'WHAT?!' was the response from everyone.

'But.but.Greg,' spluttered Nick in disbelief.

'Greg.' He repeated as if this were making a point.

'Hang on, hang on. Calm down.' Grissom said, raising a hand.

'I don't mean to replace him. I mean as a partner. Greg will just have someone working with him for a bit. If it works out it could be permanent. We'll just see how it goes.'

'Is Greg OK with this?' Sara asked quietly . 'It was Greg's idea. He asked me this morning. He was in a bad state Sara. I really think this will be a good thing.'

Sara nodded solemnly.

'Come on everyone,' a voice came from the doorway. 'It's not like I'm leaving.'

Everyone turned round to see Greg with a cheeky grin on his face. How long had he been standing there?!

Nick rushed over to Greg.

'I'm sorry man,' he said, and then, surprising everyone, including himself, he flung his arms round Greg. Greg looked surprised for a moment, but then put his arms round Nick as well and gave him a gentle squeeze to show him how much he appreciated his concern.

'Don't worry about it. Thank you.'

Nick pulled back, slightly embarrassed at his public show of emotions.

'Um.I, well you know. It's just.'

Greg laughed.

'I understand, and thanks again you guys. I really think this is going to work out.' He smiled and turned to go back to his lab.

'Right well I think I'd better go and get back to work.' Grissom got up and walked out in the direction of his office. The others looked at each other briefly then followed suit.

'So Greg couldn't give you an ID?' Sara said exasperatedly.

'Nope, DNA matches nothing we have on file.'

'So basically we have nothing.'

'No we don't have nothing.' Grissom said, coming up behind them.

'We have the victim. And if anyone can tell us what happened, he can.'

'Yes, but.'

'We know he was tortured, then brought out to the desert right? The wounds were inflicted upon him by someone who didn't know what they were doing. The stab wound was messy, almost as if it took the killer several attempts to get the knife in the right place. The welts from the whip start off very faint, barely bruising the skin. Yet when covering up the evidence, the killer was flawless. It seems a little strange that someone so inexperienced could pick such a good place to dump the body and cover up his crime. So that got me thinking. What if the killer was trying to copy another crime? I mean when it came to the finer details he obviously had some help.'

'So what, you went on ?' Nick said, slightly rudely, annoyed due to lack of sleep, and unable to see where this was going.

'No, but I did what you should have done before giving up so easily' Grissom retorted, and Nick blushed realising he had been out of line. But Grissom carried on, unfazed. He was becoming more and more animated, which was quite unusual for him, but with a case like this, and under the amount of stress they were, it was hard not to get excited-even for Grissom- about even the smallest of clues. And, this, as it turns out was certainly not small.

An hour later and the team had read through all the reports of cases where torture victims had been dumped in the desert. One particular one described virtually exactly what they had seen themselves, not so long ago that day.

The killer had brutally tortured his brother over an incident involving his wife, then in a panic had used what little wit he had about him to cover up what he had done. For a long time he was a suspect, but he played the grieving brother well and no one could pin anything on him. But a month later he turned himself him, overwhelmed with guilt and grief, and it was determined that while he had gone round with the intention of calmly talking to his brother, his rage had got the better of him, and he couldn't control himself.

'I just wanted to cause him pain.' He said in confession, 'I wanted him to know the pain I felt when he stole my wife.'

He was declared mentally unstable, and was placed in a mental health facility where he later committed suicide.

'So our killer what trying to copy this guy? John Harris.' Sara said the name slowly and carefully, as if she were afraid she might offend someone.

'Well it looks likely.'

'So where does this leave us?' Nick spoke again. 'Anyone could have read the report and thought that that seemed like a good way of finishing off our vic.' His tone was getting sharp again, but he didn't care. 'We still have no idea who the vic is either.'

'I've sent pictures round to everyone. He'll be on the local news later tonight. And I know we got nothing off the body, but it still has secrets. And soon we'll know how to ask the right questions, to get our answers' Grissom said happily, and Nick, once again feeling stupid, realised that he really had given up too easily.

'I have a feeling that while the Harris case was a crime of passion, our killer now merely used his technique to commit a premeditated murder, adding his own little,' though this next part disturbed him, he didn't let it show, 'amusements. Why, I don't know just yet.'

'A feeling? Since when do you go on hunches?' Sara asked cheekily.

Grissom took off his glasses and looked intently at Sara,

'Since I don't have much else to go on.'