"You're still watching this?" Archie asked quietly, taking a step into the room and leaning over Sara. A fast food bag was clutched in his fingers, lips taking a drink from the last of the soda as it gurgled.
Sara looked bleary-eyed, taking quick sips from a cup of coffee as she kept rewinding the same section of infrared video and replaying over and over. "What does that look like to you?"
"Your tenth cup of coffee," he ribbed before squinting at the screen, watching three heated figures emerge from the cool shade of the wooded area of the cemetery. "It looks like the suspects in the cemetery murder. I've been over this footage, it confirms point of entry for the killers and the fact there are three but there's no way we can identify anyone we're looking at."
The recording suddenly turned as the cameraman started to run, cutting off sharply as the camera was dropped against a headstone. She rewound it again, waiting patiently as the minutes at the very beginning of the footage ticked by. "There," she pointed.
Archie frowned, leaning toward the screen, watching something fly up suddenly from the ground and disappear into the cool blue hues of the brush without hesitation. It was incredibly light, barely registering as heat, and far away.
"They saw it too, the screen is centered in on it before it turns to the woods." Sara chewed on her thumbnail.
"It's a bird of some kind, or a reflection from their lights on a headstone. Reflections carry heat signatures."
"A bird that hovers stationary with no wing movement, then turns and moves toward the woods? And… headstones don't move. There isn't a monument that high in the graveyard."
"A really big bug?" he offered with a grin.
She smiled sarcastically, "Enhance this please or I'll just be here for the rest of the night staring at a really big bug."
Archie grinned, but was definitely intrigued by her curiosity. Tossing the fast food bag and cup in the trash, he sat and began to adjust the colors. He kept rewinding and reworking, the colors sharper and sharper, then graying to black and white.
"I'm going to get another cup of coffee," Sara announced.
"I take mine black," he said.
She resisted the urge to bop him on the back of the head as she stepped out the door, watching Nick at the far end of the hall move in determined strides toward the morgue. The place was buzzing. She stopped at Grissom's office; he wasn't there. Retrieving coffee, she wandered back to Archie and set the cup on the desk next to him. With fresh eyes, the form he had drawn from the minute color variances was painfully clear.
"That's a person, laying on the ground, barely showing a heat signature," Sara said with an astonished surprise, chewing on her thumbnail again. "How long do you think it would take for your skin and your clothing to adjust to the temperature around you?"
"A really long time, I would assume your clothing would adjust, your skin temperature will fall but never completely though. It looks like as the figure stood and took off toward the woods, the heat signature in its face is what caught the boys' attention. The rest had to be clothed."
"Gloves too?" Sara asked. "That doesn't make any sense, why would anyone lay in a cemetery for that long wearing gloves?"
"Drunk maybe? Someone gets drunk, wanders into the cemetery and passes out?"
"Only to wake up exactly when a group of ghost hunters starts moving toward you," her look was annoyed, disbelieving. "At the same time they were murdered?"
He gave her a long look.
"There was someone else in that cemetery," she looked at Archie. "Someone else was waiting for these boys. Someone good enough not to leave a trail for us to find."
"Nobody is that good," Archie said, stopping the tape. "Especially with you on the case."
Sara grinned, "That almost makes up for making me get you coffee."
"What's that look like to you?" he paused it, pointing at a small variance in the color at the end of what looked like was an arm.
"A gun," she said blankly as she stood. "It has to be. We have a fourth gunman. Check the footage I pulled again from the traffic cams. See if there is any car that seems to be following our Honda Civic… just in case. I'm going to head back out there and see what I missed."
She quickly moved out the door, intent on only one thing.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
"This is a through and through." Robbins peered closer at the exit wound. "Precise. One shot. Entered at a slightly downward angle through the left occipital bone and out the right frontal bone near the temporal line, taking most of the side of his face with it. Definitely no chance of survival."
"We still can't locate the bullet or the brass." Nick's face darkened considerably. "This doesn't match our guns in the cemetery case."
"No. No bullet, jacket, or fragments. To go through the back of a police cruiser, probably high power, close range," Robbins pulled his gloves off and tossed them in the biohazard.
"We didn't see anyone, there was a cop at the front door of the apartment."
"Extremely high power, long range then," Robbins concluded. "The slightly downward angle signifies an elevated position of the shooter."
Nick looked at the wound for a long time. "A sniper rifle," he said under his breath, particularly to himself. "Someone didn't want him talking to us."
"He had scratches on his legs AND his feet. He was wearing sandals when he was brought in so I pulled scrapings from his toenails and sent them to trace. His fingernail scrapings and blood are there now as well."
"Great. We're running out of time to hold Rebecca Dalton. We're gonna need everything we can to throw on the table, dad's a lawyer," Nick nodded, a sharp frown making the stern look unusually hostile. "Thanks doc," he said as he moved toward trace. "Hey Archie," he asked. "Have you seen Sara?"
"She left a few minutes ago to go back to the cemetery," he cued up the footage again. "Check this out."
Nick pulled his pager and paged her, sliding it back onto his belt as he watched. "That's a person."
"Yah, that's what Sara said. She thinks there's a fourth shooter so she went back to make sure she didn't miss anything."
He nodded, "Good call."
"You look like you have something on your mind."
"Don't we all," Nick answered as he stepped out and finished his trek toward trace. His pager went off. Looking at it, Brass, he picked up his pace. "Tell me you have something good," he said to Hodges as he stepped in the door.
"I always have something good." He rolled across the room on his chair and picked up a set of folders, handing them to Nick. "The toenail scrapings from toke-boy match the cemetery contents. Tox screen and hair follicle says he smoked WAY too much maryjane. The torn tee shirt contains his epithelials, and the cloth Sara found on the fence is a visual match to the shirt as well. The tee shirt was…"
"Found in Rebecca Dalton's bag," he finished the sentence to hurry up the encounter. "Thanks."
"Oh… and those scattered parts you found at Bobby Cross' after he ruined the inside of the cop car are a positive match for the materials in the bomb that blew up the lobby. The bomb was made or partially made at his apartment," he handed the folder to Nick. "And the icing on the cake…the chemicals used in making the bomb can be found at any college greenhouse."
Nick's smile widened as he collected the folders and took them to the interrogation room. He could hear the voices before he even got within ten feet. Nodding at the uniform at the door, he entered. Brass was speaking quietly to an enraged father as Rebecca sat with her arms crossed, letting dear old dad do all the work for her.
"Where's your proof!" he demanded.
Nick sat quietly next to Brass, opening a folder and interlacing his fingers on the table. "Mr. Dalton, I'm Nick Stokes, one of the investigators on this case. We have a lot to talk about. Are you acting as Ms. Dalton's attorney?"
He nodded.
"Then I suggest you start acting like one," Brass finished calmly, a look of pure seriousness washed on his features. "Let's go over this again."
The father sat down. He was an overly large man, broad shoulders and posture signaling military training of some kind in the distant past, the experience now curdled and warped into a self indulged right to be a bully.
Brass folded his fingers to match Nick's. "Three boys were murdered at a local cemetery, a fourth person escaped. Your daughter Regina, the fourth person was found murdered at a local department store. But at the same time, a person matching her description was kidnapping a young girl."
"The young girl being the daughter of someone in your department? And so now what? You all are involved beyond the boundaries of the case so you make the evidence crucify Rebecca? The only remaining daughter I have?" Rebecca's father said sarcastically.
"Actually, I don't believe this is Rebecca," Nick cleared his throat decisively.
The father blinked in disbelief. Rebecca's expression never changed, the cold and unnerving stare was straight down her nose at Nick, who returned the look without a flinch.
"The fingerprints our detective took of your daughter here matched a fourth set of fingerprints found at the original murder scene," Nick continued.
"Our girls are identical twins, they both have the same fingerprints."
"Actually, they're not, and they don't. Our relatively recent access to DNA processing has led us to other alternatives in the twinning development. The evidence collected from both scenes is only 75 percent a match; it's called Polar Body twinning. Your murdered daughter, who this young lady claims is Regina, was not a match to the evidence or prints found at the cemetery, even though plant material was found in her hair that placed her at the graveyard. 'Regina's' fingernails yielded evidence of the exam project she was showing. Your murdered daughter was never at the cemetery, the college confirmed she was taking an exam the night of the murder, fingerprints have confirmed it. She was placed there to cover up a crime committed by your daughter here, and her boyfriend Bobby Cross."
Her father's mouth opened, then closed quickly.
"Should've paid more attention in genetics class… Regina," Brass started, "or at the very least made sure everything you learned would be true before you tried to pull off the perfect crime. Tired of being the pariah of the family? You want to be the golden child so you steal Rebecca's identity and ask your boyfriend to help you?"
She didn't say a word, the same expression on her face, the same crossed and defiant arms as she continued the wicked stare at Nick.
"So why'd you kidnap the kid? Bobby helps you off your sister, you help him get revenge on our CSI who sent him to jail?" Brass pushed.
The father was in a stunned silence, a look of disgust creeping over his features as the thought of his prized daughter being replaced by this one bored into his thick skull. He got up suddenly, walking toward the door.
"You're on your own," he said quietly. "You'd stoop to any level. Your own sister! You disgust me."
He opened the door and slammed it behind him.
Brass looked falsely sympathetic.
"Let's cut the crap," Brass started, wasting no time. "You're on your own now, no daddy to protect you. Your boyfriend is sitting in our morgue with the side of his face blown off. Help us help you."
Her forehead flickered as Brass mentioned her boyfriend. Nick caught the movement, his eyes traveling over the side of her neck; there were faint bruises there, like pressure points from fingertips.
"You didn't know your boyfriend was dead?" Brass said.
"Where did you get those bruises?" Nick asked.
Brass blinked at Nick and the sudden shift in subject. She had started to sweat, her face flushing as the droplets sprung to her temples.
She pressed her lips together and held her hands out. "I'm not telling you a damn thing," she quipped, overly eager to be taken into custody. "You might as well just arrest me."
Brass stood up, nodding to the uniform that began to cuff her as he read her rights.
"Don't do this Regina," Nick said. "We can help you."
Brass nodded, his voice soothing, "You need to give us something to save your ass, because you're the only one still alive that we know of to take the fall for this."
"None of you can help me," the look she gave Nick as she left was chilling, the fear in her eyes palpable. "I'm already dead… and so are you… all of you…"
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Sara parked the truck, the darkness of the unlit cemetery oppressive. She got out, pulling her case and turning on her mag light as the officer parked behind her. It was the same one as before, she laughed to herself. He was going to chicken out on her again.
"You don't have to come with me this time," she smiled, wading into the yellow grass and the darkness. "You're off the hook."
He opened his trunk to pull out his mag light. "I'm coming with you willingly this time. I don't feel like getting teased any more."
She was already out of earshot. A crunch of brush caught her attention from the obscurity of the woods that led to the fence. Her eyes squinted as she shined her mag light into the thickness, a shadow moving out of the corner of the beam. Face frowning, she stepped in, shining her light in a circle. Her pager vibrated gently and she looked at it, Nick. She wasn't going to call him back at the moment, sweeping the light around again and catching something out of place in the darkness.
White shoes.
The steely smell of blood.
Her fingers gripped the gun in her holster, not pulling it yet.
The rubber of her shoe bumped something soft, flexible in the shadows, her light instantly shining to the ground to illuminate a motionless hand.
Breath paused in her lungs, coming in short gasps. She was being watched.
Backing slowly toward the clearing, she panned the mag into the brush past a cluster of gravestones. The small beam sliced wanly through the thick darkness, the light revealing the body with its neck twisted at an odd angle. The back of her shoe bumped against another and she lost her balance, falling backwards. Wet, sticky warmth quickly soaked into her pants and coated the hand that had broken her fall. Her gun had clattered at her side.
She found her voice, lips parting to call the uniform, closing in silence at the cold feel of a steel muzzle behind her ear.
She heard the cop close the door to his car, calling her name as his flashlight shone into the cemetery.
"Sara?" he called.
Silence, a sharp flash and gunshot suddenly lighting up the woods.
"Sara!" he screamed.