The Corrupter - I will fix it... In the next chapter or two, I think! And yes, she is!

laplandgurl - I'd be gutted if that was my car (my car is my baby, lol!) They will clear the air, I promise!

meadow567 - Yeah, it kinda boils down to them. I was gonna wait a while before hitting this one, but I got bored of TW and wanted to get rid of them once and for all!

Aphina - Of course there's a shameless plug (but it's only to get people to check it out... honestly...!) Well, I certainly do hope it shocked!

RK9 - It was nominated (I feel special!) How did it work a few years back?? Um, I was hoping I'd created that character by myself (:s) so let me know if you work it out! And Ruben is alive here - it's a while before that storyline!

demolished-soul - it just kinda happened. And lot's of trouble - I'm getting a rid of TW!

hardylover7477 - lol, whilst I'm glad I shocked you, I kinda wish I had thought of that idea! I suck! lol

Alana Xavier1 - I am in a mean frame of mind, or at least I was when I wrote this. Currently I'm a very happy chappy so the later stuff is a lot nicer. However, until then, I will accept I suck!

Thoren - She will see him, but there's a reason as to why she hasn't seen him already - which he will tell her later!

sparkyCSI - lol, glad you liked it, even if it made you sad! (It made me sad too!)

Madison Bellows - Hey I completely understand! I can't believe how well it's taking off - the awards, I mean! (That being said, I have happy feelings too!) Hardly anyone picked up on that - I think I shocked everyone too much! lol

princessg - aw, I guess I lost your vote, lol. Sorry about making you wait! That sucky thing called work got in the way - wednesdays and thursdays are pretty much nineteen hour days for me!

Okay, well, thanks to my beta, sparkyCSI!

What The Eyes Can't See

Chapter 181: Please, please forgive me, but I won't be home again

Taylor arrived a while after Danny had left, and walked anxiously into Mac's office. 'Can this possibly wait until tomorrow?' she asked, looking at her watch. 'I've got to pick up Cordelia soon and I haven't done whatever I'm supposed to have done.'

'What makes you say that?' Mac asked her.

Taylor pulled a face, shifting on the spot. 'Because I'll have to defend myself for something I haven't done-'

'Taylor,' Mac interrupted, holding up his hand as he shook his head. 'We identified the body in your car.'

'And how does this relate to me?' she asked, eyeing her watch again.

'It's Louie.'

'Louie who?' she asked, half distracted as she tried to work out the latest time she could leave and still get to the school on time.

'Louie Messer,' Mac elaborated.

Taylor looked up meeting Mac's gaze. 'What about Louie?'

Mac sighed wearily. 'He's dead.'

Taylor slumped heavily into the chair. 'Are you sure?' she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Mac nodded solemnly.

'I, uh… I should go get Cordy,' Taylor muttered, her eyes lining with tears.

'Do you need a ride?' Mac asked her.

Taylor shook her head. 'I think…' she shook her head again.

--

Taylor stood in the doorway of Cordelia's room, watching the child play with her imaginary friend, Robin. (A while back, she had heard the child chattering away and when she'd asked who she was talking to, was told it was her friend new friend Robin. Taylor, of course, had panicked, and had only been stopped from taking her to a psychologist when Flack pointed out that it was just an imaginary friend and a lot of children had them.)

With a sigh, she turned and headed downstairs where she pulled a bottle of Southern Comfort from the fridge, before leaning wearily back against it.

'Hey, chica,' Maddy muttered, softly, appearing to her right.

Taylor looked up and dropped the bottle. 'Louie?' she choked, staring at his body, his head missing a small chunk.

'I thought it was you,' he told her.

'What?' Taylor asked, her voice breaking.

'I thought it was you,' he repeated.

Taylor looked at Maddy. 'Please don't do this to me,' she whispered.

--

Mac walked into the ballistics lab, his expression grim. 'Have we found anything yet?' he asked Stella and Hawkes, who were sat in silence, watching the computer.

Stella shook her head, her curls bouncing slightly. 'Computer's running at the minute.'

Mac walked over and joined them in the staring.

'I can't believe it's Louie,' Hawkes muttered with a sigh.

'Did you find anything in the car?'

Stella shrugged. 'Plenty. Kendall's running it now. The problem is, it probably all belongs to Taylor, Flack, Cordelia and the pig.'

'There were only a handful of prints that hadn't been damaged by the water,' Hawkes sighed. 'And Adam is probably going to say the same thing.'

Mac frowned. 'I spoke to Louie's parole officer. She said that Louie had never missed a meeting until a week ago.'

'And why wasn't it followed up?' Stella asked.

Mac shrugged. 'Same old story. She had other pressing parole jumpers and a workload for three.'

'We need a timeline,' Stella decided, grabbing a chalk pen from the draw and wandering over to the wall, drawing a line. 'Sid thinks TOD was a week ago, he missed a parole hearing a day after that.'

'He was at work on two days before that,' Hawkes added. 'He took the particulars on my stab victim.'

Stella cocked her head. 'So where was he for the two days in between?'

At a knock at the door, the three of them turned, finding Peyton, her eyes red rimmed. 'Dental records came back,' she told them. 'It confirmed the DNA,' she added, as though she had been hoping there had been a mix up in the lab. She walked into the room and over to the CSIs.

'You were working with Louie on Halloween, right?' Mac asked, giving her hand a squeeze.

Peyton nodded. 'Yes. It was just your average night,' she started before trailing off.

'What?' Mac asked her, gently.

Peyton inhaled deeply. 'It's probably nothing, but Sid and I caught the tail end of an argument.'

'Who with?' asked Stella.

Peyton pursed her lips. 'Taylor. But I didn't really catch what they were saying,' she added hurriedly. 'All I caught was Taylor telling him to go to Hell.'

Mac's lips disappeared into a thin line.

'Mac, you don't surely think?' Stella asked him, surprised.

Mac shook his head. 'Taylor didn't kill anyone,' he agreed.

--

Flack looked over at Danny's sleeping form. It had taken hours, but he had finally convinced his friend to get a couple hours of sleep on the couch. Or not.

'You look like crap,' Danny's husky voice told him quietly.

'Can't say you look any better,' Flack shot back at him.

Danny's lips curved into a small, brief, smile. 'Why did you do it?'

'Do what?' Flack asked him.

Danny just raised his eyebrows in response.

Flack leant back into the seat and sighed. 'I need her to talk to me,' he told him. 'I need her to trust me. I was hoping it… she didn't and I couldn't just… I miss her, Dan.'

Danny pulled his glasses off and rubbed at his already red eyes. 'If it makes you feel any better, she's a mess.' Danny groaned and pulled himself to his feet. 'I'm gonna have to call my Mom,' he muttered, his voice breaking again.

Flack just nodded – Danny didn't need him asking if he was alright – he wasn't. That much was clear.

--

Isabella was back in the murky waters of the river. To her, it didn't matter what time she was in the water – that far down, and the river not being quite as clean as it should have been, the time of day made no difference. Her only regret was that she was working a nightshift – since moving to the city she had tried to convince herself that she wouldn't be working nights so that she could be at home with her fifteen year old son, Jake, but sadly, that didn't always fly.

Knowing that Jake would be at home, doing his homework (he wanted to be a doctor), she turned her attention back to the riverbed. The metal detector was flashing away constantly. It sickened her to be clearing so much crap from the floor – it didn't matter what the state, people would still dump anything and everything into the water systems.

The detector flashed again, and Isabella gently brushed some silt away, revealing a gun. She carefully picked it up – it was a Glock. She dropped it into her net bag and continued to check the river bed. A while, and much more trash, later, the detector picked up something else. She wasn't entirely certain, but it looked somewhat like a tracking device. It too joined the gun and the handful of other evidence she had collected.

Finally, the alarm on her breathing equipment bleeped, alerting her that the oxygen levels were getting low. She surfaced and pulled herself onto the small powerboat before heading back to the docks.

A while later, after calling home to check that Jake was up and getting ready for school (it was getting to be that time already) she was heading to the crime lab, evidence properly bagged and labeled and stored in a box.

'Excuse me,' she called to a man in a lab coat.

Hawkes turned and stared at the woman in a mixture of confusion and surprise.

'Are you okay?' Isabella asked him uncertainly.

Hawkes nodded slowly. 'You look… familiar. Have we met before?'

Isabella shook her head. 'I don't think so, unless you've been to Ft. Lauderdale?'

'Never been to Florida,' he muttered, frowning slightly. 'You just look…' he trailed off. 'How can I help you?'

'I'm here to drop off some evidence to the lead on my case. A Mac Taylor?'

'You're on the Messer Murder?' he asked in surprise.

Isabella shrugged. 'Case 107-NV-08-08-RHDR-32.'

Hawkes cocked his head. 'Impressive. I'd have had to check my notes for the case number.'

'I've just spent a few hours logging the evidence,' she told him, wryly.

Hawkes smiled. 'I'm heading to Mac's office now.'

--

After making sure that Cordelia was safely at school (and that Rikki and Ruben could look after her that evening), Taylor walked to the Crime Lab. She was exhausted – weeks of being unable to sleep, combined with nightmares when she could, on top of having spent the night listening to Louie tell her he thought it was her were taking its toll. She had also come to the conclusion that she was going to have to see Mac. Which was where she was heading.

She stepped off the elevator, her breath momentarily stopping as she spotted Hawkes in one of the labs talking to Maddy's doppelganger.

'Who is that?' Maddy demanded, appearing beside her.

'Some diver-cop,' Taylor told her wearily.

'They look a little too cozy for my liking,' Maddy growled.

'Mads, they're examining some evidence,' Taylor told her, with no energy to tell her to shut up with the stupid-going-nowhere-crush. Especially with Louie standing mournfully next to her. She rubbed at her eye before heading down the corridor to Mac's fishbowl office.

He saw her coming before she got to the door and indicated that she come in. Taylor did as requested and sat down. 'Taylor?' he questioned.

'Mac, we need to… I think I need to tell you something,' Taylor told him, her voice breaking.

'I think that would probably be a good thing,' Mac agreed.

'I'm…' she bit at her lip as she looked away out of the window, fighting with herself to not cry. 'I didn't kill him, but I think it's my fault,' she told him, only just stopping the last bit from coming out as a sob.

Mac pursed his lips together but said nothing, waiting patiently for her.

'On Halloween I was attacked. I was going to pick Cordelia up from school and someone grabbed me. He told me that they weren't finished with me – they practically warned me someone was going to die.'

Mac eyed her. 'Do you know who it was?'

Taylor shook her head. 'Not a clue. But I got the feeling he was something to do with Sassone.'

'Taylor, why didn't you say something about this?' Mac asked her.

'I did come in to say something,' she told him. 'I really did. But I met Louie and we ended up arguing about it. The last thing he said was that he was going to sort it once and for all, and I told him to go to hell,' Taylor admitted before the tears finally overwhelmed her.

Mac sighed. 'Is there anything else you need to tell me?'

'I'm being haunted by Louie,' she sniffed.

Mac sat back trying hard not to comment. 'Taylor, I want you to go home. Go home and stay at home unless I tell you otherwise.'

'But Mac-'

'Taylor, I don't care if you think you are being haunted by the ghost of Elvis. Louie was found dead in your car, and the only evidence we're finding links back to you. I don't want you walking around this crime lab.'

'Mac-'

'I mean it, Taylor.'

Taylor got to her feet. 'I didn't kill him.'

Mac nodded. 'I know. Which is why I want you to go home.'

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