Author's note: Whadaya know? I updated. Ok, in my defence this isn't the easiest story to write (poor Nick) but still, sorry that took so long. Just wanted to say thanks to all the nice people who reviewed and told me what they thought - keeps me writing, honest!
Part 3
Grissom used the key provided by the vic's landlord to open the door to the apartment. She'd been nice, friendly, the balding middle-aged man had said. He had never felt uncomfortable entering a corpse's property before, the person was after all dead and not really likely to mind. The families always surprised him - they'd object to the disturbance, they'd say that the aforementioned dead person wouldn't want their things moved or rifled through. They'd make up any number of excuses to stop him and his team from doing their job. You'd think that they'd want to find out what had happened. You'd think they'd want closure. There was no family in this case and also, Grissom decided, very good reasons for choosing the company of bugs rather than people. This, however, felt like an intrusion. For the first time in his career, it felt as if they had no right to be where they were. It was Nick's involvement that did this, it just felt wrong - the whole thing did. An impression from the whole case that he wasn't even sure that he understood and certainly couldn't articulate.
Once they'd found out what her name was, it had taken them all of thirty seconds to find out where she lived. They desperately needed some insight into the life of their corpse, at least to give them something to go on. Something more than the twenty-year old stories that Nick could give them. The case had so far been a non-starter even after they'd been supplied with a name. There was evidence but at this moment, to say that it was disjointed would possibly be the understatement of the decade.
The door swung open after a couple of attempts and Catherine followed him closely in the apartment. She'd pulled rank to get in on this assignment, leaving Sara and Warwick both feeling more than slightly resentful, both of whom considering themselves to be Nick's closest friends on the team. They were, but it was undoubtedly best that the more experienced CSI accompanied him instead. She could supply a level of detachment that their subordinates wouldn't have been able to maintain, not for long anyway. Despite this, he'd have liked to have Nicky there himself, the conflict of interest aside through but the younger man was still technically on vacation and even Gil, who believed that all should be as devoted to the job as he was, felt that he couldn't ask him to give up his leave, no matter how useful he'd be.
The place was nice. Open-plan for the most part, the kitchenette, dining and living areas being together in the main portion of the third-floor flat. It was neat and organised and yet obviously still a home. Somewhere that was lived in rather than just inhabited. Well, not anymore but it had been. Grissom surveyed it before moving to open the curtains. He noted that they were closed - she'd probably left the flat after dark. You didn't spend money on large windows unless you wanted the light that they provided. Catherine headed for the fridge. Nothing had gone off, not even the perishables, so they were looking at a fairly short space of time between now and when she, when Jane, had last been here.
A cursory inspection of the apartment gave them nothing, no signs of a struggle, nothing out of the ordinary, random fibres to go to the lab but apart from that, absolutely nothing. If Grissom had been frustrated the night before now he was, he didn't even know what he was, which for someone like the controlled chief CSI was so not of the good.
Catherine could see it clearly on his face as she headed off towards the bathroom to finish the sweep she'd started in there. Gil Grissom, on the other hand, simply did not have trouble with cases. He seemed to see things on levels and in ways that none of the others, including herself, could. It was only a matter of time before he figured out exactly what Nick's connection to the woman was. The more she saw or rather the less she saw, the more she was convinced that what had happened to the young man, who was practically her baby brother, was very much relevant to the case and there was no way that their boss wasn't going to work something out. If the red head was entirely honest with herself, that was why she was here. This was why she'd been tense since entering the place. Keeping records of that kind of thing was not unheard of and if there were any it was only a matter of time before they were found. Before they were done they'd have turned the placed upside down and inside out, twice. She and Grissom, and Sarah and Warwick for that matter always tried to watch out for Nick that little bit more, this was just another thing that they couldn't protect him from. Her friend was about to discover something worse than awful and she couldn't do a thing, she couldn't break Nick's confidence, while he'd surely recognise that it as only a matter of time before everything came out, he'd never trust her again and she cherished that trust. If the red-head was entirely honest with herself that was why she was here. This was about damage control.
Damage control that, from the look on her mentor's face, was already pointless.
The flat had been as organised as it had first appeared so after leaving Cat to finish the preliminary sweep for evidence, it had taken Gil all of thirty seconds to locate Ms. Peterson's personal papers. It wasn't those, however, that caused him to call for his colleague or his face to drain of colour.
In the sole bedroom of the apartment, at the bottom of the large built-in wardrobe, in the same file as the tax receipts and vehicle registration forms, were pictures, lots of pictures. Of boys. It was one of those card folders that sort of collapsed open when you let them go, the kind that seemed to have tens of compartments, a deceptive number of compartments and a child for each one. Complete with pictures and dates and personal accounts, leaving no doubt as to what this meant. Filed away with the woman's passport and health insurance. But it wasn't even those things that caused his breath to become ragged and his heart to pound against his chest. More the realisation that for each of these boys, Jane Peterson had probably started out as a last minute babysitter.
