Continued from Chapter Two; Headers and disclaimer in Chapter One.
CHAPTER NOTES: Thanks to my ever supportive mother for her insight into this chapter. Continued thanks to Amber (Minttown1) and Stepf (CSIphile) who kept us from not raining down a plague of carnivorous locusts on Las Vegas when an element of this story almost caused the whole thing to go to that big recycling bin in the sky.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sara exited the diner, the chilly, dry night air hitting her in the face as she scanned the parking lot. Stepping off the curb, she walked toward her car fifty feet away. As she approached she caught movement out of the corner of her right eye. She was surprised to see Grissom's vehicle still in the lot, but more surprised to see Grissom leaning against the hood. He was staring straight ahead, obviously lost in thought. She walked closer, but he didn't acknowledge her presence. When she was within five feet and he still hadn't turned, she cleared her throat before speaking. "Gris?" A few seconds passed with no response. "Grissom?"
Finally he spoke without turning, his eyes still fixed in front of him. "I can count on one hand the people I trust without question, and you've always been one of them. This is the first time I've ever had any reason to reevaluate that."
Sara felt each word of that last sentence like a physical blow, her legs suddenly feeling weak beneath her. She waited for him to continue. When he didn't, she took a deep breath before she managed a shaky "Excuse me?"
He faced her now, his eyes dark and his voice flat. "The phone call I just had in there...that was Mobley. Less than a minute after you looked me in the eye and told me you didn't do it he told me they have indisputable evidence that you did."
"That's impossible." Sara felt ill.
"Videotape, Sara. They have videotape of you in the evidence room that night. We're trained to listen to the evidence and right now it's telling me you're the number one suspect in a capital crime."
Sara heard a distant laugh in the background; somewhere in the recesses of her mind she was offended by this. Dazed, she measured her next words carefully and tried to keep her voice strong. "How can they have video of me in a room I was never in that night?"
"You tell me."
"I can't! Don't treat me like one of our suspects." Sara dropped her arms at her sides in frustration. "Have you seen the tape?" She asked rhetorically with more than a hint of anger.
"Why would they lie about something like this?" Grissom snapped back, equally frustrated.
"Why would I?"
Grissom looked down at the asphalt. After a few moments of silence he looked up to see a single tear roll down Sara's cheek. She hastily wiped it away with the back of her hand. She spoke again, barely audible over the sound of the traffic now. "You told me you trusted me. That nothing had changed. Has it now?"
He met her eyes and paused for a long time before speaking. "I'm trying to figure out whether I don't want to believe you could do this or whether I know you wouldn't." His honesty hit her like a blunt force to the abdomen. Sara's face tightened as she shook her head. She turned and walked in the direction of her car, her shoulders slightly hunched. He looked up again when he heard her speak.
"As much as you rely on tangible evidence, I'd hope that you would trust me more. Because if you don't believe me, I don't have a chance." Without waiting for his reaction she turned and walked away again. She barely made it to her car before the sobs began.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
After returning from the diner Grissom had barely made it to his office chair when a courier had arrived with a manilla envelope; it had already been tagged as evidence. He donned gloves before sliding an unlabelled videocassette from its case. Standing, he moved to turn off the lights and closed the blinds before returning to his desk. He slid the tape into the VCR and waited.
The timestamp identified the date as February twenty-seventh; the time was 22:46:32,or just before eleven PM. The video capture was grainy, but in color, and he could see the shelves, cabinets, and coolers that held all the department's evidence for active and recently closed cases. Several moments passed before he spotted movement at the bottom of the screen. He saw a familiar form enter the frame. Without thinking he paused the tape and closed his eyes. If he was to watch this with any form of objectivity he had to distance himself mentally. This wasn't Sara, his colleague and friend; this was Sara Sidle, the suspect.
He restarted the tape and watched as she entered the room. He immediately noticed her appearance. Her dark hair was pulled up and secured with a clip; it looked to be silver. She was wearing slim cut black pants and a blue tank top. Typical Sara, he thought, then castigated himself for the thought. He saw her cross the room to the small refrigerator that stored blood and DNA evidence. The door opened and she appeared to search the contents for several moments before removing what appeared to be a small vial. She then turned back toward the door and exited. It was as if this was any other trip during any other shift. The problem rested in the fact that Sara had denied entering evidence at all that day. There were also no records of her visit; in order to remove evidence from storage one was required to sign a log for accountability purposes. He had viewed a copy of the records from that day; Sara's signature was nowhere to be found.
He rubbed his eyes and rewound the tape. The details remained the same. Sara had entered evidence before the second positive DNA match. In her report it stated that she had gone back to the body to collect the sample. When it came to her work Sara was extremely focused and self disciplined. Forgetting that she had made a trip to storage would be uncharacteristic enough; for her to forget signing the log would be cause for alarm. Sara simply didn't make those kind of errors. He stared at her image on the screen until a voice broke him from his thoughts.
"Hey, Grissom." Catherine stood in the doorway. He hadn't noticed the door had opened. He quickly hit the stop button on the VCR, the screen now casting the room in a blue glow. Catherine moved to turn on the lights.
"Can you leave those off? I have a headache," he said, sounding more irritated than he had intended.
"Okay." Catherine moved to the chair across the desk from his. "What's wrong with you?"
Grissom stared at her a moment, pondering how much he should tell her. He remembered Sara's comment in the diner about not having anything to hide and then proceeded to fill Catherine in on everything, from the meeting with Sara earlier that evening to the tape he had just watched. She listened in silence before responding with a quick exhale of breath. "Wow.
"Yeah."
"Do you think she did it?" Catherine asked, her voice neutral.
"Based on the evidence, I would have to say yes. Based on my personal experience...that would be a definitive no."
"The evidence sounds pretty definitive."
Grissom regarded her, his brow furrowed. "The tape, the contrived timeframe, her report, and her history with these kinds of cases all point to her."
"But you don't sound convinced." It was a statement, not a question, and Grissom didn't respond. Catherine continued "Why?"
"Something doesn't add up."
"From what you've told me it seems like it does." Catherine sounded rueful.
"If all the parts of the puzzle are there, then why does the finished product look so distorted?"
"Maybe it isn't the puzzle that's distorted, but your vision."
"What?" Grissom couldn't believe his ears.
"All I'm saying is that maybe you're too close to this." Catherine said, delicately.
"Do you honestly think Sara is capable..." He trailed off, taking a deep breath to regroup. "I don't know."
"You said it yourself; all the pieces are there."
Grissom shook his head. "All but one."
"What's that?"
"Sara can be emotional, she can be headstrong, but she's never given me any reason to doubt her. She's honest almost to a fault. She wouldn't lie."
"Maybe her emotions finally got in the way." Catherine hypothesized. Grissom couldn't tell if she was playing devil's advocate. He could only assume she was. Either way he was finding that as she pushed toward the direction of the evidence he found himself pushing back. He felt like his head was clear for the first time that night.
"Let me amend that. She wouldn't lie to me." He sounded resolute now.
They sat in loaded silence for several minutes. When Catherine spoke it was with hesitation. "How close were you in San Francisco?"
Grissom looked almost amused. "Catherine, even if that implication had merit I wouldn't allow myself to be swayed from the facts."
Catherine nodded. "Of course; I'm sorry." She paused, "But if you aren't going with the evidence, then what?"
"I'm going with my gut. Something I should have done since the meeting." He stood, grabbing his keys before heading to the door.
"Where are you going?" Catherine swiveled her head to face him. but he was already gone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Grissom had good intentions. He had meant to just take a drive to clear his head instead of going straight home. As he looked back up to Sara's window, he realized that he should have known his subconscious would have other plans. But sleep wasn't an option for him
tonight anyway unless he talked to Sara; he had no doubt that she would be awake. On a good day sleep was scarce for her. He only wished he knew what he was going to say.
He was honest before, in the parking lot. But it was a truth that never should have existed in the first place. He had to make it right before the damage was irreparable. He got out of his car and crossed the street to her apartment complex. It was an unusually dark night. The streetlight seemed only to encompass a circle on the pavement, leaving corners and alleys black. There were no cars or people, just he and the darkness and the wind. His pace quickened.
He reached the main door and typed in the entrance key. 5045. He only felt slightly guilty for abusing this piece of information. The rest of him was too busy being relieved it worked.
Grissom took the stairs, mostly because he didn't want to stop moving. When he arrived at Sara's apartment his heart plummeted into his stomach. Her door was open. She was the type of person who never settled for less than triple locks: at least one deadbolt.
He didn't have a gun.
It was too dark to see anything from the crack in the door. He slowly pushed it the rest of the way open and looked around. Her jacket and purse were haphazardly thrown on the floor; her keys were on the table. Relief washed over him as he spotted Sara across the room, but his anxiety hadn't completely ebbed away.
The television was on, but the station had gone off the air. A high-pitched tone emanated from the speakers. It was a terrible noise; the sound waves clashed and stung his ears like nails on a chalkboard. Sara was sitting on the couch, staring at the remote control on her coffee table as if it were the bane of her existence. But she could simply not muster the energy or will to pick it up.
Sara was not drinking, binge-eating, or even crying, although her face was spotted and swollen. She sat there, the multi-colored lights from the television casting her in a disturbing glow. Grissom picked up the changer and turned off the TV, silencing the speakers but not the ringing in his ears. Now the only light in the room came from a street lamp outside her window and the glowing of the digital clock. 4:07 AM. She had not looked at him. In fact, she had not yet taken her eyes off the spot on the table where the remote had been.
"You know ... it's easy to say you trust somebody. People say it all the time." Grissom sat down beside her. She made no move to get away or be closer. He stared at his hands and wondered if these conversations with Sara would ever get easier. "When there's no reason to distrust, then trust becomes just another word. If it's never challenged then it is based on bad faith. And if it is challenged and you fail the test, then you never really trusted the person in the first place. And today, I failed miserably. I am immeasurably sorry...I wish I could take it back."
When Sara finally met his eyes, her look was not warm.
"Sara."
"Grissom, don't trust me because your philosophy says you should."
"That's not what I'm doing."
She couldn't hold his gaze and looked back to the table."Yes it is. You feel guilty and you rationalized why you should believe me. But you don't. You don't trust me deep in your heart."
"That's the one place where I always have."
Sara looked up, surprised, searching his eyes for sincerity and found it. She nodded and a small smile appeared without her consent. "Where do we go from here?" Her voice broke a little on the last word, and she felt the telltale knot in her throat that meant tears were at bay. Ten minutes ago she would have sworn she had cried them all. But these were a different kind.
"Well, since we don't have the tape or any evidence to work with right now, we'll just review what happened over and over until we can find a contrariety. Then we either pass out from exhaustion or go get some food."
Sara half sobbed and half laughed. "Thank you." She smiled the first real smile since the ordeal had begun, and it felt so right. Grissom returned it with equal magnitude. She wrapped her arms tightly around him, grasping his shirt and burying her face into his neck. She held him like her life depended on it, like he was her last link to reality. And maybe he was. He stroked her back soothingly for a while, but it was an awkward position sitting down. Their legs forced them to twist and reach. He shifted so his back was against the armrest, and she reluctantly twisted in his arms to lean back into his chest.
Grissom swallowed with emotion. It was so easy to just be with Sara. Too easy. He tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear and she smiled at the gesture even while her eyes remained closed. He held her there until her breathing evened out. Apparently passing out from exhaustion was going to be sooner rather than later for Sara. But they would have plenty of time to talk. This peace was what she needed right now.
Because tomorrow things were only going to get worse.
TBC
CHAPTER NOTES: Thanks to my ever supportive mother for her insight into this chapter. Continued thanks to Amber (Minttown1) and Stepf (CSIphile) who kept us from not raining down a plague of carnivorous locusts on Las Vegas when an element of this story almost caused the whole thing to go to that big recycling bin in the sky.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sara exited the diner, the chilly, dry night air hitting her in the face as she scanned the parking lot. Stepping off the curb, she walked toward her car fifty feet away. As she approached she caught movement out of the corner of her right eye. She was surprised to see Grissom's vehicle still in the lot, but more surprised to see Grissom leaning against the hood. He was staring straight ahead, obviously lost in thought. She walked closer, but he didn't acknowledge her presence. When she was within five feet and he still hadn't turned, she cleared her throat before speaking. "Gris?" A few seconds passed with no response. "Grissom?"
Finally he spoke without turning, his eyes still fixed in front of him. "I can count on one hand the people I trust without question, and you've always been one of them. This is the first time I've ever had any reason to reevaluate that."
Sara felt each word of that last sentence like a physical blow, her legs suddenly feeling weak beneath her. She waited for him to continue. When he didn't, she took a deep breath before she managed a shaky "Excuse me?"
He faced her now, his eyes dark and his voice flat. "The phone call I just had in there...that was Mobley. Less than a minute after you looked me in the eye and told me you didn't do it he told me they have indisputable evidence that you did."
"That's impossible." Sara felt ill.
"Videotape, Sara. They have videotape of you in the evidence room that night. We're trained to listen to the evidence and right now it's telling me you're the number one suspect in a capital crime."
Sara heard a distant laugh in the background; somewhere in the recesses of her mind she was offended by this. Dazed, she measured her next words carefully and tried to keep her voice strong. "How can they have video of me in a room I was never in that night?"
"You tell me."
"I can't! Don't treat me like one of our suspects." Sara dropped her arms at her sides in frustration. "Have you seen the tape?" She asked rhetorically with more than a hint of anger.
"Why would they lie about something like this?" Grissom snapped back, equally frustrated.
"Why would I?"
Grissom looked down at the asphalt. After a few moments of silence he looked up to see a single tear roll down Sara's cheek. She hastily wiped it away with the back of her hand. She spoke again, barely audible over the sound of the traffic now. "You told me you trusted me. That nothing had changed. Has it now?"
He met her eyes and paused for a long time before speaking. "I'm trying to figure out whether I don't want to believe you could do this or whether I know you wouldn't." His honesty hit her like a blunt force to the abdomen. Sara's face tightened as she shook her head. She turned and walked in the direction of her car, her shoulders slightly hunched. He looked up again when he heard her speak.
"As much as you rely on tangible evidence, I'd hope that you would trust me more. Because if you don't believe me, I don't have a chance." Without waiting for his reaction she turned and walked away again. She barely made it to her car before the sobs began.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
After returning from the diner Grissom had barely made it to his office chair when a courier had arrived with a manilla envelope; it had already been tagged as evidence. He donned gloves before sliding an unlabelled videocassette from its case. Standing, he moved to turn off the lights and closed the blinds before returning to his desk. He slid the tape into the VCR and waited.
The timestamp identified the date as February twenty-seventh; the time was 22:46:32,or just before eleven PM. The video capture was grainy, but in color, and he could see the shelves, cabinets, and coolers that held all the department's evidence for active and recently closed cases. Several moments passed before he spotted movement at the bottom of the screen. He saw a familiar form enter the frame. Without thinking he paused the tape and closed his eyes. If he was to watch this with any form of objectivity he had to distance himself mentally. This wasn't Sara, his colleague and friend; this was Sara Sidle, the suspect.
He restarted the tape and watched as she entered the room. He immediately noticed her appearance. Her dark hair was pulled up and secured with a clip; it looked to be silver. She was wearing slim cut black pants and a blue tank top. Typical Sara, he thought, then castigated himself for the thought. He saw her cross the room to the small refrigerator that stored blood and DNA evidence. The door opened and she appeared to search the contents for several moments before removing what appeared to be a small vial. She then turned back toward the door and exited. It was as if this was any other trip during any other shift. The problem rested in the fact that Sara had denied entering evidence at all that day. There were also no records of her visit; in order to remove evidence from storage one was required to sign a log for accountability purposes. He had viewed a copy of the records from that day; Sara's signature was nowhere to be found.
He rubbed his eyes and rewound the tape. The details remained the same. Sara had entered evidence before the second positive DNA match. In her report it stated that she had gone back to the body to collect the sample. When it came to her work Sara was extremely focused and self disciplined. Forgetting that she had made a trip to storage would be uncharacteristic enough; for her to forget signing the log would be cause for alarm. Sara simply didn't make those kind of errors. He stared at her image on the screen until a voice broke him from his thoughts.
"Hey, Grissom." Catherine stood in the doorway. He hadn't noticed the door had opened. He quickly hit the stop button on the VCR, the screen now casting the room in a blue glow. Catherine moved to turn on the lights.
"Can you leave those off? I have a headache," he said, sounding more irritated than he had intended.
"Okay." Catherine moved to the chair across the desk from his. "What's wrong with you?"
Grissom stared at her a moment, pondering how much he should tell her. He remembered Sara's comment in the diner about not having anything to hide and then proceeded to fill Catherine in on everything, from the meeting with Sara earlier that evening to the tape he had just watched. She listened in silence before responding with a quick exhale of breath. "Wow.
"Yeah."
"Do you think she did it?" Catherine asked, her voice neutral.
"Based on the evidence, I would have to say yes. Based on my personal experience...that would be a definitive no."
"The evidence sounds pretty definitive."
Grissom regarded her, his brow furrowed. "The tape, the contrived timeframe, her report, and her history with these kinds of cases all point to her."
"But you don't sound convinced." It was a statement, not a question, and Grissom didn't respond. Catherine continued "Why?"
"Something doesn't add up."
"From what you've told me it seems like it does." Catherine sounded rueful.
"If all the parts of the puzzle are there, then why does the finished product look so distorted?"
"Maybe it isn't the puzzle that's distorted, but your vision."
"What?" Grissom couldn't believe his ears.
"All I'm saying is that maybe you're too close to this." Catherine said, delicately.
"Do you honestly think Sara is capable..." He trailed off, taking a deep breath to regroup. "I don't know."
"You said it yourself; all the pieces are there."
Grissom shook his head. "All but one."
"What's that?"
"Sara can be emotional, she can be headstrong, but she's never given me any reason to doubt her. She's honest almost to a fault. She wouldn't lie."
"Maybe her emotions finally got in the way." Catherine hypothesized. Grissom couldn't tell if she was playing devil's advocate. He could only assume she was. Either way he was finding that as she pushed toward the direction of the evidence he found himself pushing back. He felt like his head was clear for the first time that night.
"Let me amend that. She wouldn't lie to me." He sounded resolute now.
They sat in loaded silence for several minutes. When Catherine spoke it was with hesitation. "How close were you in San Francisco?"
Grissom looked almost amused. "Catherine, even if that implication had merit I wouldn't allow myself to be swayed from the facts."
Catherine nodded. "Of course; I'm sorry." She paused, "But if you aren't going with the evidence, then what?"
"I'm going with my gut. Something I should have done since the meeting." He stood, grabbing his keys before heading to the door.
"Where are you going?" Catherine swiveled her head to face him. but he was already gone.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Grissom had good intentions. He had meant to just take a drive to clear his head instead of going straight home. As he looked back up to Sara's window, he realized that he should have known his subconscious would have other plans. But sleep wasn't an option for him
tonight anyway unless he talked to Sara; he had no doubt that she would be awake. On a good day sleep was scarce for her. He only wished he knew what he was going to say.
He was honest before, in the parking lot. But it was a truth that never should have existed in the first place. He had to make it right before the damage was irreparable. He got out of his car and crossed the street to her apartment complex. It was an unusually dark night. The streetlight seemed only to encompass a circle on the pavement, leaving corners and alleys black. There were no cars or people, just he and the darkness and the wind. His pace quickened.
He reached the main door and typed in the entrance key. 5045. He only felt slightly guilty for abusing this piece of information. The rest of him was too busy being relieved it worked.
Grissom took the stairs, mostly because he didn't want to stop moving. When he arrived at Sara's apartment his heart plummeted into his stomach. Her door was open. She was the type of person who never settled for less than triple locks: at least one deadbolt.
He didn't have a gun.
It was too dark to see anything from the crack in the door. He slowly pushed it the rest of the way open and looked around. Her jacket and purse were haphazardly thrown on the floor; her keys were on the table. Relief washed over him as he spotted Sara across the room, but his anxiety hadn't completely ebbed away.
The television was on, but the station had gone off the air. A high-pitched tone emanated from the speakers. It was a terrible noise; the sound waves clashed and stung his ears like nails on a chalkboard. Sara was sitting on the couch, staring at the remote control on her coffee table as if it were the bane of her existence. But she could simply not muster the energy or will to pick it up.
Sara was not drinking, binge-eating, or even crying, although her face was spotted and swollen. She sat there, the multi-colored lights from the television casting her in a disturbing glow. Grissom picked up the changer and turned off the TV, silencing the speakers but not the ringing in his ears. Now the only light in the room came from a street lamp outside her window and the glowing of the digital clock. 4:07 AM. She had not looked at him. In fact, she had not yet taken her eyes off the spot on the table where the remote had been.
"You know ... it's easy to say you trust somebody. People say it all the time." Grissom sat down beside her. She made no move to get away or be closer. He stared at his hands and wondered if these conversations with Sara would ever get easier. "When there's no reason to distrust, then trust becomes just another word. If it's never challenged then it is based on bad faith. And if it is challenged and you fail the test, then you never really trusted the person in the first place. And today, I failed miserably. I am immeasurably sorry...I wish I could take it back."
When Sara finally met his eyes, her look was not warm.
"Sara."
"Grissom, don't trust me because your philosophy says you should."
"That's not what I'm doing."
She couldn't hold his gaze and looked back to the table."Yes it is. You feel guilty and you rationalized why you should believe me. But you don't. You don't trust me deep in your heart."
"That's the one place where I always have."
Sara looked up, surprised, searching his eyes for sincerity and found it. She nodded and a small smile appeared without her consent. "Where do we go from here?" Her voice broke a little on the last word, and she felt the telltale knot in her throat that meant tears were at bay. Ten minutes ago she would have sworn she had cried them all. But these were a different kind.
"Well, since we don't have the tape or any evidence to work with right now, we'll just review what happened over and over until we can find a contrariety. Then we either pass out from exhaustion or go get some food."
Sara half sobbed and half laughed. "Thank you." She smiled the first real smile since the ordeal had begun, and it felt so right. Grissom returned it with equal magnitude. She wrapped her arms tightly around him, grasping his shirt and burying her face into his neck. She held him like her life depended on it, like he was her last link to reality. And maybe he was. He stroked her back soothingly for a while, but it was an awkward position sitting down. Their legs forced them to twist and reach. He shifted so his back was against the armrest, and she reluctantly twisted in his arms to lean back into his chest.
Grissom swallowed with emotion. It was so easy to just be with Sara. Too easy. He tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear and she smiled at the gesture even while her eyes remained closed. He held her there until her breathing evened out. Apparently passing out from exhaustion was going to be sooner rather than later for Sara. But they would have plenty of time to talk. This peace was what she needed right now.
Because tomorrow things were only going to get worse.
TBC