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

What More Is There?

'She must have been exceptionally quiet the entire time.'

'Must've heard it all, too,' Danny said, with a shake of his head. 'Begs the question though, why'd the family feel the need to build the little girl a hidey hole?'

Mac scraped his teeth over his bottom lip and nodded. 'It's worth looking into. Delve a little deeper into their family background.'

'Yeah. So, what about you? Find anything new?'

'Sometimes it's about what you don't find. There's no sign of a struggle.' Mac focused his eyes back to the blood stains. 'Not one.'

'Why would they not put up a fight, Mac? Doesn't make sense.'

'It does if they knew their killer.'

Danny slowly nodded. 'Just like the Rellis case.'

Mac prided himself on restricting any conclusions until all the evidence was gathered and processed. He hoped this case would be no different. As a CSI he was trained to treat each case differently. But this one was painfully different. An entire family had been slain in their own home and a terminally ill child had been left to die alone.

*

Olivia and Flack had since left Gracie's room and were now making their way back out of the hospital to the parking lot. After gathering as much information as she could, Olivia had also taken a swab of Gracie's DNA ready for processing. She hadn't said a word since leaving the little girl. In fact, Flack thought she looked even more tense than before they'd gone in. He could see the questions racing through her head, almost hear her thoughts. She was thinking about Gracie and the scumbag that had killed her family.

'How you doin'?' he asked.

Olivia blinked and gave him a look that made him think she'd forgotten he was even there. 'Oh, I'm fine. Just...the hidey hole thing.'

'Yeah.'

'She was in there over three hours. She must've been so quiet and so afraid,' she said, ending the sentence on a deep sigh.

Flack understood how connected she felt to Gracie. It was never easy when there were children involved in any case. This one was made all the more sensitive because Gracie was alone and she was sick. It had been patently obvious in that hospital room that Olivia was more involved than any cop or CSI was supposed to be. Which was why, Flack supposed, Mac had asked him to look out for her. During the entire visit though, Olivia had been nothing short of professional. Some people were naturally comfortable around children, while others felt awkward not knowing how to handle them or the situation. Not Olivia. She knew exactly how to talk to the little girl on her level, to get her to gently open up about what she had or hadn't heard, and all without being scrutinizing or aggressive. For some reason it reminded Flack about the box of photographs in her apartment and the smiles on the younger childrens faces. Kids had great instinct when it came to grown-ups, and little Gracie liked and trusted Olivia, that much had been obvious.

'How about we grab a coffee?' he offered, breaking into the silence. 'I think we both need to wind down a little, what d'you say?'

Olivia understood where he was coming from, and gave him an appreciative smile. 'I can't. Mac needs me back at the Lab. There's still so much evidence to work through.'

'Right. Yeah, of course. I understand.'

'Nice thought though, thanks.'

'Anytime,' Flack said, as they made their way towards his Denali. Anytime was something people said, along with 'rain check' which was always a good one to wheedle your way out of something you weren't keen on doing. But he meant it. 'Anytime' was not to be taken lightly, if she called him up at two AM and took him up on his offer of coffee that would be more than all right with him.

If Flack had ever given it more than a passing thought he would've said that he absolutely expected to fall in love at some indeterminate point in the future. But he hadn't really given it much thought, just assumed that by the time he hit his mid-thirties he'd be ready to settle down with the right girl and slip into a grown-up world of mortgages, PTA conferences and Christmases with the in-laws. That is, if the right girl ever came along. He'd never thought or worried about whether or not she would. Just assumed it would happen. Eventually.

What he hadn't expected was that it would be with a woman who, in many respects, was exactly like him. Or that it would become an all consuming, mind altering, life changing experience. No gentle fall, instead he'd found himself engulfed in a fire that had consumed all that he'd been before. The old Flack was gone. One night stands had never really been his thing, instead he'd fallen into a pattern of casual relationships that varied in length, but that all ended when the woman involved realised no real commitment was forthcoming. None of those women had made an impact on him. He had left them behind as easily as he'd discovered them.

Then along came Olivia.

Commitment-shy, workaholic, closed-off, untrusting. Unpredictable, challenging, enthralling, captivating. She'd gotten under his skin, crawled inside his head and burrowed deep into his heart. He wasn't going to take that lightly. In the brief time they'd been together she'd given him everything he hadn't realised he even needed. Just because it was over for her didn't mean it was for him. In the weeks they'd been apart he found instead of falling out of love, he was only falling deeper. It was crazy, he knew he was holding onto something that was gone, but as long as he kept holding on there was a chance.

He'd let her leave that night in his apartment, but he couldn't let go.

Not completely.

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Copyright © 2006 [Debra Jay] All Rights Reserved