Chapter IX

The sun just got over the sky and it was already hot out. I was sitting next to Nick in his Tahoe with my bare feet on the dash board and paper work in my hands.

'Anna Elliot was found dead in the lake with a champagne bottle in her neck and a wedding ring on her finger. There was fibers from her, Tom and Nicole. On Nicole there was fibers from Tom and Anna. And now Tom is missing and Anna and Nicole are dead. We have to find Tom.'

'Then why are we going to the lake?'

'Because that's where I'm guessing both girls died. And that was where anyone last saw Tom or the girls alive.'

'Sara I hate to break it to you but Grissom, Catherine, and Warrick swept the place and they didn't find anything.' Nick parked the car at the lake.

'Maybe they missed something.' I got out of the Tahoe and looked around. The crime scene tape was still up, so nothing has been touched. I walked around the shore of the lake. Nick walked with me. The wind was blowing hard and my hair was blowing like crazy.

'There's where Anna was found.' There was a big rock pile a couple of feet in front of us. There was blood on the rocks. I looked around the surrounding areas. There was lots of trees inter winding with each other. 'There's no foot prints in the sand and if there was they blew away.' Nick said. I walked up to the tree and looked up at it's strong branches.

'What if Tom climbed away?' I said raising my eyebrow.

'Sara I don't think that-' I was already in the tree that was actually not that hard to climb. 'Come on Sara your going to get yourself killed.'

'It's not that bad Nick. Come on.' I looked to the next branch from another tree and jumped onto it. I spotted some blood on a near branch. 'There's blood up here Nick.' I yelled down to him. Nick climbed the tree and was next to me.

'When was the last time you climbed a tree?' Nick asked me.

I jumped to another branch with blood on it, 'Since 7th grade.' Nick jumped onto the same branch as me and almost made me fall. 'Shit Nicky!'

'Sorry I'm not that good at climbing trees.' He was inches from my face.

'That's ok.' We continued flowing the blood and the trees seemed to go on forever.

'These blood marks are not leading us. The person who's blood this is was running towards the water.' Nick said resting on to a branch.

I straddled a tree branch. 'Yeah but either way we have to get somewhere they were running from.' I stood up and walked slowly across the branch to the tree trunk.

'The blood ends.' Nick said sadly.

I looked down and was a tent, 'Not now it's not.' I jumped down from the tree and landed on my feet. 'Aren't you coming cowboy?'

'Sara you just jumped about 50 feet from a tree and landed on your feet. You could have killed yourself.'

'So what cowboy we have to solve this case.'

Nick jumped down and landed on his ass. 'I think I broke my ass bone.' Nick stood up rubbing his ass bone. I went over and looked at him, he was fine. He's almost TO fine.

'Nick your fine. Come on we don't have that much time left.' Nick and I went over to the tent and looked inside. A mattress with some blankets on it with some food in the corner. 'Looks like someone was here.' Nick didn't say a word. 'Nicky?'

'Found Tom.' Nick said looking outside the tent.

'Where?' Nick pointed to something. I stood up and looked at what he was pointing at. And there was Tom, hanging from a tree, a rope around his neck and a note at his feet. Nick called Grissom.

'Gris, we found him.'