Disclaimer CBS own CSI etc..
Please read and review. Fedback really helps.
Thanks to those who are leaving fedback:)
Max nodded his head in agreement. The last thing he remembered was walking down the road and a man asking for directions. He leant in the window to point out on the map where the man needed to go and all of sudden a piece of cloth covered his mouth and his world went black.
"Hey are you that girl missing from Nevada?" he asked muffled with the gag in his mouth.
Stephanie just nodded a silent yes, then went to the intercom and let Owen know Max was awake.
Owen arrived in the room, Stephanie was sitting in her room she afraid he may get mad at her if she was still in with Max.
Owen then opened the door to her room and motioned for her to come in the room.
"Stephanie I want to explain to you and Max about your moms. Max your mom left me after I was accused and convicted of rape. You and Blake were only 2 and 4 years old. I had always wanted a son and daughter. Sadie is downstairs she is your new mom; she is very excited about us being a family. You both will respect and love her; you will call her mom or mommy. You will never mention Sara or Celia. Is this understood?" Owen was holding a wooden plank in his hand as he said this.
"Yes, Daddy. I will call her mom. Can Max and I go meet her now?
Stephanie was hoping to get out of the room finally. She just hoped that Max would not fight Owen and just go with the flow.
"Now, Max I am going to remove the gag if you scream or yell then you will get a reminder not to do it. Is this understood?"
Max looked at Stephanie and saw here eyes widen with fear. He nodded yes.
"Good, I see you and your sister already are bonding. That is good. Now I will untie you and we will all go down to breakfast. You both need to wash your face and brush your teeth and then come downstairs. I will be waiting at the stairs for you." With that Owen untied Max and left the room.
"Stephanie are you ok? Has he hurt you?" Max asked the young girl.
"He makes threats however he never hit me, however I have not tried to push him since the first couple days. He kept me in a dark room and made lots of threats. I am not sure how long I was in there; however a few days ago he put me in the room next door."
"Stephanie, I just had arrived back from New Zeland when I heard about you, that was two weeks ago. Your parents looked really worried about you on TV. I heard a little then my mom turned it off, she hates for Blake and I to see anything like that. Your mom was begging for you to be returned." Max could see the tears forming as he let her know.
"It seems much longer than just two weeks. Please just go along with him, he killed my parents, you saw my birth mom and her friend Nick on TV. Was Sara upset?"
"Yeah, and the guy he had the same hair color and brown eyes was holding her supporting her. He was holding her like my dad holds my mom when something is bothering her. I assumed they were married they looked like they loved each other and when they talked about you and asked for you to be returned he referred to you as their daughter."
"Yeah, that is Nick and Sara, they miss me? He said that they were not looking for me; he tried to kill Sara he had her shot. At least I know she is still alive and ok. We better hurry or we will be in trouble."
Stephanie and Max washed there face and brushed there teeth. Then together they went downstairs and sure enough Owen was waiting with a woman they assumed was Sadie or as they were informed was mom. Max and Stephanie greeted them together.
"Hello Mom, Dad."
"Very good, see Sadie I told you our children loved you."
"Well, let's go have breakfast." Sadie said quietly.
Max gently touched his young sisters' shoulder and together they walked into the dining room for breakfast.
Las Vegas Crime Lab
It now had been eight weeks since Kallie and Steve were killed and seven weeks and 4 days since Stephanie was kidnapped.
Nick and Sara had been back to work for the past two weeks. They both had picked up extra cases, just as long as it did not involve children.
No one mentioned that Nick and Sara came in together or that Nick would kiss Sara goodbye when there cases caused them to separate for the night.
Greg was the first to mention that they made a great couple. He was going to miss not being able to flirt with Sara. He would not want to have Nick getting mad at him. Though maybe one day when things got back to normal he could joke and flirt again with Sara.
Grissom had looked into the rules and there was nothing written that two follow co-workers could not have a relationship or even get married. However they could not be over each other such as supervisor and subordinate.
Catherine was still working with the FBI and Sofia and Jordan on any leads that came up with Stephanie. There had been no sightings of Stephanie when Max was kidnapped. However a man was seen putting a young boy matching Max's description in the back of his car. He told the person who offered to help that his son was afraid of blood and passed out when he got a nose bleed, and was taking him home.
Nick and Sara walked into the lounge together; Sara sat in the last chair left at the table. Nick went and got them both a cup of coffee. After he returned he gently placed a hand on Sara's shoulder.
Greg then saw it, the ring on Sara's left hand, a small shinny Sapphire with two small diamonds on each side.
"Sara is that what I think it is?" Greg stated.
Catherine and Warrick both looked as Greg was holding her hand and all examined the ring.
The first time in a long time Sara grinned. "Yes, Nick and I are engaged."
"I asked her last night." Nick smiled proudly.
"Congratulations, Grissom offered as he heard the news as he walked in with assignments. Let me see the ring."
"It is Stephanie's and Sara's birthstone and of course the traditional diamond." Nick smiled and rubbed Sara's shoulder.
"It is beautiful, so do you two have a date set yet?" Grissom thought he would probably need to set up coverage for the team so they could all attend the wedding.
"Well, umm we are going to get married next week at Nick's family's home in Texas. Then when we come back we can have a big party. We want to keep it simple and quiet considering all that has been happening. I just do not want the media posting our marriage on the front page."
Catherine smiled then made an offer. "How about we have the party at the Tangiers, Sam has it in the will I can use the penthouse when ever I want it. That would include security coverage and the food."
"Well, I do not think we can pass that up, that would be great. Thanks Catherine." Nick stated.
"Well, now that we have all had some fantastic news lets get going we all have assignment. Nick and Warrick you have a DB in Rachel the first ever. The poor local police station is lost; you may need to stay the night also. Catherine you have some new leads, Jordan will give you more information. Sara you are with me a domestic violence case at Desert Palms, however the husband is the victim, the wife is being held in interrogation. Greg I am lending you to Catherine for the night sounds like she may need help."
Sara perked up hearing this; maybe they had a solid lead for once. Sara knew the chance of getting her daughter back was getting smaller everyday. However she refused to give up hope.
Nick and Sara said goodbye and went to there separate cases.
Nick met up with Warrick in the dressing room.
"Hey Nick how about we swing by your place and mine get a bag of clothes then head to Rachel. It will take us about 2 ½ hours to get there."
"That would be fine. We can stop by your place first though." Nick offered.
"Hey isn't your place closer?" Warrick asked.
"Umm, well Sara and I just moved into a house out by Shadow Creek. We were going to invite everyone after we got married; we just want a chance to get settled first. However Sara knows I have to get clothes, however please do not tell anyone else just yet. In about two weeks we will have everyone over."
"Well, that is fine it will give us even more to talk about during the long drive to Rachel. I am dying to hear how you proposed to Sara and the wedding plans." Warrick was really excited for his friends they really deserved this and Sara deserved to be happy.
Nick and Warrick then headed out to the Denali.
Grissom looked at Sara; she actually had a smile on her face. It had been months since he saw her look actually happy.
He could actually say that she was much happier with Nick than she ever was with him. Nick did not even have to try to make her feel comfortable. It came naturally to him to touch her shoulder, to give her a kiss, hold her hand. When he was seeing Sara he had to make a mental note to do those things because he knew Sara wanted that.
"Hey, Gris, you ready to go interview the vic and get the trace at there house?" Sara asked.
"Yeah, let's get going. Maybe we can get you out of here early to go work on your new house." Grissom smiled and walked off.
"Wait, Gris, hey how do you, I, we just closed on the sale a week ago and…." Sara was surprised to know that Grissom knew about her and Nick's house.
"Sara, I was called for your mortgage to confirm your and Nick's employment. I may be blind to something's however I am not so blind that I miss you and Nick together. He is really lucky to have you, and I am sure he knows that. You both deserve each other."
Sara was not sure how to answer. Instead she quietly grabbed her kit and headed out to her Denali with Grissom.
Nick and Warrick driving somewhere in the middle of Nevada Desert
"Ok, Nick I want to hear how you proposed to Sara, spill it."
"First who won the bet?"
"Bet? Come on would we do that?"
"So did you loose?" Nick was now laughing
"Well, ok, you will never believe who won though. You tell me the details and I will tell you who won."
"Ok, well, in the last few months with Stephanie missing and Sara getting shot we just made an offer on the house about three weeks ago. We had been talking about just living together then I realized it was not enough. So last night when we both had a night off, I placed candles all around the house and got the right music and proposed. I was afraid she would say no, because of Stephanie still missing. However she instead said yes, and we both decided when we get Stephanie back we will have a second wedding so we can have her be the flower girl." Nick could still see Sara's smile as she said yes.
"Warrick, I love her so much, I just wish we had Stephanie with us to make Sara feel whole. There are days I can see Sara tries to pretend it is no big deal, others she will see something and makes her think about Stephanie and she can not stop crying."
"Nick, come on we both have worked cases of missing kids, it is rare for them to be returned. Owen made some serious threats against both kids and he has made no other attempts to contact anyone. You both need to just forge on with yourselves, since it is a four bedroom house I assume you are thinking of possibly filling those rooms up with more than an office." Warrick knew he was pushing it but he had to try.
"Yeah, we have talked about having children, come on neither of us are getting younger. We even thought about becoming foster parents. Sara is afraid she is too old to have another baby; however we have decided to just think about it right now. We have started the process to be foster parents. The winner is?"
"You both would be great parents. If you need a reference for the foster parenting, you can count on me."
"Ohh, umm the winner, well that would be Greg for the engagement and Grissom for the amount of time from announcement to getting married." Warrick laughed as he saw the look on Nick's face.
"Wow, so when did you say we would get engaged and married?" Nick asked his best friend.
"I said you would just show up married by this week. I got the time frame just you showed up engaged." Warrick laughed.
"The great Warrick lost a bet." Nick shook his head with a huge grin.
"Come on, you both tend to keep to yourselves. So I assume your family knows about Sara, they must be happy?"
"They are very excited, they adore Sara, they just wish Stephanie was around also. All my sisters and brother have been married at the house, so we are following the tradition. Then after we are going to take a week and go to Costa Rica."
"Hey Nick stop at the gas station up there, we can call the local PD and have them met us there, my cell phone is not getting coverage out here. Well, we all expect lots of pictures of the wedding; even if we do not get to be there we can relive it through the pictures." Warrick was hoping Nick felt a little guilty.
Warrick and Nick got out of the truck and borrowed the phone to call the local PD. They said they were close to the DB and gave them directions to get to the location. They were informed a marked car was on the road with an officer that would meet them and take them to the crime scene.
Nick and Warrick found the road and then located the cruiser. The officer there apologized for not meeting them, however they did not want to leave the scene and there was only 2 officers on duty at a time in the town.
"Well, some kids on dirt bikes found her, she looks to be in her early to mid thirty's she had dark brown hair and it looks as though she was worked over pretty bad. We were told to leave her until you got here. It looks like a fresh dump she was not in rigor when we found her." The officer stated.
Nick and Warrick looked at the young women; she appeared to have been beaten severely. It was diffently a crime of passion.
"Any identification?" Warrick asked.
"No, however there is a new family that moved in the area. They seem to really keep to themselves. We could check and see if they know this woman." The Officer offered.
"Let's check to see if her prints are in the system first." Nick offered.
Nick and Warrick got nail scrapings and then printed her and scanned the prints to their laptop. They would have to wait until they could get to a land line to send the prints though.
"Well, let's get her packed up, and back to the lab in Vegas. Do you have a van to take the body back to Vegas?" Nick asked.
"Yep, I will call for the life flight they will transport the body if they are not busy."
"Well, is there any place to get some sleep? We have been up a pretty long time and before we head back we would like to get some rest." Warrick asked
"Yep, a mile from the gas station you called me at there is a small old hotel. The rooms are clean just old looking."
"Thanks" Nick thought the drive back to Vegas might be better.
"Nick, come on we can at least send the print back to the lab and then maybe check around see if anyone has ever seen this woman? It will not kill you to not be with Sara for a day." Warrick laughed as he said it but at the same time he knew it was part of the reason wanted to get back.
Nick and Warrick got to the hotel and got a room with two beds, the rooms were very clean and the beds were comfortable. They were able to hook up to a computer system via satellite and send the prints. A few hours later they got a response, the victims name was Sadie Nelson. She was from San Francisco, California.
Nick looked at Warrick.
"I am getting a strange feeling about this. I just can not put a finger on it, however, maybe we can go interview some of the locals, see if anyone knows this Sadie." Nick was concentrating hard.
The Abbot home in Rachel, NV
Max and Stephanie had gotten to be very close. Max was very protective over his little sister. However he could only do so much to protect her.
Sadie had finally realized what an evil man Owen was. Now she was missing. Max had heard her screaming, and knew if he heard it so did Stephanie.
Sadie had told them she was going to help them get away.
Now, Owen was acting very strange and Max knew he had to take Stephanie and try to escape. He just prayed that his little sister was ready for the journey ahead of them; he knew how long they would have to walk until they could get help.
