Author's Note: A few months back, I started writing this story, but I came to hate how I wrote it. I started over and am much more pleased with this attempt. This is kind of a sequel to Stolen (also posted on ).
I'm still working on Aureus and Abby, but it's been very slow going. I'm conflicted as to how to finish both stories.
Happy reading, Jac.
Every time I come to this city I have a gun held to my head. My chest feels heavy. The man looks my eyes. His eyes are a crystal blue that I have never seen before. I don't see any remorse as he moves the gun from my head to that of the businessman next to me and the young man next to him. The businessman begins to tell our assailant about his two daughters. I hear the click of the trigger. My stomach begins to sink into my feet. I close my eyes and say a short prayer. The sound of the gun firing is deafening. I feel blood against my skin. It's still so warm. For a moment, I wonder if I am alive. I hear the man next to me crumple to the floor. I open my eyes and wonder why I'm still alive.
Alex's POV:
It has been a year since I was in Vegas. It has been a very long year since I had been in Vegas. I tried not to think about Glen Campbell, Sara Sidle, and Nick Stokes. I tried my damnedest to forget that I shot Glen; that one year ago Glen was dead at my feet.
My year had been busy. I had spent a total of ten weeks in my home in Los Angeles. I spent most of my time being loaned out to different police departments across the country. It seemed like everyone needed forensic profilers this year; I attributed it to the media, especially CourtTV. My boss, Jeremy, said that sending me all over the country was the best form of advertising. He said that I should look at it as a compliment. He said that I am gifted; I should share my gift. I did share my gift. I helped recover two kidnapped girls before they were murdered. I brought to justice two bombers, two kidnappers, and ten murderers. It wasn't a bad year for me professionally.
Personally, I found myself in shambles. I found myself dreaming of Glen; I can still close my eyes and picture Glen holding a gun to Sara's head. I looked for solace in the anonymity of hotel rooms. I didn't find it.
It was one year later, and I found myself on a plane headed back to Las Vegas. Grissom had called me several times in the last week. He was looking for a serial bomber. He said he needed me; I couldn't believe that Dr. Gilbert Grissom needed a forensic profiler. I asked him to fax me the case. The evidence sucked; most of it had been blown away the millisecond the bomb detonated. Grissom told me that this time the criminal was just as smart as the CSIs. That was a prospect that terrified me. Four small casinos off the Strip had been targeted. I was afraid that the bomber would become much more brazen; that the bomber might decide to move his action onto the Strip. I told Grissom that I could be there within two days.
I had been working in Florida. I was helping the Tallahassee PD pursue a serial rapist. Most of my cases this year had 'serial' attached to them. I stuffed my suitcase full of dirty clothing. I hadn't been home in over ten weeks. I did my laundry at hotels. I bought new clothes if all else failed. I was tired.
Grissom met me at the airport. He said that we needed to go straight to the lab. There had been another bombing last night at the North end of the Strip. The bomber was becoming much more brazen. Grissom said that he needed me. He helped me gather my luggage and loaded me in his SUV. He drove to the lab at speeds ranging from mach two to mach three. There was an urgency to everything he did.
Grissom said that I looked different. I told him that guilt and night terrors have a tendency to do that to a person. I knew I looked different. I was thinner; my green eyes didn't sparkle like I remembered they did. I had fallen into disrepair.
"The team meeting should be starting soon," Grissom said as he opened the door to the Las Vegas Crime Science Laboratory. I remembered the layout of the building. It might have been a year, but there were some things that failed to fade from my memory.
"Sounds good. I'll need to go find a place to stay after the meeting. I'm feeling a little jet-lagged," I admitted as I ran my hand through my long blonde hair. I tried to pretend that I was prepared for this. I tried to pretend that I was a little more pulled together than I actually was. I never felt prepared for cases; I always tried to go in with a blank canvas. I didn't want the evidence to cloud my judgment because sometimes the evidence is altered . . . sometimes the evidence lies.
Grissom and I walked into the conference room. They were all there. They all had the same somber look on their faces. I couldn't blame them; twelve people had died last night.
"Dr. Winters is here to profile our suspect," Grissom said as if I might be there for a different reason. I tried to avoid Vegas like the plague. Grissom handed me a dry erase board marker; I was touched that he remembered that I liked to write on the glass walls in the lab. A year must not have erased all the memories from his mind. I doubted that those memories would ever fade.
They all mumbled half-hearted greetings. That was okay; the presence of a profiler never signified that the world was not at peace. Las Vegas was the epicenter of tourism in the United States. A serial bomber wasn't necessarily the attraction that people came to see.
"Okay, I need dates, times, places, and descriptions of each blast," I said as I put aside my own thoughts. It was easy to switch my brain over to very academic types of thought. It was my best defense mechanism.
We stopped three hours later. My brain was fried, and I was starving. Grissom stopped the team meeting when he noticed me swaying. He offered me some of those awful chocolate covered bugs; he even offered me the choice of dark or milk chocolate. Grissom ordered supper for us; we sat in his office eating Chinese food and talking about the case. He asked if I had a profile; I asked him if he thought that I was a miracle worker. Grissom had a presence that made me comfortable.
"Allie, I thought you said that you were never coming back to Vegas?" Nick teased. He stood in the doorway to Grissom's office. Nick and I had met years ago at a professional conference. He presented a case; I told him that I could have solved it faster using a profile and relatively 'non-technological' evidence. Nick bought me drinks. He called me last year to help find Sara. I found Sara, but I killed a man in the process. Nick called my cell-phone occasionally, but I never returned his calls. I couldn't talk about last year; talking about it made the nightmares come back with a vengeance.
"I tried not to, but Chinese food and chocolate covered insects are my weak spot," I replied. Sara's sarcasm had nothing on mine.
"I have the photos from last night," Nick said as he handed me a huge expanding folder stuffed with photos. I knew it was going to be one hell of a long night.
"Alex, why don't you take the rest of the night off. You should go find a place to stay," Grissom said. He didn't dare call me Allie; only my grandmother and Nick ever called me Allie.
"Knowing that the bomber is targeting the Strip and off the Strip . . . I have no idea where I would even want to stay," I replied. No one ever said that I wasn't a wise woman.
"You could always stay with me?" Grissom offered. I pegged him as having an apartment with white wall; the walls were probably all covered in insects of varying genus and species.
"Insect phobia. I nearly had a heart attack when I opened the box of candy that you sent me. The guys at the FBI in Boston came into my conference room with guns drawn . . . they were convinced that someone was killing me," I replied. Grissom laughed. I obviously had pegged him correctly.
"You could always stay with Sara and me," Nick offered. That was out of the question to; I didn't want the nightmares.
"Let me look over the profile once more before I pick my hotel," I replied. Nick looked disappointed that I had not chosen to stay with him. I'm surprised that he of all people didn't understand.
"Smart girl," Grissom commented.
"He goes for dumps. The star rating can't possibly be more than two maybe three on a very, very giving day," I commented.
"Why is it a he?" Nick asked.
"Women tend to attack people much more personally. Women kill using poison. In passion crimes, women tend to use blunt objects to bludgeon their victims to death or a small, lightweight handgun," I replied. Both Grissom and Nick nodded.
"Men are much flashier. When a man hates a woman, he strangles, stabs, or shoots. When a man hates another man, he bombs, beats, or shoots," I clarified. I finished picking at my Chinese vegetables and fried rice.
"So a man hates a man," Grissom stated.
"A man hates man or a concept. Why do people hate casinos?" I asked them.
"Gambling debts . . . ," Nick answered. Grissom also seemed to be very satisfied with Nick's answer.
"I immediately think of gambling debts, lost jobs . . . maybe he lives in an area that is being impinged by casinos. My first question would be who owns all the casinos. My second question would be who has markers out at each casino. My third is who has worked at all the casinos," I rambled.
"That's why you make the big money," Nick teased.
"You must be using big in the figurative sense," I quipped, "So what's one of the biggest, newest casinos on the South end of the Strip?"
"Alex, it's not a good idea. We don't know the bomber's pattern yet," Grissom said.
"Allie, just come stay with me," Nick coaxed. I begrudgingly nodded; I knew that I probably wouldn't win this fight. From the look on Nick's face, he probably would have spent the rest of his shift trying to guilt me into staying with him and Sara.
"Fine. You win," I replied, "So Grissom how long do you think you'll need me?"
"Until the bombings stop," he replied.
"So am I staying until you get the perp?" I asked.
"Until the bombings stop," Grissom said again, "What do you need for the profile?"
"Everything I wrote on the wall. I need time to go through the photos. I need you to answer my top three questions. I also need some sleep and someone to do my laundry," I replied.
"Nick, take the evening off. Make sure that Alex is taken care of," Grissom said. I wondered why he even needed to tell Nick that. Nick would have done that without even being asked or told.
"I'm going to take the photos with me. I could use something to lull me to sleep," I replied, "Grissom, guard those windows with your life."
"Go get some sleep. Nick, make sure she actually sleeps," Grissom ordered as if I might just listen to Nick.
I grabbed my luggage from the corner of Grissom's office. They were stacked with a geometric precision. Nick immediately hijacked the luggage from me. I knew enough not to fight Nick. He wouldn't give up until I did as told; that was just his nature. He protected people. He looked after people.
"Alex, you came back," Sara said as she met up with us in the hallway. Sara looked shocked; she understood survivor's guilt. Some days, I felt bad that it wasn't me. Glen could have easily shot me; instead, I took his life.
"Not by choice," I replied. Sara looked well; well, it would have been hard for her to look worse than she did last year when she was held hostage by her stalker.
"She's staying in the guest room," Nick told Sara. Sara smiled; we bonded last year. We spent most of out nights awake listening to her police scanner. I would profile the suspect and Sara would detail how she would collect the evidence. We were both awake almost every night; we would awake from similar nightmares. Nick was a heavy sleeper; he rarely woke up with us. He didn't like the game. Nick said it wasn't healthy to eat, sleep, and breathe work.
"Good. Here's your notes from the walls. I figured that you probably would start working tonight," Sara replied. Smart girl; she hit the nail on the head.
I might have fallen asleep on the way to Nick's townhouse. He gently woke me up and helped me in to the townhouse. I began to settle myself in the guestroom. Nick brought in my luggage and immediately admonished me for opening up the file containing the crime scene photos. I was sitting on the bed with the photos surrounding me. I planned to go through each casino individually to see if this was coincidence or if the bombings were connected. I had worked with enough forensic detectives to garner a little knowledge about the science of bombings, but it was by no means my specialty. My specialty was rape and violent assaults. I spent time in Texas working with death row inmates; I learned the fine art of murder from the finest teachers . . . the most violent men and women on Earth.
"You want some help?" Nick asked as he sat at the edge of the bed.
"What do you know about the chemical structure of the bomb?" I asked.
"Standard gun powder and sulfur," Nick replied.
"Great. So anyone that knows how to read, knows what a hardware store is, and has the internet is a suspect," I replied.
"Go to sleep, Allie. He'll still be out there tomorrow," Nick said as he began to gather up all the pictures.
"Twelve," I said as if it was some kind of epiphany. Well, in my tired state it was an epiphany.
"What?" Nick said as he looked at me funny.
"Twelve weeks, twelfth day of the month, twelfth month of the year, four minutes after noon, and twelve days after the last bombing," I said. Nick still was looking at me as if I had lost my mind.
"Second bombing was twelve weeks after the first and it was on the twelfth day of the month. The third bombing was in December. The fourth was at twelve midnight, and the fifth bombing was twelve days after the fourth," I said.
"Are you sure?" Nick asked as he looked over the dates and time.
"I'm sure. I'm thinking twelve means something to someone. Maybe a schizophrenic, obsessive-compulsive, or bipolar. So what's next . . . twelve noon . . . maybe a twelve in the address . . . twelve days," I rambled as I paged through my notes.
"I'll call Grissom. You should really be trying to sleep," Nick admonished as I reopened the case file.
"Like hell I will," I cursed under my breath.