's gone down. He's in no shape to deal with Paisley and her shit at the moment. I just hope that when the holiday's are over, you can get a hold of that lawyer and things can be put in motion. Sooner those kids are away from her, the better."
Kellan mumbled in her sleep and rolled over onto her stomach.
"You wore them out," Sam said, anxious to get off the subject of her evil sister in law.
"I wore myself out," Flack told her and yawned noisily. "I'm getting too old for this shit."
"You're getting too wimpy," she teased and leaned over to press a kiss to the top of his head. "You know what the real problem is? We've gotten way too domesticated. We're boring. We're in bed by ten o'clock every night, we have schedules and routines. We work and come home and that's it. Remember when we used to go out to the bars with everyone? When we'd wander in at all hours? Leave our laundry for a week or two? Wake the neighbours up every chance we got with our noise?"
"Your noise," Flack corrected with a grin. "It was all you. It still is."
"What happened to us? We used to be exciting. Now we're just…." she searched for the proper word.
"Parents?" he suggested, leaning his head back against her knees, relaxing under the sensation of her fingers softly combing through his hair. "We're parents. We're mommy and daddy. It's all Kellan and Kallison's fault. Let's blame it on them."
"You love your baby girls," she declared, and wrapping her arms around his neck, pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips.
"I love all my girls," he told her. "And I wouldn't give any of you up for my old life. Not for all the money in the world."
She smiled and nuzzled his ear with her nose. "It's hard to believe how far we've actually come," she commented, as she leaned back in the chair, curled her legs around his torso and went back to her ice cream.
He nodded in agreement. "Sometimes I think about the way things were when we first started hooking up. All the drama with Zack, all your trust and your intimacy issues. The whole insanity that was Terrence Davis."
"I still can't believe you thought I was fooling around with him behind your back," Sam snorted. "Like did you really honestly think I'd cheat on you? And not with just anyone but someone who was a convicted felon and your CI?"
"I didn't know what to think. We'd gotten into that huge fight over that case…"
"It wasn't a fight. It was a difference of opinion," she corrected. "And neither of us were willing to listen to the other's take on things."
"It was a fight," he insisted. "You called me a prick and stormed out of our apartment. I consider that a fight."
"Fight or no fight, nothing could have ever made me cheat on you," she said. "Especially with Terrence Davis."
"What was I suppose to think? If you just sit back and think about it, babe, there was a lot of factors pointing in that direction. He had sent you those flowers…"
"That was a purely friendly gesture," she pointed out.
"…and you walked out on me after a massive blow out and then I get a call two hours later that you're down in Central Booking 'cause DEA decided that they were going to raid Terrence's club and you just so happened to be there paying him a visit. Would that not have looked just a little bit suspicious if the roles had have been reversed?"
"I guess…but I was only there to thank him in person for taking care of Zack, and for giving you my jewellery back. It was perfectly innocent."
"And I believed you when you told me that, right?" his hand slid up the back of the leg of her jeans and massaged her calf softly. "Did Terrence not back that story up? Did I not tell you to your face that I believed you?"
She nodded.
"The whole point I was trying to make is that I sometimes think about when we first started dating and living together and all of that, and it amazes me that we even survived. That we never killed each other. That we even got as far as marriage and kids. That's all I was trying to say, babe."
"Are you glad?" she asked curiously.
"About what?" Flack inquired.
"That we got that far. Marriage. Two kids. Planning on having another one with a little outside help."
He tipped his head back and looked up at her. "You really have to ask me that?"
"It's an innocent, legit question," she said.
He smiled and turned his attention back to the television. "You shouldn't have to ask me that. I think the answer should be pretty obvious, don't you? I mean, I'm here, aren't I?"
"Don't you have regrets? When it comes to us?"
"Not a one," he responded confidently. "All the bat shit insanity in the early days was worth it. Why? Do you have regrets?"
"I regret that I never fell for all of your corny, lame ass pick up lines a lot sooner and that it took us so damn long to get our shit together," she told him.
Flack grinned. "Yeah…I kinda regret you didn't fall for my corny, lame ass pick up lines a lot sooner, too."
"Well maybe if you'd had have gone to Danny and asked for lessons in how to improve your game…"
"Don't you start on my pitiful excuse for game, a'right? You gave in in the end, didn't you? You fell madly in love with me and even went as far as becoming my wife and having my kids. My game couldn't have been that bad."
"Oh it was," she laughed. "It still is."
He frowned and slid his hand further up her leg and ran a fingertip along the back of her knee.
She squealed, her back arching off the chair as he tickled the ultra-sensitive spot. "Damn you!" she scolded.
"I know all the places, babe. Big and small. You can't escape me."
"Well maybe I don't want to escape you," she said. "Maybe I love my life just the way it is. Maybe I love being the mother to your children and being able to call myself your wife. Maybe I'm just perfectly content being with you."
"You ask me, we both lucked out. We managed to find each other, really find each other, after how many broken, unhealthy relationships between the two of us? We managed to make something work even though both our views on love and commitment were completely tarnished. Personally, I think we found each other at the perfect time in our lives. When we both needed someone that most."
She smiled and stroked his chest with the heel of her foot. "God I love it when you go all deep and romantic and slightly spiritual on me. It's like who are you and what have you done with my husband?"
"I just sometimes put the evil Donnie to the back burner," he mused. "Throw you for a loop. Keep you on your toes."
Across the room, one of the kids sneezed loudly under the blanket and murmured in their sleep. Both Sam and Flack glanced over at the makeshift fort, waiting for there to be movement from underneath the sheets and for a tiny body to emerge.
"I hope that wasn't Kellan," Sam sighed. "I don't know how much more colds I can take with that kid. Kallison gets a cold and it's gone in five days. Kellan gets the slightest sniffle and the next thing you know we're in the ER 'cause she can barely breathe or she's running a fever of a hundred and three. And the ear infections…how many ear infections can one kid have?"
"Just you watch. When she grows up, she's going to be the biggest and the strongest and the healthiest. She had a rough start to live and she's struggling a bit still, but she'll be alright. I have faith in my pip squeak. She'll be okay."
Sam leaned forward and kissed his cheek. "You know," she said. "I couldn't have picked a better guy to become a mommy with."
He smiled and turned his face into hers and kissed her softly. "Yeah…I couldn't have picked a better girl to let become a mommy to my kids."
"To let become?" she laughed at that. "Donnie, sometimes you can be so sappy and other times you can be so…I don't know….so you."
"Maybe," he said. "But you love me and wouldn't change me for the world."
She smiled. Knowing he had never spoken truer words.
It had taken Mac Taylor, despite flashing lights and a blaring siren, over an hour to make the drive from his original crime scene in Brooklyn to a second, higher priority call on the Upper East side. He had left the straight up bodega shooting gone bad to the two stand in detectives on loan from the New Jersey Crime Lab and had made the drive to where Hawkes was processing the newest scene all on his own. Cursing Danny and Lindsay for taking a vacation at what was turning out to be a nightmare New Years Day for the crime lab. The snow was pounding New York City. Over three feet in the past thirty-six hours and it still showed no sign of letting up. If anything, it only fell harder and made the streets nearly impassable. City trucks and plows fought in vain to keep the city that never sleeps running. The lights on Broadway were dark for the first time in decades on a Saturday. Stores had long closed up shop and sent their employees home. A scattering of pedestrians attempted to brave the weather, but turned back the moment they encountered waist high snow at the curbs. New York City had become an eerily quiet, lonesome ghost town.
No rest for the weary, Mac thought, as he pulled the department issued Avalanche up behind two cruisers, an unmarked squad belonging to the investigating detective, and the SUV that Hawkes had arrived in earlier. Killing the engine, he removed the keys from the ignition and dropped them into the pocket of his winter coat before climbing out into the blizzard.
Grabbing his kit from the back seat, Mac locked up the vehicle and set the alarm through the remote on his key chain before hurrying up the slippery front walk that led to the front entrance of the building. The doorman, a usual fixture in his topcoat and crisp white gloves and top hat, was sitting at the security desk. Ashen and visibly trembling as he relayed his tail to Detective Kaile Maka. Her face was gentle and serene, her voice quiet and understanding as she asked questions and took extensive notes. She glanced up briefly as Mac entered the building. A silent nod passing between them before her attention was diverted back to the distraught man sitting beside her.
Mac felt physically ill as he rode the elevator to the twelfth floor. It had been a long time since he'd had to deal with a case involving someone that he had once had a personal connection too. But the mayor, upon being notified about the death of a former colleague, had personally made a call to the Chief of Detectives and requested that Mac 'take care of things'. Just as he had years before involving the victim in question.
It had been nearly nine years since he'd seen or spoken to Jordan Gates. After the taxi cab killer had been caught, their paths had gone into two entirely different directions. Jordan had moved out of state to take care of her ailing mother, Mac had done what he had always done. Thrown himself into his work. He often wondered, if Jordan had stuck around, if things ever would have developed between them. He had been attracted to her. She was an attractive, intelligent and vivacious woman. Who had shown, through actions more so then words, that she'd been interested in him on several occasions.
Mac had never acted on it. Something had told him to just step back and bide his time. To just think about what he really wanted out of Jordan, and out of himself. Did he want her in his life because he was genuinely interested in her? Or did he simply want someone in his life so he wouldn't be alone anymore? When it had become painfully clear that the answer was the latter, he had realized that he would be been doing her great injustice by pursuing her in a romantic fashion.
God worked in mysterious ways. After Jordan had left, he had met Kelli, by sheer chance, after Samantha had invited her new friend to join the team for Sam's birthday celebration at Sullivan's. The two women had met just two weeks before at the Disney themed Charity Costume Ball the department had hosted and Samantha had taken it upon herself to draw Kelli into the fold. And while shy and introverted at first, Kelli had soon made an impression on every member of the team. Once she had gotten used to the various personalities possessed by the eclectic bunch, they found that she fun loving and bubbly and had a heart of gold. Mac had been drawn to her immediately. For months he'd been turning down invitations to nights out with the team. But something had told him, as he finished off the last of his paperwork and slipped out from behind his desk, that maybe it was time that he became more sociable. That he shouldn't close himself off so much. That he should loosen up and let his hair down. That maybe, just maybe, something exciting would happen that night.
His second chance at life and love had been what had happened. Kelli had opened his eyes to a whole new world. He had seen past, and accepted her hearing impairment. Although she could read lips and her speech was exceptional, the moment they had began dating, Mac enrolled himself in sign language classes so he could communicate with the new woman in his life. He had become attentive and loving. He had learned to leave work at the lab and to become a different Mac when he walked through the door at the end of the shift. He had learned what it was really like to be in a relationship To share everything. Hopes and dreams and fears. And most of all, he had learned that he was worthy of feeling loved, and of being in love. They had married quickly and with no regrets. They had adopted siblings that had been abandoned by their abusive, drug addicted mother. Together they formed a united front for each other and their children. Putting the ghosts of their pasts behind them and dwelling on nothing but each other and their future as a family.
And now one of those ghosts were making an unexpected appearance. Mac had heard that Jordan had returned to New York City two years ago and had used a large inheritance left to her upon her wealthy mother's passing, to purchase a condo on the Upper East side. He had also heard, that she had started her own web design business and been dating a well known real estate developer.
Most of all, he had known about her affair with a very married Don Flack. News of the two of them had spread through the department like wild fire after Flack had broken the three month relationship off and Jordan had acted like a true woman scorned. It hadn't been any of Mac's business, and it wasn't any of his business now, but it had been hard to avoid the rumours of the demise of Flack's marriage. Everyone knew that the union was in ruins. Flack had been kicked out of the house and was staying with his parents while seeking legal advice on how to combat his wife's threats of never seeing his kids again. Things had gotten nasty. So nasty in fact, that Mac had been forced to keep the two of them as far away from each other as possible.
Things had been resolved in the end and life at home and at work for the Flacks had gone back to normal. No one had seen or even heard of Jordan Gates again. Until now.
Mac nodded at the uniform guarding the front door of apartment 1202 and lifting the yellow crime scene tape, ducked underneath it and headed inside.
"Detective Taylor," fellow Detective Michael Bernstein, a former member of the Miami PD who'd transferred to New York City seven years ago, greeted in his deep, whiskey smooth voice. Bernstein, a pair of latex gloves on his hands and his notebook open, stood in the entrance way of the living room. Where Doctor Sheldon Hawkes was processing the scene.
"Who called it in?" Mac asked, stepping beside the detective and surveying the scene before him. The living room was spacious and immaculate. Not furniture was overturned and nothing seemed out of place.
"Next door neighbour heard an argument," Bernstein replied. "Said they heard a male voice and a female voice they were able to identify as belonging to the deceased. Apparently the yelling went on for several minutes. Threats were made, profanities issued. Then they heard the victim scream, followed by complete silence."
"How long ago?" Mac inquired.
Bernstein consulted his watch. "Two hours now. We're waiting on the ME's office still. With the weather the way it is, who knows how long that will be. I have my people talking to everyone on the floor and in the units directly above and below. And security tapes of the front door, underground parking and rear entrance are on the way to the lab as we speak."
Mac nodded as he took in his the information. Then frowned at the sight of a bassinet by the balcony door and a stack of fresh diapers and a box of wipes and a half full bottle of milk on the coffee table. "There's a child here?" he asked.
"The deceased has a son. Barely a month old. When first responders got here the baby was screaming in the nursery at the back of the apartment. We called Child Protective Services. They've taken him to the hospital to get checked over and will keep him in their custody until next of kin is notified."
"There is no next of kin," Mac said. "The only family Jordan had was an elderly mother that died two years ago."
"We'll track down someone who was close to her," Bernstein suggested. "See if they can't take the baby. It would be a shame if he ended up in the system at such a young ae."
Mac nodded in agreement and made his way into the living room. "What do we have, Sheldon?" he asked, as he sat his kit down on the floor and stood over the body of Jordan Gates.
Her eyes and mouth open as she lay spread-eagled in the middle of her living room floor. No makeup graced her face and chunks of hair had been ripped from her head and lay scattered around her. There was no blood or even signs of a struggle. Yet very distinct impressions on her slender neck. Obviously made from human hands that had encircled her throat.
"Petechial haemorrhaging in both eyes," Hawkes answered. "Obvious signs of strangulation. Whoever did this did it the old fashioned way. With their hands. I collected trace from under her fingernails. Human skin. Hopefully once I get it back to the lab we'll be able to get a hit off the DNA."
"Hopefully," Mac sighed, shaking his head, his hands on his hips as he stared down at the woman at his feet.
"Bernstein told you…" Hawkes spoke in a near whisper. "About the baby?"
Mac nodded. "Did you see it before CPS took it on out of here?"
Hawkes gave a grim smile and nodded himself.
"And?" Mac pressed. His heart pounded in his chest, his stomach twisted itself into knots as he considered the possibility in his mind.
"And that baby looks just like Kellan and Kallison did when they were that age," Hawkes reluctantly admitted.
Mac sighed heavily and closed his eyes briefly. Wondering just how much more two people, so desperately trying to forgive and forget, could deal with. And praying, that whatever had happened to Jordan Gates, that whatever secrets she possessed, wouldn't be enough to bring everything tumbling down.
Steeling himself, Mac opened his eyes. "Let's get to work," he told Hawkes. "There's a lot of things we need answers to."
"What about the baby?" Hawke asked.
Mac sighed. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," he replied.
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