A/N:  Yes, finally, the next chapter!  I'm sorry it took so long to get this one up, but with my crazy schedule this month, I didn't get it to my beta, Grissom, early enough to post it any sooner.  And speaking of 'Grissom,' I also have to thank her for letting me 'borrow' one of her favorite methods for some extra Gris-torture. I'm glad she didn't mind me taking a 'page from her book' in this chapter and some of the chapters to come.  Thanks, Gris!

I do hope no one has forgotten about this story.  In spite of my busy schedule, I'll do my best to keep updating this every 4 or 5 days.  I can't guarantee that it won't take longer sometimes, but I'll try.  I hope this chapter was worth the wait, at least a little. Thanks for the many kind reviews—they are always appreciated!  *grin*  Enjoy, everyone!

Chapter 16:  Boxes

Freshly showered and dressed, Grissom walked across his bedroom.  He had developed a stabbing pain behind his right eye, and he reflexively massaged his forehead above the area.  Picking up the box that contained the medicine Sara had given him, he skimmed the ingredients.  His headache had continued to worsen, and he was afraid it was about to mutate into a full-blown migraine.  It was almost impossible to tell if the nausea he felt was signaling a migraine attack, or if it was just a result of being ill.

He was so focused on reading the label of the flu medicine that he didn't hear Sara come in, even though she had knocked and called his name.

She saw him standing there, absently rubbing his temple, and she was concerned.  "Grissom?" she said, touching his shoulder.

He jumped slightly, and then turned to look at her.

"Sorry.  I didn't mean to startle you," she apologized.  "Are you all right?"

"There's a pain reliever in here, right?" he asked her.

She took the box from his hand and squinted at it.  "Um…yeah, it has acetaminophen, five hundred milligrams."  She looked back up into his gaze.  "Why?"

"I may be getting a migraine," he explained, sounding extremely tired again.  "I wanted to take something, but I don't know if I should on top of this medicine."

She put down the box.  "Why don't you wait a while, Gris?  See if what you took helps your head at all.  We can bring your migraine prescription to the lab with us in case you need it."

"All right," he agreed.

"You know, the best treatment for a migraine is sleep," she pointed out gently.

"I know, Sara, but that's just not possible right now."

She nodded, telling him she understood, even though she wasn't happy about the situation.

"Are you ready to go?" he asked.

"Well, I see that you are," she replied.  In spite of her worry, she smiled as she checked out his current wardrobe:  he was dressed in layers, like he was about to head out into a crisp New England fall, instead of one hundred degree desert heat.  He had on a t-shirt, visible under a long-sleeved button-down and a cardigan.  His "FORENSICS" windbreaker was laid out on the bed, ready for him to put on over his toasty ensemble. Her smile faded as she made her next request.  She was trying to help him, but she thought he might argue.  "I really think you should try to eat something before we go," she began gently, hoping he would see her point.

"Sara, I'm…"

Before he could even finish his sentence, she chimed in again, "I put aside some macaroni with very little cheese sauce for you.  It's practically plain pasta, Grissom, and I don't think it will hurt your stomach."

He gave her a tiny grin.  "I was just going to say that I was actually hungry and food sounds great right about now."

"Oh," she replied briefly.  It was one of those rare times when Sara was at a loss for words; she really hadn't expected him to give in so easily.  She wisely decided not to question it, and she quickly ushered him into the other room and over to the table.

She put a small plate of the macaroni in front of him.  Then she served herself, sat down, and ate with him.  She had also thrown together a salad, but didn't offer any to Grissom; she had thought raw vegetables might upset his jumpy stomach.

They finished quickly, both of them anxious to get down to the lab and hopefully get the case over with.  Grissom had eaten quite a bit of the macaroni and cheese; he was still feeling queasy, but the food had been warm and bland enough to go down fairly comfortably, and had sated some of his hunger.

"Okay, are we ready to go now?" he asked, repeating his words from earlier.

"Yeah, let's get out of here."

He returned to his bedroom to grab his migraine medicine and his windbreaker.  When he got back to Sara's side, they both slipped on their jackets and headed out the door.

*                      *                      *                      *                      *                      *                      *

Grissom and Sara walked into the layout room and found Catherine there, surrounded by the contents of the old evidence box.  She noticed them and turned.  "Hey," she said to both, and then to Grissom, "How are you feeling?"

"All right," he lied.  "Anything new here?"

"Not really."  She exhaled tiredly.

"Can I take a look?" he asked, indicating the items on the table.

"Knock yourself out," Catherine replied, getting off the seat and moving out of the way.

He situated himself in the center of the scattered evidence and Sara sat on a stool next to him.

Catherine watched them for a few seconds as he began carefully examining each piece of evidence.  She noticed that he was shivering slightly in spite of how he was dressed.  "Do you want me to turn down the a/c for you?" she inquired, trying to help.

"No, that's all right," he responded distractedly.

"Can I get you anything from the break room?" she tried again.

This time he looked at her as he answered, "You know we're not supposed to eat or drink in here."

"I know," she replied, ignoring that fact and waiting to fill his requests if he had any.

"I'm fine, Catherine, but thank you," he assured her softly.

She glanced at Sara, who indicated that Catherine could leave the room.  "Okay, then," Catherine began, "I guess I'll go check in with Brass.  They must have made some progress by now in finding our guy or his car."

"Thanks, Catherine," Sara said, then she added, "Did you find out if anyone had been in here or had seen Grissom's missing fingerprint earlier?"

"So far I haven't been able to get any information.  I was going to ask someone from dayshift, but I got involved in something else."

"Okay, I'll try to find something out while Grissom is looking through this stuff."

"Great.  Let me know if you come up with anything," Catherine replied, and then left the room.

Sara put her hand on Grissom's shoulder.  "Will you be okay in here for a while?"

"Sure," he told her, looking up from his intense work for a second.

"I'll be back soon," she promised.  She stood up and walked through the doorway.

She was heading down the hall when she bumped into Kimberly Sears of dayshift.

"Hey, Sara," Sears greeted.

"How are you, Kimberly?  I haven't seen you in a while."

"Good, thanks," the other woman replied.  "You?"

"Hanging in," Sara responded.  "Anything new on your end of the case?"

"Yeah, I was actually looking for Catherine to give her Robbins's final report.  And, we ID'd our latest victim.  Her prints were in AFIS—non-gaming work card.  Her name is Melissa Coto and she was a cocktail waitress at the Sphere."

"Great," Sara commented.  "Anything interesting found in post?"

"Nothing we didn't already know," Sears explained, handing the folder to Sara.  "Take a look.  Stab wounds—six in all, including the fatal slice to her carotid."

Sara skimmed through the report.  "Do you want me to give this to Catherine?"

"That would be great, if you don't mind," Sears said.

"No problem.  By the way, would you happen to know if anyone was in the  layout room earlier?"

"I don't know, Sara," she admitted.  "I was in the morgue for quite a while, and then the print lab.  I didn't really walk through here too much today."  After a pause, she added, "But Jamie might know.  She was working around the lab a lot this past shift."

"Do you know where she is?"

"Probably in Trace or DNA…do you want me to go find her for you?"

"Why don't we find her together?" Sara suggested.  "I forgot that Catherine's over at PD looking for Brass.  We'll have to give her this file later."

"Okay, come on," Sears said, heading toward the Trace lab.

Once inside, the two women found Sears's partner hunkered over one of the microscopes in the corner.  She straightened up and turned when she heard them approach.

"Hey, Jamie," Sears greeted.

"Hey, what's up?" she replied, reaching back to rub her right shoulder.  She also moved her neck around, trying to work out the kinks.

"You all right?" her fellow dayshift CSI inquired.

"Yeah, just sore.  It's all this leaning over and working at the computer and sitting on stools with no back support all day.  My neck and shoulders have always bothered me—hazard of the job."

"Maybe you need a break," Sara suggested.

"No,  I'll be fine," Cohen replied, kneading the muscles in her shoulder one last time before lowering her arm.  "What brings you guys here anyway?  Something new in our 'shared' case?"  She waited expectantly, hoping for progress or maybe even one of those key moments when a case breaks wide open.

Sears looked to Sara, since the older criminalist had never really told her why she was interested in the comings and goings in certain areas of the lab.

"Did you notice anyone in the layout room today?" Sara asked Cohen.

"Yeah.  Ecklie was in there early this morning," she answered quickly.

Sara was a bit surprised at the speed and matter-of-fact tone of Cohen's response.  But then she realized that the days CSI couldn't possibly know the importance of the information she had just shared.

"Ecklie?" Sara repeated.  "Are you sure?"

"Positive.  I try to keep track of where Ecklie is at all times—it makes it a whole lot easier to avoid him that way."  She gave the other two women a knowing smile, which Sears returned; but Sara's expression remained serious and concerned.  "Why?" Cohen asked, her grin fading as she met Sara's gaze.

"It may be nothing, but…with Ecklie involved I can almost guarantee that it's something.  Grissom is not going to like hearing that Ecklie may have messed with his evidence."  She looked at each criminalist intently before continuing, "Grissom had been going through a case file this morning.  It was a cold case, about fifteen years old, that he worked.  He thought it might be related to our current case—the triple homicide you're on with us?"

The girls nodded, and Sara took a breath before going on, "Gris had been studying the old evidence in the layout room.  He was trying to concentrate on it, but he wasn't feeling well.  Catherine and I knew he was pretty sick, so we finally sent him home.  I guess it's partly my fault because I didn't take the time to secure the evidence.  I was in a rush to get him home, and we just left everything out on the table.  Later on, Catherine, Nick, and Warrick came back to look for a link between the two cases, and they realized that the evidence had been moved and that things appeared to be missing."

"Missing?" Sears wondered.

"Yeah.  The inventory list and a fingerprint Grissom remembered lifting weren't there.  So we thought that if anyone had been in the layout room, they might have seen the missing items or know what had happened to them."  Sara looked at Cohen as she asked, "Was Ecklie the only one you saw in the layout room today?"

"Yeah.  He was in there for a couple of hours."

"Do you know what case he was working on?"

Cohen thought for a few seconds.  "No.  Sorry, I don't."

"We can go and see what he signed out of the evidence vault," Sears suggested.  "That should tell us what he had been working on, and it might give us an idea of what happened to Grissom's evidence."

Sara nodded.  "Why don't you two go do that?  Log out exactly what Ecklie had taken this morning, and then meet us in the layout room.  Gris is in there right now; I'm just going to check on him first."

"Wait," Cohen blurted, obviously surprised.  "Grissom is here?  I thought you said he was so sick that he had to go home."

"He was," Sara replied.  "He is.  But we have this complicated case, and he's just so stubborn…"  She shook her head.  "Don't get me started."

Getting the hint, Sears went back to what they had been talking about.  "All right, we'll take care of our end and meet you in five," she promised, as she and her partner followed Sara out of the lab.

Returning to the layout room, Sara paused in the doorway.  She could only see his back, but it appeared as if Grissom hadn't moved at all since she had left.  Even from behind, she could tell he was completely focused on what he was looking at.  She came up behind him, then slid onto the stool to his left.  "How's your head?" she asked quietly, running a hand over his shoulder.

"Throbbing," he replied tiredly, blowing out a breath of air.

Then he turned towards her, and she couldn't keep the shocked expression off her face, even though she tried.  God, he looks so awful, she sympathized silently.  Just when she thought he couldn't possibly feel any worse, his wan face showed her otherwise.  He probably is getting a migraine, she told herself, shaking her head slowly.  Just what he needs right now…

Her urge to get him away from there, from the stress and the frustration, and the strong emotions she knew were soon to come, was almost overwhelming.  She felt a need to protect him, especially now when he was so sick and vulnerable, that was almost impossible to resist; it was similar to how she had felt after she had witnessed his nightmare in Brass's office.  She liked the feeling, but it also scared her, making her realize how much his importance to her had grown.  And if she allowed herself to care too much, she risked being hurt to the same high degree.

Somehow she overcame her impulse to whisk him away from all of this in order to let him recuperate peacefully.  "Do you need one of your pills?" she asked.  "I can go get you some water."

"Not yet," he said.  "The prescription works great, but one of the side effects is that it makes me very sleepy.  I just can't afford that right now.  At least not until we find out if something happened to this evidence."

She gave up—temporarily—on trying to get him to take care of himself.  Instead, she turned to what was on the table, hoping she could help him sort things out—the quicker they got this done, the better.  "Did you find anything new?" she asked.

"Actually, yes," he began, picking up the magnifier he had been peering through.  "I was looking at this group of reports…"  He handed her a packet of papers held together by a single staple.  "…and I noticed something.  You see where the pages are discolored immediately around this staple?  Well, if you look closely you'll see a very small scrap of paper still attached."  He passed her the magnifying lens and she examined the corner he was pointing to.  "Do you see it?"

"Yeah," she answered, nodding.  "It looks like something was torn off."

"Exactly."

"It could have been that way for fifteen years, Gris," she pointed out.  "Maybe it was stored that way originally?"

"No," he said with certainty.  "The small remnant also has the rust-like discoloration on it from the staple.  Whatever used to be attached to these papers had to have been removed recently."

"Do you think it could have been the evidence inventory?"

"It's possible," he answered.  He kept his voice even, trying not to get too excited by this development; he knew they were still a long way from actually locating the missing page.

"I saw Cohen and Sears, and they're finding out what other files were being looked at in here this morning," she explained, hesitating to give him all the information she knew just yet.  "That might help us figure out what happened to your evidence."

"Good," he replied simply.  Then he added, "Excuse me," as he stood up and stepped over to the counter where the tissues were.  He pulled out a couple and sneezed twice before blowing his nose.

"Bless you," Sara told him.

"Thanks."

When he came back to the stool next to her, she could tell that his breathing was much freer; the decongestant had seemingly taken effect.  He immediately went back to staring at the little scrap of paper stuck in the staple.

"Do you really think someone just carelessly ripped off an important piece of evidence without realizing it?" she asked.

"It certainly looks that way," Grissom replied.  He put down the magnifier and rubbed his burning eyes; he was so tired and his headache hadn't abated at all.  He lowered his arms and met Sara's gaze.  "But who would be incompetent enough to…"  He stopped suddenly, as the only possible answer came to him.  "Wait a second…don't tell me.  Ecklie?"  His voice tightened and his jaw clenched as he pronounced the name of the dayshift supervisor.  Maybe it was the hard "c" in Ecklie's surname that made it seem like Grissom was gritting his teeth whenever he said it—or, more likely, it was the great disdain in which Grissom held his daytime counterpart.  He stood up and began pacing off a small area in front of the table.

Sara could sense his anger growing as he continued, "If Ecklie tampered with this evidence in any way…"

The rest of Grissom's threat was left hanging ominously as Cohen and Sears breezed into the room, each lugging a heavy-looking box.  They plopped them onto the table as Cohen announced, "Here they are.  This is everything Ecklie checked out this morning."

Sara smiled at the girls, attempting to diffuse some of the tension filling the room; but the days criminalists definitely sensed it.

"Is something wrong?" Sears asked, her brow furrowing.

Grissom turned toward the young CSI and her colleague.  "Where's Ecklie now?" he asked, his voice low, his right hand unconsciously forming into a fist.

"He's out in the field," Cohen replied warily.  "Should we call him?"

He seemed to think it over momentarily before taking a deep breath and letting it out gradually.  The three women watched as the stress visibly left Grissom's body, and utter exhaustion took its place once again.  He sank back down onto his stool, as he said, "No, never mind.  Let's just get started on this."  He reached over to the box Sears had set down, slid it closer to him, and then started lifting out the contents.  It was filled almost to the top with a variety of evidence and reports.  "Thanks for tracking these down, guys," he told the dayshift CSIs, glancing up at them briefly.

"No problem, Grissom," Cohen commented with a small smile, before turning intently to her work.  She began pulling items out of the other evidence box.  "Let's just see what we've got here, and what a mess Ecklie made of it."

The other three nodded grimly in return, as they sorted through the containers.

The quiet, busy sounds of the room—the soft hiss of breathing, the rustling of papers, the hum of fluorescent lights—were suddenly interrupted by the insistent chirping of a cell phone.  Sara pulled it off her hip and unfolded it.  "Sidle," she said into the mouthpiece.  After a few seconds, she added, "Oh, hey, Catherine."  As she listened, she covered her free ear and then moved into the hall for clearer reception.  Everyone's eyes followed her out the doorway before turning back to the piles in front of them.

After a few minutes, she came back in and told the other CSIs about her conversation.  Her excitement was evident at the new development in their case.  "Catherine said they found Sampson's car.  The police finally tracked it down.  It's being towed to the garage as we speak."  A small grin made its way onto her face as she continued, "Apparently, Sampson sold his 1968 Corvette to a friend.  They found this friend at an apartment building where Sampson used to live.  The manager had a forwarding address and Catherine is headed there now with Brass and O'Riley."

"Finally, a break in the case.  That's great," Cohen commented.  "Do you think they'll need some help processing the car?"  She paused in sorting through the carton, ready to throw on some coveralls and rush down to the garage if she was needed.

"I think they've got it," Sara said.  "Catherine told me that Warrick and Nick were going to handle it."

"But Nick's on crutches," Cohen pointed out.  "How much could he really do?"

"They've got Greg helping them, too, so don't worry about it," Sara assured.  She knew Grissom wouldn't rest until they had gone through every inch of these evidence boxes, and with the four of them working together it would go a lot more quickly.  She wanted to keep both Cohen and Sears helping with the time-consuming task, if she possibly could.

"As long as everything is covered," Cohen said.

"It is," Sara answered.  "What with sickness and sprains and lack of sleep, graveyard is spreading itself a little thin, but I think we're doing all right."

"Okay," Cohen replied briefly, and then they all went back to silently sifting through the contents of the evidence boxes.

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