Chapter 7
A/N: All will be revealed, and this is an insanely goofy chapter, LoL. Blame it on us having our last exams, blame our insane beta or our other insane Aussie Dallas...Blame it on the boogie or us just being mad as hell..as usual!
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"Brass! Brass! Jim, wait up!"
The former head of CSI and now captain of the homicide department turned around, an amused look on his face as he watched the current CSI supervisor try to catch up with him in one of the long, dark halls of the LVPD Lab.
"Can't keep up with me, huh?" Brass smirked. "Why, Gil, you look a little flushed."
Grissom just frowned and ignored the other man's comments. "So, what do you have?"
"I'm sorry?"
"What do you have for me?" Grissom repeated impatiently.
Brass stopped, turned to face the man standing next to him and stared at him in confusion. "Did I page you? Cause I don't remember paging you..."
Gil pursed his lips together. "You didn't page me Jim."
"Then why does it feel like you just came running to the Lab for some evidence?"
"Is there?"
Brass shook his head and sighed as they resumed their walking. "As it so happens, Warrick and Sara paged me about a minute ago. Got some new leads." He held up a vanilla colored folder. "And I've got a little news of my own."
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Grissom and Brass joined Sara and Warrick in the breakroom.
"Hey guys. I hope you don't mind, I brought a friend," Brass said dryly as he plopped down on the couch.
"Grissom. Hey!" Sara looked up from the files she'd been studying at the breakroom table.
Grissom nodded at her and Warrick, who was sitting opposite Sara. "So, what do you guys have?"
"Oh, nothing big, Gris." Warrick answered. "Greg ran us some DNA samples and we confirmed what Alexis told Catherine. The Byrnes aren't their parents."
"Which brings me to this." Jim slowly got of the couch. "Alexis and Reese Byrne don't exist. There is nothing on them...not even birth-certificates. The Byrnes however, I'm still trying to locate."
Grissom slowly nodded as he took in the new information. "So..?" He looked around the room expectantly.
"So ..." Warrick sighed. "We try and find out who these girls really are."
"Well.... has anyone tried asking them?"
Everyone in the room turned to glare at Brass. "Ok, ok." He held up his hands in mock-defence.
"We have, Jim. We even instructed Lindsey to ask them where they're from. ...Anything. But, we got nothing, I'm afraid." Grissom took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes tiredly.
To be honest, the more he wanted to ignore the feeling of guilt about how things escalated at Dr. Winston's, the less focussed he became. It was wearing him out. After all, this whole psychiatrist experiment had been his idea. And Catherine had been against it. And then, he ran.
Grissom cleared his throat, trying to shake off the uncomfortable, nagging feeling. "So, what's your next step?"
Warrick looked at Sara, who gazed at the files in front of her. "Well..."she began. "We use the DNA samples of the kids, run them through CODIS?"
"And do the same with the Byrnes." Warrick nodded.
"Yeah, I'll look up what I can about the Byrnes." Brass said.
"Ok" Grissom nodded. "I'll go pay Greg a visit, ask him to run the DNA of the kids and the Byrnes through CODIS."
Sara picked up the files. "I'll try and found out who these kids really are."
"And, since we've got two cases now.....I'll ask Nick for some help on the Byrnes's case." Warrick sighed.
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"Greg?"
The lab tech jumped up and quickly straightened his light blue lab coat. "Yesss?"
Grissom approached him, a typical frown on his face. "Were you....sleeping?"
Greg shook his head frantically. "No! I was just watching the Gas chromatograph...waiting for results...You know Ecklie....has me working 24-7 and...then the new case....I was... "He cleared his throat, knowing his rambling wasn't helping. "So, what brings you here? Shouldn't you be with the wife and the kids?"
"The what?" Grissom narrowed his eyes.
"Just a little joke there..." Greg began to mutter, grimacing.
Grissom ignored his nervous smiles and simply said, "I need you to run a few DNA samples. The Byrnes. And then Alexis and Reese."
Greg nodded and turned in his seat. "Alright. I can do that. So..um.. I heard you guys don't have a lot to go on, huh?"
Grissom shook his head. "Afraid not. So Greg, if you get a hit, let me know ASAP. I'll be at the Lab all night."
"Ok. I'll see what I can do!" Greg called after Grissom as the supervisor walked away. "I'll page you!"
There was no response from the retreating figure.
"Right away!"
Again, no response.
"Byee?"
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Sara stared at her computer-screen. She was looking at all the files there were about missing children. The cases that never got solved. So far, no luck. Reese and Alexis started to look like ghosts. It was as if they had just appeared out of thin air. And since Alexis was 6 years old - she looked into every missing person' report from 1998 - 2004.
She sighed. It was unbelievable how many children were missing and never got found. Scrolling through files she tried to stay focused, trying to blink away her tiredness.
Suddenly, a description appeared on her screen that caught her attention. But there was also something odd about it. The description matched Reese and Alexis, age made sense, but the names didn't. "Avery and Romaine...Fortier?" Sara said surprised. "That would explain a lot." she mumbled.
Meanwhile, Greg, who had decided to take a short break while CODIS was working its magic, walked around the corner and saw her sitting behind the computer.
"Hey Sara," He smirked as he casually leaned against the doorpost. "It's true, ya know"
"What is it, Greg." she replied, a bit annoyed that someone had interrupted her.
"Well...." He began, kind of smug "Sitting this long behind a computer causes people to start talking to themselves."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'll show you." He took a deep breath then mimicked Sara in a high-pitched voice; "'That would explain a lot'."
"GREG, will you please let me do my job? Yes? Thank you!" She was not in the mood for his jokes and redirected all of her attention back to the screen in front of her.
Greg grinned. "Why, of course." He shook his head smiling and started to walk away.
"And I don't even TALK like that!" Sara suddenly called after him, much to his amusement.
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"This case just keeps getting bigger by the second." Nick sighed as he turned over some files. "It's like.... a virus. First, we had the Byrnes-case to be concerned about, then the fact that their kids could be eyewitnesses so we had to focus on them. Now, we have NO idea where those kids came from because they're not even related. Not to mention that we don't have anything on the Byrnes. But 'YAY' at least we've got hundreds of crime- scene photos." He finished sarcastically.
"I hear ya." Warrick nodded and walked around the table that was covered with crime-scene photos and typed up statements. "The paperwork alone is enough to keep you busy for 2 weeks."
"I wasn't exactly planning on doing that." Nick grumbled as he picked up two photos.
"Same here, man." He sat down next to Nick and looked at the two photos the Texan was holding up. "Sara and I dusted that whole hotel-room. Every single gold angel, gold lamp, the doorknobs, the phones, the doors, the windows ....just everything. I mean it, we found 13 sets of different fingerprints."
Nick nodded sympathetically.
"Of course, they could all be matched to the maids, the Byrnes, the kids and the two couples who used the room before the Byrnes."
"So, whoever is responsible for the Byrnes murders came in wearing gloves or the Byrnes opened the door themselves." Nick stated as he lay down the photos and picked up a couple of shots of the Golden Coast Hotel and the hotel-room itself.
"Yeah. And we still know nothing about the Byrnes."
"Whoever killed the Byrnes....., they either didn't know there were any girls to begin with or they did, but never intended to harm them. Or....they didn't see them....."
Warrick sighed and looked up. "So, that narrows our list of suspects down to a complete stranger with no knowledge of the Byrnes' life. Our second option is someone capable of feeling some compassion......."
"And our last..." Nick added. "...Just a blind fool."
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Gil sat in his office and had to stop himself from calling Catherine, to tell her about the new information on their case....which was technically still their case.
The more he thought about it, the worse he felt about letting everyone down when they took the girls to see the psychiatrist. He shouldn't have run off like that. He isn't a man who runs away from his responsibilities.
He sighed. Cath...... They had been through so much together. Why couldn't they just work things out with this case?
He had the feeling he was headed for something he'd always carefully avoided. All those times he told Catherine and everybody else that they should never become emotionally involved in their cases. And he came close to crossing that thin line between objectivity and subjectivity ..... closer than he wanted to.
"Grissom? Hey Griss?? I can tell you why Alexis and Reese don't exist on paper!" Sara entered his office, excitedly waving around a piece of paper. "Grissom?"
His head snapped up. "Oh good, that's good, Sara. ...So...what do you have on them?" he looked up at her, trying his most professional and intrigued look. He didn't want Sara to suspect anything was up, he didn't what to show her how bad he felt. Because, whatever was going on between him and Catherine, it should stay between them. Of course, the other members of the team had asked him how Cath and the girls were doing, but he had carefully and skilfully avoided their questions and any mention of the visit to the psychiatrist.
"Well," Sara began. "Remember four years ago?" she looked at him expectantly.
"Yes of course I remember the year 2000, the millennium.... lots of fuss about it, was kinda hard to miss and all but what's that got to do with our case?" He sighed, taking off his glasses.
Sara didn't seem to notice his sarcasm, and eagerly began explaining the rest of her findings. "There was a big case in Florida, someone tried to kidnap the daughters of a big realtor. The Fortier case...ring any bells?
"Fortier?" Grissom narrowed his eyes and titled his head slightly, dangling his glasses in his right hand. "Yeah. Yeah, I remember that one, high profile case in Orlando. Parents were found dead, their two young daughters were missing. And since they didn't have any other family known the police stopped active searching after 6 months." He leaned back in his chair and waited for Sara's response.
"Exactly!" she had a smug grin on her face. "Now don't these two sound familiar to you?" she pushed the piece of paper over his desk towards him. "Grissom, everything makes sense. Age, looks, and why the Byrnes are not their parents."
Grissom leaned over his desk so and his eyes widened in realization as he observed the information. The descriptions, especially of the oldest daughter, matched with Reese and Alexis. After a few moments of silence, he suddenly jumped up, grabbed the file with the photos and practically ran past Sara on his way out.
"Ok. Did he just hear anything I said?" she said to no one in particular before slowly turning around and walking out of his office.
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"Gentlemen!!"
Nick's head snapped up to see an amused Brass standing in the doorway.
"There's only one gentle man in here, Brass" Nick smiled. "Warrick is checking to see if Greg found anything on the Byrnes."
"Ah." Still looking very pleased with himself, Brass walked around the table, Nick's eyes following his every move.
Finally, Brass came to a stop and looked at Nick expectantly. The latter was confused, to say the least. "Uh, what?"
"Well....?"
"Again: what?"
"Aren't you going to ask me why I stopped by?"
Nick sighed, rubbed his face tiredly and muttered. "You've been hanging around Greg lately haven't you? Please, stop performing this little play of yours and tell me...or I'll have Grissom come over here and recite Hamlet to you!"
"Ok. It's about the Byrnes." The older man held up two files. "We got them."
"Maria Byrne, 31 years old, from Miami." Nick read out loud. "Peter Byrne, 38 years old also from Miami and-"
"-a convicted sex-offender. Came up on CODIS. " Warrick finished as he walked in. Both Nick and Brass looked up. "Did time, 5 years. From his...24th till his 29th. Nothing on the wife though."
"Same here." Nick nodded, looking at the two files in his hands. He narrowed his eyes and stared at the photos, then at the morgue-pictures. "Well, DNA and photos confirm it. It's definitely them."
"So now?" Brass asked no-one in particular.
"We contact Miami." Warrick answered. "I still got a few contacts down there."
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"I thought I'd find you here."
Grissom and Archie barely acknowledged Sara's presence as she walked into the AV-Lab. Grissom's eyes were glued to the computer-screen in front of him, while Archie seemed to be rummaging through a box with some tapes in it.
Letting out a soft, annoyed sigh, Sara peeked over Grissom's shoulder to find out what he was looking at. "The Orlando papers... May 2000."
Grissom nodded. "I'm trying to find some good, clear pictures of the Fortier girls, but just get these vague black and whites ones. How are you doing there Archie?"
When they got no response, but Sara and Grissom glanced at Archie who was now shoulder deep in one the boxes he had pulled out earlier. "Hold on, think I've got them." He glanced at the tapes he pulled out and nodded. "These are the ones, I think. News reports from the exact month the Fortier girls disappeared."
Grissom nodded. "Let's roll."
Sara hit the lights and Archie rolled the tape. The three sat down in front of the big screen, hoping to catch their first break in this case.
After a few other news-items on the NBC news, they got what they had been looking for; 'Now over to our reporter Melinda Carton, who is reporting live from Orlando. Melinda?'
'Yes, John. Orlando native and realtor Michael Fortier and his wife Susanna were both found shot to death in their million-dollar home in Orlando. The police released a statement just 30 minutes ago that there is no trace of their two young daughters 5 year old Romaine and 2 year old Avery Fortier.'
Two pictures flashed across screen and Archie was just on time to hit the pause button. Sara narrowed her eyes while Grissom's blue ones widened. "It's them." He breathed. He'd recognize Reese's defiant green eyes and Alexis toothy smile from miles away. "It's really them."
Archie pushed play again, and the three watched a home-video of the two Fortier girls playing happily in the impressive garden behind the enormous villa. Grissom had never seen Reese... so carefree and happy.
"I have to go...I have to alert..." Grissom got up from his stool.
"The authorities? The Sheriff?" Sara asked hopefully, but Grissom was already out the door.
Sara glanced at Archie, who shrugged in response.
"Right. ...Catherine..." she muttered softly.
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TBC???
We PROMISE the next chapter will be nothing but G/C, if you guys review! Honestly.