Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Spoilers: Nothing specific, set mid third season.
A/N: Each chapter is told from a different point of view. I owe enormous thanks to M and J who are two wonderful beta readers.
I DIDN'T REALLY THINK anything special when we got on this case. The only thing I remember thinking was that it must be a pretty big case if Grissom is putting the whole team it. It's sad that we don't think anymore when confronted with murder, rape, and other assorted human cruelty. But we cannot afford to, because if we get too involved, science goes into the background and the bad guys might just get away. In this case, we didn't have a choice but to get involved. We were all dragged into it. But I am the one with the least right to bitch here; I got off really light compared to the rest of the team. As always, those who deserved it the least got the worst deal. There is always a risk, even when working as a CSI, I know that. After the Holly Gribbs thing we all know that, and in spite of our best efforts things have come very close to repeating themselves. At least this time, I don't have to blame myself. I know that doesn't help anyone, but it's important for my own peace of mind.
That peace of mind was first disturbed when we got to the crime scene on a Wednesday night. I've seen my share of desolate neighborhoods, so this did nothing to shock me. What did rattle my cage a bit were the victims. An entire family had been murdered, no survivors, plus there was an unknown body in the apartment as well. Later, we found out that she was the aunt visiting. Grissom made us divide up and I got the kitchen. There was blood all over. The walls were covered in spatter; there was a lot of blood on the floor. Someone had walked through the pools of blood. At a closer look, it was more like two people had walked through the blood, one person wearing socks, another person wearing flat shoes without a pronounced profile. It didn't look like the kind of boots worn by the police, but I still went out to the officers to check. None of them had blood on their shoes. That left the other victims or the killer as source of the foot prints.
I carefully took photographs before entering the kitchen, so that I could reconstruct the crime later based on the blood patterns. The body of Gordon Delaney, age four was lying behind the kitchen counter, shot twice in the chest. A drawer in the counter was open. It contained several knives. The blood pooled around him was likely to be his own. I followed the bloody trail from the kitchen out into the corridor. Both the sock trail and the shoe trail led in the same direction. Judging from the imprints, the person in socks had been running. It was improbable that the killer would be wearing socks, I thought. Just before the entrance to the bedroom, the shoe prints had overtaken the sock prints. There was another small pool of blood, spatter on the wall. The scene unfolded in my mind. One of the women had been in the kitchen with the kid trying to protect him. She had struggled with the killer, had pulled the knife from the drawer to defend herself. Maybe she had cut the killer. The killer had shot the boy. She had managed to get away from him. He had caught up with her before the bedroom, maybe he had grabbed her from behind and she had tried to get away from his grasp, trying to stab her assailant. Where was the knife now? If my theory was correct it should be somewhere. I proceeded into the bedroom where Grissom and Catherine were busy.
"Grissom, have you seen a knife around?"
"No, but we haven't checked the bathroom yet,"
"Mind if I take a look?"
"Sure, go ahead,"
Careful not to disturb anything, I went into the bathroom. It was clear that the women we found in the bedroom had been murdered there. Blood was all over the room, most of it inside the bath tub. I could also make out particles amongst the blood. Brain matter maybe? The knife I had been looking for was indeed there. It was lying on the floor, covered in blood. It would turn out that my initial theory of that part of the crime had indeed been correct. Gwen Delaney had used the knife to try to fend off her attacker. What I didn't understand then, was how it all fit into the bigger picture. Why Mrs. Delaney had made a run for the bedroom, instead of trying to get to the front door. The answers to these questions would come later, perhaps too late, I think now.