A/N: The last chapter before Sara gets to Vegas! Thanks for reading-we love reading reviews and comments-you are special people!
Fifteen Years
Chapter 4
1995
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Sara sat on a bench perched high on the ocean front at Battery Park. Elbows on knees, chin cupped in hands, she sat still, eyes trained on the small birds circling around the edge of the water. It was a bright sunny spring day; the sky was a piercingly blue unblemished by clouds, and so still not a blade of grass or a leaf seemed to move.
She loved this place and, in her mind, often referred to the bench as "my place". Sharing a small apartment with three other girls meant almost constant noise; someone was always awake or sleeping or eating or in the shower. It wasn't a bad living arrangement. They worked in similar jobs so when she had moved from Berkeley to San Francisco, desperately wanting to live in the city, she had signed on for the apartment thinking it would be a perfect way to live and work in San Francisco. But at times, she needed space and quiet to let her mind rest and recover.
Keeping her eyes on the birds, she contemplated her future. Her part-time work in the medical examiner's office had become full-time as soon as she graduated. None of her classmates could believe she was staying with it, but in some fascinating way, she enjoyed the quiet process of working with the dead, the complexities and puzzles of determining cause. And, while her former classmates could not see how she would use her degree, she had found an overwhelming parallel—skillful observation, reasoning and analysis was needed with every body that came into the morgue. The lab work was mind-boggling for a murder victim; she had quickly learned the procedures and her boss recognized her potential.
Six months ago, he had encouraged her to apply for another job with the crime lab and while she hated to leave the morgue, she wanted outside. She wanted to see where the bodies originated and what else was involved in determining cause of death. Not just death, she corrected her thoughts; every aspect of the investigative process peaked her curiosity and she was willing to crawl underneath a house for a body or sift pounds of soil to find one clue to the puzzle of so many crimes. In a very short time, the chief investigators were asking for her by name.
The birds finally lifted higher and she watched them circle in the sky before they dipped again over the water's edge. When she heard her name being called, she glanced over her shoulder. Ron Richards was walking down the path. Almost two years ago, his mother, Janice, had died in her sleep. He and Sara had kept in touched after the funeral and the older man made an effort to talk with her every month. When he discovered her love for this spot, he would show up with coffee and food, sit on the bench and talk of restaurants, movies, books, artwork, government—city, state, national, earthquakes, exotic places, and any other topic that did not include Sara's work.
At some point, he had realized he was the only person Sara knew in the city who was not connected to her work and, even though there was almost thirty years between them, he lightheartedly called her "my smart little sis".
"You made it!" Sara called, beckoning him to join her.
For a moment, Ron held her close and she could feel his bony back under his heavy coat. He released his hold and handed her a bag. "I brought us a real treat today."
Sara opened the bag. "Strawberries!"
"Not just any strawberries, but organic strawberries—small, sweet, and ready to eat."
They talked of the recent conference which had brought leaders from all over the world to San Francisco, who had been seen where, the snarls of traffic, and the results of such a meeting. Ron could talk for hours on any topic but he refused to let Sara talk about her work—"too morbid for me!" he reminded her. Months ago, he had said "I don't want to hear about it, Sara!" And he had made such a horrified face that she promised not to talk about work.
At last, he readied to leave, hesitating before he reached into his jacket. He said, "I've sold Mom's house, Sara. I'll never go back there to live and someone offered a good price." He handed her a weighty envelope. "Here's a key—I want you to go up there and take what you want."
Sara started to protest.
"She would want this. And there is a check in there. It's not a lot—you can't buy a house or anything like that, but it will give you a start on a nest-egg." His hand covered her knee. "Put it away for now—use it in a few years when you find that handsome guy and you want a house filled with kids or antiques or a fine dining table!"
The generous gift surprised Sara; her mouth opened at the numbers written on the check. "Ron, what are you thinking? This is a lot of money."
He stood, reached out a hand to take Sara's. "It is not much for the joy you gave my mother. She always wanted a daughter—or a granddaughter and you were the closest she had. Go to the house one day—I'll be happy to go with you—make a day of it. Anything you want in the house is yours." He smiled, placed a quick kiss on her cheek and left her quickly, before she could protest or object or agree.
Later, Sara found it hard to sleep. For a while, she tossed and turned until finally, she got out of bed, pulled on shorts and went outside to sit on the steps and smoke. Vile habit, she thought as she lit the cigarette and she was always attempting to stop, or at least reduce the number she smoked in a day. Right now she was in the "reduce the number" stage. She rolled the little stick between her fingers and thought about Ron's check and his offer.
It was enough money to help her rent her own place—not enough to last forever but she could move out of the quad situation. Or she could keep it in the bank—ask for investment advice maybe, treat it as a real nest egg for her future. She took another cigarette out of the pack—it helped her think.
Ron was dying—she knew it; he knew it. Treatment had improved, proved miraculous for some, but Ron had contracted the disease years ago, she was certain, and while he had not reached end-stage, it was just an opportunistic infection away. She leaned back and watched a sliver of silvery sky. Ron was the last connection with her past—and then only as the son of her last foster parents. Selling his parents house was a sort of closure, the check and the offer of things in the house was Ron's way of saying goodbye.
She must have dozed. The unlit cigarette was in her hand but she heard someone say her name "Sara". She jerked awake. It was the voice of a ghost, her father's voice. In the years since he had died, she had a reoccurring dream—a nightmare if correctly named—of shadowy faces pulling her apart amidst a pool of broken glass. The dream had come so often Sara had learned to recognize its beginning—and its cause. She had not figured out why it was her father's voice she heard.
Early on a Saturday morning, Sara and Ron left the city in a rented van. An adventure, they had agreed, as neither one had much experience driving a van. Sara pointed the vehicle in the right direction and said "Seat belt fastened," and laughed.
An hour later, she said "Everything looks different now," as they turned into their destination.
Ron chuckled. "Not so much—same houses. New cars, more grass."
Sara circled into the cul-de-sac. "Things always look bigger, more impressive to a child. More frightening, too."
Ron replied quietly, "true. How long were you moved around?"
"A year—more or less. Houses with half a dozen kids, all of us sleeping in bunk beds." She made a sound that might have been a laugh. "I got here and thought I'd gone to heaven. Your dad and mom were a gift from God." She gave a true laugh. "And I had my own room—your old room."
Ron opened the door of the van. "Let's see what we can find."
In a strange way, Sara was excited to return to this small house. She always entered with a sense of contentment, the knowledge that she had been welcomed into this home, not as an outsider, but a desired guest. The Richards had never pretended to be her parents but more like old friends. In an instant, her mind pictured herself as she had been then—fourteen, tall, skinny, all arms and legs. Ronald and Janice had taken her in and taken to her at once, as she had to them.
Ron flicked a switch and flooded the closed up house with light. "I did that the last time I was here—left the lights on and turned the electricity off at the breaker box." He used a key and pushed the door open for Sara to enter.
The small house was similar to millions—a small box of small rooms, a combined living and dining room at the front, the kitchen on the back side, and two bedrooms and two bathrooms along a short hallway—and it was pleasantly crowded with old, cheap furniture.
Sara and Ron walked through the house in a few minutes. "Do you see anything you'd like to take? The furniture isn't worth anything, but some of it is solid wood."
He and Sara stood in the doorway of the room that had been his and then Sara's for two years.
"I thought this room was so big when I first came to live here," Sara said. "Your mom had put a new bedspread on the bed and had new towels in the bathroom. I thought it was like a fancy hotel!" She walked into the room and leaned over to look at books on a shelf. "Do you mind if I take these books?"
Ron laughed. "Sara, take anything you want. Years ago I took what I wanted."
They had a fun day, catching up on everything, finding bits and pieces of their lives hidden in closets and drawers, and being perplexed by a few things, trying to guess what some things were used for and why other things had been kept. A drawer filled with old remote control devices, a basket of buttons, school photos of each, a stack of postcards they both had sent to the address.
"Why did they keep these" Sara mused as she turned one over. "This is one I sent from Harvard the first semester I was there!" She ran her hand over the small wood desk. "I'd like this, Ron—if you're sure you don't want it."
At the end of the day, Sara took the desk, a small table with two chairs, an upholstered chair, a bookcase, two lamps, a carved folding screen, a box of books and several photo albums. As Ron locked the front door, Sara stood on the porch in the warm sun and tried to absorb everything; her heart clenched and she felt a strange sense of loss. So acute, so strong was the feeling, tears came into her eyes. She closed her eyes and felt Ron's arm go around her waist. For a long time, they stood together, Sara's head rested on the older man's shoulder. The stillness around them, the silence between them, a quietness that was infinite; it calmed her.
GGGGGGGGGGGGGG
Gil Grissom was beginning to despair of ever finding the missing little girl. She had been missing three days and he did not feel any closer to finding her or any evidence, and as time went by the trail got colder. He knew he was becoming a little obsessed with the case when he woke up in the middle of the afternoon and went into work six hours early. Everyone assumed she was dead and they were looking for a body—but where was the body, he asked himself as he looked at the photographs spread across the table.
Photographs from her mother's collection were taped to the wall board. Grissom was looking at—everything else. She had gotten off the bus with five other children, two parents were waiting. In sworn statements, the two adults said all the children had headed to their homes—all within a tight circle of the corner where the bus stopped. Little Elena Cox, seven years old, had seemed to vanish into thin air between stepping off the bus and her house, four driveways from the corner.
He picked up a diagram of the street—a cul de sac. The distance between the bus stop and Elena's house was short—less than one hundred feet in this neighborhood of tightly packed houses. He added photographs to his hand, photographs of the small houses along the street, photographs of the inside of Elena's home.
Not even her backpack had been found. The scent dog, brought in hours later, had gone in circles before the handler decided the scene was too contaminated for the dog to work—too many people, too much concrete, too many animals, water sprinklers had been running in three yards. For the first time in using scent dogs, Grissom had been discouraged.
He left the photographs and went back to interviews. The kids were fairly consistent; Elena got off the bus as usual. She walked in the direction of her house; the other kids went home. An hour later, her mother, who thought Elena was playing with a neighbor's child, had gone in search of her daughter. Another hour or so passed as neighbors were asked if Elena was in their house. Finally, after sunset, the police had been called. And no one had heard or seen a thing—no strange car, no unknown persons—nothing.
He fanned the pages of interviews. Fifteen houses in the neighborhood had six adults at home; four were parents and two were elderly. The parents had been busy with their kids; the older women alone. Wiping his hand across his face, he tried to fix the scene in his mind of a clear and sunny afternoon, a little girl in jeans and red shirt walking along the sidewalk, and—poof!—what happened next—a car, a van that no one remembered seeing. But how could a vehicle not be seen by the other children and the two parents?
Noise in the hallway caused him to look up. Catherine Willows was talking, rapidly, loudly, to someone behind her as she walked toward him.
"She's been found, Grissom! Alive!" Catherine stopped at the doorway of the layout room. "Elena Cox is at the hospital—let's go!"
Catherine was his protégé, his co-worker, his usual partner on the night shift, and for all of his quiet thoroughness and composed demeanor, Catherine was—animated, provocative, beautiful, and smart. He did not have to second-guess what she was thinking because she was normally quick to say whatever popped into her brain—about everything.
"Where was she found?" Grissom asked as he hustled to catch up.
"Just got the call that she was in the hospital," Catherine said, laughing. "We'll find out when we get there." He crawled into the passenger side of the vehicle; Catherine always drove. "The caller—a nurse in the ER—said she was alive. I thought if we got there quickly we could process her before she's cleaned up. I told the nurse to keep everyone away from her!"
She drove a near break-neck speed, lights flashing and maintained a continuous stream of conversation as she drove; all Grissom did was make an appropriate grunt or say an occasional word. He and Catherine worked well together and her one-sided conversation was the primary reason. When he was quiet, she talked; when he was methodical she was all over the place. He knew everything about her personal life; she knew nothing of his.
The nurse might have kept her word, but someone had called the child's parents and notified the press. They had to push through a crowd before a policeman managed to reach them and get them inside the hospital; another crowd appeared to be neighbors, law enforcement, and hospital employees.
Finally, Grissom and Catherine entered a curtained cubicle, guarded by two policewomen, where a sleeping Elena Cox was stretched out on a bed, her parents on either side of her while a nurse was checking vital signs. A physician came in with Grissom and Catherine.
The doctor spoke first. "She was left outside the front door on a bench. Wrapped in a blanket. She's got a contusion on her head—we don't know yet why she's still asleep. We'll get lab results in a while, but I think she's been sedated."
Catherine lifted the sheet covering the girl. "Who undressed her?"
"We didn't bathe her," the nurse replied quickly. "I've put her clothes in a plastic bag—she's not dirty—not clean, but someone's been wiping her so she's not soiled." By the motions made, Catherine realized what the nurse meant.
Grissom took the clothes and left Catherine with the girl to collect everything else. But by the time he got to the lab, there were several other cases that needed his attention, so by the time Catherine returned, he had not started processing the clothes.
"What's up with you," Catherine asked. "Isn't this priority?"
He shook his head in exasperation. "Too much to do and too few people, Catherine. And the girl is safe—did you find anything?"
"Not much. The nurse was right. The girl had been washed—probably with some kind of disposable alcohol-based wipes. Her fingernails were dirty, but it appears to be typical seven-year old kind of dirt."
"Assault?"
"No," Catherine answered. She stood beside him and looked at the same photographs he had looked at an hour ago. "Something is weird about this, Gil. This girl's been missing for three days—it's like she's been in a drug-induced coma! We know she wasn't with her mother, but who would drop her off at the hospital?" After she pulled on gloves, and tossed a pair to Grissom, Catherine dumped the contents of the plastic bag holding the girl's clothing and sorted through them—jeans, shirt, socks, underwear, shoes.
"Where's her backpack?" Grissom asked as he picked up the plastic bag. "The blanket she was wrapped in," he pulled an old frayed gray blanket from the bag, unfolded it, letting his fingers feel between folds.
"Not here—I don't think it was left with her."
"So wherever she's been, the backpack was left—or thrown away." Grissom talked as he unfolded the blanket. He flipped the blanket over and a puffy dusty cloud rose from the movement. "What the-?" He watched as the dust settled on Catherine's black sweater. His finger pointed to what was coating her chest. "I know what that is—I know where this kid's been for three days."
He drove this time, more cautious than Catherine, to the child's neighborhood. "Remember the old lady—lived two doors down from the Cox house? She said she had been inside all day. What do you remember about the house?"
Catherine was peeved that he was putting her through a guessing game—and had taken the keys from her. "I remember an old lady." Suddenly, she remembered something else. She pulled her sweater away from her body and looked down. "Cats—she had cats. And this is cat hair from the blanket."
"Yep."
The old lady was waiting for them; Elena's backpack beside the door. "I knew you would come," she whispered after letting them into the house. She motioned for them to sit down and took a chair across from them. She straightened several things on the table before folding her hands into her lap. "They were always throwing things at my cats—wicked little children—and their parents just looked the other way." A cat jumped into her lap and she playfully scratched its ears.
"My white kitten was playing on the driveway—she came up the driveway and tried to pick it up. The kitten ran and she followed—right up into the carport, beside my car. She was yelling at my baby—chasing it around the car. I meant to hit her backside, but she turned and I hit her head. She fell against the car so I grabbed her and got her inside the house." As she talked, another cat jumped into her lap. "She's a mean little girl. She would've told her parents I hit her—not that she was chasing my kitten!"
Giving the little girl a sleep medication every six hours had kept her asleep for most of the time. When awake, she had been drowsy and confused and had drank water and juice when it was given. In the middle of the night, overcome with guilt and unsure of what to do, the woman had wrapped the child in a blanket, driven to the hospital and placed Elena on a bench.
Later, Catherine joined Grissom in the break room and handed him half of her sandwich when he passed her a bottle of water. "I needed to go by and check on Lindsey," she said as she sat down.
"How's she doing?"
"Good—growing every day. I think she'll walk before she's a year old."
"And Eddie?"
She laughed. "You know Eddie—he'll never change."
With a slight nod, Grissom agreed and smiled as he chewed his sandwich. He liked Catherine, thought her baby was cute, but her husband, Eddie, an amateur musician always claiming to be on the brink of greatness, was living above his means on Catherine's paycheck.
He glanced at Catherine and raised as eyebrow. "Have you met the new tech in the lab—the a/v guy? Young guy—Warrick Brown."
A/N: And Grissom is growing his team! Thanks for reading! We want to hear from all of you who are 'silent readers'! And then we'll get Sara and Grissom together! Ratings will change shortly...
