"So the killer burns his victims with an acidic compound prior to killing
them, localized in the feet, hands, and face." A particular gruesome
example of her words flashes onto the screen behind her, and the field
agents in Sara's audience look a little sick. "Earlier agents called these
the Wax Museum murders because of the smooth, waxy look of the skin after
the burning. He destroys identifying marks on the victims, like the
fingerprints on the hands and the facial features before killing them,
suggesting he is trying not only to kill these women, but to erase their
identity, their very existence. However, we have never found any links
between the victims, so it appears the killer picks women at random based
on physical characteristics and availability rather than who they are
personally." She continued her briefing, pausing once when the field agents
left after the overview, and got down to detail-oriented evidence
discussion with Gil and his team, who remained. They brainstormed and
talked most of the night, but as daylight was breaking over the horizon,
they were no closer to a strategy to catch the killer than before.
"Damn it," Nick voiced everyone's frustration. "I hate waiting for a killer to strike." He was too exhausted to sustain his outburst, however, and he sighed. "So what's our next step?"
Sara looked to Gil at the head of the table, but he was silent, staring back at her expectantly. She then saw everyone was looking at her, and she realized the question had been addressed to her. She tried to hide her self- conscious smile behind a sip of coffee. "I'm actually not sure yet. We spent the last week reviewing the case files and existing evidence and putting the team into place, but we didn't come up with the plan for once we hit the ground here." She rotated her head around on her shoulders wearily, but her tone was confident when she spoke again. "We will have a plan of action by tonight. The data techs are still going over the last two months of purchases looking for any quality of HCl or possible industry sites that the suspect might have had access to the chemical. And we'll follow up on the suggestions presented here. Something should shake loose in the next few hours. If anything comes up, we'll be in touch. Until then, I think we're done here."
Everyone slowly got up from the conference table, stretching and working the kinks out. Sara knew it was hard to sit for that long when you are used to having more changes of scenery and the hustle and bustle of the lab to keep your energy up. Up until that last minute, it had felt just like old times, all of them around a conference table talking through the evidence, trying to get ahead of the suspect. She smiled wryly at how easily she had slipped into the old habit of looking to Gris to take the lead, and the awkward moment that followed had highlighted all that had changed in the past few months since she had left. She dropped her face into her hands and rubbed vigorously, trying to rub some sense back into her head, letting her head rest in her palms for a couple of minutes afterwards, thinking through their next steps, her hair falling over her face like a barrier to shut out the rest of the ops center for a minute.
A hand on her shoulder pulled her out of her reverie. "Sar?" Nick was shaking her shoulder gently, as if he thought she had fallen asleep. "We're," he jerked his head toward the rest of the team assembled in the doorway, "going to breakfast. You want to join us?"
Sara knew her smile had to be huge, given Nick's dazzling smile back. "Food?"
"Yeah, food. We could go to your favorite diner. You're buying."
She bounced out of her chair. "You're on." Looking back over her shoulder, she called to her partner. "Coop? Food?" He was engrossed in reading over some paperwork. One of his best qualities, she thought, was that he actually enjoyed paperwork. "You go ahead. I'm heading back to the hotel for a swim. Check in with me when you get to the hotel." He must have felt her glare, because he looked up from his papers and winked. "You know how I worry."
The diner hadn't changed, and breakfast reminded her why walking away from the Las Vegas crime lab had been the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. Leaving San Francisco had been easy, her life there an afterthought, but Vegas. She had been prepared to settle there, and while at first it had been rocky, she thought she had been making friends with her co-workers and starting to enjoy living in the desert. Working with Gil had been the best experience of her life and she had walked away from it. It was good to see that her co-workers didn't harbor any resentment toward her for leaving like she did; in fact, it almost seemed that they embraced her now more than they ever did when she worked with them. Catherine chatted with her about the more interesting cases at the lab while slipping in an incredible amount of gossip about Warrick, Nick, and Greg, and it was the best conversation Sara had ever had with the older CSI. Nick and Warrick jumped into the flow of Catherine's news regularly, to either defend themselves against her version or add particularly salient details about what Catherine was leaving out, especially about herself. Gil was the only one who didn't get into the act, sitting quietly. But Sara would catch him watching her when she wasn't paying attention, his eyes fixed on face or hands whenever she glanced his way. In his gaze, she felt like she was a particularly interesting breed of insect, which she knew was a form of flattery.
The conversation turned, of course, to her work, especially once Catherine started asking questions about her partner. "Yeah, Coop and I, we work well together. He's intuitive, given to what I call flights of fancy and enormous leaps of logic, very theoretical and abstract, and I'm grounded and specific, always bringing it back to the evidence." She struggled for a minute for words, especially when she saw Grissom had perked up, leaning forward to catch her description. "Our first case, I thought we would never be able to work together again, but it ended up that our methods were more complementary than I would have imagined." She smiled at a few of their more memorable moments. "And we get along great – we have similar temperaments, so we argue, yell, and laugh in equal measure."
"You definitely have a chemistry," Catherine said, fishing for an idea of their relationship beyond work. Sara grinned provocatively, and simply agreed with Catherine's sentiment, "Yeah, we do." Catherine's expression signaled her acknowledgement of Sara's deliberately noncommittal answer and she shrugged her shoulders to say 'can't blame a girl for trying.'
"Busted," Warrick quipped from the other side of the table, to the hearty laughter of everyone around the table.
Sara's cell vibrated against her hip at that moment, and her face twisted into a comical expression. "That your partner again?" She nodded. "Always." She glanced around apologetically. "Excuse me."
"Yeah... You do know I'm not going to allow you to exercise when we are on a case anymore? You know that, right?" She chuckled. "Your girlish figure would survive, I'm sure. Yeah, I'll be there in 20. No, I just ate. Yeah. Make it 25. Hey, and order me up a carafe of coffee from room service. I'll need it because you aren't going to let me sleep anytime soon." She snapped the phone shut and gave everyone another apologetic look. "Sorry, guys, duty calls."
"Really," Warrick's tone was teasing but skeptical, and Sara blushed to think how the end of that conversation sounded.
"Yeah, actually. It's one of his quirks. That inductive thing I was telling you about? He's about to rapid-fire about three dozen theories about the case at me for the next, hmmm, three to four hours, probably. I'll shoot most of them down and in the end, we should have a couple more avenues to explore tonight." She grabbed the check before anyone could protest and waved as she headed toward the cashier. "See you tonight."
"Interesting," Catherine said as they watched her depart. "She's changed, more outgoing." Nick nodded in agreement. "Yeah. She's even been dating in DC." Catherine looked intrigued by that bit of news. "So do we think she and Cooper are...?" Nick shook his head. "Not that I know of. But you were right about the chemistry, so..." He shrugged his shoulders and made a 'take- your-pick' expression. "Definitely," chimed in Warrick. Catherine glanced at him, surprised. "You think?" "Oh yeah." Catherine summarized the positions, "One yes, one no, one undecided," before turning to Grissom, who had been following the conversation with interest. "Gil?" He gave her a disgusted look. "Is it any of our business to be speculating on the nature of their relationship?" Catherine popped the last bit of her toast into her mouth. "No. But it is fun."
"Damn it," Nick voiced everyone's frustration. "I hate waiting for a killer to strike." He was too exhausted to sustain his outburst, however, and he sighed. "So what's our next step?"
Sara looked to Gil at the head of the table, but he was silent, staring back at her expectantly. She then saw everyone was looking at her, and she realized the question had been addressed to her. She tried to hide her self- conscious smile behind a sip of coffee. "I'm actually not sure yet. We spent the last week reviewing the case files and existing evidence and putting the team into place, but we didn't come up with the plan for once we hit the ground here." She rotated her head around on her shoulders wearily, but her tone was confident when she spoke again. "We will have a plan of action by tonight. The data techs are still going over the last two months of purchases looking for any quality of HCl or possible industry sites that the suspect might have had access to the chemical. And we'll follow up on the suggestions presented here. Something should shake loose in the next few hours. If anything comes up, we'll be in touch. Until then, I think we're done here."
Everyone slowly got up from the conference table, stretching and working the kinks out. Sara knew it was hard to sit for that long when you are used to having more changes of scenery and the hustle and bustle of the lab to keep your energy up. Up until that last minute, it had felt just like old times, all of them around a conference table talking through the evidence, trying to get ahead of the suspect. She smiled wryly at how easily she had slipped into the old habit of looking to Gris to take the lead, and the awkward moment that followed had highlighted all that had changed in the past few months since she had left. She dropped her face into her hands and rubbed vigorously, trying to rub some sense back into her head, letting her head rest in her palms for a couple of minutes afterwards, thinking through their next steps, her hair falling over her face like a barrier to shut out the rest of the ops center for a minute.
A hand on her shoulder pulled her out of her reverie. "Sar?" Nick was shaking her shoulder gently, as if he thought she had fallen asleep. "We're," he jerked his head toward the rest of the team assembled in the doorway, "going to breakfast. You want to join us?"
Sara knew her smile had to be huge, given Nick's dazzling smile back. "Food?"
"Yeah, food. We could go to your favorite diner. You're buying."
She bounced out of her chair. "You're on." Looking back over her shoulder, she called to her partner. "Coop? Food?" He was engrossed in reading over some paperwork. One of his best qualities, she thought, was that he actually enjoyed paperwork. "You go ahead. I'm heading back to the hotel for a swim. Check in with me when you get to the hotel." He must have felt her glare, because he looked up from his papers and winked. "You know how I worry."
The diner hadn't changed, and breakfast reminded her why walking away from the Las Vegas crime lab had been the hardest thing she had ever done in her life. Leaving San Francisco had been easy, her life there an afterthought, but Vegas. She had been prepared to settle there, and while at first it had been rocky, she thought she had been making friends with her co-workers and starting to enjoy living in the desert. Working with Gil had been the best experience of her life and she had walked away from it. It was good to see that her co-workers didn't harbor any resentment toward her for leaving like she did; in fact, it almost seemed that they embraced her now more than they ever did when she worked with them. Catherine chatted with her about the more interesting cases at the lab while slipping in an incredible amount of gossip about Warrick, Nick, and Greg, and it was the best conversation Sara had ever had with the older CSI. Nick and Warrick jumped into the flow of Catherine's news regularly, to either defend themselves against her version or add particularly salient details about what Catherine was leaving out, especially about herself. Gil was the only one who didn't get into the act, sitting quietly. But Sara would catch him watching her when she wasn't paying attention, his eyes fixed on face or hands whenever she glanced his way. In his gaze, she felt like she was a particularly interesting breed of insect, which she knew was a form of flattery.
The conversation turned, of course, to her work, especially once Catherine started asking questions about her partner. "Yeah, Coop and I, we work well together. He's intuitive, given to what I call flights of fancy and enormous leaps of logic, very theoretical and abstract, and I'm grounded and specific, always bringing it back to the evidence." She struggled for a minute for words, especially when she saw Grissom had perked up, leaning forward to catch her description. "Our first case, I thought we would never be able to work together again, but it ended up that our methods were more complementary than I would have imagined." She smiled at a few of their more memorable moments. "And we get along great – we have similar temperaments, so we argue, yell, and laugh in equal measure."
"You definitely have a chemistry," Catherine said, fishing for an idea of their relationship beyond work. Sara grinned provocatively, and simply agreed with Catherine's sentiment, "Yeah, we do." Catherine's expression signaled her acknowledgement of Sara's deliberately noncommittal answer and she shrugged her shoulders to say 'can't blame a girl for trying.'
"Busted," Warrick quipped from the other side of the table, to the hearty laughter of everyone around the table.
Sara's cell vibrated against her hip at that moment, and her face twisted into a comical expression. "That your partner again?" She nodded. "Always." She glanced around apologetically. "Excuse me."
"Yeah... You do know I'm not going to allow you to exercise when we are on a case anymore? You know that, right?" She chuckled. "Your girlish figure would survive, I'm sure. Yeah, I'll be there in 20. No, I just ate. Yeah. Make it 25. Hey, and order me up a carafe of coffee from room service. I'll need it because you aren't going to let me sleep anytime soon." She snapped the phone shut and gave everyone another apologetic look. "Sorry, guys, duty calls."
"Really," Warrick's tone was teasing but skeptical, and Sara blushed to think how the end of that conversation sounded.
"Yeah, actually. It's one of his quirks. That inductive thing I was telling you about? He's about to rapid-fire about three dozen theories about the case at me for the next, hmmm, three to four hours, probably. I'll shoot most of them down and in the end, we should have a couple more avenues to explore tonight." She grabbed the check before anyone could protest and waved as she headed toward the cashier. "See you tonight."
"Interesting," Catherine said as they watched her depart. "She's changed, more outgoing." Nick nodded in agreement. "Yeah. She's even been dating in DC." Catherine looked intrigued by that bit of news. "So do we think she and Cooper are...?" Nick shook his head. "Not that I know of. But you were right about the chemistry, so..." He shrugged his shoulders and made a 'take- your-pick' expression. "Definitely," chimed in Warrick. Catherine glanced at him, surprised. "You think?" "Oh yeah." Catherine summarized the positions, "One yes, one no, one undecided," before turning to Grissom, who had been following the conversation with interest. "Gil?" He gave her a disgusted look. "Is it any of our business to be speculating on the nature of their relationship?" Catherine popped the last bit of her toast into her mouth. "No. But it is fun."