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8. Shot

Nick cleared his throat. "I'll, eh, pretend I didn't see that, I guess…"

With a shy blush, Greg looked down, while Morgan allowed him to pull her close. She grinned. "I don't care anymore. I love him and the whole world can know about it!"

"Does that include Russell… or your Dad?" Nick carefully asked.

"Why don't we, eh, focus on finding Melody and Damian first?" Greg quickly suggested. Telling Russell about his relationship with Morgan was already a big step for him, let alone telling Ecklie about it!

"Sure," Nick said with a nod. "But you know I'll want to talk about this later!"

Greg smiled a little. "I wasn't afraid you wouldn't want to talk about it!"

Grinning, Nick left with Sam. The other police officers and dogs also took off to start their search. Greg looked at Morgan. "Can I make you some coffee?"

Smiling, Morgan nodded. "Yeah, that's a good idea!"

Together they went back to the breakroom, where Greg started making her some of his special coffee. While he was making the coffee, he carefully looked back at her. She looked much happier now, which gave him a sense of relief. He was also worried, though. Even though they had a lot of dogs to search the streets, the chance of finding Melody and / or Damian was still very small. Vegas was after all a big city where people could easily hide, especially in the parts where tourists spent most of their days. Sam was a great police dog, but in a crowd with so many people, even he would lose a scent trail.

Greg didn't tell Morgan about his thoughts of course. He just made her the coffee and then left her for a moment to get Dylan, who was still with Russell.

"Where is Morgan?" he immediately asked.

"She's okay, she's having some coffee," Greg reassured him. "Why don't you go and find her? She's in the breakroom."

"Okay!" The boy ran off to find his mother's best friend. Greg looked up at Russell. "Look, I know you want to talk about me and Morgan, but can it wait till after we wrapped up this case? With her best friend gone and everything I think talking about our relationship is a little too much for Morgan right now."

"For Morgan or you?" Russell asked, looking him directly in the eye. "From what I understand, Morgan's quite alright about sharing your relationship with the world since she kissed you in front of about fifteen police officers…"

"What?" With his eyebrows frowned together, Greg looked at Russell. His supervisor showed him a photo on his cellphone. "News travels fast around here…"

Greg stared at the photo of him and Morgan kissing in the hallway only moments ago. The photo had been posted online by one of the police officers. So far, nearly twenty people had liked the photo already.

"Great," Greg murmured. "Can we go back to finding Melody and Damian now? What did the guy say to Brass?"

"Nothing!" Russell told him, shaking his head. "He won't even tell him his name! He has no ID, at least not a real one, and Dylan doesn't know his real name either. Finn just took his fingerprints to see if he's in our system."

"Oh, Finn is back?" Greg understood. "Do you know where she is?"

"She went back to the lab to run the fingerprints and to check if the blood she found really is Melody's," Russell said. Greg thanked him and then returned to the lab himself. He found Finn in the DNA lab.

"Blood is Melody's," she said as soon as she saw him. "I found some blood drops outside, but the blood stopped about after ten feet so I couldn't follow the trail further. I have no idea where she went!"

Greg sighed. "Of course not… Well, let's hope the dogs find something then!"

Before he could tell Finn about the search dogs, his phone rang. It was Nick, who could barely make himself understandable because of Sam's loud barking.

"Hey, Greg, I… Fini, Sam! Greg, Sam found something! We're at… I said 'Fini', Sam! We're at the soccer field behind CSI, bring Finn!" Nick shouted through the phone.

"That doesn't sound good," Finn said after Greg had repeated what Nick had told him. They both ran outside to the soccer field behind the CSI building. Nick and Sam were standing near the end of the field, close to a large group of bushes.

"He found this," Nick said, pointing to the grass with grim face. Finn bit her lip. "That doesn't look good…"

Greg felt unable to say anything while he looked at the large pool of blood on the grass.

"Who was Sam looking for?" Finn finally asked. Nick slowly looked up, hesitating to tell her. Greg knew enough: "Melody…"

Quietly, Nick nodded.

"There's a trail of blood leading this way…" Finn started to walk, her eyes locked to the ground. Nick, Sam and Greg followed her, soon noticing they were walking back to the CSI entrance. There they found another pool of blood, smaller than the one at the soccer field.

"Have you seen anyone hurt passing by?" Finn asked the receptionist.

"No, I haven't," she replied. "I have seen a woman and a little boy, though…"

The words caused alarm bells to start ringing in Greg's head. Without saying a word, he ran through the hallways to the breakroom.

"Where's Dylan?" he asked Morgan. The tone in his voice made Morgan jump up. "Why? What happened?"

"You haven't seen him?"

"No, I left him with Russell when I came to tell you about Melody!" she said, a worried look in her eyes. "What happened?"

Greg turned around and ran back to the entrance with Morgan following him.

"I need the video surveillance footage of the last ten minutes… Now!" he shouted at the receptionist, who jumped up in panic to call about the videos of the surveillance camera. Only a few minutes later they were watching the camera footage. It clearly showed them how Dylan ran outside to hug a woman Morgan immediately recognized as Melody.

"She's hurt!" she said with a husky voice. "She's hurt!"

They all saw how Melody's shirt was soaked with blood near her left side. She was trying to cover it with her hand, but when Dylan looked at it, she removed her hand for a moment, causing blood to drop on the ground. She then pushed her hand back onto her side, grabbed Dylan's arm with her other hand and took off in the direction of the soccer field.

"So she came here first, took Dylan and then she went over to the soccer field," Finn summarized. "But there was only one trail leading away from that blood pool… Where did they go next?"

It was actually Sam who gave them the answer by whining softly and pressing his nose against Morgan's side. When she reached down to pet him, her hand touched her pocket, where she kept Dylan's toy car.

"The road!" she called out. "There is a road next to that soccer field! They could have taken a taxi!"

One call to Las Vegas's biggest taxi company later they knew which taxi had stopped near the soccer field.

"They're going to the Stratosphere Tower!" Nick told them, a surprised tone in his voice. "Why would they go there?"

"Because Dylan has wanted to see it since I first told him about it," Morgan softly said as she remembered describing the city for him just after she had moved. The boy had been hiding with his Mum in New York at the time and he had wanted to know if Las Vegas had such tall buildings as well. Morgan had told him about the tower, after which he had called out: "I want to see it!"

Every time they had spoken on the phone since then, he had asked her about it.

"But why would Melody take him there now?" Greg said.

"I don't know, but you can ask her when we find her!" Morgan responded impatiently. "Let's go!"

In spite of their hurry, they drove to the Stratosphere Tower in cars without sirens and flashing lights. As soon as they had arrived, Nick sent Sam off to find Melody's scent. Within seconds he started barking.

"Melody!" Morgan shouted out. "Dylan!"

Greg, Finn and Nick also started shouting their names. Suddenly someone called back: "Over here!"

"Dylan!" Morgan rushed towards the sound of the voice. Before she could reach the wounded Melody and her son, she was brutally seized by a man with dried blood on his face and arms. He wrapped his arm tightly around her neck, causing here to nearly choke. In his hand he had a gun, which he pointed at Dylan.

"Move and they're both dead!" Damian Marks warned them. Sam started barking again, but Nick quickly told him to be quiet. Just like before, the dog refused to listen. He kept barking until Damian finally looked his way. It was only a second, but it was enough for Morgan to escape from his grip. She fell down on the ground and quickly tried to crawl over to Melody and Dylan. Before she could reach them, the sound of a gun being fired broke the silence.