Chapter 14: Catherine

I cannot believe I was busted by Sara. Sara—of all people. It's one thing to hedge around the topic of me dating, but it's something totally different when the former love of your life catches you in the arms of another woman.

I barely know Mac, and yet, I felt so at ease with her. Her arms around me—her mouth on me—her breath caressing my skin. Jesus, I hadn't desired anyone like that since Sara. I'm weak. I'll admit it.

When Mac said she needed to leave and Sara followed her out, I was prepared for fireworks. The scene in the driveway played out just as I would have expected. Sara was obviously trying to piss on her fire hydrant (me) and Mac wasn't going to let her. I saw Sara push Mac against her car and almost walked out there to break the two of them apart. Then I saw Mac grab Sara and switch positions. I couldn't make out what was being said, but Mac obviously made her point because seconds after throwing Sara against the car, she was straightening Sara's clothes and climbing back in her car. Watching Sara standing there just staring after Mac's disappearing car was priceless. I know she saw the smile that was playing at my lips when she turned to come back in the house.

As she walked past me, she started laughing. "To think that I was worried about you! What a joke!"

She wants to talk about trust! Trust?

"When I think that I trusted you. You stole those files from the conference room." I know she had to have taken those files. She was the only one capable of doing such a thing.

Sara laughs. "Poor, Cath! You're so fucking naïve sometimes! What else did she tell you to get into your pants? You know, I'm starting to feel sorry that I came back, obviously her and her very capable hands were about to show you quite a good time."

I barely have time to register her words before she continues, "I have to admit that you're slacking off though. I mean it took you half a day to get her. We both know that ten minutes are more than enough when you put your mind to it."

Sara Fucking Sidle just crossed a line. Without considering my actions, I draw a hand back to slap her. She grabs my wrist as I come across toward her face. With my free hand, I draw back once again, but she captures that as well. Before I know what's happening, I find myself pushed against a wall. Glaring at her, I spit, "Fuck you, Sara."

She doesn't flinch or anything else. "Really? You sure you wouldn't rather have me fuck you instead?" She laughed dryly at her own statement.

I try to break free of her hold again, screaming, "Let me go!" I manage to push myself away from the wall only to be forced back against it so hard that my breath is knocked out of me.

She's so close to me right now. I can feel her breath on me. I used to get this same rush when we….No! This is not then, I remind myself. We're not a couple. This isn't one of our 'rough and rowdy' sessions.

Her eyes travel from my eyes to my lips and I feel myself beginning to ache with that familiar desire. She leans in to kiss me and stops abruptly. "I guess it's too bad my hands aren't as capable of those of your new friend," she whispers before releasing me and turning to leave.

And that's where she left me. Standing against a wall and rubbing the soreness of her restraining efforts from my wrists.

I'm seething, angry, and pissed off. Twice! Twice tonight I've been turned on and left high and dry—well, not so much dry as frustrated. First Mac. Then Sara. Why don't we go for the trifecta.

This probably isn't the best time to do so, but I find my cell phone and look for Jenny's number. I don't know it by heart—that should tell me something.

"Who the hell answered your phone earlier?" answers the angry voice on the other end of the call.

"Jenny, let me explain."

"Explain what? That you go out of town with your ex to work a case. That you don't bother calling me. That some strange woman is answering your phone. Which one do you want to explain first? Or is there something else you need to explain at this point?"

"Yeah, there's something else. Look, Jen, I like you. You're sweet, you're ki…"

"Whoa! Wait a minute! Are you breaking up with me? 'Cause this sounds like you're breaking up with me."

Zero to bitch in less than thirty seconds. I think getting older is started to affect me more than I realized. "Jenny, it's hard to break up with someone you don't really consider yourself in a relationship with. We went out a few times and I had fun. The truth is I don't want a relationship right now. I'm not…"

"…ready to move on from the last one. Well, then you should stay away from women until you are. You know what, Fuck you, Catherine. Fuck you." And then, she hung up.

"Well, that went better than I expected," I say aloud to myself.

XXXXX

Sara stormed out of here an hour ago. I don't know when she'll be back, and I don't care. What I do know is that I have a limited amount of time to look for whatever she took from those files last night.

My decision made, I head up the stairs to her room. I'm breathing deeply. On one hand, I desperately want to be wrong. I don't want to find those missing files in her room. On some level, I need to still believe that the Sara I fell in love with still exists. On the other hand, my gut instinct tells me that Sara took those files and that they're somewhere in her room. And when I find them…..

I pushed the door open and looked at the room before me. Typical Sara. The bed wasn't made. There was a towel on the floor from her morning shower. We'd been here less than 48 hours, but she had already put her own little personal touches around the room. A pair of underwear lay on the floor by the dresser. A bra was draped over a chair. Of all the things I missed about having Sara in my life, her tendency towards messiness was one thing I would never miss. Who would have ever guessed that Sara was this messy given her proclivity for neatness in the lab?

I did a once over around the room, trying to memorize where everything was in case I moved something at a later point.

If I was Sara, where would I hide something?

I checked under the bed. Nothing.

I checked under the mattress. Nothing.

Dresser. Bed side table. Closet. Nothing.

I stand there with my hands on my hips looking around the room for anything I could have missed. My eyes fall on the desk. Sara's laptop is sitting atop it. And she has a few files to either side of the computer. I look through the files on her desk, but I expect her to be a bit shiftier in hiding things. After all, she is the queen of hiding things. No such luck, these are just the files that she was given back in Vegas about the case.

I take my time and go through every drawer on the right carefully, but I come up with nothing. Zilch. Zippo. Nadda. Nothing other than dust in the top drawer on the left. In the second drawer on the left, I find three additional files. I pull them out. "Yes," I say to myself.

I sit down on the edge of the bed and start to look through these files. These are the files that belong with this serial case. Three files each with a different name. The one commonality is the last name—Sidle.

I put two files aside and open one—Laura Sidle. Obviously, this is Sara's mother. I can tell because the woman in the photo has the same haunted look in her eyes that Sara does. I can feel the anger burning inside me when I start to read her file in earnest. She had endured years of abuse from her husband and eventually snapped, killing him. There had been one witness—Sara. She had even testified against her mother in court. Laura spent some time in a psychiatric facility before being removed to one of California's state run prisons, where she was still at today.

I put that file aside and picked up the one labeled with her father's name—Mark Sidle. He had been stabbed multiple times with a kitchen knife by Sara's mother. It read almost the same as Laura's file, only shorter. I glanced over the autopsy report before closing that file as well.

I took a deep breath before picking up the final, and much thicker, file. I wasn't prepared for what I found inside. There were photos of a young Sara covered in bruises. There were hospital reports which detailed her injuries—fractures, contusions, sprains. She never told me she was abused. A bit further into the file I found page after page which detailed the various foster homes she had lived in until she turned 18. She never told me she was in foster care. There were at least two dozen homes and various group homes that had taken Sara in over the years. She had been removed from each home for one reason or another. The most common reasons were that she either ran away or was too emotionally detached and depressed.

I heard the garage door on the house opening and quickly put the files back in the drawer before leaving her room. The last thing I wanted was for Sara to catch me going through her stuff.

I shut my bedroom door behind me and sit on the foot of the bed. As it had the previous night, Sara's shadow pauses outside my door. When it finally moves, I fall backwards onto my bed and my mind starts to process all that I've learned today.

I really don't know Sara. I had no idea her mother had killed her father. I had no idea she had witnessed it. I had no idea she had been in foster care—much less bounced from home to home. In fact, I only knew about Sara's life since Harvard. Why hadn't she trusted me enough to tell me these things? With a past like hers, how much could she be trusted?