Cardinality
Summary: A serial killer is stalking the citizens of Las Vegas. Started out as a case file but the G/S aspect demanded equal representation. This is the edited version for this site. The original version can be found at my web site.
Rating: R for subject matter
A/N: No real spoilers. Many thanks to Burked for teaching me how to be a serial killer, among many other things.
Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own anything related to CSI. If I did, certain characters would be getting more screen time – together!

"I cannot help it; in spite of myself, infinity torments me." – Alfred de Musset

Chapter 8

Grissom swore silently as he entered the morgue. From the looks Al and David gave him, he presumed the news of his earlier encounter with Brandenburg had already made its way down here. So much for keeping this private.

In hindsight, confronting the mathematician in public probably hadn't been the wisest thing to do. Not only did he lose the battle, but Sara probably thought he was a loser. The exchange highlighted all his shortcomings. At least Brandenburg shared that same fate.

Maybe.

Sara did leave with him. And after giving Brandenburg a ride, she had never returned to the lab. True, her shift had ended, but it wasn't like her to not work a double when they were working a hot case. Unless she found something hotter.

Damn. No, this was Sara. She wasn't like that. The Mile High Club had been a youthful indiscretion, not an indication of her character. Brandenburg's performance couldn't have impressed her. No. She wasn't involved with him. Yet. Her bawdy jokes in the break room after she first met him were just that: jokes. She hadn't become involved with Brandenburg.

Please.

If he were lucky, the sheriff wouldn't find out about the entire incident. Treating a consultant – even a volunteer – like that was inexcusable. It did nothing to promote the image of the lab. If he were really lucky, Sara would forgive him.

Unfortunately, he didn't believe in luck.

"You paged," Grissom said directly, wishing to avoid any discussion of the incident.

"I did," Robbins said with a amused expression. "Stevie Wilson died by suffocation"

"Really? Not internal bleeding?"

"No, but he would have eventually. There was a blunt-force blow to the chest. He was bleeding out, but not quickly enough for the killer," Robbins said, pointing to the wounds on the corpse's knuckles.

"Defensive wounds?"

"Looks that way. There's also scrapes on the knees, elbows and palms," he said, pointing each out before moving to the victim's head. "One blow to the face. Caused heavy bleeding from the nose. We also found fibers in the nostrils. Looks like some sort of fleece. We've sent them to Trace, and David sent swabs from the nose and knuckles to DNA."

"Any idea yet why this victim didn't die as quickly as the others?"

"We won't know for certain until we get the tox screens back. He may not have been as responsive to the drug, or he didn't ingest as much of it."

"You sound like you have an idea," Grissom said, cocking his head to look at Robbins.

"If the killer has a limited supply of warfarin, he might have been cutting back on the dosage. Trying to conserve his supply for more victims."

"Seeing how little he can use and still be effective."

"Right. But there's no way of predicting what's a lethal dosage of warfarin. Body mass isn't a factor. If anything, he's been using a too low a dosage. To make sure he's giving a toxic amount, he should have been increasing the amount he's giving."

"And in this case, he went too low. It was still enough to kill the victim, but not immediately incapacitate him."

"Possibly. You also have to consider the first victim was older and not in great shape. The second victim had a blow to the back of the head. He probably was knocked out immediately by that."

"Thanks, Al," Grissom said, leaving the room when his pager began going off.

Sara had just pulled back the covers on her bed when the knocking started. Letting out a sigh, she headed to the front door, pondering who would be visiting. Her wonderment turned to confusion when she found her boss standing in the hallway.

"Sara, … oh, did I come at a bad time?" Grissom asked after taking in her pajamas. He glanced into the apartment nervously, hoping to find her alone, but fearing the worse.

Sara let out a disgusted breath when she noticed his actions. "You missed the orgy, Grissom. It ended an hour ago."

"I didn't want to interrupt if you had, uh, company."

"I was on my way to bed. Alone," she said.

"Oh. I can come back later, if you want…"

"Since when do you care what I want?"

"Sara," he paused. She clearly was still angry with him. Very angry, judging by her glare. Worse, she was making no attempt to disguise the fact. Fearing he may have damaged his chances beyond repair, Grissom tried to figure out how to proceed.

It would be easier, less painful to bow out now. Knowing that Sara had chosen Brandenburg over him would be too much to handle. No, removing himself from the equation would be safer. That would give him the illusion that it had been his decision to quash this.

But it wouldn't make it any easier to face Sara every day, knowing he'd never have the chance to be the one to make her happy. It wouldn't make his life seem any less empty. How could he make things right if she wouldn't even talk to him?

Seeing his crestfallen look, Sara let out a long sigh and brusquely waved him in. She wasn't really ready to forgive him for that scene earlier, but he seemed so morose. It was uncharacteristic, not only to his personality, but that he would allow her to see it.

"Make it quick, Grissom. I really am tired," she said softly.

He followed her into the apartment, but remained standing when she sank into a corner of the couch, pulling an afghan over her.

"This is for you," he said, handing her an envelope.

"Why?" she asked.

"My behavior earlier was inappropriate for the workplace."

"For the workplace?"

Grissom looked at her curiously. Her inflection had been odd. It almost sounded like she was prompting him. From her expression, he gathered Sara hoped he'd say more.

"Inappropriate for anywhere other than the front of a cave twenty thousand years ago," he acknowledged, looking down at his shoes in embarrassment.

She raised an eyebrow at his admission. In all the years she'd known him, it was the closest he'd ever come to offering her an apology.

"It's not much," he said, holding out the envelope again when she continued to watch him.

Breaking eye contact, Sara took the offering and opened it. Inside was a card with an art-print on the cover. A handwritten "I'm sorry" and another envelope were inside.

"I know you like movies," he offered when she pulled out a set of passes to one of the local multi-complexes from the second envelope.

"Thank you," she said, wondering which was more surprising: that he had apologized, or that he actually knew something about her personally.

"If you don't like that theater, I can get passes from another one."

"No, this is fine," she said, flipping through the tickets. "How many movies were you planning on seeing?"

"What? No, I wasn't fishing for a date. I don't expect you to go with me. I mean, I'll gladly go with you, if you want, but there's no obligation. If you'd rather go by yourself, or with a friend, that's your choice."

"Yes, it is," she said firmly, setting the tickets down on the end table.

"I … I hope you're not too angry with me, Sara."

She watched him for a long moment, clearly debating how to respond. Her head shook when she finally answered him. "Grissom, that, that scene was pathetic."

"I know," he said.

Sara resisted the urge to roll her eyes at his downtrodden expression. She wasn't talking about his performance, but the fact he even participated in the showdown. Still, it had to have been painful for him. Max's final dig had to be especially hard to bear; she suspected their age difference was something that bothered Grissom.

"I wasn't impressed, by either of you."

Grissom snapped his head up, a hint of a smile forming. That sounded like she was willing to overlook his behavior. "I'd like the chance to make this up to you."

"How?"

"I really don't know," he admitted, shuffling from one foot to the other.

"Oh?"

Grissom paused in his fidgeting to watch her. There was a hint of a challenge in her posture. She might be talking to him, but vague answers weren't going to satisfy her.

"There won't be a repeat of today. At least not on my part."

"That's a damned understatement. What the hell do you think you were doing, anyway?"

"I wasn't the only one involved," he said, unsuccessfully containing his ire.

"I'm not talking about Max. He's already apologized. I'm talking about you. Why did you do that?"

"I really don't know."

"That answer's getting old. Are all your actions out of your control?" she asked in resignation.

"Around you, it feels that way at times."

"Don't try and pin this on me."

"I'm not, honestly, I'm not. It's, I, I don't know how to react around you, Sara. I never seem to say the right thing."

"Lack of practice," she sighed, rolling her eyes when he gave her a quizzical look. "When was the last time you said anything to me? Something worthwhile?"

"What do you consider worthwhile?"

"Tell me what you think. Tell me what you feel, Grissom. I'm not a mind reader. At times, I don't even think I know who you are. Are you ever going to let me in?"

When he didn't answer for several long moments, Sara pushed the afghan off, and started to swing her legs off of the couch. "Never mind," she whispered.

"I think I'm in over my head," he said before she could tell him to see himself out. Sara looked up to watch him, a feeling of sadness coming over her. From his tone and posture, it was clear that had been such a difficult admission for him to make.

"I don't know if I can do this."

"Do you want out?" she asked cautiously. "Are you giving up?"

"Do I even have a chance?" he asked, trying to keep his voice level.

"You always had a chance. You never were interested."

"That's not true," he insisted.

"Then you were never willing to act on it. The result's the same: you chose not to be involved."

"And if I want to get involved now?"

"What's different now, Grissom? Why are you suddenly interested? Are you trying to get rid of Max?"

"Sara, it's complicated. There were some things going on outside of work. I didn't know what type of impact they were going to have on me. It could have been bad, both for my personal life and professionally," he answered.

"Are these 'things' still an issue?"

"No," he said. When she dropped her head against the armrest to stare at the ceiling, he moved to sit gingerly beside her. "Sara?"

"Any other 'things' I should know about?" she asked.

"Probably," he offered lightly. " I promise I'll tell you what they are as soon as I learn about them."

"I'm not joking, Grissom," she said, lifting her head up long enough to fix him with a pointed look.

"I know. Look, I know you're tired. Why don't you come over for dinner tonight? We can talk some more before we go into work."

"How about we meet for breakfast after work? I'm not sure I'll be free tonight."

"Really?" he asked, a trace of ire working its way in.

"Yeah, really," she said forcefully, pushing herself upright. "Max is coming over tonight so we can work on finding a pattern. Since the two of you apparently can't be in the same room together, I didn't think it was a good idea to meet him at the lab."

"Fine," he said, turning around to face away from her so she couldn't see his pain.

The irony of the whole mess wasn't lost on him. It was his being short-tempered with her when this case first broke that sent her to look for a mathematician for help. He sent her to visit the man at his home. Now, it was his behavior last night that was driving her to see Brandenburg even more outside of work.

"Don't start this jealousy shit, Grissom."

"What?" he asked in confusion.

"If you want a shot at this working between us, you're going to have to learn to trust me. I'm trying to trust you."

"Why wouldn't you?" he asked quietly. Her statement both disturbed and delighted him. A shot – she'd neither rejected nor accepted him outright – but she didn't trust him.

"Do you have any idea how much it hurts to be rejected, Grissom?"

"I'm getting a pretty good idea."

"You have no idea," she stated sadly before closing her eyes. Getting up from the couch, she walked over to the door slowly. There'd be time for this conversation later. "I'll see you tonight."

"Sure," he said softly, trying to figure out what Sara was implying.

"Hello, Sara."

"Hey," she replied, opening the door and watching Max limp into her apartment. "How's your leg?"

"Still a bit sore," he said as he set his briefcase and laptop on her breakfast bar before turning to face her. "I wanted to let you know I sent a letter of apology to everyone that was at the briefing last night. That shouldn't have happened. If you want, I can personally apologize."

"What I want to know is why you even pulled that stunt."

"I'm a defensive idiot," he said seriously. "I don't take insults well. I never have. Whenever someone made a crack at me, I've always overreacted. I really am sorry. You never should have been subjected to that display."

"I don't like being treated like a trophy," she sighed.

"If I was interested in trophies, I'd have gone into sports," he replied kindly.

"Except you're a klutz. You said so yourself."

"There's some physical activities I'm very good at," he quipped trying to lighten the mood. It didn't work. He gave her a contrite shrug. "I happen to be an excellent swimmer."

"Are you always so competitive?"

"I can be. Especially when I feel like I'm being made fun of. Like I said, I tend to overreact. And I don't think of you as a trophy. You're an amazingly intelligent and beautiful woman I enjoy spending time with. I want to get to know you better."

Sara dropped her head, giving it a brief shake before walking around the breakfast bar to head into the kitchen. She had to give Max credit: he was direct. Unlike Grissom. How did she end up with two men interested in her who could be so different?

One was a socially introverted, overly jealous man who could take her breath away with a smile, but it took a literal crowbar to pry the smallest piece of information from him. It was more than privacy; he built walls to keep people out. Would she ever really be able to get him to lower those walls?

The other was a socially graceful, friendly man who could lift her spirits within minutes with his wit and charm. He was open and direct, never disguising his motives or intentions. But he was overly defensive and competitive, still battling demons from a rough childhood.

This was too confusing. After months of wanting any attention, she had more than she could deal with.

"Do you like green tea? It's all I have. I can make some iced tea," she offered after a moment.

"That sounds great. If you haven't eaten yet, I'll order us some carryout. I need to ask some questions so I can set up the most exhaustive searches."

"Sure," she said noncommittally as she set the kettle on the stove and moved to the cabinets to get the tea.

"You're still angry, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Do we need to talk this out, or do I need to give you some space?"

"We can talk later," she said, a hint of a smile forming. Max did have his good side.

"Whenever you're ready, Sara."

"Catherine, Warrick, there's a DB in Henderson. Nick, you get the victim's trailer," Grissom said, handing out papers as he entered the room. The others stole quick glances at Sara, who sat reading a journal, wondering what he had in store for her.

"Sara, did Dr. Brandenburg find anything useful?" he asked, being careful to keep any sign of emotion from his voice.

"Not yet. He asked some questions to set the parameters for the searches. It'll take a while to set up the program and get the results."

"Okay, quick run down on what we have. Catherine?"

"QD confirmed the writing is the same as at the other scenes. It's our guy. The brush is old. The company that made it went out of business four years ago. No wonder we couldn't find any leads on it."

"I lifted shoe prints off of the catwalk. Same size as what we found on the crates at the warehouse, but they were from tennis shoes this time," Warrick added.

"Greg's still running the DNA from the victim and from the brush," Sara added. "There's definitely some epithelials from the defensive wounds, and multiple DNA from the brush. He'll page us as soon as he knows more."

"We found some smudges on the movie screen. The killer was wearing some sort of glove. Jacqui thinks it was a heavy work glove. Something with some texture. She also lifted several prints from the brush. High-probability match to the partials we got off of the dumpster," Nick added.

"Why did he leave the brush behind?" Catherine asked aloud.

"He was running out of time," Grissom suggested. "This victim fought back. He took too long to die. If the killer dropped the brush, he wouldn't have had time to find it under the screen before the audience arrived."

"But he had some sort of big blade with him. Why didn't he kill the guy outright instead of fighting with him?"

"Blood, Nick. It's all about the blood. If he had cut the victim while he was alive with that much warfarin in his system, he would have bled all over the place. There wouldn't have been much left for him to drain. As it was, the victim lost a lot of blood from the punch to his nose," Grissom explained. "Anything else?"

"Brass said several witnesses reported that a gray or white van was parked by the road on the far side of the drive-in. They said it pulled out right about the time the concession workers started arriving. We went looking for tracks, but we couldn't find anything," Warrick added.

"All right. Sara, I need you finish processing the evidence from the scene. Go over the victim's effects. When you get done that, you can help me try to find a link between the victims."

Grissom stared at the board in front of him, trying to see what thread tied their victims together. The far left column, labeled X, was for their unknown first victim. The XY pair in his DNA told them he was male, and that's all they knew about him.

The far right column held the information on the latest victim. Stevie Wilson, a week shy of turning 21, Caucasian. Unlike Wallace and Smith, he was a native of Las Vegas. Wallace originally came from Oklahoma and Smith from Arkansas.

They worked in different fields, lived in different parts of the county, and had no obvious link between them. So far, the only connections they'd been able to make were nebulous.

All four were male. Of the three known victims, none had a college degree, but Smith was a part-time student at Western Nevada. None of the three were married, but Wallace had been widowed. As far as they knew, none of the men had children.

Unmarried men without children or a college degree made for a large population. Were any of those facts a criterion in their selection or did they have some commonality they hadn't found yet?

"Any luck?" Sara asked as she walked to stand beside him.

"Not a lot. We can rule out age, race, height, weight, eye and hair color, religion and employment as part of the signature."

"Brass talked to the last victim's parents. He was in pretty poor financial shape. No way he could have afforded meals from a restaurant. They said he was taking food from the drive-in to eat."

"Nick brought in samples from the concession stand. They don't actually make any food there. It's all prepackaged stuff that could be microwaved."

"Yum," Sara said with a teasing smile.

"Find anything from the effects?"

"Guy was a slob. His undershirt was pretty stained up. I took samples. The mass spec was acting up. Greg has a backlog to run through it."

"He mentioned that fact earlier. What do you want for breakfast?"

"I usually have a bowl of cereal when I'm home," Sara said, smiling at the sudden change in conversation.

Grissom turned to look over his glasses at her. "I didn't invite you to my home to eat out of a box. Pancakes all right?"

"That'll be fine, Grissom. You don't have to go to any trouble."

"Dammit," he muttered when his pager went off. "Bugs. I've got to go."

"Don't worry about it," she said with a laugh. "We can catch breakfast tomorrow, or maybe lunch."

"Okay," he said, giving her a slight smile before leaving. Dinner still wasn't an option; she must be meeting Brandenburg again.

"Warfarin!"

Everyone looked up from their coffee as they waited for the next night shift to begin to find an excited Greg leaning against the doorframe.

"Sara, those stains you found on the guy's shirt? I came in early to catch up on running my samples. One of the stains contained beer and warfarin," the lab tech said excitedly.

"Good job," Grissom said. "Warrick, Sara, Nick. We'll take the theater. Bring in everything – all the empty cups, bottles, cans, anything that could have held beer. Catherine, you get the guy's trailer and truck. Same deal, including all his glasses or mugs."

As the others stood up to get ready, Grissom noticed Sara's grimace when she moved slowly out of her chair.

"Are you okay?" he asked softly, laying a restraining hand on her arm.

"Little sore," she said with a yawn. "And a little sleepy. Didn't get much rest. Spent all day with Max."

"Oh," he said evenly.

"We were working on the case, Grissom. The program spat out some weird relationships."

"Such as?" he asked, giving her a contrite smile.

"The last digit of the prefix on all the victims' phone numbers are odd numbers. The sum of the digits of the street addresses is even."

"Random noise," he said.

"Basically," she said.

"Are you sure you're okay? You can go home if you're not feeling well," he said kindly. She'd been tired when he visited her apartment the day before. "Are you coming down with something?"

"Flu maybe. I'll be fine," she insisted, touched by his concern. Sara gave him a smile before turning to find a rapidly dispersing gaggle of spectators who had been watching them from the hallway.

"What was that all about?" Grissom asked.

"Probably wanted to see if I was going to kill you, or if you were still in rut."

"Oh, God," he said in a mortified whisper.

"We better grab some coveralls if we're going to be playing in the garbage," she said, her eyes twinkling in amusement.

"Right," he said, hoping he wasn't blushing as he walked down the hallway.

"Damn."

Warrick looked up when he heard the soft whisper. Sara was bent over, her hands resting on her legs just above the knees.

"You don't look good, girl. You okay?"

"Flu," she admitted reluctantly. "I ache all over. My stomach is flipping. I think I've got a bit of a fever."

"Why don't you go home?"

"And let you have all the fun?" she joked, emptying another sack of bottles into the center of the garage floor. Since bringing in the garbage from the theater, they'd spent the better part of a double-shift testing it all for traces of warfarin. Sitting gingerly down beside the pile, she began the process of labeling and swabbing each of the containers.

"I'm going to grab a soda. Be back in a few," Warrick said. "Want me to bring you something back?"

"Nah. Thanks. I'm fine."

"Rick!"

Hearing his name shouted out, Warrick stopped to see a detective rapidly approaching him, clearly upset.

"Hey, Brass."

"You seen Sara?"

"She's in the garage. What's…"

"Thanks," he said brusquely, moving down the hallway at a near-run, prompting Warrick to follow in confusion.

"Oh, sweet Jesus," Brass whispered when he looked in the window, seeing Sara surrounded by the pieces of metal and glass from the scene. "Find Grissom. Now!" he ordered his companion.

"Hey, Sara," he called softly, hoping not to startle her.

"What's up, Brass?"

"I need for you to come here."

"Let me just finish this," she said, reaching for a broken bottle.

"No! Come on, doll. Humor an old man and come here. Be careful."

"Jim, what's going on?" Grissom asked quizzically as he and Warrick came up behind the police captain.

"Yeah," Sara added as she exited the garage.

"Warrick, you go ahead and finish that. I need to ask Sara some questions," he said, laying an arm gingerly around Sara's shoulders and leading her down the hall. Grissom nodded to Warrick before walking over to her other side.

"How are you feeling?"

"I've got the flu. Why?"

"You haven't bumped your head or anything?"

"No. What's going on?" Sara demanded, coming to a full stop when she saw he was leading her to the exit.

"When was the last time you saw Max?"

"Yesterday. We were working on the case."

"Where were you?" he demanded.

"My apartment to start with. Then we went to his house later to pick up some faxes," she said succinctly, seeing this wasn't a casual conversation.

"Did you eat anything?"

"Yeah. We had lunch and dinner together. Both carryout. What's going on?"

"Jim," Grissom said lowly, his impatience clear.

"I just had a phone call from Max's secretary. He had a doctor's appointment first thing this morning. His knee's been really bothering him. The doctor decided to put in a drain to get rid of the excess fluid. They gave him a local to numb the leg. After they put in the drain, they left him there for a while," he said, giving Sara a worried look.

"When the nurse came to check on him, she thought he had fallen asleep. Then she saw the blood. The incision was gushing. He almost bled to death before they got him to the hospital. He's in ICU now," Brass said, gently moving her towards the exit.

"Oh, God," she whispered, turning to see Grissom staring at her intently.

"The hospital called his secretary to see if he took a blood thinner. His blood won't clot. She knew about this case, and she called me. It looks like warfarin poisoning," Brass said softly. "We need to get you to the hospital, Sara."

TBC