ONE FOR THE PHILES
A/N: This takes place while the team is still apart (tear) after Nesting Dolls. I forgot about this for a while- can you tell? This is seriously improbable but this is FICTION so I'm willing to go there.
I actually do own CSI now, Seriously… I do- It was a birthday present from Les.
There are about 11 0r 12 X-Files references in this story- I lost count- HAPPY HUNTING
Sara felt better. Better than she had in a long time. She still had a long way to go to get back to where she wanted to be, but still she was happier. It was like after she told Grissom about her mother a weight had been lifted, as cliché as that sounded.
She also found that Grissom was different. Not in the way that she had feared, though, she thought he would hold her back from domestic abuse cases now that he knew about her family. In fact, he was letting her do what she always did but she noticed he worked closely with her and he would make sure they unwound together before going home after a particularly tough case. Whether it be talking about a new forensic article or just getting coffee. Sometimes it wasn't even after a rough case, sometimes it was just when they felt like it.
Sara liked it. It was like they were friends.
Friends who were extremely attracted to each other and getting progressively worse at hiding it.
The fractured night shift was gathered in the break room awaiting assignments for the evening from Grissom.
"Okay, slow night guys, good thing too, because Sophia just called in sick. So Greg you have a smash and grab on the strip. Remember, take extra pictures of everything and bring a lot of bindles, they'll be a ton of glass and debris" Grissom said.
"I'm on it, see you later people" Greg replied as he jogged out the door.
"Sara, you and I have a missing person, suspicious circs about a half hour out of Henderson. You ready?"
"Always" Sara replied with an easy smile.
It actually took about an hour to get there with traffic so it gave them a little while to talk. Sara found that it was a lot easier to do that recently. He would casually ask her how she was and she would answer honestly. She would return the question and Grissom would answer with some variation on 'fine' and she would cajole and prod him until the truth came out.
By the time they got to the crime scene, Sara had found out that Grissom's 6-year-old neighbor, Samantha, had a crush on him because he had so many bugs and a huge TV. So sometimes when he came home from work he would find presents like dandelions or leaves for the bugs to eat. One time he even found a rock for his terrarium that the girl had said looked like his face.
Sara had to keep herself from laughing because all this information was delivered from Grissom with such a fierce blush that she wondered if there was blood left anywhere else in his body. That thought of course made Sara blush and she quickly jumped out of the truck.
As they approached the building they quickly recognized that it was an exotic dancing club. They entered the dimly lit building and found Brass waiting for them in the back with a woman that appeared to be quite annoyed. She was ranting on about her club having to be closed and the police milling around not being good for business.
"Um," Grissom interjected "I don't think one of the strippers going missing from your establishment is very good for business either."
"Piper is NOT a stripper, none of my girls are, they're dancers. This is a classy place, never once had a problem in here, my girls are talented, some classically trained, not like those seedy pieces of shit on the strip." The woman retorted heavily
"I apologize, Piper is the missing woman, then? Ms…" Grissom started
"Carter, Chrissy Carter. Yes she is, Piper Maru. That's her real name, too, didn't even need a stage name with one like that." She said with a hint of a smile.
"Ok, Ms. Carter, why don't we start with where she was last seen?" Grissom said.
"Well last time I saw her she had just finished her set and she was leaving the stage, right over there." She said as she pointed over to the front of the large room where a stage dominated 3 quarters of the wall. "I don't know where she went after that, I followed her back there about 2 minutes later to tell her she did real good but she was gone. I haven't seen her since."
"When was this?" Brass asked, taking a few notes.
"About 28 hours ago. She was supposed to be in this morning, she's never missed work, ever, never even called out sick, been here 2 years." Chrissy replied
"Who was at the deck?" Sara asked
Chrissy turned quickly to look at her, but replied "One of my other girls, Maitreya, why?"
"Well" Sara replied "Wouldn't the girl at the deck have a pretty decent view of both the stage and the hall back to the dressing room? And if Piper was leaving the stage, the next dancer should have been up and ready to go."
Grissom and Brass only gave her a funny look for a moment before swinging to look at the stage entrance.
"Well, yes, I suppose you're right. But Treya was 30 seconds late to the cue" Chrissy said. "I'll call her and have her come in."
"Did Piper have her own Catch?" Sara asked before the woman left
Now they were all looking at her funny.
"Uh, yea, Skinner, Wally Skinner. He's in back, he's on Missy tonight." She answered as she walked to the bar to call the Maitreya she spoke about.
"I'm sorry, Catch?" Grissom asked
"It's like a bouncer and a bodyguard, they stay with one girl the whole night instead of at the door or at the bar, makes problems a lot less likely." Sara answered while walking toward the stage.
Grissom just watched as she got out her flashlight and looked across the floor of the stage and then suddenly and gracefully swung herself up onto the stage and examined the pole for a moment before heading out of view off the stage.
Chrissy came back and said that she couldn't get a hold of Maitreya. Brass left to check her house and Grissom wandered up to the back of the club looking for Sara. He found her kneeling down in a hallway leading to a back exit- presumably to the alley behind the building.
"What do you have?" He asked her
"A couple blood drops, it looks like. Can you hand me the Pheno from my kit, please?"
As he handed her the small bottle their fingers brushed and he got the shiver of electricity that he had come to expect over the last few years but still gave him a thrill. She tested the swab and it gave the indicative pink/purple glow.
"Positive. Looks like there's a bit more by the door. Could be incidental though, we'll have to wait to get a DNA comparison for the missing girl."
Grissom nodded his agreement and shuffled over to the door where the next small drops were. Over the next 2 hours or so, pictures were taken and blood swabs were labeled and bagged. They went into the alley in the back but there was no more blood. There was some tire treads on the ground and paint transfer on the walls. They could have been left at anytime but they took samples and pictures just in case.
They went back inside and examined the carpet for hair. It was everywhere. Undoubtedly the victim's would be somewhere in the mix but since women run up and down this hall all day and night, they never would have isolated anything they could have identified as pertinent. They vacuumed it up anyway. Just in case.
They interviewed Wally Skinner on the way out. He seemed a little vapid. Brawn and no brains basically. Still a little sketchy though. They took his statement-
"Uhhh I didn't see her, umm she, uh, was gone, you know, after she was here." Then they packed their gear and evidence into the Denali and Grissom even let her drive back to the lab.
The drive was pretty quiet for most of the way. Eventually Grissom spoke up.
"Have you had a case like this before, Sara?"
"A missing person? Only about 50 Grissom." She replied with a chuckle
"No," he corrected "In a club, like that."
"Oh, um, no, not that I can remember." She stated, not looking at him
"It just, hum, that you seemed to know your way around a bit. Term wise." He replied cautiously
Sara didn't respond immediately. Her grip on the steering wheel tightened a touch and she made a show of checking all her mirrors, twice.
"Grissom, I…" She started "It's just, I was a foster kid, and, um, Havard is, um, expensive…so…"
She left the end of her sentence hanging, not quite able to say the words. Instead, letting him connect the dots. It took less than 3 seconds.
"You worked in a place like that?" He asked incredulously "You were a str-"He stopped, he couldn't say the word for some reason. It wasn't that there was anything he had against it. His best friend used to be a stripper and he never once had any issue with it. But for some reason when he thought of Sara, taking off her clothes in front of a room full of men…
"No, Grissom, I wasn't a stripper. I danced. There's a difference. Strippers are so named because they strip. They go on stage dressed to some degree and in the course of their act they strip to complete nudity. Dancers go out in a costume, of various types, and stay in it. They are never nude." She stated firmly while staring straight ahead.
"Sara, you had a scholarship, full ride, why would you need to do that?" he asked
"I did have a scholarship, but something happened that whole first semester and the school didn't have notice of my payment and I was faced with an over 30,000 dollar bill or dismissal. I was young and didn't know what else to do. Eventually they got their act together and I got my money back. But that first semester I worked at a club called Arcadia. I waitressed, too, but that wouldn't have nearly covered my tuition, room and board, books, and food." She stopped abruptly, realizing she was babbling.
Grissom's head was spinning. Sara was a dancer, not a stripper, but still. First- wait.
"Wait, First semester of Harvard? Sara that would make you-"
"Seventeen" She finished for him. "They didn't ask, I didn't tell them."
"You were practically a child, Sara." He said quietly "How could I not have known this?"
By this time they had reached the lab and Sara put the truck in park and turned to look at him.
"I hardly advertise it Grissom. I'm not Catherine, I don't need everyone to know my business past and present. You now that. You're the only one that knows, and I don't think I need to tell you I'd like it to stay that way." She said
"Of course." He nodded his agreement "Why did you tell me?" he asked
"Well, you asked." She replied simply
"Yes, but that doesn't mean you had to tell me." He said, a bit in wonder at her willingness to share.
"I'll never lie to you Grissom. Besides, I trust you. And I know that you won't judge me." She put it out there like it wasn't a huge deal what she'd just revealed. Maybe she was covering her nervousness with nonchalance but it meant a lot that she was entrusting him with this. But before he could come up with anything else to say she had opened the door and was hopping out of the Denali.
"Come on, we have some processing to get done." She said as she grabbed her kit and a couple bags of evidence from the back. Grissom followed suit and they parted ways inside the lab.
Sara ran into Greg a few minutes later. Apparently once he got to his scene, the perp had already come back wearing some of the stolen jewelry. Trying to hide in the crowd and watch the cops work. The owner had recognized several pieces and the man had been arrested already. Greg collected and documented but really it was just a formality.
Since he had no case no he volunteered to run the blood samples from Sara's case. Sara dropped off the film to be developed and found an empty layout room to spread out the contents of the vacuum bags. It was a mess. She tried to separate the hair clods from the dirt clods from the carpet fibers from the random pieces of crap as best she could. This is how Greg found her about an hour later.
"Who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Sidle?" He asked jokingly
"Funny" she smirked "Did you come up with anything?"
"Yea actually, the DNA came back to a Piper Maru, in the system with a non-gaming work card from about 5 years ago at the Rampart. Also, there was saliva mixed in the blood, so it's probably a lip or inner mouth wound."
"Nice. That's the missing girl. That saves us trying to get a sample for comparison. This hair clump is going nowhere. Anything else?" she asked
"Yeah, Grissom wants you." He said
Sara almost fell off the chair. "What?"
"In his office. I mean. To talk to you, not, I mean, about the case, not that he doesn't… I'm gonna go… Grissom would like to speak with you in his office. There you go." Greg basically turned tail and ran at that point.
Sara shook her head and packed up the evidence. She headed over to Grissom's office and ran straight into him as he was exiting. Not enough to knock her over but just enough to unsteady her. Grissom grabbed her right hand to balance her.
"Whoa, sorry. Greg found you, then?" he asked
"Uh yeah, just now." She replied, trying to figure out why he hadn't let go of her hand yet. No that she was complaining. She just couldn't be held responsible for her work being sub-par when she had these exquisite chills running through her.
Wow.
She needed to get laid. Touching his hand was sending her into a fit. Honestly.
Wait he was talking, pay attention, Sidle!
"Sorry, what?" She said while delicately and regretfully extricating her hand from his grip. He looked down, as if realizing for the first time he was even touching her. Even though he had been savoring every moment of it. Silently praising his own ability to talk and touch Sara at the same time.
He frowned almost imperceptibly at the loss of contact "I asked what the blood results were."
"Oh. Greg said that it's the missing woman's blood. And that it's blood from her mouth. So maybe she was attacked and brought out to a waiting car outside in the alley?
"Perhaps. Tire treads and paint came back a generic Ford. Only a couple thousand of those in Vegas. Brass found that Maitreya woman. He's got her over at PD. Lets go see what she has to say then.
When they reached PD, Brass had the woman waiting in an interrogation room with an officer. The three of them went into an observation room first to talk.
"She's strung out on something. She's been rambling for about 30 minutes. Found her passed out on her back stoop. Real name is Taylor Skinner." Brass reported.
"Skinner?" Sara said suspiciously
"Oh yeah. Her brother is Walter Skinner. Works at the club with her. You've met." He replied. "I sent out some uniforms to pick him up."
The three of them went into the interrogation room and tried to get anything coherent out of the woman. No such luck. They examined her hands for evidence of a struggle but found nothing. 10 minutes later an officer knocked on the door and informed Brass that her brother was in another room when they were ready. They packed it in and sent Taylor to a holding cell to sober up.
They walked into the new room containing Skinner. He stood up, arms crossed, and looked at the three of them nervously.
"Where's my sister?" he asked anxiously
"She's sleeping it off pal. Take a seat. You know that woman that went missing from the club where you work, right?" Brass said
"Yeah, uh, Piper. That sucks. Why am I here, exactly?" He asked
"Well your sister seems to be the last one to have seen her before she disappeared. And she's not in a chatty mood right now. So we wanted to know if she'd said anything to you." Sara answered
"Um, no" he replied shortly
"Ok then. Do they get along at work?" Grissom asked slowly
"Uh I guess. I mean Tay would say that Piper tried to like, steal her tips, you know like, go after her marks. Yada, Yada, Yada. Why?" he asked apprehensively
"Well if they have a history of conflict then maybe Taylor may have wanted to do something to get back at her." Brass informed him
"NO way man!" The man exclaimed slamming his hands on the table. Tay wouldn't hurt anybody." He said with force
"What about you, Mr. Skinner." Grissom asked, looking at his left hand
"Huh?"
"What happened to your hand Wally?" Sara asked
"Oh, um, there was a fight, you know, in the club, like a couple days ago. I had to break it up." He replied hesitantly
"Do you routinely punch people in the teeth while breaking up fights?" she asked
"If I have to. It happens you know. People are like, animals." He said indignantly
"Yes they are Mr. Skinner. So you wouldn't mind if we swabbed that cut on your hand would you? I mean just to rule you out." Grissom said mock-pleasantly
Skinner looked at them wearily but couldn't really refuse so he reluctantly held out his hand. Sara grabbed a swab and swiped the cut with a touch more pressure than necessary.
"Ouch. Dammit." Skinner exclaimed
"Oops, sorry bout that." Sara answered with a small smirk toward Grissom. "Just out of curiosity, what kind of car do you drive, Wally?"
"Uh, a Taurus, 99, why?" he replied
"I like cars." Sara tossed back
"Okay Mr. Skinner, hang tight for a few minutes, we'll be right back." Brass said.
They exited the room and Sara ran off with the sample to give to Greg for comparison. She was back not 10 minutes later with a serious yet triumphant look on her face.
"DNA was a match to the missing girl. He punched her in the mouth and kidnapped her." She informed them
Brass whirled around and stormed back into the interrogation room.
"Where is she?" he demanded
"What? I don't know what-" he began
"Cut the crap Skinner. Her DNA is in your knuckles buddy. She was pissing off your sister. So, what? You decked her, and took her outside to your piece of crap car. What did you do with after that? Where is she? If she's not dead you can get out of this without 25 to life. Maybe just 15." Brass spat
"I…I… she's, I don't." he stuttered
"WHERE!?" Brass yelled
Grissom and Sara actually took a step back, Sara had her cell phone out, ready to call dispatch when he gave them a location.
"My place, the cellar." Skinner finally said quietly
Sara called it in, gave the dispatcher the address off the file in front of her as Grissom called the paramedics to the same location.
20 minutes later they were in the back of Walter Skinner's hovel. Two doors leading down to an underground cellar were ripped open and 2 uniforms went down to clear it. After a minute, they called up to the paramedics who went down to collect the girl. Who was still alive.
They carried her up the rickety steps on a stretcher and into the ambulance. Grissom and Sara would have to process her later. Brass came over to them and informed them that she was bound and gagged and tied to a support beam. Probably since she was abducted.
Grissom and Sara did a quick process of the cellar then walked back to the Denali.
"I had some bad nights at Arcadia" Sara said while packing up the truck "But nothing ever happened there like this."
Grissom raised his eyebrows. Waiting to see if she would elaborate.
"Worst case scenario was going home with pole burn." She half-joked
He almost dropped his kit.
"You, um, the pole?" he stuttered
"Well, it's not there to hold up the bar, Griss." She smiled It was nice to finally be able to talk about this after so long. Even if it was a little surreal to be discussing it with Grissom.
"Uh, yeah, I guess that's, Okay, let's go." Grissom fumbled with the keys for a moment but finally got them into the ignition. And in a few moments they were on their way back to the lab.
"What time is it?" Sara asked when they arrived at the lab
"10:13. Look, shift ended over an hour ago. Why don't we drop this stuff off and finish it tonight. Would you like to go get breakfast, with me?" he delivered this all in one breath, afraid that if he paused to breathe he wouldn't get it out.
Sara barely thought about it before responding "Yeah. I'd like that. Let me put this stuff in the vault and grab my bag." she replied with a bright smile.
"Okay. Meet you outside in 20?" Grissom asked
"Sure."
Sitting at the small outdoor café about 10 miles off the strip that Grissom had driven to was the best way Sara could think to end shift. They were sipping their juice and waiting for their food to arrive and chatting about how the case would probably close, how much jail time each sibling would get, who would testify, that kind of thing, when suddenly, Grissom stopped talking.
"Something wrong Griss? Sara asked
"No, nothing's wrong, it's just, Lets not talk about work anymore today. How about we just, talk." Grissom answered slowly
Was he serious? Grissom. Actually inviting a personal conversation? Sure they'd been getting closer but this was quite a leap.
Sara smiled. "Sure, why don't you tell me something deeply personal that no one knows about you?" She joked
He stared at her, silent.
"It was a joke, Grissom, sarcasm?" She intoned carefully
When he finally spoke, it was slowly, carefully measuring each word.
"In third grade I fell of the monkey bars at school and broke my collarbone. I had to stay in my bed for 3 weeks. About 3 or 4 days in I noticed a spider web in the corner of my room. I watched that spider for hours everyday for 2 weeks. It was fascinating to watch it work and walk and eat. One day my mom found it and killed the spider and swept away the web. I don't think I spoke to her for a week. That's when I became interested in insects."
After he finished, he dropped his gaze from hers and studied his napkin. Slightly afraid that she would laugh at him or something. When he finally looked up she had a serious look on her face but somehow it was soft and the corners of her mouth were turned up just the slightest bit.
"Grissom, I didn't really expect you to-"
"I know" he interrupted "I wanted to tell you that."
"Why?" she asked
"I trust you." he replied " and, I've really enjoyed spending more time with you."
"Oh. Wow. Um Grissom, I mean you never really, say anything… at all, and then you just come out with, that… it's just…" Sara stuttered
"I know I'm not very articulate when it comes to expressing myself. Especially with you. But I think I would like to try and work on that."
Sara was trying to formulate a response to this revelation. For his part, Grissom seemed to not be dwelling on the situation, which was unusual. Their food arrived and they ate in silence for a while but it wasn't uncomfortable. They stole glances at one another over their meal and exchanged furtive smiles. Sara was seriously considering the possibility that Grissom had been hit over the head sometime in the past 24 hours and she had somehow missed it. Not that she was complaining.
They finished their meal and had a small squabble over the check which Grissom won only because when he placed his hand on the one Sara was using to cover the check, and said 'really I insist' she forgot why she was arguing about it in the first place and he grabbed it away.
Neither of them quite wanted to part ways yet so they wordlessly decided to take a long winding route along the strip back to the car park. They chatted about inconsequential things and every once in a while the backs of their hands would slide against each other pleasantly.
"Okay," Sara stated "Favorite movie?" They had been going back and forth like this for some time discovering interesting things. She honestly never thought she would be talking like this with Grissom.
"The Natural" He said without hesitation.
"I don't know why I even asked" She replied with a smile
"What about you?" he returned
"The Phantom of the Opera. The silent film." She replied.
This response actually surprised him.
"I had a VHS player in my room when I was 11, my mother got it for me. I could watch that movie the middle of the night without getting in trouble since it was silent. I could only imagine the music so I would make it up in my head." She stopped when she realized that yet again she was babbling.
To this Grissom just quirked a small smile and reached out and closed the small distance between their hands. Sara looked down a bit stunned and when she looked back up at him he simply said
"You do keep me guessing."
Sara took this opportunity to lean over a quickly lay a smooth kiss on his lips, lingering long enough only to allow him to return the pressure for a moment before pulling away. She smiled quickly and replied a bit cheekily
"I'll always keep you guessing"
END
I know that was SEVERELY corny but I had to end this thing SOMEWHERE. This is actually not even in the vicinity of where I wanted this story to go, but believe it or not that was even more cheesy. So- yea. Thanks for sticking around- if you did????
Also- I adore Skinner- His namesake is just an idiot in this story for the purposes of the plot.