The soft and familiar hand stroking his sweaty brow slowly brought him back to consciousness. His breathing was raspy, laboured, the still, stifling air trapped inside the basement he was being kept prisoner in slowly cooking him to death. He never saw Wallis, or the baseball bat that swung at him as soon as he stepped into the house, a single blow to the side of the head that had him on the ground faster than it took the Mercedes to peel off out of this hell hole. All was quiet now, except for the pounding in his head crushing his skull with every beat.

He was on his side, lying on a dirty thin mattress that smelled of damp and mould. His lips were cracked, sore, tasting of salt and blood when he licked them. He was so thirsty. He tried to open his eyes but they were sealed shut and prising them open took all his strength. It was dark all around, night time, he figured when he finally got his eyelids working. Last he remembered the June sun had been shining high in the sky, burning the back of his head as he walked like a man on death row toward the house. How long had he been out for the count? A few hours? A day? Longer?

Lips brushed against the corner of his mouth, tasting of love, of home, breathing a shot of much needed fresh air into his lungs. Sara, he thought, the shadow of a smile flickering across his face. He stirred, his lips parting instinctively, seeking hers in a low mumble of relief.

"Hey," she whispered softly, her lips vibrating against his skin as she pulled back from him.

"Sara."

"Don't talk," she said, "You must try to keep your strength until help gets here. Brass and the guys are on their way. It won't be for much longer."

"They found Maria?"

Sara nodded her head. "I recognised the logo on the sweatshirt."

His expression darkened as he understood the implications of what she was saying. He swallowed. "You okay?"

She gave him a soft smile and a nod. "I did exactly what you said I should."

"That's my girl. Make sure you stay there, alright?" He tried reaching up to touch her face but found he couldn't. "And don't start poking your nose in my things." Sara let out a giggle that warmed his heart and he closed his eyes. "Promise me to stay safe, okay?"

"Greg's with me."

The nod Grissom gave made his eyes clench with pain. "I thought he would. Play nice with him, you know he's no match for you." His words came in raspy mumbles, barely audible. He took a few slow breaths until the worst of the pain had subsided and when he reopened his eyes he was staring into the most loving and tender look he'd ever seen. "I'm sorry," he said, tears forming, "But she had a gun on me. Said that if I didn't do as she said she'd…go after you. I had no choice, Sara, I'm sorry."

Slowly she raised his head, placing it on her lap. "Sshhh…" she soothed, her hand returning to his brow and stroking. "I know."

"I don't think she'll find her way back to this place," he said.

"She will. Brass will make sure she does."

"Wallis twisted her head. She didn't know what she was getting herself into."

"Neither did you."

He sighed, and tried moving his arm again but to no avail. One was trapped under his body, and he realised the other was raised, twisted at an angle, cuffed to a pipe. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. "Oh, I knew, Sara. I knew from the beginning it would come to this."

"Brass will be here soon. You just hang in there."

Grissom became agitated. "Tell Brass not to come, that the house is..." his words, barely audible murmurs, broke off in a coughing fit.

"Shh…" she soothed, "It doesn't matter. Brass will figure it out."

"I miscalculated everything," he went on in a hoarse whisper after a while. "By then there was no turning back." He began to shiver, teeth clattering noisily. "I'm cold."

He felt the mattress dip as she lay down and wrapped her arms around him from behind. He moved his arm to take hold of her hands forgetting that he couldn't. He let out a low moan of pain.

"Don't move," she said, and pressed a kiss to his shoulder then nestled the side of her face against it.

He closed his eyes, surrendering to the immediate feeling of love and wellbeing that surged through him. He'd wait; he'd wait in her arms for fate to take its course.

"You've gone and done it now, haven't you?" she said quietly.

He felt tears rise. "I'm sorry."

"I love you," she said.

The tears came, stinging his eyes. "Not marrying you when I had the chance is my biggest regret." He paused and leaned his head back, pressing against her warmth, feeding off her strength, relishing what would be their last moment together. "I had everything set up with the department," he said after a while, "so that you're taken care of if…when."

He heard her gasp and felt her warm tears wound their way down his neck. "No, Gil. That's not how this is going to end. We haven't got this far, you and me, to give up now."

"I'm not giving up, but I can't let Brass get killed. This is my mess." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath; sleep was claiming him again. "I need to finish what I started, Sara; what I should have finished last time. It's the only way."


The address in Enterprise was in a working class neighbourhood. It wasn't the best in the Vegas area but it certainly wasn't the worst Brass had seen either. The smell of Mexican food wafted out of open windows through to his nostrils, reminding him he hadn't had anything to eat since...well, forever. Children toys littered the well-tended front yard and a battered third generation Camaro sat in the driveway. Brass strode past it, automatically checking the interior before making his way to the Suarez's front door. He motioned for two officers to go round to the back of the house then checked left and right, nodding his head at the officers already standing by on either side of him. He wasn't taking any chances.

Maria Suarez, it turned out, was a twenty-year-old girl with a record as clean as a whistle. The eldest of four, she still lived at home with mom and dad. Even her parents' records, Mexicans who had legally worked their way to a green card, didn't have a single black mark on them. No obvious connections to either Wallis brothers, or McKay, had been found. His gut told him they wouldn't find Grissom there, but so far Maria Suarez was the only lead they had.

His hand over the Glock on his hip Brass cupped his ear to the door and listened for a few seconds, frowning at the sound of a cartoon playing loudly in the background. He gave out a short sigh and banged the back of a heavy fist on the door. "Las Vegas Police," he shouted to be heard over the television noise, "Open the door."

He waited, and was about to knock a second time when a lock was turned and the door opened a crack, the scared face of a girl of around ten staring up at him. Catching his men's eyes he shook his head. His hand remained on the bulge on his hip.

"Hi," he said in a soft voice. "We're…looking for Maria. Is she in?"

The girl cast a fearful glance over her shoulder then looked back at him and shook her head. Another face appeared pushing its way through the first girl's legs and stared up at him with wide startled eyes. The little girl who couldn't have been older than two or three was dressed in faded pyjamas, ready for bed. Unaware of what was happening she smiled up at him, showing two neat rows of pearly white baby teeth.

"Are your parents home?" he asked in the same tone, bringing his eyes back up to the first girl. The warrant he had on Maria Suarez authorised him to enter the premises and use all necessary force to arrest her and yet he refrained from barging his way in.

"Sir?" an officer called from behind him.

He turned, looking over his shoulder at Officer Davies holding the suspect by the upper arm, her hands cuffed behind her back. Her eyes were downcast, shiny with tears.

"We got her at the back door," Davies said. "She gave herself up."

"Ria!" the younger of the two girls cried out.

Brass turned back just in time to see the toddler run down the front steps and wrap herself around her sister's legs. He let out a long sigh, indicating with his head for someone to go prise her off while they took Maria in.

"Maria Suarez?" he asked.

Maria's eyes remained averted but she nodded her head.

"Your parents out?"

She gave another nod.

"Is there someone, a neighbour maybe, who can look after the little ones?"

"My brother's inside," she said, looking up for the first time. No amount of make-up in the world could cover her fat lip and blackened eye. "In his room, doing his homework," and answering his next question before he'd asked it, she added, "He's got his headphones on."

"How old is he?"

"Sixteen."

Brass looked back toward the door but the girl who'd answered it had disappeared back in. "Maria Suarez," he said, turning back to address her, "You're under arrest for the abduction of Gil Grissom." By the time he'd read her Miranda rights her brother was at the door, headphone around his neck, looking shocked and bewildered.

"¿La policía? ¿María, qué pasa?"

"Llame a papa. Me están deteniendo."

"She's under arrest," Brass told the brother. "We got a warrant to search this house."

"He's not here," Maria said, finding her voice at last. "Leave them alone, they have nothing to do with this. Please, they don't know anything."

"But clearly you do," Brass said. "You can help yourself by telling me where he is now. Where did you take him?"

Maria's eyes lowered to the ground and Brass knew that shame prevented her from talking to him and admitting to what she'd done in front of her family. He covered the distance to her and grabbed her other arm, turning her toward the patrol cars.

"Leave her alone," the toddler said in her baby voice, struggling against her sister's tight hold. "Leave her alone!"

"¿María?" her brother said. "What are they talking about? Where are they taking you?"

"Lo siento," Maria said, looking over her shoulder at her brother. "Llame a papa, por favor."

"Come on, we've wasted enough time as it is, let's go."

Nick stayed behind to wait for the parents and process the house for Maria's clothes and hats and anything pertinent to her involvement in Grissom's disappearance or to his whereabouts. Catherine rode back with Brass all sirens blaring. Twenty minutes later they sat in the interrogation room at PD across from a shaking Maria and her court-appointed representative. This time Brass wasn't cutting any corners and would be doing everything by the book.

Brass eyed the fearful woman with careful consideration. She seemed meek, clearly on the edge and barely keeping it together, but he was no one's fool. She knew where Grissom was. He needed to tread carefully though or she'd clam up and waste them more precious time. He caught Catherine's eye and nodded that he was ready to start.

"What happened, Maria?" he asked, his voice calm, enquiring. "You're a good girl. You have a job you love. You live at home, help out with your brother and sisters when you parents are at work, help out with the bills even. Because that's where they are now, isn't it, at work?" He didn't wait for an answer to proceed. "You do good by everyone. Even Sara says you were good to her."

At the mention of Sara's name, Maria's head lifted from looking down for the first time since entering the room.

He met and held her watery gaze. "You look after people and you're good at it. So, what happened?"

Maria swallowed, but kept her mouth shut.

"As is it," Brass said, "we've got you on one count of abduction. I mean, there's no point denying it, we got it all on tape."

"No," Maria replied. "What you got is someone looking like me getting into his car."

"How do you know what we have?" Catherine snapped, then paused suddenly in her tracks. "You didn't think you'd get caught, did you?" she went on, "You didn't think we could trace all this back to you. That's why you were home putting the little ones to bed, acting like normal, like nothing happened. We got to you just in time, didn't we? Another day and you'd have been gone. I mean, Grissom wasn't meant to work it out so quickly, was he? That must have put a spanner in the works."

Maria held Catherine's eyes for a moment before looking down to her lap. Brass could feel Catherine bristling next to him, itching to get a result. He cast a look in the attorney's direction and as pre-agreed she had a quick word in her client's ear, offering leniency in exchange for information.

"So where is Grissom?" he asked, cutting to the chase.

A shoulder lifted. "I don't know."

The muscles in Brass's jaw twitched in irritation. "How did you know Grissom was on to you?" he asked, trying a new angle.

There was a long pause. The attorney had another word in her ear and Maria turned and stared at her silently for a long time. The latter gave her a gentle encouraging nod and Maria sighed. "Marisa told me," she said turning back toward Brass and Catherine.

Brass's brow lifted and he shared a look with Catherine. "Marisa?"

"She's Doctor Williamson's secretary."

Brass made a note of the name on a piece of paper.

"She isn't involved," Maria said quickly, almost panicky, "We're friends and we were talking and she just happened to mention it. I mean, it struck her as strange that the police would want everyone's personal details."

"And you told Wallis," he stated, rather than asked.

She fixed him with a stare, then swallowed and nodded her head.

"So what?" Catherine interjected impatiently. "You had a gun on him?"

Maria shook her head briskly. "No, I didn't." She met Brass's eyes. "But he thought I did." Her eyes darted to Catherine and then back to Brass's face. "He didn't resist. He didn't even try to talk me down, or anything. He just said, 'Where to?' It was like he was expecting it, like he knew I was coming."

Brass's eyes narrowed in suspicion. Before he could ask his next question Catherine jumped in. "So you're telling us Grissom just…went with you?" Her voice betrayed her own shock and disbelief.

Maria shrugged. "Yeah, he did."

"Oh, this is bull!" Catherine exclaimed, standing up abruptly and leaning forward, hands flat on the table.

"Catherine," Brass said in a warning tone. He waited for her to turn away and calm down to continue. "I apologise for my colleague's outburst," he said, willing to play good cop if it got him the results he needed. "But you got to see it from our point of view. Grissom's life hangs in the balance and he would appear you're not being forthright with us."

"I'm telling you the truth," Maria said.

"Okay, so maybe you want to turn that way," he said shortly, jerking his head toward the two-way mirror, "and tell Sara that. She's watching."

Brass knew that Sara was safe in Grissom's office, but Maria didn't. Her head whipped round toward the mirror, eyes wide with fear and pain as she mouthed, "I'm sorry."

"Come on, Maria," Brass said his voice rising, growing in impatience, "help yourself by helping us."

Maria turned back toward Brass. "He said that he'd do whatever it took as long as Sara wasn't hurt. That's all he was bothered about." Tears filled her eyes and she turned back toward the mirror. "I could never hurt Sara. I could never hurt anyone."

Brass sighed as he struggled to get a measure of the girl. Either she was very naïve and had fallen for the wrong guy, believing his lies and doing his dirty bidding, or she was a wicked liar.

"But surely you realised why Wallis wanted Grissom," Catherine cut in heatedly. "You knew it was revenge for what happened when Sara got hurt."

"Jimmy had nothing to do with what happened to Sara," Maria exclaimed heatedly.

Brass's brow rose. "Didn't he?"

Her expression registered surprise. She wiped the back of her hand over each eye in turn then stared at Brass for a long time as though weighing her options. "He said that Grissom was responsible for his brother's death," she said at last. "And some other woman's too. That he ruined his life, and that's why he wanted revenge."

"Is Grissom with Wallis now?" Brass asked.

Maria's eyes averted to the trembling hands on her lap and she nodded her head.

"Where is he being kept?"

She looked up. "I told you, I don't know."

Brass's tone hardened a notch. "You don't know? What do you mean you don't know?"

"All I did was read directions to an old farmhouse in the desert. Jimmy had written everything down on a piece of paper. I'd never been to it before."

"Do you still have that piece of paper?" Brass cut in, already knowing the answer would be 'no'.

She shook her head and swallowed. "I mean we always met at mine when my parents were at work. He was real nice to me at first. Boys normally don't look at me twice. He did; he made me feel special. He took an interest in my work, asked about the patients. Then he just wanted to know about Sara."

"Did you vandalise Grissom's car?" Brass asked, changing tack.

A look of confusion crossed Maria's face. "What? No! All I did was get him a copy of Sara's medical records and deliver the package. That's all, I swear." Her tears were falling freely now and sniffing she wiped at them with her sleeve. "When I said I wouldn't help him with the abduction, he turned nasty." She tilted her face toward them to show her bruise. "Said he'd hurt Lucia if I didn't do as he said."

"Lucia?"

"My baby sister. Said he only needed me to do this one last thing for him, and then that I'd never see him again. I had no choice."

Brass stared at her battered face then shared a staggered look with Catherine. Was she playing them? If she was she was a damn good actress and had the bruises to back up her claims. One way or the other, it didn't matter as long as she took them to Wallis, and Grissom.

"Okay," he said in a sigh, quickly running out of patience. "Let's get back to that house in the desert you took Grissom to. Do you think you can take us there? Which way did you head out of town?"

"We went south on the I-15."

Brass gave a nervous laugh. "As far as the state line?"

She shook her head. "We stopped for gas," she said suddenly.

"You stopped for gas?" he repeated with disbelief.

Maria nodded her head. "I thought it was a trick at first, that he'd try to make a run for it or raise the alarm but he just acted normal. Gassed up then paid with his credit card. Maybe you can check that."

Catherine was one step ahead, already on the phone and making the call to get a warrant for Grissom's credit card records. Grissom had left them a clue, maybe there were more to be found. Brass took in and let out a deep, deep breath. At least now they were going somewhere.

"Jimmy said they had a score to settle," she went on, "and it seemed like Mr Grissom was happy to go settle it."

Brass's mind was racing. "What about Grissom's car?" he said. "Where is it now?"

"I drove it back to Vegas and left it in Pinewood."

No wonder the BOLO hadn't yielded anything, Brass thought, there probably wasn't anything left of it. "His cell?"

Maria's eyes lowered. "I tossed it."

"Okay. That's how we're going to play it," Brass said, pushing to his feet. "You're coming with us and we're going to drive the same route. And you're going to pray that you remember the way because if we're too late… and Grissom is dead and Wallis once again in the wind, it will all be on you and you will go down for a long, long time."

Her arms tightly wrapped around herself Maria sniffed and nodded her head. Brass looked up beyond her, catching the officer by the door's eye and nodded at him to get her ready. They had wasted enough time already.

Hold on, buddy, he thought, hold on a little longer. We're coming for you.


Grissom never heard the creaking of the trap door as it opened and closed, or of the stairs as Wallis carefully negotiated his way down into the basement. The hard kick in the kidneys that roused him from his deep slumber was the first he knew he wasn't alone anymore.

Searing pain shot through his body and he let out a loud groan, waiting until the pain had eased up to open his eyes. He could feel Wallis's body hovering over his but he couldn't see anything in the pitch darkness. He braced himself for another kick which never came. The silence was deafening, the wait excruciating. He needed to act fast before it was too late and Brass and his men got there.

"Wallis," he said in a groan, his voice echoing in muffled sounds in his ears, "It took you long enough. Are you ready to finish what you started?"

The bright beam of a flashlight was suddenly turned on, aimed straight at his face and into his eyes, blinding him. "No," Wallis said coolly, "not what I started. What you started, old man, but not just yet." He let out a cold chuckle. "We're still one guest short."