Title: Supernova

A/N: I adjusted chapter 2 for continuity (I had Catherine suspended at the same time Grissom was 'unreachable' – not quite accurate). Hopefully it shows, but if not, you now know. Any and all feedback is appreciated. Please forgive me for my grammar and/or spelling errors. This has been edited but there is always something that gets missed!

I thank everyone who took the time to read and especially those who took time to review: SAR, pdhtgal and MissyJane! Your encouragement and feedback is appreciated.

I hope to be able to post another chapter on Monday May 26, but I can't guarantee anything! Something will be up soon, though.

Disclaimer: The television program 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigation' still does not belong to me (and probably never will!)

Spoilers: "Playing with Fire," "Inside the Box"

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                Dr. Robbins' autopsy report would be issued following the lab testing of the vitreous fluid sample he extracted, but he was pretty confident that traces of some heroin or some other opiate like morphine would be present. The cause of death wouldn't have been the drug, but something like an opiate certainly contributed to the death. His unofficial report to Nick and Sara was that the victim died of internal bleeding. In other words, she was beaten to death. Although Dr. Robbins had only completed partial autopsies on the other two bodies and wasn't giving an unofficial cause of death, Sara's gut feeling was that the cause of death was the same as Matthews. At the moment, an intern was lifting prints from the unidentified victims to see if they could get a match on AFIS. For now, Sara's thoughts turned to Matthews.

                Brooke Matthews was well known in Vegas for many reasons. To begin, she was Dr. Ethan Matthews' daughter. Dr. Matthews had been inaugurated in a storm of controversy as the mayor of Vegas last year after the two other candidates withdrew from the election citing 'personal' reasons. He was stubborn and arrogant, and at the same time charismatic and polite. Dr. Matthews knew how manipulate people, and his daughter Brooke was one of his best tools of manipulation. While her father was the stereotypical politician, Brooke was the anti-thesis of the stereotypical teenager. She was accepted at three universities on full academic scholarship, and she had been invited to attend Juilliard as a piano scholar. As well as her other remarkable accomplishments, Brooke attained her black belt in Tae Kwon Doe. In the media, Brooke was portrayed as the perfect young woman: academic, artistic and athletic, as well as compassionate, attractive and well mannered. For her father, this was the ideal campaign publicity. He raised the perfect child as a single father. How hard would it be for him to raise Vegas?

                Turning her thoughts back to the homicide, Sara considered the dilemma of how Matthews died. Matthews' martial arts training made it difficult to imagine that she'd let someone beat her to death. Dr. Robbins found no defensive wounds on her body and one fresh track mark on her arm. Any opiate would sedate her enough to make fighting back difficult, if not impossible. Heroin was the most effective, and anyone who was going to risk taking on a black belt probably went for the most potent. The test of Matthews' bodily fluid would give them a better idea of why Matthews couldn't do anything about it.

                Sara followed Nick as he wound through the halls back towards the layout room before they proceeded to the lab, where Greg was hopefully working on samples of blood, fingerprints and other unidentified substances found at the scene. As they passed a few of the offices, both couldn't help noticing the news stories playing out on the television sets.

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                "In the news today, seventeen year old Brooke Matthews was found dead in an abandoned warehouse with the bodies of two unidentified street workers…"

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                "…The body of Dr. Ethan Matthews' daughter, Brooke, was found earlier this evening by a homeless man…"

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"…Sources inside the LVPD are silent as to whether reports that Matthews was tortured have been verified…"

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                "…The Las Vegas Police Department in refusing to comment as to whether Matthews death will be investigated by local authorities or whether the major will request FBI assistance…"             

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                When Sara passed the fifth newscast broadcasting the news of Matthews' death, she shook her head grimly.

                "Nick," she asked, "do you ever wonder why they know more than we do? Like the mayor is thinking of calling in the FBI?"

                "No," he said shortly.

                Sara looked at him, surprised at his blunt reply. Nick paused at the door of the layout room, and turned to look at Sara

Pinching his forehead, he apologized, "Sorry. I'm just a little stressed. Grissom picked one hell of a time to take time off for a family emergency. I know he wouldn't want Ecklie to handle the case, but I don't know if we can handle this without Grissom. Even with Catherine back tomorrow, this investigation is going to be huge. I can't say that I would blame the mayor if he requests an FBI presence."

"He won't," a cryptic voice from behind them stated.

Sara whirled around to find herself face to face with Greg.

"Greg, this isn't the time for ambiguity. What makes you say the mayor won't call in the FBI?"

"You know those blood samples and partial prints you pulled from the scene of the crime?" Greg asked.

"Yeah," Nick replied.

Turning to Sara, Nick elaborated, "Warrick and I, along with Damion from the dayshift, processed the scene. We lifted partials off the door jam, which had been taped to prevent it from locking, and took blood samples from around the victims bodies and near the broken window."

Greg continued, "I separated the blood samples into five distinct DNA sequences. I ran them all through CODIS, no matches. However, I matched three of the samples with the victims."

"That's pretty extraordinary," Nick commented sarcastically.

Sara smiled. That was the Nick she knew. Her smile turned to a frown when she saw the frustrated look on Greg's face. Now was probably not the time to be annoying Greg. After all he went through after the explosion and now with the stress of this media circus for an investigation, the last thing he needed was Nick making cheap shots at him.

"Go on, Greg," she encouraged.

"Anyway," Greg said, throwing a nasty look in Nick's direction, "I noticed something interesting about the DNA sequences of one of the victim samples and one of the unidentified samples. They both share enough DNA markers to classify them as a parent-offspring relationship. I'd say with a 100% certainty that two people present were related, with an 87% certainty it was a father-daughter relationship based on the two DNA profiles. On a personal note, I'd wager my life savings that the father-daughter duo is our illustrious mayor and his very dead daughter."

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