Disclaimer/Author's Note – See Chapter One

Chapter Three – High Interest

Catherine took a closer look at the blood that coated the living room floor. Bending down, she saw a tiny hair adhering to it. She reached into her case, and withdrew a pair of sterile tweezers and an envelope.

'Got a hair,' she called to Sara, who was processing a different area of the room. She brought the hair closer to her face so she could get a better look. 'Damn it. Doesn't look like there's a skin tag.'

Sara was going through a ledger on the victim's desk in the corner of the living room. In it were the detailed accounts of at least 100 people who owed Vinny money; and would have continued to do so for a long time, given the rate of interest, had the loan shark not been murdered.

'Well, it looks as though we may have a suspects list here,' she said, looking up from her reading. 'Everyone in this book, in fact. The interest this guy was charging was phenomenal.'

'Any big debts?' Catherine asked, walking over to her.

'Depends on the definition. A thousand dollars might be peanuts to one family and all the money in the world to another. But some accounts are being charged a much higher rate of interest than others. I'll take this back to the lab, go through the names. Maybe we'll get something.'

Two hours later, Sara finally hit pay-dirt. A nice, fat print on the rim of the downstairs toilet. And a trace of vomit that she figured was no more than a few days old. Lifting the print and taking a sample of the vomit, she went to tell Catherine, who was finishing up in the kitchen. As Sara walked in, she was opening a dish washer that looked like it had seen better days.

'Looks like murder may have been too much for our perp,' Sara let her know. 'I found traces of vomit in the toilet along with…' she held up the print.

'A print. Hey ho, our luck it is a-changing,' she said, crouching down to look inside the machine. She gave a low whistle. 'And a-changing, and a-changing…'

'What?'

Inside the dish washer was a knife, caked in blood.

'He left the murder weapon behind?' Sara said, incredulous.

Catherine picked it up carefully with gloved hands. 'And forgot to turn the washer on. Hadn't done this before? Or just plain dumb?'

'Judging by the vomit, I'll go with inexperienced,' Sara replied, opening a plastic evidence bag for Catherine to drop the knife into. 'If this guy was sloppy enough to leave the murder weapon behind, maybe he left his print behind on it too.'

'Mmm hmm,' Catherine replied. She took a last look around the kitchen to make sure they hadn't missed anything. The trash and all the other rooms had already been checked. Between them they had collected possible DNA, a print and the murder weapon. If the crime scene had any other secrets, it wasn't yielding them right now. They were done here for the time being.

Catherine watched as Sara placed the evidence bags in her kit and closed it. A look of concern crossed her face. She was sure that it was way too soon for Sara to be back at work after everything she'd been through. 'So, how are you doing?'

'Huh?' Sara asked, turning around to look at her colleague. 'What do you mean?' Surely Catherine hadn't noticed the tension between herself and Grissom already?

'Sara, it's been barely three days since you were framed for murder, kidnapped and held at gun point,' Catherine said, exasperated. 'And yet, here you are, back at work, when you should be at home recovering from a head injury. So, how are you doing with all that?'

'Oh,' Sara replied, relieved. 'That.'

She paused to think about it. Sure, for the first 24 hours, all she could think about was what had happened; how her friend had turned out to be a killer and how she herself could have been killed. But, honestly, it had barely crossed her mind today in the face of more recent developments. How pathetic is that? Sara chided herself.

She glanced back at Catherine, only to realise that the strawberry blonde crime scene analyst was analysing her. Sara hitched on a faint 'don't worry about me' smile. 'I'm okay, Catherine.' A grunt of disbelief. 'Really Cath. Best thing for me is work. No point sitting at home, moping.'

She had turned to leave the room when Catherine's voice stopped her dead. 'And how's Grissom doing?'

'How the hell should I know?'

Her response was a reflex, with not a shred of rationale. She closed her eyes in disbelief. 'Did I really just say that?' she thought. Slowly Sara turned to check Catherine's face, to see if she had found anything odd about her momentary outburst. Evidently, she had.

'Sara, I was just wondering if you'd talked to him about… about the shooting?' she asked in a shocked voice. Apparently, Sara wasn't doing okay after all.

'Oh, I… no he hasn't mentioned it to me, and I didn't want to… push him,' Sara replied, stunned at her own insensitivity. She hadn't asked him if he was okay. She had blocked more or less everything about the events of that night from her mind. Then a thought crossed her mind and before she could censor herself, she was out with it. 'Besides, you're the one he talks to. Not me.'

Catherine didn't know how to reply to that. Sara seemed so angry and so… sad. A feeling in her gut said it wasn't all about what had happened with Jill. Sara seemed to be mad at Grissom. Sara turned on her heel and left the kitchen. Catherine picked up her own kit and followed her out to the car.

'Hey, Sara,' Catherine hailed her. Sara didn't stop, but slid into the driver's seat and started the engine. Catherine shook her head and climbed into the passenger's seat after depositing her field case in the trunk.

Sara looked straight ahead as she drove off. 'This is going to be like getting blood out of a stone,' Catherine thought. But that didn't mean she wasn't going to try.

'Want to talk about it?'

'Talk about what?'

Catherine let out a long sigh. 'Something's obviously bothering you. And since you seem to have temporarily forgotten that you were kidnapped, my keen sense of observation is telling me it's something other than the hell Jill put you through. Like, I don't know, maybe Grissom.'

Sara didn't answer for a moment. Talking to Cath about this would be like pouring oil on the fire. Grissom would resent her talking about his personal life and Sara didn't need any more complications arising between them. She decided to hedge her bets.

'I feel bad, I guess,' Sara told her. She wasn't lying, she rationalised; she was merely disguising one truth with another. 'I didn't ask Grissom about the shooting. He didn't mention it. I didn't mention it. But I should have. He had to shoot her because of me. It was the first time he discharged his weapon in the field. It must be hard for him.'

Catherine gave her the once over with her eyes. Sara was holding back something. She was sure of it. But she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was. She decided to play along. For now.

'You probably have a better chance of getting him to talk about this than most.' Catherine told her. Sara gave her a quick look of disbelief. 'It's a shared experience, Sara. You can relate to it in a way that me, Warrick, Nicky, never could. You were there.'

Met with nothing but silence, Catherine continued. 'You know, contrary to popular belief, he doesn't really tell me much of anything either. Most of the time I have to drag it out of him. Like pulling teeth,' she added pointedly.

'Mmm hmm,' Sara responded, her eyes on the road.

'But I do know he's crazy about you.'

That took Sara completely off guard. Her eyes flew towards Catherine in shock and she forgot how to steer for a moment. Regaining control, she attempted to pretend that the words had no effect, but she wasn't that good an actress. So she gave into temptation and asked.

'He said that?'

'Not in so many words,' Catherine replied, a smug grin playing on her lips. Jackpot. 'But we had a conversation a few days ago. He made his feelings pretty clear; if not in word, then definitely in deed.'

Sara processed this. He was crazy about her? Then her rational mind kicked into overdrive. She already knew he had feelings for her. She had overheard as much during his interview with Dr. Lurie. He had more or less admitted it to her the day before. But none of it made a blind bit of difference…

'It's never been about his feelings,' Sara finally told her companion. 'It's about his choices.'

Catherine heard the deep sorrow and resignation in her voice. Grissom's gonna lose her if he's not careful, she thought. Sensing that Sara could be pushed no further on the subject, she decided to leave it alone for the time being. They spent the rest of the drive back to the lab in a troubled silence.

---

Greg knocked lightly on Grissom's door frame, causing him to look up, startled.

'Sorry, boss,' Greg said, 'didn't mean to interrupt.'

'You're not interrupting, Greg,' Grissom told him, hitching on his best professionally stern gaze. 'I was just thinking.'

He had been thinking, but not about work. He had been going over and over the previous morning's events and his encounter with Sara this evening. What had changed? Why was he so reluctant to let her get close? He had finally come to terms with what he wanted and now he was messing everything up. He shook the thoughts out of his head. He still had work to do.

'So, Doc Robbins asked me to bring you the tox report,' Greg was saying. 'Hot off the press,' he added, handing it to Grissom.

Grissom took the proffered report and studied it. Their victim was on a lot of different drugs at the time of his death, but one stood out.

'Our guy was on all kinds of mood elevators. Seems kind of strange that he'd have such a high dose of Valium in his system too,' Greg offered his two cents.

Grissom nodded in agreement. 'That may well be how the killer subdued him.'

Greg looked faintly proud at having just been agreed with by Grissom. 'So, need any help on this one?' he asked, hopeful.

'Yeah, Greg. Can you run the drug angle?' Grissom asked. 'Get a list of everyone in Clark County with a prescription for Valium.'

Greg's hopeful look fell somewhat. 'Grissom, that's going to be a huge list.'

'Cross reference it with all of McMann's clients. See if you can develop anyone as a suspect.'

Greg nodded and left the office, muttering sarcastically under his breath, 'Yeah, cuz hardly anyone on a loan shark's books is gonna be on Valium…'

---

Catherine and Sara made their way into the building and down to the hall towards the DNA and fingerprints lab. Sara hadn't said anything since her last comment about Grissom's choices and Catherine was really worried about her. She didn't know how much more pain this girl could take.

Sara was silently kicking herself for saying too much. It was one of her biggest faults. Over-talking. She hoped that Catherine wouldn't say anything to Grissom, but was afraid to tell her that in case it set Catherine off again. She couldn't stand being quizzed right now. She just wanted to bury herself behind a microscope for the rest of the shift and hide from the rest of the world.

Rounding the corner, she spotted the last person she expected to see. Elaine Alcott. Hank's bereaved girlfriend.

Elaine saw Sara almost at the same time as Sara saw her. She shakily got to her feet. Her eyes were swollen and red. Catherine gave Sara a nervous side-ways glance before going over to greet Elaine.

'Hi, Elaine,' Catherine said gently. 'Is everything alright?'

Elaine never took her eyes off Sara, but answered Catherine in a strained voice. 'They're releasing Hank's body today. We can finally have the funeral.' She sidestepped Catherine and moved towards Sara. 'Ms Sidle? Do you remember me?'

'Yes, uh... You were injured in the diner incident,' Sara replied in a wary voice. 'Two years ago.'

'Yes, and you were sleeping with my boyfriend.'

TBC.