This fic is a celebration of my third year around this amazing site. I think I can proudly say that I've made progress. My first fic was so jumbled in characterization and grammar and this fic is… well…a little less jumbled ;)
GHOST
A DB was found in a garbage truck. Female, Asian, mid twenty, with two stab wounds to the chest.
There was nothing unusual about the DB. At least not for seasonal crime scene investigators like Catherine Willows and Sara Sidle that happened to handle the case.
Nevertheless, processing a truck worth of garbage and the truck itself had both women spent almost half of their shift dwelling in the stink, so to speak.
Catherine, trying to unstuck a boot from a plastic bucket, wondered about what she had done in her previous life, so bad that her karma was to check every single sordid item from the pile of trash.
Sara, her gloved hand bearing unidentified decaying mass, had commented on the importance of a rookie CSI in such a grimy time.
The comment inevitably triggered a question from the night-shift supervisor. A question that Sara knew most of Las Vegas crime lab inhabitants would love to know the answer.
Sara answered that she still found long-distance marriage bearable although the jet-lag was not.
Catherine didn't push; her attention was drawn to a diaper that had some strange stain despite other stain that most diaper should had.
The blonde commented on the possibility of blood stain.
The brunette grabbed a luminol spray and swiftly proofed that it was really blood on the diaper.
From there they found three more diapers with blood stain and hit a jackpot when Sara located a knife, seven inches blade with more blood stain and a promising fingerprint.
Then, it was time for the usual routine of crime solving. Again, usual from their point of view. Sara checked the fingerprint on the system while Catherine went to the morgue with the previously bagged knife.
It was an easy case. They nailed the suspect at the first try. The man had no liable alibi and called the two investigators every name under the sun as Vartan and the uni dragged him out of the interrogation room.
Had it been on TV, they wouldn't have made half an episode.
But it wasn't TV. When both Sara and Catherine reached the parking lot the sun was already posing in the middle of sky.
Both of them huffed.
Both of them had different reasons.
Catherine huffed for another day passed without real conversation with her daughter, a daughter that would soon leave the house for college
Sara huffed after reading a text message from her travel agent; usual information about the unavailability of plane ticket for this weekend.
Usual, if it wasn't an intercontinental ticket to meet her husband.
To their surprise, Catherine offered to go to a bar.
And to their surprise once more, Sara accepted the offer and creatively opted to go to a Karaoke.
Catherine agreed and spoke of the value of Greg for such a hangout place. She texted Greg and told Sara to do the same with Nick.
Before both women realized it, they were escorted by a giddy ex lab-tech and a pretending-to-be-reluctant Texan to room 333 at one of many Karaoke pits in Sin City.
Greg hit the first line of 'Leaving On A Jet Plane' lyric, dedicating it to Sara, as Catherine made an order for four bottle of Corona.
Nick doubled the order and Catherine nodded in understanding, knowing that the man had spent his latest shift to process a decomposing ten-years-old.
Sara spoke of her willingness to be the responsible adult behind the wheel and punched Greg's square on the shoulder when the man not so discreetly wiggled his eyebrows and mouthed the word Preggo.
The beers came as Greg bellowed the chorus. Nick and Catherine each grabbed one bottle in no time as Sara stood and excused herself to the restroom.
This time Greg yelled the word Pregger to the glittery microphone and got himself a deadly glare and a dangerously flying cushion.
Sara was about to lower her pants in one of the restroom cubicles when she heard someone scream.
She easily shrugged it off. People screamed all the time in a Karaoke, right?
Then came another scream, louder then the first one.
Her investigator instinct kicked in Sara hastily tidied herself before dashed out of the restroom.
Following another scream she reached the corridor and right in front of room 333 she gasped.
There on the illuminated floor, in a pool of blood, was a blonde.
A gaping wound on her neck covered only by few strands of long hair. Her lifeless body was so in contrast with all the decorations and the muffled music and laughter from afar.
Sara kneeled and reached out, her heart drummed her chest and her thought went wild.
Catherine…
TBC
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Update will arrive soon and your comments are appreciated. Thank you.