Once again guys, danke for the reviews; I should be reading for class, but look what I'm doing. I'm updating a story for you guys because you rock my face off! lmao…anyways, on with the show…
dakFinv: Science dorks are hip :). Just look at the one on CSI, lol
Sandersgirl: Yeah, Faraday can be kind of a prick towards him, but they're siblings…I'm eighteen and my bro's twenty-three and we just now begin to get along, lol…
HarmZuay: Cool name and interesting way of spelling it…it didn't remind me of anything in the English language, at first, so I was like, "I need to turn that into a word" but after saying it, like, ten times, I was like, "Nah, it's 'harm's way'" (yeah, my roommate was like, "What the hell are you doing?")…I'm a tad slow…that's why I'm majoring in theatre and not anything that takes real brains, lmao…anyways, glad you like it; thanx for reviewing!
Lamborga: Thanx for reading and reviewing!
Charlie: I will keep writing if you keep reading :)!
KAPITEL VIER
"DNA results back on the blood Sara found in the tree house; I can't say whose it is because I don't have a sample to compare it to, but I can tell you it came from a female," Greg announce entering Grissom's office.
"Blake's?" Grissom asked more so to himself than anyone.
"I hope not, but it's possible."
Their discussion was interrupted by Mandy, another lab tech.
"Grissom, I've got the results back on the prints in the blood; AFIS spit back a match."
"And?" he asked when she didn't go on.
The young woman looked at Greg uneasily. "Sir, I think it'd be better if I spoke with you alone."
Greg frowned and looked at Grissom and then turned back to Mandy. "What? You find my prints in the blood or something?" he asked jokingly.
Mandy didn't say anything.
"Mandy, Greg's working the case too; just tell us what you found."
Mandy handed over the piece of paper to Grissom.
"Prints are Faraday Sanders'," she explained quietly.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Faraday, komm hier, bitte."
The girl looked up from her German work (writing simple sentences like "Mein Bruder liebt Chemie am besten") with a confused look, but she went and got the note the office runner had sent her.
"'Gather your things, and stop by and see your brother at the office'," she snorted. "The office…"
She put her books and papers away and stopped by her locker to gather up even more books. While her locker was open, she chose to root around amongst the crumpled pieces of paper at the bottom and look to see if Blake might have dropped a note to her through the slots. Faraday frowned and swung the locker door shut with a bang when her search came up fruitless. She was slightly angry with her friend; she'd written a sincere note of apology, and Blake hadn't even bothered to drop a reply into her locker before first period started.
By the time she'd gathered everything she thought she'd need for her homework, the light drizzle that had been present that morning when she'd arrived at school was now an onslaught of angry rain. She scowled at the seniors who had early leave as they passed by in their cars.
"Must be nice having a dry, heated mode of transportation," she sighed as she started off on her skateboard.
She entered the crime lab, her navy shirt and corduroy pants dripping. She noticed how the red fabric of her Converses had bled, and her white shoe laces were now tinted pink around the edges. The green Puma jacket she wore was no match for the buckets that had rained from the sky, and the sleeves now left thin water trails on opposite sides of her. Her hair hung in annoying strands around her face; she could only hope the "drowned rat" look was in. She stopped outside of the DNA lab.
"I'm here to see the CEO of the office," Faraday announced sarcastically, holding up the now soggy note.
Greg smirked. "You got my message."
She came in and plopped herself in one of the vacant chairs, but immediately found herself being pulled out of it by Greg.
"Hey! You're soaked; don't sit on the chairs! You're not even supposed to be in here anyways," he said putting and hand on her shoulder and guiding her out of the lab.
"It's pouring out there! My only mode of transportation is a skateboard; maybe if I could get my brother to spring for a Vespa—"
Greg cut her off with a "don't push it" look.
"What am I even doing here? Why pull me out of class in the middle of the day?"
All signs of joking were gone from Greg's face now. "Grissom wants to speak with you," he told her solemnly.
"Grissom?" she asked confused. "What? Does he have a bone to pick with the name I chose for his tarantula?" she joked not picking up on Greg's seriousness.
Faraday found that, during their banter, Greg had guided her to an interrogation room, and she saw that Grissom and Catherine were sitting on one side facing the doorway.
"What's this?" she asked her demeanor growing wary.
"Have a seat," Grissom told her.
"I'm staying," Greg spoke up just to clarify why he'd taken a seat next to his sister.
"Greg, she's a minor; you're required to stay," Grissom informed him.
Greg nodded his understanding.
"Ah, you know a Blake Abraham, correct?" Grissom asked not knowing how to approach an interrogation of a friend's relative.
Grissom didn't want to think she could have a hand in anything this awful, but leads were leads and they needed to be followed. And he needed to stay objective. Still, this was the kid who'd sat in his office not a week ago and named his pet tarantula. When he'd asked why she'd chosen Ramesses II, she'd replied with a simple, "Because he was a powerful Egyptian ruler, and he had red hair like your spider here." That was a good enough explanation for him even if he'd never had a spider named Ramesses I.
"Yeah, she's my best friend; why?"
Not knowing any easier way to tell her Grissom just came out and explained. "Blake was…kidnapped last night."
"What?! D'you have any leads or suspects or clues or anything!" she cried getting hysterical. She started to cry. "I was expecting a note from her today, but there wasn't one in my locker. I was mad at her because I thought she just didn't write me; I didn't know she was in trouble!"
"Hey," Greg said putting a hand on the back of her head and looking at her eye to eye. "Everybody's all over this case; we're all doing everything we can," he said trying to give her some assurance.
She nodded, breathing deeply and trying to calm down.
"Faraday, what size shoe do you wear?" Catherine asked carefully.
"Seven and a half," she answered sniffing.
"Can I check?" Catherine asked pulling out the sheet of paper with the shoeprint on it. She checked it against the girl's shoes and turned to Grissom. "Same size; same sole."
"We found your shoeprints on the kitchen floor of the house," Grissom informed her.
"I'm her best friend; I've been inside her house," the teenager explained getting angry now that she realized she was under suspicion.
Both Grissom and Catherine had to concede that was a very likely possibility as to why her prints had been lifted. But there was still the blood.
"Your fingerprints were also found in blood on one of the walls of the tree house," Catherine stated not liking where this evidence was taking them.
"I've been up there too; like I said, I'm her best friend. It's not rocket science."
"In blood," Catherine reiterated.
"It's my blood," Faraday answered as if Catherine were slow to understand. "Me and Blake skateboard all the time, and it's not like it's the safest activity out there; I fell and got some pretty severe roadrash. When we got up into the tree house, I propped it up on a stool and grabbed onto it because it hurt, and it was bleeding. I lost my balance and fell back against the wall."
Boy, can she spin a load of bull, Catherine thought.
"May we see this 'roadrash'?" Grissom asked.
Faraday propped her foot up on the table with a thud and yanked up the leg of her brown corduroy pants revealing a long series of scrapes surround by faint shades of blue and purple along the side of her right leg.
"Would you volunteer a sample of your DNA for comparison?"
She hesitated for a moment but eventually opened her mouth.
Grissom and swabbed it and headed for the door.
"Grissom, don't you want me to process it?" Greg asked.
"You can no longer work this case, Greg; you'd compromise it."
The younger man nodded his understanding, and then turned to his sister. "Come on; let's go home. Maybe we can stop by Baskin Robbins or something on the way."
"Greg, I'm fifteen; you can't make me feel better by giving me 'treats'," she told him walking out of the room.
Catherine looked at the lab tech. "Greg, I'm sorry; it's just we have—"
"I understand, Catherine; I've worked her long enough to know that evidence tells a story even though we might not like that story," he said following Faraday to the car. He passed Grissom on the way.
"Greg, we'll let you know what turns up," Grissom told him pledging to keep him informed. He then turned and walked into the DNA lab. "Olivia, I need this DNA compared with the DNA found from the blood on the wall in the Abraham kidnapping case."
"Right, the case I'm taking over for Sanders," a young woman in dreadlocks with a bright patterned bandana tied into them adding a splash of color to her outfit which consisted of black slacks and maroon blouse acknowledged.
Olivia Price was one of the lab rats for Days. She was beautiful, to say the least, and had passed up a career in modeling in favor of attending Yale University for her B.S. in Chemistry. Her parents had emigrated from Ethiopia and hadn't had the easiest life, so when Yale offered her scholarships to cover most of her school costs, she knew they'd much rather her go to school than take up modeling.
"Yes, and if you could make it priority, I'd be very grateful."
"Sure, Grissom," she said smiling at him.
"I don't think so, Gil," a smarmy voice said from behind him.
Grissom turned around.
"Conrad," he said with no enthusiasm.
"Olivia works for dayshift; she makes our cases a priority."
Conrad Ecklie, the dayshift supervisor, loved making Grissom's life miserable. Grissom was better at his job as supervisor, and Ecklie knew it. He was jealous of Grissom. He'd screwed Grissom and his team over on numerous occasions, ordering evidence to be destroyed or even keeping evidence from them.
"Ecklie, it's no problem, really; processing your stuff is taking a while. I can fit Grissom's in while I'm waiting for the results," Olivia spoke up.
"Jesus, Gil, what is with the people on your shift? You've got a compulsive gambler, a guy who sleeps with hookers, and now your lab rat's relative is involved in a kidnapping. Olivia, if you give priority to Gil's case, you're fired," he threatened.
The woman's eyes and went wide, and she looked at Grissom apologetically, but Grissom wasn't going to let Ecklie threaten those under him.
"If you fire her, Conrad, I'll just hire her for graveyard. It'll give Greg someone to work with, and with the two of them working together, their workload will be a lot lighter. You know, the hours may suck, but at least the people don't," Grissom ripped into him.
He turned and headed for his office where he saw Catherine standing in the doorway, leaving Ecklie to stand in the hall enraged. Olivia hid her grin by pretending to look at something interesting under one of the microscopes. I should totally quit and start working graveyard, she thought.
Once Grissom and Catherine were safely in his office out of earshot of everyone else, they began discussing Faraday's story.
"She's lying," Catherine sighed.
"I know, but, out of curiosity, what makes you say that?"
"The whole story about the blood on the wall being from a skateboarding accident. I mean, a kid's first instinct when they get a scrape is to put their hands on it; I tell Lindsey all of the time not to because it just spreads germs. Why would Faraday wait until getting up in the tree house to do that? If her story was true, we'd find traces of blood on the steps leading up into the tree house, and then the blood could've gotten on the wall after she'd touched it again, but Sara checked each one of those boards as she was climbing up that tree, and she didn't find any traces of blood."
Grissom nodded slowly. "I know."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Sara Sidle bent over the microscope and looked into the eyepiece; Nick stood beside her. The specimen she was viewing was the blue pieces of fuzz she and Catherine had both found at the crime scene.
"Fibers look coarse under the microscope. They could be from a sweater, a blanket, socks…any number of things," she sighed. But she remembered something that raised her hopes up a bit. "However, when Catherine checked the house, she didn't find any article of clothing or blanket that matched the material."
She moved aside to let Nick have a look, but he was interrupted by Warrick.
"Catherine told me that Greg's sister's shoes match one of the prints I lifted from the kitchen."
"Oh man," Nick said grimly, shaking his head.
"She's the Abraham kid's best friend; she has a good reason for them being there. But the other footprint I lifted? Size fifteen Doc Martens."
"Wow, is that lucky or what? How many people have feet that big?" Sara exclaimed.
"Not Mr. Abraham, and definitely not Blair or Blake," Warrick said with a smirk. "And the lock on the door wasn't forced open; we're looking for somebody they're close to."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Grissom headed into the DNA lab having received a page from Olivia.
"You have the results back?"
"Yeah, and you're not gonna like 'em," Olivia told him apologetically. She handed him the computer printout.
"Blood's not Faraday's; she lied," he said to himself. He sighed heavily; he did not like where this evidence led.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I know this chapter is longer than others, but oh well…and I also know there was a lot of dialogue…too much for my taste, but it was an interrogation part…I just don't like reading stories that suffer from talking head syndrome…anyways, this chapter was ready to post at 12:36 am 9/24, but my internet connection was down, grr…I called for assistance and I think I got this stoner who happened to be high as a kite at the time, so he was completely useless…also, I'm assuming Faraday's prints would be able to be recalled through AFIS because of that whole "keep kids safe" program Vegas has going on…I guess they'd print her before she enrolled in the high school, but I have no idea…for the sake of my story, let's pretend that's how it goes, lol…if you're from Nevada, I'd like to hear about how that whole thing works…also, I don't know if supervisors like Ecklie and Grissom have the power to fire and hire people at will, but I like when Grissom gets to get all badass on Ecklie, so I thought I'd give the two of them a scene, lol…