EvaFlack001 - No, it's not been abandoned! My muse and I fell out, and then work got in the way! Lindsay is staying. I like Lindsay!! And you hang onto that hat! lol - I have the work thing planned out - I'm off on my vacation in two weeks (and you have no idea how happy and excited I am about that one!!)

Madison Bellows - Kendall has barely been in the show, which is a shame, although I've realised I see her as a female version of Greg (:s). I can have a break soon (:D)

princessg - lol, I'm currently in a sappy mood, which will probably show in about four chapters time! I like Cory better when she's nice so she's not going to stay like this for long! I think I'm in denial over the finale - it hasn't sunk in that there won't be any more episodes until september

demolished-soul - i sat and thought about that for a while. I would have sent Flack, but he was kinda stuck, and the others just didn't feel right.

sparkyCSI - I have no idea where my head's been recently, but I enjoyed writing that. I think I needed something lighthearted. You're right - and I loved the addition!

meadow567 - sorry - I hope I haven't kept you waiting too long!

Aphina - you're talking to the queen of busy! lol (I know I have to play catch up again!) Tay is definately at breaking point, I think I'm too mean!

Forest Angel - Thank you for that! I have certainly felt lost for the next couple of chapters, but I think it's coming back to me. It's just finding the time now

Big thanks to sparky for giving me some confidence and a pep talk, as well as being a fab beta!

What The Eyes Can't See

Chapter 185: With all I've lost, my heart it's breaking

Adam was bopping around, his iPod plugged in and music playing loudly in his ears. It was the best way to work – life needed a soundtrack, and work most certainly did. His task was one suited for the computer geek he was: checking to see if the locations Louie's tracker had given him happened to cross with any traffic cameras in the area. Thus far, he was drawing a blank.

And then he spotted the car on a camera on the Manhattan entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge. His fingers flew over the keyboard as he extracted four relevant stills and threw each one of them up onto one of the various plasma screens dotted around the room.

Pulling his ear phones out, he set to paging Stella.

It didn't take long for the detective to arrive.

'What have you got, Adam?'

Adam whirled around, jumping at the sound of Stella's voice. 'I, uh,' he faltered at seeing the FBI agent behind her staring curiously at the images on the wall.

'What have you got, Adam?' Stella asked her, this time in a softer tone.

Adam swallowed, sent Cory one last look, and then focused on Stella. 'I cross referenced the last locations of Louie on his tracking device with the traffic cameras in the city. I found one on the entryway to Williamsburg Bridge – there's four decent pictures,' he told her, indicating to the screens.

'Well, that's Louie,' Cory mused aloud.

Stella walked over to one of them and frowned. 'Is this it?' she asked Adam.

'That's the best I can do,' Adam told her regretfully, even though the image was quite clear.

Stella cocked her head. 'So the last images we have of Louie, so far, are these, and the person driving Taylor's car happens to be obscured by the sun visor.'

'At night time? Someone didn't want their face to be seen,' Cory stated dryly.

--

Mac slammed down the phone with a grunt. He'd just been telling Sinclair that a Federal Agent was not needed, nor appreciated, in his lab. He looked up at the sound of a hesitant knocking on his door. 'Detective Angell,' he greeted, waving her in.

'Mac, I've got a DB.'

'I think that someone else should take that, Jess. I'm up to my ears in this thing with Louie.'

Angell shook her head softly. 'Mac, I think you need to come to this crime scene.'

Mac stared at her. 'I'll send Danny. I think he needs distracting.'

Angell shook her head again. 'No, I think you need to come to this one. Not Danny.'

Mac frowned. 'Alright.'

--

'I bought a fish tank,' Taylor muttered, causing Flack to look down.

'What?'

'It's in the living room. And it's big. It might have been a better idea to have waited until it was decorated.'

Flack smiled. 'And what kind of fish are in it?'

'None,' Taylor responded as though he had asked a daft question.

'Then why have you bought a fish tank?' Flack asked.

Taylor shrugged. 'For fish.'

'Which you haven't bought,' Flack stated.

'I wanted Cordelia to choose them,' Taylor admitted. 'I was acclimatizing the tank. And then they found the car. And Louie.' Her eyes began to water.

Flack shut his eyes as he wrapped both arms around her. 'Tay, I know you've not been sleeping for a while, but have you had any sleep recently?'

Taylor shook her head.

'Look, get some sleep. We're not going anywhere until this lift is fixed. I'm not going anywhere.'

Taylor looked up at him. 'Promise?' she asked him, her voice sounding more like that of a lost child.

'Promise,' he told her firmly.

--

Mac looked down at the body in front of him, a grim look on his face.

'Sonny Sassone?' Hawkes asked, rhetorically. 'Where does this leave us?'

Angell, who was doing an excellent job of ignoring all the hooting and leers from the surrounding cells, sighed. 'His cellmate confessed and I'm willing to stake it's a pretty open and shut case, but I figured that you should know.'

Mac turned to the two detectives. 'Sheldon, I want you to process this cell. I'm sure Angell is right, but I want it going over with a fine tooth comb. Angell, I want his cell mate in interrogation.'

Angell nodded. 'He's already waiting for you.'

--

Stella looked over at the picture Adam had enlarged. 'She's not wearing her engagement ring,' she realized.

Cory looked where Stella was pointing and shrugged. 'Taking a ring off isn't exactly the hardest thing to do.'

Adam cocked his head. 'Um, she looks to short.'

Stella's eyes widened. 'Can we work out how tall the person in the car is?'

Adam nodded, flying into his chair. 'Give me a minute,' he told her as his fingers flew over the keyboard, dragging up various pictures, including several from magazines. 'The person in the car is approximately five feet, six inches.'

'There you go,' Stella smiled in relief. 'Taylor is four inches taller than that.'

Cory inhaled sharply. 'I still want to talk to her. I'm going to see how that elevator's coming along.'

--

Flack looked up at Maddy who was standing in the opposite corner of the elevator. 'Okay, you're gonna have to go through me, because I am not about to wake her up and have her upset all over again.'

Maddy mouthed something at him with a shrug and disappeared. She reappeared a while later, this time with Louie.

Flack felt his stomach roll as he stared at Louie and half of his missing head, and he found himself pulling Taylor closer to him as he realized just what she had been coping with for the past year and a half. 'She sees this?'

Maddy nodded. 'Yup.'

Flack stared at her in amazement. 'I can hear you.'

'In full surround sound,' Maddy informed him with a half attempt to grin.

'And what does that mean?' Flack asked cautiously.

'I thought it was her,' Louie informed him.

Flack looked over at him and frowned. 'Oh.'

'But as soon as I got in the car, I realized it wasn't.'

Flack's frown evolved into a look of confusion. 'You're a little vocal, aren't you?'

'This is a onetime deal,' Maddy explained. 'The big guys are a little worried about her.'

'I think there might be a good reason for that,' Flack snapped at her.

Maddy's hands shot up in front of her. 'Hey, don't shoot the messenger. It won't do much good – I'm already dead.'

'Ah, so this is going to be accompanied by inappropriate jokes?' Flack asked her.

Maddy shrugged. 'Can't help it. Death killed my sense of humor.'

Flack rolled his eyes.

'So, how about we let me move on?' Louie asked them.

Flack looked back over to him. 'This is too weird.'

'You're telling me that?' Louie asked. 'I'm the one that's dead and missing half my head.'

'Okay, so how does this work?' Flack asked Maddy.

'Well, he can't tell you who did or why.'

'So basically, I get snarky comments and that's about it?' Flack muttered. 'Alright, so I'm gonna ask questions and you answer what you can?'

Louie nodded and settled down opposite.

'Oh, and we're not going to wake Taylor up in the process, agreed?'

Both Maddy and Louie nodded.

'Okay, so, Louie, what's the deal with the engagement ring.'

'No comment.'

'You need a lawyer?' Flack asked dryly.

'He's got me,' Maddy grinned.

'Of all the dead lawyers you get Maddy instead of Johnnie Cochran? Sucks to be you.'

Maddy glared at him, hands on her hips. 'Not funny.'

Flack shook his head. 'Never mind. Alright, when did you die?'

'November first.'

'And how did you end up in the car?''

Louie looked at Maddy, who looked over at Flack. 'My client isn't gonna answer that.'

'You know what?' Flack asked, 'How about you tell me everything you can?'

Louie again looked at Maddy, who this time, nodded.

'I went to see Sassone. And as I was getting out of the prison, waiting for the taxi, Taylor's car pulled up and I got in.'

'That's helpful,' Flack muttered. 'Do you know who killed you?'

'Yeah.'

Flack shook his head. 'I mean, before you were killed. Have you and your killer crossed paths before?'

Louie again glanced at Maddy who nodded. 'Yes,' he told Flack.

'Okay, is the killer someone you met inside?'

Louie glanced at Maddy, who again nodded. 'No.'

'Is this killer someone from your past? The Tanglewood days?'

Maddy frowned. 'Are we playing twenty questions?'

'If it gets me answers, I'd play Monopoly,' Flack shrugged.

'Well, he's not answering that,' Maddy shrugged.

Flack nodded. 'Alright, I'm going to check in with Stell, and then we're going to finish this conversation off.' He waited until the two ghosts had disappeared and maneuvered to pull out his phone, calling Stella. She answered instantly.

Quickly, he filled her in. 'He said he was killed on the first,' he finished. 'And Taylor has an alibi for that because we were looking after Cordelia and Ruben.'

'Adam pulled some pictures of Louie in Taylor's car. It looks like he was with someone who looks like her.'

Flack glanced down at the woman who was frowning in her sleep. 'I think this might have something to do with Tanglewood, but Louie was being evasive.'

'Louie?'

Flack frowned. 'I kinda told Maddy I was dealing with it. Taylor's not taking it so well.'

'Oh,' Stella responded, slightly surprised. 'We worked out what he was saying about the engagement ring,' she explained. 'She wasn't wearing it in the pictures.'

'But the argument would be she could have easily taken it off.'

Stella nodded, then realizing he couldn't see her, 'Yeah, which is why we went on to work out the height of the driver.'

Flack sighed. 'Look, I know Mac won't like it, but I think maybe we should get Danny on this – get him to look at photographs of Tanglewood and see if he can shed some light.'

'I think that might not be so bad an idea,' Stella agreed.

--

Isabella sighed inwardly as she surveyed the murky waters in front of her. She was supposed to be helping on the Messer Murder but both Raymond and Phee had been called out to two other incidents and that left her.

Reports had come in of a body spotted around the shipping yard, but by the time the harbor patrol had arrived there was nothing – she was doing an underwater sweep whilst they took the above water approach. Finally, the water swirled the dirt away, revealing what was clearly a body. Sadly, Isabella pulled out her underwater camera and took a few pictures before pulling the body loose.

--

'I don't believe we've had the pleasure,' Sid greeted the damp detective.

Isabella smiled and offered her hand. 'I'm not long transferred from Ft. Lauderdale,' she explained.

'And you're with harbor patrol?'

Isabella nodded. 'I am indeed.'

'I once dated a woman who was a diver. She had this amazing ability with her tongue-'

'Sid, that's over-sharing,' Hawkes called as he wheeled a body in through the door.

Sid looked at him, over the top of his glasses and pursed his lips. 'So this is the infamous Sassone?'

Hawkes nodded. 'Yup. Looks like he bled out; sharpened toothbrush to the jugular.'

Involuntarily, Isabella rubbed at her throat. 'Nice,' she sighed.

'Well, he's going to have to wait, I'm afraid. Miss Mendes here has beaten you to it,' he told him.

'I don't think Mac will,' Hawkes trailed off as Sid pulled back the sheet covering Isabella's dead body. 'That looks like…'

Sid looked down and frowned. 'I guess it does.'

Thanks for sticking with me on this one, guys! I'm getting back, I promise!