A dull throb beating a rhythm in his skull was what drew Warrick back into consciousness. Moaning, he opened his eyes and turned his head.
He was lying in a dark room, lit only by a bare bulb overhead. His hands and feet were bound tightly with duct tape, rendering him almost completely immobile. The gentle swaying of the floor beneath him told him that he was on a boat.
The door across the room opened, and Brandt appeared. He flung something large into the room and slammed the door shut.
The object Brandt had thrown into the room had landed beside Warrick with a loud thud. Warrick swung his entire body around to get a better look.
Nick.
When Warrick had seen the younger man at Abby's house, he had appeared haggard. Bruised and obviously injured, but all right. That wasn't the case now.
Blood stained Nick's skin and clothes. He appeared unconscious, and the cause was no mystery. Nick's left eye was black and swollen, and his lip was cut badly. Blood was caked on his upper lip under his nose. Cuts, bruises, and burns lined Nick's face and arms.
As Warrick was studying the damage, Nick began to stir. His right eye fluttered open, but his left barely moved.
"Nick," Warrick said, his voice hushed. "What did they do to you?"
Nick licked chapped lips, tasting blood. "Brandt was pissed off that I tried to escape. It was when I fought back that really set him off."
Warrick felt anger bubbling in his stomach. "What's this all about? Why are they doing this?"
Something flashed in Nick's eyes. "I don't know. They kept asking me about what I saw and who I told, but I have no idea what they're talking about." Nick shifted his body and let out a pained grunt. "How long have I been gone?"
"About a day," Warrick answered. "We assumed you were taken right at start of shift."
"Brandt got me right outside my truck," Nick confirmed. "Took me by surprise."
"Well, it's only a matter of time before the team solves this," Warrick assured him.
"We don't have a lot of time," Nick told him. "Brandt moved us here for a reason. They're going to get rid of us tonight."
Warrick processed that information, then began to stretch and twist his body.
"What are you doing?" Nick asked.
Warrick drew his knees to his chest and maneuvered his arms around to the front of his body. "I ain't waiting around for Brandt to finish the job. You and I are outta here."
"Sounds good to me," Nick stated as Warrick began working on the tape around his wrists with his teeth.
Brass, Grissom, Sara, and Catherine pulled to a stop in front of Abby Jackson's house and piled out. Sara glanced around.
"I don't see the Tahoe," she commented.
"Let's see what Miss Jackson has to say, shall we?" Brass suggested, starting up the front walk. Sara was right behind him, but Grissom paused and glanced at Catherine.
"Why don't you take a look around?" he said. "If Warrick was here, he may have left some trace of himself behind."
Catherine nodded and watched Grissom catch up to Brass and Sara, then began to examine the property.
Abby Jackson's home looked like a typical suburban house, with a well-manicured lawn and beautiful flowering shrubs. Certainly not like a scene of foul play, but then looks certainly were deceiving.
Catherine walked slowly around the side of the house, her sharp blue eyes studying everything. Something here was amiss.
She saw it. Back by the chain-link fence, some shrub branches were bent and broken. With the rest of the landscape so well maintained, the damaged shrub stood out. Catherine crouched down and leaned close.
There were some fibers, which she tweezed and dropped into an envelope. Nothing else stood out, and so Catherine began to stand. Almost by accident, her eyes fell on several dark splotches on the side of the house.
Blood.
Catherine took out a cotton swab and scraped some of the blood flecks. Once she had enough of a sample for Greg to run, she snapped the lid over the swab and stood.
Grissom, Sara, and Brass were just leaving the house as Catherine reached the front yard. She frowned. "That was quick."
"Miss Jackson claims she never saw Warrick since the night we told her about her brother," Brass told her. "Then she asked us to leave."
"Leave?" Catherine repeated. "Why?"
"According to her, so she could finish making arrangements for her brother's funeral," Sara replied. "Kinda hard to do without the body, and Doc Robbins said there's been no contact from her."
"Hardly enough for a warrant," Brass stated.
"Well, I have something that may help you there," Catherine said. She held up her swab. "One of the shrubs by their fence is damaged. I got some fibers from it. I also found blood against the side of the house."
"You get that lab rat of yours to match it to Nicky or Warrick, and I'll have that warrant before he finishes telling you the results," Brass promised.
"We need it as fast as possible," Grissom spoke up. "We're running out of time."
Brass was as good as his word. Greg finished running the comparisons in record time, and in a few hours the team was back at the Jackson house.
Grissom pounded on the front door again, impatient and angry. He was tired of the run-around, but more than that, he was scared. He would never admit it to anyone, but his team was the closest he was going to get to a family. Two members of that team were in graver danger with each passing moment, and Grissom was afraid of what would happen if he didn't find them in time.
"I don't think anyone's home," Brass commented, glancing back at the team of seven police officers that had just arrived. "What kept you?"
Detectives Vega and Lockwood hurried up to them. Vega gave Brass a pointed glance. "We had to go through the bullpen and tell all the other volunteers to wait for our call. Your turn, next time."
Nick was very popular with nearly all of the men and women on the police force. Upon hearing of his disappearance, everyone wanted to be on the case. Once Warrick, who also had quite a few friends, had been reported missing, the desire to work on the case had turned into a frenzy. Despite the rivalry between CSI and the department, they wouldn't let anyone harm one of their own.
"I don't plan on there being a next time," Brass replied. "We need a key."
The officers retrieved a battering ram from the trunk of one of the squad cars. After four tries, the door finally gave and everyone spilled into the house. As the officers and detectives cleared the house, Grissom turned to Catherine and Sara.
"We're on a hot case with the clock ticking," he said. "We don't have time for evidence collection. I want you to go over the house looking for anyplace Nick might have been kept, or where he and Warrick might be right now. We'll do the collection after they're both found."
The women nodded and, once the all-clear was given, they fanned out. Catherine headed upstairs, leaving Sara and Grissom in the living room. Sara moved to the roll-top desk and began to search for evidence. Grissom walked to the French doors and looked out into the backyard.
"Not much here," Sara reported. "Couple bills, junk mail, magazines. Whatever Nick saw, they must've gotten rid of it."
Grissom let her words wash over him. The moon was low in the sky, barely illuminating the property, but there, in the back of the yard, stood a structure.
"Wait . . . this might be something." Sara lifted a slip of paper. "A betting slip?"
Grissom opened the French doors and headed toward the structure. Startled, Sara followed him, taking the slip with her.
It was a storage shed. Grissom quickened his pace and threw open the door. The sight before him drew him short.
The objects in the shed were very neat and organized, but that wasn't what Grissom was interested in. His eyes swept over the floor and workbench, taking in the splatters of blood too numerous to count.
In the center of the floor was an opened trapdoor. Walking carefully around the blood, Grissom peered into the small niche, spying pieces of duct tape coated in blood.
"Oh my God," Sara breather, looking around.
Grissom looked at the slip in her hand. "What do you have?"
Sara held it up. "I thought it was a betting slip at first, but it's missing the serial code in the upper right corner."
"Let me see that," Grissom ordered.
Sara passed the slip over and watched as Grissom studied it. She couldn't help but glance around the room as she waited for the supervisor to speak.
"It's homemade."
Sara's eyes snapped back to Grissom. "It's illegal, but hardly worth kidnapping a CSI, let alone two."
"Let's work on one problem at a time," Grissom decided. He glanced down at the niche again. "Nick was kidnapped and brought here. Abby Jackson is too small to lift Nick out of here, so Brandt must have been the one to cause all this."
"So he tries to get Nick to . . . what?" Sara asked. "Tell him something?"
"To tell him what he saw, or what he knew," Grissom stated. "All this blood tells us Nick didn't tell."
"Maybe he didn't even know," Sara suggested.
"The tape down there looks as though Nick managed to free himself and escape," Grissom continued. "He pulls himself out and goes into the yard."
He exited the shed, Sara close on his heels. "He can't go through the house, so he decides to jump the fence." They walked to the fence.
"What if Warrick arrived here at the same time?" Sara asked suddenly. "Nick couldn't shout, Abby or Brandt would hear him."
"He jumps over the fence and lands in the shrubs on the other side," Grissom said. "That would explain the broken branches and fibers Catherine found."
"Warrick hears the commotion and finds Nick, tries to help him, but something goes wrong," Sara finishes. "Brandt or Abby, or both, catch them. Now they're in trouble. I knew where Warrick was, so they had to split."
"Now we just need to know where," Grissom said.
Catherine appeared in the yard and, after a quick glance around, approached them. "Guess what I found?" she asked.
"Hopefully something that tells us where Nick and Warrick are," Grissom replied.
"Not quite that good," Catherine answered. "Abby and Brandt have some clothes missing; they left in a hurry. I found a few bills on the floor of their closet. The ink was still wet." She held up a hand, showing ink-stained fingertips.
"Just like Brian Jackson's thumb," Sara commented thoughtfully. "Counterfeit?"
"No serial code strip or ghost on the bills," Catherine confirmed.
"So . . . Abby and Brandt were bookies, running bets," Sara said, brow furrowed in concentration. "When someone won, they would pass off the funny money and keep the real thing for themselves. But what was Brian Jackson's role in all this?"
"Maybe he found out about his sister's little operation," Catherine suggested. "They had to kill him to keep him quiet."
"Nick must have seen either the money or the betting slips in the desk, but didn't know what it was," Sara concluded. "Why not just kill him like Brian Jackson?"
"Because Nick could have told someone what he saw," Grissom realized. "Abby and Brandt had to know how much we knew. So they kidnapped Nick to find out."
"That gives us a 'why'," Catherine pointed out. "How about the 'where'?"
"I think I have that." Brass joined the group. "I had the officers interview the neighbors. One of them said that Brandt owns a boat down on Lake Mead."
"Perfect place to get rid of evidence," Sara observed grimly.
"My thoughts exactly," Brass agreed. "Does anyone feel up for a moonlight sail on the lake?"