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Chapter Ten: Conflict of Interest

"Sara!" he yells, and I can hear him moving behind me, much more slowly, but I can't slow down and I can't stop. I don't care about protocol, or preserving the scene, I care about my baby, my baby. And without regard to the child's father coming after me, I start to shout through the house.

"Halle? Halle Mae! Sweetheart, are you here? Come out… It's okay now, come out!"

The first bedroom I come to is a child's and I rip it apart—she's not under the bed, or in the closet. She isn't in the big toy box in the corner, or even behind the door. As I run to the next room, Grissom is rounding the top of the stairs.

"Sara! Sara, what's going on?"

His voice fades slightly as I enter the next room—it looks like a guest room, unoccupied. I look under the bed again, dig through the closet, even looking at the shelves high up. Grissom appears in the doorway just as I'm attempting to run out, and he catches my upper arm.

"Stop Sara! Tell me who Halle is!"

Tears are streaming down my face, and my breath is coming fast and shallow, like I can't fill up my lungs. "My baby. My baby, my baby Halle. Halle!" I should again, breaking from his grip and running to the hall bathroom.

She isn't under the sink, or in the bathtub behind the shower curtain. She isn't in the linen closet, or even in the hamper in the corner.

Moving even faster, I run into the next bedroom while Grissom watches me in alarm. Another room with a double bed—but with a wardrobe rather than a closet. I dig through that, look under the bed, and even in the big dresser drawers, though I doubt they're big enough to fit a nine year old.

The last door in the hallway is the master bedroom.

She's not under the bed, or in either of the closets, or behind the door. She isn't under the sink in the master bathroom, or the shower, or the linen closet, and I want to fall to pieces in exasperation and frustration and almost, uncontainable despair.

Grissom appears in the doorway of the bathroom. "Sara…"

My head snaps to him. Oh god. He's just lost his baby too, and he doesn't even know he has one yet. …How had I let it go on so long? How had I not told him on the very first day I saw him again…?

"Sara, honey, listen to me." I struggle to focus my gaze on him. His eyes are Halle's eyes. Oh god, my Halle. "Is there a child missing…? If… If there is, we need to put out an Amber alert. We need to work on finding her."

I nod, numbly, completely unaware of the tears pouring down my cheeks. He takes my hand, gently, pulling his phone out of his pocket as we move down the stairs. At which point I realize I haven't searched the whole house. I break from his grip and run down ahead of him, rushing through every room and, I'm certain, destroying the scene, but I have a hard time rationalizing why that is important. I just need to find her.

Distantly, I hear him calling Nick to come process the scene, and requesting Brass meet us at the lab in twenty minutes, but I know it won't be necessary. I'm going to find her.

Yet the downstairs has fewer hiding places than the upstairs—the dining room requires only a sweeping gaze, and the living room is the same. After digging through a hall closet and completely tearing the kitchen apart, it becomes apparent that she isn't here. She isn't anywhere.

And then Grissom comes to me, takes my hand again, and leads me out, around the blood pools that by some miracle have yet to be disturbed, and out to the Denali we'd driven over in. He puts me in the passenger seat, speaks quickly to the officers at the scene, informing them of Nick's imminent arrival, and then he slides into the driver's seat.

I expect him to throw questions at me, but instead we drive in silence. The only thing he says is, "Do you have a recent picture of the girl…? and at my nod, he drives towards my apartment instead of the lab.

He walks with me, inside, and takes the keys from me when my trembling fingers can't hold them steady enough to open the door, and I collect my ten Halle photographs, all framed, silently, walking out without bothering to lock it behind me. He does, however, and follows me back to the Denali, and drives us to the lab in silence.

We walk, side by side, to Brass' office, taking the seats across the desk from him.

"We need to issue an Amber alert on a young girl, whose… parents have been killed. She wasn't at the scene." The word parents came with a questioning inflection and a sideways glance at me.

Brass immediately is ready to write, and when Grissom turns to look at me, he follows suit. I draw in a deep, steadying breath, pulling the most recent picture frame from the pile and passing it to Brass.

"Her name is Halle Mae Stevens. Her parents are Tom and Erika. The last time I was in contact with them was this past February. They live in Boston. He's an attorney, she writes children's books. I don't know any of their friends or relatives, and I don't know if they'd have any enemies.

"Halle is nine years old, reddish brown hair, blue eyes, height… maybe four and a half feet? She's tall for her age, Erika said she was taller than all her friends… maybe five feet? God, I don't know…"

Grissom's eyes are narrowed, but he doesn't speak. Brass clears his throat. "Your, uh, relationship… to the girl?"

I cringe, but it isn't important now. Only she matters. "I'm her biological mother. I gave her up for adoption in 1992. Tom and Erika have sent me a picture, on her birthday, every year."

Brass nods. "Gil, as soon as you have some information about a suspect we can update the alert. In the meantime, I want her picture all over the news as soon as possible. …Don't worry, Sara, we'll find her."

I nod numbly, trembling again. Grissom looks at me intently, while Brass repeats Halle's pertinent information into the telephone. I don't know if he's put anything together yet, but with that brain of his, I don't know how he couldn't at least suspect. When he doesn't speak, I take initiative.

"Gris, we need to go back to the scene. There's no way Nicky can process quickly enough to—"

"Sara, you can't work this case. I… I don't think you can work any case, the state you're in. We'll call in some people from swing shift… day shift, even, okay…? I'll oversee the crime scene myself."

I look deeply into his eyes, Halle's eyes, and sigh. This isn't the way he should find out. This isn't the circumstances under which I wanted to tell him. He seems to misinterpret my gaze, however, and answers a question I hadn't asked.

"It's a conflict of interest, Sara. I'm sorry. You have to be hands-off."

I shake my head, looking down into my lap. "No, it's not that… Gil, uh…" I can almost hear his head snap to fiercer attention. I hadn't called him Gil since the night in my hotel room. "…you can't work the scene either."

His eyes narrow, and I watch as question and answer form behind them, chaotically, trying to decipher my meaning, trying to see if I could possibly mean anything but what he thinks I mean. I sigh, and try to spell it out further.

"You also have a… conflict of interest."