Here's the next chapter, guys! Enjoy!
"Come on, how else did your prints end up on that door knob?" Nick was interrogating a suspect in his and Greg's current case. "There's no point in denying, we know you were in that room."
Greg walked in with some pictures in his hands Nick had asked him to get. "There. That's obviously you leaving the room with what looks like a bloody knife."
"There's no way you can prove that that's a bloody knife. And so what, I was in that room. Unless you can tell when I left those prints there, you have no proof," the suspect replied quite cocky.
"Yeah? Then how about this?" Greg showed him some DNA reports. "Your DNA under the victim's nails, his blood drops on your shoes."
As two officers walked up to the suspect, he started yelling at Nick and Greg and making violent gestures towards the two. The officers cuffed him and walked him away.
"Are you alright, Greg?" Nick asked a little concerned.
His friend had quite a distressed look on his face as he sat down again. "Yeah, it's fine. This guy's wearing the same scent Novak wore, and he's a smoker. Gives me the chills everytime I smell the combination."
Nick nodded as he patted him on the shoulder. "It's weird how smells can trigger our memories."
"Right..." Greg had a weird look on his face.
"What is it?"
"I was at Cole's office today. His assistant, I think I've seen him somewhere before. And his smell, I think I know why I had a weird feeling when I was in the elevator with him."
Greg hurried to the A/V lab with Nick tagging along. "What's going on, Greg?"
"Let me just check something..." Using one of the computers in the lab, he went through all the mails he received from Cole. "Edward Abrams..." he mumbled as he typed the assistant's name in the computer. "There he is. He's a registered sex offender." He had a rather relieved look on his face.
"...That's a good thing?"
"No, but I was scared he might've been the guy we're looking for. His scent, it reminded me of the attack, I think. But since he's registered we would've gotten a hit in the DNA database."
Nick nodded. "But it's a bad idea to let a sex offender work on a documentary about a serial rapist. You need to talk to Cole about this."
Right after shift, Greg went back to Cole's office. As he was walking through the office he passed a group of people. He heard one of them say, "Come on now, don't make me do it for you." followed by the whole group laughing. He stopped with a shocked look on his face. The way this man said those words – words his attacker said to him – sounded way too familiar. The voice had a similarly dark timbre and he just knew it was the same person who said this. But turning to the group of people, he saw Ed Abrams talking to three women.
"Greg, hi," Cole said with a smile on his face as he walked up to the CSI. "What a surprise. What can I do for you?"
"...I-I need to go. I'll come by later. Sorry." He stormed off.
Greg had been sitting in the DNA lab for half an hour, nervously typing into the computer. "Nick! Hey, Nick! Get in here!" he yelled to his friend who was just walking by the lab.
"What's up?"
"It's him. Ed Abrams."
"What? Did you talk to Cole? Does he think Abrams..."
He interrupted Nick. "No. Didn't get the chance. But I walked by a group of people on my way to Cole. Abrams was one of them. He said something that reminded me of what the attacker said to me."
"...You never told me he talked to you."
"Because it was irrelevant. And more a command than anything else. ...Not important, Nick. I just know it's him."
"But we would've gotten a hit in the databases if it was him, you said that yourself. Maybe your mind's playing tricks on you. I mean, you know he's a sex offender, so..."
"No! Nick, I just know it. I've been in here over half an hour, trying to find out what's going on. It just doesn't make any sense... Maybe there's something wrong with the samples."
"...All of them? That's ridiculous."
"...Wait. Look at that." He showed Nick the computer screen, showing Abrams' DNA profile. "How can that be? I-It's empty."
"What do you mean, empty? ...What the hell?" Nick stared at the screen in confusion.
"There's no DNA profile. Someone must've messed with this, there's no way anyone made that mistake." He checked where Abrams was booked. "Barstow, California. That's a small town, but they still couldn't have made a mistake like that. They don't process DNA evidence, they send it in. What happened here?"
"What do you mean, sex offender?" Cole asked Greg as he closed the door to his office. Him and Nick were paying the moviemaker a visit.
"He was caught masturbating near a school," the younger CSI explained.
"...Oh, that."
Greg raised his eyebrows. "You knew about this?"
"Well, he said he was urinating but the cops didn't believe him."
"And you believed that?"
"Yeah, of course. I've known him since high school. I trust him."
"But... with a documentary about a... you know, about a guy like Novak, don't you think you shouldn't let anyone work on that who..."
"Look, Greg," he interrupted the CSI. "I understand why this is upsetting for you. I get that you're uncomfortable with this, but he's part of the team. An important part, that is. He did most of the research."
"...He did? Like what?"
Cole shrugged. "I don't know, mostly about Novak's past. Some of the victims, too, I think."
"...What about me?"
Cole sighed as he grabbed some files out of a desk drawer. "This is ridiculous. He's a great guy, he'd never hurt kids." He read in the files for a moment. "Yeah, he did research on you, too. I'm sorry for all this. I'll try to keep him away from your story if you like, but..."
"No, you don't understand. We need to talk to him. We'll need a DNA sample."
"What for? Didn't the officers who booked him take one already?"
"They did, but there seems to have been a problem with it," Nick chimed in.
"What problem?"
"You know, we really can't talk about ongoing investigations, we've said too much already."
Cole raised his eyebrows. "Investigation? You're investigating a case from two years ago? Save yourself the time and the tax payers their money. Nothing happened. He urinated, they thought he was jerking off. End of story."
"It's about recent cases. Where is he?"
"Hey Eddie," Cole said to Abrams as him, Greg and Nick walked up to the man. "These two want to talk to you about some sexual assaults that happened in the last few weeks."
"...Yeah?" He raised an eyebrow.
Greg didn't feel too comfortable facing this man. The mere possibility of him being the man who attacked him almost caused a panic attack, but he tried to stay calm. Nick could sense Greg's discomfort, though, and tried to help him deal with this situation as good as possible.
"Mr. Abrams," Nick approached him in a stern voice, "We're gonna need a DNA sample from you."
Abrams hardly looked at Nick, his eyes were fixated on Greg. "Do you have a warrant?"
Greg got chills as he heard the man's voice.
"We do. Open your mouth, please." Nick grabbed a cotton swab out of his pocket.
"Can't we do that somewhere else?"
"Sure. You can come down the station with us."
Abrams sighed as he rolled his eyes. "Just do it."
As Nick took the DNA sample from him, Abrams kept his eyes on Greg, subtly grinning at him.
