Howdy. Sorry if I have bored you to tears or something. If not, well then good for you! I know that last chapter was a little slow, or at least I thought it was slow. But anyways, on with the story…. and have I mentioned that I just LOVE reviews? I also love Ben and Jerry's, but that's a whole different story for another rainy day….

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"Whoa, Sara, what is wrong with you? You got us over here in five minuets, and you almost hit that old lady crossing the street. Do you want to tell me something?" Nick called to her as she got her kit out of the car. He jumped out of the car himself and went to go claim his.

"No Nick, I don't want to tell you anything. And I did not almost hit that lady. And if I had, it would have been her fault. You just don't go jumping out into the street like that."

"Sara, she was at a cross walk and must not have heard your burning speed engine."

"Drop it Nick."

"Do you want me to take this case by my self? You've been pretty stressed out lately and I don't want you to push your self too far. Go home, rent some movies, eat some ice cream…."

"I'm FINE." Sara stated through clenched teeth and walked off towards the house. Nick was in no mood to pester her any more because he knew that when Sara gets mad, everyone else around her suffers.

There had been a break in at an old house in one of the residential parts of Vegas. Nick didn't come here too often, but Sara seemed to know where she was going after they were told of the address. It made him wonder exactly where did she live. He had never seen her house, but then, she had not seen his. He shrugged off a feeling that came over him that told him that he really didn't know any of his coworkers that well. They sort of kept a rule about their personal lives – don't ask, don't tell. This rule seemed to be wearing down on everyone though, and little by little things about one another were surfacing. It was only a matter of time before Nick knew all of the graveyard shift's middle names.

There were two officers stationed at the door, and Sara flashed her badge in front of them and continued on into the house without waiting for Nick. He had a feeling that this was going to be a long night with Sara. He was actually secretly wishing that he had a case with Warrick instead, and that Grissom was here. He seemed to know how to deal with Sara when she got into one of these moods.

"What happened here?" Nick asked one of the officers outside the door as he walked in.

"We're not sure actually. No one called in a break in but the alarm sounded and alerted us to come here. We aren't sure if anything was stolen because we do not know whom the house belongs to. The neighbors say it has been deserted for some time now."

"Wait," Sara yelled from the middle of the room getting wind of what Nick and the officer were saying, "You're telling me that there was an active alarm in an abandoned house? That doesn't seem right."

"Well, that's what happened. None of the neighbors saw anyone here, nor heard anything either." The office then returned to standing guard at the door leaving Sara and Nick to process the scene.

The room was definitely trashed. Chairs were overturned, windows were broken, and shards of what looked like ceramics were all over the floor. There was a giant hole in one of the walls and none of the lights in the house were working. There was so far no visible evidence that someone had been here, well, except of course for the fact that the room was trashed. But no footprints or fingerprints yet. Nick took his kit upstairs while Sara stayed downstairs.

To Nick's amazement, the upstairs was spotless. Everything was intact, and it looked like nothing had been disturbed for some time now. But there was no dust. If something is left untouched for long enough dust starts to collect and there was no dust in any of the rooms. There were a lot of bookshelves and such, minus the books, and none of them had any trace of age on them. The bathroom was fully stocked with every medication you could imagine, and even rolls of spare toilet paper. The neighbors were obviously oblivious to the fact that someone had been here.

Sara was in the same disbelief of the neighbors after looking around downstairs. There were obvious sings of a struggle of some sort, except that the police claimed that no one was here. Well, sure, they might not have been once the officers showed up, but sure as heck people had been here recently. Sara began snapping pictures like she was a photographer of all of the stuff she found. At one point she did find a knife, but there was no visible blood on it. After she used some luminol, still none. She had only been here for twenty minutes so far and already she was frustrated with the case.

Sara called one of the officers in to help her push the couch that had been tipped over back to its upright position. Once she did that, she stepped back and gasped. There was a small pool of blood under the couch. This was just the clue she had been looking for to actually prove that someone had been in the house. She called Nick down and he agreed with her, something bad had gone down here.

Nick then retreated back upstairs as Sara swabbed the blood and continued to look for more, and of course a body. Nick was now getting frustrated with the lack of evidence upstairs. Someone had been here to dust recently, but why? There were bookshelves and one desk, but nothing else minus the bathroom. Doesn't someone need a place to sleep to live in a house? The neighbors might not have noticed it, but someone was certainly going to live here.

One of the rooms upstairs had a door that was a little ajar. All of the other doors were wide open and this looked like a red flag to Nick. He walked forward and pushed open the door. There was nothing in the room at all except a window. The walls were white and there was no other color except for the wood floor. Nick sighed realizing that nothing had happened upstairs. He turned to exit the room when he noticed something in the sidewall; two little holes. 

Nick walked closer and got inches away from the little holes there. Inside two of the little holes were two little bullets. "SARA!" He screamed to her, and moments later he heard her feet running up the stairs.

"What?" she called as she burst into to the room, and seeing nothing but Nick at first, folded her hands across her chest. "Ok Stokes, what is so important up here?"

"You like puzzles Sara, don't you?" he asked her.

"Yes, but I am in no mood for one right now. Do you want to tell me what you found?" she rolled her eyes waiting for him to say something stupid.

"Ok, explain this to me. How could there be two bullets lodged in this wall, and the pool of blood downstairs?"

Sara got quiet at this and Nick could tell that she was thinking. "Well, we're going to find out aren't we?" she said with a smile spreading across her face.

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"Ok, let's look at what we have so far." Sara said as she paced back and forth across the upstairs hall. "We have an abandoned house with an alarm system in it. A bunch of neighbors with their heads up their ass. Two bullets up stairs, but no blood, and a pool of blood under the couch downstairs. There had to have been at least two people here."

"Why?" Nick asked from his spot leaning against the wall.

"We haven't found a body yet, meaning that someone moved it. I, personally, have ruled out suicide.."

"Was it ever an option?" Nick said trying to make a joke. He didn't think it came across the way he had hoped because Sara just kept on talking.

"..Meaning that one body was shot here and was then moved. I bet there were at least two other guys here to get that mess downstairs."

"Right." Nick replied. He was actually a bit confused with that Sara had just said, but if he told her that it would be ridicule for him. "I was thinking, if the body was shot up here, there would be at least a little trace of blood somewhere." He had already luminoled the white room, but he found nothing.

"Someone was planning to move in here, that's what were assuming, right?" Sara asked. A thought was being drawn in her head.

"Yah, except the neighbors didn't think so."

"Let's forget about them for now, they're useless. But if someone was going to move in here, do you think they would have painted the rooms?"

"Do you think there was that plastic stuff on the floor? That would make a really easy clean up. But, it would then have to get downstairs.." at this Nick grabbed his luminol and walked over to the stairs. With a few quick sprays and then the UV light, five blood spots were now present on the stairs.

"Ok, so as the body was carried downstairs, and few blood spots dripped out onto the stairs."

"What makes you think that the body was dead?" Nick asked. That variable had been bugging him for a while now.

"What?" Sara asked in totally amazement. It wasn't like Nick to second-guess what she was saying.

"There is no body here. And I know the neighbors are dense, but I think they would have noticed someone carrying a corps out in a thing of plastic wrap. That to me just screams that something is not right. The bullet holes on the wall are pretty low, and I am guessing that whoever was shot was not shot in the head or upper chest, maybe the stomach. You could still make it downstairs with a bullet in your stomach." He was pretty proud of himself for thinking that up. And if he was right he could rub it all he wanted in Sara's face.

"Then explain to me how there is no blood in this hall way." Sara: one, Nicky: zip. He had luminoled the hallway with the other room and had not found any traces of blood. "If I had been shot in the stomach I would have been gushing blood all over the place. "

"Ok, ok, you're right. So now all we need to do is find out who was here, who was shot, and where are they now?"

"I'll process everything downstairs, if you go talk to the neighbors?" Sara said with a weak smile. She really did not want any more social interaction than she needed tonight.

"You owe me breakfast or something for putting me through all of this torture so far." Nick yelled over his shoulder as he trudged downstairs.