A/N: See I'm updatingâ please don't hurt meâby the way, thanks for all the reviews!!! You guys are great.
Catherine paced back and forth in the break room. Unlike the men this was not the result of nerves, but rather excitement. She had been trying to set those two up for years and even she had to admit this harebrained plan might just work. "You ready?" she asked Jacqui, who had only recently been recruited for this mission.
"Yeah, I think so,"
"Just remember, whatever is said, you're for the relationship and I'm against itâ she's here."
"So," Jacqui began, also hearing Sara approaching, "Sara and Grissom are dating now?"
"No, that's not what I said."
"But you said he likes her, more than likes, so what's the problem?"
"It's Grissomâ he's not exactly 'Mr. Emotional'. And Sara"
"What's wrong with him with Sara? I think they make a great couple."
"They're just tooâ similar. Science nerds should not date other science nerds."
Making sure she could be seen from the doorway, Jacqui rolled her eyes at Catherine's last statement. "Do you think Grissom will tell Sara how he feels?"
"Not a chance."
"Then maybe we should tell her. They shouldn't be kept apart just because he's too scared to take action."
"No, we can't" Catherine stopped instantly. Sara had just entered the break room.
"Sorry," Sara said, "Am I interrupting something?"
"No, I was just telling Jacqui about the scuba diver up in the tree."
"Well," This sudden turn of events was more than Jacqui had volunteered for. She figured the best solution would be to get out of there as soon as she could. "I'd love to stay but I still have about a million prints from Warrick to go through. Bye." In a flash she was off.
"I should get going to," said a much more convincing Catherine and in no time at all Sara was alone in the break room.
An omniscient narrator is the only one that could have known that Sara's reaction to the "trap" was much different than Grissom's. She wasn't confused so much asâ angry. It didn't even really bother her that they were talking about her and Grissom, it was more their "solution" that was pissing her off. How would telling her about his feelings have any affect on the situation? She was an observant woman; she knew how Grissom felt about her. As much as she had tried to forget it, every moment between the two of them had been logged away in her memory. All the sweet things he said without meaning to, the confession he gave to Debbie Marlin's killer. She had been waiting all year for him to act on it, but nothing ever came. They should be telling him about his feelings, not her.
At that moment Brass entered the break room, "Well it took some doing, but I got your warrant."
"Good. Tell Grissom to meet me there." And with that she was on her way to the parking lot. Watching her leave Brass couldn't help but wonder what it was that Gill had done to piss her off today.
When Grissom arrived at the Kenneth residence he saw Sara standing with her arms crossed on the doorstep. As he approached he couldn't help but notice she was glaring at him. Maybe it was just his imagination. "Any luck?"
"He's not answering the door. Brass is just rounding up the artillery." Just then Brass rounded the corner with several officers. In not ten seconds the door was broken in and the officers were inside. Grissom and Sara could hear them shout out, "Main floor clear" before they moved on to the upstairs.
"Well after" Sara had already moved into the house before he could finish. The sun had yet to rise so the only light in the room came from their flashlights. As they examined the living room Sara stopped in front of the mantle, "He took down all the pictures of her." Out of habit Grissom stood right behind her in order to see what she was looking at. She immediately moved away. Grissom felt it instantly. Without really being conscious of it he had been carefully analyzing Sara's actions and it wasn't promising. In love with him? Today he'd be surprised if she even liked him. This realization bothered him because he was beginning to think he might be falling for her. At that moment the silence was broken by Brass bellowing from upstairs, "You guys really need to see this."
They followed his voice into the master bedroom only to find Mr. Kenneth with three bullet holes in his chest.
"That's great. Someone has killed our killer." Sara was not having the best shift of her life.
"What are the odds that this is unrelated?"
"Well, we are still missing an accomplice." Although Grissom was answering Brass' question he directed his statement to Sara. "Maybe he refused to pay now that the deed was done."
Sara smiled at him and for a moment it was just like it always was, but then Sara remembered that nothing ever came of these "moments". "I'll take downstairs and the perimeter. You can take in here." Grissom, Brass and the officers watched her go, all of them quite sure Grissom must have done something wrong.
Sara would have preferred to work around the body, but she had to get out of that room. She didn't even know why she was so annoyed, but she knew she had to stop thinking about it; there was work to do. Murder was easier to understand anyway.
The first question that must be answered: how did the perk get in? All of the windows in the house were closed and intact and both the front and back doors were locked. Mr. Kenneth must have let his killer in or the killer had a key, either way, Kenneth had to have known his attacker, which complimented the theory that it was the accomplice. There was still the matter of: how did the perk get out? Only the front door could be locked from the outside and it was locked when they arrived. She would have to ask Grissom if the vic still had his keys. She dusted the knob for prints but it didn't seem promising. Her scan of the perimeter was equally as dismal. The house seemed to be surrounded by concrete and as a result she was unable to get any shoeprint and tire treads.
Grissom's luck was about the same. Considering how sloppy Kenneth had been he was surprised at how professional his murderer was. The only blood in the room was on the bed underneath Kenneth, suggesting that he was lying down or sleeping when he was killed. Also due to the angle of elevation and the lack of GSR on his clothes the shot was probably taken from the doorway. Other than that there was not much more the room could tell him. There were no prints anywhere and the whole house seemed veryâclean. Unfortunately Grissom couldn't be sure whether this was a result of the killer covering his tracks, or if the Kenneth's had had it cleaned. The only other thing of note was the fact that everything appeared to be present, that is there were so signs of theft. The Kenneths might not have been wealthy, but there were many items of value all through the house, it was strange that the perp hadn't tries to take on of them.
The shift was almost over by the time they finally returned. By this point the entire graveyard shift was in on the scheme and were waiting patiently to see the 'progress'. They all watched with baited breath as Grissom and Sara walked down the hall to the layout room. The reaction of everyone was identical, "What did those four do?" The anger on Sara's face and the hurt look on Grissom's were not missed by anyone. Things were worse.
That morning as the sun rose on Nevada it rose on a murdered murderer, an annoyed Sara, a confused and hurt Grissom, and four CSI's wondering what the hell they did wrong.
(TBC)