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Chapter 14

"You found the confession where?" Catherine asked, as she stood at the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water.

"The girl's algebra book. I know it's a weird story Cath, but I kind of wanted to get caught up on Grissom's case," Sara said, tentatively accepting the bottle of water Catherine held out for her.

"If it's a funny story, Sara, I really could use something to laugh about."

Sara sighed. She understood, so she gave Catherine a moment to chill out. She told her about the look on the girl's face when she found the note, and the look on the mini Moriarty wannabe's face when Sara broke the news that his sinister plan was foiled. "He asked me, 'How did you possibly know where I stuck the note when my beloved, my very angel, never saw it?'" Sara said, punctuating the teen's dramatics with an impersonation of his snotty voice. "I said, well, I found it because it was written on bright pink paper and it stuck halfway out of the book. She didn't see it because, in case you didn't notice, the algebra book's spine was barely scuffed. She probably never opened it. You're at the end of the school year, and that book hasn't looked like it's been cracked open more than three times."

Catherine laughed at the boy's antics and she appeared to relax somewhat. Sara was glad. "So, now on to Grissom's case?"

Sara finished a big gulp of her water. "Yeah."

"Come on. The guys should be in the layout room."

There was tons of evidence, and yet none clearly indicated a culprit. The fingerprints they'd found were all Grissom's and the swabs of DNA were almost all Grissom's, but for one item: a set of earbuds. Some DNA came from Gerard, but the most damning, and frustrating, DNA was unidentifiable.

"The ear buds had Grissom's DNA on them? Any chance they got contaminated from another source?" Catherine asked.

"No, there wasn't a different source present," Nick said. "I found them in the glove compartment of the van."

"There's no way Gil would choose to use those things," Catherine said. "Not after the surgery for his hearing."

The comment stopped discussion, and Catherine heard the proverbial pin drop. All eyes were on her for an explanation, so she gave it: "Two years ago. I'm sure you all noticed he had a hearing problem and also I assume you noticed the problem went away when he grew the beard? He'd never use ear buds, but if he used anything, it would be full headphones. Can we move on now?"

"Hodges identified the substance on Gerard's body as human urine and Mia matched the unknown DNA from that earpiece to the urine," Greg said. "Warrick and Nick also found a blood pool in the driver's side of the van. It also matched the unknown DNA from the urine and earwax. For whatever it's worth the DNA is XY."

"Now we just have to find the son of a bitch so we can nail him," Warrick said.

They found Gerard without a wallet or ID and if it weren't for Sara's immediate identification, it may have taken much longer for a positive id.

Conrad Ecklie had been in touch with authorities in Oakland, California because there had been several charges from Gerard's credit cards. The police detective he'd spoken to had agreed to send any evidence or taped interviews should they catch anyone suspected of the crime of identity thief of the deceased Dr. Gerard.

Sara became engrossed with the graphic photos in the folder, each in its own evidence bag. "I recognize some of these photos. A couple of these are from Grissom's fish board," she said. "How did someone get a hold of these photos? They're from crime scenes; those are protected from public consumption."

Catherine nodded her head and then picked up two other photos, "You know. These are from two cases he worked years ago. This one was unsolved and this one," nodding to one where an abused woman, covered in bruises, "made Grissom really lose his cool because guy got off on a technicality."

"The two I recognize, both were really frustrating cases," Sara said. "And none of these cases in Vegas connects to Gerard."

"Maybe Gerard was never a target," Nick said. "The guy has Grissom for days and did God knows what to him, but according to our time-line for Gerard, the guy only had him for maybe an hour. I think Grissom was the sole target and he killed Gerard to torture Grissom."

"Gerard had to be a target," Greg said. "What were the chances Gerard would be in town the exact same time Grissom was taken? If the guy wanted to take someone to torture Grissom, it would have been easier for him to take one of us."

The statement made the crew pause, but not for long. "We've put a call out to Minnesota to check on any cases that Grissom and Gerard worked on that might have provoked this attack. Unfortunately, Gerard and Grissom were the only crime scene investigators who worked there then," Catherine said.

He saw it again.

Black and white tiles. Sara held against her will; a masked man slitting her throat; Sara falls to the floor.uttered some words.

And again. Black and white tiles. Sara hurting; Sara choking on her own blood; Sara dying.

And again. Black and white tiles. Grissom heard Sara's struggles and screams.

And again. Black and white tiles. Grissom knew that man's voice when he stared at the camera and

And again. Black and white tiles. Something was different. The man was no longer masked, his blond hair was thinning.

He awoke restless and sweating. It wasn't Sara, he thought. It must be just a dream or a suggestion...

Grissom's gaze wandered to the wall in front of his bed as he struggled to catch his breath. His eyes settled on the television, then traveled upward toward the ceiling. Then back to the television. It was like watching a movie, thought to himself.

He brought his hand to his face. His face became pained, but not from physical injuries. He remembered the videos his tormentor had shown him for days and he realized for the first time: the body hunched over in a pool of blood on the checker board tiles wasn't Sara.

It couldn't be her. But his mother and Terri Miller were dead. But his mother died of a heart attack. "This is one poison that dissipates from the blood stream after a short period of time. It will seem like she died of a heart attack to anyone perhaps performing an autopsy."

Those words. They were so familiar. He didn't kill Sara. But he did kill his mother.

He cried silently as the tears streamed down his face.

"Mr. Grissom? I'm Jayne, one of the certified wound care nurses here at Desert Palm."

Grissom had gotten his emotions under control after his last nightmare, but he was anxious and fidgety. Nothing seemed to make sense to him at the moment. Upon seeing a new person in the room, he shifted uncomfortably in the bed, but tried to be polite. "Hi."

The petite blonde smiled, cheerfully, "I need to clean your burns, re-apply the Silvadene, and redress the areas before your surgery this morning."

"Is it going to hurt?" Grissom's expression reminded the woman of her 4-year-old who was at daycare.

"Probably, but you're lucky. You've got a Morphine pump and if you hit it now, then you won't feel a thing."

Grissom nodded and clicked the button. He felt the slight burn as pain reliever spread through his system. In moments, he was asleep again.

The sleep didn't last long, but it was comforting to Grissom. Javier, who had helped bathe him earlier that morning, came into his room with a flat stretcher.

"Mr. Grissom, I've come to take you to surgery."

The transfer took several other patient care techs and a nurse to supervise so none of the IV's, catheters, or various other tubes where disturbed. Grissom grimaced in pain as they slid him from the hospital bed to the hard stretcher, but otherwise remained silent.

The surgeon carefully scrubbed his hands in front of a large stainless steel sink, not thinking about the surgery he was about to perform. His thoughts turned to the day, not so long ago when he thought his world had stopped spinning. His thoughts were interrupted by one of the surgical nurses as she stood next to him scrubbing her hands to assist him in the rather simple procedure. The brunette looked up to his profile and whispered, "Are we still on for tonight?"

The surgeon pressed his hip next to the young woman's as tightly as he could in the situation, and stage whispered, "Yes, I look forward to it."

The other CSIs had left to go home to get some rest before visiting Grissom, but Sara wanted to be there with him when he woke up from the latest surgery. Sara was still in the lab, pouring over the limited evidence in the Gerard murder. She couldn't believe Grissom had anything to do with Gerard's murder, and she personally wanted to castrate the man who'd tortured Grissom. She decided it was best to look over the evidence again with clear eyes and realized it was almost time for Grissom to be in recovery from the new procedure to repair his forearm. She quickly slipped into Grissom's darkened office; turned on the lights and just looked around the room.

The room seemed so quintessentially Grissom: the messy desk covered in unopened mail and file folders; the metal shelves bearing experiments pushed back until Grissom probably couldn't even remember what it was pertaining to; framed insects and newspaper clippings; plastic evidence bags tacked to a bulletin board bearing bones or bullet fragments.

Sara felt safe there. Some of her fondest memories of the man who had intrigued her for so long were associated with this office. But along with the fond memories, there were some not so fond. She decided not to think of those as she quickly shuffled through his mail: pamphlets taunting upcoming seminars, packages from many companies with whom the crime lab did business; letters and resumes from prospective employees; one enlarged white envelope from an address in Minnesota, that looked a lot like an invitation to something; catalogers; newsletters and a couple of magazines, one forensic-related and one Sports Illustrated.

She picked up the magazines and a catalog for Grissom. Something told Sara to take the envelope from Minnesota to the hospital in case it was something personal for Grissom. Maybe it might cheer him up.

She held the mail in her hand, sighed and turned off the light and closed the door softly behind her.

When Grissom opened his eyes. He could tell he was laying down on something rather hard and was in a large, airy room surrounded by the beeping machines. But he could also hear the voice of a man, so vaguely familiar, the voice that was misquoting Shakespeare and the sound of feminine laughter.

Grissom raised up on his right side, calmly quoted the quote correctly, "The hand that hath made you fair hath made you good," before collapsing back down on the hard surface and passing back out.

But not before another thought floated into his head. It wasn't Sara. It was her.

Time had clearly passed when Grissom woke up again. Gone was the large room and beeping machines. Instead when he looked to his left he saw the spiky dirty blond hair of his former DNA tech, who was staring back at him with wide eyes.

"Sara's gonna kill me," Greg said in a hushed tone. "Go back to sleep Grissom, Sara wanted to be by your side when you woke up, but she had to go pee..."

Grissom closed his eyes.

Jacob McIntyre rolled over in the hotel bed, jarring his right arm, as he attempted to answer the ringing phone at his bedside. The bedside clock blared the numbers 1:23 in red. He saw it was light outside through the dark curtains that didn't quite close and realized it was daytime.

"Mr. Braid, this is Melissa at the front desk. The pizza you ordered is at front desk."

"Thanks Melissa. See ya in a bit." He hung up the phone, rubbed his face with his left hand, reached for his wallet and saw he still had plenty of cash to pay for his dinner.

He staggered to his feet, popped a handful of Vicodin into his mouth and opened the door to the early afternoon sun, still dressed in his boxers.

Halfway between his room and the office, McIntyre reached to stuff the money into his front pocket and stopped, let out a frustrated grunt of pain and turned around. "Shit," he mumbled.

"Forgot my fuckin' pants."

"Sara? Are you here?" Grissom's voice was weak.

"Yes."

"I'm glad," he said as he snuggled deeper into a cocoon of warmth.

It was dark outside and he was alone the next time he woke up. He was frazzled and disoriented. His head pounded and his mind went in a thousand directions. He pressed the call light to see if Javier was working again so he could dial the phone for him.

"Hiya Mr. Grissom. What's up?"

"I'd like to try to call my mother." Even as the phrase came out of his mouth, it sounded absurd. But he had to make the call.

"Sure, what's the number?"

After Javier dialed the number, including the area code for Marina del Rey, the young Hispanic man handed the receiver to Grissom, who took a deep breath and listened as someone picked up on the other end. "Cliff's Bar and Grill. This is Nick. How can I help you?"

"Hang up, Javier. Wrong number." The young man did. "Would you dial it again?"

When he got, "Cliff's Bar and Grill" again, Grissom knew his mother's old phone number was no longer in service and the monster had killed her for real.

Grissom's mind could no longer process what was real and what was imagined. But then a thought made him more disconcerted: maybe he imagined nothing. Maybe Sara was dead but he still watched her die. She was alive and visited him in the hospital, but he could plainly see the blood surrounding Sara's body as he and Catherine processed the crime scene when he closed his eyes.

No. That's ridiculous. Get a grip, Grissom. Sara was really alive, but his mother was gone. And not the way he believed and was told seven months ago.

And, apparently, Terri Miller was dead, too. Wasn't she?

"Javier, dial this number for me, 702-555-0252." When Grissom heard the gruff, "Brass," he politely nodded to Javier, who left the room.

"Jim, it's Gil...I'm... I'm fine. ... I need some information on the death of Terri Miller...Yes, the anthropologist that I went out with a couple of years ago... Yeah... I don't know. I just... Could you check it out?...OK, see you tomorrow...Bye."

About a half an hour later, his nurse slipped into the room to do her hourly assessments. She found her patient to be asleep in the midst of a nightmare, thrashing a bit, calling out the name, "Sara."

After noting his blood pressure and oxygen saturation levels, and checking for any bleeding or oozing from the new fixator on his forearm, she reached in retrieved the beeping phone that was cradled in his non-fixated hand and hung the phone up.

TBC