Part Four

Warrick



Author's notes: OK, sorry this one took me so long. Truth is, I had chapter four all done and ready to be posted when suddenly my computer decided to crash just before I had it saved. And something of course HAS to go screwy with the backup copy, so I had to rewrite this. Anyways, here it is. Hope you like it. PLEASE REVIEW.

Thanks to all of you who have already reviewed. Especially Sara, who was nice enough to IM me :):):)

Oh, and I use the term "fish bowl" in this part. I got it from another fan fic, I forget which one it was, but she used that term. I was glad she did because before I read it I had no idea what that room was called. Thanks a lot, author! You know who you are, I guess! Also, the line "sweating like the pig that knows he's dinner" is taken from the episode Adventures In Paradise, Part Two of Frasier.

Enjoy.



Grissom came walking toward me that afternoon with a satisfied grin on his face. "Me and Catherine checked out the crime scene again. Everything was cleaned up. Everything. The maid had come. She comes every two or three days. She says she cleaned up every inch of the bedroom the morning before the crime was committed, which means that those fingerprints on the window- ledge had to be from that night, since we found them the morning after the crime. So, we get the boyfriend, print him, and he matches our window-ledge friends. He's in the fish bowl right now." He raised his eyebrows at me and smiled. "Wanna watch him squirm?"

I laughed and shook my head. "No thanks man. I just got a call from the hospital, our victim woke up." Grissom looked surprised.

"Why didn't they call me?" He asked.

I pointed to his belt. "Is your cell on?" He looked down and shook his head.

"Oops." He headed toward the door to the fish bowl room. "You sure you don't want to watch for just one second?" He asked again.

"Aren't you the least bit excited that our only eye witness woke up? She could be the missing link, Grissom!" I said.

His eyes twinkled. "She suffered a severe blow to the head, remember Warrick? She was probably unconscious the whole time the guy was stabbing her." My heart sank to my stomach. Damn. There goes our last chance.

Sara walked toward us. "The boyfriend is sweating like the pig that knows he's dinner." She said gleefully. "Hey Warrick, ya wanna watch?" She asked.

I rolled my eyes. "Just for a second." I said, then walked to the large window that looked into the room. A young boy sat in one of the chairs, opposite Grissom and Sara, who had just arrived. He couldn't have been more than sixteen. And Sara was right, he looked awful nervous.

I watched him get even more nervous while Grissom questioned him for a while, but got sick of it and walked away. I wanted more than anything to get to that hospital and find out if the little girl remembered anything. Anything at all.



I watched Kortnee through the window in the door of her hospital room. She was lying in bed, covered in tubes, but her eyes were wide open and she didn't look like she was in much pain. "God bless Morphine." I said, chuckled softly to myself, and opened the door.

"Kortnee Wallace?" I asked. She looked up and smiled weakly. "I'm Warrick Brown from the crime unit. I'm here to ask you a few questions. Is that OK, do you think you can stay awake long enough?"

"Maybe. I'm real tired though." She looked at me with wide eyes, all the same. "I like your name. It's nice."

"Thanks. I like your name, too." I took her tiny hand in mine and watched it as it hung there, almost lifeless. "Do you remember anything about what happened to you a few nights ago?"

I held my breath, waited for her reply. Her eyes filled up with tears and her shaky voice filled the room. "Where's Dessy? I want to talk to Dessy." She started to cry silently, and my heart broke.

"Kortnee, I'm sorry. Dessy can't talk to you right now, she's not here." I watched as her face grew more afraid. "But I promise, I won't hurt you. I'm here to help. I'm a good guy." I searched desperately for a way to prove it to her. I showed her my badge. "You see this? This says that I'm a police officer, and that I won't hurt you."

She fingered the outline of it and then threw me a lopsided grin. "OK, I believe you." Then she sighed in a weak, childish way. "I don't really remember what happened except for that it hurt a lot. And cold hands."

I nodded. "Anything else?"

She shook her head. "Why can't I talk to Dessy? I really miss her a lot."

"The police officers think that maybe your sister was the one to stab you." The wheels in her little mind turned. She looked confused, but spoke.

"No. Dessy went away that night, to her boyfriend's house. Because he came over that day and he hit me, right in the face. And I cried, and Dessy cried too. So she said that night she was gonna sneak over to his house and break up with him cause he was mean to me. She couldn't tell Mommy and Daddy because they didn't even know Dessy was with that guy. They didn't even like him. And then I was sleeping, and I got woken up by him in my bedroom, and I got hit on the head with something from behind as soon as I sat up, cause I was looking for Dessy out the bedroom door, and then after that I don't know what happened, except that I'm lying here talking to you, that's all I remember."

I sat back, shocked. Well, there goes Brian Dawson's plea of innocence. Looks like we got ourselves a genuine eye witness.



I practically ran through five red lights on my way back to the lab. I had, of course, taped everything that Kortnee had said, because you never know if she could fall back into a coma. And then our case would be lost again.

One thought ran through my mind my entire drive home. I was going to catch that sick bastard, put him in jail, and see to it that he received the longest sentence in the state of Nevada's power for a crime like this.

And I hope the bastard rots in hell, I thought.