10.

"Whoa."

Nick had to admit it. He had no love in his heart for this precocious prostitute who went by the name of Samantha Ritter. Even so, the sight of her wide open eyes, already opaqued by death, made him turn away.

"You okay, Nicky?" Warrick questioned, setting his case down near the sink. His face was still gaunt from lack of sleep, giving him a slightly paranoid air.

"Yeah." Nick swiped at his upper lip and was mildly surprised at finding moisture there. Getting soft there, Stokes? Funny how the taunting voice in his head always sounded a little like Hodges. You should be ashamed of yourself, big tough CSI like you acting like he's never seen a dead body in his life.

Maybe it wouldn't have hit him so hard if she'd just been a stranger. Not that they were best friends or anything, but… there was something about this girl. About the uncanny pose her body had taken as rigor mortis set in. About the telltale bruises on her neck. About the way he had so thoroughly hated her after she'd damaged his car…

"Wow," came David's unnecessary comment, bending low over the body to take her liver temperature. "Talk about dèja vu."

Samantha's head was strewn back, her crudely attractive face fixed into a look of permanent horror. The white of her eyes was sprinkled with petechial hemorrhaging, her lips, under their thick coating of red gunk, were bluish. No contusions on her arms or torso—no defensive wounds.

"So she knew her attacker," Warrick logically concluded. "Probably a 'client'."

"Something doesn't add up, though," Nick couldn't help deliberating. "What the hell is she doing here? She's not five-star hotel material. I mean—look at her." The girl's make-up was overdone and her thin negligee was hardly Victoria's Secret. "She's a lady of the streets, man."

"Hmph. We should still get some fingernail scrapings though. And a vaginal swab," Warrick added, as David lifted Samantha's robe to reveal a lurid pattern of black and blue. The sight of it brought painful recollections to Nick's mind—the similarity between this poor girl's injuries and Catherine's almost making him lose his breakfast.

"You're all a pack of goddamn assholes," Samantha's voice rang spitefully in his memory. "Fuckin' pigs. Someone oughta teach you that just 'cause someone turns tricks it don't mean they're junkie white trash. I got friends in high places. I'm gonna make you pay."

What if she had? What if she did have friends in high places? If she had made them pay?

Her prints were on the Rampart matchbook. And on Catherine's car.

Catherine and Greg had been attacked by men looking like casino bouncers.

Someone had paid a neighborhood kid to implicate Grissom. Someone with a lot of money—and influence. A person whose position would easily enable him to order casino bouncers around, someone with a grudge against Catherine—and the lab. Who wouldn't hesitate at using a street whore if she happened to fit into his plans… and wouldn't bat an eyelid at disposing of her the minute she became a liability.

"Nick, man—whatcha thinking?"

Warrick's voice was cautious and slightly uneasy. Nick couldn't really blame him—the way his hands were sweating he probably looked like he'd just seen a ghost.

"No way," Warrick stated, soon as he'd heard his theory. "Listen, I know Sam Braun is dodgy and all… but he's her father. No father in the world would send a couple of bouncers to rape his daughter out of revenge. That's just messed up."

"I know," Nick began. "But the evidence—"

"There's no evidence to support this, Nick. Nothing connecting Sam Braun to Samantha Ritter. Plus how do you explain she was killed the exact same way as the Campbell woman? You gonna make Sam Braun responsible for her too?"

Nick tried not to take offense at Warrick's tone. He was tired—they were all tired. And frustrated. Not to mention he was making some pretty valid points. They'd all more or less agreed the Campbell murder was a crime of passion—no evident signs of premeditation and everything pointed to it being someone she knew. There were more than enough volatile men around her with motive and means to account for it. Too bad they hadn't been able to single any of them out.

Now this…

This didn't make any sense. Here were two crimes—three, if you counted the assault on Greg and Catherine—linked only by Samantha Ritter's prints and a similar MO. Were they imagining things? Was it just some crazy ass coincidence? Or were they actually related?

"Whoa."

The word, coming from Warrick this time, managed to stir Nick out of his obscure speculations. He was leaning over the corpse next to David, the weirdest expression on his face.

"What's up?"

David had flipped the victim over and some strange sort of smell filtered out, pungent and sweet, permeating the room. "What the hell is that?"

"Walnut-scented pipe tobacco," Warrick muttered enigmatically. "And I think I just remembered where I smelled this before. Come on—let's hurry up and process this. We gotta get back to the lab."