The trip to the scene was long and Grissom filled with memories of Sara. He could always pull up a ride from memory and replay it like he was watching it on a video screen. His memories of her sitting in the passenger seat fiddling with whatever she could get her hands on comforted him on the drives alone. He could remember her hair being gently pushed around by the air streaming from the vents and the slight part in her lips accompanied with the occasional soft smile at the secrets playing in her head. Her long legs would be crossed at the ankle with her foot tapping impatiently on the carpeted floorboard. He loved it when her head would tilt slightly from a thought that had engaged her intellect distracting her from everything around. At those times he wished he could crawl inside her head and see the world through her eyes; to know what she was thinking. Occasionally his curiosity would get the best of him and he'd ask her about her musings. Sometimes she'd answer, allowing him to trot along with the thought; other times she'd just smile, grab his hand, and go back into her world.
He drove along passing places where they had been together on the job or on a date and though each was a fond memory, it drove the sadness deeper into his bones. He craved her with every spinning atom in his body. Craved her more than anything he had ever wanted in his entire life. He was an addict and many times he came close to calling in sick and sprinting to where she was so he could have his next fix of her. But he stayed where he was, always afraid of pushing her away more.
Grissom arrived at the small office complex and was shocked to see everyone on the side street, even Brass and the coroner's pickup crew. Catherine had blocked off the entire parking lot and she was guarding the third door from the end with an odd look on her face; a strange brew of fear, defiance and what he thought might be awe. 'Bug farm' he thought to himself. It wasn't that she hadn't seen her fair share bug infested corpses, but he knew she didn't like them. He noticed the looks of concern and fear on the faces of those hovering around as he slid under the caution tape.
"Hey," he said to Catherine with a look of concern.
"I've never seen anything like this," she said slowly turning around and gently pushing the office door open with one finger.
A strong smell of iron came wafting out of the door and she moved to give him room to get by. Grissom set his case down and stopped at the edge of the doorway, taking in what he could see before trying to enter.
The office was long with the entryway at one end. At the opposite end of the room from the entrance was another door. A small red sign with white lettering identified it as the emergency exit. What walls he could see were covered in pictures, newspaper and magazine articles. Hand scribbled information on sticky notes in varying colors of pink, yellow and green were scattered throughout the collage of pictures. A large map of the world was the center piece of the wall opposite the door. It had bits of string that had been tacked to various locations then stretched out to pictures and computer printouts surrounding the map. Stacks of periodicals and reports were strewn about the small room in what seemed like random order, some of them toppling to the side with loose pages nearby. Perhaps signs of a struggle. He couldn't tell; the room was so cluttered. A large storage cabinet next to the door blocked his view of the rest of the room and the body. Hugging the wall as tightly as possible without touching it, Grissom took one carefully placed step inside to see.
The DB was a young male, mid-twenties with short black hair, no clothes. He was easy on the eyes, almost angelic in the face. Or perhaps it was just the way he was staked to the sky-blue painted wall – arms outstretched like Jesus on the cross, legs hanging straight down with his feet about six inches off the floor. A large puddle of blood had pooled under his feet spreading out like a red plague infecting the worn industrial carpeting and papers in its path. Someone had made a long cut across his abdomen and pulled his viscera through the opening leaving it to dangle down the front of his body. Grissom wasn't certain but the way the blood was smeared on the wall around the young man's waist and legs, it looked as though he was alive and struggling after he was cut open.
It took Grissom less than 15 seconds to evaluate the room but he felt as if he had been there for hours. He'd never had the urge to evacuate his stomach contents at scene before, death and gore rarely fazed him, but there was something inherently evil in this act that unsettled him and caused his stomach to burn.
He turned his attention back to the pictures on the wall and focused on the images there. What he saw sent an icy chill snaking its way up his spine and for the first time since Sara left, he was glad she was gone.
"From the thunder and the storm, and the cloud that took the form, when the rest of Heaven was blue, of a demon in my view," he whispered.