Nick was standing over Greg when Grissom got back to the lab. He walked past to office and buried himself once again in his file. Nick was waiting for Greg to run a DNA test on what they had found under the victim's fingernails.

"Quiet!" Greg yelled, "You'll upset the machine."

Nick had barely moved, let alone spoken in the last five minutes. The comment took him completely by surprise and he had to take a couple of steps backwards. Greg sighed in relief. The computer spat out the results.

"DNA, not the victim's," Greg said after a cursory glance.

He handed the sheet to Nick, who snatched it. He took off to run it through the data base.

Warrick found him there half an hour later.

"You been waiting long?"

"Too long," Nick said. "Have you found anything?"

"Victim's saliva on the rope where it was knotted, other saliva on the ends of the rope. I was very careful to keep the entire length separated out to prevent cross contamination. Greg said you had the results from the vic."

Nick handed over the report without taking his eyes from the computer screen. Warrick looked over them.

"Same guy," he said and settled back to watch with Nick.

The computer popped up a file. They both read it silently. With one glance at each other, Nick pressed print and they got up to see Grissom.

Grissom wasn't in his office when Nick and Warrick arrived. They wandered off to find him. They found Catherine first. She just shrugged when they asked her where Grissom was.

"Well, ah, we'll run it by you then," Nick said.

Catherine was fine with that. Nick was pleased that he didn't have to see Grissom yet. The man had been tetchy. Warrick still did the talking.

"We put the DNA through CODIS. About seven years ago there was a similar case in San Francisco. A young woman, similar description to our victim was raped and beaten. They couldn't track the perpetrator. There was little evidence to suggest that it had in fact been rape. The bruising was not conclusive. She could have tied herself to the tree, and knew the basics of physical evidence. She had been robbed and the police consensus seems to have been that she set up the rape charge to get back at this guy. The victim was unwilling to testify without more evidence. She said she had been threatened."

Catherine nodded sadly.

"We're almost lucky our victim died," Warrick said.

"Where does it leave us?" She asked.

"Nick had a hunch about the rope," Warrick said, almost grinning.

"I wrapped it lengthwise," Nick explained. "To prevent contamination along the length of the rope itself. Warrick tested the DNA and the saliva deposits. There's no way she could have tied herself to the tree. She untied herself by pulling at the knots with her teeth. But in order to tie yourself up, you need pull on the end of the rope."

"I tried it. You can't do it otherwise. There is saliva on the ends of the rope. But it belongs to the same guy our vic took a scratch out of. They had a possible suspect in San Francisco. On the evidence they couldn't get a warrant for DNA, all they had to go on was the DNA from the saliva on the rope, the victim hadn't got a good enough swipe at him."

"This is serious," Catherine said. A chance to catch a serial rapist.

"Yes," Nick said simply.

"How many rape cases lead to a conviction?" she asked.

"About ten percent of complaints," Warrick said, "I think. Maybe one percent?"

"The MO seems fairly straight forward," Catherine said, looking over the file, "Do we, do you, have any other links?"

Nick handed over a photo. It was marked, 'underside, victim's left breast.' There were scratches or cuts to show what appeared to be an ant and a series of vertical and horizontal lines.

"What's this?"

"Don't know. But our victim had similar cutting."

Catherine flipped to the other photos. She shuddered at the thought any woman would have to feel that. But more at the thought that whoever this woman was, she was still living with a very vivid reminder of what had been done to her.

"You might be lucky, but your vic's luckier that she died."

"How do figure?" Warrick asked. He was obviously confused, but he wasn't insensitive to the idea.

"I just get that idea," Catherine said. She handed them back the file. She just held it out till Warrick took it.

"Get this right, guys," she said.

Nick was beginning to understand why Sara hadn't in fact told Catherine anything about what had happened. He liked Catherine most of the time and tried, as everyone did, to reassure her about Lindsey. Catherine immediately lowered herself in Nick's esteem when she said:

"I hear you brought Sara in tonight, Nick."

Nick didn't explode, but did come close, "It's nothing! There's nothing going on. She was at my house, we're friends, so what?"

Catherine nodded sagely. Nick had the distinct impression that he was merely a small piece in a complicated puzzle Catherine was doing in her head. It was not a pleasant feeling. He imagined that criminals felt as if they'd been out played in much the same way.

Nick watched bewildered as Catherine nodded again, suppressed a smile and turned her back on them. Warrick saw Nick's expression and had to suppress his own laugh.

"Yeah, she can have that effect," he said quietly.