Chapter 2
Jenn Moore sat in the back booth at the diner around the corner from the lab. She had finally gotten off shift—only thirty minutes late today. She had spent her entire shift going over the evidence she had collected from the b&e and the dead body the day before. And concentrating that hard had given her a headache.
With eyes closed, she slowly massaged her temples as she waited on her soda to arrive. She still couldn't decide between a hamburger or chicken fingers, but figured when the waitress came back she'd just pick one. Although, at this point, any decision seemed too difficult. She thought maybe she just should have gone home.
"This seat taken?" a deep voice asked.
Jenn let out a sigh, planning to blow off whoever had decided it was a good deal to hit on her. She had a boyfriend. She wasn't interested.
"Sorry," she began, but stopped when she opened her eyes. A smile spread across her face. "I mean, sit down."
Nick Stokes slid in to the opposite side of the booth, returning her smile with one of his own. "Thanks."
"What are you doing here?" she was genuinely surprised.
He shrugged. "I'm going in to the lab early and wanted to get a quick bite to eat. What about you?"
"Just getting off shift and was starving," she replied.
"Well, I guess our stomachs just couldn't wait for us to catch up," Nick joked.
Jenn let out a laugh that lit her whole face. "Guess not," she agreed with him as the waitress approached.
"So, what brought you back to Vegas? Last I'd heard you moved to Minneapolis," Nick started after they finished ordering. "And you've obviously been to Seattle somewhere in there."
Jenn nodded. "Yea, mom moved us to Minneapolis after the trial to live with her sister. I ended up going to college in Seattle and joined the force there after I graduated. Mom moved back to Vegas about three years ago. And about a year ago, she got sick. So I moved back to help her out with my little sister." Not to mention I needed time to heal, she thought to herself.
"Is your mom ok?" Nick asked with genuine concern. He remembered Jessica Moore as a tall, frail woman, with two black eyes and a stab wound to the torso from her abusive husband. Jenn, then Simone, had been defiant from the moment the police stepped in to the house. And her sister, Jacqueline, couldn't have been more than a year old.
Jenn was touched by his worry. "She's doing better, but Jacqui is a handful." Jenn smiled at the thought of her baby sister. With her dark hair and brown eyes, Jacqui looked like her father, who was not Jenn's father. Luckily, though, Jacqui had a different attitude than her father, who happened to be the one who stabbed their mom.
"What's your mom doing now?" Nick was sincerely interested. He often wondered if they ever really helped anyone.
"She's an accountant. After we moved to Minnesota, she went back to college and got her degree," Jenn paused, wanting to say something but not wanting to seem like an idiot. "You know," she decided to start. "I hated you when you came to my house that night."
Nick raised a questioning eyebrow. He had been called to a domestic disturbance, finding Jessica with a stab wound on the left side of her torso, baby Jacqui crying in her playpen, and an obstinate Simone in the corner. He hadn't imagined she liked him much at the scene, but hated him? "Really?" he questioned before taking a drink of his coffee.
"Yeah. You're the one that convinced mom to file charges," she told him.
"I didn't know that," Nick said, a little wonder in his voice.
"I was pissed because…" Jenn trailed off, about to reveal more than she had intended. "Because I was a teenager and didn't want to move," she finished, hoping he hadn't noticed her awkward pause.
Nick let out a slight chuckle. "Show me a teenager who isn't pissed," Nick replied.
"But," Jenn continued, "I really want to say thank you for it. Mom leaving Tom was the best thing that could have happened to us." Could have happened to me, she thought.
"So, how did you get in to law enforcement?" Nick was curious.
Jenn let out a laugh. "Same reason."
Nick was confused. "What do you mean?"
"You," she told him, figuring it couldn't hurt at this point. "After a while, I saw the change in mom and realized how much you really impacted her life. And I knew, I wanted to do that, to touch people."
Nick tried to suppress the smile that was overtaking his lips. Things had been rough since Grissom left and he had really needed to hear what Jenn had just said. "I think you give me too much credit," he tried to down play her statement, taking another sip of coffee.
Jenn reached across the table and placed her hand on his. He looked right into her sparking yellow-green eyes. "I mean it, Nick. You really made a difference in my life."
The warmth of her hand and her words caused the smile to finally win out. "Thank you," he managed to get out in a steady voice.
She was taken aback by the emotion in his eyes. Jenn didn't realize her words would touch him so much. In fact, she thought that he would probably think she was crazy because of them. To her, his reaction said a lot about the type of man that he was. And his emotion overwhelmed her.
She cleared her throat before asking, "So what have you been up to all these years? You must have a family by now if you didn't back then."
A tinge of sadness crept in to his smile as he shook his head. "No family. But almost killed by a stalker, framed for murder, buried alive by a mad man, you know, the usual."
Jenn's jaw dropped. She couldn't believe she had heard news of any of this. Then again, when your work tends to make the news, you tend not to need to watch it. "Wow. And I thought getting some cracked ribs and a broken leg was bad! What happened?"
Nick waved his hand dismissing her concern. He didn't want to rehash his past at this moment in time. He was more concerned with what had happened to her. "Forget me, what happened to you?"
She realized he was trying to change the subject and decided not to fight him about it at this moment in time. Besides, it was kind of nice to talk to a guy who was interested in what she had to say. "First responder at a vacant home where suspicious activity was reported. Me and my partner split up. I went around a corner and was greeted by a Louisville Slugger to the shin. After I went down, the perp proceeded to beat me with the bat until my partner found us. He probably would have killed me if my partner hadn't stopped him."
"I'm glad you're alright," Nick told her.
"Same to you," she replied as her phone started to ring. She looked down and her face flushed. Nick couldn't read the emotion, but it didn't look like a happy one.
"Everything alright?" Nick inquired.
Jenn flashed a fake smile. "My boyfriend, wanting to know if I was coming over."
Nick's face fell minutely. He wasn't quite sure why, but the news she had a boyfriend was disappointing. Nick looked down at his watch to cover his reaction. "Well, I need to be getting to work."
"Ok," Jenn's smile faded a little too. "Hope you have a goodnight."
"You too," he responded as he picked up his check and left.
Jenn let out a sigh as she watched him leave. She didn't know if she was going to be able to handle this. For the last ten years, Nick had been her fantasy perfect man—the night in shining armor. She was sure when she started for the lab that it wouldn't be a problem because she just knew the reality of him would shatter her illusions. Unfortunately, that was not turning out to be the case. It's only day two, she tried to convince herself. His flaws will show soon enough.
