Volume II: Perpetual Ardency

By: xKatx

Summary: Four months after Nick and Sara found each other, a life-altering, career-changing opportunity presents itself at the Las Vegas Crime Lab. Will this chance bring the Graveyard shift closer together, or tear them apart?

Author's Note: I am having so much fun with this story! Can't you tell? Hahahahaha!

Disclaimer: No, I do not own CSI stuff. I do own Anisha, Maile, Dylan, All of Nick's family, Haylie and her family, and all the other characters you don't realize, k?

Rating: PG-13

Request: READ AND REVIEW!

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Greg was busily warming up all of the machines in the Trace lab the following evening at ten-thirty. Grissom had asked him to come in early to go through the machines and check to make sure they were working, so here he was. As he worked he tried to remember the lyrics to a new Metallica song he'd heard in the car on the way over. His thoughts, however were interrupted by a familiar soft voice that said, "Here early, aren't we?"

Greg turned around to see Maile standing in the doorway.

          "Hey! What are you doing here?" Greg asked as he hugged her. She hugged him back and shrugged.

          "I don't know, I just thought I'd stop by and see you - it's kind of hard, dating someone who works night-shift when you work day-shift."

Greg nodded, "I know. But we're making it work, aren't we?"

Maile nodded as she looked up at him from her five-foot six height, "I have to ask you something, though."

Greg smiled at her, "What's that?"

She took a deep breath before asking, "How would you feel about me applying to work night-shift in CSI Level two?"

Greg's eyes went wide, "There's a promotion?!"

Maile nodded with a grin on her face.

          "We were told about it yesterday!"

          "Oh my God that is great!" Greg said, hugging her, "Are you going for it?"

          "I want to, but I wanted to tell you first to see what you'd say."

Greg smiled as he held her hands, "I say, go for it."

~x

          "Case files," Grissom announced as he walked into the break room at the beginning of shift that evening. Nick was sitting on the couch, Warrick and Greg were at the table, and Sara was leaning against the wall next to the door. They all perked up when their boss walked into the break room.

          "What have we got?" Warrick asked as he rubbed his hands together, clearly prepared to get to work.

          "We got a homocide," he said, looking at one of the files, "A woman found dead in her car, multiple stab wounds."

He looked around the room, trying to decide who would be best on this case, "Nicky, Sara, I want you guys to take this one."

Sara nodded. She remembered the times before she'd been dating Nick when cases involving murdered women would bother her. She'd slowly figured out that the reason these cases affected her so much was these women didn't have anyone to protect them. Majority of the time they'd been murdered by men; the ones who were supposed to protect them. But when Grissom announced she would be working with Nick on this case, she didn't get that usually feeling of apprehension, and she knew the reason why.

          "Warrick, you're with me on a murder at Diner 5 on the strip."

Warrick nodded as the team split up and headed off in their separate directions.

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          "Time of death is aproximately nine-thirty p.m," David, the coroner's assistant, informed them as they looked through the broke windshield of the car at the corpse of thirty-six year old Magda Phillips.

          "Anything that could have altered the liver temp?" Nick asked as they moved around the car to the passenger's side.

David shook his head, "It's a warm night for early March, the heat and A/C weren't on."

          "Are we sure she died in the car, or was she planted here?" Sara asked, "Because if she was planted here, we'd have to take into consideration the temperature of the location she was killed at."

          "Well, when you find that out let me know," David said as he finished up and moved out of the way to let the CSIs do their job.

Nick and Sara pulled their flashlights out of their pockets and began examining the car. It was is good condition with the exception of the missing windshield, so it made it easy to look through. Sara looked for Trace evidence on the woman, noticing severe bruising on the woman's forearms. Sara shivered slightly; the woman had struggled against her assailant. The bruising showed it, along with the fact that she had a redish-peach substance under her nails, which Sara conjectured was skin and blood. She made a mental note to tell David to run it through Trace.

          "Anything?" Nick asked from the backseat where he was scanning the floor and seats.

Sara shook her head, "It'll be easier once we get back to the lab and we can have Doc Robbins take a look at her and we can tear this car apart."

Nick nodded as he held up a thin silver scalpel, "Now what would she be doing having a scalpel in the backseat of her car?"

Sara looked at it, and shrugged, "Possible murder weapon?"

Nick shook his head, "Probably not. Look at the stab wounds on her - they're huge. There is no way this little thing could have done that."

~x

          "There is no way that little thing could have done this," Doc Robbins said once they'd returned to the lab and were now ready to hear the results of the autopsy. Nick smiled at Sara, who rolled her eyes and pushed him playfully.

          "Cause of death was extensive loss of blood, not to mention a punctured lung and arterial bleeding," Doc Robbins informed them as he handed them some slides, "I collected this from under her fingernails. If you ask me, it looks like skin and blood cells. It may reveal our killer's identity."

          "Any signs of rape?" Nick asked as he looked at the young woman.

Doc Robbins shook his head, "Evidence of sexual contact within the last forty-eight hours, but no signs of rape."

Sara nodded, "What about the bruising? Any particular patterns?"

Doc Robbins nodded as he limped over to the X-rays on the light board, "Her left radius was severly fractured, and the right ulna was completely snapped in half."

          "Whoa," Nick said, "She really fought this guy."

Doc Robbins nodded again.

          "Any other broken or fractured bones?" Sara asked.

Doc Robbins looked up at the X-rays, "There is evidence of a popped disk in her back, but that occurred before her murder."

Nick nodded, "Thanks, Doc. If you find anything else, page us."

          "Will do," Doc Robbins said as Sara and Nick left for the Trace lab.

~x

          "Hey, Greg, can you do me a favor and analyze this - see if you can get any DNA from it and any hits off AFIS?" Sara asked as she entered the Trace lab. Greg swirled around in his chair and grinned at her, "Only if you answer one question."

Sara rolled her eyes but nodded, "All right, fine."

          "If you had to choose between Johnny Depp or Nick, who would it be?"

Sara pretended to think very hard for a minute before bending down close to Greg's face.

          "Nick," she replied as she moved to leave.

          "Why Nick?"

          "You said only one question," she reminded him as she left to help Nick look through the car.

Greg shook his head, "Next time I'll ask for two."

~x

Sara arrived in the garage and saw Nick pulling on his jumpsuit.

          "God, it's hot in here," she said, "It's March, it isn't supposed to be hot in here."

          "Apparently something's wrong with the heating system in here, so they have to have it on full blast for the next four hours," Nick said grimly, "Or so Grissom says."

          "Damn, and we have to work in this heat?" Sara said as she pulled the jumpsuit up only to her waist, tying the arms around her and pulling off her black sweater to reveal a black tank top under shirt.

          "No kidding," Nick said, "In a car, nonetheless."

Nick had done pretty much the same as Sara, only he pulled off his shirt to reveal a white muscle-shirt underneath.  They both stole quick, innocent glances at each other before going to work on the car.

          "I call interior," Sara said.

          "Good, less work for me," Nick said with a cocky grin.

          "Not so, you have to look under the hood."

          "So that's why you call interior? Sara Sidle doesn't know her way around a car engine?"

Sara narrowed her eyes, "No, Mr. Big Shot, I don't."

Nick grinned at her as he popped the hood and checked the engine. Sara began to investigate the front seats, collecting a few pieces of glass for Greg to analyze. She dusted the door handles, locks, windows, steering wheel, and all the buttons on the dashboard, successfully pulling up two full prints and three partials that were smudged rather badly.

          "Better than nothing," Nick commented when she'd informed him what she'd found.

          "How's it coming with that engine?" She asked from the back seat where she was looking around for more Trace evidence.

          "Well, this is going to make no sense at all," Nick said as he slammed the hood down on the car, "But by the looks of all the parts of the engine, this car hasn't been run in a really, really long time."

          "What?" Sara asked as she looked at him from where she stooped by the car.

Nick nodded, "None of the parts have been moved; they've pretty much rusted together."

          "Are we even sure this car is hers?" Sara asked as she moved to look at the license plate.

          "I asked Brass to check the plate number, but he hasn't paged me yet," Nick informed her as he moved to roll under the car.

Sara stopped to think for a moment, "Is there any way of making a car engine appear to have not been run?"

Nick slid back out from under the car and looked up at her, "Well, all the parts of an engine are made of metal, right? What rusts metal?"

          "Any kind of acid," Sara said, "I would know - Haylie once dumped soda under the hood of my car and it rusted over like you wouldn't believe."

Nick laughed, "So your theory is?"
          "I'm guessing the people who did this want us to think just what we are - the car hasn't been used in a long time. The question is why would they want us to think that?"

Nick shrugged, "If I were a criminal mastermind I'd be able to answer that question."

Sara rolled her eyes as she got up, "I'm going to try and swab a part of it - maybe Greg can determine whether this engine rusted from old age or was it rusted on purpose."

Nick nodded as he rolled back under the car.

Sara moved to swab part of the engine, being careful to choose an area not covered in oil or other engine fluids.

          "Got it?" Nick asked from under the car.

          "Yeah," Sara replied as she capped the bottle and put it in her kit. She moved to the rear of the car, and popped open the trunk.

          "Holy shit," Sara said as she stepped back and covered her nose and mouth. Nick slid out from under the car and got up. He looked inside the trunk and there lay a little boy, balled up in a fetal position, his face and lips almost bluish.

          "I'll go get Grissom and David," Sara said as she moved out of the garage, leaving Nick behind.

~x

          "Death due to asphyxiation, no signs of suffocation or physical brutality."

          "So you're saying someone put him in there and left him to die?"

          "Pretty much. Ran a rape kit, just in case someone got the bright idea to sodomize him, but they didn't."

Sara shook her head, "So he wasn't raped, he wasn't physically hurt - why would they lock him in a trunk?"

Doc Robbins looked at her, "Was he related to the woman you brought in earlier?"

Sara looked up, "Nick's looking into that. If he is, that would give more of a substantial theory."

          "I found traces of foreign saliva on his left cheek, swabbed it and sent it to Trace. Greg will page you when he gets something."

          "Thanks," Sara said as she left in search of more information.

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          "Forty-seven year old Arnold Guadiosi," Brass said as Grissom and Warrick walked into the diner and to a booth in the corner, "No visible causes of death, not so much as a damn drop of blood."

Grissom looked at the dead man, who was leaned forward on the table, his eyes closed.

          "How were they sure he's dead?"

Brass pointed to a young woman in a red uniform by the counter, "After about an hour and a half, she checked him. According to what she said, and what eye-witnesses saw, he was sitting up with a menu in front of his face. When she came to try and take his order again, she moved the menu and he fell forward. She said she could tell he wasn't breathing, and noticed the bluish tint to his lips."

Grissom nodded, "Thanks, Brass."

Brass nodded and went off to finish interviewing the people in the diner.

Grissom turned to Warrick, "See if you can find the manager and ask to see the kitchens. If there is no visible cause of death, the next theory would be food poisoning."

Warrick nodded as he moved to find the manager.

Grissom looked at the man carefully. His skin was a pale yellow; quite unnatural if he died of food poisoning, yet even that theory didn't truly add up considering his lips were blue. Grissom's sharp eyes tried to detect any little hint of something out of place. Nothing seemed to be, but Grissom didn't leave it. By the time he'd finished looking at the body, Warrick had returned and shook his head.

          "The manager refuses to let us back there without a warrant."

          "We'll have Doc Robbins run a tox screen - we'll be able to get a warrant if it comes back positive for poisoning."

Warrick nodded as they moved out of the way for the coroner.

~x

          "Cause of death is quite interesting," Doc Robbins said as he pointed to the man's chest, "Drowning."

Grissom looked at him, "Drowning? In what?"

          "Certainly not his own blood," Doc Robbins said, "When I checked his lungs, I found..."

          "Saliva?" Grissom repeated after Doc Robbins had told him. The older man nodded.

Grissom shook his head, "How could he have drowned in his own saliva? The salivary glands only produce enough to lubricate the vocal cords and begin the breaking down process of food. There's never enough at one time to drown someone."

          "That's what I thought," Doc Robbins said, "Which is why I ran a Tox screen and sent it out. I have heard of some chemicals that will actually increase the production of saliva by stimulating the salivary glands."

          "Who would buy something like that?" Grissom asked.

Doc Robbins shrugged, "Politicians, singers, actors - anyone who had to speak or perform for extended periods of time."

Grissom nodded, "Page me when you get word of the Tox results."

Doc Robbins nodded as Grissom left to find Warrick.

~x

          "So you're saying this dude drowned in his own spit?" Warrick asked after Grissom had informed him of Doctor Robbins' findings.

Grissom nodded, "How's the background search going?"

          "Pretty good. Turns out our vic lived in Jaybird Crossings with his wife of fifteen years and two daughters. Successful business man - he worked with stocks and bonds on Wall Street."

          "How is that, he lives in Las Vegas?"

Warrick looked at his boss, "It's called the internet, Griss. Try it sometime."

Grissom shook his head, "Then what-"

He was interrupted by the sound of his pager, "Tox results are in. Coming?"

Warrick nodded, "Hold up a second," he said as he printed out his work and followed Grissom to get the results.

~x

          "Phenomenal levels of Aquaphilanine in his system," Grissom read as he and Warrick walked down the hall.

Warrick shook his head, "I've never heard of Aquaphilanine," he informed his boss as they returned to Warrick's computer.
          "It was just recently approved by the FDA," Grissom said, "So I wouldn't be surprised if no one has heard of it before."

          "I'll look it up," Warrick said as Grissom handed him the paper, "Maybe I can find something about it."

Grissom nodded, "I do know there is only one way of taking into your system, and that's through injection. I'm going to see if Doc Robbins can find the point of entrance. Whoever killed him used a needle, so there has to be a mark."

Warrick nodded as the elder left the room.

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A/N: I know, weird cases, huh? But don't worry - we'll have more social stuff coming up next chapter!

Next Chapter: Marge and Sara's talk, Grissom talks to Nick about their relationship, and Marge returns to Dallas a week and six days before Nick and Sara go down for Christine's WEDDING! Read and review!!