Authors Notes: Originally, Catherine had been given another daughter in memory of Warrick but since I'm changing the tense of the story.. she still has Warrick himself!

Chapter 4!

Tuesday came quicker than Ryan had been prepared for. He was a little nervous starting a new job in a city where he didn't know many people. Ryan had decided to keep his clothing style not too preppy. He decided on white dress pants, a white dress shirt layered with a lime green, round necked sweater and a cream colored blazer. He clipped his work I.D. to his belt so that it was still in plain sight and put his firearm in his bag. He'd put that on once he reached the lab.

He'd spiked his fringe up to suit his look with some gel. Ryan grabbed his binders and stuff, before leaving his apartment and heading to his newly dropped off car. He needed that to get to work otherwise he'd be stuck hitching rides everywhere and in Vegas that didn't count for much. In both Miami and Vegas, you were surrounded by party people.

On the way to the LVPD Crime Lab, his nerves began to kick in and Ryan did think about how it could go if he fucked it up again. He couldn't do that. Definitely not. Among all other people that had applied for this role, he'd been the luckiest one to get accepted. He had waited a few months for thr results. A background review had been done and they'd looked into his past. He was sure he had a clean record. Never been arrested or involved in a case as a suspect. Clean as they got.

When he entered the Las Vegas Crime Lab for the first time in a long time, he wasn't surprised nothing had really changed. The last time he was there - it was because he had been injured in a crash that happened near his hotel and the CSIs were looking for a killer. He had to give his statement about what he saw and they would see if what he saw was legible for court. And it had been. That's what happened the last time he was in Vegas. Which is why until he got the job, he was hesitant to go back.

Many people stared at him as he walked through the halls. He was shorter than most of the people he'd come across, though he was obviously more built up in terms of muscles. Being just under 5'10" did come with the occasional torment from older colleagues who were taller. Ryan had come across Catherine's office as he was walking. Of course he knew where he was going though. And his new boss spotted him, calling him into her office. Ryan took a few steps back and entered her office.

"Ryan. See you're here on time. Not many people make it through rush hour."

"Yeah. I heard about that.. where do you need me?"

The blonde was generally quite surprised about his timing. It was very rare for a new team member to be on time on their first day. "Ah, yes. You okay to work an unsolved?" "Great. I'll get to work once I drop this off." CSI Willows liked him already. He had been the first person not to give her sarcasm while also showing he had a personality of his own. Interesting persona he had.

Once he left the supervisory CSI's office, he went to the locker room. Glancing at the name plates on each locker.. he soon found his. It was one that hadn't been used as the lockers had been updated and that one remained empty as he'd heard. As his old one, it had 'WOLFE' plated on it. Ryan opened it up and set his locker up. He stacked up his binders and put in his spare clothes (exact replicas of his outfit). Ryan hung up his CSI jacket, his coat and his spare blazer. He had to be prepared for all weather circumstances as it wasn't like Miami.

"You're the new CSI right?"

Ryan shoved his bag into his locker and turned around. A guy with sandy blonde hair, just about six foot tall and chocolate brown eyes that focused on him. "Yeah. That's me." He answered, putting his firearm on the shelf and closing his locker. "I'm CSI Sanders. Greg." The young CSI looked the older CSI up and down. "CSI Ryan Wolfe. In Miami, we went by 'Officer' though."

Greg chuckled. "Not here. Heard you're on the unsolved?" Ryan nodded. It seemed people heard a lot of things around the lab. "Yeah. I've gone over all the case reports. The tattoo is a gang tattoo we would recognise as a Mala Noche gang member's marking. I think I could get something out of the blurred images." Sanders gave him a funny look. "Thought Trace was your thing?" "I did a lot of studying, took a lot of seminars and got my masters degree. You'd be surprised what I know."

The two men made their way to the A/V lab. As Archie was out today, there wasn't anyone in there. Ryan brought up the blurred images and began to work on them. "What are you doing?" "What we couldn't do a few years ago." He answered, Greg struggling to get a picture of what he was going.

"I'm enhancing the photo's quality. As it's not too ruined, I should be able to salvage a good enough improved photo quality."

When Ryan was done, the picture was clearer and showed a car mirror with a man in the reflection. "Zoom in on the face." Ryan zoomed in. "I've seen him before." Wolfe stated, running his face through the facial recognition system. Greg hadn't expected his new partner to be this experienced. He was sure when he was being given a boy in his later twenties that it meant he was getting a trainee. Not a Level 2 CSI who was more than capable of working a case on his own.

"What else do you specialise in?"

"In terms of lab things? Trace mainly, along with DNA."

That had surprised CSI Sanders. As far as he knew, he was the only one on the team that specialized in DNA. "DNA? Me too." "Ah, I got the impression." The facial recognition seemed to have worked as their conversation was interrupted by the beeping that indicated the process had completed. Ryan brought up the results and saw it was a match to someone already in AFIS.

"We're going after a known scam artist. Simon Perez, previously charged with assault and being an accessory to a robbery."

Greg was amazed by how fast the young CSI worked. Not even he worked that quickly. Ryan seemed to have his ways. And being able to do the A/V work helped a lot. This was a cold case that had been reopened because of a murder that was supposedly linked to it. Those pictures were the only things they had to go on. As Ryan was always up to speed on the intimate details of the case, reviewing the evidence that proved worthless before in the original investigation proved fatal.

Ryan had an idea. He left the A/V lab and made his way to the spare lab where they had laid out all the evidence from both murders. Sanders assumed that Wolfe had an idea as to what he was doing. He was a trained CSI and he should trust his teammate. Ryan slipped on his gloves and took a look at the murder weapon from the original case. The prints hadn't matched anyone on AFIS. He thought that it might have a better shot this time as the database was much more updated and they could check the National Criminal Database if they needed to.

He took the prints taken and went to fingerprints, where he got them retested for a match. "Are you sure this is worth it?" "Yeah. In cold cases - the pattern happens to be that the killer is always the best at blaming someone else. We need evidence that puts Perez in at least one crime scene. Brass interviewed Perez and he was overly willing. The victim was stabbed four times. Once in the throat. Twice in the heart. Once in the upper arm. The last one's position would indicate a wound taken from a struggle as it proved non fatal. A stabbing to heart implies a much more personal motive for the murder."

It was no surprise that the prints had lined up with his conspiracy that Perez had given himself into the police way too easily using the tiniest ways of manipulation to make people trust why he was saying. It had worked until the young CSI had broken the case by finding a pattern. The murders had similar M.O.'s and the stabbing to the heart was what made it a certified case of a possible serial killer. They needed to find Perez, and fast.