Chapter 10
"Guys! Guys I found something!" Greg hollered excitedly.
The wind had dropped and the sun was out, so they had decided to use this opportunity to search the garden. The front had not offered up much, but judging by Greg's enthusiastic bouncing, the back had more to tell.
They all dropped what they were doing and ventured over to see what he had found. He was hovering by a rose bush, hopping about from one foot to the other. They all gathered around the little hole he had dug.
"Bones!" He exclaimed.
And sure enough, there was a collection of small off-white bones laid in the shallow grave. Grissom and Catherine exchanged a look.
"Okay, Nick and Warrick, grab a spade and start digging, but be careful not to disturb anything. Greg," He addressed, but the young lab rat was legging it across the garden.
"Camera." Sara explained simply.
"Oh. Okay, Sara, Sofia and I are going to search the surrounding area to see if there's more. Catherine,"
"I'll call Ecklie at the lab." She finished his thought.
"Good. Greg!" He called, scowling as the young man pelted back across the overgrown lawn with his camera in hand.
"Yes Sir." He panted, filming the bones eagerly.
"You are going to photograph and analyse the bones as Nick and Warrick find them. We need to determine if they're human, and if they are, how they were killed."
Jobs assigned, they split off. Grissom, Sara and Sofia worked outwards from the initial finding, probing the dry soil for significant depth changes.
Catherine came wandering out of the house staring at her phone irritably. "My signal died!" She huffed.
"What do you mean?" Grissom asked, frowning.
"I was on the phone to Ecklie, I had full signal, and just as I was about to tell him what we found, it died. Now I can't get signal anywhere in the building or on the grounds." She scowled, perplexed. "It just died!"
"Well I wouldn't worry; we don't need to call the lab anymore." Warrick said, wiping the sweat from his brow, leaving a trail of dirt behind. "Body's not human."
"It's not?" Greg asked, disappointedly.
"Not unless kids have tails."
X x x
"I actually thought I'd found something." Greg sulked.
"You did. It just wasn't what you were expecting." Sara tried to bring him out of his funk. "Hey, you want to check the beach out with Cat and me?" His ears pricked up at the offer. She patted his shoulder and went to inform Catherine.
"Hey," he called after her, "how come you can call her that?"
X x x
"Man! No one said it was so steep down here!" He groaned, heaving his metal case by his side, his camera swinging around his neck on a cord.
"Oh come on Greggo, where's your sense of adventure." Sara chuckled, practically skipping down the steep rocky steps built into the cliff edge.
"Easy there Indiana!" Cath called after her, grabbing Greg by the collar to avoid slipping. But Sara wasn't listening. She launched herself down the last few steps, landing quite elegantly on the sand. Greg stumbled the last bit, landing significantly less elegantly on his ass.
Sara didn't seem to notice, she was already running towards the sea. Catherine stepped cautiously down the last few steps, the steepest of all, and watched her disappear. She left Greg picking himself up off the ground and dusting his pants down, following the brunette across the sand.
"Hey! Sara, wait!" she called, jogging to catch her up. "What's going on?" she asked, grabbing her arm to face her. To her surprise, Sara was smiling.
"I used to love this beach. I practically lived down here." Cath smiled softly, enjoying seeing Sara so relaxed for the first time this week. "It was the only place I really felt free, like nothing else mattered. I really couldn't have cared less if no one ever came for me when I was here." She spun around and took off towards the sea. Catherine watched her go, not sure whether to chase after her or to just laugh. Greg appeared at her side.
"What's Sara doing?" he asked, cocking his head to the side.
"Reliving her childhood." Catherine sighed. He frowned, but she just shook her head and beckoned him to start searching.
They worked for several hours, scouring the beach for any signs of foul play, but as far as they could tell there was nothing to suggest anybody had ever set foot here. There was nothing out of the ordinary. After all, it was a beach - there was sea, sand and stones.
"Okay, I'm out." Greg sighed, pulling his jacket on. Dusk was creeping in and the wind had picked up again. "You guys coming?" Catherine turned to look at Sara, who was sat on the sand several feet away, staring out to sea.
"You go back; we'll catch you up in a little while." She said. Greg frowned again, his eyes darting between the two women suspiciously. Eventually he nodded and set off back up the cliffs, continuing to shoot them sly glances until they were out of his view.
Catherine waited until he was out of shot before untying her own jacket from around her waist and wandering over to Sara. The brunette was zoned out, staring at the blue ocean. Despite only wearing a tank top, she didn't seem to notice the cold, but Cath still draped her jacket around Sara's shoulders and sat down.
"The lighthouse doesn't work." Sara stated randomly after a few minutes. Catherine cast her eyes up to the tall shadowy structure atop the cliffs. "It used to." Cath didn't know what to say to that, so she just nodded. She shivered, wrapping her arms tight around herself against the cold. Sara glanced at her and took the jacket off shoulders, trying to put it around Catherine but the blonde stopped her; so instead she spread it out and wrapped it around them both. Cath smiled softly and Sara shuffled closer. Sand whipped around them, caught on the wind, but they barely noticed.
"Eddie." Catherine looked up sharply.
"What about Eddie?" She asked, puzzled. Sara frowned until she realised what Cath was thinking.
"No, the dog. It was called Eddie." she smiled. "I loved that mutt." They drifted back into silence for a few minutes, just enjoying the peace and each other's company.
"What's that cave?" Catherine asked, gesturing towards a tunnel built into the cliff below the lighthouse.
"We were never allowed in there. As soon as the tide comes in it gets cut off." Sara explained.
"Tides going out now." Catherine pointed out. They shared a smile.
X x x
The flashlight beam bounced off the dripping walls, reflecting light around the cave. Water dripped rhythmically from the roof, making faint clicking sounds as it splashed into puddles. The floor was damp underfoot, and the walls glistened with slime.
"Wow!" Cath grimaced at the smell.
"Cat." Sara called. Catherine ventured further into the deep tunnel, finding her colleague staring at the floor. Cath directed her flashlight at the ground, and realised what Sara was staring at.
"Footprints."
A child's footprints, to be precise. They were on a ledge, higher than the water marks from the tide, which meant they wouldn't get washed away. They could have been here for years. Sara aimed her light a little higher, showing scratch marks in the walls.
"He got trapped." Sara whispered.
"Tried to climb his way out." Cath added, letting her fingers graze the marks on the walls. She glanced at Sara, who was shaking her head sadly, tears glistening in her eyes.
X x x
"Hey, check it out." Nick said, rushing outside. He had gone back to the office, certain that he was going to find something of use in there eventually. He handed the piece of paper in his hands to Sofia. It was a newspaper article.
"What about it?" She asked. He pointed to a small article in the bottom corner.
Missing Orphan:
Seven year old Tomas vanished from the Buen Pastor Orfanato on Tuesday, after playing on the private beach with the other children. Staff and police fear he may have drowned.
That was it. Two lines for a missing child.
"Tomas." Sofia mumbled. Thunder rumbled in the distance. It was nearly dark now.
Grissom's cell phone rang.
X x x
"He died in the caves." Catherine said into the phone, having found that she could get signal in a tunnel of all places.
"Catherine? Where are you?" Grissom asked on the other end.
"We're in a tunnel in the cliffs. We think we found where he died."
"Is Sara there?"
"Yeah, she's here. Listen; there are a child's footprints in the cave, and claw marks on the walls." She explained.
"Catherine." Sara called. Cath told Gil to hold on and joined Sara near the back wall. "Fabric." Cath leant over her to see what she could. Sara pulled a glove and a small bag from her pocket and picked up the piece of grey cotton. "We used to wear grey uniforms."
"Cheerful." Cath mumbled. She held out the bag for Sara to drop it into. "Grissom, we found a piece of grey material on the wall near the back. I think the child got trapped in here, cut off from the tide, and tried to climb the walls to get higher." She laid it out, picturing the little boy scrambling to the back of the tunnel, snagging his shorts on a jagged rock, slipping under the water. She closed her eyes and shook her head, but the image remained.
X x x
"Man, he must have been terrified." Nick sighed, examining the photos the girls had taken in the cave.
Catherine and Sara were wrapped in blankets, having trekked through ankle deep water and scrambled back up the cliffs in the dark to get back.
"So, assuming this kid is the missing boy, Tomas, and he got trapped in the cave while playing on the beach," Warrick said, "why wasn't it reported?"
"And how did he end up in the lake?" Sofia added. Grissom raised an eyebrow.
"Aye, therein lies the rub."