A/N I feel like I'm repeating myself but thanks once again to everyone who's reviewing! You all rock so much.  And thank you to my beta's who are two of the most coolest people on this Earth.

Chapter 6

The rain was still lightly falling by the time she had showered and changed out of her gym clothes.  She smiled as she saw his Denali come ambling down the street towards her.  She'd assumed – correctly - that they wouldn't talk about last night, or this morning. She knew that while they were working, they were working. If she were ever going to confront him about it, it'd be on their own time. He pulled up beside her and she jumped in the passenger seat, swinging her bag around to land in the back of the car.

"Hey!"

"Hey."

"Sheriff approve the overtime on this case or something?" Sara asked as she buckled in.

Grissom nodded, "Yeah, well – the press have a hold of it now, he couldn't not.  Do you mind? I realise this is your time off…"

She glanced at him and grinned, "Some time off – I can't stop thinking about the damn case.  And I'm still drawing blanks on everything."

"Yeah, you and me both," he pulled away from the curb, "Good workout?"

Sara eyed his casual question suspiciously, "Yes…" she said, shaking her head at him slightly – she'd expected him to be all business, but he was being quite friendly.

"You don't seem so sure," Grissom said, clicking on the indicator and turning left down the next street.

"It was a good workout," she answered more surely and then smiled to herself as she looked out the window, trying to guess where they were going.  When she gave up, she turned to him, "Alright – where are we going? Away from the main city I see – but what's out this way?"

Grissom smiled, guessing that she had been tormenting herself for a while now, "Desert," he said simply.

"Desert? This guy doesn't really have a favourite site to dump his bodies does he?"

"Apparently not – but, you never know – it might not be related to our case."

"Right – that's why you picked me up from the gym 3 hours before shift actually starts to go driving into the desert.  What did Brass say?"

"He just said that we've got another one – same signature," Grissom came to a stop in front of a red light and glanced at Sara.  Her tone of voice had been light enough but there was an angry shadow slowly descending on her features.

"We have to get this guy," she said determinedly, "Before he does it again – we have to figure it out Grissom."

A beep from the car behind them alerted Grissom to the fact that he'd been sitting at a green light watching Sara for a little too long and startled him back to his task of driving.

After another moment of silence Sara spoke up, "Where's Nick?"

"Sleeping I hope – he worked pretty late this morning – had to process another scene, a robbery."

Sara nodded, "Okay, but I think we should try and include him a bit more, he gets a little upset when you ignore him on cases."

Grissom sighed, "I know – I don't mean it."

"I know," Sara said lightly and turned to look out the window.  She suddenly felt awkward – she didn't know whether it was just her who kept having flashbacks to last night and this morning – or if he felt the growing tension as well.  She spied on him out of the corner of her eye.  He was probably oblivious, she decided.

The tension was forgotten once they pulled up next to Brass's Taurus and saw the scene in front of them.  A giant tarp had been unravelled and a couple of uniforms were holding each corner, effectively protecting the body from the rain – which, in this area, had not really started to fall.  Grissom and Sara jumped quickly out of the Denali and walked hurriedly over towards Brass, who had spotted their arrival and had come quickly over to meet them.

"I found something Gil," he said, a little bit of excitement showing through his otherwise calm exterior.  "I didn't want the evidence to get destroyed in the coming rain."

Grissom nodded at him – it was good thinking, "What did you find?"

"Shoe print – right near the body, its like its preserved in the sandy ground."

"Did you touch anything, any of your officers go near the body? Could it be one of theirs?" Grissom asked quickly as he moved under the tarp and studied the print.

Brass shook his head, "No way – this is his Gil," he said confidently.

"Sara…" Grissom said and turned to Sara just as she snapped off a couple of shots on her camera.  She looked up at him and smiled – their first break.  "Good," He said, indicating the camera, "Take some more shots – and move out away from the body too – if the ground has a shoe print, it might have retained something else of the killer too."

"Yes sir," she said strongly. She often called him 'sir' when they were both excited by a case and he rattled off orders that she agreed with, maybe it was because it unconsciously took her back to the days when she had taken his forensics seminar and had almost always referred to him as 'sir', as she did all her college professors – or perhaps it was just a mark of respect. Either way, she was barely conscious of doing it, ever.

She got to work, taking multiple snaps of the shoe print Brass had found, the positioning of the body, and then moved out and began to examine the surrounding area.  She focussed on a disturbance in the ground about fifteen meters away from the body and crouched down to get a closer look.  She furrowed her brow in concentration.  It couldn't be… could it?  She turned and looked towards Brass, who was now talking to one of the uniforms still holding the tarp above Grissom and the third victim.

"Hey Brass!" she called him over, "Your boys drive over this part?" she motioned to the area in front of her.

Brass shook his head, "Where you see our vehicles, and the tracks leading up to where they are – that's as close as we got. What have you found?"

"I'm not sure, it doesn't appear to be in as good a nick as your footprint over there – but I think I've found tread marks," she stood up and looked at the disturbance from a different angle and smile to herself, "No – I have definitely found tread marks, damn!" She said happily, "This boy sure screwed up this time – tell Grissom to get over here when he's finished casting the footprint can you?"

Brass nodded and trotted off towards Grissom, leaving Sara to snap off multiples of the tread marks.

~~

It began to pour just as Grissom and Sara had finished loading all their equipment back into the car.  David nodded a goodbye to them, smiling at Sara, as he shut the door to his van and drove away.  Most of the uniforms had departed - leaving Brass, Grissom and Sara standing in the rain to the left of where the body of the third victim had been found.

"He screwed up," Sara said, a hint of a smile forming, "This was a rush job."

"The press is all over it now – he probably saw it on the news… panicked," Brass said, hunching over in a small attempt at self-protection from the rain.

They stood there for a minute, none of them really knew why – but they stood around, getting slowly drenched in the rain until Brass shivered dramatically and raised his eyebrows, "Well I don't know about you two but I've had enough of a shower now – I'll catch you both back at the lab."  Grissom and Sara nodded and watched him walk away from them, get into his car and drive away.

Sara exhaled lightly and looked around her again.  She was trying to think – she knew she was on the verge of figuring something out, and for some reason trying to think about it in a nice warm, dry car wouldn't work.  She realised Grissom was studying her – probably trying to figure out why she wasn't budging from the spot she'd been standing in for the last ten minutes – and stared back at him.

"He's hiding something," she said finally, receiving a quizzical look from Grissom in response. She focused on a spot just above his left shoulder, "The patches of skin – it's not some personal gratification thing… he's hiding something from us, something all three victims have in common."

Grissom quickly jumped on her train of thought, "Something that connects all three girls – but might also connect him to them as well."

"Yes," she met his gaze and nodded her head slightly.

He gave her a small smile, "We've made progress today.  Lets go back to the lab and process this new evidence."

He reached out and touched her arm, convincing her to start moving towards the car – guiding her to the passenger side.

TBC