"Detective Taylor…do you mind telling me what you and Detective Flack were doing at the bar tonight?"

Mac looked at the man sitting across from him with fire blazing in his blue eyes. The man had introduced himself as Detective George Hanks. That was the only part Mac had really paid attention to besides the facts he stated.

First degree murder. Premeditated murder. Two shots to the head, execution style.

He was not guilty of anything like that.

"I mind, if you don't have a problem with that," Mac said. Honestly he was just trying to be a pain in the ass at the moment because he was so pissed that it couldn't have mattered to him at that moment.

"I actually do, so I need you to tell me, Taylor," Detective Hanks persisted.

Mac leaned forward and rested his hands on the table, the cuffs around his wrists making a clank as he did so. "If going out with a friend and having a few drinks after a long week at work has suddenly been made a crime, enlighten me, Detective," he said.

"You off-duty tomorrow, Detective Taylor?" Hanks asked.

"As a matter of fact I am, Detective Hanks," Mac replied with the same tone Hanks had used.

There was a moment of silence in the room and the tension was so think that you probably could've cut it with a knife.

"Do you know this girl?" Hanks finally asked, laying a picture in front of Mac. It was a picture of the victim in the case.

Mac held Hanks's gaze for a moment longer before he looked down at the girl in the photo. She was young, mid-twenties by the looks of it, with dark green eyes and black hair that was in a ponytail in that specific photograph. Mac looked back up at Hanks. "No, I don't. I've never seen her before," he said.

"Her name is Emily Mariez. She's our murder victim. I want the truth, Taylor," Hanks said.

"I didn't kill her! And neither did Don!" Mac snapped, glaring at the detective across from him. He sat back in his chair as he watched the detective look him over. Mac knew he was trying to read him, trying to see if he was telling the truth.

"You'll find me hard to read, Detective Hanks," Mac said, his gaze falling to study the girl in the photograph as he calmed himself down. "But I promise you, I don't know this girl. I've never seen her before and I damn well didn't kill her," he said with a nod to the photograph.

Hanks sighed. "Part of me wants to believe you, Detective Taylor. The other part of me is telling me something in your story isn't right. Fingerprints and DNA are something that doesn't really lie, Detective Taylor."

Mac looked at him, sighing. "Then I don't know what to tell you. I've told you my story. I wasn't at your crime scene that night. I was at the lab that night, working on a case. I'm not sure what you want to hear from me," he said, shrugging and staring over at Hanks.

Hanks sighed, Mac losing count of how many times the younger looking detective had sighed during this first round of interrogation. "This is only a two-chance game, Taylor. If you don't tell me what really happened, then I can't help you."

"I told you what I know," Mac said, keeping his voice icily calm and starting to wonder if he'd ever be to convince this detective he was telling the story as he knew it. "I don't know who killed her, why they did, and I don't know how you found any evidence suggesting me or Don is your killer. I just know that neither me or Detective Flack was there."

"What's your relationship with Detective Flack, anyways?"

Finally, a question Mac could answer without struggling to find the right words. "He's been on my team for over ten years. We're friends."

"How far would you go?"

That question caught Mac a little off guard. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, how far would you go for him?" Hanks questioned.

"If you're asking if I'd kill an innocent woman for him, then the answer is no. I know as a fact neither of us knows you're victim, Detective Hanks," Mac said, once again feeling slightly annoyed to be asking such questions. He'd had his job on the line before because of something like this, and he hadn't been guilty then either. Dobson had jumped, despite common belief. This kind of questioning just didn't appeal to Mac as something he'd like to be put through twice.

Hanks finally gave up with him. "I'll be talking with you again, Taylor," he said before he nodded to an officer.

Mac just frowned slightly, and stood without protest, letting the officer lead him out. Protesting with something like that really wouldn't help his case.

CSI: NY

"How was it?" Don asked as Mac sat down beside him on the floor, not feeling up to taking a seat on the bench.

"Drove me nuts," Mac replied with a sigh.

Don shook his head. "How the hell did we get in to something like this?"

Mac looked over at him. "I have no idea, Don. No idea."

"Do you know the vic?" Don asked him.

Mac shook his head and frowned a little. "No, I've never seen her before. You?"

Don shook his head. "Me neither. Haven't seen her anywhere. Except here, of course."

Mac nodded. "Same."

CSI: NY

"I need some answers now! Do any of you know the phone call I just received?"

That was Sinclair. Stella and Danny almost cringed, but looked up at him standing before them with confusion on his face.

One of the lab techs looked up for a moment before her gaze instantly fell back to whatever she had been studying under the microscope.

"I'm afraid we don't," Danny said finally. "What's the problem, Chief?"

"I just got a call that said Taylor and Flack have been placed under arrest," Sinclair stated.

"What?" Stella exclaimed, nearly dropping the sample in her hands in shock.

"Arrest? For what?" Danny asked, staring in alarm at Sinclair.

"Murder," Sinclair said, seeming a bit doubtful. He knew him and Taylor hadn't always seen eye-to-eye, but he knew he was a damn good detective. "In the first degree."