Summary: WIP. CSI / WaT crossover. Set after CSI PwF and WaT Fallout 2. It's easier to run than to act.
A/N: Thanks to all the great people hanging out at Maple Street. You're amazing.
***
Las Vegas Crime Lab, Las VegasMay 10, 4.30 p.m.
One step after another, Sara Sidle walked down the corridor of the Las Vegas crime lab. She saw the people working behind the glass walls of the lab, she saw co-workers passing her, but her mind was blind to all of it. It remained fixed on the past 60 seconds, replaying them again and again. Mechanically Sara approached the front desk and signed out, almost completely unaware of it. She walked the familiar way out to the parking lot. With every step she felt worse. The emotion was indescribable, a mixture of hurt, regret, fear and anger. Anger was making way to regret and fear. The confidence that she had felt in Grissom's office just minutes ago seemed to have vanished inexplicably. Sara reached her car, unlock the door and got in, still functioning mechanically. In all the emotional chaos inside her mind, there was still the voice of reason which told her that driving right now would be ill-advised. Having been a loyal follower of reason throughout the years, Sara leaned back and took a deep breath. The violent onslaught of colours and sound wouldn't leave here alone.
Instinctively, she shook her head as if the movement could shake off unwanted thoughts. She had asked a man who meant a lot to her, out to dinner and he had declined her invitation. Was this in fact the end of the road? Sara didn't know, she wasn't sure of anything involving Grissom anymore. She had been of the firm belief that her feeling were indeed reciprocated.
But the world of Sara Sidle had been shaken up in the last 24 hours. She couldn't yet grasp the full extend of it all. It wasn't so much what had happened in the outside world, but what had happened within her. It was as if a stretched rubber band had finally snapped. The tension was gone, but the feeling of release she had hoped for wasn't there. Slowly, after an in measurable time, driving seemed safe enough again. Sara drove home to her apartment and to decisions to be made.
Hotel Laurentius, New York City
May 14, 7.15 a.m.
Trying to shake off fatigue from two very short nights, Jack Malone took the stairs up to the fourth floor hotel room. As wrapped up as he was in his personal life at the moment, he was glad that there was a new case.
He was acutely aware of his team reacting to his arrival. Normally he wouldn't have given it any though, he probably wouldn't even have noticed. But this morning, the questioning, curious looks reached him. He hadn't been this aware of the power of other people's eyes since the days when he used to leave the office together with Samantha. Then he had always been watching out for the curious, probing gazes around the office. Those times were in the past, only the happy memory remained.
It was Danny who broke off the silence.
"This is where she was staying. Sara Sidle, thirty-one years old Caucasian female. She checked in on May 11 at 2.45 p.m. That was the last time anyone saw her. She was reported missing when she didn't show up for two appointments yesterday."
"Any background on her yet?" Jack asked no one in particular.
"Resident of Las Vegas, Nevada. Criminalist with the Las Vegas crime lab. We're running her credit cards and bank records right now," Vivian answered.
"Who reported her missing?"
"One Dr. Watts. She was supposed to meet at 3 p.m. yesterday. He said he tried to call her, even went to the hotel, but didn't find her. NYPD checked back with the LVPD, but she hasn't been seen there either."
The hotel room looked just like any other. Nothing particular jumped out at them. Unlike a private residence which bore the marks of its inhabitants and their personalities, a hotel room revealed little. A small suitcase stood next to the bed unopened. The bed was still made. On the table on the other side of the room were a filled glass and an opened pack of Aspirin. A folded copy of yesterday's New York Times. A light jacket was draped over the back of the chair.
Jack checked the pockets. Hotel key card, but no wallet. He wasn't sure whether it was the room or the after-effects of the previous 48 hours , but the room wasn't telling him anything. It was mute, anonymous.
"Look at that. Her cell phone," Danny picked the object up from under the bed. "Screen's cracked, it's not working."
"There's a bloody towel in the bathroom, as well as blood in the sink and on the bathroom floor."
"Okay, let's get this room processed. If there was a struggle forensics is going to find evidence of it. Also I want all the background on her and on this Dr. Watts."
Missing Person Unit, New York City
May 13, 9 a.m.
"This is our time-line so far. Sara landed at LaGuardia Airport at 1 p.m. on May 11. From what we can tell from the airport security tapes she was travelling alone and wasn't picked up by anybody. She had one suitcase and one carry-on bag. The suitcase was in her hotel room, the carry-on bag is still unaccounted for. Those are pictures from the security footage," Danny pinned them up at the whiteboard. The grainy black-and-white picture
"Do we know what's with her face?"
"No, not yet. But I've asked the LVPD to search local hospitals for any records of her having been treated recently."
"Have them look into police records as well. Maybe there is an abusive boyfriend," Vivian suggested.
"At 2.45 p.m. she checks into Hotel Laurentius and pays with her credit card for three days on advance. At 3.30 p.m. she gets a twenty-one minutes long call from Dr. Robert Watts. Directly after that at 3.55 p.m. she calls a number in Las Vegas, we're still waiting for a name. At 4.56 p.m. she buys a newspaper at the hotel's shop. We haven't yet been able to go through the tapes from the hotel lobby or the store. At 8.15 p.m. she get another call from Dr. Watts. At 9.57 p.m. she uses her credit card to buy a packet of Aspirin at a pharmacy across the street. That's the last time anyone has seen her. Police are out questioning employees of both shops and the hotel."
"The Aspirin was in her room, so we know that at some point she was back there after going to the pharmacy. The report from forensics state that the blood found on the towel is female. We need a sample to compare it too. Further background came back empty, she's single, no kids. She used her credit card to purchase a one way ticket to New York May 12. There hasn't been any activity since last night.
"We need to go to Las Vegas, talk to her friends, co-workers. Buying a one-way ticket means that she didn't plan on going back, we need to figure out why. Martin and I will go. The rest of you get those video tapes and talk to Dr. Watts, find out what she was doing here, figure out with whom she was supposed to meet. Let's go."
Vivian stayed behind in the room.
"Are you sure that going to Las Vegas is a good idea? You could always send someone else."
"I know what I'm doing." Jack's tone was sharper than he had intended. The truth was he had no idea what he was doing. He wanted to stay but that was afraid of the implications. It would mean that he had to face the decision that he had to make eventually. Going to Las Vegas allowed him a buffer, a small pocket of time. He knew that putting off the inevitable wouldn't help him or anyone else. Marie would get mad at him, if she was still capable of any feelings towards him. The whole hostage crisis had brought feelings to the surface which he wasn't prepared to acknowledge. Now that they were out in the open, he had to deal with them and make a decision. He sighed. Now that things had reached an impasse, there was no easy way out of this. In fact there never was.
Jack had been so lost in the never ending debate between his intellect and his feelings, that he hadn't noticed that Vivian was still there.
"Have you been to see Samantha at the hospital?" she tentatively asked, knowing at she was walking on thin ice. She didn't know for sure but had a pretty solid idea about the emotional TNT that was between Samantha and Jack right now. Jack running away wasn't going help, If anything the inevitable explosion was only going to be more devastating.
"No I haven't been there yet." Jack answered after a pause, avoiding to offer any further explanation, His tone made it clear that this discussion was closed. The truth was that he didn't dare answer that question for himself.
tbc
