A/N: Please go easy on me. This is my first ever CSI fic, and while I'm used to writing X-files, there is a grave difference between the two. Usually you only deal with Mulder in Scully, occasionally Skinner, and whatever perps your after, but here there is a whole team of investigators. I am still getting comfortable with the characters and trying to do them justice, while I hope to create an interesting enough tale. Updates may take awhile, as I am a glutton for research and want my profiling and case to be as realistic as possible. Feedback and/or suggestions are appreciated. Thank you in advance for reading.

I. The Fiber of Being

Gil Grissom stood up straight, though he had his head cocked sideways while viewing the scene in front of him. Arms crossed there was a determination in his hard stare, the kind of determination that tended to frighten most people, while putting others to shame. In all his years as a CSI he wished that he could say he'd never seen anything like the room set out before him, but that would be a lie. He had seen the style of this murder not once, not twice, but three times before. The scene was so astonishing that a more morbid technician may have called it beautiful, but Grissom couldn't bring himself to cross that line just yet. In some instances there was beauty in death, yes, but to twist death so carefully into an art form made it serial murder.

"Well?" Sara Sidle took a step inward to stand beside him, the camera still perched in her ready hands. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

He could see from the corner of his eye that she was looking at him, her curious brown eyes both excited and afraid to know what he was thinking. They had always vibrated on a very similar mental wavelength, and though they did not always methodically agree, it was safe to say that sometimes he felt like Sara had the ability to read his mind. "Four bodies in four months, that's one body a month, and until now not a single piece of evidence to even guide us, much less give us any kind of direction."

"Maybe this one's different," Sara had a quirk about her half-smile, which by all means wasn't so much a smile as it was a reassurance that she was still hopeful.

Usually hopeful and Sara didn't go hand in hand, so when it turned out that way, Grissom found it much easier to renew his own hope. "Maybe," he gave a sturdy nod and glanced over his shoulder at her. "I know we were thorough in the past, but if there is a way to be even more thorough than we've already been, let's do it."

Sara lifted the camera to her eye, "You got it!" The sound of camera clicked and hummed as the police team left them to investigate the scene.

Grissom moved carefully around the glass sarcophagus that entombed the body for display. The woman beneath was naked, still perfectly in-tact, and peaceful—as if she were only just sleeping. Her blond hair was brushed and styled, make up delicately applied so that she looked natural, and as Grissom leaned downward to inspect the temporarily untouchable body, he noted that the skin glistened rose, another attempt by the perp to return life to that which he had deliberately taken it from?

She was number four. The MO was exactly the same as the other three murders, and as Grissom dusted the clean glass surface for the one single index fingerprint he knew was going to be there, he twisted his mouth just a little when it it materialized in the top left-hand corner of the glass casing. He could almost call off sending it to the lab for analysis. It would be the vic's right index finger. It was just one of the calling cards left behind by this particular serial murderer, but the motivation behind it was still a mystery to Grissom.

He captured the print for analysis and stood upright just as Warrick Brown stepped into the room.

"The landlady ID'd the vic for me. Her name was Marilyn Messenger and according to Mrs. Watkins, Messenger was an exemplary tenant. Never late with her rent, always willing to offer a helping hand when Watkins needed her. She was an advertising executive with a firm downtown called Groebler & Mackey. According to the landlady Messenger's only flaw was her low-life boyfriend. He didn't live her, but he stayed over a lot, and he was always asking for money."

Grissom stretched his neck to the left, "Did you get an ID on the boyfriend?"

"Of course," Warrick smirked, a gesture that almost told Grissom he should know better. "Spencer Florence. She wasn't sure where he lived, but she did know that he drives a 2004 Honda Civic, black. Apparently a gift from the deceased."

Sara stepped into the scene and shook her head, "There's nothing I hate more than a man who takes advantage like that." Grissom knew how much the domestic cases got under Sara's skin. She was more than sensitive about them; she was downright angst-ridden. "But then what are the chances that he's our guy? We've been on this scene three other times. The only thing that's changed is the body, and if I'm correct, we'll leave tonight with nothing more than the victim's right fingerprint no matter how hard we scour the place."

"Even so, it never hurts cover all the bases." Grissom pointed out.

"Yeah, who's to say this Florence won't be able to tell us something?" Warrick added.

Sara shrugged up her left shoulder and looked back over the scene. "I just can't help thinking that there's got to be something we're missing. This is our fourth encounter with this guy, Gris. There's just got to be some kind of clue."

"If you had to profile him based on all the information we've come across, what would you come up with?"

"Well, given the other cases, there are no signs of forced entry, and after analysis we discover there has been no sexual assault or abuse," she started. "The bodies are decorated with make-up so that they appear to still be alive when we discover them."

"So this guy doesn't want to face what he's done," Warrick added. "It's like he's painting them so they still appear to be alive."

"First he builds this bizarre glass coffin so he can watch as they die, but he doesn't like to watch them struggle, so he injects them with anesthesia and then places a candle inside the airtight sarcophagus to eat away the oxygen. We would have to reexamine the previous cases more closely, see if we could find links between the victims, but if I had to bet on it, I'd say he's reenacting the death of someone close to him."

"Let's finish up here," Grissom nodded in agreement. "Then we'll sit down with all the evidence and see what we can come up with."

Sara went back to work and Grissom started toward the glass coffin to remove the lid. Warrick stood for a contemplative moment with his head cocked to the right, his pale eyes squinted in curiosity. "I know we need to reexamine the evidence, but if I remember correctly, all of these women have been fairly young, mid-twenties to late thirties. Maybe he's reliving the death of a spouse?"

Grissom glanced back over his shoulder, a half-grin suppressed by the edge of his shoulder, "That's a definite possibility, Warrick." It never ceased to excite and amaze him how well his team worked together, and how animated they were about their work. "In the meantime, why don't you help me lift this lid? It's a little heavy."

"Oh, right," Warrick nodded, and stepped in to help him out.

With the lid out of the way, Grissom went over inch of the body in search of some kind, any kind of clue. Warrick knelt on the opposite side, going over the base of the coffin for the same reason. After several minutes of silent searching, Warrick noted, "He's obviously building these things himself, and he's quite the craftsman."

"That he is," Grissom agreed. "I want to have the craftsmanship analyzed again, see if Greg can come up with anything, maybe an origin for the glass or the wood. . . "

"Okay."

Grissom was just about to stand up with from the quick corner of his eyes he caught sight of something in the nasal cavity of the victim. He leaned inward with his head cocked curiously, his own head now so close to the body that it nearly brushed the skin. "Warrick, hand me the tweezers from my bag." The sound of shuffling moved behind him and then the cold metal arrived in his gloved, outstretched hand. "Thank you," he muttered, and then lowered the open tweezers into the left nostril. He slowly pulled it out again and clamped between the tips of his tweezers was a small, yellow fiber. "Well, well, well." He held it up to the light, and both Warrick and Sara leaned in to check it out before he lowered it into the envelope for the lab. "I don't want to get our hopes up, but for the first time we have new evidence."

"I'll be damned," Sara was actually smiling. "I'll be damned."