It was only when the young entered grammar school that they retained any semblance of innocence, but then they eventually went into the dreaded junior high school and formed the life-lasting mistakes and decisions that would last a lifetime. The future criminals of tomorrow rejected the rules, ignored their life set morals and acted surprised when they were constantly in trouble and hated by their peers. The rest followed their lessons and accepted the instructions posed to them as guidelines for life. Many high school kids did not last or survive their teenage years, instead dropping out of society to get a head start on running from the law and hating the normal people who lived in the light of day and earned an honest living. It was perhaps in college that most life long lessons were made. There were the students studying hard for their future careers, the slackers who drank their lives and health away from the neck of a bottle or the end of a hose emitting the addictive smoke rejected by their bodies, and then there were the rejects who had yet to drop out of society, instead waiting and looking for the means that something else would eject them from the world altogether. Leon Tacker walked through the bacchanalia he had created at Alpha Omega Rho fraternity on the campus at the University of Las Vegas. Attending the school on a football scholarship, he looked over to chemistry major Brandi Fogg buried under Owen Hanks, a drama major, on the sofa, her tank top pulled up to her shoulders as Hanks aided in her degradation. Leon grinned over to Ben Connors serving beer over the carnage they had created. The rap music resonated off the walls, the floor groaned over the would-be mature adults jumping around as if ants were eating them, and minor cults formed out of cliques being created as every vice and substance was explored. The scent and stink of spilled beer and stomped snacks filled the air. Law major Frank Wise chased a young maiden with one thing in mind down the stairs and out on to the quad. Ralph Carter mulled through the party praying no one had broken into his room to violate his bed for sex. Judd Hersch reminded the newer college kids that as an assistant teacher he had access to test papers he could sell to future exams. Brenda Maxwell rushed round Leon sick from the alcohol spiked three times over. If anyone survived this party, it would not be much of a party. There was over a hundred kids present in the forty-room dormitory, and more were still coming. A beer bottle shattered off the wall, other partiers were trying to scale from the roof on ropes made from sheets and one sociology major tried smoking and inhaling a dying fern from the hallway. Leon Tacker laughed his loud boisterous snort at the sight of once prim and proper Amanda Hayes losing her inhibitions to alcohol and flaunting her uncovered chest to her peers and subordinates. Someone was going to get tossed from the university by time this party was over.
"Where's Spenser?!" He screamed over the noise and multiple conversations as he asked about their dorm supervisor.
"He had a meeting with dorm director!" Connors yelled back as he poured a beer from the tap for another young lady.
"About what?!"
"Too many wild parties on campus!" Connors answered. He and his fellow athlete looked over the room and continuing madness. Another bottle was shattered against the wall. A young lady squealed loudly over her boyfriend touching her. Their pledge was stomped and shoved as he tried cleaning the broken glass and strewn junk food wrappers. A young lady's brassiere was flung into the air and came to rest on the bar in the corner of the room.
"Someone's going to be expelled!!" Tacker laughed through his snickering amusement. He looked at the bra before him. "Hey, who's a size thirty-nine D?!"
"Hey," Connors tugged his buddy's t-shirt sleeve. "Can you watch the bar?! I want to make time with this girl!" They screamed their conversation over the Usher music. He pointed over to the brunette beauty watching far afar. Petite and busty with perfect childlike features endowed with womanhood, the captivating lovely rolled her hazel eyes amusingly from the teenage orgy over to her new conquest. A deep breath lightly raised her perfect chest from within her dark sweater.
"Is that Kelly Clarkson?!" Tacker noticed the incredible similarity to the pop star.
"No…" Connors moved out of the way that Tacker could take over the drinks. "Her name's Lisa… but you're not the first to ask her if she's Kelly. She's an assistant from the history building!!"
"No, I'd have seen her before on campus!" Tacker took over custody of the beers. Leaving his post, Connors maneuvered around jumping and dancing classmates to the Idol look-alike. She took an immediate shine to him and took his arm as he turned for the staircase past hanging toilet paper and drunk fraternity brothers passed out from excessive drinking on the stairs. On the top landing, he passed two classmates using the hall for a location of secret debauchery, lead his conquest to the second door and pushed it open, surprising and pointing the way out for a frat brother to leave with his date for another room. Lisa's hazel eyes watched as Ben cleared the room for them and locked the door against further intrusions. His arm pulled her close and his lips closed over hers. Her figure pressed against his form as he pulled away his shirt to his muscular body. Lisa lifted up to hang from his shoulders, her feet up off the floor and her legs wrapped around his abdomen. With that added weight, Ben could only fall backward on to his bed. Just past the crunch o his mattress he looked up to see Lisa pulling her sweater upon over her head to reveal her brassiere supporting her bosom. He started wondering who was seducing whom. Ben felt his blue jeans undone and started pushing them down to his ankles. Lisa was nuzzling his ear; her voice giggling over the racket of music coming up through the floor from the party downstairs. Ben gasped for air a second as every sensation of his body became stimulated. He looked at Lisa holding her bra away at arm's length before dropping it to the floor. Ben guffawed excitedly; this girl was veracious. He felt her body against him, his breath pressed out of his body and started screaming when he felt the burning…
"Nothing like a murder to kill a party." Las Vegas Police Sergeant Jim Brass quipped and looked over the destruction. The party decorations had been trashed, the floor was littered with aluminum beer cans and broken brown glass and junk food wrappers wafted through on the wind from outside. The structure had faired worst. Wallpaper was hanging loose. Wood railings had been pulled out of the banister and a ladies undergarment hung from a ceiling fixture. Police littered the room too taking depositions from the few remaining guests and the frat brothers left on site. CSI Tech Warrick Brown bumped a beer bottle with his foot as he entered the scene.
"The power of kids, huh." He mused a bit surprised at the mess. "If only they could channel it into something positive."
"Teens need to experience freedom to depreciate it." His superior Gil Grissom responded with yet another insightful look into the human condition. "They depart home and restriction, they are challenged by the real world and they learn from their own mistakes better than they can from their parental figures. They can't learn to appreciate rules unless they discover what makes them important. I'm sure you were much the same way."
"I had my grandmother over my shoulder most of my life." Warrick mounted the staircase stepping over trash and strewn clothing in his way. "I never cut loose and I turned out okay."
"Gambling addition not withstanding…" Brass was standing at one of the bedrooms. The door had been knocked down, but the room looked otherwise intact. The room was typical college. There was the solitary bed with a desk set against the wall and a trunk at the foot of the bed. Warrick started first by snapping photos of the posters of women around the bed and on the closet, but the prominence of the Aguilera and Britney posters against the scant textbooks and class work on the desk surely revealed where the priorities lied with this person.
"Here's the story…" Brass started improvising a little ditty. "Of a drunken college kid who brought a girl up to his room. They vanished inside, then there was a scream… and no one inside when they broke down the door."
"No one?" Grissom asked.
"No one…." Brass added. "The room is exactly like they found it."
"Well," Warrick checked the two windows looking over the quad. "These are regulated windows to seal in temperature. They don't get opened." He rapped the glass. "The only way out is that way." He pointed out the door. Grissom snapped a photo of the bed and pulled back the sheet to discover a large pool of viscous liquid. It was a bright red fading to orange along the edge. It looked as if it had spots of blood in it as well as a cornucopia of other thinner fluids and floating cellular debris. He reached his regular test to check it for blood as well as for a sample in a small jar.
"What is that?"
"Oh god…" Warrick turned round. He recognized it. "I've seen it before." He looked to Gil. "Two months ago, Nick and I were investigating a case on Caldwell where a sick kid vanished from his bed. That same spot was on the bed."
"Whatever it is…" Grissom reached to take a sample. "It looks like you get another chance to solve it."