Chapter Three
It was hot.
The heat seemed to crawl under her skin, buzzing about in her blood and frying her brain. Catherine found herself longing for her cool bed and a cold shower. Perhaps she'd have a few drinks to chase away the image of a burned body that could have so easily been Grissom.
The aircondition greeted her with a sigh as she stepped into the hallway. It didn't take her long to find Warrick, hunched over a desk and with an air of intense concentration over him. She allowed herself to take in the sight for just a moment before walking over.
"Hey," he greeted her with, throwing a quick glance at her before returning his attention to the blackened object on the table. "I hear Grissom is okay."
"Yeah. So this is the shoe," she observed.
"Yeah. Take a look at this – you can still see the size."
"46?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "That's a lot of feet."
"European size," Warrick replied.
"So either he's been to Europe lately or he has expensive taste."
"Or both."
"Anything else?"
Warrick shook his head. "Ashes, most of it. Ecklie's team is still at the scene."
"This is our investigation," she said a tad more harshly than she had intended. She was not about to let Ecklie steamroll over them. "Sorry. Long night. Where is Nick?"
"He's looking at some tire tracks we found nearby. Sara was just in."
"I thought I told her to go home."
He gave her a soft look, as if he could sense her exhaustion. "You should get some sleep. Ecklie has been trying to chase us all home."
"He could try," she said dryly. "Thanks, Warrick. Keep me posted."
She left him to his work, wishing she had some vital clue to focus on herself to keep her mind still. It kept skipping from thought to thought, muddled and slow. She really needed some sleep and to just hold Lindsey for a minute.
But first, find Sara and chase the girl home.
The lunchroom was quiet and filled with light. The fridge hummed softly on an unknown tune. She leaned against it for a moment, cherishing the cool surface.
There was a single light on in Grissom's office, blinking as if it were about to die. And head on his desk, Sara slept.
Catherine regarded her for a moment, then slipped in quietly, turning the light off. The darkness embraced the room as she left.
Sometimes, you just had to let them sleep.
II
Sara dreamt of a butterfly.
The sun had disappeared and it flew in the darkness, unseen by all. The moon was cold, but somewhere a fire burned. The stars whispered. She was supposed to remember something. The butterfly remembered. The bugs always remembered.
Grissom had told her.
He was in her dream, a shadow, a moonbeam, fleeting, always fleeting. She tried to reach him, she always reached for him.
She caught only darkness and fire. The flames burnt her, the darkness ate her.
She awoke panting, and for a moment the darkness seemed to overwhelm her. Then, as her eyes adjusted, she the familiar shelves and various bug obsessions that made up Grissom's office.
Her neck hurt and the rest of her body promised pain to come as well. The desk was warm from her touch and slightly slick with cold sweat. The room smelt faintly of chemicals and something Grissom-esque. She could feel his presence – sometimes she thought his presence was almost stronger here than around the man himself. Grissom was his office.
For a moment, she merely sat there, relief and anger and confusion and desire and fear all running through her. She was tired, and sleep offered no solace. Only muddled dreams and distant screams of victims calling to her. Always to her.
The thought of Grissom's screams being the ones to keep awake sent a cold shudder through her body. He was going to all right. The doctors had all assured them of that. But he had looked so distant and pale, a mere shadow of himself.
The chair groaned as she got up. In the grey light she could tell it was afternoon, soon to become evening. Perhaps she could stop by the crime scene, then come back here.
She slipped out quietly. The sun had just vanished behind the horizon, leaving the moon to watch over the earth in its absence. Her car winked at her with reflections of the streetlights.
She drove slowly, as to not introduce any flashbacks of the desperate ride the night before. If she hadn't badgered him about where he was, slightly angry that he had headed home without telling her the test results of a case they were working… He could have been dead now.
When she had seen him alive in that damn hospital bed, she could have kissed him. Hugged him and clung to him, falling asleep in his arms. She was sure she could have slept well for once there, near life rather than death.
The crime scene was marked off with yellow tape, easily seen against the blackness of the scene itself. For a moment she nearly turned her car around and headed home. This wasn't just a crime scene. It was a tomb.
Most of the building had collapsed. Badly burned wood cluttered all over the asphalt, swimming in a sea of ash.
A car slowed down just as she stepped out of her own, and she turned to look without thinking. Dark, blue eyes met her own, and then he was gone - into the darkness.
II
He had to see the scene again.
The day had passed slowly, and Mark had itched and feared, his mind churning the scenario out again and again. It was not enough to merely remember it. He had to see it again, smell the echoes of fire and death. His heart demanded it, his mind feared it.
Just one glimpse. It had to be risked, he decided.
It was marked with yellow tape, a woman stepping out of the car just as he drove past. An investigator of some sort, he surmised. He meet her eyes and power rushed through his body.
He knew what they did not. He knew.
The itching did not stop, but it lessened and the power reigned instead. Such power. The ultimate power. To kill. To be feared. To be respected.
Grissom would have respected him. Of course, they could never know Grissom had been the target. Not yet. Perhaps when their investigation had been exhausted. He would not want them to give up. It was much satisfying to know they were trying to catch him but could not, than to know they had given up.
Perhaps Grissom would then know what it was like to try in vain and find the only way out was in blood.
A shudder went through him as Mark suddenly felt the ghost of a kiss on his lips and he nearly pulled over.
He had forgotten for so many years, but now the memories came with his heart finally unlocked. Death brought the memories.
His mother, dying in her bed. Her lips had been cold to kiss, but she had been more alive when dead. He had held her silently, the fourteen year old, not crying, whispering words of love and hatred alike, watching her burn from the inside. Such a fever.
The police had called it shock. Grissom had not. With judgemental eyes, he had know. Know that the boy could have saved his mother with a 911 call, instead of waiting hours for her to die.
They had called it shock and a tragedy, not understanding. No one but Grissom.
The car sped on, darkness embracing his heart. Such a fever.
It raged on.