As the door swung shut, she pressed her clasped hands to her lips and watched her young daughter stalk down the corridor.
All the way to the police station she had been telling herself to be calm, not to lose her temper. And then the officer had uttered that word – hitchhiking. Her twelve-year-old daughter was hitchhiking.
In her line of work, that kind of behaviour only had one result: murder.
And, because the world was determined to show her just how much of an irresponsible mother she was, there was a child of the same age missing in Las Vegas ... and time was fast running out for her.
She stood up, stretching, and ran a hand through her red locks.
Her daughter was in turmoil; which means her mother would inevitably be gloating and her sister would no doubt have enough words of wisdom to write a gospel. But for now, there was a little girl who needed her help even more than her wayward child.
Her own family were just going to have to wait, like always.
"I bet you were a pretty smart seventh-grader."
The compliment drew a small smile to her lips, but she let it slide without comment.
In truth, seventh grade was around the time that her life her gone to hell in a handbasket. No amount of smarts in the world had prepared her for the upheaval she had endured when she was Alicia Perez' age.
Shaking away the memory and turning her attention to Alicia's notebooks, she found one name scrawled repeatedly in childish girly handwriting.
"She has a serious crush on a boy named Jimmy Jones." She noted.
Ignoring her, Grissom had found his own doodlings and showed her the jagged writing on the edge of the bed sheets.
"I hate mom and dad?" He questioned curiously.
"Who doesn't once in a while?" A gentile voice enquired softly from the doorway. A young man, barely even an adult, was loitering in the doorway. Despite his gaunt face and sunken features, he had a pleasant, calm expression. "Daniel Perez, and you are?"
Sara heard Grissom introduce them both and explain their presence in the missing child's bedroom, but her attention was affixed on the boy's face. He looked haunted, ill ... and yet eerily at peace with his sister's disappearance.
A knot started to form in the pit of her stomach, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what had caused it.
She rolled onto her back, throwing the covers off with a disgruntled huff. Beside her, the clock ticked in a tormenting rhythm, a reminder of every individual second that she hadn't slept.
She just couldn't get that little girl's face out of her mind. Tiny, pale, cold ... and the more she focused on it, the more the features began to look like someone else; someone more familiar.
Alicia Perez had been snatched from the safety of her sister's car, in broad daylight. Meanwhile, her own child, her baby girl, had deliberately put herself in danger.
She simply couldn't shake the thought that it could have been Lindsey found lying in the desert, with only a thin blanket protecting her body from being ravished by nature.
Deciding that she was wasting her time trying to sleep, she threw her legs out of the bed and slipped her feet into a pair of waiting slippers.
If she couldn't rest, and Lindsey wouldn't talk to her, then she may as well do something useful and go back to work.
Sara rocked back, letting her head rest against the cold metal of the lockers.
It was always tough when kids were involved – even for the childless, family-phobic workaholics like herself – and today had been particularly difficult.
A mother oblivious to how she was causing her own family to fall apart, a father dragged down by the spiralling madness around him, a delinquent sister thrown out before she finished high school, a big brother putting his own needs above everything else ... and a little girl, used and abused, and then cast aside like a broken toy.
It was all just a little bit too close to home.
The sound of heels approaching interrupted her exercise in self-loathing; but she remained where she was, on the floor with her back against the lockers.
Catherine paused in the doorway, casting a puzzled glance over Sara, before deciding not to question her position. She moved wordlessly to her locker and began rummaging through her bag, as if the brunette were not even there.
Sara lifted her gaze cautiously, watching the older woman from beneath her lashes for a moment before breaking the silence.
"I heard what happened with Lindsey. Is she okay?"
Visibly tensing, Cath squared her shoulders but kept her back to her colleague.
"She's fine."
"I'm sure it's just a phase. All kids need to lash out sometimes." Sara continued, attempting to offer some form of comfort, however feeble. Unfortunately, her attempt fell flat and Cath whirled to face her with a stony expression.
"Know what Sara, I've had all the parenting advice I need today and I certainly don't want any from you!"
Without giving the startled young woman an opportunity to respond, she slammed her locked shut with a sharp clang and stormed out of the room.
Coming to an abrupt stop a few feet down the hall, she considered turning back and apologising. It wasn't Sara's fault that she was having a bad day, or that her parenting had been called into question.
However, when she turned back towards the locker room, she saw that someone had already beaten her to it.
The woman was tall even without heels and had tight red curls that sprung out in all directions. She was leaning against the locker room doorframe, obviously talking to Sara.
Making a mental note to apologise to the brunette later, and knowing in the back of her mind that she probably wouldn't, Cath turned and walked away without giving the matter a second thought.
Almost as soon as Catherine had left, another shadow fell into the room and a gentle voice spoke up.
"Are you okay?"
Sara looked up and a relieved smile graced her lips.
"I'm fine." She lied. "What are you doing here?"
"I knew you were working on the case with the missing girl." Belinda explained, coming into the room and taking a seat on the bench, straddling Sara's legs with her boot-clad feet. "I wanted to see how you were doing."
"I'm okay." Sara shrugged, leaning forward and wrapping her arms around her knees. "It's always hard, you know?"
"Yeah, I know." Belinda cast a quick glance into the hall to check that they were alone, before reaching down to take the other woman's hands between her own. "Come on, let's go for breakfast."
"Thanks." Sara smiled, attempting to pull her hands back and failing to escape Belinda's strong grip. "But I'm not very hungry."
However, the red-head didn't accept the answer. Furrowing her brow, she cast a concern glance over her friend.
"When was the last time you ate something?"
Sara smiled, not bothering to dignify the question with an answer.
"I just want to go home and pretend to sleep." She said, almost pleading.
Belinda pretended to consider this, before a cheeky smile spread across her ruby-red lips and she stood up, pulling Sara to her feet as well.
"Okay," she stepped closer, pinning Sara against the lockers with her body. "But afterwards, we go for breakfast?"
