Disclaimer: I don't own CSI, or any of its characters. The story and all other characters do belong to me, so hands off. ; )

A/n: Forgive me if there are any spelling mistakes. My hands are freezing and my fingers don't want to obey me. Also thanks to all who reviewed. You guys make my day. Also, this chapter is one of the reasons for the rating. I don 't think it's too bad, but I erred on the side of caution.


Chapter 7

Warrick pulled up to the house and noticed the patrol officer standing guard beside the front door. Getting out of the car, he walked up to stand in front of him. "Hey, get tired of sitting in the car?"

"No Sir. Just doing my job sir." It looked as if the man barely restrained himself from saluting.

Warrick turned to look toward the drive, and noticed that there was a second SUV sitting there. "I guess Grissom found someone to come out and help Sara. Do you know how long they've been here?"

The officers' eyes shifted away from Warrick. "I'd have to say, well a while sir. I don't know exactly what time he got here. About 2 hour's maybe?"

"How do you not know? You were here weren't you?" Warrick narrowed his eyes at him.

"Yes Sir, but you see, it's like this…umm, see I had a long shift yesterday, and I was in early today, so when I was sitting there waiting, I sort of… drifted off." He still hadn't met Warrick's eyes.

"Are you telling me that even after I told you to make sure to keep a close eye on the place, you fell asleep?" Warrick could barely contain himself. "Man… what if someone came up and went into the house without you knowing?"

The officers' face turned beet red. "Well…actually… someone did, but it wasn't... no one was harmed…" He trailed off as the door behind him opened.

"Officer, we're about to leave. If you would do a circuit around the house, make sure that all entrances are secure, and that no one it hanging around, we'll be ready by the time you're done." Grissom said his hands full of evidence bags.

"Yes Sir!" the officers' face turned even redder than before, and he turned and marched around the side of the house.

Distractedly Warrick watched the officer disappear around the corner. "Gris, I can't believe it! He just told me he fell asleep watching the house. I told him specifically that he was to keep a close eye on it. What time did you get here?"

"No more than fifteen or twenty minutes after you called. Nick and Greg are off today, and Catherine was on another case, so I decided to come out myself. When I got here, he was dozing in the car. First I went in to make sure everything was okay, than I woke Officer Jones and explained to him the consequences of sleeping on the job." They looked up when Sara came out the door.

"Hey Warrick, we're all finished here. You can help go through this stuff when we get to the lab." She smiled at him as they walked towards the SUV.

"Look Sara, I'm so sorry." Warrick put his hand on the shoulder as they walked.

"Sorry for what?" she asked, looking at him quizzically.

"Uh…umm…" He looked to Grissom for help.

Grissom jumped in with the save. "He's just sorry that he couldn't stay and help."

Sara shrugged. "When you have to question a suspect, you have to. I'll tell you what, next time, I'll relax in the interrogation room and you can do the collecting." She smiled and walked ahead of the guys to put the bags in the SUV.

Warrick looked at Grissom. "You didn't tell her?"

"No. I handled it." And he too walked up to the car. Leaving Warrick to look after him, he could only think, how odd.


Doc. Robins was bending over the body on the table in front of him, sewing up the "Y" incision. Warrick walked in as he was pulling the sheet up to cover his face. "Ah Warrick, you're just in time. I just finished with Mr. Johnson here."

"What can you tell me Doc ?" Warrick crossed his arms, and waited.

"Not much else to say about cause of death, but I did find evidence that he had had anal sex within hours of his death. There was semen in the anal canal and of course some abrasions. I sent a sample to DNA. Other than that, his last meal consisted of, ah…"He flipped through the file, "His last meal was a cheeseburger and fries, he'd eaten about 4 hours before death. Tox report came back clean, not even aspirin in his system. Aside from the fact that he's dead, he's a perfectly healthy man."

"Was there anything else, anything at all?" Warrick was sure there had to be something else.

"He had three circular contusions on his neck, they appear to be hickeys. I swabbed them for saliva, and he had abrasions on his penis and traces of lubricant. The way I see it is this. Either he ate dinner, had sex with a man, than was killed, or the sex came first, than he ate, than was killed. It depends on the analysis of the sperm. I can tell you the sex was consentual, no matter when it happened." Doc pulled the gloves off his hands and picked up his crutches. "He's told all he's going to."

"Thanks Doc. I guess I'll head over to trace, see if Hodges as analyzed that trace from his fingers yet." He threw Doc a small salute and turned and left the room.


Sara sat going through the boxes of evidence taken from the vic's house. Picking up his address book, she flipped through it. Not much was written in it. Under the J's was the name Janet, and a phone number. Under R was the name Mae, she figured that must mean Mae Riley. There were a few numbers that had been scratched out. She'd take the book over to QD to get those checked out. The only other numbers seemed to be for restaurants. Lot's of pizza places. She flipped to the very back and discovered something written on the inside cover. MM—gbgeeihf , and something under that, that had been scratched out. Well, she couldn't make anything of that. It looked like a code of some kind. She wasn't much good at codes, but she knew someone who was. She picked up her phone and dialed. "Where are you?" she asked without preamble.

Grissom couldn't suppress a grin. "I'm in my office. Where are you?" His voice sounded low and gravelly.

A tingle ran down Sara's spine. What that mans voice could do to her! She lowered her voice to a purr. "You know you're not supposed to use that tone at work. I'm currently on my way to your office. I need to get your opinion on something. You'd better behave when I get there."

"You're no fun. Okay, I'll act respectable, but you can't control my thoughts. Just know that the entire time I'm helping you, I'm be remembering last night…and this morning, and looking very much forward to getting you home in…" he checked his watch. "In just over two hours."

Sara stopped in his doorway, "You fiend!" She closed her phone. "Just for that, you should know, I'm going to be thinking of last weekend, and I might just have to work late today." She walked up and sat in front of his desk, placing the address book in front of him.

His eyebrows shot up. "You mean the thing… with the other… and the…You wouldn't!"

"Hmm, where do I start? Let's see, what was the first thing we did when we got to the B&B? Did we explore Boulder City? Tell me, what do you remember us doing?" She couldn't keep the smirk from her face. Two could play this game, and she liked to win. She watched as his mind drifted back, and a smile appeared on his face.

Suddenly a noise sounded from behind her. She turned to find Catherine in the door way. "Hey, what's up with Grissom?" Sara turned back around and bit back a smile.

When she turned back her face was impassive. "I don't know, I asked him if he could decipher this code." she pointed to the book she had put on his desk. 'Then he suddenly got this, I don't know… dreamy look on his face, and sort of drifted away. You know, I don't think I'll ever understand Grissom." She was amazed at how unaffected she sounded.

Catherine leaned over and snapped her fingers in from of Grissom's face. He hadn't moved once since she'd come into the room. "Hey Bugman, snap out of it!" Grissom jerked and his eyes refocused. Blinking he looked from Catherine to Sara. "What was it about this code that made you drift off to dreamland?" She gestured to the book in front of him.

He looked down at the book, reading the code. He was silent for a long time. Finally he looked up and said, "It's a phone number. The code is simple. The first two letters stand for the person's name, and the letters, and asterisks stand for numbers. It's a ten letter code, so the area code is included. It's most likely a local number, so the area code is probably 702. By that, we know that the asterisk stands for zero. So the number is 702-755-9086. And I wasn't in dreamland, I was thinking. Now, did you need something?"

"Umm Yeah, I just wanted you to take a look at this surveillance video with me and Archie. We need a fresh pair of eyes." She looked at him with eyebrows raised.

"I'll be there in a minute." She nodded and left. He looked at Sara. "Are you happy with yourself?"

"Me! You started it!" They stared at each other a few minutes. Finally she relented. "I'm sorry if I caused you any…umm discomfort." She paused for a minute. "Were you serious about the code? Is it a phone number?"

He smiled. "Most likely, but I can't guarantee the part about it being local. Truth is, it could be a number for anywhere in the U.S., but I thank I did very well… considering."

Sara giggled. "Well it's a start anyway." She got up and turned towards the door. "You want to walk out together?"

"No you go on ahead; I need to sit here for a while before I join Catherine." His face turned a deep shade of red. Anyone who knew Grissom would be surprised. He didn't embarrass easily. Sara couldn't help it and burst out laughing. Grissom arched his eyebrow. "You just wait until we get home, than we'll see whose laughing. Now go, you're too distracting."

Sara nodded and still laughing headed back to the layout room. She didn't think she'd be working late after all.


A/n 2: If that is a real phone number, I'm sorry. I just picked abunch of numbers out of my head. Please read and review.


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