Chapter 8

Jigsaw

The horrible scratching sensation of cheap bed sheets pulled her from sleep upon which she instantly became aware of a myriad of other things that made her want to slip back in to sleep. The papery gown; the thin mattress through which she could feel the cold slats of the bed frame; the sharp pinch on her hand from the IV line; the cold, clinical smell that filled her nostrils and her head, the feeling of being completely and utterly out of control.

"Hey, welcome back."

Damn... There was no hiding anymore. She recognised Russell's voice dragging her back into the reality she so desperately wanted to escape from.

"Thanks..." she said, irritated as her voice cracked and her sandpaper throat rasped.

"Here." He said, offering her a cold glass of water as he went to fetch a doctor.

She sipped at the water slowly. The skin at the back of her throat felt raw and torn and even the cool water burned it.

She closed her eyes again trying to remember what had happened. Frustrated that she could not picture what had happened immediately before her blackout she backtracked. Sitting, talking on the hill with Russell, talking about Wynard and Greg, and Nick. Nick. The coffin buried in the garden. The body of the terrified young man. The excavation. The crane removing it from the ground. The explosion that had triggered.

She sat bolt upright panting as the memories flooded back to her. Unfortunately, Russell chose that moment to return with the doctor.

"Hey, easy." He chastised her as she slumped back against the pillows sure that, ironically enough, this hospital visit would be the death of her.

"He's right." The doctor who accompanied him told her as he consulted a sheaf of papers in his hand, "I'm Doctor Cole, I've been charged with taking care of you while you're here."

"Lucky you..."

"Yes, I'm beginning to sense that." He replied, flatly, "Would I be able to ask you a few questions?"

"Knock yourself out..."

"Can you tell me your name?" the doctor asked, predictably.

While she despaired at the situation and resolved to hunt down whoever had put her in it, she took a chance to study her doctor before answering. He looked young, tall with dark hair and intense blue eyes and was glancing down at a clipboard. She hoped the bored expression he wore was because he too felt that this was a complete overreaction and that she should be sent home at once, other than what the rest of the evidence seemed to tell her, that he had already had a long shift and her stay was unfortunately for them both about to make it even longer.

"Sara Sidle." She replied in a flat voice, knowing what was coming next.

"Alright Miss Sidle, do you know where you are?"

She rolled her eyes at the ceiling and asked, pointedly, "Is there ever any other answer to that question?"

His mouth twitched slightly at this and for once showed a sign that he was human beneath the sterile mask as he said, "No, probably not, but I need you to answer it anyway."

"Desert Palms hospital. Would you like the address as well?"

"No Miss Sidle that's more than enough thank you. Do you have any questions for me?"

"When can I leave?"

"You really have a thing for hospitals don't you?"

"Don't take it personally."

"Well, I would ideally like to keep you in for observation, only overnight, that's what I'll be recommending. You can of course leave if you wish," he glanced at Russell at this point whose flapping had already told her that he would be willing to tie her to the bed to make her do as the doctor suggested, "However it really would be in your best interests to stay...I'll let you think about."

I.e, he would let Russell browbeat me into staying...

"Thank you Doctor." Russell said, when such thanks was not forthcoming from her. "Make yourself comfortable." He told her, sternly,

She sighed, "I am fine." She told him, pointedly,

"Alright doctor Sidle...You know that would be a lot more convincing if I wasn't fairly certain that your corpse would find a way to tell me the same thing."

"Really, I do not need to stay here." She told him, firmly, soon discovering that her body and her head had very different ideas when she tried to sit up and ended up becoming so dizzy that she forced herself back onto the pillows.

He widened his eyes mockingly at her and she grimaced in response, irritated.

"You really have a thing for hospitals don't you."

"They're cold, clinical, run by robots if Doctor Personality was anything to judge by and they make me feel useless. I am perfectly capable of feeding and dressing myself thank you very much." He smirked slightly at this, sympathising with her desperate need to control everything in a world where she would not even be allowed to control what socks she wore.

Without knowing why she added, softly, "And I spent far too much time here when I was younger..."

"I'm sorry Sara." He murmured, knowing that this would be the real reason and unable to think what memories this must be forcing back to the surface for her.

"Anyway." She continued, bluntly, "What's happening with our case, you find anything before our body tried to kill us?"

"Don't, you are here to rest, not work." He told her, sternly,

"We either do it this way or we do it my way." She told him, stubbornly,

Sighing and resigning himself to the fact that if he did not do something to distract her she would start climbing the walls he said, "No, I was a little distracted by bombs and bloody stubborn criminalists to start processing, my crazy priorities never cease to amaze me either."

She squinted at him, her expression caught somewhere between reproachful and amused. "You didn't find anything?"

"Well not quite, I had someone get a sample of the accelerant back to Hodges."

"I tell you what..." she said, deciding to test a theory that had been forming in her head, unwillingly, since this case began that had now taken root, "Let's play guess the explosive, I win, I go home, you win, I stay here and do whatever the doctor orders."

"Alright...Hodges has text me to tell me to call for the results, what do you think it is?"

"...Semtex..."

"Semtex?"

"What were you saying earlier about parrots?"

"It's an unusual choice, do you know something I don't?" he said, ignoring the quip.

"Perhaps...I have a theory, if it pans out, when we get out of here, I'll tell you."

"Alright...I'm going with C4...I say we call Hodges."

"Hodges, what do you have for me?"

"You're very keen...How's Sara?"

"She's fine." Sara replied, grinning, "Do you have results on the explosive?"

"I didn't have you down as the betting type Miss Sidle." He replied, playfully,

"I didn't, how-" she began, eyes narrowed at Russell who held his hands up in surrender,

"Oh I can always tell when you CSIs start making deals over evidence, call it lab tech intuition, what's in it for you?"

"A ticket out of here." She replied, shortly, grinning at Russell, "What is it?"

"Well if you're guessing explosives you probably won't have guessed this one, not your typical choice. It is a general purpose plastic explosive containing cyclotrimethylene, or RDX and pentaerythritol tetranitrate, or PETN, also known as-"

"Semtex." Sara finished, triumphantly,

"You're not technically a Grissom anymore, you can't do that-" he said, daringly,

"Hodges." She snarled, warningly,

"I'll see you later..." he said, hastily, adding in an undertone, "Much later..."

"How the Hell did you know that?" Russell demanded,

"Find me some discharge papers and I'll tell you." She smirked,

At this point however, Russell was spared from talking his way out of this as she was impacted by a flying Greg.

"Are you alright?" he demanded, releasing her and examining her carefully as though concerned she would crumble to dust if he let go.

"I'm fine-" she began,

"Russell, how is she?" Greg asked, knowing better than to ask Sara

"Doctor said she should be OK but that she should be kept in overnight for observation."

"You sneaky bastard." She said, narrowing her eyes at him, smiling in spite of herself, "You knew-"

He just laughed, eyes twinkling as Finn moved into the room, first hugging Sara and then him.

"And you're alright?" she checked with him,

"I'm alright Jules, I promise." He told her, gently,

"You want anything?" Greg asked Sara, concerned,

"I take it black coffee is out?" she said, resenting what she considered to be unnecessary fussing.

"I'll get you tea." He replied with a smile,

"Thanks Greg." She said, softening in response to him, knowing that, because of what had happened, he would be the most concerned about her being caught up in an explosion.

"What happened?" Finn asked, moving closer to the bed after Greg had left to get them all tea.

Russell glanced quickly at Sara who pulled a face before he said,

"To be honest, I'm not really sure. Explosion of some sort definitely, looks like it was triggered when we lifted the coffin..."

She opened her mouth to reply but was cut off as her phone began to ring insistently,

"I'm sorry..." she said, checking the name on the display, "I have to take this, give me two minutes..."

Both Russell and Sara nodded in understanding as she left to answer the call. He turned to her and asked,

"Right then Mystic Meg; how did you know about the semtex? What's your theory?"

"You'll think I'm crazy." She murmured, shaking her head.

"Why would you say that?"

"Because I thought I was crazy." She replied with a hoarse laugh, massaging her temples, "Making connections where none should have existed...I've never been a big believer in coincidences but the semtex was one too many."

"Alright let's have it." Russell said, closing the door and moving towards her.

"You remember I told you that I'd seen something like our case before in my time in Vegas?

"Yes, twice if I recall."

"Right, isolated incidents. But this case here, I've seen something exactly like this before."

"What do you mean?" he asked, curiously, perching on the end of the bed as she took a deep breath and began to speak,

"Eight years ago, one of the CSIs from the lab was kidnapped while on a routine case. The kidnapper sent a ransom of one million dollars along with a video link telling us that we 'could only watch'. The video showed him trapped underground in a plexiglass coffin. We were told that we had twelve hours to get the money together and drop it off or he died..."

"Jesus, what happened?" Russell breathed,

"We found the money and were sent a seemingly random location for the drop. Grissom met with the kidnapper where and when he suggested with the money."

"What happened then?" Russell asked gently as she faltered,

"The kidnapper met us but wouldn't take the money and wouldn't tell us where our CSI was. Hw mocked us for being useless, for not being able to find him, for not being able to help him. We could only watch..."

"Well what about the kidnapper? He was arrested? Processed?"

"The bits that were left were." She replied, grimly, "He committed suicide, blew himself up." She explained bitterly, adding in an undertone, "Using semtex..."

Russell paused at this revelation and murmured, "Is that why?"

"You don't know the half of it..." she replied, darkly, "We got a familial match to the kidnapper's DNA. His daughter, Kelly Gordon, was in the system even though her father wasn't. She had been arrested three years before as an accessory to murder. Her father blamed the lab. The kidnapping was his form of revenge..."

"I take it you brought Kelly Gordon in for a friendly chat? Did she tell you anything?"

"Accidentally." Sara replied with a small smile, "She refused to give us anything directly related to our case, she said she hoped he died. But she did tell us something about her past that became useful later on in the investigation."

"Go on." Russell said, intrigued now.

"We processed the scene where Gordon killed himself and found a prototype of the coffin that was being used with a dead dog. Meanwhile a video showed a specific species of an tormenting our CSI. Based on that, Grissom realised that he must have been buried in a plant nursery because the ants couldn't tolerate the natural soil in Vegas. From what Kelly Gordon inadvertently told us about working in horticulture, we got a location."

"So you found him? Your CSI? You got him out?"

"It wasn't as simple as we fist thought..." she murmured, drawing her knees up to her chest, trying to block out the memories of what had happened,

What do you mean?" Russell asked quietly, who had not seen anything that had taken place up to this point to be 'simple' and couldn't fathom what could have complicated things further.

"Our CSI had nothing to do with the original case involving Kelly Gordon. Her father held a grudge against the entire lab. The burial was set up as a trap to kill more than one fly and it damned near worked..."

"The coffin was set up?" Russell asked, seeing where this was going,

"Yes...While we were all running around in fields, Hodges analysed trace found on the underside of the coffin and found traces of semtex. He did a little more digging and discovered that the semtex was wired up to a pressure plate. We let him out, the whole thing would go up in our faces..."

"Did you get him out in one piece?"

"Just about..."

"And this case reminds you of that one..."

"A little too much..." she murmured,

"The plant nursery, plexiglass coffin, unusual in themselves and then the semtex..." Russell murmured, seeing where she was coming from,

"I'd be willing to bet a fair amount that I could guess what was left in that coffin." She breathed, quietly, placing her chin on her knees, hugging them closer in to her chest.

"There's just one more thing Sara...Who was the victim in the original case?" Russell asked, quietly,

"What do you mean?" she asked, watching him carefully through large eyes,

"I think it's obvious you were close to the victim, hence the 'our CSI'...Who was it?"

"Nick..." she replied in a strangled whisper after hesitating for a moment,

"Nick what?" he asked as he entered the room with Morgan and pulled Sara into a quick hug. "You have to stop doing stuff like this to me...One of these days."

"Yes but not today." She said with a strained smile, "You know me Nick..."

"Always a survivor, it was me I was worried about. I'm going to have a heart attack one of these days and I'm going to hold you personally responsible for that Sara Sidle!"

She smiled at this as Greg and Finn returned with tea for all of them and they all settled themselves around her bed.

"Anyway, you two seemed to be having a pretty full on discussion, what was that about?" Nick asked, pointedly, looking from Sara to Russell and back again,

"Our case is dragging up some ancient history." Sara replied, evasively, not expecting the answers that followed,

"Really? That's weird, ours too." Nick said, narrowing his eyes,

"We make three..." Greg murmured,

"Who?" Sara asked, both of them understanding,

"Paul Millander." Nick replied, quietly

"Natalie Davis..." Greg said, softly, squinting at Sara,

"What about you?" Nick asked, cautiously,

"Your case. Walter Gordon's revenge after his daughter's imprisonment..." Sara answered, not looking directly in his eyes as she spoke.

All of them knew what these people had put them trough and what memories would be resurfacing as a result. None of them wanted to acknowledge the fact that someone was going to ridiculously extreme lengths to replicate some of Vegas' most terrifying and intricate cases with a precision and obsession that was horrifying. Most unfortunately, it appeared that that was the conclusion they had reached.

"What does all of this mean?" Finn asked, quietly,

"It means we have a serial killer loose in Vegas..." Sara murmured, glancing at both Nick and Greg, seeing her own feelings of despair reflected in their eyes.

A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing! Hope you're all enjoying :)