Chapter Two
"Johnny, Greg, you've got a DB in the alley behind the French Palace... Sara, Emily, attempted robbery and assault at the Tangiers," Gil Grissom explained as he handed the case files to his team.
"What about you?" Sara Sidle asked, knowing that the rest of the team were wondering the same thing. Grissom had been staying in the lab more and more recently. In fact, for a week, he had only been out in the field once, and that was only because Greg's case had required his knowledge as an entomologist. They were all concerned by his behaviour, but knew he would find it inappropriate for any of them to ask.
"I've got a lot of paperwork to do. If I start now, I might finish this century." He accompanied his excuse with a small smile, but, to a room full of CSIs, trained to be observant, he was obviously lying. There was something going on, and they were all helpless. They could tell he needed someone to talk to, but they knew it wasn't going to be them. Grissom kept his private life private. They knew very little about him. Even Sara, who had known him the longest wasn't privy to his innermost thoughts and feelings. Maybe that's what the problem was. Perhaps he was lonely. Living alone, no real friends that they knew of. They had tried to get him to open up in the past but weren't successful. They didn't know what else they could do so they left him to it. They couldn't help him if he wouldn't let them.
"Is Grissom okay?" Emily Gordon asked Sara as she drove the tahoe to the Tangiers. Emily was a young woman of twenty-five years old, who always wore her shoulder-length, blonde hair in two plaits either side of her head, making her look even younger than she was. She had only been at the Las Vegas crime lab for five weeks, but she too had noted that Grissom's behaviour had got progressively more unusual.
Sara looked to her partner and considered how to respond. She knew Grissom wasn't okay but she didn't know what it was that was driving him to avoid everyone. She had tried to talk to him. Just a few days ago she had invited him out to dinner hoping to get him to open up to her but he had turned her down. No excuse, no explanation, just a 'no'. It hurt. It affirmed that he didn't share her feelings, but, if she was honest with herself, she had known that all along. But she had at least expected him to let her in. They had known each other for a long time, she thought, of all the people he could choose, it would be her that he turned to.
"Sara?" Emily prompted in response to Sara's pensive silence.
"Yeah?" Sara stumbled out, snapping out of her daze.
"You know something... Is he okay? What's going on?" Emily reeled her questions off one after the other without so much as a breath in between.
Sara shook her head. "I don't know anything," she sighed, turning to look out of the window and watch the Las Vegas world pass by.
"Do you remember anything about your attacker at all? Any distinguishing features?"
She thought about it for a moment. "He was male, I would say, from the force behind the impact. He was maybe a foot taller than me. He was wearing generic black clothes and a black mask. I couldn't tell you what he looked like," she told him, her disappointment at not being able to give him any more information evident in her tone and expression.
"It's okay," Brass smiled. "Hopefully our crime scene investigators will be able to find some physical evidence of who he was... One of them will have to – "
"Process me. I know," she smiled back. "I'm not going anywhere."
Brass walked away from the strawberry blonde woman to talk to one of the hotel's security guards, a young Texan man who continuously looked, worriedly, at his manager throughout Jim's questioning. Whilst at first, Brass thought this was quite suspicious, he soon realised that the man, Mr Nicholas Stokes, was angry at himself that he hadn't been there to protect her, and catch whoever did it, and that he was concerned about her condition. Brass assured him that she was fine, and eventually managed to hold his attention to find out what he had seen.
Meanwhile, the manager looked around the foyer. There were officers, staff and guests scattered around; tape holding back onlookers. She had gone into the hotel industry thinking it would be a safer option than her previous job as a dancer. An exotic dancer at one of the off-strip clubs. A room full of drunken men, wanting to see more than the tiny pieces of material allowed to be revealed, could get violent and, many a time, she'd had to wear extra make-up to hide scratches or bruises left by men trying to kiss her. Their bruises were, of course, worse though. At least twice a week, bouncers had to prise men off her, she'd had a broken rib and twisted ankle from trying to escape the grip of an out of control observer, and once she'd been pinned up against the wall outside the club by a pervert who was now doing time with a face long scar to remind him why.
After the attack her husband had demanded that she get a different job. Up until that point he had never objected to her line of work. He prided himself on having such a sexy wife. He would watch her dance whenever he could, it turning him on even more to know that, of all the men in that room, drooling over, and fantasising about, her he was the one who she was going home with. He got to have her.
She had been considering going to college, maybe doing a degree, but they needed the money, so she took an old family friend up on an offer of a job. Sam Braun owned several hotels and casinos, and had known her since she was born. When he had found out his "Mugs", as he called her, was in Vegas, he had offered her a choice of jobs, but she insisted she was going to find her own way. Seven years had passed since then though, and she now knew that pride was not a good reason to pass up a safe career opportunity. She did lay down some ground rules though, and began working as a waitress, wanting to work her way up on her own merit. She threatened Sam that if she got so much of an inkling that he was giving her preferential treatment, he wouldn't see her for dust.
Now, seventeen years later, she was established and happy in her role as nightshift manager at the Tangiers. The husband had been lost along the way, her change in career not pleasing him as much as he had thought it would. He didn't appreciate her new, fully-clothed lifestyle, and decided to find satisfaction elsewhere. Something she had been unfortunate enough to see for herself, when she returned home to find him in their bed with another woman. After recovering from the hurt she realised she, and her five year old daughter, were better off without him.
Six months ago her ex-husband had been killed in an incident which also almost claimed the life of their daughter. The case was never fully solved, although she was told that they believed they had the killer in jail, but were unable to actually convict him/her of that crime.
She had disliked her encounter with law enforcement, and crime scene investigators, then, and wasn't particularly impressed to have to go through it again. But she knew it was necessary and wasn't about to be unco-operative. She just hoped she didn't get the same CSI who handled that case. The two of them had got off on the wrong foot, and maybe some things had been said that shouldn't have been. The CSI was doing her job, just not as quickly as she would have liked. She may have presumed to tell her to get her ass in gear, and that hadn't gone down well. Whilst she did feel bad, she wasn't about to apologise. She had been grieving, and the CSI seemed to have taken an instant dislike to her. She didn't know why, there just seemed to be annoyance in her attitude. Perhaps in some former life she had offended the CSI in some way. Maybe stolen her man?
She didn't fully understand why that thought had occurred to her. She'd never really believed in past lives, soul mates, destiny and stuff like that. She didn't have time to explore where the thought had come from though, because she noticed two women in CSI jackets had entered the hotel. She recognised one of them.
The other, a petite blonde woman, with a genuine sympathetic, comforting smile on her face approached her, whilst the one she knew, headed for the office with Brass.
"Hi! I'm Emily Gordon. I'm from the Crime Lab," she introduced herself.
"Catherine Willows," the manager smiled.
"Ms Willows – " Emily began.
"Catherine," she repeated firmly. "I've been Ms Willowsed enough for one day. It's making me feel old." She laughed slightly, but cringed when that action caused a shooting pain in the cut above her eye.
"Should we go somewhere more private?" Emily asked softly.
"I'd say let's go to my office, but... it's a crime scene," Catherine said, "So, erm, we can use the day shift manager's office."
TBC...