Chapter 1: A Party Gone Wrong

It was a hot 75 Degrees, nothing new to the citizens of Las Vegas, Nevada. Keyboards were clicking away in office buildings, the streets were filled with patrons rushing to work, and the schools were filled with the disappointing groans of children woken up too early on a perfect Monday morning. Of course two young voices were missing form the chorus of school children scribbling in notebooks. Two girls, who were supposed to be attending McKinley Middle School, were giggling in the back of a convenience store, positive they had pulled off the perfect hooky scheme. The younger girl, a thirteen year old with long blonde hair, leaned in close to her friend and asked what she thought they should do with their new found freedom. The brunette, a year her senior, smiled and mentioned Dive Beach. Dive Beach was a hang out all the high school kids flocked to, although it wasn't actually a beach at all, it consisted of a large parking lot next to an abandoned ice cream shop. It quickly gained its name from the number of teenage girls who would go there to "dive" on teenage boys. Although the girls had little knowledge of the activity that went on there, they happily skipped out of the store and headed towards dive beach anyways.

Gilbert Grissom pulled up to the crime scene around 9:00 pm. It was a small abandoned shop just outside of town. He parked his car next to two police cruisers and climbed out, his kit in hand. As he flashed the officers guarding the crime scene his badge he noticed two of his colleagues had already arrived. Catherine Willows was questioning a very frightened teenage couple standing just outside of the police tape, and Sara Sidle was crouched down next to the assistant coroner, David, examining a body. Grissom ducked under the police tape and walked around to the other side of the body to get a better look.

"Good, you're here." Sara said looking up at Grissom. She looked back down at the body and sighed. It was a young girl with short brown hair, "She can't be older then thirteen." Sara said letting out an exasperated sigh. The girl was dressed in a pink jean skirt that just barely came down to her knees, and a white tank top. Grissom scanned the surrounding area and noticed a pink back pack about five feet behind them.

"I'd put T.O.D. around nine hours ago." David said looking the corpse over again, "She had one really good blow to the head," He pointed to a blood covered scar on the top of her head, "Nothing will be official until we do the post but I'd say that's your C.O.D. By the looks of the bruising you're looking for a large, blunt weapon. Maybe a base ball bat." He added, standing up.

"Thanks, David." Grissom said looking back down at the body. "Nine hours puts time of death around one in the afternoon." Grissom said, mostly too himself. "She was either abducted before school and taken here, or she was cutting class."

"If someone abducted her from school," Sara cut in standing up, "Then wouldn't she have a little more clothing on? This skirt," She said motioning towards the body, "It's not really school appropriate."

"The killer could have redressed her, or made her change clothes." Grissom pointed out. He looked down at the body again this time focusing on the hands and arms. "No defensive wounds." He thought out loud, "The killer must have surprised her."

"Hey guys." Catherine's voice came from behind them. She had finished with the young couple and was crouched down by the pink back pack Grissom had noticed earlier. She pulled a plaid skirt out of the backpack along with a white collared shirt. "I know this uniform." Catherine said looking it over, "This is McKinley Middle Schools' uniform."

"There's no blood on it." Sara noted. Catherine continued to search the backpack while something off to the distance caught Grissom's eye. He walked slowly over to the west facing side of the ice cream shop. He noticed a large foot print in the dirt in front of a wooden men's room door. It was facing away from the door, as if some one was leaving the room. Grissom slipped a glove onto his right hand, and just barely touching the door knob, as not to disturb any possible prints, he tried to turn it. Locked. Grissom bent down and placed an ABFO scale by the foot print, then motioned for Sara to join him.

"Can you get a picture of this and then cast it?" He asked. Sara nodded and lifted her camera up to her face. Grissom then turned towards the parking lot where Detective Brass was standing, questioning the first officer on the scene. "Brass." he shouted over the noise. The detective turned and looked at him, then excused himself from the officer and started towards Grissom.

"What's the problem?" He asked ducking under the yellow tape and joining the two CSI's by the men's room door.

"Did you contact the owner of this…" Grissom wasn't sure what to call it, he wanted to call it a gas station but there was a lack of pumps, and they were way off of any main roads. The sign hanging above the front door was so worn if there were ever words on it no one from this century would know what they were. "..Building?" He finished deciding he'd most likely find out the shops original purpose later, when he'd had a look inside.

"Well," Brass said flipping through his small notebook, "I'll have to go through city records to find the owner." He stopped searching the notepad and briefly looked at the building beside him, "If the owner is even still alive."

"I bet you anything he is." Grissom said looking back at the building, "Because someone has the key to this door."

"I'll start working on a warrant." Brass said as he walked away and flipped open his cell phone. Catherine walked over to join Sara and Grissom with the back pack in an evidence bag hanging from her hand.

"Ready for a walkthrough?" Catherine asked.

"Be my guest." Grissom said scanning the area one last time.

"Ok here's how I see it." Catherine began, "Our vic was skipping school, this is a local hot spot for teenagers, they call it Dive Beach. So she probably left the school before class started and changed out of her uniform somewhere else, before she got here. She gets here, finds someone she wasn't expecting to find, and somehow gets killed." Catherine finished her walkthrough and sighed. She knew they needed more evidence to really know what happened.

"It has a lot of holes." Sara pointed out.

"We need more to work with," Grissom said. Both girls nodded in agreement. "Catherine, get the back pack back to the lab. Sara I need you to go through missing persons and check McKinley's rooster, see if we can identify our victim. I'll stay here and wrap up the scene." Catherine nodded again and started off towards her car. Sara bent down and started to pack up her kit.

"Grissom." Sara said without looking away from her kit.

"Yeah."

"What do you think happened to this little girl?" She asked fitting her fingerprint powder into its tiny slot.

"I don't know." Grissom said watching as David wheeled the body away, "But we're going to find out."

Catherine and Sara arrived back at the lab about an half hour later just in time to run into Ecklie, the day time supervisor, who was just getting off his shift.

"Incoming." Sara whispered in Catherine's ear. Ecklie spotted them and headed purposefully in their direction.

"I heard that, Sidle." He said stopping in front of them. Sara gave him an annoyed look.

"How can we help you, Ecklie?" Catherine asked in the nicest tone possible.

"I've got a 419 in Summerlin; I need you on it Catherine." Ecklie handed her a white, half sheet of paper with the information on it. "Take Warrick with you." Both women gave him a confused look.

"Wow, Grissom, you look a lot like Ecklie today." Catherine said jokingly. Sara giggled.

"I'm serious, Willows. I need my best CSI's on this."

"I'm already on a case, Ecklie." Catherine explained.

"I know," Ecklie said, looking from Catherine to Sara and then back. "Sidle and Grissom can handle it." Catherine looked down at the paper, then to Sara.

"Do I have a choice?" She asked sarcastically, handing Sara the evidence bag with the back pack in it. "Grissom's not going to be happy with you." She said to Ecklie as she pulled out her phone and walked towards the exit, dialing Warrick Brown's number. Sara turned around and walked away, doing her best to ignore Ecklie boring holes in her back.

As Catherine pulled up to the crime scene she began to realize why Ecklie was so insistent on her working the case. Summerlin gave her a slight idea, because it was the high end part of Las Vegas. The place where gangsters and casino mongrels went to retire and spoil their daughters. The sprawling mansion she pulled up to was made of what looked like marble, and the drive way was at least a mile long. Whoever lives here definitely has friends in high places. She thought to herself. She pulled up to the front gate and leaned her head out of her window towards an intercom system. She reached out and pressed down a red button.

"Catherine Willows, Las Vegas crime lab." She introduced her self, and then released the button. There was no voice on the other end of the speaker, just a slight hiss, and then the large iron gates opened allowing her through. She pulled up to the front of the mansion noticing two police cruisers and Warrick's black jeep Cherokee. She parked right behind the cruisers and shut off her engine. She grabbed her kit and climbed out of the car. She looked towards the mansion and saw Warrick standing on a sprawling porch waving her over. She climbed the porch looking around and not seeing anything out of the ordinary. "Hey, Warrick." She said clearing the space between them, "What do we have?"

"Male, early thirties," Warrick explained, holding open a lavish hand crafted door, leading Catherine through to the front hall. "The owners of the house, friends of Ecklie no doubt, came home from a week long cruise in the Bahamas to find… Well, this." Warrick finished stopping at the entrance to a large dinning hall. The room was a total wreck. Paper plates and cups littering the floor and table, empty alcohol bottles sloppily tossed along the long wooden dining table. Catherine peered under the table and noticed a needle poking out from under a paper plate.

"Wow." Catherine said examining a line of cocaine on a glass coffee table towards the far right wall of the dining room, "What a party."

"Not much of a party for this guy." Warrick said leaning down by a large glass window. Wrapped halfway in a silk white curtain was their victim. He was sitting part way up leaning against the window; next to him was a milky white puddle.

"Looks like an overdose." Catherine observed pulling out her flashlight and pointing it towards the body. "That must be his stomach contents." She said motioning towards the puddle on the floor, "And there are no signs of physical trauma." Catherine turned around and looked towards the entrance. "Where's the coroner?" She asked turning back to Warrick.

"Maybe he got lost." Warrick said reaching in the victim's front pants pockets. They were both empty. Catherine looked back down at the body, then to the right wall.

"The victim is only a foot from the kitchen." She said walking towards the entrance to a large kitchen. She stopped in the doorway and noticed a white corded phone on the wall. "Maybe he was overdosing and tried to get to the phone for help, but got tangled in the curtains." Warrick looked at Catherine while thinking the scenario over in his head.

"I don't know," he said "This mess wasn't made by just one person. We could be looking at murder." Warrick pointed at the body. "Also, this guy looks way to clean shaven. I mean who wears Calvin Klein to break into someone else's house and have a wild party?" Catherine looked down at the body, he was right: The victim was nicely dressed.

"He could have taken the clothes from upstairs." Catherine suggested. Warrick nodded in agreement. They had just wrapped up photographing the scene and collecting evidence when Detective Curtis walked in.

"Hey guys." She said flipping open her notepad. "I let the owners take a look upstairs in their closets and vaults, they said nothing is missing."

"Not one thing?" Catherine asked, astonished.

"It their words, 'not a single thing is out of place.' their safe is still locked, all valuables accounted for."

"A break in with this many people," Warrick said looking around the dinning room, "Something has to be missing."

"The owners couldn't I.D. the body?" Catherine asked Sofia.

"Never seen him before." Sofia answered.

"So," Warrick said, "We've got a dead robber in designer clothes who didn't steal anything, and a house full of drugs with no idea where any of it came from."

"You know what that means," Catherine said looking at Warrick, "A long night."