Grissom softly closed the door behind him and watched as Sara, unaware of his presence, pounded a fist on the table and spat out a curse. "There has got to be ONE pet store in Las Vegas that stocks black chinchillas! Where the hell did you come from, you damn little rodent?"

Grissom broke in at this point, figuring he'd stop her before she got into a whole conversation with this imaginary furball. "I don't think they generally teach chinchillas either telepathy or English, honey, sorry."

"Don't do that," she over her shoulder as his voice surprised her. "You're getting worse than me. And I wasn't talking to the thing, technically. Anyway, wouldn't you be a little frustrated if you'd called every pet store in Vegas and gotten diddly-squat?"

"I take it you're staying late again." He didn't add questioning intonation; it wasn't really a question. Of course she was staying late, and of course he was staying with her after what happened yesterday.

Sara slapped down the photograph she'd been holding. "Damn right, and you are too. I need someone to start doing cold calls to libraries, bookstores . . . anything that'd have old books."

Not that he was unwilling, but this wasn't procedure. "You have two more CSIs working this case with you, Sara. Why not ask one of them, like you're supposed to?"

"Hah." She raised a fist and started ticking off reasons on her fingers. "One, Warrick's deep into Catherine's case now and has no clue what I've been doing for the past day or so. Two, Nick refuses to be alone with the two of us in the fear that we'll double-geek him or something. Three," she finished with a small smile, "you're more fun to have detention with."

"You've got me convinced," Grissom laughed. "Where do I start . . . oof!" A phone book hit him square in the chest.

"You're the genius in this pairing, Gris. Figure it out for yourself. I'm too concerned with where this damned animal is. I'm gonna call Susan and ask if she knows any chinchilla owners."

"Susan?" Grissom said warily. "Your victim?"

"Yeah."

"Sara, you know better than to get so involved that you get on a first-name basis with a victim. For your own benefit, stick with 'the victim' or 'Susan Akers,' not 'Susan'."

She shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Either way, I still want to nail this guy, not the least for trying to mess me up." She gave him a look that said 'just try to stop me' and picked up the phone. Consulting a page in the folder in front of her, she dialed what was presumably the victim's number. Grissom listened closely.

"Hi, may I speak to Susan Akers please?" A pause. "Sara Sidle From the Las Vegas Crime Lab." A longer pause. "Hi Susan, this is Sara Sidle. I talked to you the other day? Uh-huh, right. Well I just have two more questions for you. Do you know anyone who owns or sells chinchillas, particularly uncommonly colored ones?" Her eyes widened. "Uh-huh, ok." She was scribbling madly on a sheet of scrap paper. "Do you have an address or phone number? Thanks. Next, do you know of anyone who owns, sells, or works near old – I'm talking medieval – books?" Sara's face fell. "Ok, well, thank you for your help. I'll let you know if we find anything new." She said goodbye and hung up.

Grissom raised an eyebrow. "Good investigative technique, Sidle. You sound like you're gossiping at the coffee shop, not investigating a case."

"Shut up. I got the results, didn't I? She knows someone who's got chinchillas. Well, sort of knows him. He's her friend's boyfriend."

"But no luck with the books?"

"She couldn't think of anyone who'd have a reason to handle old books." Closing her eyes for a second, Sara collected her thoughts. "So I'll have to talk to the boyfriend today, I guess. Maybe he knows something about the book."

"Why don't you hold off on that until tonight, Sara. I don't want you going anywhere related to this case without O'Reilly. I know, I know," he said, holding up a hand to shush her, "You can take care of yourself. No one knows that better than me. But you cannot dodge speeding bullets, therefore you will make sure you always have an officer with you when you question these suspects."

Sara scowled. "I take it that that's a 'boss' order, and not a 'Grissom' order?" Grissom nodded and she growled. "One day, bugman . . . one day I'm gonna find a way to boss you around."

"Uh, Sara? You already have one of those. It's called 'home,' have you noticed? You know, that place where you tell me that I should sleep less, and that I shouldn't eat meat? I think that counts. Consider it a perk of dating your boss."

"I don't boss you around that much at home, "she said indignantly. "Only in . . . uh . . ." She flushed slightly. "You know."

Grissom gaped. "Are you being squeamish, Sara? You??"

"Hey, don't knock it. You're lucky I didn't spill all the dirty details to Meg." She grinned and wiggled her eyebrows. "You know how we girls get."

"Sara! What did you tell her about us – me?"

She smiled mysteriously. "Don't you wish you knew. You'll just have to be nice to me from now on and hope it's good enough to keep my mouth shut."

Grissom sat down on the edge of the table and pulled her toward him. "You wouldn't! You're as private as I am." His hands clasped her waist as he drew her closer. "You wouldn't," he said again. "Would you?"

"Let's just say we compared notes about bed-sharing." She grinned. "Don't you dare tell anyone else, but Meghan and Horatio are closer than everyone thinks. Remember how we spent, like, a week sleeping together before we even decided we had a relationship? Well that's what happened to them last night."

"So you didn't tell her about us."

"No, idiot, I didn't. I'm keeping you to myself, are you nuts? I'm not gonna go around broadcasting any of your particular talents in that area. You know, though," she added, a slow, teasing, smile spread across her face, "Horatio's older than Meghan. I wonder how she feels about that. After all, who'd want to sleep with the old, moldy scientist type anyway?"

Grissom mock-gasped and pulled her closer until he had her in a bear hug. "You ungrateful little . . . you know you're in love with the old, moldy scientist type."

Sara looked up at him from her slightly squashed position against his chest and nodded. "Well, yeah." She looked down, kissed his chest through his shirt, and looked up again. "I gave up my apartment today."