Running Disclaimer: CSI and Without a Trace are the property of their respective owners.  I own nothing. Spoilers: CSI up to Play with Fire, WaT first season

Summary: WIP.  CSI / WaT crossover.  Set after CSI PwF and WaT Fallout 2.  It's easier to run than to act.

A/N:  Big thanks to D for turning this into something readable and to E for making it possible for me to see the show in the first place.  You so rock! Also, as always to the Maple Street gang for being so inspiring.

McCarren Airport, Las Vegas

May 14,,

The rest of the flight passed in a haze.   Jack barely noticed how the time

had passed; he was actually surprised when the flight attendant announced

that they were about to land.   On the ground they were greeted by Agent

Nguyen from the Las Vegas field office.

"Good afternoon Agent Malone, Agent Fitzgerald." Nguyen nodded in their

direction.  "I've done the background checks you asked for.  Clean credit

history, no extraordinary withdrawals or payments during the last six

months.  A Yukon is registered to Miss Sidle; it's parked in front of her

apartment building.  We've taken a preliminary look at her apartment, no

signs of struggle.  According to her rent contract she lives there alone. 

Oddly, no missing persons report was filed with the LVPD.  We contacted her

parents, but they haven't heard from her in months.  Apparently they haven't

had much contact with her during the last couple of years." He handed Jack a

file.

"Not surprising if she went the New York on vacation.  If I disappeared while

on vacation nobody would notice either." Martin interjected.

"We'll take a look at her apartment first, then we'll have to talk to anyone

who might have had contact with her before she left town.  Someone's got to

know why."

Sara Sidle's apartment, Las Vegas

May 14,  3 p.m.

The two-room apartment provided just enough space for one person.  The main

room doubled as kitchen and living room; there was a small bathroom and a

bedroom.  The apartment was sufficiently furnished, but remarkably devoid of

decoration.  No photographs or artwork of any kind on the wall.

"I'm going to take a look at the bedroom." Martin announced.

Jack looked around the small kitchen area.  Everything was tidy, no dirty

dishes, nothing on the counter.   Jack opened the fridge.  Completely empty. 

Sara had been planning on being away for a while.  In spite of the

short-notice purchase of her ticket, Sara had organized her affairs

before leaving.  He checked the trash; it was empty, further confirming

his impression.  Sara had known what she was doing when she was getting ready

to leave.  There was something  or someone here she had wanted to get away

from.  He walked over to the living area.  Telephone, answering machine,

address book and note pad.  No messages; A few entries in the address

book, just numbers, no names.  Jack noticed that one number had been crossed

out.  Someone she didn't want in her life anymore? At any rate they'd have to

check all of them.  Nothing on the notepad.

Martin returned from the bedroom.  "Nothing there.  A single bed, made, no

pictures, nothing.  As if she didn't even live here."

"She doesn't seem to have any hobbies, except work.  Look at her books.  No

works of literature, only work related reading.  Forensics,

anthropology, anatomy, physics." He scanned the backs of the books.

"Well, she does seem to watch TV." Martin turned on the television.  "It's

set to the discovery channel.  I don't see any tapes or DVDs around."

"What did she do all day except work? No hobbies, no friends, no family that

reported her missing." Jack was puzzled by the lonely life unfolding before

him.  "There was nothing holding her here."

Gil Grissom's apartment, Las Vegas

May 14,  4 p.m.

Grissom was at home spending the time he had left before start of shift,

catching up on his reading as well as reluctantly engaging in the

necessary household chores.  No observer would have been able to tell, but

underneath the surface he was still agitated.  Ever since his conversation

with Sara his mind had been working incessantly.  He was used to being a

slave to his intellect, but this time was quite different.  This wasn't a

situation that could be picked apart and broken down into its elements.  He

hated to admit it, but he wasn't satisfied with how it had gone.   But he

didn't really see how he could have given a different answer.  He was just

about to pick up some books to put them back on the shelf when he heard

the faint ring of the doorbell.  Automatically he wondered whether he had

hadn't heard previous rings as muffled shouting from the corridor reached

him.  He walked over and peered through the peephole.  He saw a fairly young

man flashing.  He opened the door a crack.

"Are you Dr.  Gil Grissom?"

"Yes."

"I'm special Agent Fitzgerald with the FBI." Martin showed his badge.  "I'd

like to ask you a few questions."

Grissom opened the door and let the agent in.   he had an ill feeling.  If

this was about a case, why would they visit him at home? He would be at

CSI in an hour.  Could it be that he hadn't heard the ringing of the phone?

That had happened to him before just over a week ago.  This just one more

warning sign.  But right now, the FBI agent in his living room demanded his

attention,

"..., Mr.  Grissom?"

"Yes, what is this about?"

"I'm investigating the disappearance of Sara Sidle.  When was the last

time you saw her?"

Grissom had heard him perfectly, but almost wished he hadn't.  This

didn't make any sense, his mind screamed.  The FBI was investigating Sara's

disappearance.  How could she have disappeared?

"I saw her on May 10 as she was about the leave the lab at the end of shift. 

" Grissom heard his own voice, but the words were foreign to him.  His mind

was recalling the information on auto-pilot.  "She called me

the next morning and asked for a couple days of leave."

"Why ...  leave?"

"For personal reasons."

"Did she seem disturbed or upset lately?"

"There was an explosion in our lab on May 10; she was caught in the blast,

but luckily not seriously injured.  I urged her to take some time off, but

she didn't want to."

"That's not what I asked, but thank you for the information.  How did she

seem when you last saw her?"

"She seemed ...  normal." This wasn't true, but Grissom couldn't possible put

his last encounter with Sara into words right now.  Even in another situation

he had a hard time picking up on people's moods.  Sometimes, they seemed like

a language he had never learned to master.  The evidence left behind by their

actions usually told him all he needed to know.

"She called you the next morning.  What was that about?"

"She was asking for a few days off.  I told her to take as many as she

needed."

"...  attitude."

Grissom wasn't sure what the Agent had just said.  He couldn't help feeling

completely out of control in this situation.  He had no information, no idea

what was going on.  If he hadn't known better, he would have been convinced

that this was some twisted, horrible nightmare.

FBI Field Office, Las Vegas

May 14,, 6 p.m.

"Have you learned anything new?"

"Gil Grissom, her supervisor, I think he might be our guy.  At least, he

knows more than he's telling us.  He was very nervous and evasive, didn't

really answer my questions.  His story is that she just asked him for a few

days of leave for personal reasons; he said yes and that was it.  I say

we dig deeper on this guy.  You get anything?

"No, according to several police officers she is working with, she's quiet,

hard working, very professional.  No one knows what she's doing in her

off-time.  But the last case she was working on was connected to a gang

called "Las Culebras".  Our organized crime task force is looking into them. 

It's a long shot but so far it's all we have." Jack couldn't keep the

frustration out of his voice.  He was having a hard time with this case, no

matter how hard he tried he couldn't get inside it.  He had no feeling for

Sara, no impression of her personality.  It wasn't the case, he had worked

cases with fewer leads and they had still been able to solve them.  "I'll be

talking to some more of Sara's co-workers.  It turns out that all but two

private phone numbers in her address book belong to people from work, one

belongs to her parents, the other to one Hank Peddigrew.  He's a paramedic at

Desert Palms Hospital."

"You sure that you don't want me to help you with questioning the

co-workers?" Martin must have noticed that his attention wasn't fully

focused on the case.

"No, it's fine.  Go to the hospital and get more information about the lab

explosion.  Also see if you can talk to Mr.  Peddigrew.  I want to know why

his number has been crossed out in her address book."

Crime Lab, Las Vegas

May 14,,  7.30 p.m.

Everyone Jack talked to seemed to be saying the same thing: Sara was

completely devoted to her work, and would never just leave town without

telling anyone.  But no one knew her in her off-time.  The two co-workers,

Nick Stokes and Warrick Brown,  indicated that they worked together very

well, but didn't know anything about her personal life.  In neither

conversation had anything suspicious had come up.  Nick Stokes was shocked

to hear about her disappearance and seemed genuinely worried what might have

happened to her.  His demeanour was open, not trying to hide emotion. 

"It's just not like Sara.  She would never just leave without telling

anyone." Nick sounded incredulous.

"Did she maybe have problems at work lately?"

"Normally not, but on the last case we worked she went ahead on her own to

arrest a suspect without waiting for the police to clear the area."

"Did she ever act reckless before or disregarded protocol?"

"No, not as far as I know." Nick shrugged.

"What happened afterwards?"

"Nothing, I tried to talk to her but she didn't want to.  I dropped it.  I

just put the incident in my report." Nick paused.  "Do you think you'll find

her?"

"I don't know, we are still trying to find out why she went to New York

City."

Warrick Brown didn't have anything useful for them either.

"I honestly can't think of a reason why Sara would have wanted to leave.  If

she did, she would have discussed it with Grissom first."

"How did she get along with the people at work? Any disagreements or was

she involved with anyone?"

"No, Sara's very professional in that regard."

"Did she ever talk about her personal life, friends or family ?"

"No, not to me."

Although Warrick Brown was far less of an open book than Nick Stokes, he too

seemed to be concerned.

Exhausted from hours of talking to the people in Sara's life, Jack met up

with Martin at the CSI lab.

"I talked to the parents, but they have no idea what is going on in their

daughter's life.  Apparently they have very little contact with her.  Hank

Peddigrew is the ex-boyfriend.  According to him they dated for almost a year,

but the relationship never got serious.  On an interesting side note: he's a

got a fiancĂ©e, Elaine Alcott.  She works for an insurance company.  But both

their alibis checked out.  I had the LVPD do some more checking"  Martin

rattled off the outcome of half a day of investigative work.  Half a day and

no leads.  So far their best bet was Dr.  Grissom and they were far from

having anything tangible on him.  They could only hope that Danny and Vivian

were having better luck in New York.

"Did Dr.  Grissom tell you about Sara having problems on her latest case?

"No, he never mentioned it" Martin frowned, seeing his suspicions confirmed.

"We better talk to him again."

At the front desk they learned that Gil Grissom was in the building at the

moment.  They found him in his office, bent over crime scene photographs.

"Dr.  Grissom?" Jack knocked on the doorframe.

He didn't seem to have noticed them.  Jack repeated the gesture, speaking

louder this time.  "I'm special Agent Malone with the FBI;  you've met Agent

Fitzgerald before.  We have some more questions about the last time you saw

Sara."

Grissom nodded, his expression stoic.

"Did you know that Sara went back to the lab the next morning?"

For a brief moment Grissom's face showed utter surprise.  Jack was almost

certain that Grissom had not known that before now.  Although he too got the

impression that Grissom was hiding something, it probably wasn't what Martin

was thinking.

"No, I didn't know that.  I had the day off." Grissom answered the question.

"Have you any idea what she might have wanted?" Martin asked.

"No."

"We've been talking to Detective Brass.  According to him he mentioned to you

that Sara acted in a very uncharacteristic way during the last

investigation.  He said that she endangered herself and others through her

reckless actions.  When you saw Sara at the end of her shift, did you

confront her about it?"

"I mentioned it, but she insisted that she was fine."

Jack had been watching the exchange silently.  He had an idea of what Dr. 

Grissom was hiding and decided to test it.  He got up from the chair and

deliberately turned toward Martin while speaking.

"Do you think that the explosion in the lab might have triggered Sara's

unusual behavior?" Jack turned back to Grissom, watching him intently.

"Dr.  Grissom, do you have a problem with your hearing?"

Grissom nodded.  "It's a progressive disease." His tone was neutral, almost

light, as he if was relieved to be able to admit to it.  Jack was fairly

sure about the answer to his next question.

"Does Sara or anyone here at the lab know about this?"

"No, no one here knows.  It didn't come up when I last saw Sara."

"Then what did come up? "

A pause.

"Sara asked me out to dinner.  I declined." Jack got the impression that

there was a tinge of regret in Grissom's voice.  But maybe, he thought, that

was just his projection of his own situation on the case.  With the trouble

he was having separating his personal life from the case, it wouldn't

surprise him.

"Were the two of you ever romantically involved?" It felt wrong to ask

another man that question when he was guilty of the same act.  He was putting

Grissom in the same position that Farrell had tried to put him into.

"No, we weren't."

"Do you believe him?" Martin asked as they were on their way to the parking

lot.

"Yes, I think he's telling the truth.  He doesn't have a motive.  He might be

part of the reason why she left though.  She suffers from shock after the

explosion, then the situation at the crime scene, then she's turned down.  It

might have been enough to push here over the edge."

"I meant about not having been involved with her?" Martin clarified.

"He might have wanted to be, but I don't think he has ever acted on it." The

parallels and differences to his own situation were almost painful.  He was

still drawn to Samantha, but didn't dare to act on it.

Martin didn't immediately reply.

"Well, if he isn't our guy, then who else? I don't think anyone we have

talked to is a suspect either.  No one knew her well.  But one thing keeps

bothering me: why did she come back to the crime lab right before she left

the city? By then she had already made up her mind."

"Maybe she just wanted to say good-bye."

Maybe that was also part of why he had to his family's apartment that one

morning.   Because he knew it was over and he needed to say good-bye in a

symbolic way? Jack still wasn't sure what to think.  What he was thinking and

what he was feeling were two different things.  It seemed impossible to ever

find a compromise between the two.

Martin and Jack left Las Vegas the same night, there was nothing left for

them to do in Las Vegas.  They now knew what Sara Sidle's life was about. 

Work was at the centre of everything.

Jack was surprised that the concept of a devoted workaholic was so alien to

him.  After all year-long passion for his work had often taken priority over

everything else, his free time, his wife, his daughters.  He had made more

sacrifices for his work than he cared to admit.  Maria had once told him that

he was only truly in love with his job.  She hadn't been wrong.

Crime Lab Gil Grissom's Office, Las Vegas

May 15, 1 a.m.

Gil Grissom stayed in his office for the rest of the shift.  Things were

going slow at any rate.  He knew that the team could probably use him right

now.  Everyone was still shocked about what the had learned in the past

hours.  He himself had difficulty fully grasping it yet.  Sara had wanted to

leave CSI.  She didn't tell anyone about it and now she had disappeared.  How

could this happen? As soon as that thought had crossed his mind, he saw all

the grizzly possibilities.  On the job, he saw things like that happen every

day.  He couldn't help but feel guilty over whatever had driven Sara leave

everything that he thought was important to her behind.

Maybe she had been more affected by the explosion than he had thought.  He

should have put her on leave immediately, he should have insisted that she

take some time for herself.  Now he saw all the signs of shock: the

confusion, erratic behaviour.  Why had he been so blind to them? He had been

so determined to solve the case that he had lost perspective about what else

was going on in his lab.  In that regard he had failed as a supervisor.

tbc