Trouble ahead, Lady in Red

Take my advice, you'd be better off dead

Switchman's sleeping, train one hundred and two

Is on the wrong track and headed for you.

Grateful Dead, "Casey Jones"

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"Sara, help me out here...is this a good thing or a bad thing?" Greg fidgeted nervously as he struggled to keep up with Sara's brisk pace.

Setting aside her own concerns, she stopped and faced him with a smile of camaraderie. Greg was intelligent and eager, and showed a lot of promise, but it hardly seemed fair to him for Ecklie to force such a task on him so early. She felt a protective instinct toward the young man given the circumstances.

"I hope it's more of a convenience thing. Warrick, Catherine and Nick are all busy with their own cases. We got it by default."

"Ah, but do we want it?" the young man gave her a pointed look.

She chuckled sarcastically. "I love to be forced into positions like this. It's like Animal House. 'Thank you, Sir, may I have another!" The others did have cases they were working, but she couldn't help wondering if Ecklie had an ulterior motive in choosing her for the review. Was he trying to drive a wedge between her and Grissom? They were only just beginning to rebuild their weather-beaten friendship. Did Ecklie think it was more than friendship, or was he applying the 'divide and conquer' strategy preemptively?

The last thing in the world she wanted to do was examine Grissom's work with the proverbial white glove, especially if it turned out that he'd made a serious error. Her first reaction when presented with the assignment had been to refuse it. Her protest fell on deaf ears; Ecklie made it abundantly clear that she had no choice in the matter. Sure, she could resign, but her loyalty to Grissom kept her hanging on. It wasn't long ago that he had saved her job. Sadness and doubt tugged at her heart. His life would be easier if I left. So would mine. They only seemed to coomplicate each other's existences. But then she looked more deeply into her soul and knew while her life would be easier, it would be colorless.

Greg's incessant nervous energy brought Sara back to the moment. "So, where do we start?"

"I start looking this over," she waved the casefile. "You start at Barnes and Noble. And stay out of the erotica aisle!"

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Sara sat at the desk, the casefile spread before her. Grissom's handwriting jumped out at her page after page. It was more than twelve years earlier, before she'd even met him, and yet it seemed as though it could have been compiled yesterday.

A part of her desperately wanted to find in his favor. His work meant everything to him...yep, everything, she noted with a familiar rush of sadness, and he was damn good at it. But anyone could make a mistake. She was determined to be thorough and honest in her assessment. She wouldn't sacrifice her professional integrity, and she was fairly confident that he wouldn't want her to either. How did she keep getting into these situations? Might as well bite the bullet. She gathered her papers and sought out the object of her musing.

Sara drew in a deep breath and paused at the doorway of the employee breakroom. Grissom seemed not to notice her. He was very involved with the study of the contents of his paper bag lunch.

"Avoiding me?" She asked with a forced lightness.

"Huh? Uh, no." He carefully removed the wrapper from his submarine sandwich. "I knew you were busy."

Sara unconsciously crossed her arms protectively in front of her body. "Just so you

know, I tried to decline it."

"I know. I'm not upset with you," he told her sincerely. He brushed a section of table clear with his forearm and motioned for her to sit.

She appreciated the gesture, but remained uneasy. "This is crazy," she offered. "Even if you did miss something—and that's a big if—I'm not likely to find it. This case is cold, cold, cold."

"You're thorough. If it's there, you'll find it." His approachable attitude and gentle tone allowed Sara to relax a bit.

"And if there is something?"

"There's no statute of limitations on murder."

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Greg flashed a peace sign to Archie as he passed by the audiovisual lab. Fieldwork, and its emotional impact, had proven more grueling than he'd imagined. Sometimes he missed the lab. He firmly believed he'd made the right choice, but he now realized that the learning and adjustment curves were both quite steep. And now here I am checking up on Grissom...egad! He paused to reassure himself. Just stick close to Sara.

Spying Sara at a nearby desk, he triumphantly placed his shopping bag next to her.

She looked up from her reading and grinned. "You got the goods?"

"Times two." He produced twin copies of Valley of Fire from the bag. "So we don't fight over it."

"Thanks."

"Ya know, next time we should consider the library. We're actually paying this guy for writing this drivel," Greg groused.

"Hmm, you're right," Sara skimmed over the photos in the center of the book. "I hadn't thought of that."

Greg sat facing the rear of the chair and rested his chin on its back. He watched Sara studiously for a moment. "What do we do about objectivity? If we read Tenney's book, we're potentially biased by his take on it, right?"

"And if we read Grissom's notes, we're getting his interpretation, right?" Sara responded. "Our job is to pick out the basic facts and physical evidence and see where they lead us."

Unable to determine whether Greg's expression was confusion or skepticism, she elaborated. "Fact: On April 17, 1993, at six forty-five in the morning, a coworker called 9-1-1 and stated he found the vic hanging by a noose from a rocky outcropping. That's indisputable. Totally objective. What's subjective are the opinions as to how he came to be hanging there. We have to examine the evidence for ourselves. To get the facts of the case, we have to read the file containing Grissom's interpretation. We're potentially biased whether we read the book or not."

"Knock, knock," Nick's voice sounded from behind them.

Sara spun in her chair. "Hey."

The Texan flashed her his affable smile. "So how'd you two get into this one?"

"Rock smashes scissors," she quipped dryly.

Greg raised his closed fist in front of Nick's. "Best two out of three?"

Bringing his hands together behind his back, Nick laughed. "I don't think so, Greggo. Nice try, though." He returned his attention to the tall brunette. "Seriously, Sara, how're you hanging?"

"I'm okay," she lied. Despite her best attempts to put up a brave face, she couldn't shake the growing sense of imending doom.

TBC