This would be simple.
No, Grissom amended. They were never simple, but this case seemed remarkably straight forward. Only out of duress had he bothered to take this assignment; Nick and Catherine had teamed up with a DB out in the desert – when wasn't there one? Sara and Warrick had been called to the scene of an accidental shooting, sans shooter. Which led him to the first question he had when looking at the assignment.
Why would a convenience store robbery need CSI?
The crime committed had been amazingly simple. No DB, the thief's face on camera, and plenty of fingerprints. Gil's mental query hung tangibly in the air, though unheard by police in uniforms and street clothes swarming about the quaint convenience store. In a note of irony, he realized that the locale was a familiar one; he drove past it every evening on his way to the lab. From the quaint four gas pumps to the flickering lights in the awning, it felt… cozy. Run down, yet well maintained. Someone definitely loved their work.
"What do you have for me, Jim?" Grissom asked as the detective in question lumbered over. Raking a curious eye over the man, one brow lofted inquisitively. "You're limping."
"The owner," Brass muttered, jerking his thumb in the direction of the store's entrance. "She's a real spitfire, that's for sure. Kicked me in the shin when I turned to talk to the on-scene officer." Gil could only shake his head slightly; wonders would never cease. "Anyhow, she was the only one present in the store when the robbery occurred. Insisted that we call in a CSI."
"Did she, now?"
"Uh huh. Claimed that if we didn't get out of her 'crime scene', everyone was a suspect." Grissom's brows shot up at that statement. Was it another case of someone watching too much prime-time television? He shuddered to even contemplate the thought.
"…told you to get out of my store!"
"Charming," Brass commented, shifting from foot to foot in an effort to favor the bruised shin he was surely sporting by now. But Grissom barely even heard him, instead fixing the storefront with a curious and thoughtful expression. The last time he had heard those words…
"It's not my fault you don't have a sense of humor!" The woman went so far as to point and laugh at the kidney-shaped dish hanging off of his shoulder. While placing a bucket full of water on a cracked door was one of the oldest tricks in the book, filling a specimen dish with thousands of tiny, damp circular pieces of paper was not. They were sticking everywhere!
"Nor is it my burden that you cannot understand my propensity for high-brow wit." He had managed a straight face for all of five-seconds, before ruining it with a smirk. "This is not fair. Where's that dust buster?"
"You mean the one we took apart last week?"
"Oh. Right." Scowling in good nature at the woman, he proceeded to shake loose as many of the dots of paper as possible. What had put her in such a good mood? Rachel, fellow geek and partner in crime, had been out of sorts the last week. But early that evening she had walked into work whistling a merry tune, eventually applying bawdy lyrics to a song that sounded out-dated by several centuries. "Maybe we can borrow the one out of the lab…"
"Without a requisition form and a three-week waiting period? As if, buster!" The dark-haired woman grinned at her play-on-words, while he could only groan.
"That's it. You're not allowed to—" Grissom was cut short as his pager went off. In a scramble of flurrying paper, he managed to grab the infernal beeping item and mute it. Only to hear it go off again. But this time it wasn't him.
Quickly scanning the scrolling screen, he could feel his jaw slowly descend. One DB, two injured, location was a privately owned store. The name he knew well, and Grissom could only hope that Rachel's page wasn't the same. Judging by the way she darted out of the room and ran down the hall full-tilt…
Gil ran after her.
"Alex! Oh God, where is he!" Grissom stared in shock as the always cool and collected Rachel began shouting, jumping out of the SUV before he had even rolled to a halt. She was calling attention to herself quickly; the boys in blue looked… somber. "Alex!" The woman may have been petite, but there was definitely muscle hiding beneath her skin as she shouldered an officer aside and yanked open the store's door.
"Alex! No!" Rachel was suddenly shrieking at everyone around her; fighting against those that held her back. "Get the hell out of my store!" Ashen-faces from co-workers quickly gained life, a few people actually shuffling toward the exit as she whirled about face, staring him down.
"I told you to get out of my store!"
But that had been a lifetime ago. Rachel had taken a leave of bereavement, never to return to the lab in the few years that Grissom had remained on the west coast. It was as if she had disappeared. And now, to hear those words uttered again, all these years later, brought a chilly mantle to settle on his shoulders. Synchronicity, he told himself. Or tried to tell himself.
"Hey. You all right?" Blinking a bit, Gil shoved the memory aside as Jim peered at him worriedly. "You were a million miles away. Are you getting enough sleep?" Snorting at the detective's temerity to ask such a question, even if they were friends – after a fashion – he only shook his head.
"Get—out!"
"Well, she has spirit, I'll give her that. But before any more of the boys end up limping for the rest of the week…?" Brass motioned with an extended hand toward the scene of the crime, nudging Grissom in that direction. He was nearly tempted to hang back and see how things played out; it wasn't often an opportunity presented himself to see an innocent – or so he hoped – person rail against the police for being too close. Not like this, anyhow.
"Ma'am, please, CSI will be here any minute." The voice was young, likely another new recruit stuck doing midnight duty. One that thought he could change the world with just a few arrests, righting a few wrongs. God, when had he become such a cynic?
"Fine! Then you won't mind leaving until they show up."
Creeping across the threshold of the store, Grissom took a good look about. A display rack had been overturned near the doorway, fresh tracks in a smattering of crushed brownies. To the right was a glass bottle, the label named it some sort of soda, a sticky blue mess with streaks of red left behind. From the spatter on the glass, and where he could see on the floor and door frame, it was likely blood.
On the counter, beside a group of police officers and one upset woman, was the plastic drawer insert that would normally carry the money. It appeared to be mostly empty, excepting a few coins. A store like this couldn't have held more than fifty or a hundred dollars in that drawer; so where was their excess?
"Excuse me. Is there a safe?" Even if his voice was naturally curious, and modulated so not to cause alarm, it cut through the ensuing argument cleanly. All heads turned toward him, while a few police officers seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at his CSI badge. Finally, though, he gained a good look at the woman who had been railing against law enforcement all this time.
Everything about her was… Well, she seemed normal. Brown hair and matching eyes set in an oval face. No visible distinguishing marks, nor anything to pick the woman out of a crowd. Except when one remembered how loud she could shout. For a brief moment, he managed to take in her clothing, which wasn't the store's casual uniform. Dressed in a simple shirt and pants, it almost looked as if she had come in on her day off. But he would have sworn this woman never had a day off in her life. Not that he remembered.
"Jesus… Gil? Gil Grissom?" The woman's voice had grown quiet, losing the hard edge and gaining a watery waver. He couldn't blame her.
"Hello Rachel…"
A/N: Well, this should be fun! First fic ever, so don't smack me too hard if I get something wrong, 'kay? Spoilers are through Season Three or so, which isn't much of anything storyline wise. Yes? Exactly.
Disclaimer: Nope, don't own CSI, nor do I own NBC or any of its affiliates. If I did, do you think I'd be writing about it online? Yeah, didn't think so.