5. How

The little boy jumped out of the car and ran straight into Morgan's arms. With tears in her eyes she hugged him tightly, feeling he had started to cry as well.

"Where's my Mum?" he sobbed into her shoulder. "I want my Mum!"

Morgan and Greg exchanged a worried look. How were they supposed to tell him his mother had been taken by his father?

"Come on, let's get you inside," Greg finally decided. He tried to take Dylan inside, but he wouldn't let go of Morgan. Reassuringly, she held her arm around his shoulders. "It's okay, honey, I'm not leaving you!"

She gently led the boy inside to her living room, where she sat him down on the couch and softly asked him: "Can you tell me what happened?"

Still sobbing, Dylan started talking: "I was… in your bedroom… drawing… and then… Mummy came in… She had this look in her eyes… the one… she has… when… when…"

His lips started to tremble even more and the tears ran down his face faster and faster. Morgan had to hug him before he could continue: "I knew it was my Dad… We ran outside… through the front door… We hid somewhere and… and… Mummy called a taxi… Then we went to where you work… and… and… she told me to wait there… She was going to get a rental car so we could drive away… But she never came back!"

Dylan began to cry hysterically. Morgan pulled him back into her arms, while Greg tried to complete the story: "What did you do then, Dylan? Did you leave your drawing on the parking lot for Morgan?"

Morgan felt the boy nodding against her shoulder. Through his tears he managed to say: "I was too scared to go inside alone… But Mummy never came back!"

"And then you went back to Morgan's house?" Greg understood. Dylan nodded. "Yes… I remembered how to get there… And then I hid in your car… My Dad would never look there…"

"But why didn't you wait at the CSI parking lot?" Morgan asked him. "Why didn't you wait there for your Mum to come back?"

"Because she never came back!" Dylan called out. "She should have been back! I know how long it took for us to get from the airport to your work and she was already gone much longer! And… and…"

He started crying again. Morgan forced him to look at her. "And what, Dylan?"

With tears all over his face and his eyes red he looked up at her. "And I saw a car following Mummy's taxi…"

Because Greg was afraid Damian might come back to Morgan's house to find Dylan, he decided it was best that the two of them spent the night at his house. He made Dylan a bed on the couch in his spare room, which was next to his own bedroom. While he made the bed, Morgan tried asking Dylan questions about the car he had seen, but all he could do was cry. Finally, she decided to just let him get some sleep. Feeling tired herself, she went back to Greg's bedroom and fell down on his bed while giving him a sad look. "I can't tell him his mother has been taken…"

"Maybe he already knows," Greg carefully said. "I mean, he saw a car following Melody's taxi and he seems convinced the car was his Dad's…"

"You know what I don't get?" Morgan looked up at Greg again. "How he managed to find them. I mean, Melody and I have been friends for ages, but when I met Damian, we were both living in LA. And I haven't seen Damian since I moved to Vegas…"

"Maybe he overheard a phone conversation between you and Melody?" Greg suggested. Morgan shook her head. "No, I doubt that… I mean, Melody and I have talked on the phone hundreds of times since I moved here and she has been to at least twenty other cities before she came here. How did Damian know she came to see me this time? And how did he know where my house was?"

"He must have followed Melody and Dylan from the airport," Greg said. "But you're right: how did he know they were coming to see you?"

Since they were both tired and also both getting a headache from all the questions and worries, they decided to try and get some sleep first. When Morgan woke up, she was still comfortably in Greg's arms, but she knew something had woken her. Carefully she crawled out of Greg's arms, reaching with one hand for her gun on the nightstand. With her other hand she reached for the light switch. As soon as she had switched the light on, Dylan screamed. "Don't shoot!"

Next to Morgan, Greg shot straight up in bed. "What's going on?"

Immediately in tears Dylan looked at him. "I'm sorry…"

Morgan lowered her gun. "I'm sorry too, sweetie, I didn't mean to scare you like this. What's wrong, honey? Couldn't sleep?"

The little boy shook his head.

"Want me to stay with you?" Morgan asked him.

"Why don't you stay with us?" Greg suggested. He moved over on his side of the bed, so Dylan could crawl in between him and Morgan. Lovingly, Morgan kissed him on top of his head. "Try to go to sleep, honey, Greg and I are right here if you need anything, okay?"

"Okay… Goodnight, Morgan, goodnight, Greg."

"Goodnight, Dylan," they both said. Dylan closed his eyes and was soon back to sleep. Greg looked at Morgan and softly whispered: "Feels like we're having our own little family here…"

She smiled back at him. "It does…"

Then her smile disappeared. "Let's just hope he doesn't have to be part of our family forever…"

The next morning Greg and Morgan took Dylan with them to CSI, so Henry could test his DNA against the blood sample Finn had collected at the rental car park. To everyone's surprise, Dylan was very interested in Henry's work and Morgan found it safe to leave him with Henry for a while. She and Greg went to find Finn to talk about everything that had happened so far.

"The tire prints I found at the rental car park are useless," Finn told them. "Hodges did run them through the database, but it matches too many cars. I assume the blood I found is Melody's, we'll know for sure once Henry has tested Dylan's DNA. It's not a lot of blood, so if it is indeed Melody's, she might not be seriously injured."

"Greg and I have been talking," Morgan said with a slight blush, even though she didn't say they had been talking at Greg's place. "How was Damian able to find them? We think he must have followed them from the airport to my house…"

"Wait!" Greg suddenly said. "If he did, why didn't he already try something the first night they were here? He waited another day instead…"

Morgan immediately fell silent.

"Maybe he was waiting for the right moment," Finn suggested.

"The first night would have been perfect," Greg said. "First night in the city, first time at Morgan's house, checking if everything's safe… It would have been the ultimate surprise attack… But instead, he waited another day and then ended up taking Melody from a rental car park. Why?"

Both Morgan and Finn thought about his question for a while. Finally, Finn asked Morgan: "Do you know where Melody and Dylan were last before they came to Vegas?"

"No, but Dylan might know." Morgan got up and walked back to Henry's lab to talk to Dylan. The boy told them he and his mother had been staying in a cottage in Grand Teton National Park for nearly six weeks.

"There were no tourists there, so my Mum thought we'd be safe there," Dylan told them. "We never left the cottage, but my Dad still found us…"

After giving him a quick hug Morgan went back to Finn's office, where she repeated what Dylan had told her. Greg shook his head. "Then how did he find them? And how did he know they were going to Vegas?"

Again, Morgan and Finn both remained quiet. Suddenly Finn thought of something: "Does Melody have a cellphone? Could he have used that to figure out where she and Dylan are?"

Morgan shook her head. "No. She buys a new one every time she and Dylan go to a new place. She has my number memorized in her head, so she can always call me. If I get a new cellphone, I always have to wait till she calls me before I can get rid of my old one. That's why I asked Archie if he could save my SIM card after my cellphone got thrown out of the helicopter when Frank Cafferty took control over it…"

"Has Melody called you to tell you she and Dylan were coming to Vegas?" Finn asked her. For the second time, Morgan shook her head. "No, she just showed up here at CSI. I actually hadn't heard from her in a while, which is usually a sign she's looking for a new place to run off to," she added.

"Okay, so that's not gonna help us further either," Finn sighed. "Any other suggestions?"

Silence filled her office. It was broken by Nick running in. "Guys, this was just delivered here!"

He handed them an envelope with Morgan's name on it. Morgan snatched it from his hands without bothering to put gloves on. She ripped the envelope open and let the content fall onto Finn's desk. It wasn't much, just a simple white paper which had been written on in big, black capital letters: 'BRING THE BOY TO THE RENTAL CAR PARK. THEN YOU GET THE WOMAN BACK.'

"Well, at least we know for sure he's after Dylan," Finn said with another sigh. "We need to get him to some place safe. Fast!"

A few calls later they had an address of a safe house where Dylan could stay until his Mum was found and Damian was arrested. He protested and cried of course, he wanted to stay with Morgan! Finally Morgan promised she'd take him and stay with him until he felt okay in the safe house.

"Is Greg coming too?" Dylan softly asked her. Morgan looked at him, very aware of the fact that Russell was standing only three feet away from Greg.

"How about I wave you out from the parking lot?" Greg quickly suggested. Dylan made a sad face, but then nodded. "Okay…"

Greg followed Morgan, Dylan and two officers outside and watched as the four of them got into a car. As promised, he waved to the boy and he kept waving until the car left the parking lot. Even as it was driving further away, he kept his eyes on the boy, sitting next to the officer in the back of the car. The other office was sitting in the passenger seat, next to Morgan, who was driving. Suddenly, Greg saw she drove the car to the side of the road in a quick, uncontrolled moved. A second later he realized why. She had already seen what was coming: a black car driving full speed into the side of her car.