Budding
Chapter Fifteen
Sara heard a light knock on her front door and she looked over at her clock. It was a little after eight in the morning, and she had just gotten off from work.
She groaned because the knock broke her train of thought. She opened the door, expecting to go off on whoever disturbed her thoughts, but she didn't; the person at her door was Grissom.
"What are you doing here?" She asked with some bitterness.
Grissom said nothing as he boldly stepped in and pulled her into a harsh, but passionate kiss.
***
Warrick rubbed his temples as he and the owner of the small, but quaint house waited for Catherine to exit the bathroom.
"She's got a little stomach virus," he said.
"That's awful on your last visit," the fairly young woman said.
Warrick shifted his gaze to the three month old baby girl. She was sleeping peacefully in her mother's arms.
"Do you want to hold her?" The woman asked.
"Oh, no, I-I don't know how to hold a baby," Warrick said nervously.
"Oh, come on, it'll be good practice," she said with a smile as she handed over the child. "There you go, cradle her head just like that. You're a natural. I'll go see about your wife."
Warrick looked down at the sleeping girl. He never pictured himself holding a child.
Catherine walked into the living room and she smiled.
"Are you uh, hinting at something babe?" She chuckled.
Warrick smiled at her and handed her the baby. "You're the expert."
"Hi there precious," Catherine cooed to the baby. "You are such a cutie pie."
"I want to thank you for putting the man that killed my parents away for the rest of his miserable life," the woman said. "I finally have some closure."
"It was our pleasure to help," Warrick said.
Catherine handed the little girl back to her mother.
"For a long time, I was scared for this little one," the woman said.
Denise Edgewood was a young, ambitious, and responsible woman. She never knew who her parents were beyond the pictures left behind of them from years ago. Her adoptive parents didn't tell her the real story of what happened until she was a teen, and since that time, she'd been looking for their killer who was never brought to justice until just recently.
"I have several pictures of them," she said. "Would you like to see them?"
"Sure," Catherine said.
"You know, the odd thing is that you two kind of look like them," Denise mentioned. "That's why I wanted to thank you personally."
She handed them some pictures of Patty and Thomas Edgewood.
"Wow," Catherine said, shocked at how much she and Warrick really did look like the pair from long ago.
"That was taken in 1960," Denise explained. "They grew up together. They were about ten or eleven by then. Here's another of them on their wedding day. They got married in 1968."
Catherine and Warrick looked at each other then back at the pictures.
"They were active in the Civil Rights movement, they were against Vietnam, and they had been arrested over fifty times each," Denise said in awe. "They went through so much together. A friend of theirs told me that my mother kept marching and protesting while she was supposed to be on bed rest."
"Your parents were good people," Catherine said, tears brimming her eyes.
"They were," Denise said sadly. "My mother put up a good fight in the end. She saved my life. They loved each other deeply as you two do. I know they're happy in Heaven."
Later that day, Catherine and Warrick went to the Edgewood's gravesite.
Catherine placed a single rose between each of their graves and she stepped back and linked her hand with Warrick's.