Chapter Thirteen

The sun was bright and warm as Hannah stepped off the bus and wondered, not for the first time, if she was doing the Right Thing. Her dad always told her about doing the Right Thing, but he had done a Wrong Thing and if he had done a Wrong Thing, how could he know about the Right Things?

But somewhere inside, her mum spoke to her, and she knew it was a Right Thing.

She got some strange looks as she walked, the child striding so purposely and seriously towards the Las Vegas crime lab. It had taken her a while to find the right bus – first to the woman's apartment and a neighbour telling her the owner was Sara Sidle with the Las Vegas Crime Lab, and then find the bus there.

The change jar jingled in her backpack, almost merrily. She had been saving for a bicycle – a purple one – one that she could pretend to fly on. It seemed hard to fly now, when she remembered blood on dad's hands and fear in pretty Sara's eyes.

Sara looked like mum. A little bit. Mum was dead, but Sara was not.

"Can I help you?"

The man leaned down, taking on the face Hannah called 'see-how-nice-I-am'. People with those face were rarely nice.

"I don't need your help. I'm waiting for someone who works here," she told him curtly.

"I see." The man soured. "And who might that be?"

She merely sent him a look and he finally left, looking very displeased. She stuck her tongue out at his back and dropped down on the nearest chair, fastening the butterfly clasp in her hair tighter. It had seemed very important to dress nice, like when she went to church. Dad always looked at her with joy in his eyes when he saw her dressed up, and would sometimes whisper she looked just like mum in her best dress.

She wondered if he was looking for her and if he was worried. She hoped he wasn't worried. Perhaps he was waiting for her at home with breakfast to tell her everything would be the all right and they would laugh again.

No. That was a fantasy, like cartoons, things she wanted to happen rather than what would. Dad had explained fantasies to her the day she had tried to fly and fallen out the window. He'd kissed her broken arm and told her about the fantasies and how he had fantasies mum would come back, but that it wouldn't happen. It was just a fantasy.

Normal again was a fantasy. She couldn't sit under the tree and watch the butterflies anymore. Dad had done something terrible and he was very, very sorry. He had cried and she had known she had to do something. A Right Thing would correct a Wrong, she knew. The teachers always told her that. Her Right for dad's Wrong.

But deep down she knew that too, was a fantasy. Everything changed when people died. You died a little bit yourself. Dad had died a little bit, but he hadn't started living again. Not really. She had tried to live for him and now she had to do Right for him.

And Sara looked like mum. A little bit.

So she sat there, watching and waiting and crying on the inside.

II

They drove in silence.

She even found herself trying to breathe quietly and to look only the road ahead.

Grissom was tapping his fingers lightly on the wheel as he drove, eyes on the road as wel. He looked focussed and slightly distant in the Grissom way, as if he had never ravished her on his living room couch. As if nothing had happened and nothing had changed.

Except of course that it had.

Her skin still burned from his touch. He had been gentle and intense and warm, and she hadn't felt so alive for a long, long time. And then, of course, as they had merely been lying there in silence, the damn beeper had gone off. It had been Catherine, telling them Carl Hansen had been found dead. Mark was still missing.

Nothing like killing a moment with news about a murder. There was a bitter irony in there somewhere, she was sure.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she lied.

"Sara, maybe you should have stayed at my place while…" he began as they pulled up.

"Grissom, I will glue myself to you if I have to. You're not leaving behind on this one," she replied acidly, jumping out of the Tahoe before he could protest and marching into the lab.

She took a deep breath as she entered, ready to face the others and tell little lies about being just fine.

"Sara Sidle?"

The voice was tiny but she knew it even before she looked. For a moment she couldn't breathe, feeling as if she was back in her own bed, a killer towering over her. She couldn't speak, it was all she cold do to stand upright.

"I'm Hannah," the girl said, holding out a hand. It was Grissom who took it, smiling gently.

"Hey," he said warmly. "I'm Grissom."

The girl looked at him intently. "You're the butterfly."

"The butterfly?"

"Dad has articles about you behind his butterfly painting. He doesn't know I've seen them."

"Who is your dad?"

"She's Mark's kid," Sara finally managed to say, and Grissom set her a look that told her he already knew.

"Are you here about your dad?" he asked gently. Hannah nodded.

"Okay. I'm gonna get a nice lady named Catherine. She has a daughter your age. She's very nice. You want to talk to her about your dad?"

"Okay."

"I'll be right back," he said, still smiling. "Sara?"

"I'll stay here," she managed to get out. He nodded and disappeared into the building, footsteps dying away.

"I like your hair," Hannah offered. "Mum had hair like that."

"Do you miss your mum?"

"Yeah." The kid looked down, fiddling with a butterfly clasp. "I miss dad, too."

The words held all the sadness in the world, much more than any child, or any person for that matter, should carry.

Dad. Mark Grundy, the killer. A dad. She was having a conversation with the daughter of a man who had tried to kill her and Grissom.

"I'm sorry," she said, and meant it.

"I'm sorry too," Hannah replied, and took her hand, almost eagerly. The butterfly bracelet shone as sunlight reflected off it. Merry butterflies flying in the sun.

But Hannah's eyes were dark and crying, and Sara could do nothing to chase the pain away.

Darkness in the daylight.