To Die in Las Vegas
I hated working at the Las Vegas Crime Lab, now more than ever. Oh, it had been fine at first, I'd gotten used to the departmental game of dominoes that went on constantly, but when I was transferred to day shift I was really, really, really pissed off.
First of all, my brain had finally gotten used to the idea of working all night and sleeping all day. So now I had to flip a switch and somehow manage to trudge into work at 8am every morning. I was usually fast asleep by that time.
Secondly, being a day shift lab technician meant I had to deal with Conrad Ecklie. He had to be the most unpleasant man I had ever met. He was mean, demanding, and had absolutely no sense of time where the process of analysing evidence was concerned.
For instance, the first day I turned up for my new shift, Ecklie stormed into Trace and bitched me out for being five minutes later. This was a day or so after Nick had turned up my doorstep, so I was in pretty good humour and prepared to take it.
"You're late," Ecklie had said, storming into the Trace lab. I looked up from some paperwork I was doing – stuff to do with the damn shift change – and blinked.
"CSI Ecklie?" I asked, just to make sure. He was bald and ugly, matching the description Warrick had given me, but I had to make sure.
"Yes," Ecklie grunted. "And you're the newbie."
The way he said it made me feel like the lowest life-form on earth. I frowned. "I've been working here for over a month and a half...Sir," I added the last part with as much disdain as he had shown for me.
"Yes, well, run this through AFIS will you?" He tossed a yellow evidence envelope at me. I caught it nimbly and opened the envelope, sliding out some adhesive tape with a smudged partial print on it.
"I'll try," I said, "but it's pretty smudged and it looks like only a partial so it might take awhile."
"I want a match by lunchtime," said Ecklie, and left before I told him it might not be possible. I sighed.
I did not enjoy working days.
Today, a week later, the Trace lab was quiet. Hodges was working nights at the moment. That was the only good thing about my shift-switching, I thought.
Unfortunately, being all on my lonesome gave me time to brood. About Nick Stokes.
As I had predicted, Nick hadn't called me the day after our Burrito-fest. Nor the day after that. Or the day after that. And as I was working days now, I didn't often see him around the lab. The couple of times I had, presumably when Nick was pulling a double, I went after him to say hello.
I followed him as he walked briskly towards the Locker Room. Several techs, an intern, and a police officer blocked my path to him, so by the time I had shouldered myself away from the crowd, Nick was inside the locker room. I stopped by the door, hearing his voice within.
"Yeah...I'm at work. I know. I want to see you more too! I know you came all this way..." He sounded like he was talking on a phone, as there was no other voice.
Oh. My. God. He was talking to another girl. This fact hit me in the face with a feeling of rock-solid certainty. I felt my face burn with anger and embarrassment as I lurked by the locker room door. I felt like a high school girl lurking by the men's toilets while her cheating boyfriend made out with another girl. It was sort of like that, though.
Nick had kissed me. Several times. That meant something, didn't it? And he wanted to have dinner with me. I had thought he wanted some semblance of a relationship, he'd already said we had a 'thing'. And now he was off having phonesex with some other chick!
Well, maybe not phonesex. But I was angry! I was entitled to think he was having phonesex if I wanted to exaggerate it like that.
I remembered the warnings I'd gotten about Nick, from both Hodges (unreliable) and Sara (considerably more reliable). They were right. Nick was a ladies' man.
"All right, hon. Yeah, I'll see you tonight. Love you too." I heard Nick clattering around in the locker room after presumably hanging up, and turned quickly to leave.
"What are you doing?" Conrad Ecklie said, standing behind me with a nasty smile.
"Looking for the bathroom," I replied quickly, hoping my face wasn't still red.
"It's that way," he sneered. "I thought you said you'd been here a month and a half? Shouldn't you know where the bathrooms are?"
I just walked past him, saying nothing.
"By the way, I still haven't got a result from that print!" He shouted after me. I walked faster.
That had been three days ago. I hadn't seen Nick since then and I wasn't sure I wanted to.
I led my mind away from the unpleasant thought of Nick Stokes and his indiscretions, directing it towards identifying the unknown substance some other Day Shift persona had brought in earlier. My mind calmed, I was in the Zone and relaxed as I fiddled with the mass spectrometer.
The slight peace I had attained was shattered when Catherine Willows came in, a frown on her face. She went straight to me, as I was the only one in the room. "Sadie."
"Hi," I said, secretly glad of the distraction away from the mass spec. It would run on its own. I swivelled in my chair to face Catherine. "What's up?"
"Nick's got another letter," she said, ashen-faced. I stood up, my anger at Nick forgotten.
"Want me to have a look?" I asked, my frown matching the CSIs. She nodded.
"I think you better." She turned and led the way out of Trace.
I followed Catherine to the Layout Room. Nick was there, as was Grissom. Warrick was leaning against the far wall with his arms crossed, and Sara Sidle stood in a similar pose near the backlit table. I gulped. What could be so important that all the CSIs needed to be present? And where did I come into it?
Nick didn't even smile at me as I looked at him. The worry lines etched into his forehead were more pronounced, and there were dark circles underneath his eyes. He's probably exhausted from banging his girl on the side, the vindictive part of my mind thought sourly.
Warrick nodded to me, Sara gave a tentative smile, and Grissom just looked at me emotionlessly. I felt very uncomfortable, and was just about to ask why I was there, when Catherine pointed to a single sheet of paper on the table.
I walked to the table and leaned over to read the scratchy writing on the single A4 sheet. I gasped, reeling back, looking with shock to Nick, and then to the rest of the CSIs.
The paper read:
I'm going to kill your little girlfriend, Nick. Who's going to analyse her DNA once she's dead?
"But...but I'm not...I mean, we... Why do you think it's referring to me?" I stammered, too shocked to feel embarrassed. Nick stepped forward; he was holding a plastic bag with an envelope inside. He handed it to me wordlessly, but did not move back, standing almost protectively near me. I had completely forgotten I was mad with him now. I turned the envelope over and almost dropped it.
It was addressed to Nick Stokes, Sadie Turner, Las Vegas Crime Lab. I felt dizzy. Nick steadied me with a hand on my shoulder as I swayed a bit. I did not push him away.
"This just got serious," Catherine said. "This guy – or girl – could be in the lab. Right now."
"We're stepping up security," said Grissom. "Everyone going in or out of this lab will be searched."
"Maybe it's better if Sadie stayed at home, Gris?" suggested Sara, looking to her boss, who shook his head.
"No. She'll be more vulnerable there. You live alone, don't you, Sadie?"
"I have Fido," I offered muzzily. The gravity of the situation hadn't hit me yet, I felt like my mind had floated off into a zero-g vacuum. Only Nick's hand, still on my shoulder, kept me anchored to the solid ground of reality.
"Her cat," Nick explained when Grissom gave me a funny look.
Ten minutes ago, everything had been normal. Ten minutes ago I had been sitting in Trace working a sample. Ten minutes ago my life hadn't been in danger.
"There's still a chance this could be a prank, right?" I said weakly. Nick looked at me.
"I remember you were one of the first to jump on the Nick's-in-danger bandwagon, Sadie," he said gently. I sighed and nodded my head, resisting the urge to snap at him. Yes, I was still angry. It was there, faintly, behind the mind-numbing fear.
"The guy hasn't done anything except threaten Nick and Sadie so far," Warrick piped up. "Who's to say he'll do anything?"
"You of all people know we can't take that chance, not with the safety of one of our people at risk," said Grissom sternly. I felt a little swelling of emotion in my gut; I was one of 'his people'. "We know he's been watching Nick and Sadie. Like Catherine said; for all we know he could be one of us."
Everyone looked at each other uneasily. I just looked at the floor.
"Nah," said Warrick. "Not any of us in this room, anyway. Unless...Sara? You use the Kimberson stuff, don't you?" He gave her a suspicious look.
Sara laughed slightly. "Yeah right, Warrick. I'm stalking Nick. Sure."
"I bet you are," Warrick teased. "Always knew there was something funny about you, Sidle."
"Enough," said Grissom's quiet, but stern voice. "This isn't a time to fool around. We need to get to the bottom of this. Catherine, re-examine every letter. Compare those partials you got from the envelopes to anyone who has ever been inside this lab. Sara, talk to Brass, see if he can't find any lab employees who have purchased the nail polish remover. Nick, I don't want you or Sadie to go anywhere unsupervised, I'll have an officer with you soon." Nick opened his mouth to protest, no doubt to insist no one had ever beaten a Stokes, but Grissom cut him short. "No arguments. Warrick, you're with me."
"What are you going to do?" asked Nick worriedly, his grip on my shoulder tightening a bit as the CSIs erupted into activity. Catherine went about gathering the letters and Sara left, presumably to track down Jim Brass.
"Research," Grissom answered tersely, brushing past us with Warrick in tow. "Go to the Break Room. I'll have an officer meet you there."
"Gris, that's really not necessary," said Nick. "No one's gonna attack us in the Break Room!"
Grissom stopped and looked at Nick, and then to me. I flinched underneath his gaze. "All right, but don't go anywhere," he said. Nick nodded, and Grissom left with a final meaningful glance to Nick.
"Can we help, Cath?" Nick looked to the blonde woman, who shrugged and shook her head.
"You'd be tainting the evidence. I'll take care of it. You two go." She had a commanding matronly tone in her voice that I knew well. She sounded like my mother.
Anyway, the tone of voice worked. Nick tugged on my sleeve and I followed him out of the Layout Room.
I still felt dizzy.
This can't be happening to me, I remembered thinking.
Well, it was. And things were about to get a whole lot worse.