They'd searched the whole house, and there was nothing to indicate that Crane had been in here doing anything without Nick knowing it. Whatever he did do...Nick would sort it out later, but for right now he had to admit that finding no evidence of the man in his house was a great relief to him.

And then he saw it.

He wasn't sure at first. But something in his gut told him it wasn't right. After concluding that nothing in the house was amiss, Nick had started to turn to leave the closet, but something caught his eye. The box of Christmas ornaments on the floor had the flaps closed, but sticking out from between them was about an inch of light blue plastic. He recognized it immediately, but his brain still told him there was probably some logical explanation. That is, until he crouched down next to the box and opened it.

Warrick watched him, puzzled. "What is it?"

As he folded back the flaps on the box, Nick saw what he had expected to see. But there was more. The bit of blue plastic revealed itself to be the handle of a toothbrush as he had thought, but he hadn't counted on seeing the plastic stadium cup with the WLVU logo on the side. The cup contained the toothbrush and numerous other small items. He suddenly felt nauseous and a shiver ran through him, causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. He swallowed hard and scooted back away from the box. "You..." His voice was barely audible. He cleared his throat and tried again as he looked up at Warrick. "You better get that."

Warrick leaned forward a little to look over Nick's shoulder and into the box. It didn't look like much to him, but it had apparently rattled Nick. "Let me go get my kit from the other room," he said. A moment later he was back in the room and donning latex gloves as he first photographed the box in the closet and then its contents while Nick looked on as he sat on the edge of the futon. Warrick then removed the cup from the box and carefully laid each item out onto the floor next to it. He photographed each piece individually and halfway through as he held the camera to his face he asked without turning around, "You want to tell me what I'm looking at?"

"I don't know. I...I didn't see everything."

"Overall, man, I mean. I kinda gather these are your things and you don't normally keep them in a cup in the closet with your Christmas stuff. Am I right?"

Nick nodded numbly.

"Okay...well..." Warrick finished his photographs and put the camera down. "Come on over and see everything before I bag and tag 'em." He put his camera away and pulled the other items he needed from his kit, watching Nick out of the corner of his eye.

Nick got up and came over to kneel on the floor next to Warrick and his eyes scanned the items. There was nothing truly frightening there. There were no severed fingers or locks of hair or photos of him...nothing that screamed "creepy stalker" like in the movies. But this wasn't a movie. It was real life. And the ordinary things he was looking at scared him more than any grotesque item would. He quietly started to go over the stuff for Warrick. "Okay...well...the cup...I had that in the kitchen cabinet with the glasses...got it at a game last year. It's just...it's nothing special. Hell, it was way in the back. I don't even use it."

Warrick took notes on a pad while Nick waited. "You can keep going," he told Nick. "I'll make notes on everything and then bag it after, 'kay?"

"Sure. So uh...the uh...toothbrush. I threw that away after my last visit to the dentist. You know how they always give you a new one when you get your teeth cleaned? It was...um...I don't remember when. About a month ago maybe?"

"March 7th? 2:30?"

Nick's head whipped up to look at him, mouth open. "How do you know that?" he demanded, his heart suddenly in his throat.

"It's right here." Warrick reached for one of the items on the floor and held it up. It was a dental appointment reminder card with the time and date written on it.

Nick let out a sigh and then clenched his jaw as he looked at the card and said evenly. "You know...that's the second time today you've scared the shit out of me, man. I got enough people spyin' on me and knowin' my business without you doin' it too."

"I'm sorry, man...I didn't mean to scare you."

"Yeah, you never do. Nobody ever does. Nobody ever means to do it," Nick answered irritably, breathing hard, his hands shaking. "You scared the shit out of me," he said again.

"I know. You're right. I'm sorry." Warrick tried to calm him down. "I just wasn't thinkin'. I'll pay more attention, okay?" He looked at Nick expectantly. "Okay? I'm sorry."

Nick narrowed his eyes at him. "Are you..."

"Are you humoring me, Nick?"

Nick shook his head quickly as Crane's voice overlapped his thoughts. Of course Warrick wasn't humoring him. But...it sounded like it. The way he said it...his tone of voice...the way he was looking at him like he was crazy. Why shouldn't he? I sound crazy. He tried to calm himself down before he spoke again. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to jump on you. I'm just a little..." He didn't want to say it, but he said it anyway. "Paranoid."

"No. You're not paranoid, man. This is real. You've got good reasons to feel this way. It would freak me out too."

"Really?" When his friend assured him again, he said, "I guess you're right."

"As usual," Warrick snorted, giving him a grin, trying to break the tension and put his friend a little more at ease.

"Yeah, right," Nick said with a small laugh that still sounded nervous.

"You ready to tell me about the other things?" Warrick silently promised himself that he would keep quiet from now on and just let Nick do this at his own pace.

"Yeah...okay." Nick looked back down at the items. "Well...you got the appointment card there. I don't know where it was...probably on the table by the phone or something. Then there's that bottle opener. It was in the kitchen drawer with a bunch of other stuff. I've got two or three different ones, so..." He sighed. "Anyway, um...obviously there's a poker chip. I have a set in the cabinet in the living room. I can check, but I guess that's where it came from."

"We can look later."

"Okay." Nick sighed as he looked at an open pack of gum next. "I don't know. That's the kind I buy, but there's probably open packs all over the place. Hard to tell where it came from. But...I'm sure it's mine."

"What's this receipt for?" Warrick held it up so Nick could see it better.

"Um..." He squinted to read it. "Looks like...couple of weeks ago...groceries."

"Where was it? Did you throw it out?"

Nick shook his head. "No...I save the bags, you know? I just crumple 'em up and toss them into a drawer in the kitchen...the receipts are still in there when I do. So he must have gotten in there and pulled one out." He wrinkled his face, confused. "What the hell, man? Why does he want all this junk? He's just goin' around pickin' up weird things and stashin' 'em here like a rat. Why?"

"He's crazy, man. Don't worry about tryin' to figure it out."

"Well, it's making me crazy."

"Don't let it, Nick. C'mon, man...I know…this is fucked up, but you're better than this. You're better than him. Don't let him do this to you."

Nick looked away from him and said softly, "It's just hard to wrap my head around it, that's all." He looked back at Warrick. "It's my job to figure things out. I just can't...I can't figure this out," he finished dejectedly.

"You don't have to." Warrick looked him in the eye as he spoke seriously. "We're all gonna help you figure this out. And this guy's gonna get put away and we'll get everything settled and you can put it behind you. Okay?"

"Yeah," Nick answered, barely audible.

Warrick knew there was nothing more he could say right now that would make his friend feel better, so he got back to the job at hand but tried to lighten the mood a little. "Hey, this is pretty cool." He picked up a square red, white, and blue magnet. "What is it?"

Nick looked up to see what he was talking about. "Are you kidding me?" When he got a blank stare in return, he rolled his eyes and said, "State flag of Texas, man."

"Huh." Warrick turned it over and looked at it again. "Thought it was France or somethin'."

"France my ass." Nick gave him an annoyed look and then grew more somber. "Shit...I didn't even notice. It came off the kitchen fridge. That son of a bitch...my mom gave me that when I moved up here." Now he sounded angry.

"Okay...okay. C'mon, we're almost done." Warrick wrote down some notes. "What about that?" He pointed to a movie ticket stub.

Nick leaned over to get a better look. "Jesus."

"What?"

"That was just a few days ago. I went to see 'Panic Room'." He saw Warrick raise his eyebrows. "Yeah, yeah...I know...ironic." He sat back, looking paler than he had a moment ago, his eyes distant as he considered this latest bit of evidence. "That was in my wallet," he said quietly.

"Are you sure?" Warrick asked.

"Yes, I'm sure! He got in my wallet, Warrick. My wallet! When did he do that?" Warrick was looking at him again with what Nick perceived as a wary eye. He started to add something about not being crazy but stopped himself. He knew better than that. He knew Warrick was just trying to get the facts down right. "I'm sure," he said again more calmly. "It was just the other day. I always put the stub in my wallet after I pay and then...well...it usually stays there for a few months until I see it again and toss it." He reached for his pants pocket and then stopped. "Damn it...I left my wallet at your place." When Warrick just looked at him silently he added sarcastically, "You want to go get it and check?"

Warrick shook his head. "No, man. I believe you. Who'd you go with?"

"Nobody. Cable was out so I..." The words were out of his mouth before he realized what he was saying, and he immediately felt like he was going to get sick. He tried to brush it off, hoping Warrick didn't notice. "It...uh...I'd had the new service for awhile...it stormed that day...figured...that's all it was. So I went out and caught a movie."

"By yourself."

"Yes! That's what I said!"

Warrick sighed. He really did not want to do this, but he reached for the ticket stub and picked it up, then pushed it between his fingers revealing a second one. "Then how come there are two stubs?"

Suddenly it was as though all of the air had been sucked out of the room. Nick felt like he couldn't breathe. "Wha...it...it must be...no..." He shook his head. "I probably had a couple of old ones in there."

"It's the same movie, Nick."

"I..." He shook his head, his voice coming now in shaky breaths, speaking as though he hadn't heard what his friend had just said. "I think I had a couple in there...from the week before."

"Same night."

"Because..." Nick continued, looking down at his hands as they fidgeted in his lap. "You know...because...sometimes I don't clean out my wallet, you know, so..."

"Same showing...same theater...purchased 3 minutes after yours."

Nick stopped speaking but shook his head again as he continued to look at his hands. He didn't want to think about this. He didn't want to believe this. His feelings were running the gamut...fear, anger, confusion, disgust...and helplessness. This was supposed to be over. The guy had been caught...arrested...and it was supposed to be over. But now it seemed far from that, and in fact it was growing bigger by the minute as the realization of the full scope of what Crane had been doing was starting to sink in. It wasn't just a collection of odd items the man had stolen and stashed away. And he hadn't just been in his house watching him. He had followed him outside of the house. And for how long? To how many places had Nick gone and not realized he was being followed and watched? And..."Why?"

Nick's voice startled Warrick as he had been letting him quietly process this until he was ready to talk about it. "Why? I don't know, man. I'm sorry."

"Grissom said he wanted to be me." He looked up. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know. Look, Nick, I told you...the guy's a nut, okay? Sometimes there's no reason. Crazy is just crazy."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better? That instead of having some kind of fucked up plan he was just a random nut case?"

"No." Warrick shook his head. "No, it's not supposed to make you feel better. But maybe you need to try to stop figuring it out and just let it be what it is."

"Like you'd do, right?" Nick snapped.

Warrick huffed and shook his head, a small smile on his face. "All right...fine. Look, let's just take it a step at a time then, okay? Everything will work out." When Nick shrugged in response, he said, "Okay...I need to get this stuff bagged and tagged, then we'll drop it off at the lab and you and me are gonna go get something to eat."

"I'm not hungry." Nick shook his head as he stood up.

"Well you slept all day yesterday, so I know you didn't eat, and you haven't had anything today either."

Nick just shrugged again in response.

"Well, I'm hungry and I'm drivin' so we're going." Warrick turned to the evidence on the floor in front of him and went to work on it as Nick sat down with a sigh onto the futon.

An hour later Warrick parked his SUV in front of the Las Vegas Crime Lab and opened his door to get out. He turned to shut it and saw that Nick was still sitting in the passenger seat. "You comin'?"

"Nah...you're just dropping it off with the evidence clerk, right? Shouldn't take long. I'll wait here."

Warrick gave him a long look. He couldn't say he blamed him for not wanting to go in. As Nick had pointed out to him the night before, he had already been the unwanted focus of someone's attention, and if he went into the lab right now he was bound to be the focus of everyone's attention. Though it would be well-meant from his friends and co-workers, it would still make him uncomfortable. "Okay. I'll be quick."

A few minutes later, after signing the newly gathered evidence over to the clerk, Warrick headed back down the hall to leave but was stopped by someone calling his name. He turned around and saw that it was Fingerprint Analyst Mandy Webster who was trying to gain his attention.

"Mandy," he greeted her as he walked back toward her. "What's up?"

"Have you seen Grissom or Catherine?" she asked.

"Naw…I'm not even on shift tonight. Just stopped by to drop off some new evidence in Nick's case."

She looked concerned. "How's he doing? A few of us called and sent him texts the other night checking on him but he didn't respond."

"He's doing okay. Still shook up, but…you know…he'll get through it."

"That's good," she smiled. "Well, tell him we're thinking about him."

"Sure. So uh…you were looking for Cath and Grissom?' he asked.

"Oh! Yeah. I've been trying to reach them…" She went back into the lab and picked up a print report. "I finally finished up with all of the prints they snagged at Nick's house…thought they'd want the results ASAP, you know? Since this one's kinda personal."

"What'd you find out?"

She sighed. "They gave me a ton of prints. There were a few unknowns here and there." She laughed a little then as she added, "You even turned up a couple of times, but the majority of them were Nick's."

"What about Crane?"

"Only where you'd expect to find prints from the cable guy. On the attic window and access panel…door knobs…furniture near the TV…that kind of thing."

"Nowhere weird? Like the bedroom or bathroom?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Nope. That's good, right?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "That'll make Nick feel better. Thanks, Mandy. I'll tell Nick you were asking about him." He turned and headed back down the hallway toward the exit. Nick was going to be glad to know there weren't any freaky prints of Crane's anywhere there shouldn't be, he thought. But by the time he got back outside and into his vehicle he had second guessed himself into not mentioning the print results to Nick just yet. For one thing, it might make him feel again like they didn't believe him, and for another thing it was quite possible…and probable…that Crane had actually been in other areas of the house but wearing gloves. So for right now he decided no good could come of mentioning it to Nick.

"How'd it go?" Nick asked him.

"Good. It went good. You ready?"

Nick nodded, and Warrick pulled out of the parking spot and headed down the road.

Thanks to all for waiting patiently after that nasty cliffhanger. :-) I hope you enjoy this chapter! Please leave a comment and let me know what you think. Thanks again to JacquiT for being a sounding board for me and my wacky ideas! More to come soon.