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Another Chance

Chapter One

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"You think I killed him! Don't you? Damn it man I had enough of his crap!" Tony abruptly stood up from his chair and threw it back, it landed hard against the wall, and Catherine watched calmly him from the other side of the table.

"There's a dead body and you were the only one there, you already have a record…what do you expect us to think?"

Brass picked up the chair and put it back in place "it might be hard for you to do this but, why don't you sit down and act like a civilised person."

Tony shot Brass an angry look and pulled the seat back to sit down "It's alright if you do you're jobs properly you'll see its all his own fault" he slumped back in the chair and folded his arms, smirking.

"So tell us what happened" Brass waited expectantly.

"It happened like this…I was waiting for Jamie when Robert walked in, he got all up in my face and I pushed him back, he said some bad things about Jamie and I grabbed him. We started arguing, he punched me and threw me back against the bed, and I hurt me head pretty bad. Next thing I know he's coming at me with a blade, we fight over it and we fell on the floor, I land on him and he don't move. I stood up and he's stabbed himself." He looked from Brass to Catherine and back again "that's what happened! But you don't believe that."

"We'll believe the evidence," Catherine said as she rose from her chair.

*

Brass joined Catherine outside and they both watched, as Tony was lead to the cells "I believe him."

Brass faced her, surprised "you do?"

"Yeah, we got a couple of prints off the knife, it was Robert Scott's and Jamie Fielding's."

"He could've…had gloves on."

"We're looking at this from every angle and right now, the evidence substantiates his story" she shrugged "he didn't kill that kid."

"What's he doing here?"

Catherine looked at the now empty corridor then back to the woman who had spoken, Sara stood in front of her "who?"

Sara looked at her frustrated "Tony Thorpe! Who did he try and kill this time?"

"You know him?" Catherine enquired.

Sara ignored her question "this is why Grissom didn't put me on this case, isn't it? Damn him!" she turned around and marched back up the corridor.

Catherine waited for an explanation from Brass "what was that about?" they continued walking down the corridor.

"He was involved in a case that Sara, Grissom and Nick worked a little under a year back. We worked it a s a homicide but the vic survived…"

Catherine nodded in understanding "it's a good job she isn't on this case cause it doesn't look like he's guilty."

*

Sara bumped into Grissom as he walked out of the break room "I want to be put on you're case."

He re-entered the break room and Sara followed him and closed the door "No" he bluntly refused.

Sara didn't back down though "why?"

"You don't know one thing about this case yet and you already think he's guilty, Sara…you're already working with Warrick…"

"I can switch" she tried another angle, she needed to work this case, Tony Thorpe deserved to go to prison.

"You could…but I don't want you to" he couldn't imagine how much Sara wanted this case but he knew if he let her have her way, she'd be judging Thorpe by what he did to Pamela Adler. She'd try and find evidence to convict Tony of murder, evidence that wasn't there. "I'm sorry."

She looked at him coldly; she shook her head "yeah…right."

She met Warrick by the car park as he came to get her, to take her to their crime scene "I need to go somewhere first I'll meet you there" she told him.

He nodded "okay, don't take too long, I wouldn't want to take all the credit for cracking the case."

*

She took in every bit of detail about the crime scene, anything that was clean had been taken out, so now out of the twelve beds that had been in the room, only one remained, the small bedside tables had also been removed. There was a small pool of blood about twelve feet away from the bed, footprints littered the area, it would be hard to distinguish whose were whose. Sara walked over to the one bed and knelt down at the side of it, there was dried blood, Thorpe had told the truth about that at least, she just had to change a few small details and he'd go down for murder, finally.

She stood up and backed away from the bed, "What are you doing here?"

Sara smiled at Catherine "just checking out the crime scene…"

Catherine looked at her puzzled "Grissom decided to put you on the case?" She wasn't convinced.

Sara just started walking out of the room, Nick walked into the room "Hey, you're on this case? I thought you were with Warrick this time."

Sara nodded "I was on my way there." She carried on walking.

Catherine took out her phone "who are you calling?" Nick asked as he walked over to where she stood.

"Grissom…he wouldn't have put her on this case."

"She wouldn't tamper with evidence Cath!" he said, defending his friend.

"Grissom its Catherine…did you send Sara down to our crime scene?" She heard him sigh on the other end of the line and she had her answer "no she's gone now…bye." She turned and faced Nick "she shouldn't have been here Nick."

"She wouldn't tamper with evidence", he said again.

*

Sara walked into the medium sized room and sat down next to the bed, everything looked much the same as it had the week before, pale blue wallpaper, white carpet, a couple of chairs by the window, a chest of drawers beside the bed, a wardrobe next to the door. Some more flowers had been placed on the bedside cabinet, carnations, the smell hovered by the bed, it was…nice.

Pamela Adler lay in the bed, her eyes closed, Sara wondered why, she'd been sat up yesterday, and she'd been smiling. That didn't mean much though she was always smiling; it was her way of saying "hello I feel fine today."

A nurse walked into the room and she smiled when she saw Sara "hi Sara, how are you today?"

"I'm fine" it was the same every week, same question, same answer, same nurse, same routine.

"She had another seizure" the nurse told her "she likes it when you come to see her, you brighten up her day." The nurse left Sara and Pamela in the room; she closed the door behind her.

"Tony Thorpe was arrested today, for murder, it doesn't look like he did it…I wanted to…change the evidence so he'd be arrested for this murder…I didn't do it, I couldn't do it. It would've been so easy to do, nobody would know…it isn't right that he didn't get punished for what he did to you."

Grissom didn't need to hear what she was saying, her watched her through the door window, and she was facing him so he could read her lips, read her body language. He needed to speak with her. He opened the door.