Thank you once again for the reviews on the last chapter. Sorry this
chapter has taken so long but I've been bogged down with schoolwork. I
promise chapter 6 won't take so long!!
Chapter 5
Waking to the slight breeze of Sara fanning paper over his face, Grissom found the world since recovering from fainting, seemed now lacklustre and monochrome. The shot still rang through his ears, reverberating around in his head stuck in an endless echo chamber. The voices of the team were muffled and he suddenly realised he must have hit his harder than he thought due to each member of the team having exact duplicates floating around. Shaking his head momentarily trying to get rid of the fuzziness he felt a bolt of pain shoot through his head. That was indeed confirmation that he needed some form of aid and Brass jumped at the chance to help out his friend. Sara knelt down at his left hand side and Warrick at his right simultaneously asked him how many fingers they were holding up. Squinting at them through his glasses he said, "I'm concussed not stupid."
At first it didn't strike home what had just happened. Catherine was dead and it was all his fault. Surely if someone pinched him he'd come out of this awful nightmare and it would all be over. However, Grissom was in for a rude awakening. Grabbing the mini-recorder, Greg ran it across to the labs and got one of the techs to have a look at it. Something didn't quite fit and for the life of him he couldn't think what.
~*~
It had worked wonderfully. Everything had gone exactly as planned and now Grissom was probably passed out or throwing up somewhere. Eddie grinned at his own ingenuity. He'd shot the gun at the ceiling and his young teenage lover, babysitter for Catherine, yelled in supposed pain. Then he'd hung up and laughed so hard that he'd cried. He didn't think of himself as a cruel man he just wanted revenge, what was wrong with that?
"Come on can we leave now Eddie this place is giving me the creeps!"
"You can if you want." He answered non-committal.
"Well the whole point of asking Eddie was because I wanted you to come with me." The 17-year-old blond stood with her hands on her hips, facial expression like thunder.
"Don't be like that with me Jennie. You're here for a reason, if you don't like it I'm sure we could make an arrangement as to otherwise." Placing his hand over the gun holstered in the back of his jeans, Jennie backed off.
"Ok. ok Eddie chill." She held up her hands in protest and shrunk back into her imaginary shell, scared of her older lover. "I was just saying." Her sentence trailed off as she looked at Eddie's face. She saw something there she'd never seen before. It was in his eyes, in every contour of his face. She saw the revenge that he craved and suddenly she felt nauseous. What was she doing here? She looked at the listless body on the floor and winced at the blood oozing from the woman's head. Even with her features an uncharacteristic porcelain, Catherine still looked every inch a model. Jennie swallowed hard and turned away and let a silent tear creep down her face. She'd been in on the act but she'd never wanted it to go this far. Eddie had promised her no one would be hurt more than they had to be. The shape Catherine was in she wasn't going to make it through the next couple of hours. or would she?
~*~
Seeing as Warrick, Nick, Sara and Grissom had all deserted him at the lab to visit Lindsay in the hospital and have Grissom's head checked over, Greg found himself working harder and faster than usual. He was a workaholic anyway; he just never got any credit for the amount of work he got through. But today he had been everywhere trying to do everyone else's jobs and he felt exhausted because of it. Making his way to the break room he made himself a black coffee with at least 3-heaped spoonfuls of coffee. Wincing at the taste and the heat combined he suddenly felt a vibration on his belt. His pager was vibrating which meant only one thing. There was news. It was Johnny the new sound tech in the lab opposite his own. Making his way there with his strong cup coffee and a sense of foreboding he went in search of the news and hoped it was good.
Opening the door to his fellow lab tech's office his heart lifted in his chest slightly upon seeing the smile on Johnny's face. "Please tell me your wearing that stupid smile of yours for a reason." Greg pleaded.
"It's not stupid and yes I am wearing it for a reason. The scream doesn't belong to Catherine. I used the new comparative system on my computer to test it against the answer machine message she left on your cell ages ago. and there's no match. Which means."
"Which means Catherine is still alive and well. we hope." Greg bent down and grabbed the results sheet the younger man was offering him and kissed his forehead lightly. Instantly regretting his actions in the face of excitement he decided to get out of the lab before he asked the man out on a date. Grabbing his cell from his pocket he dialled Sara's number and waited expectantly for her to answer. As soon as she did he let the news tumble out in a disorganised fashion and cut the usual theatrics he gave results with. Suddenly he felt he was the case breaker and he relished the sensational feeling he felt in the pit of his stomach.
Finally finishing the excited phone call he made his way once more back to his lab. Gulping down the rest of the lukewarm liquid he had remaining in the polystyrene cup, he heard a phone ringing somewhere. Grissom's office he bet and raced down the corridor to get to it in time. Picking it up he gasped for air and resolved to go to the gym more after this case was finished.
"Mr. Grissom's office?"
"Hello this is Ted Bentley from the Houston Police department. I'm responding to a notice for a missing persons report. We've had a young girl missing for 3 weeks now and she seems the most likely candidate. If you could send me a DNA sample from the blood you found in the car we can match it in our CSI lab down here and give you the results ASAP."
"That's great. I'll post it via airmail it should hopefully reach you by the morning."
"Thank you Mr......"
"Sanders, Greg Sanders. It's my pleasure anything that can help crack this case we'll be extremely grateful for."
"I'll be in touch Mr. Sanders." With that the phone went dead and Greg shook his head to wake himself up. He had an urgent job to do and for once it was nice to be the one to do it.
*~*
"There you are Mr. Grissom. You'll need to take things easy for a couple of days and make sure you take the painkillers I've prescribed. Now if you'll accompany me this way I'll take you all to Lindsay's room." Walking along the corridors and entering the children's ward the doctor continued his polite conversation. "You'll all be glad to hear that she's responded extremely well to the medication and she'll be ready to go home in a couple of days time, Hopefully." Finally stopping outside a small room the doctor motioned for Warrick, Grissom and Brass to enter. They opened the door and entered the room in single file, Grissom at the head of the line. Lindsay was asleep and curled up into the foetal position hugging the pillow. Grissom reached out his hand to stroke the young girls hair and she awoke with a start.
Staring wide-eyed at Grissom she finally recognised him and her bottom lip began to quiver, her eyes flooding over with sadness. Reaching out for each other simultaneously, Lindsay burst into full-blown sobs. Between sobs she murmured, "I want my mommy," and Grissom's heart broke into a thousand separate pieces when he thought about how he had to be the one to tell her that her mom wasn't going to be around anymore. At that precise moment Sara burst into the room, a smile lighting up her beautiful face.
"She isn't." Grissom started.
"No she isn't but I'll fill you in later. We need to cheer up a little girl right now." With her last remark she pulled out a toy rabbit and some chocolate form behind her back and handed them over to Lindsay. A smile momentarily stopped the child's tears and she broke off her embrace form Grissom to only go and envelop Sara in one.
An hour flew past and the doctor came in to tell them visiting time was officially over and the gang all filed out of the hospital room. Looking around Sara's face suddenly transformed from happiness to confusion. Spotting the alteration Grissom asked her what was wrong.
"Where's Nick?"
"I don't know. He was with us in the waiting room. Maybe he stayed there instead of coming in to see Lindsay." Grissom shrugged knowing how stupid this excuse sounded and hoped that Nick turned up because it was starting to make all of them feel anxious. Pacing the floor, Sara held her cell phone to her ear and listened to the incessant ringing on the other end. Why aren't you picking up? She thought. Suddenly the waiting room doors flung open and Nick's face popped around the door.
"Where'd you go?" Sara asked more harshly then she'd intended.
"I went to the chapel. A little praying goes a long way."
Sara smiled at the handsome Texan and offered her arms to him. He accepted her invitation and fell into her arms. "I want to find Cath. I miss her."
"We all do, Nick. We all do." Breaking from their embrace and letting their hands fall together. Brass and Warrick joined them seconds after but Grissom didn't show up.
"Come on this is getting beyond a joke now. We find one and then we lose another," Warrick joked trying to keep the conversation light.
"You haven't lost me," Grissom replied from behind him. "I have just had a rather bright idea." Smiling at the team he motioned for them to move out of the waiting room.
"Well what is it?" Nick enquired.
"The sooner we get back to the lab the better."
"You're not answering my question." Nick persisted.
"Ok I'll give you a big clue. Who wasted my time the night Catherine went missing? And now who's suspiciously disappeared?"
Each member of the team looked confused at each other and then returned their gaze to Grissom. Then suddenly the penny dropped for Warrick who replied, "The babysitter." Finally they all realised how stupid they'd been to overlook her role in this all and practically ran out of the waiting room to the car park. Jumping in the SUV Brass put pedal to the metal and got them back to the lab in record time. The SUV barely stopped, Grissom jumped out and Nick, Warrick, Sara and Brass marvelled as they saw Grissom move the fastest they'd ever seen him go. They followed suit and made their way after their supervisor.
*~*
Back in the lab Greg was hard at work once again and had just finished the airmail package when Grissom burst into his room out of breath.
"Well this is a role reversal." The young man teased.
"Check....... Out ...........the ...........babysitter...."
"Ok. what's her name? And Why?"
"Jennie McCormack. And never mind the why." Grissom retorted regaining some of his breath.
Greg typed in the information into his computer and pressed the return button. Spinning back around on his office chair he turned to face the red faced Grissom. "Ok tell me why now?"
"Ok. She was the person who wasted my time the night Catherine went missing. She rang Catherine and made sure that she made her way home saying that Lindsay was ill. I don't think she ever banked on the fact that she was actually sick. Then when I came around she made sure she had at least 20 minutes of my time before she disappeared. I then rang her mobile at the hospital when the thought occurred to me that she might have been involved and surprise surprise her mobile is 'not connected'. If that's not suspicious. what is?"
"True." Greg said simply. They were interrupted by a beeping noise signalling the computer had found a match. "Oh dear dear dear Jennie."
"What?" Grissom asked inquisitively.
"Well nothing serious but she's got several minor charges as well..... a minor."
"For what?"
"She shoplifted, held on suspicion of possession of drugs that kind of thing."
"We find her, we find Eddie, We find Catherine." Greg followed this train of thought and then remembered the conversation he'd had earlier with Ted Bentley.
"I had a phone call earlier from a Ted Bentley. from the Houston Police department. I think he may have a match to the blood we found in Catherine's car." Not being able to finish his sentence Brass burst into the room. "Come on in don't bother to knock." Greg said sarcastically.
Ignoring the younger man Brass turned to Grissom, "A body's been found 5 miles from where the SUV was found. It's been bled dry."
"Then that's our vic." Grissom said. "Lets hope she's the only one. Get Sara in here she owes me some news."
"I can fill you in on that."
"How can you fill me in on that Greg?"
"Well I was the one who had the idea when you passed out on the floor." Greg smiled smugly at the older man. "You so underestimate me Grissom."
"Maybe. Just for goodness sake tell me."
Quickly filling Grissom in on the developments and telling him about how the idea came about Greg watched in amazement at how Grissom's face became flabbergasted at the young man's ingenuity.
"Your talents are wasted on the trace lab Gregory." Greg scowled at the older man.
"It's GREG."
"I know I just had to burst your ego somehow." Grissom smiled at him and then got up to leave the room. "I'm going to go see the body out on the strip. Good work Greg."
The young lab tech glowed from the inside out and smiled like a maniac at his supervisor. Grissom had never really given him appraisal for anything and now he was heaping it on. He just hoped his efforts were good enough to help find Catherine.
TBC.
Chapter 5
Waking to the slight breeze of Sara fanning paper over his face, Grissom found the world since recovering from fainting, seemed now lacklustre and monochrome. The shot still rang through his ears, reverberating around in his head stuck in an endless echo chamber. The voices of the team were muffled and he suddenly realised he must have hit his harder than he thought due to each member of the team having exact duplicates floating around. Shaking his head momentarily trying to get rid of the fuzziness he felt a bolt of pain shoot through his head. That was indeed confirmation that he needed some form of aid and Brass jumped at the chance to help out his friend. Sara knelt down at his left hand side and Warrick at his right simultaneously asked him how many fingers they were holding up. Squinting at them through his glasses he said, "I'm concussed not stupid."
At first it didn't strike home what had just happened. Catherine was dead and it was all his fault. Surely if someone pinched him he'd come out of this awful nightmare and it would all be over. However, Grissom was in for a rude awakening. Grabbing the mini-recorder, Greg ran it across to the labs and got one of the techs to have a look at it. Something didn't quite fit and for the life of him he couldn't think what.
~*~
It had worked wonderfully. Everything had gone exactly as planned and now Grissom was probably passed out or throwing up somewhere. Eddie grinned at his own ingenuity. He'd shot the gun at the ceiling and his young teenage lover, babysitter for Catherine, yelled in supposed pain. Then he'd hung up and laughed so hard that he'd cried. He didn't think of himself as a cruel man he just wanted revenge, what was wrong with that?
"Come on can we leave now Eddie this place is giving me the creeps!"
"You can if you want." He answered non-committal.
"Well the whole point of asking Eddie was because I wanted you to come with me." The 17-year-old blond stood with her hands on her hips, facial expression like thunder.
"Don't be like that with me Jennie. You're here for a reason, if you don't like it I'm sure we could make an arrangement as to otherwise." Placing his hand over the gun holstered in the back of his jeans, Jennie backed off.
"Ok. ok Eddie chill." She held up her hands in protest and shrunk back into her imaginary shell, scared of her older lover. "I was just saying." Her sentence trailed off as she looked at Eddie's face. She saw something there she'd never seen before. It was in his eyes, in every contour of his face. She saw the revenge that he craved and suddenly she felt nauseous. What was she doing here? She looked at the listless body on the floor and winced at the blood oozing from the woman's head. Even with her features an uncharacteristic porcelain, Catherine still looked every inch a model. Jennie swallowed hard and turned away and let a silent tear creep down her face. She'd been in on the act but she'd never wanted it to go this far. Eddie had promised her no one would be hurt more than they had to be. The shape Catherine was in she wasn't going to make it through the next couple of hours. or would she?
~*~
Seeing as Warrick, Nick, Sara and Grissom had all deserted him at the lab to visit Lindsay in the hospital and have Grissom's head checked over, Greg found himself working harder and faster than usual. He was a workaholic anyway; he just never got any credit for the amount of work he got through. But today he had been everywhere trying to do everyone else's jobs and he felt exhausted because of it. Making his way to the break room he made himself a black coffee with at least 3-heaped spoonfuls of coffee. Wincing at the taste and the heat combined he suddenly felt a vibration on his belt. His pager was vibrating which meant only one thing. There was news. It was Johnny the new sound tech in the lab opposite his own. Making his way there with his strong cup coffee and a sense of foreboding he went in search of the news and hoped it was good.
Opening the door to his fellow lab tech's office his heart lifted in his chest slightly upon seeing the smile on Johnny's face. "Please tell me your wearing that stupid smile of yours for a reason." Greg pleaded.
"It's not stupid and yes I am wearing it for a reason. The scream doesn't belong to Catherine. I used the new comparative system on my computer to test it against the answer machine message she left on your cell ages ago. and there's no match. Which means."
"Which means Catherine is still alive and well. we hope." Greg bent down and grabbed the results sheet the younger man was offering him and kissed his forehead lightly. Instantly regretting his actions in the face of excitement he decided to get out of the lab before he asked the man out on a date. Grabbing his cell from his pocket he dialled Sara's number and waited expectantly for her to answer. As soon as she did he let the news tumble out in a disorganised fashion and cut the usual theatrics he gave results with. Suddenly he felt he was the case breaker and he relished the sensational feeling he felt in the pit of his stomach.
Finally finishing the excited phone call he made his way once more back to his lab. Gulping down the rest of the lukewarm liquid he had remaining in the polystyrene cup, he heard a phone ringing somewhere. Grissom's office he bet and raced down the corridor to get to it in time. Picking it up he gasped for air and resolved to go to the gym more after this case was finished.
"Mr. Grissom's office?"
"Hello this is Ted Bentley from the Houston Police department. I'm responding to a notice for a missing persons report. We've had a young girl missing for 3 weeks now and she seems the most likely candidate. If you could send me a DNA sample from the blood you found in the car we can match it in our CSI lab down here and give you the results ASAP."
"That's great. I'll post it via airmail it should hopefully reach you by the morning."
"Thank you Mr......"
"Sanders, Greg Sanders. It's my pleasure anything that can help crack this case we'll be extremely grateful for."
"I'll be in touch Mr. Sanders." With that the phone went dead and Greg shook his head to wake himself up. He had an urgent job to do and for once it was nice to be the one to do it.
*~*
"There you are Mr. Grissom. You'll need to take things easy for a couple of days and make sure you take the painkillers I've prescribed. Now if you'll accompany me this way I'll take you all to Lindsay's room." Walking along the corridors and entering the children's ward the doctor continued his polite conversation. "You'll all be glad to hear that she's responded extremely well to the medication and she'll be ready to go home in a couple of days time, Hopefully." Finally stopping outside a small room the doctor motioned for Warrick, Grissom and Brass to enter. They opened the door and entered the room in single file, Grissom at the head of the line. Lindsay was asleep and curled up into the foetal position hugging the pillow. Grissom reached out his hand to stroke the young girls hair and she awoke with a start.
Staring wide-eyed at Grissom she finally recognised him and her bottom lip began to quiver, her eyes flooding over with sadness. Reaching out for each other simultaneously, Lindsay burst into full-blown sobs. Between sobs she murmured, "I want my mommy," and Grissom's heart broke into a thousand separate pieces when he thought about how he had to be the one to tell her that her mom wasn't going to be around anymore. At that precise moment Sara burst into the room, a smile lighting up her beautiful face.
"She isn't." Grissom started.
"No she isn't but I'll fill you in later. We need to cheer up a little girl right now." With her last remark she pulled out a toy rabbit and some chocolate form behind her back and handed them over to Lindsay. A smile momentarily stopped the child's tears and she broke off her embrace form Grissom to only go and envelop Sara in one.
An hour flew past and the doctor came in to tell them visiting time was officially over and the gang all filed out of the hospital room. Looking around Sara's face suddenly transformed from happiness to confusion. Spotting the alteration Grissom asked her what was wrong.
"Where's Nick?"
"I don't know. He was with us in the waiting room. Maybe he stayed there instead of coming in to see Lindsay." Grissom shrugged knowing how stupid this excuse sounded and hoped that Nick turned up because it was starting to make all of them feel anxious. Pacing the floor, Sara held her cell phone to her ear and listened to the incessant ringing on the other end. Why aren't you picking up? She thought. Suddenly the waiting room doors flung open and Nick's face popped around the door.
"Where'd you go?" Sara asked more harshly then she'd intended.
"I went to the chapel. A little praying goes a long way."
Sara smiled at the handsome Texan and offered her arms to him. He accepted her invitation and fell into her arms. "I want to find Cath. I miss her."
"We all do, Nick. We all do." Breaking from their embrace and letting their hands fall together. Brass and Warrick joined them seconds after but Grissom didn't show up.
"Come on this is getting beyond a joke now. We find one and then we lose another," Warrick joked trying to keep the conversation light.
"You haven't lost me," Grissom replied from behind him. "I have just had a rather bright idea." Smiling at the team he motioned for them to move out of the waiting room.
"Well what is it?" Nick enquired.
"The sooner we get back to the lab the better."
"You're not answering my question." Nick persisted.
"Ok I'll give you a big clue. Who wasted my time the night Catherine went missing? And now who's suspiciously disappeared?"
Each member of the team looked confused at each other and then returned their gaze to Grissom. Then suddenly the penny dropped for Warrick who replied, "The babysitter." Finally they all realised how stupid they'd been to overlook her role in this all and practically ran out of the waiting room to the car park. Jumping in the SUV Brass put pedal to the metal and got them back to the lab in record time. The SUV barely stopped, Grissom jumped out and Nick, Warrick, Sara and Brass marvelled as they saw Grissom move the fastest they'd ever seen him go. They followed suit and made their way after their supervisor.
*~*
Back in the lab Greg was hard at work once again and had just finished the airmail package when Grissom burst into his room out of breath.
"Well this is a role reversal." The young man teased.
"Check....... Out ...........the ...........babysitter...."
"Ok. what's her name? And Why?"
"Jennie McCormack. And never mind the why." Grissom retorted regaining some of his breath.
Greg typed in the information into his computer and pressed the return button. Spinning back around on his office chair he turned to face the red faced Grissom. "Ok tell me why now?"
"Ok. She was the person who wasted my time the night Catherine went missing. She rang Catherine and made sure that she made her way home saying that Lindsay was ill. I don't think she ever banked on the fact that she was actually sick. Then when I came around she made sure she had at least 20 minutes of my time before she disappeared. I then rang her mobile at the hospital when the thought occurred to me that she might have been involved and surprise surprise her mobile is 'not connected'. If that's not suspicious. what is?"
"True." Greg said simply. They were interrupted by a beeping noise signalling the computer had found a match. "Oh dear dear dear Jennie."
"What?" Grissom asked inquisitively.
"Well nothing serious but she's got several minor charges as well..... a minor."
"For what?"
"She shoplifted, held on suspicion of possession of drugs that kind of thing."
"We find her, we find Eddie, We find Catherine." Greg followed this train of thought and then remembered the conversation he'd had earlier with Ted Bentley.
"I had a phone call earlier from a Ted Bentley. from the Houston Police department. I think he may have a match to the blood we found in Catherine's car." Not being able to finish his sentence Brass burst into the room. "Come on in don't bother to knock." Greg said sarcastically.
Ignoring the younger man Brass turned to Grissom, "A body's been found 5 miles from where the SUV was found. It's been bled dry."
"Then that's our vic." Grissom said. "Lets hope she's the only one. Get Sara in here she owes me some news."
"I can fill you in on that."
"How can you fill me in on that Greg?"
"Well I was the one who had the idea when you passed out on the floor." Greg smiled smugly at the older man. "You so underestimate me Grissom."
"Maybe. Just for goodness sake tell me."
Quickly filling Grissom in on the developments and telling him about how the idea came about Greg watched in amazement at how Grissom's face became flabbergasted at the young man's ingenuity.
"Your talents are wasted on the trace lab Gregory." Greg scowled at the older man.
"It's GREG."
"I know I just had to burst your ego somehow." Grissom smiled at him and then got up to leave the room. "I'm going to go see the body out on the strip. Good work Greg."
The young lab tech glowed from the inside out and smiled like a maniac at his supervisor. Grissom had never really given him appraisal for anything and now he was heaping it on. He just hoped his efforts were good enough to help find Catherine.
TBC.