Disclaimer: I do not own anything to do with CSI...If I did this would be a season 11 episode :)
Fingerprints.
Confusion.
Catherine rushed with determination down the hallway. Tanner was staying quiet, he obviously knew the other abductor quite well. And he wanted this to go bad. Very bad.
She came back to reality as Hodges almost ran into her in the hall.
"Hey, I got results off Tanner's boots." He said quickly, making her focus on him. She'd forgotten about the dried liquid on the underside of his overly large work boots.
"What is it?" She asked feeling eager yet scared at the same time. There was an uneasy feeling of worry eating away at her with every second. It had been growing larger and larger, since Riley's picture had popped up on the DNA machine.
"Sodium Triphosphate. Commonly used to make detergents, soaps and toothpastes." Hodges explained in his usual, strange way. But he sounded slightly more serious than usual. He was affected by Riley's kidnapping too.
"He was cleaning up?" She asked him, letting her mind go to work. But she was stopped in place by him again.
"No. If he was using soap or detergent, I would have found other chemicals. This was pure STPP."
"Thanks." She said, not wanting to waste her time listening to some stupid hypothesis he came up with that wouldn't help them at all.
She walked away from him, sensing the annoyed glare he shot her. She had more important things to do.
XXX
Nick glanced up from the computer as Catherine walked into the room. Sara was sitting beside him, immersed in thought.
"Hodges found Sodium Triphosphate on Marcus's shoes. And I also sent some officers to his place, we'll go once they secure it." Catherine said quickly, the barely pausing between words.
He nodded and gestured towards the screen.
"Yeah and he owns a car. It matches the description from the witness. I told Brass to get someone to tow it here." He told her, watching as she read the for sale add on the van.
"You know," Sara said from beside him, coming out of her trance. "If he isn't telling us where she is, she has to be alive. And if this is revenge, the other guy has to be with her..."
Nick gave her a curious look and he saw Catherine look at Sara with a look that said 'ya...and?'.
"Get Archie to check his phone records. If we have his number, we might have him."
Nick nodded, feeling a hesitant glimmer of optimism.
"Lets hope." He heard Ray say from the doorway. He was leaning against the frame, some files in his hands.
"Ray, you wanna take the car?" Catherine asked politely, but her voice was dull. She wasn't dealing with this well. Too much had happened this year and nobody could handle this.
Ray gave her a nod and turned around, but not before Nick saw Greg jog towards him. He heard him say "I'm coming" before following the older CSI to the garage. It used to be Riley, that Greg did that to.
He sighed, exchanging a tense glance with Catherine.
XXX
Greg snapped on a latex glove, feeling the familiar sticky inner side cling to his fingers. After working at the crime lab for so long, they were like a second skin to him.
He grabbed his camera off the table and walked to the front seat of the car. Careful not to contaminate anything, he pulled the door open slowly, taking a photo of the front seat.
It was empty, just like everything else. The empty trunk, the empty files that held the little info they had, they emptiness they all felt. His heart felt empty too. Not that that it had felt full in a long, long time. But now it seemed to be drained dry, like Catherine had poked a hole in it a she had talked to him on the phone that morning.
He felt somewhat drunk as he went with procedure, swabbing, bagging and tagging. He was out of it, that was for sure. He saw the memories flash by, blurry, as if he was underwater. It took him a minute to realize that his eyes were getting moist.
Blinking, to scare the oncoming tears away, he tried to focus on processing.
The inside looked like a normal car. Leather seats, untidy, but clean. But he noticed something on the foot mat. It was jagged and he saw the light reflect off it, glimmering like a Christmas light. He grabbed his tweezers and picked it up, realizing it was glass.
"Got some glass." He said out loud, hoping Ray was listening.
He heard a distracted "Yeah" come from the back seat. He glanced backwards, seeing Ray focusing on something opposite him.
Just as he turned back to the front, Ray spoke up again.
"Greg..." He paused, "Come here a sec."
Greg stood up and walked around to where the left back door that was open as wide as it would go.
Ray pointed to the window. At first he saw nothing, but as he moved to the side, he saw the light change on the glass. His heart rate spiked when he realized it was a cluster of finger prints.
He looked Ray in the eyes hopefully.
Dr. Langston pulled out his print dust and feathered it onto the window, with careful strokes. What they saw, wasn't exactly what they expected.
The prints looked shaped. Like they were in a design. But that could be a good thing. Riley could be giving them more clues.
Greg pulled out a print sheet and peeled back the clear, sticky side and plastered it onto the window, making sure he got everything.
When he pulled it off and folded it back onto the crisp white paper, he felt Ray lean in to look over his shoulder.
Greg couldn't help it. He felt curiosity, hope and most of all confusion, sweep over him.
There was a single, rolled out print on the top, much like the other one. But below it the prints were linear and he felt his eyes refocus as he saw the picture. W H.
What did that mean? W H could mean anything. Or nothing at all. A name, a place...
"W...H?" He said out loud and got a very confused expression from the CSI beside him.
Kay, so did u like it? What could the WH mean? Can u guess? :p Anyway, in between the 1st and 2nd scene, the camera would just continue following Catherine and the camera would make sure to show the prints on the window. So review if you want more! :D