Happy New Year everybody! I hope you all saw 2015 in with a drink and a kiss :)
I have been dying of flu for a week and saw it in with a headache and a bucket of painkillers, but I guess that's just life. Am on the mend now, but I can only apologise and blame the meds if this chapter doesn't make sense.
Either way, enjoy!
The relief of being safely back in the lab was only tainted by the undeniable sensation of working in a goldfish bowl.
Word of their haunted exploits had evidently travelled fast and every trek through the glass-walled corridors came accompanied with a series of guffaws and jovial comments.
"I hope you didn't bring any ghosts back with you." Hodges snipped teasingly as Nick swaggered into his lab.
"You know what ..." The Texan started, before reigning in his bad mood and dropping his raised hand back to his side. "Why did you page me?"
With a twinkling grin, Hodges proudly handed him a piece of paper fresh from the printer.
"Your results on Mrs Havisham."
Biting back a sarcastic smirk at the joke, Nick snatched the document from him and scanned the chart of unlabelled peaks and troughs.
"Alright smartass, what is this?" He snapped at last, twitching at the smug grin playing on Hodges' face.
"That is carbon, sulphur and traces of cellulose. Together, it gives you..."
"Hold on; the vic had charcoal dust on her?" Nick cut him off.
"Charcoal dust and cotton fibres." Hodges amended pointedly. "Was there a fireplace in the room?"
"No, there was one downstairs, but it didn't look like it had been lit for years."
"Hmm," The lab rat mused. "So, maybe your killer brought it in with them. Have any of your ghosts been playing in fires recently?"
"Funny." Nick smirked, brandishing a finger at the other man as he shuffled off to puzzle over the new information in peace. "Very funny."
Sara started awake, the monster from her dream merging into the shape of a coffee mug, hovering inches from her face.
"Oh." She squeaked, shuffling upright.
"You okay?" Catherine quirked an eyebrow, waiting for Sara to accept the drink before moving back to the kettle to pour herself a mug of the brown sludge.
"Yeah, I'm fine." Sara lied, taking a sip of the steaming liquid to disguise the flush creeping up her cheeks. Cath knew her colleague well enough to know that she was not 'fine', regardless of what she said; but she was not here to discuss the intricacies of the brunette's tormented subconscious.
"I'm glad I found you." She noted, stirring her own drink pensively as she mulled over her next words. "I've been waiting to talk to you for a few days."
"What about?" Sara almost managed to sound interested, her mind still picking over the remnants of her nightmare and siphoning them away for analysis when she was alone.
"Well, I think it's time we talk about what happened the other day – about what you told me."
Sara rolled her eyes and mumbled something unintelligible beneath her breath. A part of her had been expecting this; but a bigger part had hoped that Catherine had forgotten all about her little admission.
Not one to give up that easily, Cath perched on the coffee table, essentially trapping Sara in her corner.
"I just wanted to explain my reaction." She continued as professionally as she could, her eyes dancing nervously above her co-worker's head. "I am not homophobic. I need to know that you know that."
There was an earnestness in her voice that Sara found hard to ignore, but she refused to drag her own gaze from the floor until she knew where this was going.
"I was just shocked, I guess. I can usually spot these things in people pretty quickly, but I missed it with you. It seems so obvious now."
Sara, mildly offended by the offhand remark, cocked an eyebrow.
"Right, okay." She shook her head. "Look, I've got a lot of work to do. Can I go now?"
"No." Cath held up her hands. "As a supervisor, I need to know that you feel like you can come to me about anything, without fear of being judged. You do know that, right?"
The pause before Sara answered made Catherine's breath hitch and for a heart-stopping moment she thought that she had done irreparable damage in their working relationship.
Finally, Sara lifted her head and spoke; though her voice was empty.
"Yeah, I know. Now, can I go?"
Her shoulders dropping, Cath waved a hand dismissively.
"Yeah, you can go." She sighed sadly.
As Sara pushed herself off the couch and slipped past her, all of the words that Catherine had so carefully planned suddenly came flooding back; but it was too late to say them now.
She was already gone.
Warrick had been pouring over the files relating to the camp for so long, his neck had seized up.
"Damn it." He hissed, slamming another folder closed.
"That doesn't sound promising." Greg noted with dismay from the threshold.
"It's not." Warrick agreed. "I have searched through every scrap of paper here and I can't find anything relating to the camp in 1979."
"Well, this probably won't make you feel any better then." The DNA tech shuffled into the room timidly and proffered the file clasped in his hands. "I tracked down the other kids named on that photograph."
Warrick's attention peaked and he straightened up with eager green eyes.
"And?"
"Well, we have something in common with them apart from that camp photo."
Accepting the information and turning to the front page, Warrick quickly realised what he meant.
"Michael Johnson; Vice detective from New Orleans. Ricky and Lucas Wyatt, both cops from New York. Eva Sanchez, criminalist from Phoenix. Maria Donatello, CSI from LA." He lowered the document and met his companion's eye. "They're all in law enforcement."
"That's not all I found." Greg continued sombrely. "Every one of them died in the last six months."
Warrick's only overt reaction to the news was the slow rising of one eyebrow in surprise.
"You're kidding."
"No. I took the liberty of calling all the forces and requesting the death reports." He took his folder back and offered a meek shrug. "I'll let you know what I find."
Warrick watched him shuffle back out, shaking his head in loss.
Five members of law enforcement; all of whom attended a summer camp in 1979 and all of whom died this year.
Warrick Brown was not a man who believed in coincidences.
He also knew when he was beating a dead horse; and the files from the house were not getting him anywhere.
Pulling out his cell phone and tapping in a familiar number, he decided to try a less-than-scientific approach to get his answers.
"Hey grandma," he smiled at the warm voice on the end of the line. "Yeah, yeah everything's okay. Listen, I'm sorry to disturb you so early; but I have something to ask you..."
The response to her knock was more of a grunt than a greeting, but Catherine entered anyway.
With Sara proving less-than receptive to her attempts to apologise, she was not in the mood to pander to Grissom's bad tempter today.
"The guys are still working the case. Where are you at with tracing the vic's family?"
"I'm not." He sighed, tossing his book petulantly onto the stack already littering his desk. "So far, the only family I've found is the victim's husband – David Jones, deceased – and her father, Marvin Hargreaves, also deceased."
"And the mother, Loretta Hargreaves." Cath added pointedly. "But we all know what she's up to these days."
Grissom shot her a derisive look, clearly not willing to discuss the events of their time at the old house in the desert.
"What have the guys found?" He asked instead.
"Nothing much." She admitted, helping herself to the seat opposite his desk uninvited. "Hodges found charcoal on the body; Nick's trying to figure that one out. Warrick and Greg are looking into the summer camp."
Grissom visibly reacted to this news and sat upright.
"Is that connected to the case?"
"Probably not," she conceded. "But it's still weird."
"'Weird' isn't a criminal offence. Tell them to stay on the investigation at hand."
Catherine opened her mouth to contest the order; to tell him that she thought it was still worthy of investigation, or that she was not his assistant and he could tell them himself if that was his opinion.
However, she never got the chance to tell him either. Her sentiments were cut off by a blunt knock on the door, although the person behind it had evidently been stood long enough to hear their conversation.
"I wouldn't close that line of enquiries off just yet, if I were you." Doc noted, his footsteps punctuated as always by the gentle click of his cane.
"Have you finished the final post?" Cath asked hopefully, shooting Gil a sly look across the desk.
"Yes, and there's something that I think you both need to see."
The coroner delved into his pocket, extracting a small plastic pot inside which sat a cluster of tiny green slivers.
"Pine needles?" Catherine frowned, squinting at the little leaves.
"Not just any pine needles." Doc corrected. "These are Torrey pine needles. The Torrey Pine tree is an endangered species, one of the rarest in the world. It only grows in one tiny area of the California coast."
"Let me guess." Grissom tilted his head back and released a heavy sigh, already pretty certain of the answer. "San Diego?"