Disclaimer/Author's Note – See Chapter One

Chapter Ten - ...Like a Woman Scorned

Grissom stood by the open door, his gun drawn and pointed straight at Jill's head. In all her ranting and pacing, she hadn't heard him enter the warehouse.

'Let Sara go, Jill,' Grissom told her in a firm but quiet voice. 'Just put the gun down and we can talk.'

Jill pressed the gun tighter to Sara's head, causing her to inhale sharply. Involuntarily, Grissom took a step forwards.

'Sara and I have already been talking, Mr Grissom,' she told him. 'I've told her how this is going to end.'

'Killing me and Sara won't bring Tom back into your life, Jill,' Grissom told her. At the name, Jill's head snapped up. She glared at him with loathing.

'Don't even say his name. You and this bitch took him away from me! And its time you both paid for it!' she screamed at him.

'You loved him very much, didn't you Jill?' Grissom said in the same calm tone. He kept steady eye contact with Jill, trying to get her to engage with him, to draw her attention away from Sara. 'But he didn't feel the same way, did he? That must have hurt.'

Jill was shaking with rage now. The barrel of the gun jumped violently against Sara's temple. Sara tried to keep as still as possible, hoping that Grissom knew what he was doing.

'He did love me!' Jill raged. 'He was just… he was just confused.'

'It can be confusing for men sometimes,' Grissom replied reasonably. 'A beautiful woman expresses an interest in us, and the first thought that enters our minds is that it's too good to be true. So we figure it probably isn't…'

'Don't do that,' Jill told him. 'Don't compare what Tom and I have to you and Sara. Don't think I don't know. This pathetic dance you've led her over the years. Tom and I weren't like that.'

'The TRO tells a different story,' Grissom replied.

Sara thought she heard a car approaching. She prayed it would get there before Grissom enraged Jill enough to gun them both down.

Grissom kept on at her. 'And guys like Tom Haviland don't get confused when a beautiful woman is attracted to him. He just expects it. A different girl every night, Jill. That's all you were to him. Just another conquest.'

'Shut up!' Jill screamed at him.

In her fury, she pulled the gun away from Sara's head and pointed it towards Grissom.

Sara screamed. A gun reported. The acrid smell of gun powder filled the air.

Then he was there in front of her, holding her as she cried. Over his shoulder she saw Catherine and Brass enter the warehouse, guns drawn.

Somehow, the handcuffs binding her were unlocked and she was in his arms. Grissom held her as though he was afraid she would disappear if he let her go. Placing his hand on the back of her head, he felt her wince. When he drew his hand away, he saw a trace of blood.

'We should get you checked out, Sara,' he told her gently. He held her away from him slightly so that he could take a look at her. 'You might have a concussion. Did she hurt you anywhere else?'

'I don't think so,' Sara said. She felt breathless and light-headed, and wasn't sure if it was due to the head injury or the fact that Grissom had been holding her. 'The side of my head, maybe? From the gun.'

He looked and saw an angry, purple bruise beginning to form on her temple. Sara was still shaking like a leaf.

'The paramedics should be here any minute,' Brass told them. He was leaning over Jill, checking for a pulse.

Jill was unconscious, a single gunshot wound to the brachial plexus in her shoulder had knocked her off her feet and she had hit her head. She'd live and would be well enough to face charges of murder and attempted murder in no time, according to Brass.

After they had loaded Jill into an ambulance, and another had arrived for Sara, Grissom leaned back against the warehouse wall, the realisation of what had just happened finally sinking in.

'You did good,' Catherine said, approaching him after seeing Sara safely into the ambulance.

Grissom didn't reply.

'Hey, you had no choice, Gil,' Catherine went on. 'Actually, you did. You could have made a kill shot. You didn't. You did the right thing.'

'Never doubt and never look back,' Grissom quoted her. 'If only I had lived my life by your mantra before tonight.'

'Turns out, Jill really did have a relationship, of sorts, with Tom Haviland,' Brass told them, as the whole team sat round the table in the break room the next day.

'They met at a party her PR firm threw, 3 years ago,' he continued. 'Apparently they spent the night together and as far as Tom was concerned, that was it.'

'But it wasn't for Jill,' Catherine filled in the blanks.

'Next thing, Tom has a TRO out on her. One way to refuse a girl's advances.'

'She was stalking him?' Nick wanted to know.

'Phone calls. Turning up at his house, at all his premieres. Poor guy,' Brass added sarcastically.

'She must have been a complete whack-job,' remarked Warrick.

'Sociopath with psychotic tendencies,' Grissom informed them. 'And she'd been treated with border-line personality disorder several years ago.'

'In college,' Sara's voice interjected. She had been so quiet during the conversation they had almost forgotten that she was there. 'That's where we met. Campus counselor. She said she was there because she was depressed.'

'Hell, who isn't,' remarked Nick.

Grissom watched the enigmatic woman sitting across the room from him, trying to figure out what was going on in her mind. She strove to raise so many barriers around her. She had never mentioned seeing a counsellor in college, but then he knew so little about her life before she moved to Las Vegas. Hell, he knew so little about her personal life here. She kept so much to herself. But then, Grissom thought, so did he. They were both such closed people. Both in need of a life outside of the horrors they saw in their professional lives.

Brass went on with his summary. 'The LAPD checked her out for us. One week after Tom Haviland was found guilty here in Vegas, she took out a membership with a local gun club. Practiced a couple times a week. They also found a ton of books and journals on forensics. Some of the subscriptions date back to a month after the trial.'

'She's been planning this for two years?' Nick asked, incredulous.

'Revenge is a dish best served cold,' remarked Grissom. 'She wanted everything to be prefect.'

'You know, after college we emailed each other a couple times a year,' Sara said, thinking out loud. 'No more than every three or four months. Must have been nearly two years ago, she started writing a lot more often. Every month, then almost every week. I didn't think anything of it. I appreciated having someone to talk things out with. I'd been feeling pretty lonely...'

'Sara, you've always got us,' Nick told her, placing his hand over hers.

She flashed him one of her smiles. 'Thanks Nick. But, when it came down to it, I felt more comfortable talking to someone remotely. I could tell her what was going on in my life, because I didn't have to look her in the eye. The problem's with me, not with you guys.'

'It's easier to wear your heart on your sleeve when you're not looking in the other person's eyes,' commented Grissom, recalling something Sara had once said to him.

Sara looked at him, their eyes meeting. For once, he didn't drop his gaze.

'Yeah,' she replied. 'Something like that.'

Sara regarded the people sitting around the table with her. It could be a lot worse, she thought. Here was a group of people who cared about her, not just professionally but personally. Despite the fact that she had done her best to keep them at arms length and not form any ties here in Las Vegas, they still felt attached to her. She had never made an effort to mix with them socially, preferring to keep it all business. Instead, she had chosen to hold onto earlier, more distant ties. And where had that gotten her?

'You guys have been great,' she told them, unable to fully express the affection she felt for them all at this moment. 'I can't tell you how…' she broke off, her voice beginning to choke up.

'Hey, girl,' Catherine told her, 'you're one of us.'

'And we always look out for our own,' Warrick finished the sentiment.

'Well, it really means a lot,' she replied.

To Be Continued...