CHAPTER 1: LIVING NIGHTMARE
Las Vegas at night was a wonder to behold. From a height, one could truly see the glittering neon of blinking signs like the sparkle of early morning dew on the lawn, and catch the bustle of all its inhabitants as they visited the 'in' spots. It was party central. Sin City. Of course there was gambling, and drugs, and gangs, and prostitutes, but hey, what large city doesn't? However, only a few people truly saw what really happened in Las Vegas. The robberies, the thefts, the deceit, the deaths, are usually all hidden from the everyday person's minds, to ensure their happiness, so thought Sara Sidle as she looked out over the lawn of her crime scene.
This was what her life consisted of, painful truths of the underground. She was a Crime Scene Investigator. It was her job to figure out what happened in the most gruesome circumstances, and to bring the perpetrator to justice using science. Sara lived for justice, not so much for herself. She would admit it, that she never had much to live for aside from her job and her scarce few friends.
She sighed as she swept over the scene. In the black of night, only the red and blue lights flashed from atop their police vehicles, and their accompanying sirens shattered any peace the night once had for the neighbourhood. That, and the hushed whispers of the resident gossipers who tried to find out what they could so they had something to talk about the next day. It disgusted Sara, but such was to be expected.
She headed in to the house, her collection kit in hand, and flicked on her small flashlight. Its bright white light illuminated the dingy room, and she walked lightly in to the room that adjoined from the right. Upon entering, she smiled as she saw one of her afore-mentioned friends, and she had to say, they were the best of her acquaintances. One of them turned towards her from where he was looking over a dead body, and smiled at her, the skin about his eyes and mouth wrinkling in such a warm way as to always make her feel happy. "Hey Sara."
"Hey Nick." She said, entering further into the room to also glance upon the corpse whom she was investigating. For anyone else, the dead body may have caused a nauseous upheaval in the stomach, but the men and women of the Crime Lab, and most of the Police Department, were used to the horrors that the job brought. They were trained to be desensitized, and the better for them, Sara supposed, as she looked upon the slender body of a woman who was obviously brutally thrown about. That just boiled her blood. "What do we have tonight?"
"Well, as you can see," Nick gestured to the woman's body which David Phillips, the coroner, was also bent over trying to do a preliminary examination of her, "she was definitely pushed about a bit. And, as I'm sure Super Dave will soon inform you, she probably died of blunt force trauma to the back of the skull. Isn't that right, David?"
Sara smirked at his egotistical confidence, and it grew at David's words. "Nope."
Nick's face went from cocky to one of vast surprise. "No? What do you mean no?"
"I mean no, nuh-uh, nada, no way no how. This girl had the stuffing knocked out of her, but she was stuck with a bullet, and that's what got her in the end."
"Tsk tsk, Nicky," Teased Sara, "You're losing your touch."
"I don't understand…" Nick said incredulously, "I was sure…where is the bullet hole too?"
David sighed, yet complied, and he went further down the torso of the body until he came to the top of her thighs. He lifted the top of her dress, ripped and frayed at its edges, and signed for them to take a look. Sara and Nick looked at each other, both now in their serious work modes, and they both ventured a peek, and were disturbed at the sight. From the torn skin, the bloody remains and the burn marks, it was obvious where the bullet, and gun, and entered. "The body has no exit wounds, so I'm wagering a guess we'll extract the bullet from the abdominal cavity when Doc Robbins and I perform the autopsy."
"Well, no doubt in my mind," Nick said with a sober voice, "that this was the work of someone she was close to."
"If they were close, you think they would have ripped her insides to shreds with a bullet placed there?" Sara strained the last word, not able to say it with ease. "Obviously it was the husband, or boyfriend, tired of just knocking her about." Nick nodded, afraid Sara's temper would flare up and cloud her judgement, as it would tend to do sometimes. Sara looked at the body again. She was almost perfect, a white face of smooth porcelain, the lacquer tainted by death and glazed eyes, and blood. "Are you good with handling the body, and the downstairs?" Nick nodded again. "Well, then I guess I'll go upstairs."
"Okay, I'm sure Greg would appreciate the help." Nick said as he turned again towards the body with David. Sara glanced back at Nick
"Greg's here too?"
"Yup."
Sara nodded slowly, and as Nick never turned his head to answer her question, she in turn started to walk towards the small stairwell that was found in a separate room from where they were. As she looked up into the nothingness of the incline, she got chills. Blood, no doubt from the victim, was spattered about the walls, which she could only assume used to be of a purer white. She looked down, and up, careful to watch her step, and fortuitously for her she caught sight of the tiny yellow markers. She looked intently, and caught sight of the tiny droplets of blood that Greg had caught and she was sure she would have missed. She gave a proud grin.
Greg, though one of her best friends, was once only her student. As he made the transfer from brilliant and quick-witted DNA tech to serious, still quick-witted CSI level 1, she was there to guide him, as Grissom could not do. She was his mentor, and now she had more respect for him than any could ever guess. Yet he was deserving of much more than that, she knew. He was the reason why she kept trying, kept living. She wasn't going to get into the sappy romance, but it was his charm and humour that kept her alive amidst all the malevolence and grotesqueness of what was her everyday life. And the same for Greg, his only endeavour was to make sure his friends always knew what it was like to live.
She reached the landing, and was met with still more darkness. Little to no light shone through the house, and she had to once again turn on her flashlight. White light pierced the gloom of the second floor of the house, revealing a corridor and three doors, and yet more blood that was spattered on the walls like primitive finger painting. Two of the doors remained closed, and she saw a light from the third, closer door. Sara inhaled sharply before entering, the sharp scent of the blood finally registering on her olfactory system; the smell of a sickly metallic, the iron of the victim's haemoglobin, as if you had just held on to the change from your everyday coffee for just a little too long.
"Hello?" She heard his familiar voice echo through the house that, yet only devoid of life for a few hours, seemed very lonely. "Is that you Nick?"
Sara poked her head about the door to look at his face. She could only make out a silhouette from the dim glow of the flashlight that he was working with, but she could see he was slightly on edge. Maybe it wasn't just her. "Sorry to disappoint you, Greggo. It's only me."
Even in the sorry excuse for light, she could see a great grin spread across his face, a great pleasure for many, as whoever gazed upon it could not help but smile. It worked wonders on Sara, as she felt the muscles in her face contorting in a smile. "You could never disappoint me with your company, you know."
"And you never fail to be an impossible flirt." She returned with equal friendly sauciness. He grinned, and looked up at her with impossibly adorable puppy eyes that could probably score him any girl he chose, and his curly light brown hair certainly didn't chase the ladies away. And yet, he seemed to only have eyes for her, which was highly flattering to her, and she admitted she took advantage of it too many times, but she liked the attention she never got growing up a science nerd.
The ease of playful banter aside, she walked up to his side and asked what she should do.
"I guess you could help me process the rest of upstairs. I still have one room to do, so you can go ahead and do your thing there."
"Yeah, I will." She started to go, but Greg called her back. "What it is, Greg?"
"Sara…take a look at this, will you?"
His invitation intrigued her, and she obligingly walked up to see to what he was referring. He pointed, and she followed the beam to a place under an old fashioned radiator that reflected the light. "Hmm," Sara thought out loud, "looks like a piece of metal, or something made of metal."
"Yeah." He agreed, and started to slink over on his toes while still bent down towards the radiator. With a carefully gloved hand, he reached in and extracted the object from under the old heat source, and with no great enthusiasm, said, "It's just a gun."
Sara looked at him funnily. "Just a gun? You feeling all right there, Greggo? Gun's are always awesome to find at a crime scene."
"Not when the victim wasn't shot." Greg argued.
"She was shot."
Greg looked at her, and to the gun and back, with much more interest. "Really? Well this makes my finding a little more worth our time, don't you think?" And then added, "Nick said she wasn't shot."
"Since when do you trust Nick on means of death? He isn't a coroner. And she was definitely shot." Sara felt the chills invade her spine once more. "Right up through her body."
At once Greg realized what she meant, and she could see something of a wave of unpleasantness cross his countenance. "Ouch. What a way to get shot. Definitely a murder of intimacy. Brutal husband or male in the life?"
"I bet a month's salary that it was." Sara said dolefully.
"Don't do that Sara," Greg said, "You need that money for food, you eat too little as it is, with your crazy vegetarian ways."
Sara laughed as she headed out the door once more. "You goof." She humorously chided him. "Bag the gun, and get on with the room, and maybe we can catch breakfast with Nick."
"Or just us." He mumbled lightly. He was sure Sara had heard, and he was prepared to fake something to make it seem a joke, but she just walked on, seemingly oblivious to his wish, and he continued to search the room.
However, Sara had indeed heard his hopeful whispers, and her heart went out to him, and herself. She had known Greg had a huge crush on her since her first year at Las Vegas, but she hadn't been ready for any kind of a relationship. And then when the whole Hank debacle started, while Greg had been evidently jealous and envious, and had even resorted to petty comments, he had been nothing but sincere to her, and cared for her when he let her down. And everyone knew about her almost stalker obsession over the Graveyard shift supervisor, Gil Grissom.
And even through all of this, Greg was still her friend until the end, and still maintained the hope of one day even just winning a date with her. Shoot, she was willing to bet he'd settle for a half date. Maybe she was overrating herself. At any rate, she enjoyed Greg's humour, and he made her feel better everyday she was unhappy. And yet, she hadn't even opened her eyes to the possibility of 'them' yet. That was what she would call, 'cold'. Maybe she would go out with him, just this once, after shift today.
Probably not.
She entered the room that Greg had yet to make his way to, a room that appeared to be a large bedroom, and started processing. Her own attention to detail was not retarded in any way by her thoughts, and she very quickly had a large assembly of evidence to bring back to the lab and have processed by the assortment of techs there. She slowly and methodically worked her way through the room until she came to the far side of the bed, where she was slightly surprised to find a massive pool of blood. This, she naturally assumed, was where the shooting occurred. She inched her way carefully to it, and took many photographs of it. Then from out of her kit she took out her ALS, and started sweeping it's blue radiance across the dark carpet. And like Hansel and Gretel and their trail of breadcrumbs, she followed the miniscule drops that had since faded from her view right towards the bathroom.
"Sara." She turned her head to see Greg standing at the door, hit kit packed and in his hand, with an armful of evidence in the other. "Are you ready? I have the other…"
Sara silenced him with a quick finger to her lips, and gestured towards the bathroom. Greg looked, and understanding, took out his flashlight, ready to assist her if need be. It was only a precaution; surely the police had cleared the room as they were supposed to?
Sara motioned with her fingers her countdown…3…2…1…and she flipped into the room, her vision greatly improved with the help of Greg's flashlight. However, it wasn't necessary, as nothing remained in the bathroom except for a sink, toilet, shower and a dirty magazine. Sara let her shoulders drop. "It's okay, Greg, I don't see anything."
She saw Greg's shoulders drop also without the suspense hanging over them. "You ready to go?" He tried asking her once again.
Sara snapped a few more pictures of the blood trail, and nodded. "Yes, I am. Let's get back to the lab."
Greg allowed a small smile to grace his features, and started walking in front of her as she retrieved her evidence. Suddenly, a soft thump was heard. Sara felt the chills crawl up and down her spine, her hair stood on end, and she was compelled to look behind her until Greg's scared voice caused her to jump a hundred feet. "Sara, look out!"
Sara jumped up and around at the warning, and saw a man pointing a gun in her face. He uttered no words; cocking the gun was enough of a speech to let Sara know what was about to happen. He advanced, and as Sara's ears were assaulted with a deadly blast, she saw in a split second Greg jump out in front of her. She felt a dull pain, and a few seconds later she saw Greg, bleeding and unconscious, on the floor. She didn't know what happened next, but the shooter suddenly dropped to the ground, by her gun or someone else's. But it didn't matter, none of it mattered as she saw Greg injured in front of her. All her training of desensitizing went out the window, and at the sight of her friend she fainted dead away.
Like I mentioned a trillion times before, I hope you enjoy! Good luck with future eneavors everyone;) Will hopefully update as soon as I get home (though I have a great concert on the 28th...busy June for me:) Til next time!