Marlena had to practically drag Sasha down to Greg's lab when she was paged. Her test results on the white powder were in and her heart was pounding.
"Greg," Marlena begged as she forced Sasha into a chair. She leaned on Greg's desk. "Please. Give me some good news."
Greg handed her a piece of freshly printed paper, still hot from the laser printer. "You're really something else, Marlena."
"I know," she murmured and stared at the report. It was a match for the white powder found in Solange and Isabeau's kitchen and Lady Heather's garden. She handed it to Sasha who was sitting beside her. He read it and gave a low whistle.
"Strychnine."
Greg looked from Sasha to Marlena to Sasha again. "So…what now?"
"Now," Marlena sighed. "Now we find Sara." She turned on her heels and took off as if someone had lit a fuse beneath her.
"Sara," Greg shook his head as he watched Marlena leave. "I can't believe it."
"You can't? I can't!" Sasha exclaimed.
Sara was in her office, gathering up some papers to take to home with her while she spent the rest of her day off. Marlena knocked softly, tried to act casual.
"Hey," Sara said brightly. "Find anything interesting today?"
Marlena shot Sara a friendly smile, "Uh, I found some pictures and I'm really interested in them. D'you think you could help me out? I found them in your apartment. I'd like to know who's in them."
Sara smiled. "Sure."
Marlena slid the photographs hidden in her jacket pocket that she had taken from Sara's apartment towards her, one by one.
The first: a young hippie couple sitting on a porch swing, shaggy haired and dressed in the style of the late seventies, with a dark haired baby sitting between them in a long beige dress.
"Me, as a baby, with my parents Kathleen and David," Sara said, smiling. "I was about ten months old."
The second: a bored-looking Goth girl in fishnets and a form-fitting black dress, black lipstick and heavy eyeliner, lying on a couch with a cigarette in one hand and her head lying on a boy's lap, another Goth in leather pants and a tight-fitting red shirt. He too wore heavy eyeliner. His long black hair hung in his eyes.
"Oh, jeez. My Gothic phase," Sara sighed. "Ran around calling myself Sabrina, Lady of the Darkness, wouldn't answer to my real name. Drove my parents nuts. Lasted from high school till Harvard. That's my old boyfriend Christian. He's an ad exec now somewhere in California."
The third: two beaming young girls, holding hands, in matching pink-and-burgundy peasant dresses, faces nearly identical, standing in the middle of a flower garden.
"My cousin Bonnie and me, standing in the garden beside my uncle's beach home. We were both six here. This was taken during the summer of '77, when our families got together in Pacifica. It was a two hour drive but worth it if I got to see Bonnie and her sister Rose. We were inseparable."
The fourth: the one in the purple frame, of three laughing pre-teen girls squished onto a small couch.
"Ah, this is one of my favorites," Sara pointed at each girl as she spoke their name. "Astrid." The blond girl. "Midori." The Asian girl. "And myself." The brunette.
The fifth: the couple standing in front of San Diego stadium.
Sara's smiling face disintegrated like sugar in a mug of tea. She picked up the photograph, fear in her eyes. "Me…and…and Grissom."
"Grissom?" Marlena acted surprised.
Sara pursed her lips and put the picture back on the table, face-down.
"Do you want to talk?" Marlena asked.
"No."
"C'mon. This is a great picture. I'd love to hear the story behind it."
"No."
"Sah-rah," Marlena said in a sing-song voice. "You can't keep secrets from me. Not in this line of work."
A hard stare. "So I like the Dodgers. B.F.D."
"Oh, it is a big fuckin' deal. We know about your relationship with Grissom, this picture is living proof of more than a one-night stand between you two."
"Who is we?"
"Breeze, Sasha and I."
"Should I give you a cookie and care? You know about me and Grissom. You know that Evie is not Sean's daughter and that Sean is pissed because I was having an affair with Grissom. Miss Scarlet, in the library, with the wrench. So you know."
"I know a lot of things," Marlena's voice was like the surface of an ice-skating rink—cool, smooth and unyielding.
"Tell me, Marlena," Sara glowered, "what do you know?"
Marlena got authorization to drag Sara into the interrogation room. She had Sara sit in the accused's chair. Kenyon Browning and Cameron Howe were in position.
"Tell me why I'm here and being treated like a common criminal," Sara snapped.
"Because you are one," Marlena retorted. "Or, at least, you will be."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sara, I'm shocked. We're both CSI. Did you really think you could pull that naïve innocence bullshit on me? Come on, we both know it doesn't work that way."
Sara looked down at her lap.
"I was just wondering Sara," Marlena spoke slowly, icily. "Why did your husband leave you?"
"Shut up," flared Sara.
"Was it because you were more married to your work?"
"Shut up!"
"Was it because you were a lousy housekeeper?"
"Stop!"
"Or was it because he found out Evie wasn't his child?"
"Stop!" Sara roared, standing angrily. Tears ran down her cheeks, zigzagging wildly. "Stop it! How dare you!"
"How dare I? Sara, sweetie, at least I didn't commit murder." Marlena kept her cool as she watched Sara's tiny hands clench into fists. "May I see your wrists?"
Sara remained silent and returned to her seat.
"Let's not play the stupid game, hon. We both know what happens when you refuse."
Reluctantly, Sara put her hands on the table and pulled up her sleeves. Purple-and-gray blotches surrounded the pale wrists of Marlena's coworker like irregular bracelets.
"Ooh, that looks like it hurt," Marlena pouted. "How'd you get those, Sara?"
Again, Sara refused to speak. This was getting to be like pulling teeth.
"Listen, we have evidence that points to you as the killer of Gil Grissom. You might as well spill the story before you get into deeper shit than you are now," Marlena said. "You know what Nick says: 'when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging,'" she pressed when Sara remained silent.
"I loved him," Sara said finally after an excruciating pause. "I really, really did. Not the way the others loved him. I—he loved me too. Or I though so."
It was Marlena's turn to be silent. She knew the truth, of course, but to hear it from Sara was even more riveting.
"I was only married to Sean for a few years. I didn't love Sean; he was just a diversion to keep my mind off Gil. I used him. When I became pregnant, I knew it was Gil's child. Sean had no idea, obviously, and thought the baby was his. Evie was born and Sean became skeptical. He had the testing done. When he found out he wasn't Evie's father, yes, he left.
"I went to Gil, he comforted me and I told him he was the father, not Sean. I knew Gil was the father, the dates matched and everything. There was no way in hell Evie could be anyone else's. I thought he believed me, but he denied her. He denied me!
"'We were careful, Sara,' he said. 'I couldn't have gotten you pregnant. It's not possible.'
"I made threats. I threw fits. I swore I'd make him regret denying Evie. All I did was have DNA testing done and I proved that she was his daughter. If I didn't know, if I wasn't sure that she was his, I wouldn't have named her after his mother."
Marlena couldn't keep her eyes widening in surprise. So that's why it was so important for her to name her daughter Evelyn.
"Once Gil discovered Evie was his, he just withdrew. He refused to acknowledge her at all. Didn't talk about her. Acted almost afraid of her. He didn't love her. We continued our affair, however. I couldn't keep away from him. It was all going good until…I found out I was…pregnant."
Marlena felt her blood turn to ice.
"Gil became rigid. Again he sang the it's-not-possible song. We fought. That's where these bruises came from. He grabbed me by the wrists so I wouldn't strike him. That's why I have these bruises. I dug my nails into his arm, scratched him."
"So how'd you do it?" Marlena asked coolly, not breaking her tough expression. "We know you used strychnine."
Tears poured from Sara's eyes as she admitted her crime, "I took a little strychnine from the bag that Lady Heather left there. I sprinkled a it into one of his pill bottles. I forget which one. I also crushed up some of the same pill, mixed it with strychnine and then put it into gel caps."
"You were wearing Sean's old boots," Marlena said. "To frame him perhaps?"
Sara looked away.
"You were unaware he had bought a new pair. Thought those were the only one, huh?"
"Shut up, please."
"And you did this to Grissom because…?"
"Because Gil doesn't know how to love!" Sara exclaimed angrily. "He never really said he loved me, only when I was screwing him and sometimes not even then! It didn't matter if I loved him! He never looked at Evie, never hugged her or held her! Can you imagine what that's like, being four years old and denied by two fathers? He was her real father and he was killing her! Gil was killing Evie, so I killed Gil, for the pain he caused…to both of us," Sara buried her face in her hands. "Gil was a miserable man and I gave him what he deserved: a death certificate!"
Marlena stole a glance at the one-way mirror, behind which Breeze and Sasha were listening. She hoped Catherine, Nick and Warrick were there too, listening to this startling confession. Her curiosity overwhelmed her and excused herself from the interrogation room.
"It's a boy, you know," Sara murmured as Marlena put her hand to the door handle. "I had a sonogram last week. Gil would have had a son. I wanted to give him a son."
Embarrassed, Marlena hurriedly left the room and went behind the one way mirror. Her wish had come true when she saw what was left of Grissom's team there, along with Breeze and Sasha.
Catherine was crying, "It's like loosing Gil all over again."
"Just can't believe it," Warrick sighed, his head hung low. "It just doesn't seem possible for our sweet little Sara to, you know…" he raked his forefinger across his neck.
"Especially in this line of work," Nick muttered. "You'd think she would be smarter than that."
"Good job," Kenyon congratulated her. "You got her."
"Why do I feel so guilty?" Marlena asked to no one in particular.
"Don't," Sasha reprimanded. "We got her; she confessed; she'll rot in jail."
"Again with your mouth," scolded Breeze. "I bet you have not one compassionate bone in your body."
"This job isn't about compassion, little princess. It's about justice and people getting their just desserts."
"Hey, children?" Nick snapped. "The kindergarten is down the hall." He turned to Marlena. "Listen, Marlena, we all know and love Sara but then we have our job. As tough as it may seem to accept, she's your girl. You got her. You three got her." Nick looked up and nodded at Breeze and Sasha. "So, book her."
"But what happens to Evie and the baby?" Marlena wondered.
"That's for the courts to decide," Warrick said. "She doesn't get a get out of jail free card just because she's pregnant, you know."
"Evie will go to social services until she's placed with family," Catherine explained. "If she's lucky, she'll go to Sara's parents." Her voice was shaky, trying to hold back another dam of tears.
Regardless of the stainless steel exteriors of her fellow CSI's, Marlena could see they were still, mercifully, human. Flesh and bones. They had just gotten over the death of their father-figure and were painfully close to loosing a baby sister.
"Kenyon," Marlena turned to Detective Browning. "Will you do the honors?"
She and Detective Browning re-entered the interrogation room, followed by Sasha and Breeze.
"Sara Lucille Sidle, you are under arrest for the murder of Gilbert Thatcher Grissom. You have the right to remain silent…"
As he led Sara away, Marlena felt a great deal of weight being lifted from her chest and shoulders. Sasha wrapped his arms around her in a rare gesture of affection as she cried quietly.
"It's over, Marlena," he assured her. "You did it."