Chapter 10

Sage had yet to be out to some of the more remote places in Clark County. Pahrump was one such place and it was the direction in which she had her car pointed towards. She was no stranger to being in a hostage situation though. It was one of the more secretive things that Lady Heather would say that she was keeping.

The slight pressure from whatever it was on the back of her neck had her not questioning what was going on. Her experience taught her to play along with the person but she could ensure that there were means of getting out. She just had to play it smart. She did glance in the rearview mirror and got a good look at her 'captor'. "Dani Evans?"

Dani sniffed when she heard her name. "Shut up and drive."

"Hey I'm driving but it seems a little silly without a destination in mind," Sage replied in a calm tone. She kept her eyes on the road but also took the time to glance at the mirror to check on the girl. "You have somewhere you want me to go?"

"Where you're going is good," Dani replied. She looked around the car. "Keep going."

"Alright," Sage replied. She made a slight adjustment since she was coming up on a car that was a little slow. "So I hear that you are working on your degree in linguistics." She deliberately gave the wrong program.

Dani rubbed her face. She was tired and things were bad. She did what she was supposed to do. She wanted to be able to prove that she could solve crimes. "Criminal justice.," she corrected. "I like books and learning about crime."

"I do too," Sage replied, trying to gain some rapport. She glanced back and watched the girl. She looked tired like she hadn't had a decent night's worth of sleep or something like that in a few days. That had Sage thinking in her reference library in her mind. "You look a little tired. Having trouble sleeping?"

Dani rubbed her eyes. "A little. I am involved in a project to see if a CSI could figure out a crime that is a little out of the ordinary."

Sage decided to take an interest, "Really? What was that?" It sounded false and stupid to her.

"I set it up. The books gave it all but the greatest was PKS. It was like she knew crime inside and out. She knew the mindset." Dani rubbed her eyes but didn't lose sight of what she was doing. This was the one. She was sure of it. "I want her to be proud of me."

Sage thought about that as she adjusted her position to keep in a certain speed limit. "I'm sure that she is…"

"No because it has to be finished," Dani interrupted. "But I also have to finish my paper. Paul wanted to read it before I turn it in. Professor Ross has high expectations." She looked at Sage and then out the windshield. "But that paper is boring. English lit is boring."

"I wouldn't say that," Sage replied. She felt whatever it was that Dani was using was not a gun. It didn't quite feel right and she could honestly say that it was a correct assessment. "I like literature myself. I may sound like a hick but I always had a thing for Shakespeare. I even quoted Virgil once."

"Elizabethan and Latin? You really are as PKS depicts."

"Who is PKS?"

Dani frowned a bit. To Sage it looked like she was confused. It was unusual but the mood change she noticed made a few clear distinctions especially it seemed that maybe the girl was coming down or something but she knew that she wasn't on drugs. Dani finally replied, "The greatest there was. She is a genius. She said that my idea was so good that it should be put into practice to see if the real CSIs could figure it out."

Sage gave a slight nod of approval. So there was one more but they had no clue as to who it was. "Is kidnapping a CSI part of the plan too? I am not sure if it is in one of the stories that was laid out so well for us."

Dani rubbed her eyes again. "In DC Homicide: Even Trade one of the investigators was taken as hostage in exchange for the one who they thought was the suspect but was in fact an innocent bystander or loose end."

"I remember that one," Sage replied, "It didn't end too well in the end but there is a chance for you Dani."

"No it has to go to the plan."

"What plan is that?" Sage kept her eyes on the road but was mulling over the possibilities that were available. There was the option of pulling her phone out of her pocket and dialing in to Brass. There was also the possibility that she could take matters into her own hand but with the pressure on the back of her neck, that risk was extremely high since she didn't know if Dani had a weapon or not. The best thing to do was to find a way to talk her down.

"You know the story," Dani replied. "You take me to wherever."

"But I also know that it doesn't end well. Don't go that route," Sage replied shaking her head to emphasize the point. At that moment her cell phone decided to ring.

"What is that?"

"That's my phone. It's my partner calling in. If I don't pick up, he's going to know that something is wrong." It was a gamble but Sage hoped that it would work.

Dani pushed her tool against the back of the neck of Sage and thought about it. She looked out the windshield as the phone stopping ringing and the call went to voicemail. The phone rang again.

"See? Since we're on a case, we have a system." Maybe it was overplaying the hand a little but Sage needed to convince the girl to let her stop and call it in. She listened to it finish and go to voicemail again. She held the sigh of relief that came when it rang a third time.

"Pull over."

Sage looked at the girl. The look had changed and Sage knew the girl meant business. She did was she was asked and moved over to get to the side of the road. She put the car in park and looked at the girl. "What now?"

It was a rhetorical question but Sage asked it anyway. Dani responded, "Get out."

The sound of two doors opened and two pairs of shoes walked into the desert. They crunched on the gravel until they stopped. The only sound that could be heard was the lively silence of the outdoors. The footsteps stopped and a sense of deadly quiet overcame as the next move was calculated next. The next sound that followed was a dull thud of something colliding with the ground and more gravel crunching and the sound of wheels driving away.

Brass held the phone to his head and tried to reassure the person at the other end, "Okay so Sage got into her car and there was another person in the car?" He glanced up to make sure that he didn't run into anyone as he walked through the hall.

Yes they headed in the direction of Pahrump. The person in the back looked like they were holding a gun or something.

"Okay. Thank you Josephina," Brass replied. He had been following up on some leads from another case before deciding to head home when he got the call. It was to his direct line and he didn't recognize the number so he answered it.

He got a scared girl that was probably no more than sixteen calling him and saying that Sage had been taken. It had him suspicious and he questioned the girl about it. It was then she described Sage down to detail and revealed that she had been given the number by Sage that he was convinced. The girl gave details about what had happened and Brass was impressed at the fact that while scared, the girl was giving pretty good details.

The best thing he had was that there was someone suspicious that was in the back seat of the car that was Sage's and they weren't there before. Jim knew he had to contact her supervisor and could only imagine what that would cause. He looked through his contacts for Sage's number and dialed it. It went to voicemail.

Jim sighed, trying not to panic. He tried again and it went to voicemail. Third time wasn't a charm and he knew he had to call Grissom. He lifted his phone to call when it rang. He checked the caller ID and answered, "Brass."

The voice on the end had him give a sigh of relief. It didn't quite come through the Jersey accent and he was using his police voice. "You are where?"

"Look I wasn't trying to be a hero, Jim."

"And I'm sure you were just trying to talk her down and with a weapon held on you."

Sage gave a slight sigh as she looked out the window. She shook her head slightly. It had been unnerving when Dani told her to pull over and get out of the car. It felt like it was going to be her last day since she was told to walk off into the wilderness and she followed, making sure to palm her phone. The strange thing was that Dani wasn't bothered by it so she ran with it. Dani left her there and took the car. She waited a moment before calling the number that called her phone, which turned out to be Brass.

The captain came and picked her up and immediately started asking questions. She looked back at Brass and said, "Jim, she didn't hurt me and it was my fault I left the window down."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Jim," Sage said giving a slight frown.

"Don't 'Jim' me. Parker you were basically kidnapped, probably at gunpoint. I had a scared seventeen year old girl call me to tell me and then you call me like you were enjoying a day out in the park."

"And I'm fine, Jim. You know I've been through this gig before."

Jim looked at Sage while keeping his eyes on the road. "You've been through this before?"

"My line of work and the wild cowboy I was then," Sage replied. She paused a moment and changed her tone. "It was a case, homicide. I was going to a suspect's place with my partner. Suspect holds us at gunpoint. He knocked my partner out and then had the gun on me. I know it's not the same as this but I know what it's like to have a gun pointed in my face. My first case with Stokes, same thing. If I get a little flippant, it's not that I don't care or being glib or whatever… I do care. At the moment though, the only thing you think about is survival."

Jim let out a sigh. He could see Sage's point. He had a couple of interesting encounters with suspects and he knew the job. "Well you know I had to call Gil."

"I figured. He is my supervisor." Sage sighed and looked up at the ceiling of the Taurus. "You know if they find my car, it's evidence. Nice way to go green I guess. Field day for my guys."

"As long as you're okay."

Sage looked at Brass. She had detected a certain tone that entered his voice when he spoke. She was curious about it since what happened was obviously a sore point for the captain. Still her relationship was still new and she hesitated.

"You want to know don't you?"

"What?"

Brass glanced at Sage and explained, "I may not be a CSI but I notice things too. I used to run graveyard before you came. You must have noticed that this was a bit of a sore spot for me."

"I noticed," Sage replied with a slight nod. She frowned a bit since she wasn't quite sure were this was going. "Why do you ask?"

"Come on Parker. I know that once something catches your interest, you pursue it. You work yourself to the bone like Sara to find your answers." Brass gave a slight smile and glanced at Sage. "It's your nature even though you do that Southern belle thing by following the rules. Before you came I was in Gil's position. We had a rookie come on and on her first night she was gunned down. Suspect returned to the scene. We caught the guy but she died."

"It's the same when it's a uni or a detective. One of our own and it stinks," Sage replied in understanding. "My partner didn't die in the line of duty but I think the job drove him to it along with other things but still it hurts."

Brass looked at Sage and they shared a look of understanding. He found it hard to believe though that she had gone through quite a bit and she didn't appear jaded about the job. She came in with a smile and a look of determination. He had watched as she worked with the other CSIs on Grissom's team and she had a way of eliciting smiles even from Grissom. "How is it that you can be so cheerful?"

"You know Stokes asked me that once and my answer led to a story that had him probably wondering if I was crazy or not." Sage gave a slight chuckle as she remembered when she told the story about a priest who encouraged her way of belief and thinking at the age of twelve. "I don't make a big show of it but I am a Christian. I know it sounds crazy since I'm a scientist and I've been around cops who claim it but pay lip service but I do believe. I pray, go to church, study the Bible and I believe that there is a God out there who cares about us."

"And how does the story of the priest fit into this?"

"Just the fact that he explained that science was another way of explaining God's work in the world. Radical for a priest but… there you go. The nice thing is that I'm comfortable with it and feel that this is the work I'm meant to do. I may have had some inspiration along the way from family and friends but ultimately I was guided to this." Sage gave a slight smile. "At least as far as the science goes."

Brass couldn't help but chuckle at that. Sage grinned and chuckled with him. The rest of the trip back to the lab went well.

"Are you sure?"

Sage nodded as she looked at Grissom, "I'm fine. Brass has an APB on my car and my suspect. Nothing serious. Please don't pull me from the case." She didn't want to resort to begging since that was low. Besides the best way was to show Grissom she could do the job.

Grissom looked at Sage. "You know this seems to be a recurrence with you. First that business with the cartels on your first case, the kidnapping/homicide and now this."

"You said you'd save the strange ones for me," Sage replied. She took in Grissom's stare but wasn't cowed by it. "Look I didn't expect that. I was off the clock. My suspect probably had been following me and I figured out a few things plus I did leave my window open. Let me wrap this case up." She gave Grissom a determined look.

Grissom studied Sage's determination. It was one of the things he liked about her and her work. She was like Sara in that if she needed to stay up three days straight, she would. Her objectivity he knew wasn't an issue. Even with that case with the missing child she worked on a few weeks ago, she kept at it. He nodded, "Okay but when they find the car, you don't touch."

"I know the drill, Boss. Thank you."

Sage left Grissom's office and headed towards the lab. She came into the break room to grab something to drink. She encountered Warrick and Catherine coming back from whatever they were doing and answered their queries to if she was okay or not. Apparently word traveled fast and even the techs came by one by one to ask. It was going to drive her crazy since she wanted to work on the case since there was no question of her going home now.

Picking up her case files she walked through the lab. She came across Greg who was hard at work with what she hoped were her samples from Riley the dog's teeth. She leaned on the part of the table that was not occupied with equipment, "Are you working on my exemplars from the house?" She peered over at his work.

"Running them now," Greg replied, looking up. He studied Sage for a moment and then asked, "You okay?"

Sage resisted snapping at him. "You're not the first to ask me that you know." She gave a soft smile. She could hardly stay mad with Greg and he didn't ever really give her a reason to be. Besides they got into a ton of scrapes and fun off the clock. Studying his expression she replied, "I'm fine Greggo. Nothing that an APB on my car won't cure."

Greg would have asked more but the beep from the machine caught his attention. He turned just as the report printed out and picked it up. "Well you know that the swabs from killer pooch's mouth came back a mixture of dog and human, two in fact."

"So Riley bit two people," Sage replied in matter of fact, confirming what she knew.

"Yeah. One female and one male. One is from Nick since he was bitten. The other is not related to any known players," Greg replied nodding.

Sage took the report to read it. "Did you run against Dani Evans?"

"Give me an exemplar and I can run it faster than a marathon."

"There were none from the bungalow Nick and I collected from?"

Greg shook his head in the negative. "Nothing and I processed what you guys collected though the cat gut was not exactly thrilling. And judging from what Nick commented on, the place was worse than my first apartment and mostly had your dead guy's stuff around."

Sage knew that. They took photos of the room but nothing except the book that Nick found. So there really wasn't anything on Dani Evans since she wasn't in the system and they wouldn't have much until they found her. "Well I guess part of the case is to wait until we have something on her."

"Maybe we do," Greg replied. Even though he wasn't a CSI, he was interested and most of the time the CSIs talked about their cases in front of him like he wasn't there. Sage didn't do that and often would ask his opinion on something. Nick was the same with that scuba diver that died in the middle of the desert.

"What do you mean?"

"Well you talked to her," Greg replied. At the look he got, he explained, "Sage, knowing you where I stand, you're not the kind of person to take something especially when it's something like being kidnapped. You would be finding out about the person."

Sage looked at the DNA tech with a raised brow. "You know you're the second person to actually say something like that to me. Makes me wonder if it's a sign."

"Maybe it is." Greg shrugged his shoulders in the process.

Sage made a slow smile before looking at the report and then looking at some case file notes, "But you're right. I did talk to her and I am left with suspicions and questions about this case as a whole."

"Good or bad thing?"

"A bit of both."

"At least you have one victim alive, right?"

"Yeah and I hope the crack to the skull wasn't too damaging. Right now Dani is looking at six counts of murder if the evidence puts her there." She looked up at the technician, "Thanks Greggo."

"No problem. We still on for tomorrow night?"

"Help me wrap the case," Sage replied with a smile on her face as she turned to leave the DNA lab to check on something else.

A/N: Looks like no harm and no foul with Sage but they have a suspect on the loose and a car to find. Keep watching for more True Crime Kills...