Author's Note: I'd like phnxgrl and stlouiegal for their reviews. phnxgrl: I liked that they showed Nick's indecision in the episode and I'm glad that you felt I captured that emotion in the last chapter. stloiegal: Don't worry about leaving a review every chapter. Review when you feel you have something to say (I always enjoy reading new reviews though...). This chapter starts in the next scene of the episode. Enjoy!

Chapter 39

The pass came through and Finn was tasked with keeping an eye on Shaw. Within a couple hours of getting out, Shaw had tracked down where Brother Larson was and they went to go see him. He was at work as a pimp tonight. A young woman was hurrying toward him, so Shaw leaned on the hood of Larson's car and decided to wait.

The young woman had gotten within earshot of Larson. "I can't go back up there. I can't even look at that man."

Larson raised his hand sternly. "Calm down. Brother Larson is here, and Brother Larson is listening. Now, you tell me, did he hurt you?"

The girl had calmed down a bit. "No. He didn't touch me." She took a breath and started softly yelling again. "And that's just it, I don't want him to touch me."

"All right, then let's talk about that." Larson stroked her hair. "You don't want him to touch you how?"

"I came to you. I came to your church because I wanted to get out of the game. I don't want to do this anymore."

"I hear you, baby. I feel you. But here's the thing." He put his arm around her. "Here's the Word. Our Creator has bestowed upon us gifts. You…" he took her hands in his and raised them up to display her body to them, "have a gift. The only shame there is in life is squandering our gifts. You feel me?"

The girl slowly nodded. "I guess."

"Here's what we're gonna do. You're gonna go home, get some sleep." Larson opened the door to the waiting SUV and the girl moved to climb inside. "You're gonna forget about tonight. I will see you in the morning. I'll bring you some breakfast. One more thing." She stopped and faced him again. "Did that man give you an envelope?" The girl reached into her purse and handed it to him. "Bless you, baby doll." The engine started and Larson pointed to the driver. "Get out of here."

Larson watched the car drive off and Shaw called over to him. "Damn, you're good, Larson."

"And you're taking liberties with my car." Larson turned around. "Been a while, Daniel. I've been reading the papers. You've been in the lion's den. Surprised to see you."

"Police think I'm Winthrop's partner. They think I'm a killer. But you know me. You know that's not true."

"And how would I know that?"

"Because I know about the money. I used to help you and your business in the past. Now it's your turn to help me. Unless you want me to give this information to the police."

Larson had a laugh on his face. "I always liked you, Daniel. Always trusted you. Until now. Tell me something. Do they shave you down there before they tape that little wire onto you?"

"I'm not wearing a wire."

"Then I'm guessing…" Larson sat against his car next to Shaw, "we're not alone."

Since Larson seemed to know Shaw wasn't unaccompanied, she figured there was no point in hiding now. "You guessed right."

"CSI Finlay, as I recall. Was all this really necessary? I've always been a friend of the police. I've helped you before. All you had to do is ask."

"All right, then I'll ask." Finn decided not to beat around the bush. "Are you Winthrop's partner in all of these murders?"

Larson turned to Shaw. "Direct. I like that." He turned back to Finn. "The answer's no."

"The cops are onto the money trail. They know you provided the girls."

Finn offered a tentative deal. "Help us find Winthrop, and maybe you won't get the death penalty."

"Being misjudged has been my constant cross to bear." Larson turned to Shaw, confidence dripping from his voice. "Yes, I provided escorts. It's what I do. And I received a finder's fee. Also what I do. What I don't do is harm women. Or anyone. All right?"

Finn pulled her handcuffs from her back pocket. "All right. I guess I'll just have to arrest you."

That got Larson's attention. "Whoa, ho- hold on a minute. I said I was gonna help, I'll help. The money I got, it didn't come from the son. It came from the father. Collin Winthrop. In fact, when the first girls went missing, I suspected him, but, uh, given events, I see now how this could be a family business."

Shaw wasn't buying it. "You're saying the father's the partner?"

"That'd be my suspicion. Sometimes the apple doesn't fall from the tree at all."

Finn shook out her hair. "So, say we believe you. Where can we find Paul Winthrop's father?"

"I stopped dealing with Collin a long time ago. I do still receive contributions… to preserve his good name."

Shaw leaned closer to Larson. "It's called extortion."

Larson shook his head. "That is such an ugly word. Look, if you guys want to arrest me, go ahead, but know that my lawyer will have me out and about in a Las Vegas minute." He turned to Shaw. "You good?" He turned to Finn. "You good?" He looked straight ahead and started walking away. "Me, too."

Meanwhile...

Morgan walked into the DNA lab to find Henry on the computer. "Got your text. Please tell me you have answers."

Henry stood up and came over to the middle table. "Well, let's start with the finger in the jar. Now, it turns out the finger was not suspended in saline and blood, as I expected, but saline and something else. I sent it off to Hodges for analysis."

Morgan picked up the jar. "And you're sure that it's Paul Winthrop's finger."

"It is. And the story would end there. Except I found blood on the statuette."

Morgan set the jar with the finger down. "Well, Paul Winthrop's blood, right?"

"That's what I thought. And because we're dealing with twins, in order to distinguish them, I ran an antibodies profile. Not only was it not Winthrop, but the sample was female. Two females, to be exact. Identical twins."

Henry had expected Morgan to look a little shocked, but she surprised him by appearing contemplative. "How much blood did you find?"

"Well, there were only a couple usable traces for testing, but take a look."

Morgan grabbed the ALS and turned off the desk lamp before looking at the statue. It was covered in little spots of blood. She turned off the ALS and looked at the statue, shaking her head. "He wasn't just sending us a message. Winthrop sent us a murder weapon."

Greg saw Hodges standing outside the Trace lab looking at his right arm in the mirror. It was strange. He knew he didn't normally see Hodges without the long sleeves of a button-up shirt and lab coat, but he could have sworn that Hodges hadn't had all those tattoos the last time he'd seen the self-proclaimed King of Trace.

He stopped behind Hodges. "You got to be kidding."

Hodges chuckled and shook something out. "I know. It's not really me, is it?" Greg shook his head slightly, still somewhat in shock. "Yeah, I picked up these sleeves at the costume shop down the block." He handed the second sleeve to Greg. "Just wanted to see what it would feel like to be a serial killer."

Hodges grabbed his lab coat from the rack and pulled it on. Greg stood in the doorway for a few more moments, still absorbing what Hodges had really done. That sleeve had looked so real on his arm that it had convinced Greg that the Trace King had really gone and gotten tattoos all over his arm recently. He realized the Hodges was giving him his report, so he shook his head to clear it and approached the table.

"So, I pulled the booking photo of Jared Briscoe's tats." Hodges showed Greg the photo. "Now, this liquid that Winthrop sent us his severed finger in is a mixture of saline solution and Cryers #2 Vermillion Ink."

"Let me guess. Used in tattoos."

"Well, not just any tattoos." Hodges pointed to the photo. "These tattoos. I've discovered in my research that certain tattoo artists are quite particular about which inks they use. And Cryers #2 Vermillion is very rare. So rare, in fact, that I was able to identify Briscoe's artist."

"Okay, but what does that have to do with the jar of ink that Winthrop sent us?"

"Briscoe's artist lives in Seattle. He has an ex-wife who moved to Vegas last year to live with her twin sister."

Greg realized what Hodges was suggesting. "Henry found blood in the Castor and Pollux statuette consistent with identical twins. Unknown females."

Hodges held up the folder in front of him. "Not unknown now. I've got names and an address." He handed the folder to Greg.

Greg filled Sara in when he rejoined the group after talking to the landlord. "Building manager confirmed the loft's rented to Amelia Vance."

Sara made sure she kept pace with the cops. "What about the sister?"

"Name's Margo. She signed onto the lease a year ago. Manager said he stopped by yesterday 'cause they complained the AC wasn't working. No one answered."

They stopped by the door to the apartment. Greg and Sara stayed back so Mitch and the two uniforms he'd selected to join them would be able to do their job without worrying about the CSIs. The cops unsheathed their guns and Mitch pushed the slightly ajar door open. Greg pulled his gun out too, just in case.

Mitch called through the open door. "Amelia Vance, LVPD." Mitch walked inside, and the other uniforms did too. Greg and Sara followed behind them, entering the apartment that was set up like a tattoo parlor. The middle of the room was cleared out and trajectory strings crisscrossed the space.

Sara rolled by the tattoo chair where all the tools of the trade were arranged on the table beside it. They moved to the middle of the room and looked at the strings. Just like the other Gig Harbor killings, the crime scene had been processed for them with the strings and the evidence markers by various items, blood pools, and stains.

"Another processed crime scene." Sara panned her flashlight around the scene, looking at the blood and obvious signs of a struggle.

Greg was doing the same. "Strings and blood suggest two events."

"Two victims. Again, he took the bodies." She pointed her flashlight down and saw a picture of Jared Briscoe. She picked it up to get a better look. "Russell's theory was right. Winthrop and his brother have become one." She turned the photo around so Greg and Mitch could see.

Greg nodded. "Dead ringers."

The uniforms cleared out of the room to give the CSIs the space to work. Greg went back to the SUV to grab his new toy and Sara took pictures of the crime scene. She was almost afraid to move around the crime scene much more because of her wheels. Greg came back in with the new tool and she asked for his help in putting the tire covers on her wheels so she could move about the scene without fear of tracking in contaminants. Greg then set up the special camera over some blood spatter and got the program running. Sara returned her camera to her kit and shone her light around the scene.

Greg also looked around the scene a little more. "Just like old times. Everything's been dusted, everything's already processed."

Something was bugging Sara. "Something is different this time."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, not everything's been dusted, and these green strings…" Sara pointed up to them with her light, "Gemini? He didn't even try to hide them among the other strings."

Greg understood what Sara was getting at. "Different murder weapon, too. No gaff. This time, he bludgeoned them to death with a marble sculpture."

"And this rope he used?" Sara had rolled around the stringed portion of the crime scene and was looking at a rope sticking out from under the bed. "Never seen anything like it. Looks hand-braided. Unusual fiber. Some kind of powdery trace on it. It's yellow. It looks organic in nature. Suggests secondary transfer." Sara pulled her camera back out of her kit and snapped a few pictures of the rope. "How's it going with your new toy?"

Greg glanced back at it. "Oh, camera's acquired the image. Just loading it now." He turned to go to the computer.

Sara followed. "So this thing is gonna give us T.O.D. on our victims?"

"Well, it's worth a try. We've had this hyperspectral imaging prototype in the lab for over a month. I've been waiting to field-test it."

Sara hadn't even heard about this machine, let alone seen it in action. "How's it work, exactly?"

"Well, it's all about the hemoglobin in the blood. As a bloodstain ages, the blood reacts with oxygen and breaks down."

"Right, which is why blood changes color from red to brown."

"Well, this camera records those changes. And then maps them on a visible reflectance spectrum." Greg pointed to the screen. "So, here is the crime scene blood drop. I'm comparing it to a preset baseline of a fresh blood drop. Software does the rest. Calculating the difference between the two spectra, thereby computing the age of the blood."

"Wow." Sara had to admit she was impressed.

"Oh. And… we got our answer." Greg read the result from the screen. "The murders took place… twelve hours ago."

"So something is different."

"Yeah, I mean, the other murders took place weeks before we discovered the crime scenes."

Sara turned her head toward the rest of the apartment. "And he took days to stage them. Winthrop has accelerated his time frame."

"But why?"

Sara rolled closer to the crime scene and stopped by the voice recorder by evidence tag three. She leaned forward and picked it up. "If anything holds from the past, I'm sure he's eager to tell us." She pushed play.

A/N: What is Winthrop going to say? Find out next week. Stay tuned!