Warrick held a mask over his mouth and nose, making sure he took a deep breath before David and Dr. Robbins removed the sheet from the body. Doc Robbins looked up at Warrick before glancing down at the bloody sheet. Most of the blood collected around the head, the formerly white cotton clinging to the facial area.
"Ready?"
"As I'll ever be." Warrick sighed and watched as they pulled back the covering. Her brown hair was matted with blood, sticking to where her face used to be. Instead of features, the young woman's face was scraped clean. "Ugh…God…who is this monster?"
David shook his head. "Looks like razor blade. The small cuts around the chin indicate something very thin." He traced the hairline with a gloved fingertip, then moved to her clothes. "Redressed. The velcro's sloppy on her vest, her t-shirt's half tucked in, half out. And the shoes are definitely tied on by a third party. The knot faces forward, rather than back."
"But is it Sara?" He examined the hands closely, looking for any signs of jewelry, tan lines, or foreign marks.
"We'll take dental impressions and fingerprints and send them to the lab." Doc Robbins was already in motion.
-
Catherine was the next bravest soul to knock on Grissom's door. She turned the handle to find it unlocked. The light of his laptop was the only thing that illuminated Gilbert Grissom's face. She slipped in and closed the door behind her before sitting herself in a chair in front of his desk. "You can't hide forever." Her voice was still quiet, waiting to hear word from Warrick about the body.
"I don't plan on it."
"Damnit, Gil." She stood, tears threatening to roll down her cheeks. "They found a body. She fits Sara's description and she's wearing her clothes. She could be dead. Do you even care?"
Grissom pulled off his glasses and looked at the woman standing in front of him. "I care more than you'll ever know. I've loved Sara for twelve years. And I've never consciously done anything about it. Now I find that she had my baby and didn't tell me. What I want more than anything else in the world is to get out there and find her and hold her and tell her that I want to spend the rest of my life with her and our daughter." He pointed at the door. The computer beeped. As soon as he looked down, he stood and headed for the door, grabbing Catherine's hand to take her with him.
"Gil, that was…what's going on?"
"The grass David found on the primary victim's body is kudou grass, specially engineered to grow in sand. It's Mongolian, so it's pretty rare. One golf course in Vegas uses it." He released Catherine's hand and grabbed his jacket, nearly sprinting for the door.
-
"Yes, no, and no." Mia placed a lab report on the table in front of Greg, Nick, and Warrick. "Your body isn't Sara Sidle, and only half of the blood in the back of the car is Sara's. We know she sustained an injury during the abduction, so that's probably where your blood came from. But it didn't seep too deeply into the upholstery, so she didn't lose that much initially. The other blood…it belongs to your second victim. No hits in CODIS or AFIS. We'll have to search the missing persons database and see if she's been missed yet."
A weight seemed to have been taken off of everyone's shoulders, a collective sigh of relief was released into the room. "Well…good. She's not dead." Greg said, crossing his arms over his chest.
"That we know of." Warrick placed a hand on his hip. "What else do we have?"
The radio on Nick's hip buzzed. "CSI Catherine Willows requesting backup at Rockhurst Greens golf course, 67458 Gala Drive. In pursuit of kidnapping and murder suspect." The CSIs in the room all looked for a brief moment at each other before heading for their vehicles.
-
"Sara…"
Groaning, Sara opened her eyes. Light in the room nearly blinded her and she squeezed her eyelids shut tightly. Her back was cold, away from the chair, but her hands and feet were still bound. She felt a hard surface underneath her. Table. She was tied to the table. Allowing her eyes to adjust to the light, she tilted her head to the side. There was a window. She could see daylight, a grassy field, trees. Was she in vegas? Swallowing hard, she let out a soft cough. "Where are we?"
"Where we've always been." The man looked at his watch, then out the window. "Ten minutes. What did you want to do before you died? You've got ten minutes to do it." He laughed lightly. As she turned to look at him, he waved. "Hi."
"I want to kill you."
"Right."
Sara coughed again, shaking her head and tugging against her restraints. "They'll be here. They'll find you."
"No, no, my love. They'll find you. Dead." He grinned as he leaned down and ran his tongue along Sara's lower lip.
Lifting her head, Sara bit hard, but missed him by a half of a centimeter. He caught her chin and turned it to the side, dragging the point of a knife along her exposed neck. She shivered softly, eyes closed as tight as they had ever been before.
"You still haven't screamed for me." He whispered.
-
Grissom sped towards the golf course, despite Catherine's pleas for him to slow down. Her cell rang in the midst of the madness and she fumbled for it as she held onto the security bars in the SUV. "You do know these things have high roll rates, right?" Opening the cell, she lifted it to her ear. "Willows!"
"Catherine, listen. It's David. We cleaned the secondary vic's body, and she's got 9AM carved into her back."
Glancing at the clock, Catherine's eyes widened. Grissom must have heard her swallow the lump in her throat. "It's 8:54AM. Thanks, David."
"What?" Grissom didn't look at her, but his body was more tense than before.
"He gave us a time limit. 9AM."
At that moment, they pulled into the course and sped towards a clubhouse on the back of the lot. The size of one of the windows made Grissom's heart jump into his throat. "There. She's there."
-
John Rydell looked up, his knife pressed securely to Sara's neck. He saw a large black SUV in the distance. Glancing again at his watch, he cursed softly. "Two minutes, darling."
"How?" She whispered.
John raised an eyebrow.
"How are you going to kill me? I think I should have the privilege of knowing." Her eyes were open again, watching him.
He laughed. "Just as your Grissom approaches the clubhouse, I'm going to remove your heart. Remember when you did that to me? You ripped my heart out. You stole my little girl from me."
"She's my little girl. And Grissom's little girl."
He grinned.
"And second, you were abusing her. She may never recover from what you did to her, do you realize that?" She spat at him again.
"What I do with my child is my business, you stupid bitch!" He backhanded her and looked up, watching Grissom exit the vehicle, nearly tripping over his own two feet to try to get into the clubhouse. "Here comes your lover. Too slow." Rydell raised his knife high over his head, winking at Grissom through the glass just as he plunged it down towards her chest.
-
He could see in the window. Sara was wearing a sheet, torn and bloody. Her eyes were nearly emotionless. She may have been dead. But then, her hand moved. A trigger motion. Catching her drift, Grissom unholstered his gun and raised it.
"No, Griss! You'll hit her!" Catherine screamed and covered her ears, watching her colleague make a grave mistake.
-
Glass shattered everywhere. Sarah closed her eyes tightly to avoid any glass shards. Her head was turned away from the window. She felt warmth on her face, pinpricks of heat. Then, pain. Her chest was heavy. She struggled hard to breathe, but breath didn't come. She gasped loudly, tears rolling down her cheeks. This was it. She'd reached her end. It'd been a good run, but God, she was so young. There were so many things she wanted to do yet. She saw her mother's face, then Anna's. The little girl had smiled broadly at her, trusting her somehow throughout her own pain.
"I wish you were my mommy." The child had clung to Sara's leg as she said it. She wanted so badly to take her into her arms and hold her and tell her that she was her mommy. And that she loved her. And that her daddy would love her too, when he knew that his little girl was so brave and so beautiful.
"SARA!" She heard Grissom's voice. She felt his hands on her face, then they pulled away. Her parched lips tried to speak. Her chest ached.
"Gri…Gil…"
But then, no more words came.
-
A/N: To tell you the truth, I'm having a lot of trouble ending this. It seems too short to end after six or seven chapters, but anything I come up with is far too slow to appropriately fit with the pace of the rest of the story. Gimme your feedback. Would you like to see the story continue for a few chapters after this one? Would the change in pace deter you from reading on? Review me and let me know!