Title: Journey of the Lonely Whale: Evolution (Month 12)
Author: Lisa (ljkwriting4life)
Rating: M. This story contains strong adult themes including references to violence, sexual references, and coarse language.
Pairing: Gil/Sara
Summary: One year since re-marrying, Gil and Sara return to San Diego to fulfil work commitments. While Sara becomes involved in a case that stirs memories of the past, she is also pushed by those around her to consider her future and her place in the world.
Notes: The JOTLW series aims to fill a gap between Immortality and CSI: Vegas. It does foreshadow CSI: Vegas and refers often to storylines established in the original CSI.
This story follows JOTLW Day 1 and Day 5 and is #3 in the series, but is set one year later.
TWO
Sara walked up the front desk when she arrived at the crime lab on Monday morning. She was wearing some of the best clothes she still owned, black pants and a new blue blouse and boots. Her freshly cut, dyed and straightened chocolate brown hair was styled around her face and shoulders thanks to the motel's feral hairdryer that would normally rank right up there with 'things she did not want to touch in that disgusting room', but it had served its purpose and she had hand sanitiser, so it was fine. She was fine. She forced a smile to her face when the receptionist looked up.
"I'm Sara Sidle, I'm here to see Nick Stokes," she said.
"Does he know you're coming?"
"Yes," Sara said. Her smile became more natural even as her heart beat quickly in her chest. The receptionist had picked up the phone to call Nick in his office.
Sara had not seen Nick since they said goodbye after he witnessed the wedding a year ago, but they had kept in touch over email and the odd phone call when Sara and Gil were in range of service. She was grateful to him for allowing her to drop back in from nowhere just so she could keep her qualifications. She had no real desire to return to criminalistics full time, but she wasn't ready to give it away entirely either. Letting her certifications expire would mean something big that she wasn't ready to face yet. Besides, she and Gil had just taken a gap year, a year-long honeymoon around the Pacific, so they had no settled commitments and they could use the cash to top up their savings, which now included the proceeds from the sale of Sara's Las Vegas condo. She was glad that she had let that place go entirely. She wasn't going back there unless somebody died.
"Sara!" Nick called from down the hall. "Sara Sidle, you made it!"
Sara stepped back from the desk and waved a little, and Nick grinned and opened his arms. They hugged tightly. She had given him a call to let him know she had arrived in San Diego and to confirm when he wanted her at the lab, but it was so good to see her old friend in person again.
"Come to my office," he said. "We'll catch up."
Sara nodded and quietly followed him along the hall to his office. Nick Stokes, Lab Director. There was a plate on the door and on his desk to remind everyone of that fact. Sara tried to imagine what her own name plate would have looked like. If she had stayed in Vegas, would she have looked at those words – Sara Sidle, Lab Director – and thought about Gil, and the chance she didn't take, every day? Yes, she answered to herself as she touched Nick's desk plate and sat in a visitor's chair.
No regrets, she confirmed kindly to her own heart.
"All settled in?" Nick asked when he sat behind his desk, oblivious to her reflections.
He looked smart, Sara realised, dressed in a white business shirt and suit pants. He was still toned and broad. His brown hair was shaved short, he was clean shaven, and she didn't really see any grey hairs even though they were the same age. Unfair, she decided, but possibly also just the office lighting. Still, she was glad she had colored her hair, and considering the way Gil had kissed her when she returned to the motel after the appointment, he had no lingering objections.
"Not yet," she answered as she met Nick's eager gaze. "It's been stressful."
"But you got the place, right?" he asked. "An agent called and asked me for a reference, oh, it must have been the day after you called to say you were back and looking for a place to stay."
"Yes, thank you, we did get it," Sara said. "In fact, I think my connection to this place and you got us over the line. I'm glad we got something quickly, but we saw so many apartments over those two days, it was brutal. We came straight off the boat, everything we looked at was a dump, our legs were useless by the end of the first day, and midway through the second day I was ready to throw in the towel and drag Gil back out to sea when they finally showed us this place. It's so much more than we were wanting to pay, but it was available immediately and it feels safe, it's in a good spot for transport and has a parking space for the rental car and it's quiet and clean and furnished. We loved it right away, it's ours for the month with the option to extend, and we're moving today."
"Today?" Nick asked, eyes wide. "Sara, if you need to be-"
"No, no, it's fine. We've got the car and Gil's in charge of the move. We travel light and he's in great shape, Nick," she said with a soft laugh. "It's a few suitcases and he's dropped me off this morning and has gone to the marina to grab some of our things off the boat, and then he'll pick up the keys from the agent and move our stuff. It's not as though we've got pots and pans and boxes to unpack. I'll go straight there tonight after shift. It's right near Balboa Park, so Gil can go for walks and find a…nice tree to sketch or read under during the day if he's not busy with writing."
"Sounds relaxing," Nick said with a smile. "What else have you been up to?"
"Ah, let's see," Sara said with a sigh. "We've done the check-ups with the slimy old doctor who I never want near me again, and the eye exams with a girl who looked like it was her second week out of college, and in two days' time we have dental appointments, and God only knows what sort of dentist we'll get. Oh, and I'll be in late. So yeah, we're really living it up in San Diego so far."
"May as well check it all off the list while you're here, is that it?" Nick asked with a chuckle.
"Pretty much, and it all has to happen fast because if they find something then we need time to deal with that before we can leave again, so…"
"Yeah, but you're not worried about anything, right?" Nick asked. "I mean, the two of you are doing okay health-wise? You said Grissom – Gil, sorry – is strong, and you're looking good, Sara."
"Thanks, and we're fine, Gil's actually lost weight in this last year, but I guess you never know, right? One of us could have cancer and not even know it. Or glaucoma. Or gum disease."
Nick smirked and shook his head.
"Ah, Sara Sidle, I've missed your optimism."
"I guess it just hasn't been very fun, Nick." She sighed. "Sorry, I'm venting. You don't need to hear all of this, I haven't been sleeping well, and it's a novelty to talk to another person."
"No, no it's fine, that's what I'm here for. Let's get some caffeine into you right away! And you can repay me by inviting me to dinner to see this new place, once you're all moved in."
"We'd love that," Sara assured him with a gentle smile. "You could bring a friend?" She raised her brow inquisitively and Nick laughed.
"I don't have a friend, right now," he said. "I'm not seeing anyone."
"Seriously?" Sara asked, not sure whether to believe him or not. Nick had always been somewhat of a ladies' man in Vegas, and he had a terrific job now, great pay, and Sara knew he was the traditional sort of guy who had always wanted to get married to a nice gal and have a few kids and a cosy house. She wondered if he was even looking, or if something else was holding him back.
"Like you can talk," Nick said, practically reading her mind. Their eyes met across the desk. "In the fifteen years I worked with you," Nick continued. "How many men did you date? Two?"
Sara smirked and folded her arms across her chest.
"Are you saying that me not sleeping around was a bad thing, Nick? Or are you trying to take credit for setting me up with one of those men, who cheated on me by the way. Think carefully."
Nick did stop to think.
Sara knew what he meant, an innocent comparison, but it was still all too easy to twist his words around and confuse him. She had missed that puzzled brotherly look and it made her laugh.
"I'm not sure I should even answer that, knowing you, and that laugh," Nick said.
"I'll answer you then," Sara said. "I was in love with my husband, like, the whole time."
"Yeah, we knew."
"You did not," Sara insisted with a brighter laugh.
"We knew once Gil told us and we found out you were living together."
"Oh yes, stellar detective work there," Sara replied. "But I do feel more awake now, thanks!"
"I tell you what," Nick said as he too laughed and leant back in his chair. "I've missed having someone to laugh with. Lab Director, it's a different kind of gig, you know? Another level up and a step removed from shift supervisor. Some days, I'm not surprised you got a whiff of it and bolted."
"I didn't run away from the job," Sara said seriously. "How can I help you now, though?"
She meant it; she was there to help. The county had contracted her for the month as a consultant. She could still do everything except carry a gun, but even that was easily fixed.
"I thought I'd introduce you to the team," Nick said. "Get you shadowing the day shift. That's where I've got my two rookies, Sophie and Lochie, CSI 1 and pretty much fresh out of college with their degrees, like that nice young optometrist you were telling me about. They're all over the new tech but it's the, uh, the problem-solving experience they need to watch for themselves more than anything. Day shift supervisor is Aaron Venables. Nice guy, about fifty. He's happy to have you on board. There are six others in the crew and it can be tough to manage, so he's gonna trust you, Sara. I'd like to get you mentoring Soph and Lochie, working cases with them, and helping in the lab."
"Sounds good," Sara said. "What about the night shift?"
"It's not like Vegas. Cases here are just as serious of course, but they can be pretty cut and dried too. Shootings, some gang stuff, so much DV, break and enter, assault, traffic accidents, rarely do we get anything freaky. Night shift is just part of the roster here, so everyone pulls some nights along the way and it's not always at full capacity. I'm keeping you off those shifts, Sara, that's not why you're here. You've gotta go home on time at the end of shift, no matter what, that's an order. I'm not authorised to pay you any overtime, and you can't go into the field until you're authorised to carry, if that's something you'd be prepared to do and only if you still feel comfortable carrying again. In any case, any time you're in the field you're in a vest, it's policy here. The slimline vest is the minimum, no exceptions."
"I can pass the firearms test," Sara said. "Today, if necessary."
Nick smirked wisely.
"Oh, I have no doubt you'll give it a red-hot go," he said, teasing her as they both laughed. "But instead of me taking your word for it, how about after lunch we go hit some targets? Now, considering your eye exam, you will be able to see the targets, won't you?"
"Yes, smarty pants," she said with a playful glare as they both stood. "As long as I don't have to read any little words on them, it's fine."
"Ah, you've reached that magic milestone, have you? Congrats."
"Gil needed new glasses too," Sara huffed as Nick laughed.
"Relax, Sara." He opened his desk drawer and lifted a glasses case. Sara's mouth dropped open in an excited gasp. Nick quickly put them away, shut the drawer and pointed his finger at her. "You don't say a word, you promise? I trust you," he insisted. "I only need 'em at night when I'm tired. This job is…mostly paperwork and shaking hands. You would've hated it."
Sara pursed her lips and grunted. Maybe that was true.
"How uh, how badly do you need glasses, Sara?" Nick asked carefully. "I'm sorry but I have to ask as your boss. You got 'em with you just in case?"
"I have a cheap pair from the drug store while I wait on the others to be ready," she said on a sigh. "They're not perfect but they'll do for the week. I need them for close-up work if the lighting is bad, for example if I'm reading in bed at night, a bit like you I guess. I'm safe to work, Nick."
"I believe you. Hey, how do you guys read on the boat? When I first found out about the two of you, I imagined you with this big library, and I never figured out how Grissom stayed sane on that boat all that time without any books. I know the internet can be unreliable that far offshore."
"I download books onto my tablet when I can," Sara said. "Gil does the same with his laptop. Back-issues of journals and magazines as well. We've got a storage unit here too, and we'll switch out the few books we do have with us for some others. We read plenty, trust me. Coffee time?"
"Yeah, let's go to the break room and I'll introduce you around. We've got great coffee."
Sara grinned. That was the best news she'd had all week.
"What makes you think these cases are all connected?" Sara asked as she stood at the large table and observed evidence from the four files spread out in front of her. Sophie and Lochie were on either side of her, helping to arrange the photographs and various notes they had collected.
"Very little at first," Sophie explained. Her voice was shaking and Sara pressed her lips together to try to hide her smile. It was endearing that they were nervous to present for her, though Nick had talked her up more than she deserved when he introduced them. Sara had hardly been the Director of the Las Vegas Crime Lab for very long, and her background was in materials analysis, but she wouldn't call herself an 'expert' after a year away from the job either. She hadn't kept up with a lot of the advances that Sophie and Lochie would be across. She had given herself a proper break, so it really should have been her voice that was shaking, but Sara felt calm, curious, and eager to learn.
"Go on," she urged them.
"Okay, this first case was from five months ago, just a brick through a window. It landed and shook off some of this trace that was collected. Everyone thought it was just a kid, a super routine job for us. No fingerprints or camera footage from the neighbours or anything. It seemed random."
"Then four months ago, this case," Lochie said as he directed her attention to the next file. "Another suburban home a few blocks over, same neighbourhood, another brick."
"What's this neighbourhood like?" Sara asked, recalling Nick had mentioned some gang activity, but the homes she was looking at in the photographs appeared to have well-kept yards.
"Oh it's nice, kind of quiet," Sophie said. "Too expensive for the two of us."
"Ah, maybe for me as well then!" Sara said, teasing with a laugh. If only they knew how much she and Gil were paying for somewhere to live for one month. Sara thought Gil would have a stroke when they heard the figure, but he agreed quickly and calmly. They did have the money.
"Anyway," Lochie said, keen to get down to business. He was a serious young man. "The only thing these two cases had in common was the object, same type of brick, but one month apart it just wasn't the sort of thing we were necessarily going to solve. More people put cameras around their homes and they started a neighbourhood watch, and far as we know it's not happened again since."
"Then three months ago there was a break-and-enter, a proper one this time," Sophie said. "The wife got home, parked her car in the garage and walked into the house only to find the front door open and a footprint in the front hall that she saw right away was too big to be her husband's, and she called the police. There was no sign of the guy, and the family said nothing was taken."
"Okay," Sara said slowly.
"I always thought it was strange," Sophie continued. "It was one of my first cases in the field and it never sat right with me because this was a well-off family, they had good stuff lying around. Big electronics, small pieces of jewellery and things that could be easily pawned. I always thought people broke in to either steal or hurt other people. I dunno, it just felt kind of weird in there."
"First day jitters," Lochie teased.
"Oh stop it, it was not," Sophie shot back with a laugh.
"And this fourth one?" Sara asked.
"Two weeks ago, another woman comes home from work and it's the same thing. Gets home, realises the front door is ajar, sees a footprint that doesn't belong. She normally lives alone. She runs to a neighbour and calls the police. No prints on the front door but the lock was forced."
"Did either of these two homes have cameras?"
"No and neither did the closest neighbours," Lochie said. "Could be coincidence, or someone was looking for blind spots. But also, all four victims are older women, forties and fifties, varied ethnicity, all single except for number three. Again, it could be a coincidence, or careful selection."
"So, these two break-and-enters are almost certainly connected," Sara said of the most recent two events. "Why do you believe these older two brick throwing cases could be part of it?"
"It's the footprints," Sophie announced. "Look at the two photos from the third and fourth scene." She showed Sara the two photographs. "What do you see?" she asked, soft and inquiring.
Sara pressed her lips together to stop herself smirking. Sophie sounded like Gil. However, Sara immediately put that thought aside when she noticed the serious issue across the two photos.
"It's the same print," she said. "It's the same shoe, the right shoe, in about the same place in each hallway. It's also pointed at an odd angle toward the wall. If someone walked it in then the print would be facing ahead, not off to the side. This was the only print you found at both scenes?"
"Yeah, no others."
"If someone was tracking in this much dirt there would be partials leading away from it, and if they'd come in through the front door they would have left this clear print nearer to the door."
"Precisely our thinking," Sophie said. "It was planted, at both scenes. We just don't know why."
"A person breaks into a home in the middle of the day and doesn't take anything," Sara narrated. "They're in and out through the front door, which means they're confident they won't be noticed, but they leave the door open so the homeowner does notice. The only thing they do while inside the house is plant a shoeprint instead of making off with any valuables. To me, the motive's more personal than theft, it's terror. What's the connection between the first two, and these two?"
"The print," Lochie said. "Neither of these homes had anything that looked like that material in their yards, so we compared the samples and had it analysed. It's brick dust, and as far as we can tell…the dust from both prints is a match, and it's the same as the trace collected from around the bricks that were thrown into the houses from case one and two. It's circumstantial, but curious."
"We'd love you to take a look and see what you think," Sophie said hopefully.
Sara nodded, eager to look at the reports and the evidence for herself.
"At first I was thinking a possible builder, someone on a building site," Sophie continued. "I ran a search looking for any other cases involving bricks or brick dust and found these two older wilful damage cases that both happened just before Lochie and I started at the lab. It looks like there could be a connection, or at least a common source. This is pretty much where we're up to with it."
"Is there any connection between these women or their homes?" Sara asked. "Gyms, schools, work, utility companies, churches, you get the idea?"
"Yeah, we don't have thorough lists from the first three," Lochie answered. "The uh, the last woman was thorough, but she also leads a quiet, routine life. No gym, no regular coffee spot or takeout, no real social life, I don't think we ever asked about a church, so if there is a connection it hasn't leapt out at us, and the opportunities for this to be anything other than random is limited."
"And by random you mean-"
"Opportunistic. Someone sees her at the store one day by chance and follows her home."
"Obviously some planning or surveillance then goes into it," Sophie added. "I think you're right that, you know, they felt confident going up to the front door. They knew there weren't dogs, they knew no one was home at the time. Neighbours didn't remember seeing anything strange."
Sara nodded. The last two incidents alone were concerning enough for the time being.
"And there are no suspects?" Sara asked. "No fingerprints, no DNA, no video, nothing?"
"Nothing that points us to a suspect," Lochie said. "Just the shoe. The tread matches a size thirteen work boot, popular, available in dozens of stores. Supports a possible construction worker theory, but if it's planted that could be a deliberate choice to throw us off track. We could be looking for someone who's never been on a building site. Hell, we could be looking for a woman."
"But they would still need access to the brick dust, to plant it," Sophie mentioned.
"True," Sara said. "So, two and a half months between these last two break-ins."
Sophie and Lochie both nodded and watched her.
"Is that a problem?" Sophie asked.
"No, no," Sara said calmly. "Not a problem, necessarily, just a bit…odd. The victims haven't had any other threats, no crank calls, no unusual mail or evidence of identity theft or stalking?"
"None," Sophie said. "At least, none since we last spoke to them all, nothing new reported. By all accounts, each of these looks like a random, out-of-the-blue, one-off thing. Why?"
"Whoever's doing this is very patient," Sara said carefully.
"Do you have, like, a bad feeling, Sara?" Sophie asked. "That's how I felt in the house."
Sara pressed her lips together. She preferred focusing on evidence, but she knew the feeling.
"I want to go back and talk to these women," she said. "We need to find out how their lives overlap. I'm not convinced whoever's responsible is done, or that they'll wait another two and a half months before they do it again. Let's stay on this, I'll do what I can to help, but good work so far."
Brick dust, she thought. She wanted to see it before she did anything else.