"Sara Sidle?" asked the officer at the scene.
"That's me" she replied.
"Hi. There's been a report that a friend of yours, Hank? He has been murdered. Unfortunately, he was also babysitting a child at the time. She was supposed to be staying here for a week. She's over there in the Tahoe. Her name is Emily. We need you just to look after her until we can find a new place for her to go. Right now, everyone is focused on the crime, and I believe that's the way it should be. If you want, take matters into your own hands and find this child a new place to go now, or do what you think is best." She nodded, as she looked at the frightened child sitting alone in the car.
"Ok." She replied. She walked over to the car. "Hi," she said to the child. "Are you Emily?" The girl nodded. She was only about 9 years old. But that was Lindsay's age. She figured she could handle her. "I'm Sara." She told her. "I'm going to stay with you until we can find you a new place to stay until your parents get back. Ok?" The girl nodded again. Sara held out her hand, and Emily took it. She led Emily to her own car, and opened the back door for her to climb in. When she was in, she closed the door, and got settled in the driver's seat.
"Where am I going?" Emily asked.
"Where would you like to go?" The girl shrugged. "Let's go to my place." Sara said.
About 15 minutes later, they arrived in Sara's parking spot of her apartment complex. They both got out and Sara took her hand again, leading her to her own home. "You make yourself comfortable", she said, "I need to make a phone call. Emily nodded, and sat on the couch.
"Can I watch TV?" she asked.
This made Sara laugh. "Sure. Here's the remote. This one is the power button, these are the channels, and this is for the volume. Let me know if you need any help, though I'm sure you probably won't, as this is your kind of specialty!"
Emily laughed too, for the first time since the murder. She set the TV to nickelodeon, and Sara made her call to the child services. Soon, she hung up.
"Can I get you anything? Something to drink? Something to eat?" Emily shook her head.
"I'm ok."
"Ok, then I'll be down the hall and to the left if you need me."
"Ok"
Sara made her way to the room, and lay down in her bed. Some overtime, she thought with a chuckle. She woke up to something pulling on her arm. Sara opened her eyes to see a childish face staring back up at her. Since when did I marry Grissom? She thought to herself, but soon remembering Emily from the murder. She got up at once when she remembered, and noticed it was almost noon.
"What's wrong?"
"Sara, I'm hungry. Can I have some lunch?" Lunch! She had completely forgotten!
"Sure." She said with a sleepy smile and a yawn in-between. She got up and went to the kitchen. "What do you normally eat?"
"Peanut butter and jelly sandwich, of coarse! My favorite!" She smiled.
Simple enough, Sara thought to herself. "Ok." She got out the two slices of bread, the jelly, the peanut butter, and a spoon and a knife. Soon it was made, and she got out a glass and filled it with water. "Here, you can go eat this in front of the TV if you want" she told her.
"Cool!" Emily shouted with excitement.
In no time at all, Sara was back into her bed. Then, waking up to yet another tug on her arm. It was nearly three o-clock.
"Can I have a snack?"
With another yawn, Sara nodded, and went to the kitchen, with the girl following her close behind. "What would you like? I some pretzels, popcorn, chips, and girl scout cookies, along with carrots, grapes, apples, oranges, and bananas." Emily took it all in before making a decision.
"Wow, you have so much to choose from! Um, I think I'll take, no. Maybe I'll have, I don't know. I'll take some girl scout cookies I guess." Sara went over to her cabinet, and took down the Girl Scout cookies, and went to get a glass of water when the 9-year-old spoke up, "Can I have some milk?"
"Sure," She replied as she opened up the refrigerator door and grabbed the carton of milk on the top shelf. She opened it and poured some into a glass for the child before putting it back and closing the door.
"Thanks," she said, heading back over to the TV.
"Mm-hmm," Sara replied. She went back to the comfort of her bed once more. The next time she woke up, it wasn't to anything pulling on her, but a ringing sound. The telephone. "Hello?" she said in a sleepy voice.
"Sara Sidle?"
"That's' me"
"This is the child services, you called us this morning?"
"Yes, I have a nine-year old girl with be who was being looked after for a week when the caretaker was murdered. Would you be able to take her?"
"No problem. Just bring her over to 552 Berkland Road. It's the big building on the left, you can't miss it. I'm Saundra Hutchinson, look for me when you walk in."
"Ok, thanks." With that, Sara hung up and went out to get Emily. "Emily? I'm going to bring you somewhere now ok?"
"Where?"
"I'm bringing you to these people who can care for you even better than I can, because I have to get back to my work. Let's go."
Soon, they were in the car, driving along towards the child services'. They were both equally silent, and thinking. Who knew what was going on in Emily's mind, but for Sara, all she could think about was what happened to Hank. He had cheated on her once before, but that didn't stop her caring for him. Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden jolt to the car. One minute the CSI was driving on the road, the next she was tumbling down an embankment. She heard Emily scream with terror, and she thought she heard herself scream, but she couldn't tell. Over and over, they turned and rolled. The world seemed to be going off its axis and into the deep space, out of control. Then, as suddenly as it had started, they jolted to a stop, now with the car's right side leaning into the grass. Sara could feel herself slipping to the right, and so she unbuckled her seatbelt, and let her self down slowly into the other seat beside her, and then buckling up again, in case the car began to tumble once more. She looked at Emily. Emily had been knocked out, and was leaning almost lifelessly on the back right door.
"Emily?" Sara tried to say, noticing her voice was hoarse, and suddenly all the pain came to her. Her head throbbed; her legs pierced her with an almost unbearable pain, while her hands felt as though they had been completely torn off from the limbs of her body. Carefully, she reached to her cell phone, trying to ignore the pain that followed. Opening the phone to its full length, she pressed the buttons 9-1-1, and said, "We need help. We've been in an accident off of route 170, help, there's a child that's unconscious." Before she passed out herself.