Dreaming of bright red panties, he woke quickly; arousal quite evident as the stiff flesh lay rigid against his belly. One hand went to Hemingway, surrounded him firmly, gripping, squeezing the hardened appendage as the other hand drifted up under his pillow; searching for that fabric hidden there. That soft bright red material that would urge Hemingway on; give him something to think about as he raced to completion.
Pulling the fabric out he brought it down, letting it dangle and skim the flesh in his grip. The contrast between the tightness of his grip and the light teasing feel of the fabric pushed him, urged him closer. The sight of the red material in his hand caused flashes of last night's events to flood his brain.
His hand squeezed and released, stroking up and down as he pictured himself over the dead, still body of Chapter Two. Leaning over her with Hemingway in hand, condom clad to leave no evidence behind. He came again now while remembering. Wishing he could have one more go with beautiful Chapter Two.
Riding back to the lab with Officer Blalock, Greg was thankful not to be stuffed and cuffed in the back of the police car. His date being a victim in a serial murder case was bad enough, but to be restrained and thrown in the back of a squad car just might push him over the edge.
Pulling into the parking space, his mind drifted back to his date last night, and how happy he'd been since then. And while he hadn't known Kelly long, he had a good feeling, even though it would have been a long distance thing.
Sitting in interrogation room two, Greg waited, worried and cursed himself for not taking Kelly back to her hotel. As his stomach churned again, he concentrated hard on trying not to throw up. Laying his head down on the table, the tears started and Greg began to think that they would never stop.
Getting back to the body after seeing Greg off, Grissom knelt down, joining David and Sara. "What have we got Sara?"
"Not a whole lot Grissom, but this is the same guy. I think he learned from his previous mistakes. He either killed her before he brought her down here or he waded in farther this time so there would be no signs of a struggle."
She paused looking at the bruise on the victim's back.
"What about that bruise?"
"I think it's from his knee, where he was holding her down. What's up with Greg, is he ok?"
"He knew the victim; he had a date with her before shift last night." Grissom said matter-of-factly.
With that, both Sara and David looked up at Grissom, hoping to see a smile or some sort of indication that he was joking.
"David, I would appreciate that piece of information not going any further. We need to be able to rule Greg out before anybody of importance finds out." Grissom added while looking at the bruise more closely.
"Of course." Pushing his glasses back into place on his nose, David busily got back to work.
Hearing the obvious hurt in the assistant coroner's voice, Grissom immediately regretted the statement. "Let's get this scene taken care of." Standing up to go grab his kit, he put a hand on David's back, awkwardly giving him a pat.
Looking up at David, Sara could see the blush and his small grin; she knew Grissom's meager attempt at an apology had been accepted by the young man.
With both files laid out and more eyes gathered around the table, Grissom began.
"Catherine, Warrick I need you to track Greg's movements from twelve hours before the first murder through this morning. Brass is questioning him himself, so you can meet up with him now to confirm Greg's story."
Without a word, they left to go about their task, knowing the importance of clearing Greg quickly.
"Nick, you're now on this case with me and Sara. We're about to go see what Doc. Robbins has for us."
Pushing their way into the autopsy room, they realized that getting a view around their newest victim was not going to be as easy as usual. Besides the Coroner; David and Sheriff Atwater were also present.
"Slumming, Sheriff?" Grissom asked, making no attempt at hiding his contempt at all.
"Supervising, Gil; something you wouldn't know much about. I hear you have Sanders in custody. Did he do it?"
Taking a deep breath before turning to look at the Sheriff, Grissom's fingers went to his wrist to feel the rapid beating below the skin there.
"First of all, Greg is not in custody. He's here of his own free will to clear himself. Secondly, we're in the middle of this investigation, but there is no evidence that Greg committed that murder. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Moving closer to Grissom, almost too close, the Sheriff prodded again.
"Don't you mean those murders? They are connected are they not?"
"Again, we're in the middle of this investigation, Sheriff. You know as well as I do that we don't want to spread a rumor about having a serial killer. It is way too early to start a panic."
"Right, but it is just us here, Gil; me, you, half the night shift, all in the autopsy room hoping to God they're not connected and hoping we can prove one of our own didn't do it. Because we really already know that they are connected, right?"
Turning away from Grissom the Sheriff started for the door.
"Right, Sheriff. And that was good, it sounded very... impassioned, almost like you believe you are one of us."
"It is all about perception, Gil."
With that he pushed back out through the swinging doors, leaving those left in the room wondering why he even bothered coming down there.
"He hang out with you often, Albert?"
"First time he's been in this room... with a body in here." The Coroner replied quickly.
Everyone present smirked, refusing to comment on the Sheriff's weak stomach and unpopular management skills.
"Ok guys, this is Kelly Nichols. Yes, she went out with Greg last night, and all I know so far is that she's not a local, she's here on vacation with some friends."
"Well, Grissom we can pretty much rule out that the killer knew the first victim, since this one was a tourist."
"Right Nick, what else?"
Pleased with his deduction, Nick carried on with the obvious.
"Both were white, young and pretty, early twenties with shoulder length brown hair. The first one was drowned, Doc?"
"Yup, this one drowned too. And the water in her lungs and stomach is consistent with that of Lake Mead. There's not nearly as much sediment this time and no abrasions on her teeth."
"So he did take this one deeper into the water to drown her, Sara." Grissom said.
"Hard to fight back when your hands are bound behind your back. I'm gonna take the duct tape from her wrists and compare it to the tape from the first victim. Maybe we'll get lucky and the ends will match up."
"Good idea Nicky, but remember he taped both their ankles and mouths as well, so without those pieces your odds of a match aren't as good. Anything else, Doc?"
"I thought you'd never ask. We got another one of those green fibers. It was stuck to the tape residue on one of her ankles. I'm running a tox screen on her one too."
"Thanks, Doc." With that Grissom turned to leave the autopsy room, followed by Nick and Sara.
"Sara, let's go check out our second victim's room, and see if we can chat with her friends."
Standing behind the one way glass, Catherine and Warrick tried to settle in to watch the interrogation of their coworker. The thought that they needed to clear one of their own was making this case; which already had the entire shift under stress, even worse.
"Greggo, let's take this thing from the beginning. Nice and easy, just tell me exactly what happened so we can clear this all up." Trying his best to sound as confident as he felt about the lab rat's innocence, Brass also attempted to look relaxed to put the young man at ease.
"Yes sir. I took Kelly out last night."
"Let's actually step back a minute, okay? Where did you meet Kelly?"
A flush fell across Greg's face as he realized Brass' beginning was further back than his.
"Yeah, sorry, uh I met her two nights before that at Coyote Ugly."
Realizing that this interview was going to take a while, Brass settled in to some small banter to try and relax Greg even more.
"Ah, over at New York, New York huh? Don't you find those places a little too... touristy?"
"Yeah, it's not a place I normally hang out. It tends to be a little too country for my taste."
Glad to see that Greg was loosening up, Brass continued on. "Yeah, you're a little more rock-n-roll, huh? So, you just decide to go there on a whim?"
"No, some friends from college were in town. They wanted to go, so we did. That's where I met Kelly; she was trying to teach me to dance to that kind of music."
"Oh yeah, a little line dancing?"
"Something like that."
"So you meet her there and you hit it off. Did you see her in between then and last night?"
"No, I asked her that night if I could see her again. She said yes, and we made plans to meet outside the Mirage last night at seven. She was staying there with some friends."
"So, you met her last night at seven, then what did you guys do?"
"Well, I was there at seven, she was a little late, she came down about seven fifteen."
"Just like a woman huh? So she strolls down about seven fifteen, and then you guys left. Did you drive?"
"No, we walked a few blocks and went into a couple of used book stores." Seeing Brass' look, Greg blushed, explaining their stop. "She's an English major, and I love old books. I thought it was a fun idea." Continuing in a barely audible whisper he added, "So did she."
"Sounds like you two were hitting it off Greg, I'm sorry."
"Yeah we were. I was going to call her again before she went back to California."
"Okay you hit a few book stores and then what?"
"We stopped at a little café, we got a table outside, and then we walked down the street a little farther to a jazz club I like. She was excited because it wasn't one of the normal Vegas spots that tourists hit. I joked that I wanted her to hear some better music."
Seeing Greg's eyes starting to fill with tears again, Brass decided to speed things up a bit.
"So what then Greg?"
"Uh, I had to go to work. I was going to call her a cab, or walk her back, but she wanted to stay. She said she might even call her friends to meet her there. I kissed her on the cheek, and left with her cell phone number in my pocket. That was it."
"Hang tight Greg, I'm going to get Officer Blalock to give you a ride home. Stay there and either call Grissom tomorrow, or he'll call you alright?"
Standing up, Brass gave Greg two strong pats on his back before walking out, leaving him to wipe his eyes alone in the room.
Entering the adjacent room, Warrick and Catherine greeted Brass. "There's no way Greg killed that girl Jim."
"You don't think I know that, Catherine? I still have to get his story. Now I'm gonna go to that restaurant and the club to prove he didn't do it; you guys want to come?"
"You know it." Came the response from Warrick, who was already heading out of the room.
Getting into the elevator in the Mirage, Vartan moved closer to Sara as Grissom watched out of the corner of his eye. Leaning in towards her ear he whispered, "So, you don't like elevators much do you?"
Flashing him a wide smile Sara responded just as quietly. "Elevators are fine as long as the doors stay open."
"Ah so it's the closed space not the elevator itself."
"They weren't lying when they said you were a good detective."
Grissom grunted, before he could help himself. With two sets of eyes focusing their attention on him, he turned his increasingly red face, as if he were trying to ensure the correct floor button had been pushed.
Landing on the sixth floor, Grissom was thankful to get himself and Sara out of the confined space, but more importantly to get her away from Detective Vartan. Heading down to the room all the girls shared, Vartan knocked on the door. Having called ahead, they didn't have to wait long for the door to open to the teary eyed group.
"Come on in. I just can't believe Kelly's gone." Said the blonde who'd answered the door.
"I'm sorry for your loss," Vartan began, "why don't you tell me about your trip out here... what's your name?"
"I'm Robin, Robin James. We all drove out together. We got here four days ago. We did the normal sight seeing shit... sorry." Reaching for the dresser, the girl grabbed a purse. Digging through it she pulled a dollar out, sticking it in a plastic hotel cup which was almost completely filled.
Smiling at the girl Vartan asked while pointing at the cup, "That's fine, are you winning?"
Smiling through the tears on her cheeks the girl blushed while answering, "No, I can't stop swearing, especially today."
"So, about your vacation?"
"Yeah, well we went out the other night, to Coyote Ugly, do you know it? Anyway, she met this guy; now he's not my type, but Kelly seemed to like him. His name was... Craig, no, Greg that was it. Anyway, they made plans to meet up last night. She was supposed to meet him downstairs at seven. Like I said, he was a little weird, but I don't think he would do anything like this, do you? I mean he seemed harmless to me."
"It doesn't appear that he would ma'am. We've already spoken with him, and I think your instincts were fine on that one."
"Good, I'd feel bad if we all thought he was harmless, and then he did this to her, you know?" And with that, a fresh round of tears started.
"Just one more thing, Robin. Did Kelly call you last night?"
"No, I don't think so. Hang on, let me check my cell phone, the service is so spotty." Reaching back down to the dresser she picked up her purse, again searching through what appeared to be many items. Pulling out her phone she just stared at it blank faced.
"Robin?"
"My God, she called me last night at eleven thirty. I missed the call. Oh my God I—" Getting up quickly Robin ran to the bathroom. Even having slammed the door closed behind her, the retching could still be heard.
"Uh, that'll be all for now. If you have any questions, here's my card." Handing his card to one of the other girls, he turned and led Grissom and Sara out of the room.
TBC