A/N: A big thank to my beta, Madison Bellows.

Chapter 12: Boom, connection

A note in Jess's handwriting was waiting for Flack on his desk:

Hey, Detective!

The lab rats are back with tons of evidence. They're analyzing it and then there will be another briefing. Mac decided to organize some rest breaks in the meantime. You have the first one. I'll see you in the lab in a couples of hours, unless of course we'll solve the case sooner... ;P

Sleep tight,

Jess

Flack definitely had to agree with his sister, he was so exhausted he didn't even have the strength to retort to Jess's half joke. Even his muscles were hurting from lack of sleep. First he took a hot shower, enjoying the water cascading against his tense back and shoulders. Then he stretched on one of the cots of the precinct's quiet breakroom. He was asleep in less than a second.

"Hey, Sleepyhead."

He turned, clenching the sheets around his body.

"Wake up."

He mumbled something incomprehensible.

"Detective Flack, it's officially requested you wake up. That is an order!"

"I'm up!" He sprang on the mattress, only to find Jess chuckling at him.

"That method always works!"

"Really amusing," he said, rubbing his eyes and stretching. "My break is over?"

"Yeah, it's my turn. Out off the bed, please."

He looked around, "Angell, there are five more free cots in here!"

"Yours is still warm."

He stood up, yawning. "If we were just coworkers you wouldn't try to force me to give you my bed!"

"If we were just coworkers I wouldn't agree to sleep with you at night," she shot back, winking at him.

"Point taken. So, having ascertained we're not just coworkers..." he bent slightly toward her form, already under the covers, and kissed the tip of her nose. "Sleep well." She smiled up at him as he left.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty!" Danny quipped with his patented smirk as he walked into the lab. Flack didn't say anything, he just raised an eyebrow. "Have you ever been in a good mood when you first woke up? Poor, poor Jess."

"Can we just discuss the case?"

"We analyzed the crime scenes and found some common elements: the murder weapon was a caliber .50 Desert Eagle in both case, the COD is the same and the fact that both victims were killed on the first anniversary of their beloved deaths."

"Anything in common with the victims?" Flack asked.

"Aside from them both dying? The paper with the weird question. They didn't know each other, they didn't live close to each other, their paths didn't even cross."

"Why were the bodies moved?"

"Still a mystery," Danny replied.

"Okay, traces, prints, a signed confession from the murderer?"

Danny smirked, "no. Bullets trace back to a weapon that apparently doesn't exist. We have checked all registered owners and they had an alibi. A solid alibi."

"All of them?"

"More or less and their guns haven't recently shot."

"That excludes the guns, not the owners."

"Would you like to read all their alibis?" Danny asked with a scowl.

"Thanks," Flack replied as Danny handed him a sheath of printouts.

"I didn't know having a weapon was so in!"

"It makes you feel cooler, huh?"

Flack didn't comment, engrossed in reading the list.

"It'd take you a lot of time if you start talking to everyone who owns a gun."

"I've got help... the suspect probably isn't on this list, though."

"Pardon?"

"Well, if I have to kill someone, I'd use a gun coming from the black market. And I don't think I'd like to be listed as a gun owner."

"What's this if I have to kill someone crap? I don't like you talking this way."

"C'mon, Mess, I was just thinking like the killer."

Danny snorted, "do me a favor, stop watching Criminal Minds."

"Danny, please..."

Adam chose that same exact moment to enter the room. "Ross! My favorite lab tech!"

"Your sister's too."

Flack glared at Danny who seemed not to notice it. Adam, instead, blushed furiously and looked at his shoes. Embarrassment was thick in the air.

After a couple of minutes a rather annoyed Flack broke the silence, "Adam, you here for a reason?"

"Y-Yes, Flack. I have the SIM printouts," he said, givingthe detective the list of calls. Flack rapidly scanned it.

"What's this number they both called so often?"

Danny stepped closer to take a look, "It looks like a toll free number."

"It is, it's a help hot line. You know, the numbers you call when you're depressed."

"Boom!"

"We know where this is?"

"Yes." Adam handed the detective the address.

"Manhattan, huh?" Flack glanced at Messer, who was smiling. "Coming with me?"

"Let's go. Adam, tell Mac we have a link between the victims!" Danny was practically bouncing around with this seeming break in the case.

"Someone must have drunk too much coffee," commented Flack.

"Someone else must have not," was Danny's simple reply.

The car drive was quiet till Flack's cell started ringing. He looked at the number and sighed, "Flack."

"Oh, Detective, finally!"

"Everything okay, Debra?" Still talking to the woman, Don mouthed baker in Danny's direction. The other laughed.

"Your sister Samantha called."

"That's all right. I've asked her to."

"Yes, but we have a problem with the wedding cake. Maybe your sister didn't understand your instructions..."

"Problem?" Flack sighed deep in his chest. Danny's laughter grew.

"Yes, problem. Miss Samantha told me you'd like to have Berries Passion but, you know, that's not possible."

"What does that mean? You don't bake it anymore?"

"No, that's not the matter, it's just, it's not a wedding cake!"

"Explain, please."

"You know, traditionally, wedding cakes must be made of soft sponge-cake, covered in white icing and with different levels. And the cake you chose..." Flack didn't say anything, trying to remain collected. "Detective, you're still there?"

"Yes, but really I can't see the problem."

"I can't bake the Berries Passion! It's hard shortcrust pastry, filled of berries, with no white icing!"

"Listen, I know the law pretty well and I can assure you you won't commit a crime if you'll bake it."

"But it's not a wedding cake!"

"Okay. Fact is my fiancee and I are in love with that cake. We'd like to eat one every day if possible. It's the first cake we ate together and we want it at our wedding. I promise you that if one of our guests will have some problems with it they won't get angry at you, okay?"

There was only a tense silence on the other side of the line. Danny was laughing so hard he was almost crying. "Debra?"

"It'd be difficult to cut it. It won't be very scenic in the photographs."

"But it'll be very scenic in our stomachs. Debra, that cake is fabulous, believe me. No wedding cake could ever beat it."

The woman sighed, defeated, "Okay, but I won't do this again. And you won't tell anyone," she admonished as she hung up.

Flack stared at the phone, "she hung up on me! And you, stop laughing, this is not funny!" Though he couldn't help but smile himself.

"Coming straight from Mission: Impossible."

"You and Lindsay did the right thing by eloping. I can't believe that the woman I'm paying hundreds of dollars to bake the cake doesn't want to bake it. She made me promise I won't tell anyone that at our wedding there won't be the classic wedding cake."

"Do we need to sign a security agreement?"

"I won't be surprised. Great, now I have a headache," Flack said as he kneaded his temples.

"Well ignore it, because we just got where we are going."

In front of them, the glass building stood still, as if awaiting their arrival.