Jealousie

By Evie

PG13, but watch out for unexplainable, disturbing scenes. Mystery/Angst/Romance, GSR (Grissom/Sara), and some UST.

Writer's note: thanks to Caitlin, Nick, Hsuan-Ti, Karla, Calista, professor creepy, Devanie, everybody on Gil/Sara mailing list and JFO.
Tribute to: Sale & Pelletier (the story is named after their short program), Alanis Morissette, Wallflowers, Paul Simon, Mr. Chiang, professors gave forensic lectures, and all the great fan fiction writers out there.
Disclaimer: CSI characters belong to CBS & its affiliates. Violet, Gracie, Neil & extras are mine.
Achieve: All you want, as long as you can leave me a note. evelynee_c@yahoo.com

Chapter 1

"What do you want, Gracie?" The skinny girl in pale blue cardigan and a pair of fading denim jeans asked her friend, who was sitting next to her, with high-lighted, long brown hair and in a catchy red turtleneck sweater. On the other end of the small table sat a young man, around the same age as the girls, looking casual and clean. The pale girl turned to the boy.
"Grande Mocha, whipped cream and nuts, Neil?" She gave him a smile as if she could always read his mind. Neil answered with a light nod and a casual smile. Her eyes caught it, without saying anything else. She then turned back to Gracie. The pale girl's expression changed in a millisecond, as if she tried to squeeze out a smile and some compassion, and with an icy distance like the February sky outside of the coffee house, sunny, blue, and cold. The girl in red, Gracie, looked at her friend with slight confusion.
"Cappuccino," Gracie finally muttered. The pale blue girl nodded. Showing any kindness towards Gracie gradually became a difficult task for her, but she had not lost her cool. "Vanilla, cinnamon...anything?"
"Vanilla will be great," Gracie blinked her large, innocent eyes; her smile lightened up the small coffee house. "Thank you, Violet."
"Don't be," Violet kept her distant, "friendly" expression to Gracie, "I've got coupons, and It's my treat." She grabbed her small backpack and left to order coffee.
After Violet left, Gracie turned to Neil, with desperation. "What's wrong with Violet? She's trying to avoid me or something..." Neil tried to comfort Gracie. He held her hands, trying to tell her that she was just too sensitive, and there was nothing between her and Violet. Gracie was desperate. "Have I done something wrong?"
"No, you haven't," Neil assured Gracie. "Violet never said bad things about you, and she wasn't upset at all. She is more cheerful than a few months ago." He looked at Gracie, and natural warmth radiated from his eyes, tempting to protect the little sunny being.
"We used to be best friends," Gracie sighed. "Violet doesn't talk to me anymore. I don't even know what she is up to, if she is happy."
"It's okay, Gracie..."
A cheery but cold voice sharply interrupted Neil's words. "Guys, coffee."
Violet brought three cups of coffee. The thick fragrance filled the table, melting the tension between the three. "Gracie, Cappuccino with vanilla; Neil, Grande mocha with whipped cream and nuts. And mine."
"What's yours, Violet?"
"White chocolate Mocha." Violet had to answer that to Gracie. She did not want to upset Neil by acting rude in front of him, although she hated herself for doing so.
Gracie sipped her cappuccino; the foamy texture could not soften her desperations towards Violet. She put down the cup and looked at Violet, decided to set everything straight before they left the coffee house. Violet calmly enjoyed her mocha with white chocolate with absolutely no intension of speaking to anybody else. Gracie started to feel dizziness. Although she had been working night shifts for the past three weeks at a restaurant cross the town, she had never felt so sleepy before. She had been a little bit under the weather recently, but she believed she was just too tired to keep up with work and school. She could not resist the temptation of closing her eyes. Her eyelids were so heavy; finally they fell and she went into a sound deep sleep.
Gracie collapsed at the table, and spilled her cappuccino. The brown liquid quickly drew a pool, and some of Gracie's hair unfortunately soaked in the gleaming pool of coffee and milk. She was not so perfect anymore.
"Gracie, are you okay?" Violet seemed to be surprised.
"Gracie?" She pushed Gracie, but there was no response. She put her fingers at Gracie's nose. One second. Two seconds. Nothing. Gracie was not breathing. Before Violet realized her best friend had died, she heard Neil yelled on the cell phone...
"We need an ambulance!"

xxxxXXXXxxx

"Did you say Gracie just collapsed at the table, Miss Vance?" Brass questioned Violet. "Yes," Violet looked visibly shaken. Oddly she remained calm throughout the whole evening of investigation after her best friend died mysteriously, right in front of her eyes. Grissom, with a notepad on one hand and the toolbox on the other, stepped in the coffee house. Brass spotted him, and Grissom greeted him. "Hey, sorry I'm late. The flight back to Las Vegas was delayed. I get here as soon as I could."
"That's fine. Catherine is on another case, and I figured you were supposed to be back in Vegas forty minutes ago, so I just let the Sara and Nick get here first," said Brass, started to debrief Grissom, "Grace Elizabeth Finley, twenty years old, student of Coupland College, her friends called her Gracie. Collapsed while having coffee with two of her friends, Neil Cagen and Violet Vance, here," Brass pointed to Violet, who had been standing next to the two investigators. Grissom looked at Violet. He thought the pale face was familiar, but he could not place it to a time and location of his known memories. Brass continued.
"Sara has collected Gracie's coffee cup and the rest of the coffee, and send to the lab for tox screen. Nick is combing the house. "
"Wait," Grissom interrupted. "How did Gracie die?"
"There was no sign of cardiac arrest, I just phoned the hospital. The body is on its way to the autopsy. Miss Vance here witnessed the whole thing. Maybe you want to ask her a few questions. I have to go talk to the press and later the shop manager." Brass left Grissom and Violet.
"Miss Vance, my name is Gil Grissom, from the crime lab," Grissom said, "I am sorry for what happened to your friend." Violet nodded softly. Somehow she was not surprised to see Grissom. Her eyes lowered down, expressing her sorrow and grief. As the darkness slowly set in the coffee shop, Violet seemed to run out of patience and showed her anxiety gradually. Visibly she tried to remain calm, but repeated questionings about Gracie's death was challenging her effort of control.
"What happened?" Grissom asked. Then he realized that Brass might have asked the very same question.
"Gracie was drinking coffee and then she collapsed at the table," Violet repeated her answer for the hundredth time, her voice flattened.
"You were having coffee too, right?" Grissom asked. Violet nodded, "yeah, and Neil, as well."
"Who brought the coffee to you?"
"Me. I ordered the coffee because I had a coupon, three for two. And then I brought them back to my friends."
"Did you or Gracie add anything else to your coffee?"
"Yeah," Violet nodded again. She was tired, Grissom thought. Violet's voice went softer and weaker, and he could barely hear her. "Gracie wanted vanilla in her cappuccino, not cinnamon. I put some chocolate powder in mine. Neil had nuts on his mocha."
Let her go for now, Grissom thought. He was sure that he had seen this girl before. Judging from her age, Violet was most likely a college student too. "Are you a student?"
"Yeah, I am a math major in UNLV."
"Thank you, Miss Vance." Grissom nodded at her.
"Can I leave now? I have to see Gracie for the last time." Violet asked politely. Somehow Grissom had this sense that this was just an excuse for Violet to get away from the scene, but he did not dig too much into the thought. He had to looking over the case, to see how Sara and Nick were doing.
"You would want to talk to Caption Brass there. He was just talking to you."
Violet thanked Grissom and left for Brass. Grissom turned around and found Sara behind him. "She did it," Sara said sneeringly, "she brought in the coffee, and she poisoned it."
"Do we have any evidences supporting your theory, Sara?"
"No," Sara smiled, lightening up the darkening room while the sun sat slowly. Her green sweater made her radiant in the wood-finished setting of the coffee shop. "At least not yet. I bagged those sugar and milk containers over there, sending right back to the Trace of toxin. I am going to dust the prints on the counters later. Anyway, Grissom, Violet was the closest one on the scene and she is definitely a suspect."
"First one next to the body," Grissom said, with a knowingly smile. "How about this other guy, Neil?"
"Oh, yeah, he is a friend to the girls. Apparently three of them have been buddies since junior year in high school..."
"Sara! Hey Griss!" Nick was on the other side of the coffee house. He saw Grissom and waved at him. "Check this out."
Grissom and Sara went over to the entrance of women's washroom. "Geez, Nick, you know you are not supposed to be in here," Sara teased.
"Are you kidding me?" Nick replied with a mysterious look. "I did some of my best work in here. What does this look like to you?"
Some loose white powders on the floor of the bathroom. If not for the dark colour of the slate floor, it was really hard to tell by the dim light. "Can be sugar, diet-sugar...this is a coffee shop, Nick."
"The question is," Nick said, "what was sugar doing in a washroom?"
"Can be drugs. This is downtown Las Vegas we are talking about."
"Tape---" Before Grissom finished his sentence, Nick and Sara already pulled out the tape lifter and lifted the loose powders. Sara looked at the grains against the washroom light. "Very fine grains, probably diet sugar or...." She turned around and looked at Grissom. "Didn't Gracie have vanilla in her cappuccino?"



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