Danny sighed as he watched Mrs. Lee guide Grace into the apartment complex. Grace was still staring at him in disbelief that he would even think of leaving her at a friend's house, but he couldn't begin to tell her why he was doing it.
How could his daughter possibly handle the fact that he'd just been assigned to track down the people who had just tried to kill her Uncle Chin? After the information dump she'd experienced earlier in the day, she'd probably go into a catatonic state or something. He couldn't bear to put her through the torture of knowing that yet another of her favorite people was at risk of death.
He almost didn't answer when his cell phone rang, but Grace disappeared into the complex's lobby and he suddenly welcomed the distraction. "Williams."
"Hey, Danny, it's Catherine." Her voice sounded pinched, probably the result of stress. "I've just applied for leave, and I'm working on getting it approved on the quick. My CO's good about that sort of thing, but sometimes stuff comes up and then none of us are able to do anything about it and it all takes even longer than its supposed to and with my luck I'll probably get handed orders instead of leave and then I don't even know what I'll do because you'll be hung out to dry and I'm doing my-"
"Catherine!" She stopped mid-sentence. "Just do what you can and let me know what happens. Kono and I will be just fine without you for now, so just take a few moments and try some deep breathing exercises or something. Seriously, it's okay."
"How can you say it's okay?! Chin could be dying, and two people working that case is NOT enough!"
"You won't even be officially on the case, so don't start with that. Call me back when you hear something concrete." With that, he hung up and put his face in his hands.
She was right. Two people working the case wouldn't be enough, but three wouldn't be much better. Five-0 was a team of four, and it didn't work right when there were more or less than that.
Then again, it didn't work right when it didn't consist of him, Kono, Chin Ho, and Steve.
After some deep breathing of his own, he made for the warehouse. Traffic was lighter than usual, but he so dreaded approaching the crime scene that it felt as if he got there in five minutes. A small crowd and the usual gaggle of reporters surrounded a barrier of yellow tape that kept the warehouse and the surrounding area entirely off limits, and Summer Thompson turned just in time to see Danny get out of his car. Her red hair seemed to inflate in excitement as she rushed over. "Mr. Williams, what a surprise! Have you come to join the vigil for information on the lead investigator of your daughter's attempted kidnapping? How about an interview on your feelings?"
He rolled his eyes and flashed his badge. "That's Detective Williams, thank you very much, and I'm not at liberty to discuss anything about this case. No comment."
"Detective?!" Thompson's cry drew the attention of the rest of the bystanders, and suddenly Danny's progress toward the tape was impeded by eager reporters clamoring for an interview. When Ken Suichi's microphone actually hit him in the eye, Danny finally snapped.
"For the last time, I have NO COMMENT! If you continue this harassment I'll have the lot of you thrown into lock up for obstruction of justice and disturbance of peace, so I suggest you all back off and go back to your newsrooms, because we'll be calling your stations if and when we decide to release any information on this case!" Batting Suichi's microphone away, Danny shouldered his way through the mass of journalists and ducked under the tape. An unfamiliar ME was closing the doors on an Autopsy van under the watchful eye of Duke Lukela, whose face seemed more aged than ever. "Hey man, you doing alright?"
"I was hoping the rumors about Five-0 were true," Duke said solemnly, "because this is a case that needs special attention. HPD doesn't have enough power to do Chin Ho justice."
"Yeah, I get what you mean," Danny said quietly. He felt overwhelmed just watching the ME's van drive away from the alley. That could have been Chin in that van. He could be the one covered by a sheet, on his way to be sliced open on a cold table.
The worst part was that Chin could still end up on that same table, and nothing Danny could possibly do would prevent that from happening.
"Could you walk me through what happened here? I assume Kono's already been here to take evidence to Fong, right?"
"Yes, she left about thirty minutes ago with some of the evidence from the alley. CSI is still going over the warehouse. We believe that Chin was following a trail of footprints when he came into the alley," Duke started, gesturing to a series of bloody smudges from an open warehouse door. "When we found him, he was on his stomach facing east and didn't appear to have been moved."
"So the dead guy was indeed our shooter," Danny said, looking over his shoulder at a large pool of blood. "So who shot our shooter?"
"That's up to you to find out," Duke responded. "I'd check out the 911 call if I were you."
"Yeah. It's on my list, right after taking a look in this warehouse." Danny moved towards the door, but Duke put out a hand to stop him. "Whoa, what's wrong?"
"I haven't been inside yet, but the way Kono kept looking over here and the fact that our techs keep coming out looking green…it has to be bad. Just thought I should warn you."
Danny nodded and tried to quell his nerves as he went into the door. He had already seen the North Korean compound, and he couldn't imagine a warehouse in Honolulu being worse than that.
The first room had several pools of blood and an empty closet. A quick glance told Danny that someone had been beaten in the room before being put in the closet for whatever reason, and the trail of footprints from the alley seemed to have come from the closet. Maybe one of the shooters was responsible for the carnage in here, or maybe one of them had been the victim of the beatings.
He followed the sounds of techs to the main warehouse. Several men and women were scouring the abandoned building, dusting anything left behind for prints and testing any stains for blood. One of them stood in a second doorway, holding his camera so tightly that he seemed to think it might run away from him. Danny went to his side. "Any news?"
"Not really. We haven't found any prints, and the lab will have to tell you about any DNA they get from all of…this…" The tech stood aside and tilted his head towards the room. Danny stepped closer and recognized the stench of bodily fluids and blood immediately. This was the room the governor had told him about. "Once I'm done documenting this scene, I'll dust the room properly. We haven't touched any of the…devices."
The room threatened to overwhelm Danny. The chain and manacles, the cattle prod, even the scuff marks in the blood underneath the chain took him back to North Korea. Wo Fat was involved, no doubt about it. He turned away before he lost his cool entirely. "Okay, just make sure you get it to Charlie Fong as soon as you can. We need to figure this out before they have time to set up another one of these places."
"You bet." The tech went back to taking photos of different sections of the room and Danny hurried away. The air of the alley had seemed to reek of blood earlier, but it smelled incredibly fresh when he made it outside. Compared to that torture room, anything would smell fresh.
His phone rang as he made for the yellow tape, and he stopped out of earshot of the reporters. "Williams."
"Danny, do we still have the old office?"
"Yeah, why?"
"You need to meet me there. Now." Kono's voice was blunt and guarded at the same time, not giving away anything but urgency. "How far away are you?"
"Maybe twenty minutes with traffic, I don't know. What's wrong?"
"Make it fifteen." With that, Kono disconnected. Danny stared at his phone for a few seconds afterwards, not quite believing the ferocity she had developed for the last statement.
If he hadn't known better, he'd think she had been taking courtesy lessons from Steve.
A/N: Sorry this is so late, my friends! I got bogged down in real life, and then my muse apparently stayed in California for an extra week when I flew home. The good news is that I'll have three chapters out this week, counting this one.
Mahalo once again to Forest Rose for her help with editing. Khgirl08, out!