Disclaimer: CSI belongs to some other hot shot.

A/N: This chapter is dedicated to Nerwen and Tinuviel, who are currently in Thailand and Vietnam, respectively. Thanks for the help, chickas! See you in Starbucks!

"I pulled Marcus' records and did some digging on Jock Jones." Brass slapped a file on Grissom's desk. "No such beast." The detective sat down in front of the Night Shift Supervisor and smiled a cat's-got-the-cream smile.

Grissom leafed through the files. "And who was Jock Jones supposed to be?"

"The one who got Marcus Vincent into the," Brass cleared his throat and put on an ominous voice, "Underground drug-smuggling ring." The detective rolled his eyes. "I pulled Marcus's job records. Found that," he pointed to the file in Grissom's hands.

Grissom pulled out a mug-shot of a younger-looking Marcus Vincent. He read the charges out loud. "Possession with the intent to sell, assault, drunk and disorderly, domestic disturbance - three counts - and fraud and embezzlement."

Brass shook his head sadly. "He gets around, don't he?"

Grissom smirked. "So let me guess - the money he embezzled has gone in to creating a fashion empire."

"An empire of dirt. You know," Brass smiled, "I love it when a suspect lies."

"So, Vincent steals money, uses it to set himself up as a respectable businessman."

"No such thing," Brass interrupted dryly.

Grissom continued, "He hires supermodels, calls around, gets himself well-known, gets sponsors, gets more money… keeps feeding his drug habit. He gets richer, his self-made business booms, and he's on top of the world."

"And at the same time," Brass said, blank-faced for once, "He's treating the girls that work for him like trash." He shook his head. "When we lined up those models for their fingerprints, the three that were uncooperative before… they all cracked. One of them literally. She hadn't had a 'present' of cocaine from Marcus in a while. They had to take her to the hospital. The other two started babbling about Marcus' abuse and how nothing was their fault, that they wanted to get out but they couldn't because Marcus' thugs would come after them, etcetera, etcetera." Brass held up a finger. "Thing was, there were no thugs. Just Marcus."

"He controls them through fear, drug addiction, and force," Grissom said grimly.

Brass smiled. "Funny, that's exactly what the mayor said. Oh yeah, and he's decided not to call the Feds in. Says we have full jurisdiction to slam Marcus' ass for whatever crimes that we find. To quote: Get him. Un-quote."

"Have we got the fingerprint results back yet?"

Greg appeared in the doorway. "Hot off the press, boss." He grinned.

Grissom frowned. "Greg, what are you doing here? You're DNA, Jacquie is fingerprints."

Greg shrugged. "Yeah, I know but I finished the multiples and I was bored."

"Translation," Brass grinned, "You started bugging everyone else."

Greg looked insulted. "I do not 'bug'. I irritate."

"And now you're irritating me," Grissom said, half-jokingly. He picked up the file and leafed through it. A name leapt off the page. He stared. "Jacqueline Connors."

Brass frowned. "The blonde with the stuffed bear? What's she doing touching drugs?"

Grissom looked up at Greg. "When you were doing the test samples, you checked the supermodels DNA, right?"

"In great detail." Greg grinned.

Brass sighed and shook his head.

Grissom ignored both of them. "Did you check for cocaine in the bloodstream?"

Greg immediately became serious. "Yeah, but there was only cocaine in the samples of Monica Mareschka, Samantha Renée, and Ayumi Ohashi's blood."

"And Samantha was the one they shipped off to Desert Palm," Brass verified.

Greg frowned. "Yeah, well good riddance."

Grissom stared at the papers in his hands, "So if Jackie doesn't take the drugs, what's she doing holding the bags?" He stood up.

"Why don't we ask her?" Brass said, also rising from his chair. Detective and supervisor made a hasty exit.

"You're welcome." Greg said. With a dramatic sigh that was wasted on the samples in Grissom's office, the labrat turned and headed back to the DNA lab with all the dignity he could muster.

-

"Jacqueline Connors…" Brass cleared his throat and put on an intimidating pose

"You can call me Jackie!" She beamed back, all innocence and light

Brass blinked. "… Right." He took a breathe, tried again. "Well, Jackie, we found your fingerprints on a bag of cocaine in Marcus's trailer."

"Well, they're not mine." Jackie said, ignoring Brass to play with her bear. "I'm not allowed to touch the plastic bags."

Brass half-smiled. "How did you know it was a plastic bag?"

Jackie's hands froze, and she slowly looked up at him, as though she'd just said something wrong. "Because they always come in plastic bags…"

"How would you know that?"

Jackie bit her lip and hugged her bear to her chest. "He makes me carry things. Hide things. He says I'm the one least likely to get caught. I'm not supposed to talk about it. He made me promise. But then he hit me." She brightened, as though she'd just thought of something. "Hey, if you hit someone after they make a promise, does that mean you don't have to keep the promise?"

"Jackie…" Brass said warningly.

The girl continued to ramble, "Because if I break a promise, I'll get in trouble, and if get in trouble, Marcus hits me. He hits everyone. It hurts… a lot. One time, he hit me so hard a tooth came out. The tooth fairy didn't come, and I waited for a week. Then someone stole my tooth. And I didn't even get a quarter."

Why couldn't Sara help me out here? Jackie talks to her! Brass decided to try a different tact. "Jackie, why does Marcus hit everyone?"

"Umm…" The girl looked thoughtful, "When we eat too much, when we stand on the box and the needle moves too much, when we don't fit in the clothes, when we look happy on camera, when we…"

"Did Marcus ever hit Tina?" Brass interrupted gently.

Jackie nodded vigorously. "He hit Tina lots more than anyone else. He was always mad at her, but I don't know why, because she's always nice to me. She's the nicest person in the world! But Marcus is mean. He's mean to everyone. Mean to me, and I don't do anything. I just carry his stuff. He puts his bags in my teddy bears sometimes. Nobody notices my teddy bears - they think they're cute and fuzzy, but inside they have bags full of sugar. I'm not allowed to eat the sugar. I tried it once and I got really sick. And Marcus hit me a lot." Her voice tapered off at the end of her speech, and she fell into silence.

"Did Marcus hit Tina really hard one time?"

Jackie nodded again, this time a little less enthusiastically. "He always hits her hard. … But one time, he had a stick… and he hit her with it, and it broke, but he kept hitting her. And she was bleeding… and she wanted to go see a doctor. But Marcus made her practice walking up and down the…" She paused, confused, and flapped one manicured hand, "That… that thingy."

"The catwalk." Brass said, eyebrow raised.

"Yeah." Jackie nodded, then frowned. "I don't know why they call it a catwalk. Cats like to walk on the tops of brick walls. I used to have a pet cat. Mum called her Miffy, but I called her Fluffy because she was white and fluffy. She had yellow eyes and when you pet her tummy she purred really loud!" Jackie smiled, then started playing with her bear again.

Brass looked at the one-way mirror and shrugged. I've done my best. You guys do the rest.

In the other room, O'Reilly was interviewing Marcus Vincent…with similar success.

"Look we know you made up Jock Jones, we know you are the one with the drug problems, and we know that you are giving drugs to and beating the models, so why don't you do the right thing for once and come clean."

Marcus went from smirking-silent to loud-angry in zero-point-two seconds. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about that crap you've been feeding us all day!" O'Reilly barked back. "Siddown!"

Marcus did so, scowling and venomous.

"Let's start from the beginning," the cop said, putting his hands on his hips. "Who's muling your drugs for you?"

"No-one 'mules' 'em," Marcus sneered. "I get them straight from the source."

O'Reilly whacked a fist on the table. "How 'bout you stop spoonfeeding me that BS and start coming clean. We know there's no drug ring. You buy from a dealer named Don Kirby, and, when you're out of town, his buddies. But Don doesn't come to the show because he's too scared to get caught with the drugs. So who's muling them?"

"I carry 'em myself! Don's never even met any of the girls! Ask him" Marcus yelled back, rattled that the police had found him out. "I dish the crack out to the girls personally when they deserve it."

"Three of the girls." O'Reilly said, calmer now.

Marcus looked mutinous. "Yeah. Three of them."

"And Jackie isn't one of them."

"Jackie?" Marcus snorted. "She's a retard. Aside from looks, she's got nothing. No home, no family, no guts."

"Is that why you hit her?"

Marcus smirked. "Hit her? Now where would anyone get that idea?"

"Maybe from the five supermodels out there who panicked."

Marcus' rage returned. "Those bitches! I'll kill them all!"

"SIDDOWN!" O'Reilly roared. He reached for his gun, and the officer in the corner reached for his club. Marcus took the hint and sat down quietly.

"Alright," O'Reilly said, "Lets try this one more time. Jackie doesn't touch the drugs."

"Doesn't need to," Marcus growled. "She's already handicapped."

O'Reilly leaned on the table and stuck his face in Marcus'. "She's suffering from some serious trauma, Mr Vincent. You wouldn't have anything to do with that, would you?"

Marcus looked uncomfortable. "So I discipline them from time to time. It's not like they're little angels."

"Course not," O'Reilly smiled. "Coz you're giving them drugs and beating them upside with the head with big sticks."

"Hey, I only used that on Tina!" Marcus stopped, then gaped, realising what he'd just admitted.

O'Reilly smiled. "Now, don't you feel all better for coming out into the open like that?"

Marcus glowered. "I want a lawyer."

"Sure thing, sure thing." O'Reilly nodded, sitting down. "Just one last question - Jackie has nothing to do with the drugs, right?"

"Course not," Marcus scoffed. "The girl doesn't even know how to tie her own shoelaces."

"So how'd her fingerprints get on the bag?"

Marcus frowned for a long time. Finally he shook his head and shrugged. "I have no idea."

-

Sara turned to Grissom. "He's lying."

Grissom frowned through the glass at the supermodel's agent. "Maybe we should go back and ask Brass to ask Jackie a few more direct questions."

Sara stared at him. "You're not serious. You actually believe this lying bastard?"

"Humour me," Grissom said, turning to look at Sara with piercing eyes. Sara shut her mouth, and sighed in defeat.

"Alright, fine."

-

Brass sat down again, and smiled at the girl. "Hello, Jackie."

"Hello." She smiled at him.

Brass started to ask his question, then remembered his manners. "And hello, Misty."

Jackie giggled, and waved the bear's front paw at him. "Misty says hello."

"Alright, Jackie… and Misty." Brass's smile was becoming very fixed. "I forgot before… have you ever touched the bags of cocaine… Of sugar?"

Jackie nodded. "Marcus makes me."

"And he puts them in your teddy bears, right?"

Jackie nodded. "All the time."

"So that's how your fingerprints got on the bags?"

Jackie nodded.

Brass smiled. "So what about Don?"

"Don gives them to me." She bit her lip, the blinked and looked up at Brass. "Hey… how did you know about Don?"

Brass's smile vanished slowly, and he stood up and walked out. He shut the door quietly behind him.

Jackie stared down at the bear in her arms, and shook her head belittlingly.

-

"She lied." Sara stared, horrified. "Jackie lied." She shook her head, trying to deny this. "She's got the mind of a child… Children don't lie!"

Grissom's mouth was set in a hard line. "Sara, she's not a child."

A/N: Dun dun dun dun… n-n having fun so far? That's a shame, seeing as Tunnel Vision is about to come to an end. Only a few more chapters to go… can you survive the cliffhanger? MOO HA HA. Please review.