Disclaimer: I don't own.
A/N: So, I thought of basically nothing else all day but how I wanted to play this out. I was thinking I'd have Grissom find Sara and there'd be lots of fun lab banter and arguing and angst while they searched for the killer... but I just didn't find the anger required for a prolonged will-they-won't-they in Grissom. So, here it is.
So, how many saw this coming? I figured he was a suspect, but I tried to be sneaky. ...This is my first attempt at anything like this. :)
Silly--if you honestly get that tattoo, I'll throw my rule about GSR happy endings out the window and you can have him!
...Oh, for Jelly's sake, Silly and GSRCSILVR... We need a Mwahaha...
Chapter Forty-Eight:
"Hello Debbie."
I looked up—I had heard the sirens, but I hadn't heard any footsteps into the restaurant. I assumed they were up looking through hotel rooms… so I didn't know who would have found me. It wasn't, as I expected, a police officer who thought he was too cool for anything but a casual greeting when he'd found the target of a state-wide missing person search. It was Dr. Samson.
My eyes widened in surprise. "Oh, Hello, doctor…"
He smiled. "Ah, out in the real world you can just call me Peter. Or Pete, if you like."
He slid into the booth across from me, an action which also surprised me. "It's a surprise to see you here—I eat lunch here about three times a week. …But I'm guessing that you're not a regular."
I considered saying I was meeting a friend, but if he was just getting here, wouldn't he notice that the friend didn't come the whole time he was eating his dinner? "I, uh… I'm not. Gil and I are just… having problems, so… I needed an hour or two away."
There. That was more than plausible. I was just damned lucky he hadn't seen the news. …Although, if he had, maybe he had already phoned the police and he was simply trying to keep me here. I swallowed while he told the waitress who'd approached that he'd take coffee, black. He turned back to me. "I'm sorry—I hope you don't mind if I join you. I'm not expecting anyone, and it just seems silly for us both to eat alone…"
I bit my bottom lip. He was a respected psychologist. There was no way he hadn't called the police if he knew. "You know, that'd be really nice but… I was finished. I think I'm gonna head home now." I started to rise, pulling the bill that had been laid on the edge of the table towards myself.
"Sit down, Sara." His voice was low, threatening, but calm. It sent ice through my veins, and I complied instantly. I sat down, clasping my shaking hands in my lap, feeling how pale I'd become.
"You?" I couldn't help the vulnerable tone in my voice… the slight tremor on the end of the word.
He smiled. "Me. Now, I assure you you'll have plenty of time to ask all the questions you want, but the waitress is coming over as I speak. I can guarantee you there is none of your… forensic evidence… to back you up if you accuse me. And frankly, why would the public trust a woman who steals the dying wife of the crime lab's identity for months? Lets his child call her mommy… lures him into her bed?"
He took a long drink of coffee, his eyes surveying my face. "So you will be silent, or you will watch as everyone believes me over you, knowing that as soon as it all blows over, I won't rest until I have held little Wesley's heart beating in my hands…"
I swallowed convulsively. I was pale and trembling and freezing—chills running up and down my arms—when the waitress arrived. "Are you alright, ma'am?"
I glanced between her and Dr. Samson and nodded. "…I…I'm… fine."
"Can I get you anything else?" I shook my head—I couldn't even pretend to eat. The thought of food made me certain I would vomit.
She looked to Dr. Samson. "What can I get for you, sir?"
He ordered like he planned to stay for a while—an appetizer, a large meal with several sides… I wouldn't be surprised if he made me sit through him eating a slice of apple pie.
I was frightened, yes, but the fact of the matter was that I didn't have to think. I wasn't trying to escape—this is exactly what I'd intended, because the alternative was putting… the only real family I'd ever had… at risk. So I did what he wanted. I sat still, I answered the waitress when she tried to offer me some tea to make me feel better, though she couldn't place my ailment—especially with the innocuous, suited doctor across from me, smiling kindly—and I waited. Because cliché as it sounds, I did want answers.
She moved away from the table, and Dr. Samson turned to me with a smug sort of smile. "Ah, Sara. Tell me that you remember me?"
I shook my head, trying to control my breathing. Yes, the end was coming, but I could stave off the inevitable for a time, at least. Certainly he wouldn't kill me before he finished his meal—and if I could keep him talking after that… it wouldn't save me, but it would buy me precious, irreplaceable moments of that which I had never truly appreciated, even after the plane crash. Because my whole life, life itself had been a challenge… something to be endured, or overcome, but… when you have time to think, before the end, you realize that the simple action of breathing in and out—the sweet, overwhelming, amazing ability to comprehend that you are breathing and the process by which it works… the path air takes from nose to lungs to blood to brain…
Existence, all by itself, is a blessing, self-destructive though I may have been at different times in my life. I hadn't felt that way, before—but I knew it now. And I would do what I could to draw every second out, even if I wouldn't let myself run from him.
He frowned, almost playfully, at my head shake. "We lived with the McLanes… You were seven. Your first foster home—I was nine. You kissed me in the closet under the stairs when we were playing hide and seek, because we'd seen the older kids doing it…"
My eyes were wide. He was describing the memory one might describe a fond moment with a dear, life-long friend. "I… there was… you… changed your name?"
He shrugged off-handedly. "My juvenile records are sealed—changing my name at eighteen meant that the person I used to be all but disappeared. It's hard to be a respected psychologist when you went through enough foster homes to guarantee that half of San Francisco knows someone who would know you by name… Although, a few recognized me by my face anyway—apparently they didn't want to talk to some foster brat about their own issues in the foster care system… so I moved."
I shook my head slowly—it was pounding. I couldn't comprehend all of this… he'd been in front of us the whole time.
"Why… me?" I blinked tears away, turning my face from him. I didn't want him to see them, even if they'd been clear in my voice. His smile was actually rather warm… sympathetic.
"Well, to be fair, you were simply one of many… and you happened to be coming to Vegas. I so much prefer when they come to me… But when I had decided to have you, and then I believed I'd lost you in the crash… it was devastating."
"And then I walked into your office." I said, on a huff, in complete disbelief of my luck. I'd had a serial killer basically stalking me and my crazy plan to become Debbie had almost saved me. Almost.
He smiled—"Well, more or less. I actually didn't know that you weren't Debbie for quite some time… You are quite the actress. I mean, I didn't know the woman… but to fool her husband for months… impressive."
He said it as though I should gush at his praise—as though he thought his compliments were gifts. His behavior was far more discomforting than if he'd had a cold smile or empty, expressionless eyes. He wasn't a victim of psychosis or a sociopath or acting out abuse from his own past, repeating the cycle. He was rational, and kind, and friendly. Likeable, even, except that he was talking about killing me.
I swallowed, fighting back tremors. "When… did you?"
He took his time, placing a bite in his mouth and chewing slowly, before swallowing. "Well, I'd had you bugged for months. Your home, your cell phone, your purse… Believe me, that was the hardest part. You are rather paranoid, Sara—do you really need two deadbolts and a chain in a controlled access building?"
I rolled my eyes, half angry now and half upset at myself—how had someone been in my home without my knowing it? "Obviously I wasn't paranoid." I snapped, and he chuckled jovially, like this amused him to no end. He took a drink and speared more food on his fork, though he waited to bring it to his mouth, finishing his explanation.
"Well—on the plane, someone asked you if you were the boy's aunt or mother. The flight attendant said her name, and I did some research… wife of the Crime Lab Director—the very man you were so excited to come to Vegas and meet. Did you know, when you were sitting beside her, that you loved him? Or did you not fall in love with him until he was putting another woman's face over yours?"
I grit my teeth, not answering, and he chuckled. "Well, regardless, I also found some… interesting… pictures of Debbie on websites of… ill repute. The tattoo was kind of a trademark. I knew she wasn't likely to get rid of it… so when I find out the Sara Sidle look-alike in my office, whose husband keeps talking about how much she's changed, no longer has such a distinguishing characteristic… Well, I figured it was worth a shot."
Now he took his bite, but he swallowed quickly, as if this were the part he'd been waiting for. His eyes even looked the slightest bit less sane, and I didn't find it as comforting as I thought I would have, only moments ago. "I know you, Sara. I spent a year listening to you… You never broke that nasty journaling habit from all those years of counseling after Daddy had his way with you, did you? …Do you know that you mutter what you're writing, as you write? So very interesting. …You've always been soft-hearted. Selfless. You ranted to yourself for an hour when the one criticism you received from the thesis committee was that you empathized too much with the victim when your focus should have been the evidence…
"If you were Debbie, and I was wrong, you'd have stayed with them, ignorant of what my message with the dad and the boy meant… perhaps unaware I'd even sent one. …But if you were Sara—you would find out, and you would do everything you could to put distance between yourself and your 'family'. The missing person report on the news told me I was right—the police scanner told me where you were. …It was really too easy, Sara. I admit it, the switching identities threw me off… but…"
He trailed off, his eyes focused behind me. I turned and nearly choked, though there was nothing in my mouth. Gil was coming over to the table, an eyebrow raised. He looked a little mad, a little confused… very concerned… and those burning blue eyes made me feel weak. Made me want to cling to this life ever more—no matter what the risk. I didn't want them to, but my eyes flickered back to Samson. He had offered Gil a disarming smile, and though his eyes didn't even turn to fully meet mine—they focused on my nose instead—the message was clear.
I still had no proof—nothing to hold him. If I wanted to escape, I could—but we both knew what I would be risking.
