EPISODE VII:

MAKE A TOAST TO THE CURIOUS FRIEND

Mac was at the airport waiting for the plane that would take him home. Next to him were Angela and her mother.

Angela continued to read the newspaper satisfied "-The court declared General Russell, Major Raven, Colonel Miller, the former soldier Simple Lorenz, the former Colonel Danver, Corporal Silver and former General Marshall guilty of the crime committed. In addition, the General Marshall was found guilty of withholding evidence and mistreatment of prisoners. The court declared the former Major Taylor, General Brown, the former Corporal Sergeant Grey and Black, innocents-"

"However, I think we should get on the plane now!" Mac smiled.

After almost an hour and a half flight, Mac, Angela and her mother landed at JFK.

Mac breathed deeply the smell of the city he had learned to call "home." The smell of iron, railway, subway, fried and coffee invaded him in a typical mixture only of New York City and it seemed him to have been away for a long time.

Recently returned to the possession of his cell phone, he received a call from the Chief of Detectives: Brigham Sinclair.

"Yes, boss?" Mac answered under the watchful eyes of the two women who sat with him in the cab

"I wanted to meet Taylor in person to give you back the gun and the distinctive and talk to you urgently!" the man croaked on the other side

"I will spend tomorrow in your office, now I feel very tired and I think I'll rest!" Mac replied telling the truth

"I read the article by Reed Garrett!" the other continued "Soon he will have to write another one about you!"

"I do not understand ..." Mac said confused

"You will tomorrow!" Sinclair laughed "At eight o'clock, punctual to the thirty-seventh floor in my office!" he laughed again "Go up two floors should not be a massive undertaking, as the case Sandovall or this process!" the Chief of Detective said ironically

"I will not fail!" Mac replied with a half-smile

"I commend to you, Taylor!” Sinclair warned him "It's a matter of the utmost urgency! By the way, I learned that last week was your birthday! So, Happy Birthday although later!" and he hung up.

Mac smiled at the women sitting next to him with inquiring eyes "He wants to talk to me!"

"He'll want to apologize for how he treated you!" Angela's mother said

"Instead of him, I'd ask you not only excuse I would give you a pay rise!" Angela said "For as he made you look at the whole department ..." the girl alluded

Mac smiled "I am arrived!" he smiled opening the door of the cab "See you in the office tomorrow!" he said to Angela "Ms. Meyers, see you soon!"

"See you soon Detective Taylor!" the woman smiled "Thank you for everything you did and I'm sorry that I was involved!"

"I just did the right thing!" he said closing the door.

The cab drove off and Mac found himself in front of the stairs that led to the entrance of the building of the house and he saw his wife at the top of the stairs

"Welcome home!" Christine smiled at him.

In the city was taking place a charity event in a villa that housed the high society of New York and single mothers who had been helped by the foundation of the same name.

Reed was at the event as a journalist and was watching a brunette girl sitting on an elegant red velvet chair of the nineteenth century, her friend next to her smiled and joked with one of the attendees at the party.

Reed stepped up to the girl "Are you okay Charlot?"

"Very well! I'd be better if you would stop acting like you were my protector!" she replied testily

"Sorry!" Reed said bowing his eyes "I see that Marnie does every effort to overcome what has happened! However, you are closing in yourself! She also told me that you do not want to come to the party! What secret are you hiding?"

Charlot turned to him remaining seated on armchair "You instead? I asked about you to your parents, they told me that you were left to rescue your stepfather! For him, you quickly found the time!"

"It's a long and complicated story, please do not make a drama!" Reed begged her

"Stop babysit me! Go back to your missed father! "Charlot said angrily.

Reed walked away and went back across the room to lean against the wall.

The son of the owner of the villa, Edward Stanford, approached her and offered her a glass of Champagne to Charlot, who gladly accepted.

Reed started to get close again, but Charlot looked at him with contempt, and, taking the bag and the glass, she walked into the bathroom.

The girl closed the door by standing in front floor bathroom and opened the small pouch that had with a shoulder strap and she pulled out a vial containing blue granules, she pulled the small cork stopper that closed and inhaled deeply the smell that came out. She brought the vial to her lips, but she withdrew it with distaste from her mouth without swallowing any of the content. She rotated the handle of the sink and threw everything into the drain, then she closed both water and the vial, placing it in the bag, she straightened her hair and forced a smile before returning to the room with the beaker in her hand and, took a huge sip, she sat back on armchair.

Reed was worried about her and gave him to understand, with a look that Charlot promptly ignored.

"Where have you been?" Marnie asked approaching her

"In the bathroom!" Charlot replied annoyed

"Tell me you have not used!" she whispered to her

"I haven’t done anything! I threw it in the sink!" Charlot replied offended

"Thank goodness! I will be more quiet now!" Marnie said with a sigh "But, Edward was gentle with you tonight! He also brought champagne to you! In my opinion, he could feel something for you!"

"What are you saying! It's just a glass of Champagne!" she said looking at the boy "If only he take an interest on me, I would know exactly why! For him I’m just a whore!"

"Come on! Stop thinking like that! Just because you're a single mother does not mean you're a whore!" Marnie smiled

Charlot stopped feeling a tightness in the chest, Marnie bother instantly and Reed, seeing her fall to the ground from a distance, took up the phone to call 911. The whole room was turning his attention to the scene.

Flack arrived on the scene with Angela and Jo "Girls, I begin to question the present to take me on! Good job! "

"As soon dropped from a plane and no time to recover they call you at work!" Angela snorted opening the purse Charlot "And as if that were not enough, who really calls 911? It is possible that everywhere we go there is him?!" she said pointing with her eyes Reed

"We can talk later about this and take care of the girl?" Jo said

Isabella made her entrance with Sheldon, who smiled at Jo and asked "What have we here?"

"Charlot Vermont, sixteen years old, she was one of the teenage mothers helped by the foundation this year!" Angela said "She drank from that glass!" she finished examining the contents of the clutch "And something tells me that the resolution of the case is already close!" she said uncorking the bottle and smelling "Almonds... in other words, cyanide!"

"It suffices to prove that it was also contained in the glass and the case can be stored as a suicide!" Flack said approaching "I spoke with her best friend and a bit of girls out here, they told me that she was carrying that vial with her from some time and that she often spoke of death!"

Reed walked over to the team "Wait! I haven’t lose her sight for a second! I can confirm that she was not going to commit suicide!"

"Reed, you've already told me this! Too bad you have lost her while she went into the bathroom with the glass and the fact that you know her for years does not prove anything! People change!" Flack objected

"Not even what Marnie said counts for anything?" Reed asked

"Even if she had threw the contents of the vial into the drain for real, it doesn’t mean that she hasn’t also put it into the glass!" Flack said to him

"We will do a check to the ladies room to see if what Marnie tells us is true!" Jo said taking the glass and pouring the contents remaining inside in a round plastic container and taking samples from the stain on the parquet.

In the lab, Jo and Danny began to analyze the contents of the vial and the contents of the glass "Both contain cyanide!"

"Yeah, but does that mean that she killed herself?" Danny asked

"Yours is a question!" Jo exclaimed "There's something that doesn’t convince you!"

"Why do you lie to your best friend on the fact that you're not going to die, if in a few minutes you're dead?" Danny asked "The answer is simple: you do not know you're gonna die!" he looked at the girl's face and the lines of the relationship left by Flack "The more I look at the photos and the more I read these papers, there is always something more that does not convince me! But I don’t understand what it is ..."

"Especially if the old cases hark back alive!" Lindsay said going into the lab "The previous owner of the foundation you know who was? Rebecca Sandovall!"

Danny snorted "I thought you and Mac you have already solved that case!"

"The case is solved Danny!" his wife exclaimed "It's just a coincidence! What really matters is the new owner: the fifty-year old Rina McLeod, widow Stanford”

Jo looked at the photo "I think Mac will be pleased to get back to work tomorrow for investigate on this woman!"

"Even on the victim's life! It seems that she was hiding several secrets!" Lindsay said noting the blankly look of Jo "Are you okay?"

"Very well, but so worth it I tell you about it!" she said sitting down on a stool "Mac could be promoted, Sinclair asked for early retirement!"

"This means that Mac will leave us!" Danny said

"It is not said yet ... but there's a big chance to happen!" Jo said.

Isabella looked at Sheldon thoughtful bent over the autopsy report "Something tells me that look is due to the promotion of Mac and not to what we just found out!"

"Yeah!" Sheldon admitted "It will do strange to never see him again here below and on the scenes with us!"

"But, they don’t have to bring him in jail! They give him a job with only a few more responsibility and some floor higher!" Isabella joked

"I know I should be happy! I'm just worried! You know that Mac is more than a boss!"

"Yes, I know it well!" Isabella nodded "But if he's really our friend, we'll let him go!" she took the autopsy report and closed it "They’re offering him a unique opportunity! It would be stupid for him to waste it!"

"When Jo told me this, I could not believe it!"

"Mac is not dying!" she said patting him on the shoulder "Go and find the difference between –death- and -promotion- in the dictionary!" and having said that she went to the floors of the lab.

"Angela, tell me you got something!" Lindsay asked entering the computer lab

"My dear, I've already given you the period in which Charlot was at the clinic of the foundation and all her school curriculum! How do you think I may have found something else?" she asked turning in her swivel chair and running a hand through his red hair

"I know you're good and you have undoubtedly something for me!" Lindsay smiled

"In fact, I found the mother! She lives in Manhattan!" Angela said giving her another piece for the dossier "I have not contacted you, given the hour!"

"You did well! As a mother I can confirm that I would be scared if I were call one o'clock at night!" Lindsay said looking at the woman's forty-year old face

"Listen to me" Angela interrupted her "Is there any truth on the fact that Mac goes away?"

"He could do it as he could not do it! We don’t know!" Lindsay replied hastily "How did you know?"

"Isabella went up with the autopsy report, and I took it instead of Jo... she has a completely different approach from me!"

"Mac has become something also for you, right?" Lindsay asked sitting down

"It is the father that I never had!"

"Then tomorrow you should remember to wish him Happy Birthday! It's a week you should do it!" Lindsay laughed

"What?! Whoa! What a fool! I am also back on the plane with him!" Angela said slamming a hand in her face.

Jaime and Flack were in a Mexican restaurant to eating

"How beautiful this anniversary, Don!" Jaime said "You've outdone yourself! How did you know that I love Mexican food?"

"Well, I went secretly on MySpace from the unused profile of Mac this afternoon!" he smiled "By the way, how I portrayed him?"

"It was you?!" she said astounded

"Let's say that there was in this Mac telling me how he was going to tell you what I told you! Christine laughed and had fun!" he admitted" But the profile is not completely unused! You own this that the discussion was open, I advised Mac to switch to Face Book!"

"I hate you!" Jaime grunted interrupting him

"I love you!" Flack responded kissing her "Even if we have to dine at unreasonable hours!"

The next morning, Mac left the house at seven, on the train he felt the gaze of some commuters aimed at him, but he did not care and went to the building of the Scientific.

He went up in the elevator and walked down the hall to the office of Sinclair. He knocked and heard the deep voice of the Chief of Detectives grant him permission to enter "Detective Taylor! I was waiting for you!" he smiled "Sit down!"

Mac sat down "Why am I here, Chief?"

"To receive my personal apology!" he said pointing at the distinctive and the gun lying on the table "And you have earned a promotion" he said sitting at the desk "Ever since you left the Marines that you are in the department, I saw you make a career in a hurry and you're in charge of Scientific since 1998!" he smiled in a moment of silence, a smile that Mac could not decipher "I'm asking you to take my place!"

Mac was impressed and shocked "I, actually ... I don’t know what to say! There are other grades between mine and yours! Why should I replace you?"

"Accept the place! You have all the skills and prerequisites that you need!" Sinclair smiled

"And the lab?" Mac asked puzzled

"It depends on you! You can do both or appoint a new chief!" Sinclair explained to him "If you had not come back in the Police time ago I would have taken your place!" he confessed him

"There was no one qualified enough to replace me?" Mac asked with an innocent tone

"No! None so qualified! See, knowledge of explosives, all kinds of man-made weapon and a degree in Biology are unique qualities! I cannot find them in a common scientist!" he remarked" Now I want to know how you get on with the ordinary paperwork!"

"Like what?" Mac asked

"Draw up a relationship!"

Mac swallowed and thought for a moment "I think I can handle it quite well!"

"As soon as I mentioned –relationship- you got nervous ... there is something that does not go, Taylor?"

"Yes!" Mac admitted "I have a problem: I suffer from aphasia. After I got shot, I realized that I did not remember the names of the most common objects! Now I have some problems in writing, but the doctor says that I will have a total recovery or nearly so in the next two months!"

"I read some article and there is no specific cure! I hope your doctor is right, but you're not a fool!" Sinclair assured him" But now I have to ask you what you plan to do: do you accept the promotion?"

"Yes!" Mac exclaimed

"You begin next week in this office!" he closed a dossier in front of him "I'm going in retirement happy: I left the place to the best!" he smiled standing up and shaking hands with Mac who still did not believe what was happening "Now I think to have understood that your team is waiting for you!" he smiled "Be sure to pick up also this criminal!"

"I'll do! Undoubtedly!" Mac smiled shaking hands with Sinclair.

Jo saw Mac advance toward his office smiling "Wow! Someone woke up well today!"

"You are looking at the future Chief of Detectives!" he said looking the woman’s hardly surprised face

"Well, congratulations! A fantastic gift Birthday!" Jo said with a smile "It means that you won’t be working with us anymore!" she added then with a sad tone

"Well the choice is up to me..." he said going into his office and looking around "The truth is that I like my job and I do not want someone replace me..." he stroked the edge of the desk "I have decided that I will organize, and I'll do both!"

Jo blinked "You mean to manage the bureaucracy to the upper floors, hearings more than other issues and at the same time investigate and managing the lab?"

Mac looked at Jo with a sincere smile "You don’t think I'm capable?"

"On the contrary!" Jo replied "But I think the fact that you're becoming a father, you'll have time for your family?"

"I won’t spend my life in the office! I will take this week to fix the bureaucracy of the laboratory and to be ready to assume all the responsibilities!”

"I take it then that you will not help me and others in a case in which Reed has been implicated as a key witness!"

Mac inspected the face of Jo "You tempt me! No soiling play with me!"

"In this way, you can also tell others about your decision!" Jo suggested

"Everyone knew about my promotion except me?" Mac asked with surprise

"Sinclair told me as soon as you got suspended. It was difficult to keep the secret until yesterday everyone!" the woman said with a sad look "Especially when General McNamara has come to seek you here in the office! Sinclair was very worried!"

"Wow! Surviving to the prison I did more than a favor!" he said rubbing his cheekbone still marked by fists

"The black eye doesn’t suit you at all, but thankfully it will soon disappear!" Jo laughed "We need to inform a woman that her daughter died last night and I think you better upgrade you on the case!" she turned to leave but then stopped on the threshold "Go to Danny and ask him to upgrade you! While I speak with the victim's mother!" Mac nodded letting out Jo from his office.

Mac watching more pictures from when he was a Marine on the walls

"Chief? Mac? Detective Taylor?" a voice suddenly brought him back to reality "Houston, New York City here. We have a problem! Detective Taylor remains immersed in his world of memories! I ask instruction, over!"

"I don’t enjoy your humor Angela!" Mac replied stopping to look at the wall

"Why do not you answer then?" she said crossing her arms

"Because I was thinking!" Mac said sitting at the desk

"Think as you move with Flack on a new crime scene! They killed a little boy in a Pub!"

"You think to the case where Reed is implicated as a witness?" Mac asked taking the jacket

"By the way in one week you don’t need to worry about these things, right? New office, new job, new life!" Angela said with a smile

"What are you talking about?" Mac asked confused "I have been promoted is true, but who told you that I leave you?"

"Usually thus happens, you leave the old job and you start a new one! You did it too when as a cop you have gone to be the supervisor of the Lab and then I deduced that time that you become..."

Mac stood up and put his hands on her shoulders “The best part of my new job, which starts next week, is that I can choose whether to promote someone in my place or continue to hold the post!" he wiped to her a tear "Guess what I have chosen!"

Angela hugged him "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you, Mac!" she saw him contorting his smile into a grimace of pain "Sorry! It is true that you have the ribs... er forget it! I'm so glad that you don’t leave! Where you'd find another like you?"

"Angela! Like a good girl, go to work!" he smiled pointing the location of the computer in the office in front of her "I'm going to Flack then? Sure you can handle the case alone?" he asked before he went out

"Yes! Go to Flack!" Angela said "If the -situation Sandovall- is created, I'll call you! Oh by the way! Happy Birthday with days of delay!"

Mac came with the kit for the investigation into the case and a pair of sunglasses on his face "Hey Flack!"

"Hey Mac!" Flack smiled seeing him arrive with glasses he added "There is not much sun! Tell me the truth, you want to be to Hawaii?"

"No, I do not want to cover a black eye!" he said looking the entrance of the place "The victim?"

"Inside!" he said nodding the building "When they called us the fact had just happened and our kidnapper scarpered!"

“Kidnapper?"

"The victim is Robert Joy, a sixteen-year old millionaire!" Flack said pulling out a photo "His parents had sent for a friend of the family to pay the ransom here!"

"Let's go?" Mac asked "I do not want to do night here!"

"Okay, you're just back in service and maybe you have to finish to recover" Flack said noting the scrutiny of Mac hidden behind the glasses "We are entering an Ice-Bar! The only one in New York, they have opened up this July!"

"An Ice-Bar? To hand over the money the hostage taker chooses an Ice-Bar?!" he exclaimed surprised "Where certain characters come out?"

"Perhaps, from the coldest of the rat holes and for once he wanted to feel at home!" Flack suggested ironic.

Lindsay smiled triumphantly “Hey Danny! I have a job for you and Jaime!"

"What do you mean? Your face does not tell me anything good!" he said crossing his arms in the computer lab

"I was able to get an appointment to the foundation! You will make them say something about their business and their mission directly from the charge of the clinic!"

"I hate hospitals! Sheldon cannot go there?" Danny snorted limp on one of the swivel chairs

"No! He cannot! The task is up to you because you have to go to Chicago to the headquarters!"

"No! You cannot do this to me!" Lindsay smiled malignant

"You go and come back the same day! Where is the problem? You do not know which hard work I did to make you get permission from the department of Chicago!"

Danny repressed anger placing his hand on the wall "One day someone will break a wall of this corridor to quell the anger that attacks him! They seem made to be punched!" he smiled "Montana is the last time that you decide what I have to do without preparing me psychologically!"

"Okay!" she replied kissing him.

Mac was taking photos teeth chattering from the cold "Hello Hawkes!" he said hearing footsteps behind him, and recognizing them "You came to give me a hand?"

"Actually, I wanted to ask if you wanted to drink a glass of vodka to keep warm!" he smiled noticing the bottle in the hand of the young man "I wonder if he has been drinking from the bottle!"

"I do not know. However, I would say to discover it!" Mac said rising to his feet "You should pull out the bullet and pass it to Angela or to Lindsay for a comparison... who I have for my case?"

"Apart from me, Angela ago by All-rounder and changes from one case to another, you've got Flack and no one else!"

"All the others are with Jo?"

"Yes, but you have no idea what the event is!" Sheldon said "I would say that if we have nothing else to do here, we put him in an envelope and we go! The cold doesn’t help us to determine the hour of death!"

"I agree! We'll see if Angela can reconstruct something of what happened to the computer!" Mac sighed looking at the cloud of steam appear before him.

Flack looked into the Mac department masked by sunglasses "That black eye is so much serious?"

"Within a couple of weeks, it should become less noticeable! News from witnesses of the ice bar?"

"Given that the kidnapper was wearing a cap and a scarf, no! But all of them confirmed that they had heard the shot around six in the morning!"

"We have the time of the murder! At this point I hope to be able to identify the kidnapper!"

Angela ran to Mac "Mac, they have shot with a revolver and I have a match! You will like to know that our owner is already known as a kidnapper and he drank from the bottle of Vodka as well as the victim!"

"Andrei Gorbachev! Russian!" he said taking the tablet "Not being an American citizen could take refuge at the embassy!"

"Yes, but I talked to Isabella and, according to what she tells me, the bullet went from Gorbachev to Joy!" she showed him the photo "Look 'as the tip is ruined!"

"The question then is: who shot him?" Mac said

"And the consequently is: why? And where is the friend of the family with the money?" Angela asked

"Found Gorbachev and found the weapon! Angela, you owe me a favor!" Lindsay said coming towards them "I found our suspect in a hospital and Danny has already taken him!"

"Thank you! Remember that tomorrow I'll drive!" Mac said coming out.

"I'm sorry I had to give this news Madam!" Jo said with Jaime sitting in the kitchen of a woman in her forties

"In the end she has given up!" the brunette woman said wiping her eyes

"Mrs. Vermont, we know that you have had your daughter when you were very young! We know that you never said who the father was!"

"What do you want to tell Detective?" the woman asked wiping her eyes "I rejected the legacy of Stanford on purpose to not make the whole family an enemy for me!"

"Are you telling us that you had Charlot from the millionaire Robert Stanford?" Jaime asked "Do you know that now Rina Stanford is in charge of the association who ran her husband with Rebecca Sandovall?"

"Yes, I know! Charlot, however, had already run away from home and went to Chicago when I heard!" she wiped the tears again "We had a fight for the child and so she is gone! When she returned, her friend and she have gone to live together and I thought everything was going well again!"

"Charlot has never agreed to see you, she did? We spoke with Marnie and she told us of having given you all the information about Charlot!" Jo said "I think your daughter hasn’t committed suicide and I promise I'll find out the truth!"

Jaime looked at Jo to take the car keys once they arrived outside the palace "What do you mean to do?"

"Simple check the bank account Charlot! Her mother says she refused the inheritance, but if Charlot had not done it? If she had accepted the money as compensation of Stanford?"

"A good motive to see her dead!" Jaime concluded "But not to get back the money!"

"If I were a millionaire, I just want revenge!" Jo said with a smile "They think so!"

"Detective Taylor, I've already said it all! I'll end up in prison for kidnapping! The man is out of nowhere, did not leave the backpack with money and after having taken the gun aimed to the boy!" Gorbachev said sitting in front of Mac and Flack in interrogation room

"How long are you in America?" Flack asked

"Twenty-five years Detective!"

"And you still not speak our language well?" he said stunned

"Prison with Spanish does not help!" he laughed

"Do you remember a particular man who has come nigh unto you?" Mac asked

"Yes, he was not wearing the right glove and there was a cobra drawn on his hand!"

"A tattoo?" Mac asked

"It might be! Yes!" Andrei Gorbachev said "I had made friends with boy and offered to stage the kidnapping! He must not get hurt! I needed that money! Robert wanted to offer me work, but his father kicked me and so..."

"So you have worked out a plan and he has promised to cover you for a million dollars!" he nodded to Flack

"You pass me a pencil and a sheet?" he asked then

Mac passed the objects and observed the emergence of a complex and elaborate snake entwined "This was the tattoo?" he asked pointing

"Yes! Is tattoo of the man who shot him!"

"For personal curiosity, what work you had to do for the young Joy?" Flack asked

"A murals in the garage! He would have paid $ 500,000.00 for the job!"

Mac summoned two agents who took Gorbachev in custody

"A thirty-five and a sixteen year old friends ... who would have thought?" Flack smiled "I am a bit sorry that he runs back inside!”

"He gave us a precise description of the tattoo! Get the Joys call!"

"As I thought! The accounts are not in order!" Jo said to Angela "I want here the notary who was in charge of the will! Now!"

"Okay, boss!" Angela said to her as she watched her leave

"Hey Mac!" Jo smiled flanking him in the hallway

"How's your case Jo?"

"Not bad, and yours?"

"I will soon have the murderess, but the motive is missing!" he snorted entering office

"I have the motive, not the murderess, but I have three sets of fingerprints on the glass!" she looked at her watch "Where is Christine?"

"She told me that today she was working all day!"

"We could go to her to surprise her! Let the guys find evidence and interrogate the persons involved in the case!"

Mac smiled "Let's go!"

Christine was cleaning the desk "Damn bad day!" she snorted

"Come on Chris! Do not despair! Someone will come!" her head chef said

"I hope so!" and in that moment Mac and Jo entered the local "Somebody up there has it in for me!"

"Something tells me that you are not happy to see your husband and his colleague paused for dinner!" Mac said coming over and kissing her

"It's not that! I have not had a customer for the whole evening!" she smiled sadly

"Have you already eaten?" Jo asked her

"No and I'm exhausted!" she said tossing the rag to one of the waiters "And if we ate in three?"

"Good idea treasure!" Mac said kissing her "Where do we sit?"

"Where do you want! Meanwhile, I'm going to get to eat! What do you want?"

"Something that is ready because we have two cases to solve and limited time!" Jo said

"Go sit down Chris, I'll take it!" the head chef stopped her

"Thank you, Stephane!" she said sitting down between Jo and Mac "Which one of you got the worst?"

"I believe him!" Jo said while the spaghetti of the house were served the same dish also appeared in front of Mac

"And for you Chris..." he said placing his front a covered dish "Voilà! Steamed vegetables without salt and grilled chicken steak well cooked!"

"You're kidding, right?" she said a bit disgusted by her dinner "I rather don’t eat!"

"Can you tell me, how does Mac stand you? Since you are pregnant you become more capricious! Don’t make the baby girl and eat!"

"Stephane, at least a bit of salt!" she tried to persuade him

"I stored the standard diet of a pregnant woman and today you've already broken the rules twice with chocolate! I preferred you when you were in the kitchen to gorge you with blueberries! Those, yes, they are healthy!" he said entering the kitchen

"Why, instead of laughing like an idiot, don’t you help me, Mac?" his wife asked

"Because he's right!" Mac said taking the phone and read the message aloud "Hey Mac! I questioned again the parents of Robert Joy and they gave us the name of Elijah Sun as porter! Go to..." he snorted and looked at Jo "I have to go! I leave you the car!" he turned to his wife who still had not touched anything in the plate in front of herself "Come on Christine! Eat something! Jo, make sure she finishes everything!" he said rising and kissing Christine on the forehead "See you at home!"

Mac left the restaurant and walked on foot to the address that he had received from Flack and saw Messrs. Joys walking towards him, not knowing him, they did not suspect anything

"But you must tell me the truth Ben! You know why Rob is dead right?" Mrs. Joy asked

"He picked the wrong friend!" the man in the suit said offhandedly "You wanted also send him to a rehabilitation center!"

"Because he smoked marijuana and I did not want him ruin his life!" she objected "You do not like the Russian who he had introduced to you! Admit it!"

"Yes, I hate him! It's his fault if our son is no longer here! I sent Elijah to teach him a lesson the other night!"

Mac hid in an alley and activated recording with his cell phone and was able to steal the key phrase of the mother of Robert "And you considers that sending your stepson to bring the money was a good idea? Who does not tell me that it was he who pulled the trigger?"

"He told me he did not do anything! He was unarmed! He is not even entered in the Ice-Bar! I knew that it was all a ploy of our son to steal my money to give to the Russian and that's why I do not have alerted the police!" Mr. Joy shouted

"If I find out that my son is dead because of your illegitimate son, you can also say goodbye to me!" the woman yelled in anger at her husband and preceded him along the way.

Mac closed the registration, he sent it to Flack and forwarded to Angela as evidence.

At the address that Flack had left, Mac found a police cruiser parked and went to the window: empty. He approached the entrance of the building by pulling out the gun "Without bulletproof vest don’t dare you to go up!" Flack hissed to him in the darkness

"Why you are not occurred yet?" Mac asked seeing lengthen the vest by his friend

"I waited for reinforcements, but the Central told me that will arrive in twenty minutes!" he said noting Mac leave the jacket in a dark corner

"If we wait, we risk that he will be alarmed and trys to escape!" Mac said charging the gun "I won’t let out the main suspect in the murder!"

"I could not listen to the audio note you sent me!"

"If you had done it, you would understand what I mean!" he said heading for the staircase "Internal C third floor?"

"That's right! I got your back!" Flack said following him

"Elijah Sun! NYPD! Open the door!" Mac thundered knocking

They didn’t heard noises inside the apartment and Flack throw down the door entering the dark room “Don’t you feel a weird smell?"

"Flack!" Mac shouted in alarm "Flack get out now! We have to evacuate the building! This smell is gas!"

"What the...!" Flack said bumping something grabbed his foot "Bastard leave me!" he shouted pointing his gun at

"Shoot me and we all go up in the air!" the concealed young man's voice said from the darkness.

The door closed behind Mac violently thanks to a string tied to the handle that broke away and the young man threw it out the open window "No one can get out of here!" the young man laughed "I know you're here to arrest me because I killed Robert Joy! My dear lucky brother!" he laughed bitterly again "But I won’t end in jail! This will be my and your grave!" Mac tried to open the door with a lever "I knew that you would have tried it! I organized all right! The door can be opened only from the outside! It is now locked and opening it, everyone who comes to your rescue, will trigger a mechanism that I placed in the lock that will ignite the light!"

Mac heard the police cars approaching and walked to the window, pushing aside a curtain slightly "Flack, prepare yourself!"

"Do what?" he asked not understanding.

Mac came running to the suspect giving him a hard kick in the stomach and making him faint "Let’s lift him!"

They came up with the body of the suspect to the window "This is not the main road! Go to the door and stop them before they break through it!" Mac ordered

"Don’t smashed the door! We have the suspect! Call the firemen there is a gas leak! Evacuate the building and let us go out from the window!" Flack screamed at the cops “What a night!" he said to Mac who held off the ground the body of the young suspect.

The city of New York, who never goes to sleep, had resumed the activities of the morning. Mac was awake and out of the house for at least two hours. He looked absently the time and papers on his desk

"Mac!" Lindsay called him knocking on the open door "Have you got a car?"

Without looking up from the last paper he showed her the keys "Five minutes and we go! I have to finish these bureaucracy things!"

Lindsay came over and took a look at the sheets, she noticed that Mac was standing and could not continue "If you have to put them in alphabetical order after the –Q- is the –R-!" she said pointing out one of the sheets

Mac winced "Right, thank you!"

"You forgot it?" Lindsay asked

"It's just that sometimes I do not remember how to write letters and it's embarrassing!" Mac admitted putting a hand to his forehead

"Do not worry! Danny told me this! I checked and I know that I can get out!" she said leaning him hands on his shoulders "But now we have to go!"

"Yes! We need to pick up Christine!" Mac said getting up by leaving the last document in his hand, tossing it without grace on the desk chock full of sheets similar

"I heard about your discussion with Christine for what happened tonight too and I'm sorry! I'm sure Danny won’t do absolutely nothing today!"

Danny and Jaime had arrived at the gate of the clinic and a couple of pregnant girls, just saw them cross the threshold, began to smile at newcomers “Whoa! Did you see how cute he is!"

"Looks a lot like my ex-boyfriend!" another answered

"Fly low girls! That guy has a wedding ring!"

Danny looked down with Jaime at his side "Are you embarrassed Danny?"

"It's not that I'm embarrassed! I've never had so many girls that made me the court all together! Generally, at the high school were two or three at a time!" he commented entering the lobby "Seek the primary! I want to go back to New York in a hurry!" Danny confided to her

Jaime approached the girl from the lines Hispanics who took care of the reception "Excuse me, we had an appointment with the primary for this hour We come from the Police Department of New York!" she said gently

"Dr. Dale awaits you at the top of the stairs!" she said pointing to the white staircase in the early twentieth century style

"Thanks!" the two said in unison.

At the top of the stairs was waiting for them a small and petite woman with two small and dark eyes and blacks long hair in a braid "I'm Dr. Gwendolyn Dale, chief of the hospital. You are?" she said turning a look austere to the two

"Detectives Messer and Lovato from New York !" Danny began "We'd like to know something about the clinic and on one of your last guests!"

"I'm not authorized to give any information on older patients !" she replied hastily

"The girl is dead! They killed her ! We are close to take the murderess! Why Mrs. Stanford takes care of this place despite being found that did not care?" Jaime said

"She does not care how things are going here ! Indeed she is waiting for us to fail to detect the structure and make it a luxury spa, just as the research center!" she said making them a sign to follow her "My office is behind here! After the hallway and the rooms of the girls!"

Danny looked at the rooms in which they slept shivering girls "I have to assume you do not like hospitals!" Dr. Dale addressed him

"Not much!" he said passing the last room

"What about children who are born here?" Jaime asked

"Mothers lose any rights over them and are given up for adoption!" she said going into an office closed by a white door with a handle of gold "Come in! On the table there is the registry of all the girls who have been here and you can check it!" she said sitting at the desk.

Danny checked and saw among the last names that of Charlot "We could take it as evidence? I assure you that as soon as the murderess be brought to justice you will get back! "

"All right, Detective!"

"What can you tell us exactly about Charlot Vermont? Did you know her?" Danny asked

"I learned to know every girl who came here to give birth and Charlot was definitely a sweet girl though very scared! She had made friends with some Marnie Parker! They have given birth on the same day!"

" Can you tell us what do you know Charlot’s son?" Jaime asked

"Unfortunately, he died shortly after birth!"

Danny nodded and Jaime became somber "I understand!"

"Now I would like to begin my work, unless you have more questions ..." she said hastily taking papers

"Thank you for the availability!" Danny said

"Good-bye!" Jaime said going out with Danny.

Jo, with the help of Danny, Jaime and Flack, had gathered Reed, Marnie, Edward Stanford and his mother in the hall of the villa where the murder had consumed

"Today we will recreate the whole thing, take the position that you had at the time of the event!"

Reed was positioned in the back of the room, Edward stood in front of the table, Marnie sat down on the bench next to the armchair in which Jo was sitting and Mrs. Stanford positioned herself behind the table holding the glasses.

"Well! I noticed right from the start, that Edward is left-handed. That evening he was holding two glasses of Champagne, would you kindly offering me one?" Jo asked

The boy went on his way carrying two cups and offering one in his right hand to Jo "What do you want to show with this, Detective?"

"I want to prove that you were completely oblivious to offer death to Charlot! Since you gave me to drink with your right hand!"

Edward cocked an eyebrow "I don’t understand! I offered glasses of champagne all night!"

"On the glass there were three sets of fingerprints. Excluding your own and the victim ones, remain those of your mother!" Danny explained

"Think well!" Flack interjected "Your mother told you something before handing the glass?"

"This skit is ridiculous," Mrs. Stanford yelled "Everyone knows that Charlot has committed suicide!"

"Edward! Please, think about it!" Jaime invited him

"Now that make me think, my mother said to me -Charlot has not taken it yet!-"

Marnie and Reed looked at the woman with a look of anger

"Traitor! You know very well that she is the daughter of your father and who took part of your money!"

"And you? There sat the need to kill her for it?" Edward yelled "I wanted to try to see her as a sister, but you didn’t want! You said that she was different!" he moved with a quick step towards her "You made offer the cup to me to frame me!"

"I would say that it is enough!" Flack said taking custody of the woman "I hope you that have taken the lives of that poor girl makes you regret every day that you will spend in jail and for the rest of my life!"

Jo nodded and stood up from the armchair.

Mac looked at Christine lying next to him "Are you still angry?"

"Yes!"

"Because you can’t work anymore until after the birth of the child or…”

Christine turned to face him "I do not know whether to be proud, because you're my husband and a hero, or if I have to ask for a divorce because every time you leave the house you could come back dead!"

"Next time I will pay more attention!" Mac said hugging her

"I've heard this phrase before!"

"Then you already know that it is true!" Mac told her "I will not risk my life on purpose! Let's go in the living room! Danny and Lindsay will wonder what happened to us!"

"I had promised to cook with Lindsay to thank her for coming with us to the gynecologist today!"

That night Jo went by the mother Charlot

"Thank you Detective!" she sighed wiping her tears "Tell me, do you have children?"

"Yes, two!"

"And your husband what kind he is?"

"My husband and I got divorced in 2006. Maybe today I found someone who could become a perfect companion!"

"If you will have other children from this mate and it had to be a girl, might she be called Charlot?"

Jo smiled "I promise you that!"