Devil Out of Texas, by ReverendKilljoy
Embassy Suites Hotel, Houston, Texas
"Was there anything else you needed, sir?" The woman's voice was lilting, musical, more West Indies than West Texas.
"Just the room, and no calls, please." Nick wanted to close his eyes, wanted to sit cradling his head in a dark room and shut out the world. Instead, hefted his duffle bag and followed the penciled map to his room on the third floor of the downtown hotel.
He opened his door with the keycard, and dropped his bag on the bed nearest the door. Without turning on the light, he went to the window and looked out over the parking lot, the sun just battling through the haze and the tangle of buildings to cast long shadows among the rental cars.
He flipped open his phone and redialed the number from memory.
"Yeah, this is Nick. I'm here. I've been over and over this, and I'm going to do it. Hell no I'm not sure, but I'm going to do it anyway. Yeah, see you at the hospital. Okay. Bye."
He sat on the bed, letting his phone drop from numb fingers onto the coarse, waxy fibers of the bedspread. He knew from his years as a CSI what a typical hotel room looked like, under an ALS, or with a good spray of Luminol. He didn't care.
Sitting up, he reached around to the small of his back, and removed his weapon. He checked the safety. Checked the chamber. Slid it back into his holster and hefted it in his hands. He looked at the nightstand, and at his bag. Finally he shrugged, and settled the firearm back into place.
The shower could wait. He had one more call to make.
"Judge Stokes' office please. No, I just want his voice mail. Thank you." He waited until he heard the familiar voice, his father's assistant Earl.
"Hey, Dad. It's Nick. I'm in Texas, and I didn't want you to hear about it and bug me for not calling. I'm, uh, I'm in Houston." He scratched his fingers through his wavy dark brown hair. What to say? What to leave out?
"Anyway, I won't be in town for long, but I'll call you when I get a chance. Love to mom. Bye."
He watched the shadows shorten in the parking lot, broad grey streaks of pavement between the disorderly rows of salesmen's cars and business rentals, and even a patch of pink Mary Kay Cosmetics Cadillacs, like roses amid the white and tan and silver Fords. After an hour, he went downstairs to meet his ride to the hospital.
- - -
In a car. Houston, Texas
Sitting in the back of the Lincoln Town Car, Nick watched idly as the chaos that was Houston slid by his window. The charming lack of effective zoning laws made Houston one of the biggest cities in the U.S., but also put Kinkos' next to libraries and pawnshops next to hospitals. He saw the dun-colored brick wall of Rice University on his left, and he knew they would be at Ben Taub Hospital shortly.
The live oak trees sent impossibly weathered limbs over the walls surrounding the Rice campus. He exerted a little discipline and didn't think about his time there, about listening to the Mob play at Owls' games, about the smartest kids in the southwest playing Frisbee golf on the grounds while debating chemical sterilization for sex offenders as a means of preventing recidivism. About working harder than he had ever had to work before, and being proud of the solid B average that had shocked his parents so much.
He didn't think about nights at House of Pies, ignoring the outrageously gay waiter hitting on him, while he made small talk with a cute pre-law student named… He couldn't think of her name. Alex something? Lisa? A nice girl, anyway, with strawberry kisses and a serious devotion to the second amendment.
They pulled up to the hospital, and the door was opened for him.
He waved away the bright memories of his college days like fireflies on a summer evening. He went into the hospital and took the elevator up to Oncology. He didn't think about college, or about work, or the girls he'd known and the parties he'd skipped to study. He thought about why he was here, and what it meant that he was doing what he had been asked to do.
He wished he'd had somewhere safe to leave his gun. Too late for that now.
- - -
A private room, Houston, Texas
The man had a tan face, but not very tan. Blond hair, but not very blond. Tall, but you get the picture. He was generic. He was central casting, when someone says, "Hey, send us a guy." He held a long document with numerous "sign here" and "initial here" flags on it. He held a very nice pen out to Nick, a pen that might be used to sign a trade pact, or a declaration of war. It was heavy and cool in Nick's hand.
"Okay, Nick, I need you to sign this last page. It details the agreement we worked out with you and your attorney, and with Justice Mendoza."
"I know what it says," Nick said, signing the paper. His signature was a little lopsided from the tug of the IV in his arm, but he figured it would do. "Now if you'll get out, I have this thing to do now."
"I just wanted to say, Officer Stokes," the man said formally, but Nick cut him off.
"My name is Nick. Now get out." He laid his head down and let the IV bag drip its contents into the line running into the back of his right hand. The door closed, and he was alone, letting the medication drip. Gravity worked its sweet will, and soon his eyes were drooping. His mouth felt prickly and he wanted to ask for a drink, having forgotten he could not have one.
"What am I doing here?" he whispered hoarsely, slipping into unconsciousness.
- - -
Another room, Houston, Texas
The needle slid into Nick's skin, behind the swell of his hipbone known as the iliac crest. It punctured the outer skin, the inner flesh, and muscle, to the bone. The woman maneuvering the needle, which was very long and intimidating, felt the tip strike bone deep inside Nick's body. Shortly, she operated the valve and a deep red fluid, viscous and dark, began to fill the attached container.
After a moment, the flow lessened. She withdrew the needle part way, and changed the angle before driving it home again. Once more, the almost black fluid was drawn into the container. Three times she repeated the procedure, then she withdrew the needle. She chose a spot a few inches closer to his hip, and slid the needle down again into his body.
The trauma to the deep tissues and the broken blood vessels under the flesh caused some swelling and spectacular bruising at the site of the procedure. Before they rolled him to start on his other hip, the first was already darkening with hematomas under the skin.
- - -
Crime lab, Las Vegas, Nevada
"And he didn't say anything to you or to Grissom?" Warrick Brown leaned over the door of the coupe they had been processing, shaking his head. "No idea when he'd be back or what was going on?"
"No," said Catherine Willows. "Give it up, Brown. If I had anything I could tell you I would."
"So you do have things you can't tell me," Warrick nodded to himself.
"Give it up, Brown," she repeated tiredly. She went back to dusting the roofline around the A-pillar.
- - -
Private room, Houston, Texas
"Sir, can you hear me?"
Nick tried to lick his lips, but his tongue seemed to be stuck to the teeth on one side of his mouth. His eyes, likewise, were stuck shut with kindergarten paste at the eyelashes, and someone had apparently beaten him all over his body with a piece of steel rebar wrapped in rough twine.
"Sir, I need you to let me know if you can hear me?"
A damp cloth slid across his eyes, and he was able to see stark slits of brightness, two crescents of daylight that danced and wavered before stabilizing into a thin slice of ceiling overhead. He saw a woman, a nurse, maybe, leaning over him with a frown.
"Yes," he said at last, his voice a gentle, whispering mockery. "Water?"
"In just a moment. These folks need to say something to you, sir, and then we'll see about getting you something to drink, okay sir?"
He tried to turn his head to follow her exit, but he was unable to move more than a few degrees before the effort was too much. A face swam into focus above him, a dark brown face, with lined brown eyes, almost black, above a sweeping frown like an angel weeping. His voice, when he spoke, was warm and soft and sad all at once, and as deliberate as if he had not a care in the world.
"Nick Stokes, you are under arrest." The old cop's eyes traveled to where a handcuff surrounded Nick's right wrist, the other cuff looped around the railing of his bed.
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights as I have explained them to you?"
Nick raised his head slightly, as if to speak. Eyes watering and tongue working dryly in his mouth, he gave up. He closed his eyes and nodded once, twice, slowly.
"Okay, Stokes, let's see about getting you some water." The man stood back, and the nurse was there again, slipping a meager straw full of tepid water up to Nick's lips.
"Here you go, baby. Once we get your mouth squared away, we'll see about getting you some Tylenol for pain, honey."
- - -
Locker Room, Las Vegas, Nevada
Judy, the administrative assistant, stood with a bewildered look on her face as her boss, Conrad Ecklie, watched Gilbert Grissom emptying a locker. Ecklie would call out items, and she would log them on her clipboard as Grissom sealed them into bags and placed them into a carton.
"T-shirt, blue." Ecklie sounded bored, and maybe he was bored. Everyone else was still shocked and upset and confused, but Ecklie was ready to move on.
"Running shoes, one pair, white," Ecklie said and Grissom removed the shoes from the bottom of the locker. "Maybe he should have been wearing those on his little vacation."
Grissom made a little noise at the back of his throat, an involuntary sound before he clamped his teeth together and went back to bagging the shoes. As he tipped the left shoe into the bag, he said, "Just a moment."
Reaching carefully inside with gloved fingers, he tipped out a small bar of Ivory soap, still wrapped in its paper. He held it up for Ecklie and Judy to see.
"One bar of soap," Ecklie said with a lopsided sneer. "Guess he better not drop that, huh?"
Grissom stood, looking up into the taller man's eyes for a moment. Grissom's face was an expressionless mask.
"Judy," he said softly, "will you please excuse Conrad and I for a moment?" His eyes never left Ecklie as she moved to go, and even as Grissom slid the bar of soap into the bag, he continued to stare down Ecklie.
"Listen, Gil, I know this guy was a friend of yours, and I know how you feel about your team, but Stokes was a bad guy." He shook his head ruefully as though explaining something to a young child. "For Christ's sake, you don't get sealed Grand Jury indictments and conspiracy charges without a smoking gun, Gil!"
Grissom looked at him. "We haven't seen any evidence. We don't know what's going on, and have been ordered not to ask." Grissom blinked slowly. "No one's talking. But if you ever so much as imply that Nick Stokes is anything but a good CSI and a valuable friend to this department, you will be very, very sorry."
Ecklie puffed up a little, a bantam cock strutting, and looked sidelong at Grissom.
"Are you threatening me, Gil? Has it come to that?"
"No, Conrad. A threat would be, 'Everyone knows you suffer from chronic asthma, and that you wear contacts because your glasses look bad on TV. A little strychnine in your inhaler and you'd appear to be the victim of a massive asthma attack, except for the characteristic constriction of the pupils. A little tincture of belladonna in the contact lens solution will counteract that, and given your medical history, no one would even look for anything. I'd be amazed if they even bothered with a tox screen. And of course if they did, well I guess it would come here, where you have no end of helpful friends…' That would be a threat Conrad."
"You- you'd never dare, Grissom. I'm not afraid of you." His tone belied his words, and his high forehead glistened with sweat in the cool locker-room.
"Of course not. I'm not a criminal mastermind plotting the death of my boss. Let me call Judy back in, Conrad." Grissom's voice had never risen from its soft deliberate tone.
As he reached the door, he turned and took something from his pocket.
"Here, Conrad," Grissom said, tossing Ecklie a small white bottle. "Your contact solution. I'd recommend not leaving that lying around."
Grissom left to find Judy, and Ecklie watched him go, and then looked at the bottle in his hand. He could have sworn that his contact solution was on the shelf over his desk. He looked into the mirror on Stokes' locker door, and was turning his head from side to side examining his pupils when Judy and Grissom returned.
"Are you okay sir?" Judy asked, getting out her clipboard again.
"Fine, fine." Ecklie tried to resume his slightly bored posture from earlier, but it was a brittle façade. He looked down and almost jumped when he realized he still had the white bottle of contact lens solution in his hand. He dropped it into the trash, and turned to see Grissom watching him with a Cheshire grin.
"Let's get this over with," Ecklie blustered. "I have work to do."