A/N - Ok, so I dont know about this chapter, its more of a 'moving the story along' kind of chapter, nothing too exciting. I worked on it at home on my days of... maybe I just write better at 2am in a hospital break room... reviews help!

Sara awoke that evening with a pounding headache. It took her a second to realize that a construction crew was directly outside their window, finally fixing the broken road that led to their home.

She got up and wandered into the bathroom to get a glass of water and an aspirin.

"Good morning" Grissom whispered as he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her.

"Good afternoon." Sara corrected him with a kiss.

After a quick walk with Bruno and a light dinner, they got into their respective cars. When they came to the stop sign, Sara went left, Grissom right.

Sara pulled into the parking lot as Greg was getting out his car.

"Hey! Greg!" Sara called out from her open window and she shifted into park. Greg started over as she rolled up the window and pulled the keys out of the ignition.

"Hey" Sara smiled as she slammed the car door "Look, I am sorry about yesterday, I shouldn't have teased you like that. I was in a weird mood, I'm sorry."

"I noticed!" Greg smiled back. "It's ok; I was in a bad mood before I even clocked in yesterday. But it was nice to see you laugh like that. We really don't have a job that brings on laughter a lot."

Sara nodded and they started walking inside.

Grissom pulled in and watched as Sara and Greg made their way into the building. He had always been aware of Greg's liking for Sara, but now that she was 'his', he felt a twinge of jealously as he watched them laugh and joke as they disappeared into the lab. He sat for a moment before getting out and heading into work himself.

They all gathered in the break room, waiting for assignments. Nick chomped on a powdered donut, Catherine sat eating a pear. The rest were sipping their coffee as Grissom came in.

"Sara and Nick, you will be heading back to the zoo with me, I talked to the curator this morning and the zoos entire staff will be meeting us there for statements. Catherine and Warrick, you take Greg to the 419 on Flamingo, two bodies, you'll need an extra set of hands." Grissom handed Catherine the slip containing the details on their case and motioned for Nick and Sara to follow him out.

"So we lose Greggo?" Nick questioned as the headed down the hallway.

"Like I said, Catherine and Warrick will need an extra set of hands on their case; and Greg seemed less than pleased with the zoo case, I did him a favor." Grissom shrugged as he paged through the file in his hand.

Nick wondered when Grissom had started handing out 'favors'.

"Ok, so we have a dart with no human prints, broken glass with no human prints, and every other print in the building came back to staff. When we get there, are we going to work this as though it were an inside job?" Sara asked as they climbed into Denali.

"At this point the evidence is pointing to someone who works at the zoo, it doesn't mean it wasn't an outside job, but listen carefully when taking statements, we need more clues." Grissom stated as he peered at her in the rearview mirror.

"Yeah because right now, we have nothing" Nick sighed as he clicked his seatbelt.

After what seemed like hours of talking to staff, Sara still felt like she still had nothing to go on. Everyone she had talked to had moved their animals indoors, fed them, and left before 8 p.m.

"I got nothing!" Nick sighed as he sat next to Sara.

"Same here." Sara groaned as glanced over at Grissom, still interviewing a few staff members. "Let's hope he gets something, or this case is going cold."

"There has to be something!" Nick said as he stood up and looked around. "No one is that good at stealing monkeys; they had to have left something."

Sara got up and followed Nick as he went outside. Nick stood in the moonlight, his hands on his hips.

"Ok, the alarm was set off by the busted lock on the front gate, on the other side of the park." Nick said as he turned to Sara. "They had to run all the way back here, somehow get into this building, break the glass on the enclosure, crawl down to the bottom and go in the door that connects the enclosures, tranquilize the right monkeys, and get them back out of the enclosure and out of the park in less than twelve minutes."

"It can be done, but it would be cutting it close." Sara said as she scanned the area, imagining a person running in, and then out, with two sleeping monkeys.

Grissom walked out to find Nick and Sara staring across the zoo. Sara turned around and smiled. "Please tell me you got something."

"Nothing extraordinary" He shrugged.

"We didn't get anything either." Nick sighed.

Grissom's phone chirped in his pocket.

"Grissom"

"Hey boss"

Grissom grimaced a little as he heard Hodges on the other end.

"What did you get off the dart?"

"Nothing." Hodges grunted.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing. No blood, no DNA, no poisons. It's a dart, as in 'I got a bulls eye' dart. Someone attached fake feathers with dental floss."

"Thanks Hodges."

"Sure thing boss, you know I was quite the..."

Grissom snapped his phone shut before he had to listen to Hodges drone on.

"Dart was clean." He sighed.

"You're kidding" Sara said, confused.

"Not kidding, no poison or tranquilizers, no blood. It was a game dart; the feathers were attached with dental floss."

"Dental floss?" Nick questioned.

Grissom sighed. "Dental floss" he muttered.

Sara wandered over by the side door of the enclosure, waving her flashlight over the pavement as she walked.

"I've got blood." She said, almost too softly for the guys to hear her.

"There was no blood here yesterday" Grissom said, perplexed. "Greg and I did this whole side of the building. There was no blood here."

They watched as Sara's flashlight followed the drops across the pavement.

"They go into that building" Nick said as he popped his case open and grabbed a swab.

As they got closer to the adjacent building a roar stopped them in their tracks.

"The African Lions." Sara muttered.

"How do you know it ain't the tigers?" Nick questioned.

"The roar of a lion is very distinct." Grissom told him as they approached the door.

"I'm going to go inside and see if I can catch the big cat guy to walk us through here." Nick said as he headed back to the building behind them.

Sara turned to face Grissom. "I think something happened to those monkeys and the apparent theft was a cover up"

"I'm beginning to think the same thing." Grissom muttered as he scanned over the blood drops again.

"This is John" Nick called out as he approached his colleagues, who were now bent over the blood drops. "He is in charge of the large cats here."

Grissom stood up and extended his hand. "Gil Grissom, Las Vegas Crime Lab, this is Sara Sidle."

"Pleasure to meet you both, despite the circumstances." John nodded at Sara.

"Well John as you can see, we have some blood drops heading into this building, we need you to take us through."

"Sure thing" John nodded as he fumbled with his keys. He unlocked the door and led the team down a concrete hallway.

As they walked, Sara noticed a few drops of blood to the side, but not nearly as much as they had seen outside. She stepped ahead of John and walked the entire length of the hallway.

"No blood past the first door." She concluded as she walked back.

"Those are the African lions." John said as he slid his key into the door.

There were two roars as they walked in.

"Settle down, settle down." John said in a soft voice. He walked over, and to the amazement and horror of the 3 CSIs behind him, he stuck his hand through the steel bars and feverishly scratched the male behind his ears. "No need to get all upset" John whispered as he reached his other hand through to pet the female next to him. The female extended her arm and pulled john closer to the cage.

"No, I'm not coming in right now" John smiled as he gently removed her giant paws from around his waist.

"You go in there?" Nick questioned.

"Yes, we all have a closeness with our animals, we do go in and interact with them."

"I was told by another employee that the zoo kept human/animal contact to a minimum." Grissom said turning to face John.

"No we regularly go in with them. Here!" John said as he walked to his desk and grabbed a picture. He handed to Grissom.

"This was last month."

Grissom looked at the picture, it was John in the outdoor enclosure, a lion on either side of him. John pointed to his desk. "There is me and the tigers, and me with the mountain lion."

Grissom walked over and studied the pictures.

"You have to have big... ahem, you have to be pretty comfortable to go in their enclosure like that." Nick smiled.

"They are raised by humans, when we are able to get close and interact with them, we can easily detect when they are sick or hurt. It gives us an edge on the veterinary side." John smiled back at Nick." Just this morning I found blood on her foot" He said pointing to the female lion. "I was able to quickly wash her foot, in other zoos they would have to sedate the animal, and any time you have to sedate or tranquilize an animal there is a risk of them having complications."

"Was she ok?" Sara asked from across the room where she was photographing a drop of blood.

"Yeah, no cuts. Just blood." John shrugged.

Grissom walked to the cage and flashed his flashlight around the enclosure. He stopped and motioned Nick over.

"What is that?" Nick asked as he came to stand next to Grissom.

"I can't be sure, but it looks like a patch of fur. Matches the coat of a Barbary Ape."

"What??" John rushed over. "Oh my god... you don't think..."

"If I give you gloves and a bag, do you think you could retrieve that for us?" Nick asked.

"Of, of course." John said as he took the gloves and bag Nick held out for him.

John quickly unlocked the door and slid inside, both lions flocking to his side. He carefully picked up the piece of fur and put it into the bag. He passed the bag to Nick and sat to scratch the lion's ears again.

"Does Frank interact with the primates like this?" Grissom asked as he watched the giant cats turn into butter as they had their heads scratched.

"Yes, all the time. He has to be careful with the chimp of course, adult chimps are moody and very strong. But he can wander through the Barbary troop as if he was one of them."

"Interesting." Sara muttered as she went back to swab her blood drop.