"This is like déjà-vu," Russell called jovially, popping his head out from behind the truck as Sara strode over to him from CSI.

She smiled, then brushed past him to stow her field kit into the trunk. On retrieving it from her locker a moment ago, she was almost moved to tears, not because Grissom had brought it back from the crime scene for her, but because he'd taken the time to restock it before placing it at the bottom of her locker, attaching a blue post-it note to it that simply said, 'All ready for you. Love, G.'.

"You want to drive?" Russell asked.

Sara swallowed, then turned a blank face toward her boss. His eyes were watchful, scanning her face, searching for something there he couldn't quite make out, and Sara felt suddenly unnerved and exposed, transparent.

"Drive?" he repeated with an amused smile, dangling the thick truck key in her eye line.

She gave her head a swift shake before refocusing her eyes on the key. "No. You do it," she replied, hoping her tone was light enough to cover her unease. "My turn to enjoy the landscape."

Russell made a non-committal sound that told her he wasn't fooled, but got behind the wheel without another word and Sara took her place in the passenger seat, grateful for the companionable silence that settled between them. Russell switched the radio on, tuning in to the local sports station, the sound turned down low. Sara leaned her head back and closed her eyes behind her sunglasses, attempting to clear the fog in her mind and focus all her thoughts on the case in hand.

"You managed to get some shuteye?" Russell asked.

Sara opened her eyes; they had just joined the interstate, headed east toward Seven Hills. "A little," she said, and turned toward him. "You met Geoffrey Carver yet?"

"Yes," he answered, keeping his eyes on the road. "He came to ID the body while I was in the morgue talking to Doc. He seemed…real upset about his wife's death. I gave him back the cat. He was puzzled by its existence." He took his eyes off the road for an instant, flicking them over to her. "Did you know Melinda was only about five-foot-three-inches tall?"

Sara's eyes narrowed in interest. "No. Why?"

His shoulder lifted. "No reason as yet."

Sara's frown deepened and she watched him uncertainly for a moment before shaking her head and refocusing on the passing scenery. "You said the psych consult didn't go well?"

He sighed. "It didn't. Timothy refused to answer any questions. He just froze up apparently, became distressed and panicked. In the end they had to sedate him."

"He hasn't spoken a word to anyone yet. Gil thinks his trauma goes deeper than just finding his mother, dead. He thinks that maybe he saw her being shot."

Russell pulled a face and nodded his head before lapsing into a contemplative silence. "If he did, he did well to hide and stay hidden," he said after a moment. "Or the killer would surely have gone after him."

"Yeah, except it kind of exonerates the father," Sara said, her tone on the despondent side. "He'd have known Timothy was home with his mother."

Russell slowed down and took the turnoff for Seven Hills. "You almost sound disappointed," he remarked mildly. "I know it would make for a straightforward case, but surely it's best for Timothy if his father's not involved in the murder." She could feel his eyes on her now, but she kept hers staring straight ahead at the road. "Isn't it?"

"I guess so," she said grudgingly, and then it occurred to her that if the killer found out about Timothy he might want to finish the job. "Do you think he's in danger?"

"Who, Timothy? I don't think so. If the killer didn't know he was there before, there's no reason for him – or her – to suspect it now."

Sara nodded and once again lapsed into silence, her eyes looking at, but not seeing, the flashing scenery. "Russell," she said suddenly, "the lack of hired help coming forward is still puzzling to me. I mean, you'd have expected a maid or a gardener, a pool guy, I don't know, someone to have reported for work and found Melinda dead."

Russell's face pursed musingly. "Well, the realty business has taken a dive lately," he said, glancing over, "and maybe she had to lay people off. Or maybe, the husband stopped paying the bills toward the upkeep of the house when he moved out."

"You've seen the state of the yard. You think Melinda's been cutting her own lawn?"

"Okay, so, maybe not. Maybe she had a new boyfriend and he did it for her. Who knows?"

"Geoffrey Carver might. Did Brass say when he'd be talking to him? Formally, I mean."

Russell nodded. "Tonight, after hospital visiting hours are over. Brass said he'd let me know so I could be present for the interview."

"Interview?" she asked, her brow arching with interest.

Russell smiled, then flicked his eyes over to her. "You know what I mean," he chided mildly, "Don't put words in my mouth."

Sara's smile was amused. "I want in too," she said, "on the interview."

His smile broadened. "We'll see."

Russell pulled up in the Carver's driveway, parking up behind a police cruiser. Sara pulled her CSI ball cap over her head, adjusted her sunglasses and silently they began unloading the truck, carting two metal detectors as well as their kits and whatever else they would need over to the back of the house. The sun still shone high and bright in the sky, and Sara could already feel the heat getting to her.

Wiping the back of her hand to her brow she surveyed the long expanse of land ahead, the fenced-in pool and adjoining pool house. In her mind's eye, she visualised Melinda's fallen body in the pool house with its doors open, in relation to the yard. Then, she stood it up five-foot-three-inches tall, imagined the reversed path of the bullet as it exited the head, just above the left eye at a slight downward angle, and its trajectory to the shooter standing in the yard.

The ground was level, and she walked over to where she thought he might have stood, or knelt down, scanning her eyes over the area all around her for a spent casing, finding trampled lawn but nothing else. There were some thick bushes nearby where the shooter might have taken cover they would also need to check. She knelt down and touched her hand to the ground, to something hard buried into the soil, and for a second her heart beat faster at the thought that she'd found the cartridge.

No such luck though, as on closer inspection she established that all she'd manage to uncover was one of the many small round heads part of an expensive watering system. From her crouched position, she looked up and around her, estimating the overall area to measure fifty by forty yards, minus the pool, all in all roughly two thousand square yards or eighteen square feet. How long is a piece of string, she wondered in another long sigh?

Carrying a big reel of blue synthetic rope in one hand and a black carryall in the other Russell strolled over to her, and she straightened up, noticing he was as mindful of where he was stepping as she was. "I just called Brass," he said, dumping the bag at her feet, "Asked him to put a uniform on outside Timothy's door at the hospital, just to be on the safe side."

Sara nodded. "What's with the rope?" she asked with a frown.

"It's to use with the metal stakes of course," he replied as if the answer was obvious, nonplussed by her puzzlement, "in the black sack. If you wouldn't mind…" he waved his hand toward the bag indicating that she should open it.

Sara did as bid and pulled out a mallet as well as a couple of metal stakes. Her face lit up as she realised what he was up to. "A bit old school, isn't it?"

"Don't sound so surprised," he replied, laughing, "I am old school." A pause followed, then a disbelieving shake of the head. "Your old man would approve, I'm sure."

She couldn't help the chuckle that escaped her. "He's nothing but thorough, that's for sure."

"I'm glad to hear it, cos we're going to need an accurate TOD if we're to solve this crime." Russell grabbed the mallet from her hand and waved it toward the patio end of the lawn. "You hold the stake, and I hammer."

Sara laughed again, then reached for the bag and followed him back up to the patio. They took several overall shots of the scene, then gave the lawn a cursory check, the bushes, flowerbeds and borders too, coming up empty, and were half-way through measuring out a three-by-three-meter-checkerboard pattern, intersecting at right angles, over the top half of the lawn where they'd established the shot had most likely been fired from, when Russell stopped, looking up and meeting her eyes with a smile.

"I'm very, very grateful you volunteered to help," he said in all seriousness.

The feigned gravity in his tone made Sara giggle. "It's okay. I don't mind."

His shoulder lifted, and she bent down to place the next stake. "I would have thought you'd have wanted to spend as much of your spare time with hubby," he said.

She paused, looked up straight at him. "He understands."

Watching her carefully, he nodded his head. "I guess he must do." He hammered down the stake, a thoughtful look coming about his face. "I wish my wife was half as accommodating. I was supposed to take my youngest to the dentist, right about now," he added in a sigh, checking his watch, "but what can you do. The job's the job."

"Family's important to you though, isn't it?" she asked.

Russell's face lit up. "Isn't that what we were put on this Earth for? Perpetuate the specie?" He laughed, and Sara swallowed the tight ball that formed in her throat. She'd walked straight into that one. "Sure, my family's real important to me," he went on, unaware. "The job's a job, a means to an end." His smile became wistful, and she knew that he didn't truly mean that. "Well, most of the time anyway. What about you? You've never mentioned anyone, apart from Grissom, of course."

Her eyes averted back to their work. "It's…complicated."

Russell must have read her discomfort because he didn't probe further, simply unreeled more rope which he hooked to the stake and moved over to the opposite side. She followed. "I like him," he announced suddenly. He looked up, pushed his glasses up his nose and gave her a bright smile. "Your husband. I like him. I've a feeling we'd have worked well together."

Sara scoffed. "You know what they say about too many cooks."

DB laughed, and she relaxed. Quickly, they finished measuring out the final line, and he asked, "You're finding it tough?"

"What?" she asked with puzzlement as she followed him up the path to the patio. "Doing this?"

"No," he laughed. "Working with Grissom again, after all these years. Must be strange."

What was this, she wondered, twenty questions? Sara put the black bag down, swapping it for one of the bags housing the metal detectors. "We're not the same people we were when we worked together in the past," she surprised herself replying as she unzipped the bag. She wasn't looking at DB as she spoke but she could feel his eyes on her, narrowed watchfully. "Well, I know I'm not anyway, too much as happened."

"You know what he told me?" he asked, "Straight after I introduced myself to him?" Sara looked up and shook her head. "Call me Grissom," he said in his best Grissom's voice, taking the metal detector she was holding out to him, "and if you don't mind I'll call you Russell." Russell feigned a puzzled expression. "What do you suggest he was trying to say?"

Sara pinched her lips, but quiet, disbelieving laughter escaped nonetheless. "It took me…the best part of eight years to be comfortable calling him Gil. It's just his way."

"Eight years?" he exclaimed.

She nodded. "Give and take a few months."

"Ah. Go figure."

Another hour passed, and still they carefully swept their metal detectors over each square inch of the lawn they had painstakingly marked out without result. Across from her Russell straightened up to his full height and rolled his aching shoulders. She knew exactly how he felt. Sara stopped too, lifting her headphones off one ear as she looked over at him. "You found something?" she asked, her voice too loud on account of the muffled sounds coming from the headphones.

Russell walked the distance over to her, carefully stepping over the strung rope, and lifted the headphone off his head, coiling it round his neck. "What? To add to our ever-growing collection of odds and ends?" He shook his head with a sigh. "This is no good. I'm beginning to think we were wrong."

Sara frowned. "We?"

He made a face. "Me and Grissom." Sara's eyes narrowed even more, and he shrugged. "Last night we kind of…agreed the shooting wasn't a professional hit. And here we are now, sweeping every square inch of this lawn and still no signs of a spent casing. I'm thinking the killer must have picked it up afterwards."

So, Russell and Grissom had talked and discussed the case. What else had they spoken about behind her back, she wondered a little uneasily? She gave a sigh and her head a shake, trying to remain focused on the case and not let her personal issues cloud her judgement.

"Unless it's further down, nearer the pool," she replied after a beat.

"But that wouldn't be consistent with the position of the body."

"And we know it wasn't moved," Sara said, and he nodded. "I say we do the whole yard anyway. The whole nine yards," she added, her mouth twitching with a smile at the face he pulled at the suggestion.

"You don't give up, do you?"

Her smile widened. "The job's the job, remember? I worked a case once, turned out a bird had picked up the bit of evidence we were looking for and used it to make its nest."

Russell fixed her with a narrowed, I'm-not-amused stare, then lifted his eyes skyward, as if looking for trees, and let out a very long breath. "I'm not feeling so very grateful right now."

"Someone once told me, 'Don't be discouraged. It's often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock.'"

Russell's mouth was pursed; his head was shaking with disbelief. "And I bet I can guess who that someone is."