Disclaimer: They're not mine.
Spoilers: 5x03 Harvest
Rating: PG or K+
Summary: GC threeshot What if Lindsey hadn't been caught hitchhiking to see Sam? What if she'd just…gone?
Okay, I'll keep working on Isaac's Apple Tree then. Thanks for the reviews, all – that's to Review1234 (jumped right in there first, huh?), Lizzy Sidle (how are ya? Haven't spoken to you in ages!), Just.Let.Go x3, DruisillaBraun, Gerardfan (aw thanks!), Coolcatz, Krys33 (Good! Another angst fan!) and Faith (yknow, I'm actually working on a Luby fic – just give it time!).
Anyway, my mind's gone utterly blank of things to say, so I'll cut it off here. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx
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Missing
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Part Two of Three
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Catherine was dialing a number into her cell phone as they sped past the Rampart, heading down Fremont. The cell phone bleeped twice, flashed something on the screen and promptly shut down on her.
"Damn it," she cursed and hurled her phone over her shoulder to clatter somewhere in the backseat. She turned her eyes skywards and dug her nails into the car seat. "Pick any other day to run my battery down. Any other."
Wordlessly, Gil pulled his cell phone from his pocket and passed it across to her as he shifted gears and just about made the green light. He threw a glance across at Catherine, punching her sister's number into his cell phone, and wondered if she'd ever be able to make it if she lost both her ex-husband and her daughter in the space of a few years. He thought not.
"Nancy? Hey, it's Cath – you haven't seen Lindsey at all, have you? I mean, she hasn't turned up or called or anything…?"
Gil heard Nancy's voice sound through the receiver with indistinct words as Catherine closed her eyes tight shut and pressed her fingers into her forehead.
She let out a sigh, "Yeah – she just skipped school after lunch and no-one knows where she went…" Catherine bit down on her lip and nodded her head. "Yeah… yeah, I know. Thanks anyway…I'll let you know."
She ended the call on the keypad and began dialing her mother's number straight away.
"Well, she didn't go to Nancy's," Catherine muttered distractedly to Gil. He nodded slightly.
"She would've called you to tell you if Lindsey had turned up there. So would your mother," Gil mentioned and Catherine turned to him, mid-dialing. She fixed him with a cold stare.
"Well Jesus, Gil – there's no harm in trying," she snapped bitterly. "Would you rather I just gave up and waited for her to come home – if ever?" Her eyes burnt as she said it and then filled with tears; Gil looked uncertainly at her, stopped at traffic lights.
"Cath – you know that's not what I meant," he told her quietly. She blinked away the tears in her eyes and took a few long breaths before she continued dialing her mother's number.
"I know, I know – I'm sorry," she murmured and brushed her hair from her face again. "I wouldn't be such a wreck if we weren't running this case on Alicia going missing at the same time."
Just then, the police scanner on the car dashboard crackled and wheezed out some static. "Attention CSI – dead body found. Decedent is suspected to be Alicia Perez."
Gil dipped his forehead to touch the steering wheel for a moment as the lights winked to green and he drove on. Catherine just hung her head and continued to listen to the ringing tone of Gil's cell phone, pressed close against her ear.
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The manager at The Orpheus had Sam Braun's table cleared and told his staff that Braun's table would be served first unless they were otherwise informed. That was the kind of treatment you got in Vegas if your name carried the weight of big bucks and reputation.
Lindsey loved it, just as her mother had loved it when she was a kid, sitting up at Sam Braun's table as the lions and tigers stalked their cages about the elaborate and showy Orpheus. It had all the glamour and excitement that she'd been looking for and, unbeknown to Lindsey, she sat – swinging her legs in the same way, ordering the same food – in the same seat as her mother had done when she'd been a little girl and Sam had taken her out as a treat.
Sam leant over his club sandwich and smiled at the twelve-year old, so desperate to grow up.
"Hey Linds," he began. "You remember the first time you came here?"
And Lindsey nodded, returning the smile. Her dad had promised to take her to The Orpheus for dinner one night, a school night, until Mom called it off – some kind of long-standing issue between her parents – she didn't quite understand. All she'd gathered then was that she'd missed out on dinner with lions and tigers because of her mother – and she gave her hell for it.
It was that weekend when Catherine called up Sam and asked him if he could make it up to Lindsey for her. Sam had obliged – anything for Catherine – and Lindsey'd sat at Sam Braun's table, right up by the lion's cage and stared, wide-eyed, until her food grew cold.
For weeks after that, the fridge back at Catherine's house was papered over with crayon drawings of lions and tigers – doing circus tricks and sitting at the table with Lindsey – and she told all her friends at school about her Uncle Sam and eating dinner with lions.
That was before she knew he was her grandfather, though. That was before a lot of things.
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The car had barely stopped in Lindsey's school parking lot before Catherine had already unbuckled and jumped right out. She headed straight for one of the front doors as, somewhere inside, the school bell rang and kids began to move to their next classes.
Gil caught up with her as she waded through a busy corridor of kids, pushing past each other with their coloured backpacks. He'd just managed to catch hold of Catherine's arm when she noticed a group of Lindsey's friends paused by a drinking fountain in the corridor and she moved towards them, dragging Gil along behind her.
"Hey – Megan," she called out to one of the girls she'd recognised. "Hey, girls?" And they looked around to see Lindsey's mother coming over.
"Hey – do any of you girls know where Lindsey went today?" she asked them directly, trying to remain casual. The four girls looked at each other and then shrugged their shoulders, shook their heads.
Catherine sighed and bent down to look them in the eye. "This is serious, girls – please," she begged them. "You've got to tell me if you know where she went or if she was meeting anybody…a boy, maybe? She won't be in trouble if she was. You won't get her in trouble if you tell me what happened. She could be in danger and I just need to know where she is."
The girls shuffled uncomfortably on their feet.
"We're really sorry, Mrs. Willows," Megan spoke up for them. "We don't know where she went. She didn't tell us she was gonna cut class – she just did."
With a grim smile, Catherine nodded and stood up. "Okay, thanks girls."
She turned to Gil, sighed again, and said, "Maybe I should go talk to her principal or something. I don't know."
He touched her shoulder lightly. "Worth a try."
But the conversation with the school's principal was inconclusive. He'd called in Lindsey's teacher but she didn't know anything either. If anything, the meeting only made Catherine feel more uncomfortable as she listened to them attempt to cover their asses.
Lindsey had wandered off of school property by herself, they said. Normally kids don't try to walk out of school by themselves – they all know to stay inside. This was a rare occasion. And anyway, it was lunch break – there are lots of kids to keep track of. Lindsey simply…slipped through the cracks.
Slipped through the cracks?
'Slipped through the cracks' didn't help Catherine anything. She climbed back into the passenger side of her Denali as Gil strapped in behind the wheel and she considered with a sinking heart that, if all the world was as callous as Lindsey's school teachers, then her little girl didn't stand a chance.
"Let's just drive around the area for a bit," Gil suggested softly as she stared with empty eyes out of the window. "She can't have gone very far just walking."
And when his phone began to ring in her hands with Nick's caller ID on the screen, she answered it while Grissom shifted the car into gear.
"What's up, Nick?" she greeted with false enthusiasm.
"Catherine?" Nick's voice came back in surprise. "I thought I called Griss."
"You did," Catherine replied. "What's up?"
"Thought I'd call to let you know that the body we found was Alicia Perez's. Her mother confirmed it." Nick informed her and then listened as Catherine repeated the information over to Grissom. There were some muffled sounds as Catherine held the phone to Gil's ear instead.
"Okay," he said simply. "Thanks Nick."
And Nick hung up, a little confused. Catherine tapped her fingertips distractedly on the dashboard as the silence between them was filled only with the sound of some obscure folk and country radio station that the Denali had switched onto.
"Look," Catherine broke the silence. "You can go back and tie up the Perez case if you want to. I know it's bothered you as much as it's bothered me."
But Gil shook his head steadfastly. "No can do, Cath," he told her. "I'll go back only when we find Lindsey." And he looked over at her for a moment – she wasn't looking at him, but still gazing despairingly out of the window.
She didn't say anything in reply and he carried on driving to the country singer on the radio, "Lie in bed and ignore the TV/Watch the clouds sift through the air/Oh, and you'll be in my arms again/There's no need to cry…"
At that, he heard Catherine let out a quiet sob and glanced at her again, surprised to see tears streaming down her face.
"Damn country music," she muttered and smiled sadly at him as she switched off the radio. Gil didn't know what to say but pulled the car over to the side of the road and just looked at her. She rubbed the tears from her cheeks and then cried some more, with her hands in lap, uselessly.
After a while, it occurred to him that he had some tissues in his pocket and, when he handed one to her, she looked at it and laughed.
"Oh…man," she sighed and wiped her eyes on the tissue as Gil tried to show sympathy on his face as best as he could. Catherine shook her head and laughed between tears at herself, her mess of a life and then laughed only because it felt better than crying.
Gil reached over and placed a hand on her thigh, squeezed it reassuringly and told her, "We will find her, Cath."
She nodded and blew her nose.
"We'll find her." He repeated.
Catherine touched his warm hand where it rested on her leg. "I know we will," she answered. "I know." She took a breath and smiled again at him. "You just keep on driving."
And Gil took back his hand, checked the mirrors and pulled out again – driving the car around in large, spiraling circles to cover the area – just like he'd been taught.
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