Brass called the ambulance squad back to pick up Marquita Dali, then called in David, Doc Robbins's protégé, to pronounce Pancha Nichols and Mason Ziegler. Brass waited outside for David as the CSI's did their job.

Nick got some pictures of Marquita's knife wound before the paramedics took her away. Catherine—who's shirt was now also partially covered in blood—followed the paramedics with Marquita on the stretcher. She was tempted to ride in the ambulance with her to the hospital, just to keep her company, but Grissom was against it.

"I need you here," he said. "We can go after we're finished processing the scene."

Catherine did get into the ambulance, but not to ride with Marquita. As a protocol, she was stripped of her bloodied shirt when Nick had said, as she was exiting the Stop-n-Go,

"Hey Cath? You have a bloody handprint on the shoulder blade of your shirt."

"I know," Catherine replied. "That's where Marquita grabbed me after she fainted." She then pointed out the other various blood splotches from Marquita as a paramedic confiscated the blouse she was wearing and then tossed her a clean Clark County Ambulance Squad T-shirt so she wouldn't have to her work in her vest and bra.

"Sorry, Catherine," the paramedic, a blonde curly-haired man named Tuck. "You know the rules."

"Yeah…yeah," she sighed as Tuck wiped her down with rubbing alcohol where the blood had seeped through her shirt and onto her skin. It was cold and gave her goose bumps. She was going to miss that blue silk blouse. Lindsey had got it for her birthday last year.

Before they put Marquita in the truck and drove away, Catherine heard her young survivor speak. Her eyes were still closed, but Catherine distinctly heard Marquita recite a phone number, but for whom was unknown,

"K-L-five-eight-one-nine-three."

Catherine committed it to memory as the ambulance pulled away. She waved, as if Marquita could see her.

"…helluva time the shooter had here," Nick was saying as Catherine went back inside. He and Grissom were in separate spots of the store: Nick in aisle two with Pancha Nichols and Grissom behind the counter with Mason "Mazz" Ziegler. "Do we even have an order of events?"

"Not in the slightest. All we know," Grissom said, "is that the shooter was trigger happy."

"No kidding," Nick looked over Pancha Nichols. "Especially this woman."

"Shot six times," Catherine added. "Mason Ziegler was shot only once and Adrian Lowe three times—not counting the one that nicked his hip."

"I wonder if Pancha Nichols was, in fact, the target of this attack," Grissom mused aloud. "Otherwise, why take out so much violence on an obviously helpless woman? She's not much of a threat."

"Should we look into Marquita Dali as a suspect?" Nick asked. "I know she was in a closet but she was the only one who knew Pancha."

"We won't know til we question her."

Nick paused, thought a moment and then shrugged and went back behind his camera.

"We have to think about Marquita's hand wound," Catherine said. "Self defense, you think?"

"Looked like it," Nick replied. "Maybe she put her arms and hands up in front of her face—" he demonstrated, "—and the knife just went through her hand."

"I just want to know when she got into the closet."

Grissom sighed, "We'll find out when we question her."

Catherine went back to work, going to where she'd seen a large security mirror and—

"Got a surveillance camera back here!"

Grissom popped up from behind the counter, his hands on his hips. "Dismantle it and get the tape to Warrick."

As Catherine put on a third pair of clean gloves and prepared to climb on a few shelves to get what she wanted, Nick made a discovery.

"Bloody shoeprint!" Nick declared. Grissom left Mason Ziegler to observe the find.

It was only one, but perfectly formed. It was still slightly wet, shining and glaring at the two CSI's with contempt.

"The shooter's, maybe? It's too big to be Pancha's or even Marquita's."

Grissom knelt beside it. "This is definitely a man's shoe." He put his own size ten foot beside it. The print was smaller. "And Mason Ziegler is wearing a size thirteen. I'd say this was an eight, maybe a nine, but no bigger."

Nick positioned himself by the footprint. "Looks like the shooter was standing over Pancha's body after he shot her."

Grissom went back to Mason Ziegler's body. He sifted through the dreadlocks on the dead young man's head. He found dandruff, of course, but nothing else. There was no exit wound of the bullet that had entered through his forehead. He had first- and second-degree burns around his lips. There was a strange reddish-brown substance underneath his otherwise dirty fingernails. Grissom took a careful scraping and then went to search the pockets of Mason's jeans. He found a half dozen dime bags of marijuana, which didn't surprise him, along with some wax paper and a couple of lighters. He bagged each one. He also found a ball of foil that turned out to contain what he knew to be "roaches": the very tail end of a joint, smoked to get a tiny buzz. They were held to the lips using tweezers and then lit, which would explain the burn marks around Mason's lips—from the heat on the metal of the tweezers.

As Catherine came down from getting the surveillance camera, she noticed something black and shiny, hiding and glaring at her. She carefully put the camera down and got on her hands and knees. Underneath the nearest shelf was what she'd been hoping to find—a gun.

"I got it," she exclaimed. "I found the gun."

"No way," Nick said.

"Way," Catherine stood, the gun between her thumb and forefinger. "How'd it get over here?"

Grissom popped up from behind the counter again, "Perhaps it's not the gun, simply a gun."

"A gun's a gun," Catherine sighed as she bagged it. "Hopefully we can lift some prints from it."

"If it's the shooters, he most likely wore gloves."

"A gun's a gun, Gil. Why else is it here in this convenience store?"

"She's right, Grissom," said Nick. "It's gotta be the gun."

"Besides, regardless of if the shooter wore gloves or not," Catherine reasoned, "there might me a set on here that could point us to the shooter."

Grissom gave a combination sigh/grunt and went back behind the counter.

"So," Catherine sighed as she extracted the tape from the surveillance camera. "Where were you last night? Sara said you took a night off."

"What?" Grissom popped up again and figured if he was going to be a jack-in-the-box all night, he would never get any work done. "Sara said what?"

"She said you took a night off."

"Is that where you were?" Nick asked Grissom curiously. "Night off?"

"You almost never do that," Catherine said. "Where'd you go?"

Grissom puckered his brow. "I don't understand how this is any of your business."

"It's not. But I still wanna know why. Hot date?" Catherine cocked her head.

Grissom rolled his eyes. "Sort of." Not the hot part at least.

"Who's the lucky girl?" Nick asked.

"She's not a 'lucky girl', Nicky."

"Well, who is she?"

"Just…just someone from my past," Grissom admitted hurriedly, but would say no more. "Listen, this is a crime scene, not the dating game."

"Sure," Catherine sighed. "Whatever you say."

Grissom ducked behind the counter again, his knees cracking as he did so. As he continued to search Mason Ziegler's pockets, he began to wonder how the hell he was going to keep his private life private, especially with Sara running her mouth.

If this is what family really did to him, he definitely did not like it.