Disclaimer: I didn't create CSI. I don't own CSI. I have not profited in any way from CSI. (Except emotionally; it makes me happy.)

A/N: Before the events of the last few episodes of season 7, I've always thought the rest of the team kinda, sorta suspected the GSR. They had to have seen things, picked up subtle clues here and there. This is how each of the different team members might have reacted to those clues they picked up along the way.

Suspicious Minds:

NICK

Nick Stokes peered into the dim Las Vegas Police Department garage with disgust. He had been told there was a Cadillac Escalade there waiting for processing and he had hurried over to the garage, genuinely excited at the prospect. It wasn't every day you got to dismantle an Escalade. He had been so looking forward to it.

But this. . . was not what he had expected.

What a damn shame, he thought. The Caddy's registered owner was one Pinky Crenshaw, gang thug and Drug Kingpin wannabe. His given name was Douglas, but he had a fondness for all things pink: pink shirts, pink hats, pink stationery . . . pink Cadillac.

Nick flipped a switch, lighting the garage's interior to near-daylight brilliance. That so doesn't help. Some things were not meant to be painted pink, and a Cadillac Escalade was definitely one of them, in Nick's estimation. It wouldn't interfere with processing the thing but it hurt his eyes and offended his sensibilities, making him reluctant to approach the car, much less take it apart.

Dismantle it they must, though, and search every inch. Pinky Crenshaw had been stopped for a routine traffic violation on North Tropicana during the night. Making a U-turn in the middle of traffic was a sure way to a ticket in Las Vegas, but Pinky thought himself above such things as rules of the road. His pink Escalade went where he wanted it to go when he wanted it to go there, and everybody else just better stay the hell out of his way. The officers who stopped him had him step out onto the sidewalk while they scanned his driver's license. The pink car and clothing had given them their first clues as to his possible identity, but one couldn't be too careful.

Since they had detained a suspected drug dealer who had acted "jumpy" (their story) they felt they had probable cause to hold Pinky temporarily and call for drug-sniffing dogs. And backup. Lots of backup. (Pinky had a little bit of a rep with the LVPD. He had once broken a female rookie's nose when she attempted to shoo him out of the way during a raid on one of his suspected drug labs. They were careful whenever they encountered him but also aware - very aware - that wherever Pinky went, trouble followed.) The dogs had swarmed all over the Cadillac, howling and barking excitedly, but they had been unable to pinpoint the source of the smell. The cops had looked, superficially, but had found nothing.

Now it was up to the Las Vegas Crime Lab to find the drugs the arresting officers were certain must be hidden somewhere in the SUV. While they had never been able to legally connect Pinky to any of the drugs he supposedly bought and sold, he was a bad-tempered, violent son of a bitch and they wanted him off the streets in the worst way. They were also tired of watching him walk away from them one too many times, followed by his smarmy, seedy lawyer. (The lawyer was smart, though. Very smart. They'd give him that. He dressed like he didn't have a pot to piss in but drove around in a dirty gray - brand new - BMW. And he always managed to find some loophole through which Pinky was able to slip out of police custody. Pinky had not spent more than four hours in a jail cell. If the cops hated bad lawyers, they hated good lawyers even more.)

Nick ventured closer to the Escalade. Close up, the paint job was even more hideous. What had at first been a dim pink nightmare was now a bright pink nightmare and Nick regretted turning on the lights.

Sara, who had slipped into the garage behind him said sadly, "This is wrong on so many levels."

"Tell me about it," replied Nick. He regarded Sara fondly and asked, "So where do you want to start?"

"Drugs generally don't travel well in the engine compartment, so how about we work from the inside out?"

"Done."

They each approached a rear side door, Nick on the right and Sara on the left, and opened them simultaneously. "Oh, my god," moaned Sara. The vehicle's interior was even worse than its exterior. Every visible surface was pink, including the dashboard and head liner. The seats were covered in pink leather and the floors in what looked like pink sheepskin.

"Who the hell dyes perfectly good sheepskin like that?" Nick wondered. "I grew up on a ranch and, let me tell you, that is just not natural."

"I think that's the point," Sara replied, equally repulsed. There was something almost . . . alive about the car's interior. She felt as if she was about to slip into a giant body cavity, all smooth and blood-infused like living tissue. She was going to have nightmares about this one, she was sure of it.

Shaking off the discomfort, each started dismantling the side doors, opening up and searching behind the plastic and leather moldings. They unbolted the seats, removed the upholstery, and found nothing but foam stuffing. They ripped up the pink carpet and checked for compartments in the floorboards. Nothing. They moved to the front and repeated the process, removing the seats, the dashboard cover, the compartment between the seats, the carpet, checking the floorboards. Zip. They lifted the head liner and, again, found zilch.

"This is getting ridiculous," Nick complained. It had taken them nearly four hours to dismantle the SUV's interior and their efforts had gotten them nothing but a blinding pink headache. "Pinky Crenshaw is not that smart."

"I think he confiscated the car from a mobster who owed him a favor," Sara reminded him. "Those guys know how to hide stuff. You know, nobody ever found Jimmy Hoffa."

Nick stretched his aching shoulders, pulled his gloves more tightly around his fingers and moved over to the workbench, snagging a dolly with his foot. "Time for the really fun stuff."

Sara grabbed her own dolly and lay down, rolling to join Nick underneath the huge SUV. "It's roomy under here," she remarked conversationally, as they both scanned the undercarriage. There was room for both of them to lie down side-by-side, with room to spare.

"Clean, too," said Nick. "Pinky takes good care of his stuff, I'll give him that." He grimaced as he remembered all the pink. "Too bad the same can't be said about his taste."

At first glance, they could see nothing unusual about the underside of the SUV. Everything was in place, just as it should be. As Nick shone his light above their heads, they scanned front to back, side to side. Suddenly, Sara grabbed Nick's arm and pointed up toward the car's front end. "There," she said excitedly. "Up there in back of the front axle. Does that weld look strange to you?"

The beam from the flashlight settled on a section of the undercarriage just behind the axle and to the side of the right front wheel well. "Yeah," he said. "It sure does."

They both scooted up nearer the front tires to examine the section of metal more closely. "Hand me those needle nose pliers, would you?" Sara asked. Nick reached out to the tool box lying open on the ground and grabbed the pliers, handing them over. "I think if I just stick these in right . . . here . . ."

"Careful, there, darlin'," Nick cautioned. "Who knows what this thing's carrying."

"Right." Sara carefully dug the pliers around what looked like a large square seam in the otherwise smooth black surface. On the end was a gap in the metal that Sara was able to stick the pointed pliers into. Searching, Nick found another gap on his side. Grabbing another pair of pliers, he reached in, mirroring Sara's grip on the gap's edge. Together, they tilted the pliers in and, at the same time, pulled down.

With a metallic snap, the "box" popped free and dropped down onto Nick's mid-section, eliciting a startled "Ooof," before he could brace himself.

"Better you than me," Sara laughed, ignoring his indignant look in her direction. She grabbed her camera and started snapping pictures of the box and the matching hole it had left behind in the Escalade.

"But you have natural padding, you know, on your woman parts, just for situations like this," he whined.

"Careful there, Nicky," came Grissom's voice from somewhere above and to the right of their position under the SUV. "Comments like that can be construed as sexual harassment."

Sara rolled swiftly out from under the end of the SUV and stood up, coming face to face with Grissom, who was standing near the SUV's back bumper. Nick had a little more difficulty, since a large box was resting on his stomach, but he eventually rolled out and sat up, looking down at the metal container in his lap and trying not to touch it any more than he had to.

"You found something." Grissom said, moving to squat beside Nick.

"Yes, I think we did. I'm pretty sure this isn't standard equipment on any Cadillac I've ever seen," Nick replied. He stood up carefully and placed the box on the workbench. It didn't appear to be locked in any way but an opening wasn't immediately obvious.

Grissom stood up and joined Nick and Sara at the workbench. "Let's print this thing first, and then see what's inside," he suggested simply. While Sara took more pictures, Nick grabbed the print powder. (Red, of course, since black powder wouldn't show up very well on the black metal surface of the box. Oh, Lord, he thought. I am never gonna be able to abide the color pink again.)

The Red Creeper showed up at least a dozen good, clear prints on the box's sides and bottom and, once they were lifted and catalogued, the three stood regarding the mysterious container.

"I think the top is meant to be pried off," Grissom said finally. "Here," he indicated the uppermost edges, "There are gouges in the metal where they've opened it before." Grabbing a thin metal pry bar, he probed gently around the top edge near the scratch marks until he found the gap the box's owner had used, stuck the bar in, and levered it down.

With the pop of a tight seal being broken, the lid came off and the three looked in wonder at the largest stash of what looked like heroin any of them had ever seen in one place. The box was packed with small, clear baggies full of white powder, each one sealed tight.

On closer inspection, Nick noticed that to each bag was affixed a small white label listing the weight and - oddest of all - the price. He laughed. "That Pinky, man. He's one anal, organized dude," he said in wonder.

"Yeah, well. He can organize the laundry room in prison," Grissom said.

"Just because he's organized doesn't mean he isn't a vile human being," Sara said forcefully. "And I'm not just talking about his decorating sense. That much dope could do a lot of damage."

Nick sighed. "I just wish we'd started under the car instead of inside." He put the lid back on the box and picked it up, preparing to take it to the Trace lab. They suspected the bags contained heroin, but they still needed them tested. "Would've saved us a whole lot of work," he continued. He glanced at Sara accusingly. "Whose idea was it to start from the inside out again?"

"It was a mutual decision," Sara shot back, unwilling to shoulder all of the blame for the time they had wasted taking apart the car's interior.

"Ahhh, right." Nick turned and headed out of the garage, leaving Grissom and Sara grinning at each other. Nick was across the large open space and almost to the exit when he remembered he had forgotten to clock in before beginning work on the SUV. Grissom would take care of it for him. Wouldn't he? Nick suddenly wasn't so sure.

Turning, Nick glanced back at the two still standing in the garage--and paused, wondering. Grissom and Sara hadn't moved; they were still standing where he had left them. There was nothing blatant about the way they stared at each other. They weren't touching. And yet . . . was it Nick's imagination, or did it seem as if Grissom was standing just a little too close to Sara?

As Grissom and Sara talked, too softly for Nick to overhear, it occurred to him that it had been a while since he had felt the tension that usually followed the two of them around like an invisible cloud. A long while. In fact, he had trouble remembering the last time they had sniped at one another. Was it last year? Year before that? he mused. Let's see. That Welcome Home party they threw when I got out of the hospital, year before last, they got into that stupid argument about butter cream versus whipped cream frosting. Grissom was condescending and Sara had left early. But since then. . .?

Now, watching them from across the garage, Nick was struck by just how comfortable they seemed with each other. Why had he not noticed it before? The air around them seemed filled with a soft hum he could only identify as a decidedly sexual undercurrent. They aren't. . . Are they. . .? He cut off the train of thought before it reached its inevitable conclusion.

Grissom and Sara seemed unaware they were being watched. Suddenly, Sara smirked and laughed, and walked toward the back wall of the garage. Grissom watched her go, his eyes full of laughter and longing and lust. While Grissom watched Sara, Nick watched Grissom. Naw, they wouldn't, Nick thought. Grissom wouldn't. He never even let us come over to his house except that time four years ago. Said it made him uncomfortable having people over. There's just no way.

Sara grabbed her bottle of water from the bench against the far wall and headed back toward Grissom. The two were still smiling and chatting easily, still too quietly for Nick to hear what was said. As Sara reached Grissom's side, she stopped and said something that made him laugh.

Nick decided he'd probably imagined that look he saw in Grissom's eyes. They were all aware that Sara and Grissom had little crushes on each other, but Grissom was such a cold fish, Nick had trouble with the thought of him showing that much emotion to anyone, least of all Sara. Figuring it would probably be a good idea to approach Grissom some other time about the lapse in procedure, Nick turned once again to leave. The heavy box he was carrying was beginning to make his arms and hands ache.

Nick headed back to the garage doors and stepped through. At least they're getting along better these days, he thought to himself. Less tension. Maybe, someday, they can get it together enough to . . . awww, who am I kidding? And he was gone, the automatic doors sliding closed with a soft hiss behind him.

Grissom looked at Sara and smirked. Sara smiled back, moving closer until there was no mistaking it, she actually was standing much too close, invading his personal space. Grissom spared a glance at the closed doors then snaked one hand around to place it firmly on her ass, pulling her close.

Leaning in, Grissom ran his lips lightly along her cheek to her ear and whispered, urgently, "I thought he'd never leave. . .!"

The End