Thank you for the reviews, you guys are so nice to me! You've all asked for
another chapter so especially for you here it is.
Chapter 4.
She felt the hand stroking her face and at first relished the touch thinking that the hands belonged to the kind, compassionate man she loved. Instead the rough skin gave away the callous heart of her captor and immediately she broke away from his touch. Catherine's hair felt matted onto her porcelain face as her features contorted into a look of terror at the realisation that the matting was caused by blood, her own.
Eddie moved closer to her once again and resumed his torture. It may be gentle by his standards, by anyone's standards, but to Catherine it was mental and physical torture to have this monster within five miles of her. If she could have she would have spat at him and if she could have rolled away she would have but the enormous pain in her head rendered her motionless and she hated the fact she was at Eddie's mercy.
"How is my lovely wife feeling this morning?" Eddie whispered into her shell-like ear. As he spoke he released her of her gag and replaced it with his hand. "There's really no point in screaming no one will ever find you hear, not even rats. So instead of shouting, just talk to me."
"I am not your wife Eddie."
"Well that's a start I suppose." Catherine was perplexed at how funny Eddie seemed to be finding all of this. He was sick.
"You don't want to do this Eddie."
He laughed at the woman he was now straddled over. "I think you'll find I do."
"But why?" Catherine reckoned if she could keep him talking then he couldn't hurt her. It was a plan albeit not a great one.
"Well it's a mixture of things really. It's like the song, 'I love you then I hate you,' it's just really that strange. You stopped me from seeing my daughter. You put me through hell when you divorced me making me out to be the bad guy when I so obviously wasn't."
"What?!" Catherine interjected. "You were the bad guy Eddie and you still are."
"What makes you think that?" He retorted. "All I ever wanted was to make you happy but that's impossible unless your name is Gil Grissom. Gil this Gil that. that's all I ever heard! I knew you were having an affair with him. I knew that's why you'd hurt yourself so that you could running to him and pretend I was the bad guy."
"Eddie, You beat me! You were a woman beater. You tried to assault me so many times I lost count. I could have you put away for life on the crimes you did and I didn't want you near MY daughter. I wasn't having an affair but I damn well wish I had been now if it would have got me away from you any quicker." She couldn't help it. The hell he'd given her for years suddenly had been erased from his mind and she wanted to help him regain his convenient memory.
He swiftly grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head away from the cement floor. "Is that right?" letting her head drop to the floor with a resounding thud she screamed out in agony as he laughed with delight. "Don't think I won't hurt you Catherine because I will and I think you'll find I already have." He said the last bit emphasising his words like he was talking to a small child. Catherine stopped crying momentarily to try and figure out what Eddie meant and gingerly lifted her head up. Her shirt buttons were all undone and her trousers were ripped. He couldn't have. Could he? Her blood ran cold with the thought of the power he could have had over her body when she wasn't able to fight.
"You didn't?" She cried out.
"What do you think?"
"You've done it before what would stop you from doing it again?!" She yelled.
"Calm down Catherine calm down otherwise I may just have to shut you up and I'm sure you wouldn't want that."
"Just kill me." she whispered unaware Eddie could hear her.
"All in good time." He replied as she shrunk into the foetal position trying to nurse the heightened throbbing pain in her head. Feeling nauseous with the pain she couldn't help but let the content of her stomach overflow onto the floor. Wiping her mouth on her shoulder, she tried to resume her composure but lost herself in the depths of unconsciousness once again.
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Warrick finished processing the SUV and wiped his eyes with the alien tear that had rolled down his cheek. He hardly ever cried, he only ever remembered crying twice in his life but he couldn't help it. Catherine meant a lot to him. She was more than a friend, she understood him and he understood her. It was silent pact that only came into action at times. well at times like these.
He'd taken several lots of different swabs of the vehicle as protocol and had slowly come to the conclusion that Catherine couldn't be alive, not if the amount of blood in here was anything to go by. Clearing up his work, he turned off all the lights on the car and closed the doors. It felt wrong to leave her car open to all and sundry even if she wasn't here to rant and rave about it. It felt intrusive just even being here looking through her private things but it had to be done and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't stop thinking about the worst case scenario, hoping, but giving into the fact that it could soon become reality. Removing his latex gloves carefully he packed all the bagged evidence into one huge manila envelope and wrote 'Greg Urgent process NOW' on the front. As he dropped the envelope off in the young lab techs office he felt like he was letting go of Catherine not just an envelope.
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Grissom remained silent in his office with only the company of Brass to keep his thoughts logical. Brass on the other hand was talking a mile a minute trying to keep his, and the teams, spirits up. It was proving to be a hard task for the pessimist. If he didn't believe deep down that they were going to find her then how could he convince the team otherwise. He realised the Grissom wasn't even listening to him and stopped talking.
The man before him was a shadow of what he had been early in the day. The lines on his face somehow seemed etched further into his contours and his hair appeared to have become greyer than before. He'd aged considerable since 4AM when he'd first heard the two consecutive bombshells and Brass couldn't blame him for being upset. The chances of finding her were slim looking at the evidence and Brass suddenly rued the day he'd decided to be a policeman. He hated cases like these because they were so vicious, so unnecessary but he hated this case even more because a very special woman was involved. She'd stuck up for him when he'd been threatened with the cut form the CSI unit and even though the end of his supervisor role had come to an end and Grissom had received his job, and pay packet, he would never forget the help Catherine had given him. Now he needed to help her. The question was how and as of yet the worried policeman didn't have an answer.
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Greg returned to his lab after his long walk. He'd wanted to go down and help Warrick with Catherine's car but he couldn't face it. So he'd decided to go for a long walk but this routine of clearing his mind, which, had had a 100% success rate, now failed to achieve its goal. Sinking back into his swivel office chair he noticed the manila envelope with the urgent looking red writing on it. Recognising the writing as Warrick's he realised this was the evidence from the SUV and grabbing a pair of latex gloves and putting them on, he tore open the envelope. Blood, hair and miscellaneous samples cascaded onto the desk in a waterfall of protocol search evidence and instead of his heart falling his heart rose with the fact he was helping the cause and he set about trying to help even further.
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Sara had been trying to find Nick all morning but he was proving to be harder to find than Jack the Ripper. He was illusive and no one had seen him since their fight in the locker rooms. She was beginning to lose hope of finding him until she saw a swish of white sweep across a gap in the corridor. Hoping it would be one of Nick's white t-shirts she ran after it. Closing in on the object of her pursuit around the building she practically knocked him over with the force of the intended tap on his shoulder.
Spinning around on his heels, Nick turned to face Sara. She'd been crying, her eyes were swollen and her cheeks were flushed and Nick couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt flow through every inch of him. Clutching his files closer to his chest in a defence mechanism he said, "What?"
"Nick don't be like that. I need to say something and I don't want you to say anything until I'm done."
"Well there's a turn up for the books isn't it?" Turning back around he let an exasperated gasp escape his muscular frame.
"I'm sorry." She said before he started to walk away from her. "I never meant to hurt you, the thing is I think I'm falling for you. Well I know I'm falling for you. I have been ever since the first time I saw you. I know I act like a complete idiot around you and that I can be hostile and nasty towards you and I rarely say something that isn't sarcastic, but I mean this. I really do."
Turning around once again to face her, he looked intently in her eyes. They said eyes were the window to the soul and he could always tell when someone was lying. But she wasn't. Her eyes were moist with tears now threatening to fall and stain her beautiful features. He couldn't resist her no matter how hard he tried. She was the tonic to all the years of hurt and he needed to find a cure for all of that. If she was it then he didn't want to let it go away.
"I just didn't understand why you didn't want to sleep with me." She continued. "I thought it was me. I'll understand if you don't want to sleep with me because of my past." She tailed off and Nick became both worried and confused simultaneously.
"Your past?" He asked.
"Yeah Grissom must have told you, I overheard you talking about me the other night and saying that 'I must've been taking the case hard' about the Adler case."
"We only said that because of the fact Grissom said you weren't feeling well. He didn't tell me anything about your past."
"Oh." she flushed. "I've got to go." She started to briskly pace away from him and he caught up with her in a couple of strides.
"No way. You're not coming all this way and then disappearing on me. Tell me what's wrong."
"I can't. I should never have said anything."
"Yes you should have. Now come on." He motioned his hand in the direction of the locker room and pushed the door open for her. Checking that the coast was all clear they went in and sat down.
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He'd rushed his tests but Greg knew the results were accurate. Not only were they accurate they were an enormous ray of hope. He felt like jumping around for joy but contained his emotions. Instead he said a silent prayer. Printing off the results he impatiently waited for them to fall into the tray. Drumming his fingers on the desk he grabbed the printouts when they fell into the tray. Feeling the warmth of the paper he felt proud that he was the one to have the 'hot' lead on this case and he hoped that with this discovery they were that much closer to Catherine. Running out of the lab he went in search of his teammates. They had a right to know altogether and he was determined to find them all. Including Catherine.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Trying to make light of the situation Sara said, "We seem to be spending a lot of time in here lately." Letting a little laugh escape he resumed his composure via a serious face and nodded. She took this as a sign to begin talking and smiled at him.
"Ok. When I was younger I had a lot of problems growing up. My parents were never home and when they were they argued incessantly. They never stopped. They never cared where I was so I used to hang out a lot with a gang I knew from school. To cut a long story short I got into a lot of trouble and what went around came around." She stopped and looked won to her clasped hands resting on her lap.
"Oh no, you're not getting out of it that easily. Tell me."
"This really isn't the time. Not with Catherine missing."
"I know it's not but if you're not happy then it's going to affect your work and so I need to know how to make it better."
"You can't." She sighed.
"Why can't I?" Nick asked gently trying to coax her sadness out of her.
"Because you weren't the one who hurt me."
"Who was?"
"Jimmy Kane. Part of the gang I hung with. One night he was off his face on booze and pills and took it out on me. That's why the Pamela Adler case struck way too close to home."
Clasping her into a huge bear hug he tried to squeeze away her pain. He knew what she was going through but this wasn't the time to share that. Relaxing into each other's arms they began to feel close, closer than they should have done under the circumstances. Letting his head rise from her shoulder he kissed the top of her head and moved his lips slowly down to hers. This silent but emotion packed kiss told her that her past meant nothing to him. He liked her exactly the way she was, but it also made sure that she knew he was sorry for everything.
Their tongues circled around in a rhythm that seemed well practiced but was newly found. They were both relishing the kiss until.
BANG.
They broke away from the kiss abruptly as Greg threw open the door. Not noticing the romantic embrace that they had just been in he panted out, "I have news." Experiencing the weird feeling of dèja vu at saying those exact same words within the past few hours he smiled.
"Good or bad?" Nick asked dreading the worst.
"Get off your ass the both of you and come to Grissom's office and you'll find out. Some one page Warrick quickly and get him to Grissom's office as well."
All Gathered in Gil's office 10 minutes later each member looked weary and disheartened. None of them knew what great news Greg had and he felt slightly guilty and yet momentarily superior for having this news as his own little secret. Finally reaching the end of his tether Grissom boomed, "What's the news Greg?" After keeping them waiting for 10 minutes he hoped this was good, to be honest Greg was starting to irritate him with his theatrical antics and he wished that the young man would just get on with it instead of wasting valuable time.
"You shout at me I won't tell you." Greg retorted unfazed by the older man's obvious annoyance. "My news is extremely good. The blood in the car......... Hardly any of its Catherine's. The car is saturated in someone else's blood. I've run the results through AFIS and haven't had a match yet but I've passed the information onto Mobley and he's already putting on a complete investigation into any recent missing persons claims that have been filed."
Astounded at both the news and the way that Greg had dealt with the news, Grissom for once found himself speechless. He couldn't believe the maturity and the intelligence of the young lab tech and immediately chastised himself for shouting at him earlier. The room heaved a sigh of relief as the news sunk in. They still had a murder on their hands but it wasn't Catherine's. They were that one step closer........ or at least that's what they all thought. They were all very wrong.
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Eddie watched as his ex-wife lay listless on the cement floor of the makeshift prison. He smiled at the light that flooded into the room as a door at the far end of the large expanse of the room, opened. He pushed himself up from the chair he'd been seated on and made his way over to the delicate, young teenager that had entered the room.
"What took you so long?" He demanded whilst taking his lover into his arms and caressing her neck softly whilst soft moans escaped her lips.
"Well I would have been here a lot quicker if I hadn't been held up. You know a babysitters work is never done." She smiled at her own sarcasm and kissed the older man on the lips. "I made sure that I left no tracks, no one could find me."
"Don't be so sure of that but anyway I'm glad you're here at long last. I've missed you." Leading her away from the door, shutting it softly behind him, he led her over to his chair in the opposite corner of the room. She looked at the still form of her employer and then back to her lover.
"You started the fun without me," she stated as she noticed the blood seeping from a head wound.
"Well. what can I say I couldn't resist it." He kissed her ferociously the passion between them not lessened by the presence of his unconscious ex- wife on the floor. Pulling away from her reluctantly he continued to talk, "I have to make the all important phone call. We're nearly home and dry gorgeous." Letting go of him long enough for him to get his cell out of pocket, the young teenager lit up a cigarette and offered her partner, in love and crime, a drag. Whilst pressing the cell next to his ear and waiting for a response he took a drag of the cigarette and relished it. Eventually the familiar voice of Gil Grissom picked up the receiver. "Hello?"
"Hello Gil." Eddie's voice was masked with a coder. One of the many tricks of the trade he'd learnt from his ex-wife's line of work.
"Who is this?" He heard the man rasp out.
"That," he emphasised, "Does not matter. What does matter is that I have your precious Catherine and if you want her back safely then you're going to have to do a couple of things."
"No conditions Eddie." Grissom was cool, calm and collected and Brass was rushing round for a taping device. Grissom needed to keep him talking for as long as possible.
"There will be conditions or there will be a price to pay. And I think you'll find that the price is way to high for you to afford to mess with me."
Signalling that he'd finally found a device to tape Eddie with Brass handed over the mini recorder to Grissom who in turn held it next to the receiver. "So what are the conditions Eddie?"
"I want money. I also want a little confession just for a laugh."
"Where do you think the money's going to come from exactly? And a confession of what?"
"The money can come from anywhere but a later phone call from myself will give you a better idea of that. Details, details, details. That's always been your weakness hasn't it Gil? The only detail you missed was that Catherine was married when you had your affair. And that's what I want a confession of. Admit it. Go on make my day." Grissom listened to the sick amusement of the man on the end of the line.
"We weren't having an affair."
"Fine you have it your way Grissom."
BANG.
Grissom heard the shot as clear as a bell even though the receiver must have muffled the sound. He let a breath catch in his throat as he heard a woman scream and assumed was Catherine.
"You made me do that Grissom. It's all your fault. And your going to have to live with that now aren't you?" The phone went dead on the other end and the tone began to ring loudly in Grissom's ears. It began to take over his thoughts and he found himself blacking out and landing awkwardly on the floor. His last thought being, 'I've killed Catherine.'
TBC.
Chapter 4.
She felt the hand stroking her face and at first relished the touch thinking that the hands belonged to the kind, compassionate man she loved. Instead the rough skin gave away the callous heart of her captor and immediately she broke away from his touch. Catherine's hair felt matted onto her porcelain face as her features contorted into a look of terror at the realisation that the matting was caused by blood, her own.
Eddie moved closer to her once again and resumed his torture. It may be gentle by his standards, by anyone's standards, but to Catherine it was mental and physical torture to have this monster within five miles of her. If she could have she would have spat at him and if she could have rolled away she would have but the enormous pain in her head rendered her motionless and she hated the fact she was at Eddie's mercy.
"How is my lovely wife feeling this morning?" Eddie whispered into her shell-like ear. As he spoke he released her of her gag and replaced it with his hand. "There's really no point in screaming no one will ever find you hear, not even rats. So instead of shouting, just talk to me."
"I am not your wife Eddie."
"Well that's a start I suppose." Catherine was perplexed at how funny Eddie seemed to be finding all of this. He was sick.
"You don't want to do this Eddie."
He laughed at the woman he was now straddled over. "I think you'll find I do."
"But why?" Catherine reckoned if she could keep him talking then he couldn't hurt her. It was a plan albeit not a great one.
"Well it's a mixture of things really. It's like the song, 'I love you then I hate you,' it's just really that strange. You stopped me from seeing my daughter. You put me through hell when you divorced me making me out to be the bad guy when I so obviously wasn't."
"What?!" Catherine interjected. "You were the bad guy Eddie and you still are."
"What makes you think that?" He retorted. "All I ever wanted was to make you happy but that's impossible unless your name is Gil Grissom. Gil this Gil that. that's all I ever heard! I knew you were having an affair with him. I knew that's why you'd hurt yourself so that you could running to him and pretend I was the bad guy."
"Eddie, You beat me! You were a woman beater. You tried to assault me so many times I lost count. I could have you put away for life on the crimes you did and I didn't want you near MY daughter. I wasn't having an affair but I damn well wish I had been now if it would have got me away from you any quicker." She couldn't help it. The hell he'd given her for years suddenly had been erased from his mind and she wanted to help him regain his convenient memory.
He swiftly grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head away from the cement floor. "Is that right?" letting her head drop to the floor with a resounding thud she screamed out in agony as he laughed with delight. "Don't think I won't hurt you Catherine because I will and I think you'll find I already have." He said the last bit emphasising his words like he was talking to a small child. Catherine stopped crying momentarily to try and figure out what Eddie meant and gingerly lifted her head up. Her shirt buttons were all undone and her trousers were ripped. He couldn't have. Could he? Her blood ran cold with the thought of the power he could have had over her body when she wasn't able to fight.
"You didn't?" She cried out.
"What do you think?"
"You've done it before what would stop you from doing it again?!" She yelled.
"Calm down Catherine calm down otherwise I may just have to shut you up and I'm sure you wouldn't want that."
"Just kill me." she whispered unaware Eddie could hear her.
"All in good time." He replied as she shrunk into the foetal position trying to nurse the heightened throbbing pain in her head. Feeling nauseous with the pain she couldn't help but let the content of her stomach overflow onto the floor. Wiping her mouth on her shoulder, she tried to resume her composure but lost herself in the depths of unconsciousness once again.
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Warrick finished processing the SUV and wiped his eyes with the alien tear that had rolled down his cheek. He hardly ever cried, he only ever remembered crying twice in his life but he couldn't help it. Catherine meant a lot to him. She was more than a friend, she understood him and he understood her. It was silent pact that only came into action at times. well at times like these.
He'd taken several lots of different swabs of the vehicle as protocol and had slowly come to the conclusion that Catherine couldn't be alive, not if the amount of blood in here was anything to go by. Clearing up his work, he turned off all the lights on the car and closed the doors. It felt wrong to leave her car open to all and sundry even if she wasn't here to rant and rave about it. It felt intrusive just even being here looking through her private things but it had to be done and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't stop thinking about the worst case scenario, hoping, but giving into the fact that it could soon become reality. Removing his latex gloves carefully he packed all the bagged evidence into one huge manila envelope and wrote 'Greg Urgent process NOW' on the front. As he dropped the envelope off in the young lab techs office he felt like he was letting go of Catherine not just an envelope.
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Grissom remained silent in his office with only the company of Brass to keep his thoughts logical. Brass on the other hand was talking a mile a minute trying to keep his, and the teams, spirits up. It was proving to be a hard task for the pessimist. If he didn't believe deep down that they were going to find her then how could he convince the team otherwise. He realised the Grissom wasn't even listening to him and stopped talking.
The man before him was a shadow of what he had been early in the day. The lines on his face somehow seemed etched further into his contours and his hair appeared to have become greyer than before. He'd aged considerable since 4AM when he'd first heard the two consecutive bombshells and Brass couldn't blame him for being upset. The chances of finding her were slim looking at the evidence and Brass suddenly rued the day he'd decided to be a policeman. He hated cases like these because they were so vicious, so unnecessary but he hated this case even more because a very special woman was involved. She'd stuck up for him when he'd been threatened with the cut form the CSI unit and even though the end of his supervisor role had come to an end and Grissom had received his job, and pay packet, he would never forget the help Catherine had given him. Now he needed to help her. The question was how and as of yet the worried policeman didn't have an answer.
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Greg returned to his lab after his long walk. He'd wanted to go down and help Warrick with Catherine's car but he couldn't face it. So he'd decided to go for a long walk but this routine of clearing his mind, which, had had a 100% success rate, now failed to achieve its goal. Sinking back into his swivel office chair he noticed the manila envelope with the urgent looking red writing on it. Recognising the writing as Warrick's he realised this was the evidence from the SUV and grabbing a pair of latex gloves and putting them on, he tore open the envelope. Blood, hair and miscellaneous samples cascaded onto the desk in a waterfall of protocol search evidence and instead of his heart falling his heart rose with the fact he was helping the cause and he set about trying to help even further.
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Sara had been trying to find Nick all morning but he was proving to be harder to find than Jack the Ripper. He was illusive and no one had seen him since their fight in the locker rooms. She was beginning to lose hope of finding him until she saw a swish of white sweep across a gap in the corridor. Hoping it would be one of Nick's white t-shirts she ran after it. Closing in on the object of her pursuit around the building she practically knocked him over with the force of the intended tap on his shoulder.
Spinning around on his heels, Nick turned to face Sara. She'd been crying, her eyes were swollen and her cheeks were flushed and Nick couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt flow through every inch of him. Clutching his files closer to his chest in a defence mechanism he said, "What?"
"Nick don't be like that. I need to say something and I don't want you to say anything until I'm done."
"Well there's a turn up for the books isn't it?" Turning back around he let an exasperated gasp escape his muscular frame.
"I'm sorry." She said before he started to walk away from her. "I never meant to hurt you, the thing is I think I'm falling for you. Well I know I'm falling for you. I have been ever since the first time I saw you. I know I act like a complete idiot around you and that I can be hostile and nasty towards you and I rarely say something that isn't sarcastic, but I mean this. I really do."
Turning around once again to face her, he looked intently in her eyes. They said eyes were the window to the soul and he could always tell when someone was lying. But she wasn't. Her eyes were moist with tears now threatening to fall and stain her beautiful features. He couldn't resist her no matter how hard he tried. She was the tonic to all the years of hurt and he needed to find a cure for all of that. If she was it then he didn't want to let it go away.
"I just didn't understand why you didn't want to sleep with me." She continued. "I thought it was me. I'll understand if you don't want to sleep with me because of my past." She tailed off and Nick became both worried and confused simultaneously.
"Your past?" He asked.
"Yeah Grissom must have told you, I overheard you talking about me the other night and saying that 'I must've been taking the case hard' about the Adler case."
"We only said that because of the fact Grissom said you weren't feeling well. He didn't tell me anything about your past."
"Oh." she flushed. "I've got to go." She started to briskly pace away from him and he caught up with her in a couple of strides.
"No way. You're not coming all this way and then disappearing on me. Tell me what's wrong."
"I can't. I should never have said anything."
"Yes you should have. Now come on." He motioned his hand in the direction of the locker room and pushed the door open for her. Checking that the coast was all clear they went in and sat down.
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He'd rushed his tests but Greg knew the results were accurate. Not only were they accurate they were an enormous ray of hope. He felt like jumping around for joy but contained his emotions. Instead he said a silent prayer. Printing off the results he impatiently waited for them to fall into the tray. Drumming his fingers on the desk he grabbed the printouts when they fell into the tray. Feeling the warmth of the paper he felt proud that he was the one to have the 'hot' lead on this case and he hoped that with this discovery they were that much closer to Catherine. Running out of the lab he went in search of his teammates. They had a right to know altogether and he was determined to find them all. Including Catherine.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ Trying to make light of the situation Sara said, "We seem to be spending a lot of time in here lately." Letting a little laugh escape he resumed his composure via a serious face and nodded. She took this as a sign to begin talking and smiled at him.
"Ok. When I was younger I had a lot of problems growing up. My parents were never home and when they were they argued incessantly. They never stopped. They never cared where I was so I used to hang out a lot with a gang I knew from school. To cut a long story short I got into a lot of trouble and what went around came around." She stopped and looked won to her clasped hands resting on her lap.
"Oh no, you're not getting out of it that easily. Tell me."
"This really isn't the time. Not with Catherine missing."
"I know it's not but if you're not happy then it's going to affect your work and so I need to know how to make it better."
"You can't." She sighed.
"Why can't I?" Nick asked gently trying to coax her sadness out of her.
"Because you weren't the one who hurt me."
"Who was?"
"Jimmy Kane. Part of the gang I hung with. One night he was off his face on booze and pills and took it out on me. That's why the Pamela Adler case struck way too close to home."
Clasping her into a huge bear hug he tried to squeeze away her pain. He knew what she was going through but this wasn't the time to share that. Relaxing into each other's arms they began to feel close, closer than they should have done under the circumstances. Letting his head rise from her shoulder he kissed the top of her head and moved his lips slowly down to hers. This silent but emotion packed kiss told her that her past meant nothing to him. He liked her exactly the way she was, but it also made sure that she knew he was sorry for everything.
Their tongues circled around in a rhythm that seemed well practiced but was newly found. They were both relishing the kiss until.
BANG.
They broke away from the kiss abruptly as Greg threw open the door. Not noticing the romantic embrace that they had just been in he panted out, "I have news." Experiencing the weird feeling of dèja vu at saying those exact same words within the past few hours he smiled.
"Good or bad?" Nick asked dreading the worst.
"Get off your ass the both of you and come to Grissom's office and you'll find out. Some one page Warrick quickly and get him to Grissom's office as well."
All Gathered in Gil's office 10 minutes later each member looked weary and disheartened. None of them knew what great news Greg had and he felt slightly guilty and yet momentarily superior for having this news as his own little secret. Finally reaching the end of his tether Grissom boomed, "What's the news Greg?" After keeping them waiting for 10 minutes he hoped this was good, to be honest Greg was starting to irritate him with his theatrical antics and he wished that the young man would just get on with it instead of wasting valuable time.
"You shout at me I won't tell you." Greg retorted unfazed by the older man's obvious annoyance. "My news is extremely good. The blood in the car......... Hardly any of its Catherine's. The car is saturated in someone else's blood. I've run the results through AFIS and haven't had a match yet but I've passed the information onto Mobley and he's already putting on a complete investigation into any recent missing persons claims that have been filed."
Astounded at both the news and the way that Greg had dealt with the news, Grissom for once found himself speechless. He couldn't believe the maturity and the intelligence of the young lab tech and immediately chastised himself for shouting at him earlier. The room heaved a sigh of relief as the news sunk in. They still had a murder on their hands but it wasn't Catherine's. They were that one step closer........ or at least that's what they all thought. They were all very wrong.
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Eddie watched as his ex-wife lay listless on the cement floor of the makeshift prison. He smiled at the light that flooded into the room as a door at the far end of the large expanse of the room, opened. He pushed himself up from the chair he'd been seated on and made his way over to the delicate, young teenager that had entered the room.
"What took you so long?" He demanded whilst taking his lover into his arms and caressing her neck softly whilst soft moans escaped her lips.
"Well I would have been here a lot quicker if I hadn't been held up. You know a babysitters work is never done." She smiled at her own sarcasm and kissed the older man on the lips. "I made sure that I left no tracks, no one could find me."
"Don't be so sure of that but anyway I'm glad you're here at long last. I've missed you." Leading her away from the door, shutting it softly behind him, he led her over to his chair in the opposite corner of the room. She looked at the still form of her employer and then back to her lover.
"You started the fun without me," she stated as she noticed the blood seeping from a head wound.
"Well. what can I say I couldn't resist it." He kissed her ferociously the passion between them not lessened by the presence of his unconscious ex- wife on the floor. Pulling away from her reluctantly he continued to talk, "I have to make the all important phone call. We're nearly home and dry gorgeous." Letting go of him long enough for him to get his cell out of pocket, the young teenager lit up a cigarette and offered her partner, in love and crime, a drag. Whilst pressing the cell next to his ear and waiting for a response he took a drag of the cigarette and relished it. Eventually the familiar voice of Gil Grissom picked up the receiver. "Hello?"
"Hello Gil." Eddie's voice was masked with a coder. One of the many tricks of the trade he'd learnt from his ex-wife's line of work.
"Who is this?" He heard the man rasp out.
"That," he emphasised, "Does not matter. What does matter is that I have your precious Catherine and if you want her back safely then you're going to have to do a couple of things."
"No conditions Eddie." Grissom was cool, calm and collected and Brass was rushing round for a taping device. Grissom needed to keep him talking for as long as possible.
"There will be conditions or there will be a price to pay. And I think you'll find that the price is way to high for you to afford to mess with me."
Signalling that he'd finally found a device to tape Eddie with Brass handed over the mini recorder to Grissom who in turn held it next to the receiver. "So what are the conditions Eddie?"
"I want money. I also want a little confession just for a laugh."
"Where do you think the money's going to come from exactly? And a confession of what?"
"The money can come from anywhere but a later phone call from myself will give you a better idea of that. Details, details, details. That's always been your weakness hasn't it Gil? The only detail you missed was that Catherine was married when you had your affair. And that's what I want a confession of. Admit it. Go on make my day." Grissom listened to the sick amusement of the man on the end of the line.
"We weren't having an affair."
"Fine you have it your way Grissom."
BANG.
Grissom heard the shot as clear as a bell even though the receiver must have muffled the sound. He let a breath catch in his throat as he heard a woman scream and assumed was Catherine.
"You made me do that Grissom. It's all your fault. And your going to have to live with that now aren't you?" The phone went dead on the other end and the tone began to ring loudly in Grissom's ears. It began to take over his thoughts and he found himself blacking out and landing awkwardly on the floor. His last thought being, 'I've killed Catherine.'
TBC.