Chapter Eight

Sara was in the parking lot of the lab when her cell phone rang. "Sidle."

"It's Catherine. Brass just called me with a DB on the Strip. Do you need a ride? I'm picking up Warrick now; we could swing by your apartment…"

"Thanks, Cath, but I'm good. I'll be there in just a couple of minutes," Sara said, climbing into her car. "See you soon."

Sara hung up and looked around. When she had moved to Vegas seven years ago, she'd come with almost nothing. Grissom had called for help when one of his CSI's had been shot on the job. She'd come willingly, happy to be back with the infamous Dr. Grissom.

She'd taken one of the seminars he'd given at Harvard one year, and had fallen for him then and there. They'd spent some time together afterwards, and he'd said he would call her if he ever needed help. She had wanted to believe that was true, but coming from the second best lab in the country, she seriously doubted that he would even remember her name as soon as he had landed in back Vegas. But, the call had come, and she'd flown to Las Vegas for him. And here she was, seven years later, still in Sin City.

She looked around her car again, pulling it out onto the road and thinking that she could totally afford something nicer. Grissom had helped her get a car, and an apartment. Now, she could even probably afford a nicer apartment. But she didn't want one. The car and apartment held too many 'Grissom' memories to get rid of.

She stopped at a red light and noticed that the sun was coming up. The conversation in Grissom's office only hours before seemed like days ago. She then realized how much she wanted to go home. Go home, sleep, shower and get a new set of clothes. Their conversation must have lasted hours, she felt like she hadn't slept for more than half an hour.

The light turned green and she stepped on the gas pedal. I'll go home after I process the scene. Get the evidence back to the lab, and then go home for a shower and clothes.

OoOoOoO

She pulled up to a house with cop cars surrounding the entire perimeter. She grabbed her kit and jumped out of the car.

She made her way into the house, being pointed to the second floor by a cop on duty. "Body's up there," he told her.

Catherine was standing in the hall, waiting for the younger CSI. Seeing her arrive, she called, "Sara!"

Sara walked over to where the blonde was standing, flanked by Warrick and Brass. "Hey Sara," Warrick called out in greeting. "Long time, no see, huh?"

"Tell me about it," she said, smiling. "I don't think I got more than a half an hour's sleep. You?"

"Not a whole lot. Cath? How about you?"

Catherine looked up from the body she was now crouched beside. "Me? Virtually none. Lindsey was sick, puking her guts out, it seemed."

Warrick looked concerned. "Is she going to be okay?"

"What? Oh, yeah. She'll be fine. Just the flu, it's going around. She's with her grandma now." She switched to professional mode. "Brass, what have we got here? It looks like suicide to me."

Brass stepped forward, addressing Catherine and Warrick, but clearly ignoring Sara. "We have a young Hispanic boy, about eighteen. No ID."

Sara crouched down beside the body. She put on some gloves and reached into the victim's pocket. "No wallet, no ID. Do you think robbery was a motive?"

"Not if it was suicide, Sara," Brass answered coolly.

Sara looked up. "So you've ruled out everything but suicide? How can you be so sure?"

Brass took something out of his pocket. "There was a note," he explained, handing it to Catherine.

She took the note and read out loud, "'Dear Mom, Dad, friends and family. Life is just too hard, and I don't want to do this anymore. So goodbye.'" She folded the note back up and placed it into an evidence bag. "It is a suicide note," she said.

"So?" Sara argued. "He could have been forced to write it by whoever killed him!"

"Wow, calm down, Sara," Brass said, smirking. He turned to Catherine and Warrick. "She's a bit bitchy because I pulled her away from Grissom earlier."

"Grissom?" Catherine repeated. "What were you doing with him? I thought he gave us the night off."

Sara ignored the stare Brass was giving her, and turned to Catherine. "We were talking. I stayed after the meeting to speak with him. We apparently talked for a long time, as we were both still at the lab when Grissom got called in," she lied.

Brass piped up, "If you were both at the lab, why would you go with him? Why not stay there, or better yet, go home?"

"Because," Sara said, starting to get annoyed. "We were both used to going to crime scenes together. It was just out of habit."

She didn't dare say anything more. She had a pretty good feeling that Brass was getting tired of her, and he might go so far as to check lab security to see if they had actually been there.

She wouldn't tell anyone that they had been at the hotel, or anything. She needed to talk to Grissom, but she didn't dare phone him now. She would wait until they were both back at the lab. Then it wouldn't look suspicious.

Sara pushed thoughts of Grissom away and said, "Well, now that we're done with my interrogation, can we process the scene?"

Catherine seemed to snap out of a trance. "You're right Sara. Let's go."