Week Five

Monday / Tuesday

A side conference room had been turned into a command center, with blown up crime scene photographs taped on the wall, making grizzly wallpaper. Diagrams of each woman's home were tacked up near the corresponding photo, at various points in each diagram a push pin held a piece of string that led to yet another photograph, a close up of what ever object the push pin represented.

Dayshift had found semen drops on the toilet seat of the first murder, victim Bethany James; the DNA matched the drops Greg had found in Rai's bathroom, one on the toilet seat, one on the floor to the left of the toilet, and Greg had done his due diligence and ruled Nick out first thing. Gil surmised that the first of the dayshift scenes had –he hoped- also been the killers first, and through nervousness or lack of preparedness, the rapist/murder had allowed some of his DNA to spill out when he'd flushed the condom. Rai's escape had sent the perp into panic mode, Gil thought, and he'd left behind some DNA in his rush to flush. So, they had DNA linking two crime scenes, all they needed now was a suspect to compare it against.

As for fingerprints, they hadn't found any that didn't belong at the scenes.

Gil Grissom lifted his head up off the tabletop and looked around the room bleary eyed. Warrick sat at the opposite end of the oblong shiny black table reading through the details of one of the victim's lives that Brass had been able to compile. Warrick met his eyes briefly and muttered "Good morning" to him before turning his attention back to the report. Gil glanced to the window, Warrick was right; morning sunlight was streaming though the closed blinds.

Shaking out the cobwebsprecious little sleep had left behind; Gil resumed his inspection of the room. Catherine sat on the couch against the wall, her back against an armrest, knees bent, bare feet digging into the middle cushion, an open file spread out over her thighs. Her head rested on the black cushion of the back of the couch. It looked to Gil that she'd fallen asleep while reading. He glanced at his watch and quickly calculated hours in his head, not very surprised when he figured out that Catherine had been on the job for over twenty-four hours.

"How long?" Grissom asked Warrick quietly so as to not wake Catherine.

Warrick didn't look up from the report in his hands. "Couple hours. You both fell asleep around the same time." Warrick almost made a comment about Gil and Catherine sleeping together, but thought better of it. "Coffee's fresh" he said instead, gesturing to the maker sitting on a side cabinet.

That sounded like an excellent idea to Grissom and he stood and stretched, popping his back and neck.

As he poured the hot liquid in an oversized mug, the vapors filled his nose, and quiet suddenly feeling much more awake, Gil wondered if anyone had studied the amount of caffeine in just the aroma of coffee.

"Anything new?" He asked, his back to Warrick as he stared at an almost life sized photo of Rai's empty bed, again thanking God that she'd been able to flee. His mind hit on past cases that had hit to close to home; Warrick's childhood mentor, the murder victim that had borne an eerie resemblance to Sara. Catherine's ex-husband had been a prominent player in not one, but two cases, the seond being his own death. And of course, Nick's almost arrest a few years back. They had all been touched by a case on a personal level, but if Rai had been killed, that would have hit two of his CSI's, his two most sensitive one's at that, and he wondered if either of them would have been able to struggle out of their own guilt at not catching the perp earlier, to come back to work.

Rai's rape had brought out sides of both Nick and Sara that, as their boss, Gil hadn't seen. Sara's mothering instincts were apparent during the interview, as was her love for her childhood friend. And where Gil had seen Nick with women before, the tenderness the younger criminalist had displayed was evidence of a deeper connection that Gil hadn't realized two people could make in just a few weeks. He envied them.

Warrick's voice brought him out of his trance, and he realized Warrick had been speaking while his mind had drifted. He was more tired than he'd realized.

"I'm sorry Warrick, my mind..." he rubbed his forehead, not knowing know how to finish that sentence. "What did you say?"

A trace of a grin appeared on Warrick's lips. "I said, from the info Brass has put together so far, there's nothing these women have in common." He tossed the brown file folder onto the table with some disgust.

"And here's the last of it." Brass walked into the room and handed Warrick a new stack of folders.

Warrick suppressed a groan. "Thanks." He said with no humor or appreciation in his voice.

Brass looked to Gil, still standing by the coffee pot. "And unless you can come up with another category of these women's lives for me to research, I'm going to grab some shut eye." Without waiting for a reply, Brass left the room and headed to his own office and waiting couch in another part of the building.

"What are they?" Catherine asked waking up and swinging her feet to the floor. She put her elbows on her knees and rubbed her face, her strawberry blonde hair hanging down.

Warrick opened the top file. "Financials." He said and opened the second and then third folders laying them out next to each other on top of the file he'd just discarded.

Gil walked over and stood behind Warrick's back for a moment before moving over and taking a chair. With a sigh, Catherine heaved herself up off the couch and joined them, taking the empty chair to Warrick's right, across from Gil. They each took a folder, the fourth laid open in between them.

"Credit cards." Gil said, giving them a place to start.

Warrick read from the Bethany James file. "Visa, MasterCard, Sears."

Catherine had taken the file for the second dayshift victim, Terri Jo Weaver. "Saks and Discover."

Gil read though the report in his hands, then moved the file laying open on the table so he could read it. He shook his head. "Any stocks?"

"Hey" Sara said from the open doorway. She's propped herself up against the frame, her arms folded across her chest, purposely not entering the room. "I just stopped by to see if you needed anything."

None of the three CSI's at the table answered her; they knew it was just an excuse. "Terri Jo didn't own any stocks." Catherine answered Gil's question.

"Neither did Bethany." Warrick rubbed his eyes. "She did have a savings account at Nevada Trust" he added for no real reason.

"Hang on." Catherine said, a new wave of energy pulsing through her veins. She ran a finger down the report. "Terri Jo had a checking and a savings at Nevada Trust."

"That's where Rai banks." Sara said.

Warrick and Catherine looked at each other, then to Gil. He was already reading the report, he nodded. "Jan Taylor was denied a loan four weeks ago, and" he grabbed the last folder "The Candlestein mortgage is held by Nevada Trust."

"He would have access to their home address."

Adrenaline rushed through them all, and they looked at each other, momentarily stunned. "Wake Brass up, get a warrant." A sudden thought stopped him. "What day is it? Are the banks even open?"