CSI:New York : Who Are You? (Don Flack/OFC fanfic)

The House No Longer A Home

The first thing Olivia noticed when she pulled up outside the attractive two-story in the exclusive Morningside Heights was the ambulance and the two patrol cars, all three with their lights flashing silently.

She jammed on the SUV's handbrake and climbed out. The night air was crisp with a hint of frost, Christmas was only five weeks away and as Olivia took her kit from the trunk of the car and moved towards the house, she shivered against the cold. Before she even stepped up onto the driveway she felt the uneasiness creeping in. She had no idea what was waiting for her, Mac wasn't able to give her any details when the call had come in; just told her to get down there and he would join her as soon as he could. He had been attending to another call in the Upper East Side. Hawkes was on his way too apparently. Whatever waited, Olivia knew it wouldn't be good. The ambulance gave it away every time. Usually a sign of urgency, of hope; but from what she could gather, the hope of any survivors was slim. The back doors of the rig were left open, as the paramedics had rushed to grab the necessary equipment to get to the victims.

Now, however, the medics were on their way back out and heading for the ambulance. Empty-handed. Olivia held back a sigh and caught sight of Flack standing by the front door talking to a uniformed police officer who was guarding it, but when he saw Olivia come up the drive he immediately walked over to greet her.

'Hey,' he said, his breath coming out in little puffs of air. 'Cold night.'

'Freezing,' she agreed, as he walked back up the drive with her. 'So what do we have?'

'It isn't pretty.'

'It never is.'

'Three dead. Eli Sheridan, his wife Anna and their teenage son, Jeremy.'

Olivia nodded, eyes straight ahead, face showing no expression. Even so, the uneasy feeling was settling in again. 'Who called it in?'

'One of the father's co-workers came over to the house around nine pm to drop off some paperwork. Said they knew he was coming so he got suspicious when no one answered the door.'

'Any other witnesses?'

'Not a one. No one saw or heard anything unusual. I did, however, speak with a couple of the neighbors and they all said the same thing, the Sheridan's were a close family. Decent, law-abiding people.'

Olivia only nodded. It was always the decent, close families.

'So far the only ones in and out have been the first officer on the scene and the EMTs,' Flack went on. 'Said they hugged the walls all the way upstairs.'

They arrived at the front door and Olivia took out her flashlight and clicked it on. 'You haven't been in?' she asked him.

'Heard it was bad, plus I figured there's already been three people trampling all over the place. If there's evidence lost, I'm not the one you're coming after,' Flack said, offering a slight smile.

She offered him one back before stepping inside the relative darkness of the home.

'Mac's on his way. I'll hang around here and brief him,' Flack said. She nodded and he watched her as she scanned the hallway, the beam of her flashlight landing on the staircase.

He knew things were never going to be the same between them, but at least they had come to a new understanding. He hadn't seen much of her since that night at his place and wondered if she was avoiding him. But then he'd been working the graveyard shift while she'd been on days. He didn't think it odd that he was still up-to-date with her schedule. What he did find odd was that even though this was the second case they'd worked together in the two weeks since that night and he was catching fleeting glimpses of her in and around the lab, he still missed her like crazy.