Chapter Nine: Third Eye
Snapping more photographs of the various items in the McBride basement, Sara glanced up as Warrick came down the stairs, giving him a half smile as his eyes widened, taking in the sights of the room. "Wow!" He whistled, looking around at all the plants in there. "Sweet. Bet they earned a pretty penny from all of this."
"Certainly put the kids through college." Sara agreed.
"Hey boss," He called over to Nick. "Looks like someone shot out the lock upstairs. I found what looked like fragments of two bullets. They might be too damaged for comparison though." He sighed as he looked at the see through bindle in his hands, containing the fragments. He looked at Sara, Nick and Greg, noticing neither of them had any reaction to what he just said, making him feel as though he was talking to himself.
"Were these parents aware they had two children in the house?" Sara asked as she moved her camera to photograph something else. "I feel bad for having sex in the same house a child is."
"You do that a lot?" Greg teased her, looking towards Nick beside him. "I'm never leaving her unsupervised in my apartment." Sara and Warrick chuckled, but Nick remained silent as his mind was preoccupied on other things. "Maybe that's the sorta thing you and your..."
"I swear to god Greg, if you say SO again," Sara went to warn him when Warrick stepped in to break them up.
"Children, stop bickering." Looking towards Nick, Warrick expected him to aid him in breaking up their little squabble as a true supervisor would do, but he just stood there, staring at the plants around him.
"We're not bickering." Sara assured him. "Greg thinks I'm dating Grissom, which you all know isn't true, right?" She looked towards Warrick, expecting him to answer, but he just smirked at her. "Oh come on! Nick, you believe me right?"
Nick responded with a shrug while his mind was still elsewhere.
"Relax Sara, we don't care." Warrick stepped off the stairs, taking another step past Sara to take a look at the plants hanging on the lines. "Man, if our suspects got everything on those lines, they made out like fat cats."
"Yeah, but they were only interested in the dried stuff." Greg pointed out, bagging another piece of evidence. "You know guys, this could be a territory war? Maybe the kids were just collateral." He suggested, holding open a bindle for Nick.
"If this was a territory war or somethin' like that, wouldn't the dealer wonna take the new growth?" Nick indicated towards the growing plants. "It would be easier to steal them to put these parents out of business rather than to kill em all and dump their bodies somewhere."
Brushing her hair back behind her ear, Sara looked around at all the growing plants then towards the few leaves left on the drying lines above Greg's head, suggesting, "Maybe one of the customers got greedy?"
"Well, we're talking about getting rich," Warrick spoke up. "Not getting high, you know? These dry ones go a lot faster than those." He indicated towards the ones by Sara that were still growing. "The price of an ounce these days is anywhere from two hundred to four hundred dollars."
Greg whistled as he labelled up the bag in his hands. "My parents openly admitted they did drugs in college, but they never advertised it this much around me when I was still as young as these kids."
"Some parents don't know what to protect their kids from, others openly advertise it like this." Sara sighed as she looked around at it all. "This proves my point that there are no perfect parents. The Sheriff thought they were the perfect family, do you think he knew about all of this?"
All three men responded with a shrug.
"Don't you guys think it's weird that the McBride's did all this with two kids in the house? Especially one as young as Cassie?" Greg asked as he held open another bindle for Nick.
"Yeah," Nick scoffed. "If they didn't care before, I bet they do now."
Giving Nick a half smile, Greg labelled up the next bindle in his hands, taking a look at the leaves inside before he sealed it to look at in more detail later in the lab. "Do think they'd notice if any went missing?"
"Greg!" The three older CSI's gave him a stern warning.
"I was so kidding." He chuckled to them, shaking his head to them all as they were all so gullible. "I haven't touched the stuff since my experimental college days. And I for one am never exposing my child to this stuff. If I ever had one that is."
"Ha, who would have ever thought we'd hear that from Greg Sanders." Warrick smirked.
"I'm very mature now." He grinned over at him, boxing up his evidence.
"Don't nark him, he's tellin' the truth." Nick backed him up, giving his friends a smile as they turned to look at him. "C'mon, we haven't seen the old Gregster in a while."
"True." Warrick agreed, suspiciously looking between the two of them. They both had a warm glow in their eyes as they looked between one another. Warrick suspected it may have been from a shared intimate encounter as he had never seen a look like that in Nick's eyes before.
"Hey Nicky, did the Sheriff get back to you on the phone records yet?" Greg queried to change the subject from his maturity to more pressing matters.
"Nah." Nick shook his head as he reached for his phone from the clip on his belt. "I better call the lab to send a tech out here, so we can send some of this stuff back to the lab to be processed. Greg can you check with the Sheriff on the phone records while Sara and Warrick finish up down here?"
"Done. Then we're stopping for lunch, I'm starving." Greg rubbed his empty stomach, giving them all a smile before he head off up the stairs to find the Sheriff.
"Me too." Sara agreed, smiling towards her boss. "I came out here on my day off to help you guys out, and I missed out on dinner."
"Sorry." Nick gave her an apologetic smile as stepped around her, heading off towards the stairs with his phone in his hands. "I'll be out by my truck." He told them before he disappeared off up the stairs, heading off through the house towards the front door where Greg was stood talking to the Sheriff.
"Hey Warrick," Turning to face the CSI behind her, Sara gave him a curious look, judging whether she could trust him or not before she spoke up, "Do you think that there's something going on between Nick and Greg?" Warrick looked around at her wide eyed. "I know he's your friend and all, but I just get this... weird vibe every time they look at each other. And Greg just told me he's going on vacation alone, and Nick's going the exact same place, alone."
"Shit." Warrick anxiously scratched his chin as he could neither confirm nor deny her findings as he had made a promise to his best friend that he wouldn't tell anybody. "It's eh... shouldn't you be talking to them about this?"
"You know something?" Taking a step closer to Warrick, Sara checked the stairs were empty before whispering, "Are they dating? I heard from the hospital staff that Greg was there every day with Nick. Is that when all this started."
"Don't be so nosy." He warned her. "It's really none of our business if they are or not."
"Puh-lease, Greg hasn't stopped teasing me about Grissom all day. This is completely my business."
"Just admit you are already and get it over with then." He chuckled softly, shaking his head at her as she started to blush. "You personally may be able to discreetly date people, but Grissom is just too easy to read. I didn't know it was you until Greg said something, now it's completely obvious."
"Crap."
Gently patting his fellow CSI on the shoulder, Warrick gave her a gentle smile as he looked into her eyes. "Maybe you should stop lying to them, then if they truly are dating they might feel more comfortable to tell you once they know your secret." He suggested then stepped around her to get on with some evidence collecting.
Opening up the back of his truck, Nick gave out a soft sigh as he took a seat on the back while he waited for Ecklie's assistant to answer the phone. "Thanks Sheriff." Greg gave him a warm smile as he took the records from his hands. Greg slowly head over to Nick's truck while he flipped through them in his hands, giving Nick a half smile as he approached him.
"Hey, whatcha got?" Nick moved the phone away from his ear, taking the records from the younger CSI's hands. "No outgoin' calls after six pm." He read then raised the phone to his ear as someone finally answered. "Yeah, it's CSI Nick Stokes. I need to talk to Ecklie . . . thanks." Nick looked up at Greg as they put him on hold. "There's no activity all weekend until this incomin' call Sunday night. Can you run that number?" He pointed to it on the log in front of him.
"Yeah, sure." Greg took the logs back, heading round to the back seat where his laptop was sat to run the number. "Hey Nicky, you get that number from the anonymous 9 – 1 – 1 caller?" He called out to him.
"Yeah." Nick handed it through the seats to him, watching Greg cross referencing it with the number on the log sheet in front of him. "Whatsup?"
"Anonymous 9 – 1 – 1 caller called the house several times last night too. It's the number of a local doctor... a doctor Malcolm Parker." He reported.
"Cool, I'll get Sara to check it out later."
"I'll go help them finish up." Climbing out of Nick's truck, Greg head round to the back, setting the call logs down beside Nick. "Are you okay?" He queried as he looked into Nick's eyes.
"Why does everyone keep askin' me that?"
"Because less than two months ago you were in a dirt hole." Greg spoke so casually, giving Nick a half smile. "And we're worried about you. We ask because we care."
"I'm fine Greg." He assured him. "I must be for Grissom to put me in charge."
"Okay, just checking. You know how much I lo... care about you." Greg quickly changed what he was about to say, hoping Nick didn't notice.
Nick gave him a curious look then raised the phone to his ear again as Ecklie finally answered. "Hi Ecklie, it's Nick. I'm down in Lincoln County and I need a lab tech to come and pick up some evidence to process . . . yeah sure, it's eh..."
Greg watched Nick getting back to work like a professional CSI again as if nothing had ever happened to him. He gave the older man a slight smile as he was proud of him before he head off back towards the house, heading down to the basement to help out Warrick and Sara with the rest of the evidence.
A few hours later while Sara was out talking to the doctor about the phone calls he made to the McBride family home, Warrick and Greg continued bagging and tagging evidence from the crime scene. While everyone else was working, Nick sat himself down outside on the front door step with a log sheet sat down on his lap. He was attempting to plan out the amount of time their murderer or murderers would have had to hide the McBride's bodies if it really was their blood that was staining the family foyer.
Just as he was about to give up on his theory of a territory drug war again, a car pulled up in the distance and a woman stepped out in hippie like apparel.
Nick gave her a curious look as she walked over to him, wondering if she had anything to do with the crime scene they were currently investigating. "Hello there." She called over to him, slowly taking a few steps closer as the gentle breeze of the afternoon brushed its way through her long wavy hair.
"Hi, can I help you?" Shielding his eyes from the sun, Nick gave her an inquisitive look as she took another step closer, folding her arms across her chest.
"Yeah, my names Sage. I'm looking for Nina. Nina McBride, she lives here." She indicated towards the house he was sat in front of.
"Yeah, so am I actually." Giving her a questioning look to judge her reaction before he started asking his questions to find out some more information, "When's the last time you saw her, Nina that is?"
"Um... she left work early on Friday to see Jimmy Buffet in Tahoe, but then she never showed up at the shop today." The concerned young woman explained. "She's never late and she never takes so much as a sick day off, so I was a little worried."
"Sorry, what was your name again?"
"I'm Sage," She smiled as she placed her hand on her chest. "And you are?"
"Oh I'm... I'm Nick Stokes. I'm from the Las Vegas crime lab." Setting down the things in his hands, Nick looked up at her as he continued his questioning. "Sage, maybe you can help me out here. So you work with Nina at the book store, what do you know about the family?"
"Well, Nina and Jude have two kids," She started. "Jeremy and Cassie. They adore those kids."
"Did you know if they were havin' any problems?" He queried next, finding it hard to believe that drug dealing parents adored their kids. "Marital problems, anythin' like that?"
"Are you kidding?" She ridiculed, shaking her head at him. "Jude and Nina had the marriage we all wanted. They were perfect for each other. They were even Highschool sweethearts. They never even fought."
"Really?"
Leaning forwards, Sage gently touched Nick's forehead with her fingertips. "You know, your third eye is so open right now. Are you having visions or hearing voices?" She suddenly asked him, making Nick wonder if she was one of the McBride's customers as she was a little out of her mind.
"No." He shook his head.
"I'm really sorry, but you're radiating this crazy feminine energy." Nick smiled at the crazy lady, wondering what she was on about. "Tell me, have you recently found love or maybe had a spiritual awakening?"
Nick shook his head slightly again. "Um... no, I don't think so."
Crouching down to Nick's level, Sage dropped her hands to her lap, looking up into his soulful brown eyes. "Mm-hmm, do you believe in past lives?"
"No, ma'am."
"How come?" She quizzically asked.
Nick gave her a slight shrug as he shielded his eyes from the rising sunlight again. "I guess . . . because I'm just tryin' to make it through this one." He explained in a quiet voice.
"Well... I think you're doing pretty well." She winked up at him then climbed to her feet, slowly striding back towards her car on the driveway.
Watching her go, Nick suddenly climbed to his feet, stopping her from leaving. "Hey eh... Sage," When she turned to look at him, Nick gave her a slight smile, not knowing why but he had the sudden urge to thank her. "Thanks."
Sage's features spread into a smile before she turned and climbed into her car, slowly backing out of the driveway before she disappeared from Nick's line of sight completely in the trees.
"Hey." Greg gently tapped Nick on the shoulder, taking a step back as the startled man quickly turned to face him. "Sorry, sorry. I thought you heard me coming." He immediately apologised.
"It's okay." He assured him, wishing people would stop sneaking up on him as his heart felt as though it was about to have an attack every time they did it. "Whatsup?"
"I just got a call from Catherine. We sent over the fingerprints we found to her." He reminded him. "She said there were dozens of unknowns, none of them were in the system, but she expanded the search and found a Mark Horvatin." He explained. "He's seventeen years old and he attends the local Highschool with Jeremy, but his print wasn't one of the ones in blood so he might just be a friend."
"Thanks, I'll go check it out anyway." Nick winked at him then grabbed his water bottle and clipboard off the front step.
"Hey Nicky, are you..."
"Don't ask me again G." He warned him, adjusting the baseball cap on his head. "Just, finish up here would yah? I'll talk to you later." Greg nodded to him, stuffing his hands into his pockets as he watched Nick heading off towards the Sheriff to tell him about their first suspect to check out.
Nick rode shotgun in the Sheriff's squad car off towards the Highschool to find Mark Horvatin, leaving Warrick and Greg to finish up at the house. The Sheriff led Nick around the school towards the parking lot where Mark was just leaving after a game.
"Hey Mark," The Sheriff stopped him at the edge of the parking lot, finding it hard to believe that a kid he had known for a long time could possibly be involved with a murder, but as Nick had explained to him in the car, they had to check every lead. "This is CSI Nick Stokes from the Las Vegas Crime lab," He introduced him to the man stood beside him. "He's gonna ask you a few questions, okay?"
Mark nodded then looked towards Nick curiously as the man had been looking at his feet since he walked over to him. "Hi Mark, what size shoe do you wear?"
"Um... twelve, why?" The nervous teen looked towards the Sheriff.
"Can I see the bottom?" Nick asked next, observing the young boy's nervousness as a sign of guilt.
"Um... I dunno, should I get my dad?"
"No, we're just talkin'." Nick gave him a soft smile, pulling his flashlight from his pocket as the teen raised one foot to show Nick the bottom of his sneakers. "Oh, they're new, huh?"
"Y-yeah, I got em this weekend." He nodded, looking towards the Sheriff nervously. "My old ones were thrashed. Anyway, if that's all, I should really go." He indicated towards his car, taking an uneasy step past Nick to get to the back of his car. He looked at the two law enforcement guys in front of him anxiously as he dumped his gear on the back seat of his car.
"Huh, you know when I played ball," Nick stepped up beside him, adjusting the baseball cap on his head as he looked at the edgy teen. "I used to stick my gear in the trunk of my car." He figured Mark wouldn't want them to see in the trunk as there might be something incriminating inside. "Sheriff, is this parkin' lot school property?" The Sheriff nodded over to him. "Okay Mark, why doncha go ahead and pop the trunk for me?" Nick suggested.
"Go ahead." The Sheriff nodded to the sweating young man.
Apprehensively, Mark stepped around Nick, heading round to the trunk of his car. He glanced up at the two men through a fearful gaze then popped open the trunk, revealing the bags of dried marijuana inside. He practically jumped out of his skin as the CSI beside him snapping on a white latex glove as he reached inside the car to open up one of the bags. He gave the teen beside him a suspicious look while the Sheriff was giving him one of disappointment.
Nick stepped away while one of the Sheriff's boy's arrested Mark. He pulled his cell from his pocket, calling Greg to come and pick up the evidence from the car then gave Sara a call to meet him at the station so they could both interrogate Mark on the whereabouts of the McBride family or who else was involved when he stole the marijuana.
"Finally, I thought we were never gonna stop for lunch." Greg sighed as he dropped to the park bench where Sara, Warrick and Nick were already sat. "So, what have we got?"
"To eat or case wise?" Sara smirked as she handed him over one of the egg salad sandwiches she had made. Greg gave her a grateful smile then stole Nick's water bottle from in front of him to take a sip.
Nick just gave him a smile then felt his phone vibrating against his hip. "Catherine?" He spoke as he answered it, "What have you got for me?" He queried, climbing up from the bench.
Sara watched him walking away; giving him a concerned look before she turned back to the table, watching Warrick sharing one of his chicken sandwiches with Greg as his new wife Tina had packed him a whole bundle. "How did you end up forgetting your lunch anyway Greg?" She smirked as he was always thinking of food back in Vegas.
"I..." Greg stopped himself before he said 'I slept over at Nick's and we were making out all morning so I forgot to pack one,' as he really didn't want to expose them at a park bench around kids. "I... I just forgot. I didn't know we'd be going this far out today, so I figured I coulda bought something from the vending machines at the lab."
"Well there's plenty here." Warrick indicated towards his own. "I swear Tina must have thought I was going off to war with the amount of food she packed." She smirked as he handed Greg another sandwich.
"Maybe she's trying to fatten you up, it's a known fact that a porker won't cheat." Greg teased him, dodging a slap to his head. "I was kidding. How can you know me and not know that was a joke?" He giggled softly.
"Because I don't cheat on women." He informed the rookie.
"Tell that to Catherine."
Warrick was fully expecting Greg to say that, but the statement came from Sara across the table. "I'm not... sleeping with Catherine." He almost stammered, knowing that would be a very bad thing to do in front of two CSI's that were trained to notice things regular people didn't. "Catherine and I are just friends." He assured them both.
"Course, because the jealous rage she went in after she found out you were married is totally natural." Sara remarked, reaching for her juice bottle from beside her. "Even if you don't have a thing for her, I think we can all see that she has or ever had a thing for you."
Warrick looked at her surprised as he had never noticed Catherine's desire for him was that noticeable. He thought she went into a jealous rage because he didn't tell her as a friend, but now he was seeing things from a whole new perspective.
"Hey, DNA confirmed to everyone... but Cassie." Nick reported, dropping back onto the bench beside Sara again.
"Interesting." Sara answered first, giving him a quizzical look.
"Mm-hmm." Nick nodded to her, reaching for one of his fries from the burger sat in front of him. It wasn't as greasy as the ones back home in Vegas, but it still had a great addictive, salty taste to it. "Oh and the bloody footprints closest to the front door were both Jeremy's. Catherine figured he was the first to go down. Jude, his father came runnin' in to see what the noise was, he got his shoes in his sons blood. Nina, the mother must have been upstairs at the time. Her blood was on the stairs and she had both Jeremy and Jude's blood in her footprints." He explained in between bites of his burger, not noticing Greg staring intensely at his lips.
"What about the kid, the little girl?" Warrick queried.
"None of her blood anywhere. Either her death was a bloodless crime or they took her alive." Nick said with hope, making Sara look at him surprised.
The team discussed the rest of their case for their lunch break until the Sheriff arrived, ready to take them off to their next suspect's house. He managed to pull a surveillance video off an ATM of Mark's friend Peter from the night of the McBride family murders.
"It's a little grainy, can't see much." The Sheriff sighed softly as he handed the tape over to them.
"I'll get it over to Arch back at the lab," Warrick suggested as he climbed to his feet. "That's alright, right boss?" He smiled over at Nick.
"Yeah, sure. Thanks Sheriff." Nick smiled up at him.
Sara waved Warrick off, watching him climbing back into his car to head back to Vegas then turned her head to look back towards Greg and Nick. "Alright, let's head over to Peter Locke's house and see what we can find." She suggested, catching onto Greg who was not so subtly indicating towards Nick who was meant to be in charge. "Opps... sorry for stepping on your toes there boss." She gave him a soft smile. "What do you think we should do?"
"No, it's okay. You guys go ahead with that." He nodded to them. "You can check out the house, I'll catch up."
Sara smiled to Greg, waiting for him to leave before she turned her head towards Nick, giving him a curious look in the eye. "Are you okay Nick?"
"Oh my god Sara, would you just drop it already?" He snapped at her. "I was buried alive and I'm fine. Would you stop watchin' me like a hawk? I've got enough people breathin' down my neck about this at the lab; I don't need it from you too."
"I just meant... you think this girl Cassie is alive, don't you?"
Nick nodded his head slightly. "You don't?" When Sara shook her head, Nick gave out a soft sigh. "But there was none of her blood found at the house. And I know what you're gonna say, but she wasn't drugged. She's a smart little girl. She hid the cough medicine in her sneaker, that's like hidin' yah greens in a napkin or stuffin' the thermometer down the back of a radiator when you don't wonna go to school. I don't think they killed her." Looking over at the children playing with a puppy in the distance, Nick's lips spread into a slight smile. "These kids were out to get high. I don't think they'd kill a little girl to do that."
"Nick, how can you say that? They killed Jeremy." She reminded him. "They killed his father and his mother while she running away. What makes you think that this girl is alive?" Sara asked him, wondering if he was really okay, but she didn't want to get her head bitten off again.
"I just... have this feelin'."
"Nick, you have to look at the evidence. I hope to god that she is alive and that you're right, but everything in our past experience tells us that this little girl and her family are all dead."
Nick nodded slightly, turning to rest his elbows on the picnic bench. "It doesn't mean that we should just give up though. If they're out there... any of them. We have to find them."
"We're not giving up." She assured him, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. "It's just that... you're acting as though we're on a rescue mission, that we're gonna rescue a person, not recover a body. On this job... that's just not the case."
Nick nodded to her, turning his eyes to look into hers. "I was rescued Sara."
"It was not your day to die." Swallowing the large lump in her throat, Sara ran her eyes across the scars of the ant bites across the back of Nick's arm. "We were all hoping that you would be alive, and all the evidence supported that. We could see you. We knew the guy was desperate. And we never gave up hope on finding you. But this case, all the evidence is leading to the fact that this family is dead."
"Not Cassie." He shook his head again.
"You didn't die because you weren't meant to Nick. When it's your day, it's your day. But it wasn't, and it's not going to be for a long time."
"I don't think it was Cassie's day to die. I can feel it." Climbing to his feet off the bench, Nick collected up the files and things in front of him, noticing Greg had left him half of his water bottle. "I know you don't believe in instincts and things like that Sara, but I can feel it. I don't think Cassie's dead. We have to find out what they did with her."
Sara nodded, giving out a soft sigh as she watched him walking away. She slowly turned towards the Sheriff's car, climbing into the back beside Greg. "Is he okay?" Greg queried. Sara gave him a shrug as she leant back in her seat to pull her seatbelt on. She really didn't know if Nick was okay or if he was ever going to be, she felt as though what had happened to him had broken his spirit for good.
Nick sat on another bench in the shade once the Sheriff's car had gone, opening up the file in his hands on the table in front of him. Straight in front of him now were the four young children still playing with the puppy. He smiled slightly as he looked up at them then glanced back at a picture of ten year old Cassie in a photo, blowing a bubble with her Bubblicious bubble gum.
Picking up the evidence log, Nick noticed that Greg had found a packet of Bubblicious outside the McBride family home.
Reaching into his pocket, Nick retrieved his packet of Bubblicious, checking both ends were still sealed in case one had fallen out when he entered. But his packet was completely sealed. Nick involuntary shivered as he remembered having to use it to muffle the gun shot in his coffin, making him desperately want to go back home to get his meds that always seemed to take his mind off what had happened to him, but he was more desperate to try and find Cassie McBride, before it was too late.
Thanks so much for all of your reviews on the last chapter! I'm glad you're enjoying this story. More intimacy with the boys will be coming up later on. Nick's just trying to get his head around things and Greg's giving him the time and space he needs to do that.
Please remember to review if you enjoyed it :D
~ Holly