RATING: K+
PAIRING: GSR
DISCLAIMER: Nope, still don't own them. And, given what a bad girl I've been this year, I'm not holding out much hope of getting them for Christmas either...
SUMMARY: In response to geekfiction's Halloween Trick or Treat Ficathon. Prompt - "You must include a scarecrow in some form as well as a character making spiced cider."
Thanks to theatresporter for beta-ing this for me (hugs)
"Do you believe in ghosts?"
It was meant as a lighthearted question. Something to pass the time on their way to the crime scene – a hit and run near Mount Charleston, north west of Vegas. It was a seasonal topic, as it were, given that it was All Hallows' Eve, or Samhain to Celts and Wiccans alike.
It didn't garner the response that Sara had hoped.
Looking across from her position in the driver's seat of their black SUV, she tried to place the look playing on Grissom face. Finally, she settled upon thoughtful.
He was actually giving her lighthearted question serious thought.
But then, he was serious about many things. Serious about his job. About his fascination with bugs. Serious while he pondered over his latest advanced level crossword puzzle. Serious in his attention to every single inch of her body when they made love.
Gil Grissom was very serious in his love for her.
"I think the essence of who we are – our spirits, I suppose, for want of a better term – remain in one way or another, after death," he eventually said. "If nothing else, in the memories of those we leave behind."
The drove for the next minutes in silence, as Sara digested his words.
"What about you?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you believe in ghosts?"
She considered her reply as carefully as he had done. "I think part of me believes that when you're gone, you're gone. But then… sometimes I walk into a crime scene and I feel… something. A lingering presence. A spirit, I suppose."
Grissom nodded. He knew exactly what she meant because, at times, he had felt it too.
Sara pulled off Highway 157 and onto Deer Creek road. Grissom checked the directions he had written down.
"According to Brass, the crash site should be another mile or so."
Just one police cruiser and an unmarked car, belonging to Jim Brass, had responded to this remote call. Sara pulled the SUV to a halt behind Brass's vehicle and hopped out; grabbing her scene case from the trunk before following Grissom behind the cordon the police had marked off on the road.
"What brings you out for a hit and run, Jim?" Grissom asked.
Brass shrugged. "The victim is making a noise. Claiming he was being followed and deliberately run off the road. He's calling it attempted murder."
Sara moved to take a closer look at the car. From the crushed hood and roof, it was clear that it had flipped over at least once after impact. The driver's door was a wide maw of jagged teeth, from where specialist cutting equipment had been used to free the victim from the wreckage. The car, in short, was totaled, and Sara worried for the wellbeing of whoever had been inside.
"How's the driver doing?"
"He's pretty banged up, but he remained conscious until they got him to hospital. They're operating on him now, to reset a fractured collar bone."
Sara nodded and went back to work, taking multiple photographs of the car and the various points of impact.
"Any witnesses?" Grissom asked.
Brass grinned. "Unless you count our pal over there."
He nodded towards a small guest house at the edge of the road, a few hundred feet from the crash site. On its front lawn stood a man made of straw and sticks, with a carrot for a nose and a jaunty hat that looked remarkably like one Grissom often wore.
"I already asked him, and he said he was too busy frightening crows and little children. Halloween's a busy night for him."
Grissom resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Thanks, Jim."
While Sara concentrated on the vehicle, Grissom focused on the skid marks. He snapped several shots, working his way along the road illuminated by the warm glow of road flares which the police had set up.
Sara had moved to the rear bumper, where she spotted something that would, with luck, make their jobs a whole lot easier.
"I've got paint transfer," she said, carefully scraping the evidence into a bindle.
She felt Grissom kneel down behind her for a closer look. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, as they often did when he stared at her. She loved his devoted attention, but knew the risks that it carried when it happened at work.
"It's not that interesting, Griss," she said, trying to hide her smirk.
"Did you say something?"
Turning, she saw Grissom further down the road, still following the tread marks.
"How –?"
Frowning, she shook her head. She must have been imagining things.
Later, as the tow-truck arrived to take the vehicle back to the labs, Brass's cell phone rang.
"Mr. Jansen is starting to come round from the anesthetic," he said when he hung up. "I'm going to head back, see if I can get a description of the car that hit him. You two about done here?"
"Almost," Sara replied as she bagged another sliver of headlight glass.
"Well, these nice officers will hang out with you until you're ready to head back to the labs. I'll call you with whatever I get from our vic."
Grissom nodded. "Thanks, Jim."
Sara was sealing their last bag of evidence when she felt it again. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She shuddered.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah." She nodded. "Fine."
The chill crept down her spine and, against her will, she shivered again.
"Sara?"
"I'm fine. Really. It's just…" She hesitated, thinking it was completely stupid.
"Honey, what is it?"
"It's stupid, really. I'm probably just imagining things. But, I keep getting this… I don't know. This creepy feeling…"
She expected him to laugh, or to roll his eyes and tell her it was all in her head. Instead, he just looked relieved.
"It's what we talked about on the way here, that's all. It's fed into your subconscious and your body's just reacting. It's perfectly understandable, Sara. Besides, everyone's entitled to a good scare on Halloween."
She sighed. He was probably right. It was Halloween. They were out, late at night, on a dark road near an even darker forest. Her mind was simply playing tricks. After all, there was no 'spirit' to sense at this crime scene. Their victim was still very much alive and several miles away in Desert Palms Hospital.
Ten minutes later, they were packed up and heading along the highway, back towards Vegas. Grissom was busy with scene diagrams and notes while Sara once again drove.
"Why don't you wait until we're back at the lab to finish those?"
"Because, Ms. Sidle, you and I have but two hours left on the clock. For once, we're going home on time. Then we'll order Chinese food, I'll make a batch of my spiced apple cider and we'll watch a scary movie - embrace the season like everyone else."
"Or…We could have an early night."
Grissom's smile was broad as he diligently continued with his paperwork.
Sara was still grinning when she spotted the little girl. No older than six or seven, she stood in the center of the road dressed in a white nightdress. Sara slammed on the breaks.
"Sara! What's…?" The paperwork dropped to the floor as Grissom threw his hands forward to brace himself against the dash.
Sara sat back in her seat, having just narrowly avoided hitting her head on the steering wheel. When she looked out the window once more, the little girl was no where to be seen.
"Where did she go?"
"Where did who go? Sara, what happened?"
"There was a child. A little blonde girl. Standing on the road."
Hastily unfastening her seatbelt, she got out of the car to look.
Grissom had followed her out of the car. "Sara, there's no one out here."
"I didn't imagine this, Griss. I saw a little girl."
She moved to the edge of the road, looking for any trace of her. The feeling returned, stronger than ever. She sensed a presence. Every hair on her body prickled.
A flash of white moved through the trees ahead of her. Without a second thought, she started after it.
"Hello?"
"Sara!"
Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her flashlight, searching the gloom of the forest for the child.
"Where are you? Don't be afraid, honey. We're here to help you."
Another beam of light came over her shoulder as Grissom caught up.
"Sara!"
"Grissom, I am not imagining things. I saw her. I know I did."
"I know," he said, focusing his beam of light near the base of a large tree.
The small, white sock was bright against the undergrowth. It was the only item of clothing on the body of the small child who lay there.
Her name was Emily Winters. She was just six years old and had been snatched earlier that night from her Henderson home, then molested and murdered. Her broken body was carelessly tossed by the side of Deer Creek road, discarded and forgotten in the forest, until Sara mysteriously found her.
The end of their shift had come and gone, and her early night with Grissom forgotten for the time being. The two of them had become consumed by Emily's case, unwilling to rest until they had made some progress with it.
The forest where they found Emily had not been the crime scene, merely the dumping site, and so far they had not found a single piece of evidence to help them find her killer. He had been very careful. So far, they had not found a single fingerprint in Emily's bedroom that did not belong to the little girl or her mother. Mrs. Winters hadn't even known that her daughter was missing until she went into her room to wake her that morning and discovered that she was gone. By that time, Emily's body had already been found.
The pieces didn't start coming together until, sickened by one crime, Sara returned her focus to the hit and run.
She entered the garage, needing to vent her frustrations by working on an easier, more solvable case. A 'break' of an hour of so, and she'd be ready to tackle Emily's murder with fresher eyes.
Snapping on a pair of gloves, she moved around the car, examining it once again under the bright, florescent lights to ensure nothing had been missed.
She glanced at the victim's statement which Brass had taken at the hospital. According to Mr. Jansen, he had been driving home after leaving a girlfriend's house in Henderson.
His previous statement, given at the crash site, had suggested that the hit and run had been deliberate. However, at the hospital his memory had become somewhat foggier. He didn't remember if the other driver had been aggressive towards him. He wasn't sure if he had been run off the road or side swiped accidentally. When asked why he had initially insisted that someone had tried to kill him, he had answered that he must have been confused.
She was puzzling over this when her cell phone rang.
"Sidle."
"It's Brass. We caught up with our hit and run driver. Just some teenaged punk who wanted to sober up before handing himself in. Claims that he didn't see the other car until it was too late. Says Jansen's headlights weren't on."
"That's a pretty dark road," Sara said. "Why would anyone drive along it with their headlights off?"
"You got me. But consider the source. The kid could be lying to save his neck."
"Were the lights on or off when you guys got there last night?"
"Good question. I'm pretty sure they were off."
"Thanks. I'll check it out."
Hanging up, she moved to the driver's side of the vehicle and removed the car key from an evidence bag. Being careful to avoid getting caught on jagged metal, she slipped it into the ignition and turned.
The car's power came on, but the headlights remained off. Flipping the switch, she found they were working perfectly. They had simply been turned off at the time of the crash.
Why?
He told Brass he'd been driving from Henderson.
The crash happened less than a mile from where she and Grissom had found Emily's body.
He'd been driving away from the dump site.
Sara didn't tend to believe in coincidences. On pure gut instinct, she walked to the back of the car and popped the trunk.
Inside was a small, white nightdress, stained with blood.
Sara and Grissom stood in the observation room while Brass interviewed Kyle Jansen. He wept bitterly and tried to hoist the blame onto Emily's delicate shoulders. She had tempted him. He hadn't meant to kill her. If only she'd behaved herself and not screamed. The same pathetic lies of every other pedophile and character disorder Sara had ever set eyes on.
It didn't matter what he said now. The evidence had spoken. And Emily's killer was going to rot in jail for the rest of his natural life.
Sara closed her eyes and thanked whatever power had intervened and led her to the little girl's body. She couldn't explain it, and she wouldn't try. No one would believe her anyway if she began to speak of ghostly visions and eerie feelings. But she decided that it didn't matter. Emily had somehow reached out and Sara had done the best she could for the child. It was cold comfort but, somehow, it was enough.
Sara slipped her hand into Grissom's and he squeezed gently.
"So, spiced cider and an early night?"
"My specialty."
"Which one?"
"I'll leave that up to you to decide."
She pursed her lips before grinning broadly at him. Despite all the horrible things they saw each day, life was good because they had each other.
"Let's go home."
The End.